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EXCERPT ONE:
JOHNNY: Right-wing opinions?
MARGARET: Yeah.
JOHNNY: Oh, okay. I found it very strange, because here you have the hippie movement which is left-wing. Punks, you identify them if you go back to the fifties and sixties as a bunch of greasers who are more right-wing and anti-peace demonstrations and that kinda stuff. Then suddenly in the punk rock movement you start having these left-wing kids who are really hippies who have become punks but are still really hippies.
MARGARET: P.C. people. McLaren was a lefty.
JOHNNY: He was, you’re right. The other guys I don’t get. Steve Jones doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. He was just looking for girls.
KIM: Nothing wrong with that.
JOHNNY: If that’s all your life about, I guess there’s something wrong with that. I don’t know. Ramones fans always seem to be okay. They know I’m that way and I think a lot of the Ramones fans are sort of in agreement with me. Those are the only kids I have contact with. I don’t talk to any of those punks on the street.
MARGARET: Wearing Crass shirts and begging for money
JOHNNY: Yeah, that’s all hippies. Same thing as was going on in the late sixties. To me, I think punk should be right wing. That’s how I see it. The left wing is trying to destroy America by giving handouts to everyone and making everyone dependent on them. They only care about the voter base. They don’t really care about anything else. They don’t care about anyone. If they can get illegal aliens to become able to vote by motor registration, they will. They’re illegal aliens! They don’t even belong in the country, let alone voting. It’s just to keep their base of voters. Is it best for America? It’s not best for America.
KIM: Do illegal aliens actually get driver’s licenses?
JOHNNY: Yes, they passed a law! Pre-natal care for illegal aliens! This is all craziness. Who pays for this? Sure, for rich people it ain’t gonna make much difference. But look at all the middle class people. That ain’t rich. Even at $75,000 a year, you have a wife and two kids, you’re just getting by. That’s not rich people.
MARGARET: They don’t have to have a house.
KIM: Or kids.
JOHNNY: They take away half your money on taxes. Then you pay property tax and tax on everything you buy and then you go get gasoline. The first thirty six cents is tax. Then you buy the gasoline and they tax the total amount. You’re paying tax on the tax! They wanna sue the tobacco companies. Tobacco company make twenty five cents on a pack. The government makes $1.25! The world’s getting sicker and sicker. We’re getting involved in these crazy things. Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever’s left of Yugoslavia here. $40 billion on bombing these countries and having all these refugees. It shouldn’t be going on to begin with unless it’s of vital interest to America. It’s okay to let the Chinese steal our secrets because we’ve been selling them all this stuff.
MARGARET: (says something indecipherable about Kosovo.)
JOHNNY: The reports are greatly exaggerated. Well, the reports we’re getting from our pilots is that they’re finding boxes covered with canvas with tanks drawn on top of the canvas! We wasted all this money. If they wanna give hand-outs, they could’ve used this money to do something with in America. Every report they put out there is a lie. Just a lie. My mother called me up and goes “isn’t that terrible?” And I’m like “You listen to this crap? You listen to this propaganda. It’s all lies. Can’t you get used to hearing the lies?”
KIM: What is the source for your information?
JOHNNY: I watch a lot of stuff. I mean I listen to talk radio, Hannity and Colmbes at 11 o’clock at night. There’s a left and a right viewpoint, and they discuss it. I try to watch this stuff. I find the left, especially the men, are such wimps. (laughs) Such wimps. You can spot them .
MARGARET: I was looking at a picture of Russian revolutionaries from 1905. I said “Ugh, that guy looks like such a Communist!” And it was Trotsky! (laughs) Maybe it’s a genetic thing.
JOHNNY: I had friend who was getting ready to vote for Clinton back in ’92. I said “How could you do this? Don’t you see the lies? He’s evil.” Naw, he voted for him. Within a year he was sorry. He wished he’d voted for Bush.
MARGARET: I’m surprised he learned that soon.
JOHNNY: I’ll never let him forget it. He’ll say “C’mon it’s been seven years.” I don’t care, heh.
MARGARET: I still talk to people who have the blinders on. “Okay, so he sleeps around with women…”
JOHNNY: It’s okay to just let the Chinese steal our secrets. They’re our “friends.” But they have missiles pointed at every American city, and L.A. is the first place they’re gonna shoot because it’s closest.
MARGARET: And that embassy we bombed.
JOHNNY: They are not our friends. We have to have tight security. We gotta stop fighting these wars. So many soldiers die. We should have troops at the border and keep illegal immigrants out of the country. We have a million illegal aliens. You wanna let them stay? Fine, whatever you wanna do. We gotta stop getting any more. They don’t want them to stop because these are potential voters. All they care about is re-election and staying in office.
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EXCERPT TWO:
MARGARET: Really? How did the leather jackets come about?
JOHNNY: I had mine since ’67. I was a real punk. I was a bad person, then all of a sudden one day I woke up. I didn’t like who I was. I gave up drinking and drugs. After two years, I just woke up. I’d see a bottle in the street and put it through someone’s window. Just petty things that were wrong. I didn’t like who I was. I went to see a psychiatrist but after a while he said “I can’t help you.”
KIM: Reverse psychology!
JOHNNY: I thought “what are you going to do with your life? I don’t know what the hell I want to do.” I decided the next day I was going to find a part-time job. Held that for six months and then went to my father and said I was ready for a full-time job. He was in construction. Then Affirmative Action came around and they needed to fill a quota really quick on a job that was all white and I lost my job. Then I went out and bought a guitar.
SCRAM: And here we are. Thanks, Johnny!
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