Punk Is Forever

Living on unemployment: like a long-term money-junkie, only lazy and sucking on the government tit. Thursdays were the big days! Every Thursday you stood in a long line of stoopshouldered, coughing, impatient incompetents or incontinents like yourself, waiting to file whatever form the fat gray bitch at the Window had ready (the pens never worked) or else be shunted off to some corner of the bureau where you could sit batting at flies with week-old newspapers, waiting to be interviewed as to why you hadn't come up with a job, or hadn't reported in early, or why they had stuck your card in the wrong file: "Oh, sorry... Could you please get back in line until we can process your form?"

But alternate Thursdays were the ones that made it worthwhile: the one thing that always came through was the check. U.S. certified and all you had to do was a little waiting.. .Shut up and eat your nice titty. I'd lie around in bed "til about three, then go down, cop the mail, walk to the corner drugstore and cash the payoff . First purchase was two six-packs, then to the magazine rack; in those days, the last Thursday of the month was when CREEM came in. Along with a couple Marvel comics and twelve-odd beers, the laughs and info and pix made CREEM a fitting closer to a long hot day of serious unemployment.