The importance of manners

Listen to an extract from a radio phone-in programme in which the importance of manners is being discussed. You will hear three people, May Parnell, Geoffrey Brownlow, and a presenter, expressing their views. Indicate which comments are made by May Parnell (M) and which are made by Geoffrey Brownlow (B). Write both initials, or one initial, or neither (N) next to 1-10. You will hear the extract twice. Before you listen, read the statements carefully.

1. Many young people are not ill-mannered.

2. Young people should use a different style of language to address their elders.

3. Adults can't always understand what young people are saying.

4. Adults should be more tolerant of young people.

5. The way people dress does not mean they are showing disrespect.

6. Unconventional dress sense can mean greater imagination.

7. Adults set a bad example to the younger generation.

8. Young people are more materialistic these days.

9. Young people think any kind of behaviour is acceptable these days.

10. Young people have an unhealthy lifestyle.

Do you agree with any of the views expressed? How important do you think it is to dress or speak in a particular way?

U THINK & SPEAK OUT

Violence sneaks into punk scene

Patrick Goldstein

Holding one of his front teeth in his hands, Eric, 10, stands on the sidewalk in front of the Roxy, surveying the throngs of clubgoers along the Sunset Strip. He's from Sherman Oaks and it's only his second pilgrimage to the late-night rock mecca.

Eric grins, wiping a smudge of blood from his chin, "We were all jumping on top of this guy when someone hit me from behind," he says, gingerly tugging at his other front tooth. "I got flipped upside down and hit my chin on the floor."

He wipes some more blood off his lip. "It didn't really hurt much after a while."

Most 10-year-olds lose their front teeth playing ball. Eric got his knocked out at the Roxy, dancing to the music of 999, a raucous British punk band whose most popular song is called "Homicide."

The followers of punk acts like 999 – most of whom are a little older than Eric – don't just dance anymore. They mug each other.

It's part of a new "dance" craze called the Slam, whose popularity, especially with organized gangs of punk youths, has led to numerous incidents of violence at many area clubs.

The accounts of senseless violence, vandalism and even mutilation at some area rock clubs read like reports from a war zone.

– Lynda Nichols, a 23-year-old Hollywood receptionist, was knifed in the back at a recent show by the group called X at the Whisky. "I was standing up close to the stage to watch the band when I felt this weird pressure in my back," she said. "I put my hand back there and it was covered with blood." She was treated by paramedics for a five-inch knife wound and has been out of work for almost a month.

– The lead singer of the Diodes, a new-wave band from Canada, was attacked by a member of the audience at the Hong Kong Cafe recently after a spitting contest between the audience and the group got out of hand. "Our bouncers had to pull the guy off him," said club booker Kim Turner, who said there were several other fights in the audience that night. Later that evening, punk fans broke several windows and littered the square in front of the club with broken beer bottles.

– A bouncer for one area rock club stopped one young fan at the door who was carrying a buckskin-sheathed hunting knife. "I asked him to leave it at the door and pick it up on his way out."

– Several eyewitnesses reported recently that a group of young punks got into a shouting match with motorists driving by a Sunset Strip rock club. After exchanging obscenities, the punks began lobbing beer bottles into an open convertible, showering the occupants with broken glass.

– Two girls in an Orange County punk band called Sexual Frustration pleaded with the manager of the Hong Kong Cafe one night to book their band into the club. "While one was talking to me, the other went into the girls' room and broke a bunch of beer bottles in the sink and ran her hands through the glass. Then she came out to talk to me, blood streaming down her arms."

– Several girls reported a similar occurrence in the bathroom at an X date at the Whisky where a couple of girls carved X's into their arms with broken glass.

While most club-owners agree that only a small minority of punk fans actively incite violence, several area clubs have banned bands like the Germs, the Circle Jerks and Black Flag, whose followers provoke the most trouble. Hong Kong Cafe manager Turner now has blacklisted more than half a dozen groups, mostly Orange County-based punkers like AgentOrange, Middle Class and Eddie and the Sub-titles.

"No one's saying these groups encourage violence," he conceded, "but they do attract it and they do tolerate it. We're just not going to put up with vandals who have no respect for people or property."

Other club managers and regular clubgoers blamed the violence on organized Huntington Beach-area punk gangs who make a practice of pummeling each other and Slam dancing at area clubs.

"What happens is they end up knocking down someone's girlfriend and he gets upset and starts a fight," explained Rod Firestone, singer for the Rubber City Rebels. "They don't care about the bands at all. They just hog all the attention and distract people who want to see the group."

According to Firestone, it's the novice punks, not veterans of the scene, who provoke the most trouble. "It's these beach kids who missed out on the punk era and don't know it's passй now," he said. "They just want to come out and throw beer bottles and get their licks in. I wish they'd go start their own teen club where they could beat each other up."

Other local bands were not so critical. "I don't want to see somebody stabbed out there," said Lee Ving of Fear, "but I want to make sure there's lots of action. That's our aim – to get people riled up. It's much better than them just sitting on their hands."

The Germs, an area band that has been periodically banned from many local clubs for attracting rowdy followers, also sympathized with the young punk dancers. "It doesn't bother me. It's always been like that at our shows," Pat Smear admitted, saving that Germs singer Darby Crash has been hospitalized "lots of times" after savage audience skirmishes.

Claiming that he's been beaten up by bouncers at his own show. Smear said he didn't care if his fans beat each other up. "If they're doing that, then I know they're having fun."

However, even Rodney Bingenheimer, an indefatigable supporter of the punk scene who hosts a twice-weekly disco at the Starwood, admits the antics of many punk fans have gotten out of hand. "It's getting worse now that kids are out of school," he said. "Kids complain to me that they can't even see the bands anymore. It's just too rough sometimes – a lot of young girls get hurt at these shows."

Lynda Nichols, who was stabbed at the X show, wholeheartedly agrees, complaining about lax security at area clubs. "They hassle me about wearing a belt with spikes," she said, "but kids can obviously get in with knives. I used to think the worst that could happen at these shows was a gigantic bruise or something. I never figured on getting stabbed."

"It's not much fun going to see a band if you have to fear for your life."

Visitors to local clubs featuring punk bands like the Germs, Fear, the Weirdos and Black Flag often are treated to the sight of dozens of fans hurtling across the dance floor like kamikaze pilots taking aim on an aircraft carrier. Other audience members dance in a loose circle around the action, either taking a spill themselves or throwing the most avid celebrants back into the fray.

Unlike previous dances, the Slam is neither elegant nor erotic. You don't twirl, twist or bump your partner. The object is to knock each other down.

"It's no wonder there's so many fights," said Kara, a young punk fan from Hollywood. "We were at a Weirdos show a few weeks ago and these idiots kept punching us in the back. Finally I got fed up and started hitting these guys, even though they were bigger than me."

The mindless ferocity of this Slam dancing bothers longtime L.A. punk enthusiasts who view the younger, beach-area punks as outside agitators bent on destroying the local punk community.

"Sure there was violence in the Masque days," said one longtime scene maker, referring to the city's first punk stronghold, "but it was more like play-acting violence, like guerrilla theater. The older punk audience was a family of writers, artists and college kids – people who cared about the music. Now we get these crazy, pathetic jerks who just want some cheap new thrill."

Though L.A. area club owners sympathize with these complaints, they offered few solutions to the recent wave of random violence. "There's nothing much we can really do," admitted Gaylord, who books the Whisky. "It's not the same person every time. Even the most normal-looking kid can cause trouble.

"We really haven't hired any extra security. We just eyeball the kids, when they come in and now we serve paper cups so no one gets a bottle thrown at them."

According to David Forest, manager of the Starwood, the club fre­quently shakes down patrons for crowbars and weapons, as well as refusing admittance to any kids wearing "Gestapo-style" spikes, heavy gloves and boots. The club also now refuses to allow bands to invite kids up on stage, where they often dive back into the audience.

"We have security guys keeping a close eye on what goes on," Forest said. "If some prankster gets out of hand and starts clobbering people, trying to injure somebody, then we eject them immediately. But most of this wild stuff is just good fun. It's not violence, because we don't allow violence."

Most observers agree that eventually the bands themselves will have to initiate any serious crackdowns on this rising tide of violence and vandalism. "After all, it's their fans," said one club manager. "If the bands don't speak out or make some show of contempt, the kids can only assume they fully approve of all this crap."

Unfortunately, all too many disgruntled punk fans want to take mat­ters in their own hands. "It's gotten to the point where you can't even watch the stage anymore because of these idiots," one fan said after a recent Fear show. "All they want to do is fight. And next time I'm gonna be ready to give 'em one."

PERSPECTIVES

The bit of truth behind all this – one so eagerly denied – is that men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if they are attacked, but that a powerful measure of desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their instinctual endowment. The result is that their neighbor is to them not only a possible helper or sexual object, but also a temptation to them to gratify their aggres­siveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without recompense, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus; who has the courage to dispute it in the face of all the evidence in his own life and in history? This aggressive cruelty usually lies in wait for some provocation, or else it steps into the service of some other purpose, the aim of which might as well have been achieved by milder measures. In circumstances that favor it, when those forces in the mind which ordinarily inhibit it cease to operate, it also manifests itself spon­taneously and reveals men as savage beasts to whom the thought of sparing their own kind is alien.

– Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

In American society the process of becoming mature involves the inhibition and redirection of behavior resulting from several sources of instigation, and the predominant behavior symptoms of adolescence are aggression against the frustrating forces and substitute responses for those goal-responses which suffer interference.

– John Dollard et al., Frustration and Aggression

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