HUGUES

Once,
I was thinking about the meaning I would give to this record. A short and quick flashback from the starting point of the project to the result which seemed to take shape. The idea was to release more than a record, and to collect the sale benefits for some organizations acting on a local scale. Considering how it has been introduced and the aim it was going to reach. About all the ideas expressed among us from the basis to the end.

And then, through this benefit record, I wondered what was my position in comparison with the so-called 'punk' and the ideas it points out. About all the things it represents, and the radical position it defends at its heart. About the way I use punk in general. Facing all of this, what's my position ? How deep is the gap between my desires, my ideals, and my current life, my real actions? In other words, what's the meaning of all of this purpose for the guy I am ?

We often debate on those questions with Arnaud, on their recurrence in our daily life, and the problems, the contradictions combined to them. We debate on this wobbly aspect, undefined, between the punk ideas, its radical position, its history, the movements it gathers, the different circles (squats, bands, actions etc..) which give life to this. And apart from that, there is me, more or less kept out of punk sight. I don't leave myself exposed to this, not that much. My life is not so complicated in the western country I've been living in, I am white, heterosexual. It means 'normality'. I think I even keep this situation up. Obviously, it ends up wondering if I am a stranger or not. I may have lost the basic principles ( severance, putting oneself in danger ) on the way. So.. I hang loosely between my fantasized life and my daily actions, with this thought in mind. A kind of 'guiltiness', conscious of being neither part of a side nor part of the other.

Reconsidering that thought, maybe the image of punk I have built over the years is a little bit too absolute. Unwavering. With just an only way to live and to realise it. Of course, it is almost sure that I try to reach an illusion, it's like loosing my legs but trying to keep running after this dream. Punk appears to me so uncompromising that I end up falling back on normality, failing at ' integrate the circle '. My situation is unsteady, I got the feeling I have to make a choice, at any price. The principle is that, accepting those ideas means refusing and rejecting a lot of stuffs ( no more rent to pay, no more job, abolition of consumption etc.. ) It means a complete disunion with a lot of schemes. No compromise allowed. There's no happy medium.

Anyway, maybe I have to keep progressing with this state of mind : punk makes sense for me in my actions, in my attempts, in my reconsiderations, in my little fights of my everyday life. I don't say I re-writte punk history and its attempts, ideas , practices. Basically, I believe that the medium is the message. No-profit, DIY, with surrounding networks : they are warrantors of a contestation, yes they are, but as well are the expression of a lasting and more global reconsideration. Questions about the surrounding, about the world.

But I have to start by admitting that the choices are various in this general reconsideration. We can't cut it down to an only way of life. It's not biblical, i's not a race, there is no challenge cup to win. As well, I have to go further, and to admit I am full of contradictions. The starting point would be to accept the idea I am a middle-class man, but approaching a particular community. Maybe this community has 'cooler' standards ( hell yeah, there are more or less solidarity, passion, and most of the people behave themselve like everyone should do, I think...) And I confess that currently, I am
quite comfortable with that. However, I only take a few risks, my choices and my severances remain 'measured' in comparison with some alternatives or other models, but it seems to me that I also have to keep a kind of breathing space in order to maintain a certain control, and not to be overtaken.

Nothing is strictly defined, precise, and frozen. Not yet. No standard. No absolute model. Only attempts, tries, in development, but that's all. Obviously, I doesn't mean to keep the sense away. Questions remain present, I think they 'll still be present. All of this is a part of a general way of considering life, and how to live it; to look for some sense. But questionning everything, first my contradictions, my mistakes or even my swervings and making comparisons with the best to do, in the end, is limiting me. I just stay and fall back in that position. Appathy has the upper hand. I really have to go further. To go beyond my own limits and to decide about my own model, the one I am comfortable with. I got to live depending on what I am, as a person. Ok, I may seem a little bit naive, like a tag-line or an advert, but this might be THE question for me right now. Because starting from this, I would build more, take more risks. Because, I'd never realised it, but most of all 'testing' and 'new attemps' attract me so much..

I thought my eyes would be dry

 But now I see and know

 The moment has a better taste

 I will not have my statements

 Spit back in my face

 We all struggle for our dreams to be realized

 They end up objects

 Of our own despise... why?

 The dance of days

 How did I find myself

 Standing in that place?

 We had done so much

 And now I find myself

 Standing in this place again

 We can do so much more

 Maybe we went a little too fast

 Maybe we better slow down

EMBRACE (1985)