Back around this same time, the early 90's , I met this friend and we were into Firehose together, which led to Fugazi and similar stuff, Fishbone was in the mix. We went to the Gothic in Denver to see Fugazi and the neo nazis showed up. The nazi skinheads, they'd crash the show and stand in the middle of the mosh pit, and everybody would boo them, and they'd make some nazi salutes and maybe some of the dumpy ones would get kicked in the saggy butt, or one would get hit in the mouth, or a bottle would crash on one of them, and the whole place would start to boo until they'd leave. Or the cops would show up and they'd leave. There was some order to it all, in a way. It was theater even then. I was intrigued by fringe militia groups in a way, or libertarians, or constitutionalists, any of these types that were trying to say the government and the system was evil and should be thrown away. Colonel Bo Gritz was around, and he had some interesting things to say about Timothy McVeigh conspiracies and how he might be a patsy and Ruby Ridge and Waco and all that. So it was interesting. But all those down-with-the-man groups were immediately rejected by any of us because clearly they were all filled with white supremacist types and weirdos with twisted views of Christ, and frankly they were all just bizarro upset pretend cowboys whining about the government. They didn't actually care about anyone. And all of us that went to the Screaming Trees or Firehose or Fugazi were pretty young and innocent, and soaking it all up like a sponge, the Denver alleys still had Lakota Sioux wandering around here and there. And there were street kids and fucked up teens and we'd hang out at the Sun Cafe till 3am and smoke GPC. That was kind of a thing. The Hate Fuck Trio was around, and the Lions Lair, and the punk den mom that ran the Mercury, and there were those Guardian Angels around, which were a little embarrassing but they meant well. Old Poolhalls. There were some hustlers and tramps and hobos still, in a beatnic kind of way. My Own Private Idaho sort of captured the same vibe but in the northwest. That was some of the 90's anyway.
