Foreword
At the age of fifteen, I was introduced to a way of life that would shape the man that I am today. This life was not for the faint of heart and it certainly wasn’t for the weak but I knew right away that this was the life for me.
I think back to 1987. There was an SNFU show at the Pink Cadillac in downtown Tucson, Arizona. I remember the absolute chaos that transpired inside the show. Kids were slam dancing, stage diving, fighting, drinking and going absolutely nuts to the punk rock anthems of the evening. The kids were full of angst and aggression and I knew right then and there that I was in the right place and I had found my calling. I wish I could make those of you that have never experienced a punk rock show understand what this did for a kid who was always pushed to the side by society but that is absolutely impossible with words. There was nothing that could compare to what I discovered inside of that smoke-filled shit hole bar that stunk of stale booze and marijuana. That is until I walked outside.
After the show let out was when I first laid my eyes on a pack of short haired kids that were not like the others. I had never seen people that were dressed the way that they were or carried themselves in the manner that they did. I asked my friend, Dave Martinez (he had introduced me to the world of punk rock a few months earlier) who they were and what they were about. “Skinheads. Don’t fuck with them,” he said as I intently watched them interact with the concert goers. They were not bullies yet commanded the respect of everybody they encountered. Maybe it was fear or maybe it was something else but I knew right then and there that skinhead was the life for me and that has not changed in the past thirty years.
As I read Nowhere to Go I was reminded of my days of youth as an outcast. An outcast forced to survive the only way that I knew how and the best way that I could have ever imagined. The violence, the “love” and the brotherhood that is described in this book are captured perfectly by my friend and author, Sheldon Ludman, whom I have known for 25 years now. Nowhere to Go told everybody’s story that grew up in the punk and skinhead world in the eighties and nineties. Each character in the book could have easily been people in my town and in my crew. I have read the book a few times now and each time it makes me lament on the days gone by. What you read in this book was Sheldon’s and my childhood. It was all of ours. It was all we knew and it was all we ever wanted.
The life of a sub-culture kid is not to be understood by those of you who have never lived it. We are the outcasts who have been forced to find our own direction. We are the violent ones who have made the conscious decisions to change our ways to avoid prison and early graves. We are the ones that you sneer down upon while we fight to assimilate into your normal society for the sake of our future generations. We’ve all grown older but not much has changed. Our pasts and our demons still haunt us yet we manage to get by. We are your neighbors, your associates, your coaches, and your friends. The fire still burns and the scars remain. We are, forever crucified.
- J. Michael Oxley
