The snacks served were Chex Mix, gummy bears, PBR and cupcakes decorated with razor blades and brass knuckles of frosting.

"It's because I'm so tough," joked the organizer, whose neck was also decorated with a razor blade - tattoo, not frosting.

It was a punk reading at a comic book store in trendy, trendy Bucktown and I had my in. It was a friend of a friend deal, the perfect type of deal for a neurotic like me. I could show up and be separate from the group (disassociate myself if the friend of a friend's reading sucked) but still have an excuse for being there if, as often happens in my mind, a large and angry person would come up to me and demand I justify my presence/existence. I'm a fun barrel of crazy.

Anyway, I just realized I probably should introduce myself and explain what I'm doing. My name is Paul Dailing and I'm on a fool's errand. I'm looking for alternative culture in a world where nothing's alternative anymore.

Allow me to explain.

Have you ever been walking down the street and seen a tattooed, pierced, purple-haired, leather-and-chain-wearing punker eating ice cream? And then you think "I wonder where he got ice cream" rather than have your values challenged by his flagrant disregard for conventional social mores?

Me neither, but I could see it happening. Hell, I just saw a bunch of punkers eating cupcakes and my main thought was how good those cupcakes were. Chocolate.

We live in a world where the crazy is common-place. Where kids ape styles they see on TV and their parents know exactly what the style is. "My kid's dressing like a goddamn goth." "My kid's dressing like a goddamn punk." "My kid's into that goddamn hip-hop."

And in that world, where fashions that once shocked got taken into the norm, I'm looking for something shocking. I'm looking for something to challenge the way I think and the way I act. I'm looking for something so crazy, so wacky, so goddamn nutty that it makes me re-examine my life.

All that in a world where 50-year-old men wear Ramones T-shirts and probably have more right to than I do.

Tall order. Tall, crazy order.

Anyway, back to the show.

The reading was arranged by the mastermind behind the Panic Attack zine. For those who don't know, zines are cheaply made, photocopied mini-magazines featuring original art, stories and anything anyone wants to put together and sell for a buck a pop. They're voices for the voiceless. They're people saying that what they have to say is worth hearing, standing up and adding their verse to the powerful play that is human existence.

As any zinester can and will tell you, most zines suck.

I was invited to the event at Quimby's in Bucktown by my friend Jill. Her friend Crystal read a rambling, meandering story about a simple day. She described what she did, what happened at work and why a friend of hers kept yelling that Jack Nicholson should have played Wolverine in the X-Men movies. It was ridiculous, boring and somehow intense. I loved it.

I feel bad for instantly discounting a bulky Hispanic punk with a flaming red Mohawk (hairstyle, not Native American) when he said he was going to read lyrics from his band. Lyrics without music generally suck. Have you ever heard "Eleanor Rigby" without the tune? It's a depressing limerick about British people with bad socks. It's a fantastic song, but songs usually are best as songs. This was different.

The punk opened up. Through those lyrics, normally screeched and wailed, he talked about pain and loss. He talked about how the music and culture that saved his life had become an easily purchased commodity. He talked about being "anti-anti," how punk for him is tangible and real, not just a rebellion against mommy and daddy and a 1950s Walt Cleaver lifestyle that has always been fictitious.

Afterwards, I told him it was great. He thanked me.

It wasn't all amazing. One guy read a lackluster story where - guess what - the narrator turned out to be the murderer. His exceptionally hot girlfriend looked on lovingly. They were very nice people though. At one point, he handed me a beer without my even asking.

Another guy told an OK story about being picked on by some trendy hipsters. He lost me when he told the hipsters "I don't have to listen to you. You're wearing a vertical striped, button-up shirt with no undershirt."

I was just glad I had changed my mind at the last minute and gone with a T-shirt.

There was art there. There was also snobbery and pretention. There were way too many jabs at the trendy young richies who glom to the Bucktown/Wicker Park area. Some people like the Misfits. Some people like Dave Matthews. Deal with it.

But for moments in that crowd of punks and slackers, hippies and hip-hoppers, we all felt alike. We all felt angry and confused and hilarious. We all felt, or at least I felt, less alone.

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