|
California Dreaming (click on the
thumbnails for a full-size picture)
|
|
 |
Oi! I'm
Tom. I'm a skinhead. This is my story. I used to
live in Sacramento California where I was more of a
punk then a skinhead. Hey, we all make mistakes.
When I first started getting into punk more than 2
years ago I listened to bands like the Dead Kennedys
and Anti-flag. It wasn’t until the beginning of my
freshman year when I met my friend Derek from Texas.
|
| He
started getting me into Oi. I started listening to
the 4 Skins, Cockney Rejects, UK Subs, and The
Exploited. Derek started telling me about his
hometown and about all the shows he's gone to and he
told me about some of the neat skinheads he knew. I
thought it was really interesting, all his stories
about the skinheads. And how most skins he knew were
cool as hell – and not anything like the media made
them out to be. |
 |
|
 |
The
summer of '03 I was sent away to live with my
grandparents in the Detroit, Michigan area. Don’t
ask me why – it’s a long story!!! It's quite a
change going from living in sunny California to wet,
cold Michigan. During the summer in Michigan I
started shaving my head and got into more Oi like
Agnostic Front, Sham 69, Lower Class Brats, Blitz,
Cock Sparrer, The Business, Oxymoron, etc.
|
| Now, as
you all know you can’t be a skin without some kick
ass boots so I saved up enough money to buy a pair
of cherry red 14i doc martens, which I then turned
into oxblood boots with a lot of hard work.
|
 |
|
 |
One day
while I was walking down the halls of my high school
I saw a bunch of pictures of skinheads hanging on
the walls. That’s right, pics of skinheads on a
school wall, yellow skins, white skins, black skins.
Guess what? Skins come from all backgrounds, with
only one thing in common love of Oi. After that I
decided go online and find out what skinheads were
all about. I started to get very interested in
becoming a real skinhead. Everything about becoming
a skinhead seemed like a good idea. |
|
|
|
