Clash Day 43

August 11 is the day I celebrate Clash Day. As in, the band The Clash. Before you laugh, let me tell you why.

My birthday is December 31. It’s an odd one, I tell ya. If it weren't enough to be born on a drunken pagan holiday then it’s actually really weird to be born on the last day of the year. Mainly because you are that age every single day of the next year, save one.

This means all of 1981 was for me the unpleasant experience of being thirteen. December 31/13 years old/the year 1981. There must be some bizarre and horrific numerology to it. What I can tell you is that for me it absolutely sucked top to bottom.

Seventh grade — the nadir of what was then called Junior High. They might as well have named it Days of Violence. There were no “promotions” from one grade to another. Parents generally stayed away. My grades slid from Bs to Cs to Ds. Fights and conflict in the hallways, locker rooms, and on the school bus. A changing body, hormone hell, total confusion.

1981 started with the Reagan assassination attempt. I came home that day to find my mom lying in bed with the curtains drawn. The event triggered her deepening depression, a growing theme of my young adulthood.

It was easy to miss the child who wasn’t thriving — and the child wasn’t doing much to speak up, either. It all turned me into a bit of a mean character. At least, on the inside I was mean. I hated everybody. I seethed.

That summer my family took our one and only trip abroad. We spent most of August of 1981 touring Germany, France and England. The trip was all my dad: his idea, his planning, and his generosity. My mom was miserable, physically and emotionally, and I think her husband’s joie de vivre really burned her. We did have some really good moments. Saw beautiful things, ate beautiful food. Bastille Day, the Rhine, London. We were even there for Charles & Diana’s wedding.

Core memory: seeing a handful of “punk rockers” at a Wendy’s in London. They had green hair! I stole glances. Seemed like they were having a hell of a good time. They looked on the outside like I, the flunking, self-loathing, pubescent reject, felt on the inside. I was intrigued.

That trip made an impact. I’d seen a lot of weird and interesting stuff. I felt like some of it had rubbed off on me. I wanted it to last.

A day or two after we got back I trucked up to the town library to get some books to explain what the hell I had just seen (note how the boy who failed at school was a big fan of the library). I was looking for more information on Europe, in general. What I got was more information on life. Punk, in specific.

When you came into the library there were bins of records. I was well familiar with this section. That day, walking past them on my way to the stacks something stopped me cold. There it was: London Calling.

Big, bold letters. A black-and-white photo of someone smashing a guitar. If I could have designed my dream album cover at thirteen, it would’ve looked exactly like that.

I picked it up. It was heavy—two records, wrapped in thick plastic like all library LPs. I flipped it over. Two blurry black-and-white photos of a band on stage, not under spotlights but house lights. It looked raw. Real.

I’d heard of The Clash—vaguely. Now they were under my arm. I left the library immediately.

I remember the difference between the hot humid August air and the cool damp of my lower level bedroom. I put on the record. The first track was a weird blur to me. I didn’t understand it. I was, for the moment, still a child.

Then, the second song started. Everything changed. It was raw, fast, desperate. It was rock and roll taken up a notch. I had been about to take out some legos. Instead, I froze. The guitars, the drums, the ending—intense. And I thought: this is it.

I sat there and listened to the whole double album. Some parts I got, some I didn’t, but I knew two things: one, this was my new roadmap; and, two, I was done with childhood. Gone, bye-bye, see ya later. I never touched my Legos again.

Fast forward one year to May, 1982. Now I’m fourteen. Eighth grade offering near-fatal levels of suckage. The bright spot, I had found my crew, mainly by writing “THE CLASH” on all my books, folders, pants, and hands. It was code to others who also snuck under the mainstream, quasi-redneck thought police. I was part of a very small group interested in a very new scene and the style that came along with it.

That month the album Combat Rock came out. The Clash now had hits—“Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah.” Suddenly, even the mullets had to admit they were legit. It was ironic—punk bands weren’t supposed to succeed. I didn’t care. I felt vindicated.

Then, on August 11 of 1982, one scant year after I discovered them, I saw The Clash live.

It was only the day before the show that I told my dad I wanted to go. I had waited to the last minute because I didn’t have the guts to ask earlier, especially not around my mom. I wanted to go with friends, but my dad said he’d take me. That was cool of him, to put it mildly.

Driving into St. Paul, I saw other punks in cars—cool hair, wild clothes. “They’re going to the show,” I said, pointing. My dad raised his eyebrows. “Really? That many people?”

He thought maybe 100 people would be there. There were 7,000.

When The Clash came on, it was the loudest thing either of us had ever heard. My ears hurt. But I knew every song. I saw my heroes up on that stage.

Clash, St. Paul, MN, August 11, 1982

Afterward, I felt like a different person. I had made it—from seventh grade hell, through eighth grade purgatory, and now I was heading into ninth grade as someone new. It was The Clash that helped me find myself.

I don’t feel weird about it, this fandom if that’s what you’d call it. I’ve studied everything about them. I know all their work. It’s a parasocial relationship, sure. They don’t know me, but that’s how it works with art and artists. Still, you connect. You feel seen.

The Clash were an intuitive art movement. They made something out of nothing and helped a lot of us along the way. They were one of the only bands who could make you dance to a song about politics. They mattered.

They still matter to me. Hell yes, I will celebrate my Clash Day.