Long Hard Road Out of Hell (47 page)

—R
UMORS POSTED BY
“
FANS
”
ON THE
I
NTERNET

     
UNDATED

If I’d really gotten my ribs removed, I would have been busy sucking my own dick on
The Wonder Years
instead of chasing Winnie Cooper. Besides, I wouldn’t have sucked other people’s dicks on stage, either. I would have been sucking my own. Plus, who really has time to be killing puppies when you can be sucking your own dick? I think I’m gonna call a surgeon in the morning.

     
UNDATED

Last night, or rather this morning, some skaggy whore in her forties who was convinced she was in her teens and claimed to be Anthony Kiedis’s cousin or Billy Corgan’s sister or Shaquille O’Neal’s mother came onto our bus. She was with some goofy tan girl with braces who looked like she could have been her daughter. Neither of them looked good but they were entertaining because they were so blind to their own white trash qualities. So we let them stay and managed to convince them to snort a packet of sea monkey powder. Strangely enough, it was white and came with a small spoon, not unlike cocaine. I didn’t even have to use false pretenses to persuade them to do this. I actually read them the training manual, explaining that these small creatures are actually brine shrimp and that they will go on to grow inside their bodies for a year. I told them that nothing could be more exciting than having these small creatures flowing through their bloodstream—not to mention the unknown high that might await them. Surprisingly, they did it eagerly. And I shamefully spent the night talking to the skag, who tried to masturbate me while a video of
Doom Generation
was playing in the background. I wished for a moment the girl in the movie, Rose McGowan, was here, and maybe I would let her masturbate me. I remember reading an interview with Rose about her fucked-up childhood and her father, who was the leader of some religious cult. For some reason, I feel like she would be able to relate to what I’m going through—not at the moment but in general. To nobody’s surprise, Twiggy ended up fucking braceface in his bunk. I’m so ashamed to be a part of this band.

     
APRIL 6, 1997, NORMAL, ILLINOIS

I’ll kill anyone who thinks this town is anyone’s idea of normal. It lets me know that there’s a lot of work still for me to do. But I’m kind of proud of what we’ve accomplished so far on this tour. I really wanted to do that totalitarian shock-symbol thing, to create a part of the show that resembled a fascist rally, to make a statement about things I’m against like religion and, in some ways, rock and roll, because rock and roll can be just as blind as Christianity. At the same time I wanted to create a giant piece of performance art that said that, despite everything that’s happened with the media ana people trying to ban our shows, “I did this, and I got away with it.” How did Bowie get away with lyrics about “the spies, the blacks … and the faggy bars”? It’s because he’s in character and he’s criticizing a certain type of person.
Antichrist Superstar
isn’t that at all: It’s what everybody feels in their hearts but is too afraid to say. It’s honest. It’s not picking on any one person, it’s picking on everybody including myself. We’re all hypocrites, but by admitting it, you transcend it and it no longer becomes a personality defect as it is in the people who blindly cling to their own self-righteousness. By knowing all this, you grow from it. I’ve grown from it.

I will never admit this to anyone, but I’ll write it here: The reason I haven’t copped out in an interview and said, “Yeah it’s just a character, this is just a concept album,” is because to me it is so much more. But in a sense it is. That’s why when people ask, “Well is it an act or isn’t it?” it’s both. I mean my whole life is an act, but that’s my art.

“T
HIS IS PERHAPS THE SICKEST GROUP EVER PROMOTED
BY A MAINSTREAM RECORD COMPANY
.”
—S
ENATOR
J
OSEPH
L
IEBERMAN OF
C
ONNECTICUT

“F
ROM WHAT
I
HAVE LEARNED OF THE CONTENT OF THEIR LYRICS AND MESSAGE AS
WELL AS THEIR CONDUCT ON STAGE
, [M
ARILYN
M
ANSON
]
ARE CLEARLY BENT ON
DEGRADING WOMEN, RELIGION AND DECENCY, WHILE PROMOTING SATANIC WORSHIP
,
CHILD ABUSE AND DRUG USE
. T
HESE PEOPLE ARE PEDDLING GARBAGE
. I
T’S
FURTHER PROOF THAT SOCIETY’S MORAL VALUES CONTINUE TO CRUMBLE
.”

—G
OVERNOR
F
RANK
K
EATING OF
O
KLAHOMA ON CONCERT
AT THE
S
TATE
F
AIRGROUNDS

“I
THINK IT’S TIME THAT PEOPLE PROTEST
[M
ARILYN
M
ANSON] ALL OVER THE
NATION, THIS THING IS THE MOST DEGRADING, IT INCITES PEOPLE TO MURDER, TO
RAPE
. S
AYING THAT DATE RAPE IS NO BIG DEAL IN AN ERA WHERE WE’RE SO CONCERNED
ABOUT SEXUAL HARASSMENT
… I
T’S UNBELIEVABLE
! Y
ET THIS IS GOING
TO THE TOP OF THE HEAP AND
Rolling Stone
SAYS HOW CREATIVE THEY ARE
. W
HAT
KIND OF CREATIVITY IS THIS
?”

—P
AT
R
OBERTSON
, T
HE
700 C
LUB
.

“M
ANY PEOPLE KNOW THE DEBAUCHERY
M
ARILYN
M
ANSON REPRESENTS
:
SODOMY, SADOMASOCHISM, YOUTH PORNOGRAPHY
, S
ATANISM AND THE LIKE
. I
T IS
CLEARLY DISTURBING, THREATENING AND SICKENING TO MANY
M
LNNESOTANS
. W
E DESERVE BETTER AS A COMMUNITY
. “W
E HOPE YOU WILL ADOPT SOME MORE REASONABLE STANDARDS FOR
THE CULTURAL EVENTS YOU SPONSOR IN THE FUTURE
. I
N ADDITION, WE BELIEVE A
PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR SUBJECTING THE
T
WIN CITIES TO
M
ARILYN
M
ANSON WOULD
BE IN ORDER
.”

—L
ETTER FROM THE
M
INNESOTA
F
AMILY
C
OUNCIL
TO THE
B
EST
B
UY
C
ORPORATION

“W
E’RE FIGHTING FOR
G
OD AGAINST
S
ATAN
.”

—F
LORENCE
H
ENSELL, LETTER TO
U
TICA
C
ITY
C
OUNCIL, ON CONCERT AT
U
TICA
A
UDITORIUM

“I
DON’T NORMALLY INTERFERE WITH THE FREE-ENTERPRISE STYLE
,
BUT IN THIS CASE
I
CAN’T FATHOM ANYBODY BEING ASKED TO PAY FOR
TICKETS TO SEE THIS FILTH
.”

—A
LDERMAN
R
AY
C
LARK OF
C
ALGARY ON CONCERT AT
M
AX
B
ELL
C
ENTRE

“
I WAS NOT EVEN AWARE OF A GROUP CALLED
M
ARILYN
M
ANSON UNTIL ABOUT
TWO OR THREE WEEKS AGO WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN OUR OFFICE AND MY HOME
HAVE BEEN INUNDATED WITH PHONE CALLS WITH CONCERNS ABOUT THIS CONCERT
THAT’S PERFORMING THIS EVENING IN
W
INGS
S
TADIUM IN
K
ALAMAZOO
… T
HEIR
MESSAGE IS TO KILL
G
OD
,
KILL YOUR PARENTS AND THEN COMMIT SUICIDE
. I
HANDED OUT TO ALL MY COLLEAGUES AN ARTICLE ABOUT WHAT
M
R
. M
ANSON
CONFESSES THAT HE’S DONE AS FAR AS ON THE STAGE FROM SEXUAL TYPES OF ACTS
TO A NUMBER OF VULGAR TYPES OF THINGS THAT PROMOTE VIOLENCE IN OUR SOCIETY
,
AND
I’
M VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THAT
. S
O WITH THAT, WE PUT A RESOLUTION
TOGETHER … THAT ANYONE UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE BE ACCOMPANIED
BY THEIR PARENTS
.... W
E’VE RECEIVED ABOUT 10,000 SIGNATURES JUST IN
THE
K
ALAMAZOO AREA THAT ARE AGAINST THIS CONCERT
.”

—S
ENATOR
D
ALE
S
HUGARS OF
M
ICHIGAN

     
UNDATED

Just got a phone call from my father. He was watching
Real Stories of the Highway Patrol
and said that on the show they caught a guy they had been chasing across Ohio. When they pulled him over, they found a trunk full of guns. He was a twenty-five-year-old Christian fanatic with missing teeth, and he said he was going to Florida to kill the Antichrist. The episode had been taped the same week we just played in Florida.

     
APRIL 1997

I am enclosing the napkin on which I drafted a statement I had to make on MTV about our show being canceled against our will in South Carolina:

“Once again the so-called servants of God have proven my point with their hypocritical and hostile behavior. And once again they have illustrated their lack of separation between church and state and their disgusting similarities to Nazi Germany. Unfortunately everyone suffers: We suffer, our fans suffer, the constitution of the U.S.A. suffers, and the pious right-wing politicians of South Carolina suffer because everyone now sees them for the fascist idiots they are. What do we expect in a state that still flies the Confederate flag? You want a revolution? You’ll get it!”

     
MAY 10, 1997

Just found out that one of my roadies, Sean McGann, died last night. He had been drinking and was trying to rappel down the catwalk. But he forgot to attach the ropes. I know it’s not my fault, but I can’t help feeling that it somehow is, because if it wasn’t for me he’d still be alive.

Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life, because outside of my dog Aleusha this is really the first person close to me who has died. It makes me wonder what I was thinking years ago when I tried to kill Nancy and our old bassist, Brad. Trying to kill them would have been pointless. Nature takes its own course. It’s Social Darwinism. People get what they deserve. But did Sean really deserve that?

     
MOTHER’S DAY, BACK LOUNGE, 6 A.M.

I called my mother today, and realized really for the first time how shitty I had acted as a kid and how much abuse I had given her. If it weren’t for her tolerance and unconditional love and support, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I told her I loved her, and she said she already knew that. If she didn’t, her pride would have convinced her of it anyway. I’ve been seeing a lot of my father lately, too. He comes to a lot of the shows. He seems to enjoy the attention more than I do. He goes around telling people that he’s the father of the God of Fuck. I think now that we understand each other, our relationship has become so much better than it was when I was a kid. I guess when people began to accept what I did, my parents began to accept it as well.