A few years ago, I stumbled onto a book written by one of my musical idols. The concept was something that I knew I would relate; being a punk-philosophied individual now adjusting to the new role of fatherhood. The book was “Punk Rock Dad” by Jim Lindberg the former lead singer of Pennywise. For the punk-uneducated, Pennywise is a working class band from Hermosa Beach, California and have been around for over 20 years. And as most bands of this vintage, they have struggled with the rigorous touring, a lack of finances, substances, authority figures, failures, and now…old age.

Lindberg’s book really resonated with me coming from the skate community. We were misunderstood and hated and trying to determine our identity. Now we’re growing up and have children we need to teach respect and compassion to. I couldn’t put the book down. It outlined the challenges of being an individual within a broken system that you despised, having children in a world that was flawed, and now becoming part of that system you once fought to change. Jim’s intimate description of his emotional awakenings weren’t at all that different from what I’ve felt having Son #1.

About eight months ago, I heard the book’s concept was going to be expanded into a documentary call "The Other F Word." Jim would be the main source of executive production but it would touch some of my adolescent idols who are now middle aged adults with families and lives. It was their story of going from the one ‘F’ word to the new ‘F’ word; Fatherhood. I’ve been waiting months for the Seattle screening. And on November 18th, I was able to have my excitement and anticipation fulfilled.

I wanted to make sure I moderated my expectations of the film. After all, films based on books are typically nowhere near as satisfying. Moreover, this wasn’t necessarily a re-creation of the book; it adopted the concept of punk growing up. The film opens up pretty fluffy mostly documenting the chronicles of the subject fathers in their early years performing and why they got into punk music. Most had somewhat self destructive tendencies and absent parents. The punk community presented them a family that understood them. After all, at the very core of our existence, we all want to be accepted. I wanted to hear more about the inner most feelings of how the metamorphosis has been challenging but empowering and painful. It took seemingly too long to get into it.

But gradually, the film drops into the candid and revealing feelings of these musicians/fathers. Be warned, sometimes it’s inarticulate and profane. But in other moments it’s incredibly revealing and tearful. The interestingly poignant observations from this film weren’t necessarily the revealing moments on screen between father and child but were the raw emotions being described by the dad despite the lack of articulation. At one point of the film, you wonder about the sanity of Duane Peters of US Bombs fame. Driving in his beat up old van he looks lost, degenerate, and is barely understandable.

Later in the film, he breaks away from the saturated drug induced euphoria in a strangely focused moment. Talking about his son Chess, he re-creates in vivid detail the day his son was killed in a car accident. Through the slurs and transgressions, you can envision how difficult it was to see his son’s car tore in two with no body left to identify. The harsh reality of his lost son drives him to a suicide mission. He awkwardly revisits the fumbling for his gun and one drug induced fit later he has the firearm in his mouth. In his description of the moment you can feel life slip away through his tears. And before he pulls the trigger, his other two boys find him and save him from himself. Rebounding, he has found peace in what’s left. Life.

In an equally moving moment, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers provides a contradiction of the popular perception of a punk musician. Coming from a family that wasn’t there for him, he’s solely focused on being there for his daughter no matter where in the world he is. And in what may be one of the most revealing comments of the film, he remarks how he didn’t give his children life. Between the joyful tears of appreciating, he murmurs it was his children who gave him life and focus.

At the center of the film is Lindberg, who finds himself torn between the pressures of the band, making a living and being a father to his three daughters. As his priorities are turning, we see him abruptly leave a worldwide tour in progress without informing his bandmates. He flies back to Hermosa Beach to attend the father-daughter dance with his middle daughter who has never had her father to herself. He recognizes that this daughter really needs his undivided focus. During filming, he quits Pennywise so he’ll no longer miss those milestones; birthdays, first days of school, and dances are more important than the next show in Denmark or Japan.

The film was what I had hoped; an intimate portrait of the misunderstood youth now grown and maturing into fathers. It asks what happens when a generation's ultimate anti-authoritarians -- punk rockers -- become society's ultimate authorities – dads. We're all growing and trying to find our identity and our way. I didn't come from a broken home. I wasn't abused. I was a suburban white kid like so many others. And because it was so homogeneous, I struggled with finding my identity and needed to escape to something different. I found skateboarding and punk rock. I felt accepted and part of something that shared my natural interest in questioning and fighting the status quo.



Now where did you go when you grow up? I feel like this film spoke to the misunderstood creative subset of my generation. And while we all had dissimilar upbringing, we share in a belief of changing the world. I think about it a lot now. I’m still idealistically driven but I'm learning how to be a better father every day. It’s not perfect and has flaws but I focus on what my children need to be emotionally successful in their lives. It’s the examples of hard work, being idealistic and being educated to fight for what you believe in. I don't want them to settle but do want them to push themselves, their beliefs, and ways of thinking.

These are punk rock values and are what inspired this blog. These are the lessons of strength and how it’s OK to feel pain and cry then feel joy and laugh.


A lot of people you cross paths with will always ask what you do for a living and gauge how successful are you. Folks will talk about how their job is their calling and may even rub their success, or lack thereof, in your face. They're missing the point; they're missing what it is to be alive. I was at the emotional bottom when Son #1 was born almost seven years ago. And while we may have brought him into this world, he kept me IN this world. He kept me living with a simple thing called hope and that old punk rock concept of changing the world.

I remember being young and wanting to set the world on fire with my ideals. I wanted to change the world. And now what I’m starting to realize is that I can change the world, I can make an influential difference on a system. The way I can change it is by raising better children.