In which we ruminate on becoming punk and The Decline of Western Civilization at THOUGHT CATALOG.

For real. The THOUGHT CATALOG. Excerpt? Word.

"One day I am sifting through the CDs in the punk section at the one-time Tower Records near my office on Wabash below the “L” Tracks. I am new to punk. When people who are my age and who still love punk started loving punk, I was more focused on varsity sports, fitting in and the Doors; followed by inhaling copious amounts of hallucinogens, the Grateful Dead and long, spacey jams. But something had shifted. A desire for noise and punches to the head, vibrating walls and speed, sparse, quick songs that slam and joke, dart into the room and then out again, as the music heads onto the next thing and the next thing and thing after that. No pause, just one musical blow after another is now my thing, and I am consuming all the punk I can, including the band I stumble onto that day, Be Your Own Pet. They are young and angry and funny and fast and I spend the rest of the afternoon listening to their self-titled debut album with equal parts joy, and confusion – how didn’t this sound appeal to me when I was their age, and why does it now?"

In which City Lit Rag reprints our Orphans interview with Loren Kleinman and we in turn share it with you.

For real. Both the reprint and the sharing. Feels good, right? Indeed. Excerpt? Word.

LK: Do you ever run into someone who says, “You write WHAT?”

BT: I have several lives. Writer. Office worker dude. And parent. All of which I keep fairly separate, though people I work with know I write, even if I don’t talk about it much. As parent, however, I am engaged in things like drop-offs and fundraisers, and parent gatherings, and in that world, while people know about my day job, I’m mostly not known as a writer. Still people occasionally find out about the books, and sometimes they even read them, and when they do, they usually say things like, whoa, what, the drugs, and the violence, and the blow jobs, is that fiction, because you, that so doesn’t seem like you worker, dad, guy, right?

Librarians + Beastie Boys = Joy.

Mass excitements. And joy.

Yo, MCA, we want to wish you a most speedy recovery.