AFI Interview with SxE Questions

Straight Edge and Religion

Straight Edge began secular and eventually became part of many people's religious choices. One of the first connections to Straight Edge and religion came with Hare-Krishna and Krishnacore music. These two choices were brought together by Ray Cappo and Porcel. You can find Christian Straight Edge, such as the band xDEATHSTARx. Utah is home to many Mormon Straight Edge youths. While reading Straightedge Youth: Complexity And Contradictions of a Subculture I was shocked to find the connection between Satanism and Straight Edge, it shouldn't have been to much of a shock really since Satanism and rock have always had connections and SxE and religion are connected as well. Recently I came across a blog started to promote the idea of Muslim Straight Edge which I hope will bring a positive view to a community that already has a law against drinking.

Religion, because of it's laws about restriction and morality have found themselves easily identifiable by many who claim edge. However there is also a strong following in the SxE community to distance themselves from religion. Many believe that religion is a set of laws meant to control, that they aren't choices.

And then there are the outsiders of Straight Edge that believe that we feel we have some sort of moral high ground over them and are comparable to the Christian evangelist that preach down to non-Christians.

I myself am Jewish, and not kosher, and I do not feel my religion has much of an impact on my choice in claiming edge or the choices I make in continuing to live a Straight Edge Life.

My Life. My Choice. My Pride.

Sometimes I just hate New York!

Too many people getting in my way, car alarms going off all night long, crazy people shouting crap, screwed up subways.  Now I love New York for lots of other reasons too, one of which is also crazy people shouting.  But my hate for NYC led me to create this unique design I put on cafepress.com/iskullny as a t-shirt design.  It's stupid, but I wanted to make it for myself and figured I'd just let other people share in my hatred and misery.

Hulk Hogan loves Throwdown!

He may not, but he was sporting a Throwdown shirt on his show "Hogan Knows Best."  As I mentioned before I don't watch wrestling anymore, but I have to admit that the show is kind of funny and it's nostalgic to see the Hulkster.  Actually it's a shirt for a mixed martial arts company called Throwdown Industries; but it was definitely funny to see him wearing a shirt that made me think about whether or not Hulk has been listening to Straight Edge Metalcore.  I figured with the advent of Straight Edge athletes in both wrestling and baseball maybe even Hulk Hogan would claim Edge.

And speaking of Throwdown, check out this review of the new Throwdown album Venom & Tears.

Beer and Bears, what a combo!

Apparently no one told people that drinking beer and playing with bears was not smart.  But then I guess those that someone that would drink enough beer to go into a cage of bears wouldn't have listened anyway.  A 23 year old man was half-eaten by bears at the Belgrade Zoo during the annual beer festival.  "Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage," zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.

Can You Overdose From Caffeine?

Yes.  As a 17 year old girl from England can attest to, as she drank seven double measures of espresso and began to hyperventilate and have heart palpitations.  Certainly it seems that limiting ones intake of caffeine is a wise idea.  Despite the fact that my own family owns a small coffee shop chain, I've probably only had a half dozen cups in my life.  I still intake caffeine but only in small doses when it's in chocolate or the occasional soda or tea.  I've thought of stopping all together but I feel that the effects on my body with respect to the small doses of caffeine are not quite the same as small doses of alcohol or drugs.  I'd like to know where other people stand on the issue of caffeine and Straight Edge, so drop a comment with your opinion.

Getting your tat in Rolling Stone isn't as cool as it sounds

Journalistic Integrity gets thrown aside as Rolling Stone aims at the Tiger Beat scene with their latest issue. I was contacted about two weeks ago about having pictures of myself used in a magazine article. The request came from a guy, (I won't mention his name) that claimed to be Straight Edge, to print photos I had in my flickr.com account. The photos were of me getting tattooed by "Old School" Alex and one of me posing with an X on my hand. This guy claimed that the article was to be about Straight Edge and Hardcore. Well after sending him and his editor (I won't mention her name either) high-res versions of the photos I was pretty excited. This was to be the second time I was to be in Rolling Stone, I was involved with the IVAW as their first web master when they first started as an anti-war group, but that article never got published as Rolling Stone didn't want to deal with the anti-war movement at the time; So I didn't put a blog posting here about it at the time I was contacted as I just assumed this article wouldn't get published either knowing my luck.

I received two free copies of the magazine via courier on Friday, the cover looked like a sad attempt to target fifteen year old girls, and I flipped through to find my photo. The article centralized on FSU and gang violence, and a fight involving Alex that ended in the death of guy at a show that both attended. I was pretty upset to say the least that I was lied to by Rolling Stone just so that they could get a picture of Alex putting an X on someone; So that they could say that many FSU members get X tattoos. First of all I'm not part of FSU and I don't condone violence, Straight Edge to me is about keeping my self poison free. Second the article made it seem that the photo came from bmeink.com which as I mentioned is not the case. Third, I am very annoyed that they would go through all that trouble just for a photo that really had nothing to do with the article. I contacted the editor about the article and all she had to say was that the article was "fair and balanced."

Alex is a friend of mine and I'm very happy to have gotten my tattoo from him especially at a tattoo shop in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. No one beyond those at the fight knows what happened, and Alex has not even been charged with a crime yet. So I hope everything works out well for Alex, I am saddened that a death occurred at a hardcore show, and I hope Rolling Stone learns how to act more like a rock mag and less like Fox News for tweens.

Why Are You So Angry?

Some people ask me sometimes why I get so angry or annoyed so easily. Try as I might I can't seem to be a completely relaxed and calm person. My answer seems to be: "Have you seen the world we live in?"

I want to move to a new planet.