I'm Crazy And I'm Hurt

Alright kids --- here we go with Guest Post #2.


This one is brought to you by none other, than my BrotherFromAnotherMother, Rob DeWalt. Roberto hails from the glorious Santa Fe compound of disenfranchised AmeriKKKans. He is an all-around bad mofo, who somehow conned the good people of The New Mexican to let him write subversively under their banner. Enjoy -



It was the summer of 1982. I was a 12-year-old, skinny, shy kid sitting in the back of my grandfather's Chevy Impala. Circumstances beyond my control (divorce, let's be honest) found me on the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I spent the next 5 years living with my father and his new bride — a wealthy artist with deep ties to American political history and the darker side of upper-rank Catholicism.


My brother was already in Santa Fe, stabbing at his own identity in the usual ways young teenage boys tend to: defiance; ignorance; and MUSIC. The hardest thing I had to add to the sibling music repertoire was Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n Roll" and TOTO's "Rosanna." I went from eating brisket on Sundays after church in a modest brick house, to slurping up tofu burritos in the comfy cradle of New Mexico's creative elite. That first year was an eye-opener, to be sure. I was exposed to a plethora of new music, but one particular album made a lasting impression on my psyche — and my taste in music — for decades to come. And it wasn't even a full-length album. Far from it.





The "Nervous Breakdown" seven-inch EP (SST Records) by Cali punk outfit Black Flag was originally released in 1978, and carries the distinction of being the VERY FIRST release for that ramshackle-cum-revered label. Singer Keith Morris, guitarist (and primary EP financier) Greg Ginn, bassist Chuck Dukowski, and drummer Brian Migdol blew my mind with an explosion of angst and raw instrumental power, with the longest song — the EP's title track — lasting just over two minutes.





Perhaps sliding from a devout-Christian environment to one that encouraged individuality and creative exploration was just what the psychiatrist ordered, but to be sure, after a few years, the punk aesthetic began to wear on the hippie parental units — and hard. But I cherished that record, and thank it for opening my eyes to a DIY movement that sparked a generational surge in "owning one's own shit." I hope that's something the new generation of punkers deems suitable to explore.




My "Nervous Breakdown" EP was stolen from my bedroom in 1984, while I was off at summer camp developing a taste for queer culture and boys in Ocean Pacific corduroy shorts. I was smart enough to take a cassette of "Nervous Breakdown" with me to summer camp that year, and to quote Lance B., a fellow camper who also ended up on the right side of hardcore and e-mailed me in 2006:



"Dude, who knew you could say so much in so little time? I wish my parents had that filter … you know, the one that lets everything through, and doesn't judge? Fuck, to be young again, and knowing that…"

- Brother Rob