Danny has a lot of big ideas. Though he's losing the use of his dad's computer in the move and will have to produce the 'zine with a Xerox machine and typewriter, he's improved his distribution exponentially by getting permission to put it in Hot Topic. He's also planning to start two Teddy Boy bands in the fall, then sell the Teddy Boy jackets around town. Sounds pretty promising. Maybe the start of something he can make a career out of?
"To be totally, bluntly honest with you, I dunno. I can't explain it. I wish I didn't feel this way, but I've had this gut feeling since that car wreck when I was 19 that I wasn't going to live, like, that long. I was probably not going to live to be an old man. It's just a feeling I get inside. I hope it's not true. I don't think about getting old or where this is taking me or whatever, because at this point I don't need to think about all that. If I do start to get old, I guess I'll think about that, but until then, I'm going to live like this."
Jonathan McNamara
Welcome to east Mesa: Danny (left) and Travis in the garage.
Jonathan McNamara
Danny Dirtnap
Related Content
More About
"Like this" means no car, no money . . . nothing, nothing, nothing at all.
The thing is, Danny's not that far from those college-kid hipsters he hates. He's their age. He's mastered their cynical sneer. Wearing Chuck's, tight black jeans, and a snap-button Western shirt, he's halfway to the look — all he'd have to do is take off his bolo tie and wash the pomade out of his hair. In some alternate universe he could be a Wavve, instead of a Video Nastie. Maybe that universe is his new town, Tempe. Probably not, Danny says.
So he's moving from his velvet Elvis-ed, spiritual homeland of east Mesa. That doesn't mean he has any intention of "growing a beard and playing a child's instrument onstage" (to use phrases from his favorite caricature of hipsterdom).
"Mesa is something I carry within my heart, within myself. It's home. You may leave home, but home never leaves you, as shitty and corny and stupid as it may sound" he says. "I've already thought about this, and it's like, fuck it, I'm leaving here and everything, but it's not like it's gonna change me."
It's not that Danny doesn't have any hope; it's that he doesn't want any — at least not hope for those conventional and totally un-punk measures of success. For Danny, building a scene like Huntington Beach, California, would be pretty fucking awesome. Never mind that, as I say to him, all those bands sucked anyway. Black Flag? The Descendents? The Circle Jerks? The Vandals? The Offspring? Seriously, I tell Danny (although I see he has a Black Flag tattoo on his forearm) even he should be able to concede that Black Flag were one of the shittiest bands that ever existed. Even most of their fans admit they have no musical worth, crediting them instead with contributions to the DIY ethic or their hard work or influence on other acts. I mean, seriously, Black fucking Flag, dude?
"Like I said, Martin: There's people who like rock 'n' roll and get it — and there's people who don't," Danny says.
