Punks and would-be punkers the world over know “Longview” as the name of Green Day’s song “about boredom, masturbation and dope.” But some punks know Longview as something else: home. And at last, the Longview, WA, punk community has its own Studs Terkel in the likes of Kyle “Ky-Ky” Crawford, veteran zinester of Frailed Roots fame (”a zine that contains personal content” - The Western Front ) . Kyle’s always been a talented writer, but this time he’s given the words over to his friends in his first crack at oral history, resulting in So Longview: A Collection of interviews celebrating and critiquing a NW punk community.
Kyle’s talents carry over very nicely. While some topics in So Longview don’t stray too far from those of the Green Day song (boredom, masturbation, dope… okay, no masturbation), with Kyle’s prompting the interviews get more thoughtful. Ruminations on boredom and beer drinking mix with queries on queerness, gender, non-conformity and the responsibilities of growing up. Kyle had some clear themes in mind when he was asking his interview questions and finding people to talk to, or maybe he’s just a slick editor; whatever the case, he talks to folks in all phases of the punk life, of all classes, of all genders. For every three or four punks crashing on couches and getting by on shit healthcare, another one or two go to college to be a lawyer or a Democrat. For every punk who takes non-conformity to a new level of political activism, another enters the military. For every punk challenging white people’s racism, another is making movie “jokes” about killing hookers. The ugly contradictions are there, but its obvious Kyle wants us to see them.
Kyle now spends most of his days in Bellingham, WA, which is how I know him, but he’s got a special place in his heart for his hometown, which is another way I know him: we’ve shared countless moments recalling our small town lives, sharing how race, class, and rock ‘n roll shaped our mindsets. Often, we’ve shared frustrations at the political pointlessness of punk rock, while we’ve marveled at its ability to unleash total creativity and give meaning to young people amidst the even greater pointlessness of podunk living.The conclusion Kyle has come to - and to which So Longview is a beautiful testament - is that any place, and any punk community, is ultimately the worth of the people involved.
My only misgiving with So Longview is that, in some ways, these interviews really could be from any place. While there’s a reference to a bridge here, or a Chuck E. Cheese there, everything that makes Longview unique as a place has to be read between the lines. Maybe a map would have helped, or a longer intro. Cuz Kyle and I might have similar long, hard thoughts about our small town childhoods, but size is about all our towns have in common. I grew up in a swanky suburb tied at the hip to Seattle, while Longview is a working-class manufacturing town with more of an identity of its own. Sure, Bothell punks had locales for drinking, doping, and rocking - like, say, the woods behind Safeway - but that was mostly because none of us could get our asses to Seattle, and now that we’re grown up (some), nobody I know lives in Bothell any longer. From reading So Longview, it sounds like more folks stay put in Longview for longer.
Shit, even Kyle’s mailing address is still in Longview (though shhh… don’t tell anybody this, but I think its his parents’ house). Write to him ASAP to snag a copy of this zine - reading it beats listening to Green Day any day.
KYLE
136 Tanglewood Dr.
Longview, WA 98632
Or e-mail him at kjcelement [at] yahoo.com .
April 17, 2007 at 2:10 pm
While I’ve enjoyed your writings on Bothell in the past, I think your characterization of it as “a swanky suburb tied at the hip to Seattle” is inaccurate.
Based on my limited knowledge of the economic workings of the Seattle area, I feel like suburban life in Western Washington is more self contained and tied at the hip to neighboring suburbs where major employers like Boeing and Microsoft exist.
As for being “swanky” I would reserve that word to describe a city like Bellevue. Bothell is merely that most horrifying of euphemisms: pleasant.
April 17, 2007 at 8:23 pm
You’re absolutely right, its not all that swanky… though compared to Longview it probably is, and its getting swankier everyday. Pleasant is just the word. Its the ultimate suburb in that way. Bellevue is definitely swanky… and kinda scary - an urban area where no one walks around on the streets, that always seems deserted - not because its unsafe, not because its abandoned, but because everybody’s too rich and lazy to do anything but drive!
But I also think Bothell is still dependent on proximity to Seattle. That might be changing, but historically for thirty odd years Bothell was a “bedroom community,” where people work in Seattle, until the economic growth of the 1990s, and even in the silly tourist lit Bothell has it makes a big deal about Seattle.