Long Hard Road Out of Hell

by Marilyn Manson

  SEPTEMBER 1996, NEW YORK CITY

  None of us wanted to play this Nothing Records showcase in the first place, and now I’ve inadvertently injured my drummer, nailing him with a microphone stand and landing him in the hospital. We had wanted to do a Marilyn Manson show to kick off the tour for Antichrist Superstar, but this turned into some sort of strange ego trip which I’m sure was just to make us look foolish. I’m going to go to sleep now and pretend like this didn’t happen. This wasn’t the beginning of the tour, it was one last favor.

  OCTOBER 19, 1996, CLEVELAND

  Tony Ciulla, our new manager, came by and asked me to guess what number Antichrist Superstar went to on the charts today. I told him, “Three,” and I was right. It couldn’t be any other number. On the back of the record, there’s three of us. There’s three sections to the record. It’s all three. The three means something else, too, something that’s going to happen in the future, something that is going to change the world as far as we…

  OCTOBER 22, 1996, TORONTO

  Someone called in a death threat today. They said they were gong to bomb the building and its occupants with mustard gas. Is that some sort of condiment? I guess I give them credit for being creative. And obviously I’m still here.

  UNDATED

  For a moment tonight I felt like Christ. It was snowing on me, and I could have been anywhere—Wichita, Berlin, Golgotha. There was a mirror behind the crowd on the wall, and I watched myself like a painting, frozen. The gash in my side bled and bled. It was so beautiful I cried right there in front of five thousand people. I was letting out the boy who had died on his plastic cross in elementary school. He escaped through the hole in my ribs.

  HALLOWEEN 1996, NEW JERSEY

  Tonight somehow the rumor got started I was going to kill myself. But I’ve died so much in the past year, I don’t think there’s much left to kill.

  UNDATED

  I’m becoming what I used to be afraid of. When the whole world wants to destroy you, every day is your last day and every performance is your final one. The Antichrist isn’t just me, or just one person. It’s all of us, a collective state of mind that America needs to have awakened in them. I want to wake it in them. That’s the purpose of this tour, maybe even my life, to make Americans realize they don’t have to believe in something just because they’ve been told it all their lives. You can’t have someone who’s never had sex or drugs telling you it’s wrong. Only through experience can you determine your own morality. Humanity isn’t about constantly having to seek forgiveness for being human; humanity is leading a guiltless existence as an individual. That is Armageddon, because, to Christianity, if you forsake the idea of God and believe in yourself, the world is over.

  GIVEN: AS BELIEVERS IN CHRIST, WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD AND WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE AUTHORITY OVER DEMONS AND EVIL SPIRITS.

  GIVEN: THE “ROCK” GROUP MARILYN MANSON CONSISTS OF DEMONS OR EVIL SPIRITS IN THAT THEY ESPOUSE HERETICAL BELIEFS, CLAIM TO BE ANTICHRISTS AND SATANISTS, AND ATTEMPT TO TEMPT CHILDREN AWAY FROM CHRISTIANITY WITH SIN.

  PART OF THE AUTHORITY CHRIST HAS GIVEN US OVER DEMONS IS THE POWER TO, THROUGH PRAYER, BIND, RESTRAIN AND INHIBIT THE ACTIONS OF EVIL SPIRITS.

  THIS BINDING COMMAND HAS BEEN ISSUED IN RESPONSE TO A PLEA FOR HELP FROM STUDENTS AT SEVERAL CHRISTIAN COLLEGES IN FLORIDA. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO HARM IN ANY WAY THE PERSONS OF ANYONE IN MARILYN MANSON. IT IS AN ATTACK SOLELY ON THIS CONCERT AND IS INTENDED TO CAST THESE DEMONS OUT OF THE COMMUNITY OF ORLANDO ONLY.

  WITH THIS COMMAND BELOW, WE NOW BIND THE DEMONS AND EVIL SPIRITS THAT SURROUND THE PERFORMANCE BY MARILYN MANSON ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF THE ELEVENTH MONTH IN THE YEAR OF NINETEEN-NINETY-SIX.

  OFOUL AND EVIL SPIRITS WHO HAVE BROUGHT

  THE MUSIC GROUP MARILYN MANSON INTO ORLANDO,

  AND HAVE CONSUMED AND POSSESSED THE BODIES AND MINDS

  OF ALL WHO ARE A PART OF THE GROUP OR AN AID TO THEIR MOVEMENTS,

  BY THE POWER GIVEN US BY JESUS CHRIST, AND IN HIS HOLY NAME,

  WE HEREBY BIND THE BUSSES AND THE TRUCKS THAT WILL BRING

  MARILYN MANSON AND THEIR MUSIC INTO OUR COMMUNITY.

  WE BIND THE ENGINE THAT MAKES THE CAR RUN,

  AND THE FUEL THAT MAKES THE ENGINE RUN.

  WE BIND THE LIGHTS AND THE AMPLIFIERS,

  THE MICROPHONES AND MUSICAL EQUIPMENT,

  NEEDED FOR THEIR VILE AND BLASPHEMOUS PERFORMANCE.

  WE BIND THE MOUTH AND HANDS AND FEET,

  OF THE MEMBERS OF MARILYN MANSON,

  SO THAT THEY CANNOT SOW LIES

  AND SPREAD DISCONTENT AMONG OUR YOUTH,

  OR PLAY THEIR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,

  OR TRESPASS ON OUR COMMUNITY.

  IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST WE BIND THESE DEMONS,

  AND BY HIS HAND WE KNOW THEY SHALL BE BOUND.

  OUR SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR THIS ACTION IS AS FOLLOWS:

  MARK 16:15-18 (KJV)

  15 AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD, AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE.

  16 HE THAT BELIEVETH AND IS BAPTIZED SHALL BE SAVED; BUT HE THAT BELIEVETH NOT SHALL BE DAMNED.

  17 AND THESE SIGNS SHALL FOLLOW THEM THAT BELIEVE; IN MY NAME SHALL THEY CAST OUT DEVILS; THEY SHALL SPEAK WITH NEW TONGUES;

  18 THEY SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS; AND IF THEY DRINK ANY DEADLY THING, IT SHALL NOT HURT THEM; THEY SHALL LAY HANDS ON THE SICK, AND THEY SHALL RECOVER.

  —PRAYER DISTRIBUTED BY PROTESTORS BEFORE MARILYN MANSON CONCERT IN ORLANDO, FLORIDA

  NOVEMBER 2, 1996, NEW JERSEY

  There’s something exciting and terrifying about club shows and theater shows, but the arena concert is so Antichrist Superstar. And tonight seeing six thousand people raise their fist to “Beautiful People” is so Nero, so powerful, bombastic, fascistic, rock and roll. It’s disgusting and I love it.

  NOVEMBER 6, 1996, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Twiggy and I called Trent. No response. I don’t know what I did to be so hated. If it was being myself, then I guess that’s the price I have to pay. It’s behind me now. I hold no grudges. I just wish the tension would be resolved.

  NOVEMBER 15, 1996, FORT LAUDERDALE

  It’s funny because for the past two years Twiggy and I have listened to Dr. Hook’s “Cover of the Rolling Stone” ritualistically, as if maybe it would actually land us in the magazine. And strangely enough that interview came today. I’m not sure if the writer was gay or not, so I did most of the interview in the hot tub to either confuse or excite him. I think it did both. I informed him that this would be one of the most important articles he would write, and I know that to be true.

  NOVEMBER 16, 1996, FORT LAUDERDALE

  Our homecoming show was better than I expected. I thought people would be negative and resentful because they feel like I owe them something or they knew me when. But in fact, I never had a lot of friends here because nobody ever really believed in what I was trying to do. The only people I feel I owe anything to are my parents for supporting me when I didn’t have a job. Anyone I may have used should feel happy that they even had a use. It’s better than being useless.

  NOVEMBER 23, 1996, SOUTH AMERICA

  Tonight we went to some bar in Santiago and the floor was made out of Plexiglas and there were weird lights shining out of it and we got really drunk on Chilean wine. Some bizarre character came up to me and asked if I liked Ziggy Stardust. I told him that it was a great record. He seemed upset and repeated the phrase Ziggy Stardust, making a sniffing noise this time. He explained that he wanted to sell us a bunch of hard-core South American cocaine. We hadn’t really binged on the dust since recording Antichrist Superstar. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do. So we figured when in South America, do as the South Americans do and snort a lot of hard-core cocaine. Someone said a bunch of cops were outside. In Chile, cops aren’t guys in blue suits with nightsticks. They’re a squadron in a tank with machine guns. Somehow we escaped. We stayed up all night anyway, drinking wine and making people snort mysterious pink dust a roadie bough
t in a park outside a death metal concert. Of course we had to fly in the morning, which is where I’m writing this from, on the plane. And I feel sick.

  DECEMBER 3, 1996, GERMANY

  Last night I left Twiggy at about six A.M. Apparently he stayed up until about noon. All of the hair on his forehead is missing.

  DECEMBER 19, 1996, DAY OFF

  What happens someday if more people own my record than the bible? Will that make me god because more people believe in me than him? Because it’s just about popularity. There are plenty of people in the world who have never heard of Jesus, while in America he’s taken for granted. The key to changing the way people think is to change what’s popular. That’s why rather than submit to the mainstream, you have to become it—and then overcome it.

  March 19, 1997

  TO: Mississippi Coast Coliseum Commissioners

  c/o Executive Director Bill Holmes

  Dear Commissioners:

  I encourage you to cancel the Marilyn Manson appearance at the Coliseum.

  I feel that Manson’s appearance and giving him a forum to spout his poisoned philosophy is not in the best interest of the Mississippi Coast community.

  During this holiest of the Christian seasons celebrating the risen Christ, I believe that this controversy is an affront to the taxpaying citizens who built and support the Coliseum.

  In the interest of unity and cohesion in the community, I ask that you take action to cancel this concert!

  Sincerely,

  (signature)

  Ken Combs

  Mayor

  KC/jw

  JANUARY 5, 1997

  Tonight was my birthday. Too tired to go into details, but you can be sure that since Rolling Stone came out today (ironically), we snorted lines off my face on the cover as Dr. Hook played at an ungodly volume. I told you so.

  UNDATED

  Tried to call Trent again today. They gave us some lame excuse, the same kind of excuse he would have us give when he didn’t want to accept calls from people he hated.

  JANUARY 16, 1997, ON A HIGHWAY SOMEWHERE

  Shitty hotels, shitty drugs, shitty shows with shittier after-parties, shitty conversations, shitty blow jobs, shitty buses, shitty bus rides, shitty fights, shitty reconciliations, shitty television with shittier Spectravision, shitty Gothic bars, shitty interviews, shitty photo shoots, shitty Christians, shitty atheists, shitty demo tapes, shitty moods, shitty food, shitty shit.

  JANUARY 17, 1997, SEATTLE

  Jimmy has warts.

  JANUARY 27, 1997, 7 A.M., LOS ANGELES

  Tonight—or this morning—I can’t get to sleep, as usual, and I’m actually feeling happy. Trent surprised us all and showed up at our show. We hadn’t talked to him—or he hadn’t wanted to talk to us—since we finished the album. Right after the show I was taking a shower and he came in to the room and it was just like old times. We hugged, we were joking around. And it was a total holocaust night. We were totally high and we had Quiet Riot play at our after-show party at the Dragonfly. I think we reunited them, just like we did W.A.S.P. We take sole responsibility for the return of retro heavy metal, and I’m ashamed.

  But I digress. What happened was Trent and I walked out on the balcony of the hotel room later that night and I just said to him, “Whatever happened happened, let’s just put it behind us. I don’t care.” And then he said, “Well just for the record, I didn’t…” He defended himself for about an hour, I defended myself for an hour. Then we told each other, “Listen, it doesn’t matter, it’s over, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter.” And we meant it. Everything that had happened was necessary for the birth of Antichrist Superstar. It was a difficult birth but it was worth it. So supposedly everything is fine now. I hope it is.

  JANUARY 29, 1997, SAN DIEGO, 7 A.M.

  A horrendous night. Daniel Ash from Bauhaus and Love and Rockets knocked on my hotel room door and wanted to hang out, which seemed strange since we’d never even talked before. Twiggy had lines of coke out in my room and Daniel Ash was with an entourage of six people. None of them touched the drugs. They just kept putting their drinks on the tabletop the drugs were on. I was getting sick because I was kissing Daniel Ash’s ass, telling him what a big influence his guitar playing was on me, and he was kissing mine, telling me he wanted to remix a Marilyn Manson song. Then, out of nowhere, he turned on me.

  He hissed something like, “I don’t believe in what you do and I think it’s a bunch of bullshit. I don’t know about your music but your message—I worked with someone who hung out with you for a couple of days, and they told me what you were all about!” The rest of the band was totally cool—Kevin Haskins, the drummer, asked me for my autograph and David J. is just a weird creepy lizard man. Daniel Ash’s girlfriend kept trying to shut him up, but he wouldn’t. “I’ve been where you are, and I don’t ever want to be there again. It’s a hot trip to heaven, that’s what my album was about. You’re never going anywhere.” I think he was under the impression that we worshipped the devil and advocated rape—probably from those phony fucking affidavits—and he ended up chewing us out and ordering room service all night. A total schizo, and another idol forever shattered.

  FEBRUARY 4, 1997, LUBBOCK, TEXAS

  God has somehow managed to find his way into the Hippocratic oath because the paramedics here refused to treat me with oxygen for exhaustion after our performance, explaining that they didn’t agree with my morality, therefore I didn’t deserve their emergency life-preserving skills. Apparently Jesus saves, but the paramedics here don’t.

  FEBRUARY 7, 1997, KANSAS

  I’m not sure what I hate more: the bomb threats or the bomb dogs that are trying to save us. Because those happen to be the same dogs that sniff out drugs, and I don’t know whether I’m more paranoid of getting blown up or arrested.

  FEBRUARY 14, 1997

  I lost the last connection with my past today, Missi. The fact that I wasn’t with her today must have symbolized my priorities to her, and she doesn’t want to speak to me. We’ll always be close, because she has a part of me inside her. But it’s a part of me I no longer have—and it was the darkest part of me, too. I hope it doesn’t cripple her the rest of her life.

  FEBRUARY 19, 1997, MASSACHUSETTS

  I can’t decide if I hate America more than it hates me.

  FEBRUARY 21, 1997, MASSACHUSETTS

  Another shitty show. Now I can’t decide if America hates me more than I hate myself.

  UNDATED

  The ironic part about all this Christian outrage is that on certain levels this tour pales compared to some of the things that we’ve done in the past. The Christians are complaining about the way I compare them to Nazis. They’re not complaining about me tearing up the bible; they’re not complaining about me wiping my ass with the American flag. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous: the stories they’ve created or the fact that people believe them. If I didn’t commit those acts, then where did they come from? Nowhere other than the imagination of my accusers. So who’s the sinner now?

  MARCH, 1997, NEW YORK

  I met Fiona Apple at the Grammy Awards after-party the other night. She’s this little singer who no one’s heard of. I’m a huge fan of her music. And she’s so sexy and fragile, definitely too fragile for me. If I was ever to be put in a circumstance where I could have sex with her, I would decline because her vagina is probably too precious to be dirtied by my filthy cock. When she walked in the room they were blasting the song we did for Lost Highway, “Apple of Sodom,” and the lyric playing was “I got something you can never eat.” Total delusional self, because that song’s about obsession and things you can never have and, in a distant way, is kind of inspired by her.

  She was slouched over and looked very timid, almost like a wounded deer, as if she was about to cry. I asked her what’s wrong, and she said she was overwhelmed and show business was too much stress for a girl of her age with her constitution. I asked her to sit down and said I’d bring her some food or a dri
nk, but she was a vegan and—unlike me—was really picky about what she’d put into her body, which definitely means we’ll never get along even though I’m attracted to her on many different levels. When I was speaking with her, I was distracted for two seconds by some celebrity’s drunk teenage daughter who was bouncing around singing songs and talking about the various rock stars who had made her pregnant. Another starfucker and sycophant sucking the life out of me and distracting me from the conversation that I want to have. When I turned back around, this weird fellow had kind of slithered his way up to Fiona and was performing card tricks for her. Really lame. In the book of shitty ways to pick up women this was chapter one. But I think it worked.

  AFFIDAVIT OF

  [NAME WITHHELD]

  STATE OF OKLAHOMA

  COUNTY OF OKLAHOMA

  I [NAME WITHHELD] HEREBY SWEAR, AFFIRM, DECLARE AND AFFITT:

  1. I AM A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD MALE AND RESIDE AT [ADDRESS WITHHELD] OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA [ZIP WITHHELD].

  2. THREE YEARS AGO I WAS A RUNAWAY FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD WHEN I FIRST MET MARILYN MANSON (BRIAN WARNER) AND WAS ACCEPTED BY HIM INTO HIS CIRCLE OF FRIENDS OR “FAMILY.” OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST THREE YEARS I HAVE SPENT PERIODS OF TIME WITH MANSON ON TWENTY SPECIFIC PERIODS OF TIME, THE MOST RECENT BEING TWO MONTHS AGO. I DID SEE HIM LAST MONTH BRIEFLY.

  3. I HAVE BEEN PRESENT IN THE CONCERT VENUES BOTH IN THE AUDIENCE AND BACKSTAGE AND BEHIND THE SCENES AT MANY MANSON CONCERTS INCLUDING THE CURRENT ANTICHRIST SUPERSTAR TOUR SIX TIMES.