Long Hard Road Out of Hell

by Marilyn Manson

  ADDITIONALLY, IT APPEARS THAT THE NSJEA’S REQUIREMENT THAT ALL PERFORMERS SIGN A CONTRACT ALLOWING THE NSJEA TO REGULATE THE MORALITY OF CONCERT PROGRAMS MAY BE AN UNREASONABLE RESTRICTION ON ACCESS TO EVEN A NON-PUBLIC FORUM....

  IT APPEARS PATENTLY UNREASONABLE THAT GIANTS STADIUM WOULD PERMIT AN ENTIRE CONCERT OF HEAVY METAL BANDS, WHILE EXCLUDING ONLY ONE—MARILYN MANSON—WHICH HAS DEMONSTRATED NO PROPENSITY FOR ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES ON STAGE. THUS, THE NSJEA WILL SUFFER NO IRREPARABLE INJURY FROM ALLOWING MARILYN MANSON TO PERFORM AT GIANTS STADIUM....

  IT IS ON THIS 7TH DAY OF MAY ORDERED THAT, PENDING A HEARING ON AN APPLICATION FOR A PERMANENT INJUNCTION, THE NSJEA IS PRELIMINARILY ENJOINED AND RESTRAINED FROM PROHIBITING PLAINTIFFS FROM PRESENTING A CONCERT PERFORMANCE BY “MARILYN MANSON” AT GIANTS STADIUM ON JUNE 15, 1997.

  —FROM THE DECISION OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT OF NEW JERSEY UPHOLDING THE RIGHT OF PLAINTIFFS, MARILYN MANSON, INC., ET. AL., TO PERFORM AS PART OF THE OZZFEST AT GIANTS STADIUM, WHICH HAD BEEN CANCELED BY THE DEFENDANT, NJSEA.

  JUNE 19, 1997, CHICAGO

  I expected the OzzFest crowd to be much more open-minded. This is an audience that grew up in the tradition of Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, and other bands that put on more than your average rock and roll show. But so far it’s just been a bunch of really drunk assholes who are intimidated by the fact that they are confused and maybe they want to fuck me, and it pisses them off. But in a weird way, I think I’m beginning to like this. It’s been a while since we performed and weren’t the headliners. Sometimes a crowd that hates me this much is as good as crowd that loves me, because it inspires me to give my best performance.

  JULY 31, 1997, TORONTO

  Today the police told me that if I sang the Patti Smith song “Rock and Roll Nigger” I would be arrested under the hate crime law for promoting racial disharmony. So to fuck with the police I had a friend of mine, Corey, who happens to be black, accompany me and my bodyguard, Aaron, into my meeting with these moronic individuals. Wearing a police hat, I asked the officer in charge what problems he had with our show. He nervously shuffled through his notes and said, “There’s one song in particular,” as if he couldn’t remember what it was, and then he mumbles “Rock and Roll Nigger,” specifically so as not to offend Corey, who looks like he’ll kick the shit out of anyone who’s white. I went on to explain to him that not only did Patti Smith write the song (and not me) but that the song represents the isolation and discrimination of people for their ideas and their beliefs and their art—which ironically was exactly what this asshole was doing. He still didn’t seem to understand so I told him quite simply I would do the song and we would see what happened when it was done.

  Though I told him the show would not be changed, I did change it in several simple ways. I donned a police uniform and something given to me by a fan, a badge formerly in the possession of an officer shot in the line of duty. I also invited Corey to help me sing, in particular the lines with the word nigger in them.

  We performed the song as an encore, and I introduced it by saying, “I want to tell you about something that happened recently. There’s a song that’s twenty years old written by a woman named Patti Smith. And a couple of white cops came up to me and they said, ‘You can’t sing that song.’ They said that it’s against black people. What I wanna explain to those moronic fucking idiots is that the song’s about people like me and you, people that get discriminated against for the way we are. Just like they fucking discriminated against us today. And they didn’t understand. It’s because they are a bunch of fucking idiots. So I dedicate this song to the Canadian police force.”

  What we and the crowd realized more than anything was that nobody here hated “niggers.” We all hated cops. I didn’t get arrested or even reprimanded. The cops might not have been listening, though. They were probably too busy searching the bathrooms for plungers to stick up our asses.

  SEPTEMBER 1997, PORTUGAL

  Plenty of people could do what I’m doing on an underground level—we did it for years and nobody cared. It’s not until you’re a household name that people give a shit. But what we’ve done onstage with the fascist banners, with tearing up the bible, with the snow falling from above, with the whole beautiful thing—it’s all so much more controversial than nudity or killing dogs onstage because it’s so powerful and it has meaning. I feel proud because in the beginning I hesitated. I didn’t know if I could get away with it. I could have been destroyed. I remember when we first played the record for Jimmy [Iovine, head of Interscope Records], he told us, “This is the best rock record that’s been written in the past ten years. But I don’t want to see you step on the wrong toes because then nobody will ever hear it. Anybody can sell 700,000 records. You can do that out of your garage.” So I told him that the important thing to me was that we’ve written good songs that people will remember and sing. We’ve infiltrated the mainstream in a way that they don’t want, and I think that is a work of art in itself.

  SEPTEMBER 1997, BRAZIL

  I opened a fortune cookie and it said, “When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.” Well, I’ve gotten everything that I wanted. We’re the biggest band in America. We’ve got platinum albums. We got the Rolling Stone cover that Dr. Hook never managed to get. But I’ve managed to destroy and lose everything that I’ve loved along the way. The whole world now looks at me the way I looked at my grandfather. I hope they like what they see, because now I finally do.

  I feel one part Elvis Presley, one part Jack Warner and one part Reverend Ernest Angley, and this disturbs me. In making my failures my success, I’ve become what I was once afraid of.

  SEPTEMBER 17, 1997, MEXICO CITY

  Tonight’s show was a disaster, a relief, a fiasco, a Mexican standoff and a drug-crazed freak-out. Twiggy slashed his hand open on the very last song of this very last show while smashing his bass. The whole thing was every bit of rock and roll and every bit of everything we represented. I feel like we’ve grown in the past year, and I’m glad that it’s over. I can see already that America, Nothing Records, our friends and the media have perceived this to be the peak of our career. Unfortunately for them it’s just the beginning.

  FIG. 561.—The superficial branches of the internal pudendal artery.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THANKS TO ALEUSHA, ALYSSA, ANDREW AND SUZIE,

  REVEREND ERNEST ANGLEY, FIONA APPLE, TOM ARNOLD, DANIEL ASH,

  ASIA, BIG DARLA, BLANCHE BARTON, SEAN BEAVAN, MRS. BURDICK,

  PAUL CAMBRIA, CARL, CASEY, CHAD, CAROLYN COLE, COREY,

  BILLY CORGAN, KEITH COST, JOHN CROWELL AND HIS BROTHER, DAVE,

  FREDDY DEMANN, AARON DILKS, DIMEBAG DARRELL, EDEN,

  COREY FELDMAN, ROBIN FINCK, FLAVOR FLAV, FRANKIE, FROG,

  MICHELLE GILL, JOHN GLAZER, SHERMAN HELMSLEY, JIMMY IOVINE,

  JAY AND TIM, JOHN JACOBAS, JENNA JAMESON, JEANINE, JEBEDIAH,

  JENNIFER, JESSICKA, JONATHAN, JACK KEARNIE, KELLY’S CORNHOLE,

  BILL KENNEDY, RICHARD KENT, MARY BETH KROGER,

  XERXES SATAN LAVEY, LENNY, MR. LIFTO, LISA, TRACI LORDS, LOUISE,

  COURTNEY LOVE, DAVID LYNCH, LYNN, JOHN A. MALM JR., MARIE,

  MARK, ROSE MCGOWAN, MISSI, MISTRESS BARBARA, NANCY,

  DAVE NAVARRO, CONAN O’BRIEN, DAVE OGILVIE, GUY OSEARY,

  PAUL AND RICHARD, SAUCY PETERSON, ROBERT PIERCE, TINA POTTS,

  Ms. PRICE, RACHELLE, TRENT REZNOR, JOAN RIVERS, JIM ROSE,

  RICK RUBIN’S BEARD, NEIL RUBLE, SHANA, SIOUX Z., BOB SLADE,

  THE SLASHERS, SNOOP DOGGY DOGG, HOWARD STERN, TERESA,

  TERRI, DJ TIM, JOHN TOVAR, JILL TUCKER, JULIA VALET,

  BARB AND HUGH WARNER, BEATRICE AND JACK WARNER,

  BRIAN WARNER, TONY WIGGINS, THE WYER FAMILY, AND ZEPP.

  SPECIAL THANKS TO DAISY BERKOWITZ, GINGER FISH,

  MADONNA WAYNE GACY, GIDGET GEIN, SARA LEE LUCAS, OLIVIA

  NEWTON-BUNDY, TWIGGY RAMIREZ, ZSA ZSA SPECK, AND ZIM ZUM.


  ADDITIONAL THANKS TO NOVA BONZEK, JENNIE BODDY,

  JASON BRODY, TONY CIULLA, KELLY COLEMAN, NINA CROWLEY AND

  THE MASSACHUSETTS MUSIC INDUSTRY COALITION, TODD DARROW,

  SAM FRANK, SILVIA GARCIA, SARAH LAZIN, PAULA O’KEEFE,

  RAHAV AND KIMBERLY, PATTY ROMANOWSKI, AND

  CATHERINE TYC FOR PROOFREADING, TRANSCRIBING, RESEARCH

  AND/OR LIKING IRON MAIDEN. AND TO EVERYONE AT

  REGANBOOKS, PARTICULARLY MY EDITORS,

  JEREMIE RUBY-STRAUSS AND HIS “GIRLFRIEND.”

  THIS BOOK IS ALSO DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

  ANTON SZANDER LAVEY.

  FIG. 911.—Front of left eye with eyelids separated to show medial canthus.

  PHOTO INSERT

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  All other photos courtesy of the author’s collection

  Illustrations on p. iv from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno by Allen Mandelbaum, translation copyright © 1980 by Allen Mandelbaum. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  fan club:

  MARILYN MANSON FAMILY

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  CREDITS

  COVER DESIGN © 1998 BY P.R. BROWN @

  BAU-DA DESIGN LAB. INC.

  COVER PHOTOGRAPHS © 1998 BY JOSEPH CULTICE

  All other photos courtesy of the author’s collection

  Illustrations on p. iv from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno by Allen Mandelbaum, translation copyright © 1980 by Allen Mandelbaum. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  fan club:

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  25935 DETROIT RD., SUITE #329

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  COPYRIGHT

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  TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT, MANY OF THE NAMES

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  THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN CHANGED AND SEVERAL

  CHARACTERS ARE COMPOSITES.

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  A HARDCOVER EDITION OF THIS BOOK WAS PUBLISHED IN 1998 BY REGANBOOKS. AN IMPRINT OF HARPERCOLLINSPUBLISHERS.

  the long hard road out of hell.

  COPYRIGHT © 1998 BY MARILYN MANSON AND NEIL STRAUSS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED UNDER INTERNATIONAL AND PAN-AMERICAN COPYRIGHT CONVENTIONS. BY PAYMENT OF THE REQUIRED FEES, YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED THE NONEXCLUSIVE, NONTRANSFERABLE RIGHT TO ACCESS AND READ THE TEXT OF THIS E-BOOK ON-SCREEN. NO PART OF THIS TEXT MAY BE REPRODUCED, TRANSMITTED, DOWNLOADED, DECOMPILED, REVERSE ENGINEERED, OR STORED IN OR INTRODUCED INTO ANY INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, WHETHER ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL, NOW KNOWN OR HEREINAFTER INVENTED, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF HARPERCOLLINS E-BOOKS.

  FIRST REGANBOOKS/HARPERPERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 1999.

  EPUB EDITION COPYRIGHT © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780062212658

  ISBN 0-06-039258-4

  ISBN 0-06-008746-1 (PBK)

  06 RRDH 30 29 28 27

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  ENDNOTE

  1This series of articles was originally written for Empyrean Magazine, vol. 7, nos. 2 and 3, issue dates May and June, 1995. It was never published due to content objections on the part of Empyrean’s publisher, Centaur Enterprises, which believed that the magazine had followed unethical interview procedures in order to extract information from Mr. Manson. The magazine folded soon afterward.