I just found out that my second cousin is a member of a skinhead punk band.
But hey, on the bright side, we both use the term "Oi!"
You know, Oi punk...oy vay...? Get it? Heh heh, heh, ahem, hrm.
Anyway, here's what happened. I haven't seen this cousin in years because he lives in the middle of nowhere. So a relative referred me to his band's myspace page, which I quickly realized contained multiple references to "skins" and featured a picture of them bald and angry in front of an American flag with comments that said things like "skins 4ever."
Whoa. Time out. WTF?
(Mentally reviewing family tree on that side... Oh crap, they ARE all white on that side of the family! Okay, don't panic. But wait -- His mother graduated from Berkeley, arguably the most liberal and diverse education available on earth. Furthermore, he was raised in a pretty impressive chunk of mansion, not a trailer park. This makes no sense!)
I googled "skinhead" and learned that not ALL skinheads are racist. Well let's hope my cousin is of the friendly non white-supremacist jew-hating variety, cause otherwise...that'd be kinda awkward.
Even so, why would any non-racist with half a brain want to be associated with skinheads? I never did expect much from that side of the family, but I thought my cousin was different. He had talent, promise, intellect. Well, talent and promise at least. Certainly it takes some amount of intellect to play guitar as well as he does?
Until I hear a response from him I guess there's nothing to do but hope for the best. I'll keep you posted.
1:25 a.m. - 2006-11-15