The Other F Word- a documentary

Finally something related to punk rock on Punk Rock Parents.

The other night Joey and I sat down after putting the kids to bed and watched the documentary "The Other F Word". In this situation "F" stands for Fatherhood. The film gives a inside look into how these punk rock band members are dealing with becoming fathers. It was so good.

A coming of MIDDLE age story.

These tattooed Daddy's grew up writing songs about living fast and dying young. They never expected to hit middle age. They never thought about what it would be like to be the authority figure that they had spent years rebelling against. Our generation is the first to grow up with punk music and mentality. Joey and I felt a connection to this music and this "F the system" ideology. This movie shows that just like with us, these punk rockers had to grow up. Punk rock had to grow up.

For all these punk rock Dad's, the moment their first child was born their priorities changed. It was now necessary to pay a mortgage and put food on the table. They now were a part of the system that they fought against. For the first time they found themselves looking for the clean version of their albums. You see men like Jim Lindberg, the lead singer of Pennywise struggling with all this. Living life on the road, missing his daughters important events, to sing to a bunch of kids, songs that did not mean anything to him anymore was hard. But he was part of a band that had been together for over 10 years, he was torn between his family and his band family. Any way he tried someone was always disappointed.

Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mark Hoppus from Blink 182, Tony Hawk, guys from bands like Black Flag,  NOFX, Rise Against and many others gave us a glimpse into not only their family lives but into their childhoods as well. Many of these men come from broken homes which is what lead them to the punk rock lifestyle in the first place. As Mark Hoppus said when it came to these guys becoming Dads "the bar was very low". Instead those years of rebelling was therapeutic enough for them to get past their childhoods and now they are pretty amazing Dads. These Dads with mohawks and completely tattooed were dropping their kids off at private school, taking their toddlers to the park and taking their daughter to a father/daughter dance. Instead of changing the world through rebellion and flipping off authority, these punk rock Dads are going to change the world by being better parents.

We loved this film. It was a very personal and real look into how no matter how hard you try to stay the same, parenthood changes all of us.

Here is the official trailer for the film.....