So you're reading this on the PUNK web page and about now you're probably saying to yourself "Hey - what is this? What does any of this stuff have to do with punk? James Bond maybe, 'cos he's cool and punk is cool. But, like, what is all this stuff about 'The State and fascism' and all this stuff and, man , like...like..." Well, if you'll cool it for a second I'll tell you. Actually it's real simple: Music is art. As surely as you need privacy for sex, to make art you need freedom of expression. Rock 'n' Roll is SUPER art. SUPER art demands SUPER freedom - and PUNK IS SUPER ROCK 'N' ROLL!! So Punk needs SUPER SUPER FREEDOM - ALL THE FREEDOM THERE IS AND THEN SOME! What it doesn't need is less and less freedom, less and less privacy, obviously, and for sure it doesn't need the government spying on its own civilian population treating them like terrorists thereby, just for expressing themselves or just 'cos they happen to exist, through no great fault of their own. Like, FREEDOM is not TERRORISM - so stop confusing the two!

Anyway, my point is that FREEDOM and PUNK are two great things that go great together. To me they've always been inextricably linked. Freedom leads to punk. How? Well, first off you're free, you have rights. Next thing you know you're speaking your mind. That's usually when some grumpy old dude says: "Aw shaddap ya loudmouthed little PUNK!" See? At least that's the way it's always worked in MY case.

James Bond may be cool but Punk isn't cool, it's FREE. As Lester Bangs, the king of ROCK 'N' ROLL said to me when I interviewed him in 1976, he said and I quote: "Bein' cool is basically bein' UNCOOL." I disagreed vehemently with Bangs on this point and still do. I think - no, I KNOW, right, that bein' cool is bein' cool and bein' uncool is bein' uncool. The thing is, just watch me now, bein' uncool is bein' FREE, whereas bein' cool is like bein' a SLAVE to other people's valueless opinions about you. So what would you rather be - uncool & free or a cool slave? Don't answer that, you don't have to decide right now. Besides, as my pal Low (aka Dutch) has said, and he's right, UNCOOL is OUT.

So again you ask: "How do punk and freedom and RnR relate if at all to the supposed topic of this piece - Bond, James Bond - who is, after all, neither a punk nor a rock 'n' roller of any kind but a very COOL SPY?" You're very whiny and insistent for someone I hardly know, but if you will kindly get your hands off the gabardine I will graciously concede you your point: There are some contradictions here, although they in no way diminish my (various) arguments. First off, FREEDOM and PUNK go together like Batman and Robin. On the other hand, SPYING and PUNK go together like MY FIST and YOUR FACE. I just wish that there was NO association between BOND and SPYING, since spying is the very wicked and ghostly essence of uncool itself. And I wish that there was a closer association between FREEDOM and BOND, since up to now there hasn't really been any to speak of.

"So let me get this straight: You want a Bond who is "free" and who refuses to be a spy, is that it?"

Precisely.

"But that's what Bond does! He's a spy!"

Yeah, but that's the only thing I don't like about him!

"But if he stops being a spy what will he be instead?"

FREE and COOL.

"But - "

Stop being so rational and get your imagination working so that you can follow what I'm saying, otherwise I'm wasting my time. DIG: Guy Debord was a very sharp French social philosopher who ended up being literally watched to death by half of the secret services of Europe, so I believe he is a man to trust in these matters. Debord said that the chief project of the secret services since the end of WW2 has been to turn "revolutionaries into secret agents and secret agents into revolutionaries." How? They hope that by creating an atmosphere ofcoercion and suspicion, "revolutionaries" will become FINKS; and that, capitalizing on the CONFUSION that they have thus generated, secret agents will start to perform in a 'revolutionary' manner. Instead of limiting their activities to watching (and harassing) private citizens from the shadows, which is bad enough, they will begin to act more and more aggressively. In a nutshell, they will be transformed from relatively passive bureaucratic bums in the background into MEN OF ACTION - that is, they will make the gradual but nonetheless quite radical transition from vaguely threatening, semi-imaginary beings into genuine, in your face, pains-in-the-neck, and like a splitting headache, they will become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Which brings me to my next point. When you've got a headache, like you've probably got right now from trying to follow my "logic," you usually reach for some aspirin. In Mr. Debord's case he reached for a drink. After awhile, though, all the alcohol in the world couldn't alleviate the pain of being spied on, his every move monitored. He finally committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart. Me personally, I think that those are the two most natural reactions to loss of freedom and loss of privacy. Substance abuse and premature, self-inflicted death. The two things also remind me of a certain secret agent - James Bond drank like a fish and was always goin' on suicidal missions. So, James Bond if he'd been a little more intellectual and sensitive could have been a martyr for freedom like Guy Debord and, though he was WAY overqualified, if he'd leaned toward fascism instead of freedom, Debord coulda become a secret agent. Easy. Myself, I love to drink and, just like Bo Diddley sings "I'm just twenny two an' I don't mind dyin'." HMMM... What will I be when I grow up? Like Sly Stone says, "Que sera,sera." For more on the relationship of JAMES BOND to PUNK please see PUNK #6, The Legend of Nick Detroit. (Or maybe all would come clear if Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan started hanging out with Holmstrom and me - YEAH! That'll definitely do it!)

If you STILL don't understand, then I suggest you listen to the song "I Wanna Be Me" by the Sex Pistols, and the albums Zombie Birdhouse by Iggy Pop and Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, because these records address EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Get it? Got it? GOOD - Now lemme get back to business.