In a reportedly spontaneous event, a mini-American flag was burned at Sunday’s Tompkins Square Park 9/11 punk concert. Aron Kay, a.k.a. the Yippie Pie Man, held the flag as a crusty caught a light, and Chris Flash, one of the show’s organizers (in navy blue T-shirt), took photos. Flash said the organizers didn’t support or oppose the flag-burning — which the Supreme Court has ruled is free speech. Kay addressed the assembled anarchists about a punk with a swastika tattoo who had infiltrated a park show’s mosh pit a few weeks earlier and tried to instigate violence; a multicultural crowd of punks had immediately chased the man out of the park after he scuffled with a Hispanic headbanger. Last Sunday, Kay, whose mother survived the Holocaust, warned that any Nazi punk who dares come to a Tompkins show would be kicked out and “thrown in a pile of dog s—!” As for the music, the bands included The Comrades, Man’s Gin, The Alienz, David Peel and the Lower East Side — who played their classic hits “Have a Marijuana” and “Die Yuppie Scum!” — Jennifer Blowdryer and The Non-Prophets. Other highlights included L.E.S. Jewels urinating against a tree, and later dropping trou and flashing the crowd.
— Lincoln Anderson
