You hire Rosie O’Donnell as the music section’s ambassador to China, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt and two CDs off the Straight’s Top 50. Here’s this week’s winning whine.

Dear Payback Time: True punks do their thing without concern for what society thinks. Unlike Rob Rotten, they don’t have time to tattoo their “joy prong”. Someone who asks “Did they see my punk penis?” is someone who is concerned about what society thinks. Getting fellated by a “Mohawked punkette” does not make you punk. Here’s a news flash: standing against the objectification of women doesn’t make you a feminist—it shows that you’re not ignorant enough to assume that a porno scene with a “woodsman” who captures a zombie chick off the street is “exactly what punk rock was when it exploded out of the underground three decades ago”. Rotten sounds like a porn director who merely includes punk music in the soundtracks. A major concern for many pioneering punk bands was selling enough records to put food on the table. Here in 2006, the primary concern for a “true, hard-core punk” is to go that extra mile to do anything to make sure that he’s not “selling out”. You’re right, Mike: punk’s meaning has changed.

> Mike McLaughlin

Mike Usinger responds: Dearest Mike—You are correct when you state that most true punks don’t have time to get tattoos emblazoned on their pork swords. As anyone who’s ever had to fork out a loonie knows, they’re busy terrorizing motorists with their squeegees at downtown stoplights. Sid Vicious, Darby Crash, and that dude from Death Sentence who stapled his nuts to a park bench would be proud of their legacy. Anyhow, the question of what punk rock is has been plaguing us ever since Johnny Rotten first cackled his way through “Anarchy in the U.K.”. Before Ian MacKaye, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, and, well, you climbed on your high horses, punk was all about shocking society. How to do that was left to one’s own imagination. It could be something clever (Siouxie and the Banshees setting “The Lord’s Prayer” to an atonal squall at the 100 Club), tasteless (Vicious practically living in a Swastika T-shirt), or gross (the Pistols puking on old ladies at Heathrow Airport). Then, suddenly, punk became more about buying into a dress code (black leather and Docs), a sound (faster and harder), and an ideology (see the collected works of Crass). No wonder the originators—Joe Strummer, Sioux, Johnny Rotten—quickly moved on. But enough about ancient history. What makes Rob Rotten punk rock? Well, never mind the fact that he has Rancid’s Tim Armstrong on his cellphone’s speed dial and looks like he was raised at 924 Gilman Street. No, it’s more that he’s pissing people like you off. If you can piss off your fellow punks, you’re far closer to the original spirit of the genre than Billie Joe Armstrong will ever be. And speaking of not following society’s guidelines, you’re not doing too badly yourself Mike. The sentence you wrote that starts “Here’s a news flash…” was not only utterly indecipherable, it broke every grammar rule in the book. For that alone, Punky, you rock.

For taking the time to abuse us, Mike McLaughlin takes home My Chemical Romance’s Black Parade and the Deftones’ Saturday Night Wrist. Voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an e-mail to payback@straight.com .