The Other F Word

How do I start this? Okay, I'm not into punk music anymore. Since over a decade. Most bands in the movie I listened to when I was in my teens. Well, now you have all these guys from punk bands who turned fathers trying to cope with their new life style and the apparent "contradictions" with their punk present and past. The question for me is: how rebellious had they been in the past?? Or was it all mere show? I don't criticize the family aspect. I believe it is a part of life getting older and having children. My criticism is rather how established these guys get, living the same life anybody lives, engaging material values and so on. The real question remains: if they hated society so much as some pretend: why didn't they try an alternative life style with their family? Starting up communes or ecological projects are what so ever. I don't really see any political awareness with most of the protagonists except: f+?3 this, or f?$§ that. Really, they have become so common and the only difference is probably that they are tattooed and whatsoever while the rest of the family represents the typical suburban family, with the dad being a musician for profession. I acknowledge Ron Reyes since he took a big step and left everything behind and I don't know how much he would still consider his self part of the punk movement.

The movie becomes very repetitive, often the same views and ideas just coming from different mouths: "I'm on tour, can't see my children, have to earn money for them."..blablabla.... Way too long for such little information given.

Anyway. WTF were Blink 182 doing in the movie since they belong to the Post-Punk-MTV-era.....

Back in their punk-rocker heydays - All of the 8 men interviewed in this "Other F-Word" documentary had publicly embraced anarchy, praised promiscuity, sneered at authority, and scorned conventionality to the max.

And, yet, now, years later - Here they all were being good, little daddies, living in suburban homes that were, literally, as neat-as-a-pin, and trying to convince the viewer that, as responsible fathers, they were absolute saints (who made Ward Cleaver of TV's "Leave It To Beaver" look like a total monster by comparison).

Like - Hello!? WTF is this!!??.... Talk about a hypocritical, forked-tongue contradiction this whole "Daddy Dearest" documentary really was (in the long run).

I found that what all of these bad-boy ex-rebels had to say here mirrored each other so much that I'm convinced that they were all full of bull, insincerely reciting lines from the same, old stale script that had been flippantly penned by a very unimaginative person.

I am interested in folks that have demons to wrestle or hit giant forks in the road of life and have to deal or step off. And plus, I love films with an authentic voice, humor, pathos, great characters who I relate to and bittersweet, yet cathartic endings. Add to that, great editing, music and a universal theme, and its a total win win. I liked the ying/yang feel of this doc - a woman at the helm might have helped bring out what was the more noble, more lovable, more honest side of these men - or boy/men, or boys-to-men via the transformation that Fatherhood can have on a tired, tore up, touring punk rocker. Just the image alone of these guys with their little girls in a park or at a birthday party is intriguing - but we get to hear their stories, their evolution and guess what? We care. So thank you, filmmakers, for capturing their stories and the Uberstory which is...parenthood. And identity. And do you need to sacrifice one for the other? Also, awesome to ponder those who I never thought would "age", slamming into the brick wall of mid-life crises.

PS: I live with a guy who (after Frank Zappa died and he couldn't follow him around) followed punk bands like Jesus Lizard and Butthole Surfers and Minor Threat (I went to those concerts and survived). So he came with me to see this film with this kind of "insider" prejudice, thinking it was just going to be about, "Yeah, I had to mellow out." I turned to him at one point in the film and he was wiping tears and swallowing the lump in his throat. So...um....yeah. There ya go.

These bands aren't Punk, they're Post-Punk wannabe poseurs. Punk died in its Hardcore phase in the early 80s, never to be revived. I know. I was there.

Last year I put out a book entitled Black Sheep: An unconventional look at good ol' family values, which deals with this exact subject matter! In fact Kevin Lyman and Mike McDermott (both in this film) contributed to my book as well.

This is a side of people not often considered, yet one that many individuals (like the fathers in this film) are most proud of. We know them as artists or musicians or, as Ian MacKaye said in Black Sheep, the "marginalized," but they're also fathers, sons, brothers, friends and mentors. Cheers to family.

Andrea Blaugrund is certainly a woman after my own heart.