|| The Sound Faction (dot com) ||

Yeah, yeah I know. It's that age-old adage "Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover", right? How many of us hear that and say "duh!"? How many actually put it into practice? Substantially less, I could only imagine. It's just a little thing that irritates me, it's harmless at best, downright hurtful at worst. The majority of my friends look like... (and I'm going to use a word here that I HATE using, because it's just so vague, but the word conjurs a mental picture for most people...) they look like "Punks". The mohawks and the tattoos and the piercings and what-have-you. They look a little frightening to some, a little intimidating to some... a lot intimidating to others... and are constantly being written off as a threat to society, or as lazy slacker druggie bums before anyone can get to know them. And for those of you who know my circle of friends know that nothing could be further from the truth.

Take for example Mark: he's got multi-coloured hair and five piercings in his mouth, tattoos and generally looks like a drag queen (Sorry Mark, but ya do.) Mark is a Fashion Designer in New York City, and a damned good one at that.

Jonas... Jonas looks like he'd be lurking in a seedy bar waiting to jump you. He works at one of New York's biggest law firms.

Charlie looks like your typical cliche flunkie teenaged "Emo" kid, with the swoop in his eyes and a sad outlook on life when in fact, Charlie is the smartest, sweetest kid I've ever met. He's 18 years old and has already spent a year in a pre-med college in California.

Jepha looks like the ruffian hardcore kid who would pounce at the chance to get into a barfight. There is MAYBE 5% of his body that is unmodified by ink or metal, and people literally move to the other side of the street rather than walk by him. I've heard people mutter things like "get a job" or "f*cking highschool dropouts" when he walks by, and nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I gaurentee that Jepha has a better job, better education, and better outlook on life than 95% of the people who snap-judge him.

I'm getting a little preachy, but I had to get it off my chest. And this applies to absolutely everyone in this world be it a 1985-lookin' crust-punk, a ballet dancer, a bottle-blond with a tiny dog in her purse, or a middle-aged steel factory worker... the point is: you don't KNOW by the way someone looks, so stop muttering crap under your breath, we can hear you telling your friend that the lot of us should just kill ourselves and get it over with. Grow up.