Wow. Now that I've had my valedictory moment, I'm going to start hating myself as soon as Google crawls me again.

There's already at least one old punk band for which I've been the number one Google return. That's kind of wrong. It shouldn't be me. It should be some punk history page or something. Considering how little I ever really mention any of this stuff, and that this page has about as much to do with punk (and, spare me, nostalgia for it) as Sister Faustina has to do with car racing, it's sad that some of these incredible bands that partly changed my life should be so poorly remembered that my stupid little site becomes the number one return.

Anyway, welcome if you've Googled an old favorite band. In the past, I've had some nice email from such visitors and that's pretty cool. Thanks guys. Now that I've broadened the pool considerably, maybe now I can really start hosting arguments about whether or not certain bands or records really suck as much as I say they do.

Here's an example of a (non punk) post where the argument lingers like a pathetic campfire that won't quite die.

Who knows? Maybe a former member of one of those forgotten bands will Google himself and discover he's not completely forgotten.

It's happened before. Mostly not with bands though.

So that whole musing started out as a riff on the Misfits' song. I didn't think I'd embark on a generational Where Are They Now clusterfuck of spiralling verbiage.

But, this is my year of 20th anniversaries and all that: 20 years of emancipated adulthood. 20 years since punk. 20 years a rabbit food eater. 20 years since I started travelling on my own. God save me, 20 year high school reunion.

I'm deeply conflicted about the reunion. I can't deny that I'm curious. I think I'd love to be the proverbial fly, and just observe, but I tremble in fear at the prospect of actually having to talk to people. I dunno...there's something really creepy about the whole thing, and I've always been resolute about not going, but some dark corner of my heart is stirring at the prospect of seeing what happened to a bunch of the kids I went to high school with.

The problem is that I'm fairly sure that the people I'd really want to see, like me, won't be there.

Anyway, just this once then, in the spirit of liberally indulging memory and all things 20 years gone, I'll let that not so little exhumation stand as my generational monument to the scene and music that shoved me into the world, and then bury it again, secure in the belief that we're all better off for it even if we don't have any more time for it.