Jón Gnarr - The Pirate

“I’d never do such a thing! Neither break into cars nor steal anything! I’m not a thief!”

“So you weren’t writing on the walls?”

“No! I would never!”

“And you don’t have markers on you, or anything like that?”

“I do have some markers but I don’t use them for writing on things. I don’t write on houses, I just write on paper.”

Then they had me empty my pockets. I had a pocket full of cigarettes from six different packets. It was clear that I wasn’t innocent of stealing from cars. I had a bunch of singles and two markers. Guilty. No way to wiggle out of it. The cops took me down to the police station, and I was made to sit in the corridor. They knew, too, whose son I was. Dad came to pick me up.

“Well.”

I got up and walked to the car with him. My father was silent. Mom was waiting for us at home. She sat me at the kitchen table and began the interrogation. I was asked what on earth I’d really been doing. Had I really been breaking into cars and stealing cigarettes? I tried naturally to dispute it and gave the impression that the police were exaggerating, that I wasn’t up to much and the police had confused me with some other boys. I blamed the graffiti on Siggi and told them I would never do such a thing. Then I tried my utmost to convince them that the only thing I’d been guilty of was being in the wrong crowd, and that I’d avoid those kinds of people in future. After I’d uttered this lie, my mother became even angrier.

“Do you know how embarrassing this is for your father?”

“Yes.”

“And do you think that’s okay?”

“No, I’m absolutely never ever going to do this again.”

Mom sighed.

“Go to your room and stay there.”

One time I got involved in something with Siggi that even I thought a big deal, but fortunately it never came to light. My dad was a really good marksman, and, like many police officers at the time, he was trained to use a rifle, too. He competed in rifle contests and won lots of awards. He even made the news once for something that happened when he was driving his police car. Back then, sheep rifles were the norm on police cars and were used to take down dogs and cats. Dad saw a mink, took a single shot with the sheep gun, nailed the shot, and killed the mink from a long way away. It was quite an accomplishment and was on the cover of The Face . They printed a picture of Dad with the sheep rifle.

Dad also had a pistol he kept at home. It was a Sportsman, not dissimilar to the guns cowboys used. I had often taken it out and looked at it when home alone. It was kept in a locked cabinet, but I knew where the key was. There were also lots of bullets. I sometimes played with a blank; it was really fun to pull the trigger and shoot the blank from the gun. Once when Mom and Dad were out and I knew they would be gone late into the night, Siggi and I were hanging out at my house. We were putting carpet glue on a rag and breathing it in. The euphoria caused us to swim about — we were half-passed out, giggling and stuff like that, but that state always ended rather quickly. We’d been huffing up in the attic and were on our way back down to my room when I saw an opportunity to impress Siggi and said to him:

“Want to see something? A real gun!”

Siggi was more than willing, so we went downstairs and I opened the cupboard and pulled out the gun. Siggi had never seen a real gun before, and we were playing around with it without any bullets inside until Siggi asked:

“Why don’t we get some bullets and go outside?”

I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I couldn’t say no.

“Sure,” I replied, as if it was no problem.

We took the gun, loaded some bullets, and headed out. Siggi kept hold of it, and we went up to Ósland. I was really nervous. This wasn’t a good idea. I was still a bit heady from huffing and wanted it to stop it altogether.

“Why don’t we just go back and return the gun?”

“No, we have to fire it!” said Siggi, excited.

“Nuh-huh,” I replied.

Without discussing it any further, Siggi lifted the gun and fired at a lamppost. There was an appalling crash. My heart skipped a beat. I’d never seen a gun fired, and I’d never imagined how violent the crack was. Our ears were ringing, and we ran straight back home like frightened rabbits. I took the gun off him immediately, emptied the round, put the gun back into its bag, and put everything into the closet. I expected to hear the wailing police sirens at any moment. My hands trembled. Siggi didn’t care. It was like he thought it was just fun and no big deal.

“Well, I’m heading home.”

“Yeah, okay, bye,” I said in a trembling voice.

I stayed in my room and peeked out the window every other minute to see if the police were coming or if something was going to happen. But nothing did. There was no one. But after that, I stopped hanging out with Siggi. I didn’t think he was all there. I’d also learned enough from him.

I wanted to learn to play an instrument and become a member of a punk band. Most people wanted to sing, like Johnny Rotten or the singer of Stiff Little Fingers. But I was too shy and withdrawn. I’d never dare sing in front of people. They’d simply laugh at me. I thought I’d probably be a good guitarist. A punk guitarist doesn’t need to know much, just some cross grips, to be able to play punk. The guitarist in Crass, for example, places his fingers across the top of the guitar neck, and not below the way a good guitarist does. A punk guitarist doesn’t know how to tune his guitar. The less he knows, the better. As punks become better musicians, they become worse punks, and before they know it, they’re no longer a punk band but a New Wave band, having forgotten their purpose and ideals. Their music is no longer raw but polished and stuffed with sweethearts. The lyrics are no longer about the injustice of the system and anarchism — instead, they are increasingly sentimental and philosophical reflections on life. The first sign that a punk band is changing is often when the band adds a keyboard player. You can’t do punk with keyboards. That’s why I never was into The Stranglers. I felt they weren’t punk. Although their bassist was quite punk, they had a keyboard player. In the end, they betrayed their true colors by turning not only into a New Wave band but even an all-out dance band. I despise everyone who betrays punk. Sellouts! Any band that added a keyboard player or was in some way questionable was immediately taken out of the sacrament. Either people were punk or they weren’t. And as musicians went ahead and developed their music, more bands got tossed out from my record collection. Bubbi Morthens was the first to get tossed. I decided to give away all of his albums. The Clash betrayed me when they released Sandinista! And the Sex Pistols were over. Crass even said that punk was dead, that its fashion had become a commercial product, that the bands were more interested in making money than changing society. Gradually, I stopped listening to anything but Crass. I hadn’t bought a lot of albums to date. I just borrowed them and copied them onto cassettes. The advantage the cassette player had over the record player was that you could take it everywhere, into the bathroom and even out to the yard or garage. That is, you could put batteries in it!

I met up with Alli, and we talked about the need to establish a properly Icelandic punk band. We were sorely lacking in that area. There were just three punk bands in the country, The Spunks, Disappointment, and Masturbation. I found them all annoying and felt they lacked the essential emphases. It was like The Spunks didn’t really take punk seriously. They didn’t even dress like punks. I’d gone to one of their concerts and hadn’t enjoyed it a bit. Disappointment barely functioned and hardly ever gigged. They also lacked any identity and basically only had one good song, “Reykjavík O Reykjavík.” Masturbation had both the looks and the songs to back it up. The whole band had shredded jeans and leather jackets and Bjarni the Mohawk even had, as you might expect, a mohawk. But they didn’t seem to take themselves seriously, and even started to fool around in the middle of songs. Siggi the Punk was in Masturbation.