Punk rock dads facing the challenges of being, well, punk rock dads are the subject of tonight’s movie The Other F Word, directed and written by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins and produced by Cristan Reilly. It’s hard enough to be a parent these days, but punk rock papas face a unique set of challenges as they walk the pater-path.

In interviews with over twenty fathers involved in punk rock –as well as pro skating and BMX riding, sports which have been heavily influenced by punk culture–the filmmakers have crafted portraits of men whose own childhoods were not exactly perfect (absentee and abusive fathers/parents are a prevailing theme), and are attempting to be better fathers to their own kids, to heal themselves through parenting.

I cried while watching Bob and the Monster during a scene where the movie’s subject, musician/drug counselor Bob Forrest, recounts receiving a letter from an inmate in a maximum security prison. The inmate writes that hearing Bob play his song “Memphis” live on the radio gave him hope; he threw a noose he had fashioned into his cell’s metal toilet and made the decision to live.