Iggy Punk

So I'm reading this book, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, and the punk rocker lifestyle fascinates me. Perhaps I should qualify that by saying that some the punk rocker lifestyles fascinate me because not all punk rockers lead crazy, reckless lives. There's always an exception. But for those who do speed down life's highway with a beer in one hand and a needle in the other, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, "aye yai yai!"

I'm about a hundred pages in and I've learned more about Iggy Pop than I'd care to know. I'm sure that theses days Iggy is a wise man who would welcome you into his home and offer you a glass of wine and a canape, but when he was a young rocker in the Stooges -- Lawdy! I already knew that he used stage gimmicks a la the legendary Jim Morrison: exposing himself, yelling obscenities and antagonizing his audience. I knew that he tossed globs of peanut butter at his audience, but I didn't know that he added hamburger meat to the mix, and I didn't know that he vomited regularly on stage. Gross. I haven't mentioned his recklessness off stage. I'll save that for another post.

There are two things that fascinate me about Iggy Pop:

1. He's still alive after leading a hard life.

2. His audience loved him.

Maybe I'm disconnected from the hip world of punk rock, but I don't understand why an audience would enjoy having raw meat and peanut butter tossed at them while being called mother*&$%. Neither do I understand why an audience would enjoy watching a performer puke onstage. According to the authors, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Iggy's shows were considered art. Miles Davis attended Stooges's concerts and enjoyed them. He even snorted coke with the guys backstage at their New York shows. Hmmm. There is something mighty powerful about the united punk spirit.