Punk Rules OK

Tom Venetis is a professional journalist and editor in Toronto.

When the Sex Pistols belted out “No Future For You,” they not only
kicked off punk music: they also set a dividing line between U.K. and
North American punk. Where U.K. punk was deeply tied to the political
and social problems that gave rise to its blistering lyrics and
political ethos, punk in North America was a decidedly nonpolitical
affair. North American punk, with only a few exceptions, still remains
more style than substance, which is something Chris Walter’s Meatboy
in Punk Rules OK certainly would not object to very much.

Having “reached the summit of punk-rawkness,” Meatboy is interested
in nothing more than getting drunk, scoring another hit of drugs, or
trying to bed his sometime girlfriend Paula. When he finds a million
dollars in a knapsack in a Vancouver park, payoff for a crooked land
deal by a local Vancouver politician, Meatboy wastes no time in spending
it on drinks, drugs, and starting a new punk band with a set of
train-hopping musicians. It does not take long for Meatboy and his
friends to find themselves in hot water, as the politician and his
unsavory buddies begin searching for the money.

While Walter is adept in capturing the postmillennium punk
sensibilities of Meatboy and the Vancouver music scene with its violence
and comedy, he misses the opportunity to explore the way punk in North
America failed to make a dent in the political consciousness of those
who made the music and those who listened to it. The lack of interest
displayed by Meatboy and his friends in local Vancouver politics, in the
homeless youths whose warehouse they use to rehearse their music in, or
in the poverty-stricken men and women who live in the park where Meatboy
finds the money is a reflection of North American punk’s lack of
political understanding.