Mind Your Own God Damn Business

There’s a guy in one of my classes who’s straight edge. Straight Edge, for those of you who don’t know, is when you don’t drink, smoke or do any kind of drugs. I think that maybe you don’t have sex either…I’m not sure. You know what? I’m going to look this up on Wikipedia.

Okay, here we go (Side note: it’s weird – I’m a little skeptical of the accuracy or completeness of their articles a lot of times, but when it comes to crap like this, or Captain Kirk’s family tree, or how to speak Dwarf, I have complete and utter trust in Wikipedia.)

Anyway, here it is:

Straight Edge refers to a lifestyle and youth movement that started within the hardcore punk subculture whose adherents make a lifetime commitment to refrain from drinking alcohol, using tobacco products, and taking any recreational drugs. The term was coined by the 1980s hardcore punk band Minor Threat in the song “Straight Edge”.

Ok, on the other hand, maybe going Straight Edge does mean you give up sex. Also, I was unable to find this picture without the cats photoshopped in. It's cool though. I actually kind of like it better that way.

So I guess that it has nothing to do with sex, and it’s related to punk music. It goes on to say that along the way the movement picked up veganism, during the 90′s militant Straight Edge kids would get violent to spread their beliefs, and they use that “hxc”, or an x on each hand or an x on either side of a bands name to signify that they’re Straight Edge.

…Awesome?

So, like I was saying, there’s a guy who’s in one of my classes who’s Straight Edge. There are two reasons that I know this:

1. On the first day of class, we all shared out names and something interesting about ourselves. His was that he’s Straight Edge.

2. As near as I can tell, every article of clothing that he owns has “Straight Edge” written on it somewhere. I’ve been paying attention, and I’ve yet to see him show up to class without something that has “Straight Edge” written on it. Sweatshirts, tshirts, probably his underwear- if you can silk screen the word “Straight” followed by the word “Edge” onto a piece of fabric, he will wear it.

I don’t know how I feel about this.

On one hand, I kind of want to commend him for it. It’s cool that he’s decided to steer clear of alcohol, tobacco and drugs. I’ve never heard of a guy lying on his death bed and the doctor saying “God Damn it! This son of a bitch wouldn’t be in this sorry state of affairs if only he’d taken more drugs!” So props to my classmate on taking care of his body in that respect.

On the other hand, I don’t understand the desire to broadcast it as hard as he can all the time in lieu of anything else. I could see maybe one sweatshirt, or maybe a couple of tshirts, but I’ve had class with this kid for two months now, and I have yet to see him without “Straight Edge” written on him somewhere. The only time I’ve ever heard him say anything, it was about his Straight Edge-ocity. Is that really all that there is to his personality? I feel like if I ran into this kid at a party and tried to strike up a conversation about anything other than how awesome not smoking cigarettes is or swap stories about that one time that we didn’t drink some alcohol he would just sit there dumbfounded.

Word to the wise: Don't do a google image search for "Hardcore" without "Dance" after it like I did. You will regret it.

It also seems weird to fixate on something you DON’T do. I don’t take drugs either, but I don’t really even give it conscious thought unless someone is offering them to me, at which point I say no. I definitely don’t walk around all day patting myself on the back for it. I don’t have sex with children, but I don’t wear a shirt to school that says “Ultra Legal” on it every day. I don’t eat my own feces, but I don’t say “Hi guys, my name is Johnny, I’m a secondary education major, and an interesting fact about me is that I don’t eat my own duke.” Congratulations on not consuming alcohol, tobacco or other controlled substances. Now forget about it and tell me something interesting about yourself.

Oh well.

The one saving grace is that I dig some of the music.

Not my favorite, but not too shabby.

Anyway, I’d better wrap this up. I have an early day tomorrow, so I need to get into bed and not stay awake, and not spend the next three hours engaged in some heavy assplay, so I can not fall asleep in class tomorrow.

Now if only I could get that printed onto the front of a shirt. I would wear that thing every god damn day.