by Corey Taylor
You can’t be this blind to what you’ve become, conservatives. You are officially every cliché in Footloose. You can’t have missed that. It’s why you only appeal to one color—LILY FUCKING WHITE—and very little to basically EVERY OTHER ONE OUT THERE. You didn’t used to care—historically speaking, white people were really the only ones who came out to exercise their right to vote. When it seemed like other colors were starting to ramp up a resistance by voting another way, you did everything from changing voting laws to realigning voting districts to maintain power. But you can’t do that anymore. People are on to you. Now your laws are being overturned because—BIG FUCKING SHOCK—they are unconstitutional. Now voters are coming out in droves, mainly because you allowed a fucking imbecile to be your nominee but also because you’ve spent a lot of years having it your way and ensuring that everyone else gets screwed. So the people are speaking. Actually, they’re screaming—at you. So now that your party is in tatters, it’s time to shape up. If you want any future of trying to do good for the American people, you need to remember that there are A LOT OF DIFFERENT AMERICAN PEOPLE. If you can’t get that through your fucking head, THEN OFF WITH YOUR FUCKING HEAD.
I’ll keep some faith, though. I grew up in the Midwest, so there’s a part of me with a certain conservative bent, just as I realize that a few forms of welfare can and have helped people who could use the lift up off the ground. After all, I was one of those people. I was a child of food stamps and Reagan cheese giveaways. I am a product of school lunches and holiday sponsors (programs in which rich people take kids out and buy them presents). I’ve seen the other side—I know that it’s not all succubi and leeches. Those in charge love sweeping terms because it sucks the humanity completely out of the “who and why” these programs help. I’m not one of those people who believes healthcare can just be free, not in a free market and a capitalist nation. But I do think that there is no real reason why platforms can’t exist to get some folks back on their feet again. Sure, these programs need policing so the thieves who try to work the system are dealt with. But we are so capable of empathy and kindness, especially to our own people dealing with adversity. We forget sometimes that this is about helping Americans. I think Reagan would agree with me that taking care of our own is a far better legacy to leave behind than pulling us all apart from within and from without. The pain judges us all; there are no exceptions on this point. We can either reach out a hand or turn our backs. I fail to see any other option.
Uncle Ronnie wouldn’t want that. I’m not sure how he’d feel about Trump at the helm, but he wouldn’t want us giving the cold shoulder to the American people. At the end of the day that man bled red, white, and blue. He wasn’t the hero we wanted at times; however, he is an iconic figure for a reason: because he dared to pull us up off the floor and got us to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. That was no easy feat. I think that’s what so many of us would like for ourselves now. Reagan is gone, Trump can’t do it, and there’s really no one left. I guess I’ll keep scanning the horizon for a better choice. I hope you’ll join me.
CHAPTER 3
RED, WHITE, AND BLUETOOTH
TODAY I’M WRITING TO YOU FROM THE DISTANT PAST.
Well, not so fucking distant, really—at the most we’re probably only talking about a year or so ago. Still, that’s a fucking weird one, isn’t it? Almost like a sort of reverse time travel. “OOOOOOH, TAKE HEED, O LEERY WAYWARD TRAVELER! FOR IIIIIIIIII HAVE BEEN TO THE PAST, AND I AM ABOUT TO REGALE YOU WITH INCREDIBLE THINGS YOU MOST LIKELY WOULD HAVE PUT TOGETHER ON YOUR OWN ANYWAY. YEAH, NOT REALLY A REVELATION, BUT STILL! OOOOOOOH!” I can just see people lining up for my futuristic ride at Disney’s California Adventure now. Everybody hold on to your dicks and experience “Corey Taylor’s Trip into Just a Little Bit Ago!” Fuckin’ magic. If I were a big enough cunt to write with emojis, this is where the Magic Floating Head would roll his eyes. Plus, when you think about it, all books are written from the past, which kind of pops the cherry on my so-called brilliance when it came to this vision. That bums me out—I truly thought I was being clever. Tells you what’s wrong with me, I guess…
It’s a CMFT book—there’s was bound to be a paragraph that went screaming off the tracks…
Anyway, getting back to my DIY blast from the past, I want to describe to you the epiphany I had not too long ago. You see, I was visiting a far-off land of exotics and mystery on the last Slipknot tour. It was a place I thought I’d never get to go to because some of the politics surrounding this place don’t quite jibe with America’s way of life—not the country itself but one of its “benefactors.” So for a long time it seemed like this wouldn’t be a possibility. Then suddenly one thing leads to another, an offer we couldn’t refuse came across our desks, and bada boom bada bing, we were working its capital city into our routing. I for one was excited! I love going places I’ve never been before. When we arrived it was nighttime, so we didn’t get to go out and explore very much, but I was confident we’d be out and about once we all got some much-needed shuteye.
Cut to my reaction when I got to my hotel room. The only way I can make you understand what I was feeling was that the entire place smelled like the seventies. There was a war for supremacy being waged between the stink of a few decades’ worth of cigarette smoke and the specter of an overflowed bathtub sunk deep in the rug. It was a heavy stink—the kind of stink that stays with you through at least two washes, understand? It was the kind of stink that might turn you on if you were into certain kinds of kink. The bed was no better—for some reason my pillows reeked of a backed-up toilet with every other breath. Yeah, you read that right. Every other sniff was terrible. I don’t know where the hell that nasty shit would go when I was prepared for it, but motherfucker, it would come rushing back into my defenseless nostrils when I wasn’t… um, nose looking. There’s an odd situation: How would you describe a smell you didn’t “see” coming? And what sort of phrase would fit that scenario? There’s nose-blind or nose-deaf, but is there such a thing as nose-ignorant? Ooh! What about in-sniff-erent? That’s a great one! I was becoming in-sniff-erent to the barrage of stankins going on around me. I drew a reluctant breath and resolved to ride out the night, and I’d figure it out in the morning.
The next morning a storm hit the island—because of course it did. I was locked in all day: no trips to any of the islands, no walking around the thoroughfares or marketplaces, no seeing any of the sites of historical significance—just a gray backdrop to the assault on my nose’s Thirteenth Precinct. There are a lot of words I can come up for this scenario: insufferable, intolerable, grossly unfortunate. However, all that kept coming to my mind was, “Well, fuck, man!” Suffice it to say it was a long fucking four days stuck in that particular predicament. Now, you may be screaming at yourself to ask me, “Hey toots, what’s the matter with a little rain? Afraid to get wet, are ya?” To which my most furtive reply would be, “Stick your shitty questions back up your ass, cocksucker—in blue and black ink, thank you very much.” Honestly, you only have yourself to blame for that one—you know I’m a fucking asshole.
Anyway, as I sat there in that far-off land, nestled among the stiff sheets, the dank, retched smells, and the isolation brought on by the color gray reflecting and bouncing around every corner of the room, I closed my eyes and thought to myself, Even with all the issues going on, I cannot WAIT to get back to my country. And that, my friends, is how awesome the United States can be: when even the lure of a rain-drenched exotic island can’t compare to being able to do whatever the fuck you want at any time of day. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that this feeling has been extended to everyone in our country; unfortunately, certain fuckwads are trying to ruin it for a lot of people because to them, WHITE ONLY = AMERICAN. We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but for the time being let’s discuss America like it’s fair and balanced for us all. This country can be fucking Candy Land with the right method and mayhem, especially when you take into account that there are no
closed borders between states (except the one out in the middle of Canada), no curfews in the major cities (except where the populace exercises their rights to peaceably protest), no limit to what you can do with your money (except buy and distribute drugs, and then only in states where it’s not legal yet). I mean, you can eat, fuck, work, smoke, dance, run, laugh, live and die twenty-four hours a day in the Greatest Country in the World™.
Yeah, I put the trademark symbol on that fucker. We rub that in people’s faces so often that we have to own the rights to that saying. Plus, I’ll be honest: it’s hard to argue with the reasoning behind our odd proclamation. You need to remember this is the same United States where the United Nations sent an envoy to review how the indigenous people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline were being treated while in custody. Yes, you read that right: while protesting, the Native Americans and their allies were being abused in ways that were so bad that the UN—an organization that goes to places like Syria and Iran to investigate abuses or acts of war—CAME TO AMERICA. That’s how bad it’s gotten for certain people. Between Black Lives Matter and #IStandWithStandingRock, this country looks a lot more like Nazi fucking Germany sometimes than it does the freest country on Earth. Like I said, if your skin color is a little bit darker than see-through pale, chances are you’re going to get fucked over in the USA. We the people who give a shit are trying to beat it back, but it’s gotten out of hand. I think we all know why, but once again, we’ll cover that in an up-and-coming chapter.
Disturbing flaws and hypocritical laws aside, if you play your cards right in America, you can go a long way. Some places are more liberal than others, and it’s easier for everyone to find a way to get ahead. Speaking from experience, if you’re going to be homeless somewhere, make it America in the summertime, or at least in the Southwest or on the West Coast. That’s not a joke; that’s a fucking fact, tested and ratified by This Guy Doing the Writing. There are institutions set up and designed to get you fed, get you some clothes, get you a place to sleep, and so forth. Right down the line, they’ll take care of you—not because they have to but because they really actually fucking give a shit whether you live or die. Some of these armchair conservatives want to talk shit on the “bleeding hearts,” but those bleeding hearts kept me alive, so go fuck yourselves, thank you very much. Just goes to show you: even if you ain’t got a motherfucking thing in America, you can STILL GET SOME SHIT in America.
I’ve seen a motherfucker with no house walking around with a cell phone. That’s how easy it is to stay on top of shit in this country. Either he’s brilliant or I’m an idiot. Then again, both of those statements can be true. I know the pendulum swings both ways and cuts everybody. For every person stuck in a system trying to get help, there’s a genius bastard using the system to help his or herself, screwing everyone else over in the process. Best-case scenarios have these grifting bastards being caught before they can siphon too much away. The worst-case scenarios involve scandal, prosecution, and eventually shutting down these programs because “it just goes to show you that the welfare state is a lie—just a bunch of people who don’t want to work for a living.” You could say that’s the problem with the system, but it’s also an example of the ingenuity that comes with a free country. If these fuckers had put as much work and thought into working and doing something with their lives as they had in manipulating a system designed to help people who can’t help themselves, maybe we’d be a little better off in the end. Of course, there are people who believe a fiscally balanced country wouldn’t have room for certain welfare programs like these, to which I’d say, “Yeah, and just how much does your budget give to the military and religious legislation again?”
This, however, is the price we pay for entitlement and technology: laziness to progress and impartiality to the plight of others. Yes, this kind of free thought in a free market can lead to incredible discovery and investment. It can also lead to shit heels “doing a run” on food stamps. I’ll explain: food stamps can only be used for food—or at least that’s the way it used to be. So people on food stamps who want to use the money for other things—like cigarettes, gas, bills, and so on—“do a run” on the books as they come in by splitting them up between friends or family members, sending them into various stores, using them to buy something for $0.10 to $0.25, collecting the change—in real currency—and consolidating it into cash to be deposited in a checking account or blown on booze and drugs. I’ve seen it both ways—this is just a minor scam. I’ve also seen some shit that is so fucking disturbing that it’d put you off trying to help people for thirty fucking years. So I’ll just save those for my memoirs.
If you think these are my memoirs, shit, just wait until the ones who can testify are dead…
There are ways to circumvent the various welfare states in the United States, but there are also several ways to get up on your feet from a small business standpoint. There are federal grants for these things and tax breaks for starting local businesses. Hell, this is the only fucking country I can think of where little corner markets can change hands quite a few times, from people who’ve lived here their whole lives to people who just showed up, and boom, you’ve got a way to feed and take care of your family. Bodegas and corner shops have been a nice steady source of revenue for ages. I know of families who’ve just wandered into abandoned shops, gotten the power turned back on, lined up distribution, and before anyone can cry, “How the fuck did you get the keys for this place?” they’re well and embedded, with no way to supplant them according to squat laws. Isn’t that crazy? I know little white fuck-offs who bitch and moan because they have to actually pick up shit at the makeup counters they work for (part time), and yet here are these resourceful families coming into a place they’ve never been and being afforded a way of life based on some shit they’ve never felt before: freedom.
That’s why some of us pasty heathens are such dick lickers—we take our freedom for granted and feel threatened when (a) people remind us of how amazingly we have it so we pump up some piddly shit to feel “burdened” and (b) we find out somebody might actually be better off than we are, and because we can’t have that, seeing as we’re “white and right,” we cry foul for some trumped-up shit (see what I did there?). Don’t believe me? Ask some white motherfucker with a big mouth and an incredible sense of entitlement what’s so offensive about the BLM movement. They’ll either claim it’s a terrorist organization trying to kill us all or they’ll get defensive and start throwing around that “All Lives Matter” horseshit, which is just them admitting that, yes, people have it way worse than we do in this country, but because we can’t handle that sort of guilt, we’ll be sanctimonious and make ourselves look like cunts by demeaning and downplaying the importance of the real problem. These are the days in which we live, folks: when white people still can’t stand the fact that people of color still have it way fucking worse than we do, so we cry “reverse discrimination” to keep from crying in our gold-plated mashed potatoes. It’s times like these when the whole gaggle of fuck-holes should seriously consider just shutting the fuck up.
That’s because white people have never required a reason for anything—just justification. White people—not all, but several—are very good at playing both sides of the fence for their own purposes: slave/master, oppressor/oppressed, and victim/anything that has to do with assault of any kind. We’ve been doing this sort of thing since we decided that white people should be in control. We are the kings of privilege; our slighted hands are simply sleight of hand. We can exaggerate our problems for the sake of the argument just so we’re not seen as being too opulent, which, to be fair, isn’t something anyone should be made to feel bad about. But that shit comes and goes as well. The same people who bitch and moan about a celebrity’s opinion on politics are the same people who’ll act high and mighty when it comes to any sort of programs that get people back on their feet. Then again, maybe they don’t like the fact that most people on welfare are white. So much for “we work
harder than those other colors.” Maybe that’s why they also like to try to restructure districts and regulations to make it harder for people of color to vote properly. White politicians don’t like activism because it’s a reminder of how shitty our track record has been with progressive change. It’s a child’s argument: “Well, she started it!” Social media has cranked the volume knob on this particular Marshall head, but it’s been around for ages.
Sorry if I offend any white people with these sentiments, but being as I’m also white and I’ve seen this type of reprehensible shit firsthand, you should probably put that faux offense away for a bit. I’m going to make a point, albeit eventually. So let me circle back to something I said before in an earlier chapter. One of the things white people love to do is claim that black people can be racist as well. That’s not accurate, and if more people knew what the actual definition of racism was, maybe we could get a better handle on it. No, white people have it all wrong. Some black people aren’t racist—they are prejudiced. Prejudice is about a certain hatred that comes with a preconceived notion about the color of someone’s skin or gender or sexual preference. It stems from sweeping, shitty stereotypes, like “all black people are criminals,” or “all Latinos are in gangs,” or “all gays are child molesters,” or “all white people are Nazi skinheads.” Do you see what I mean? That is prejudice: a conclusion made based on garbage. Racism is very different. Racism has to do with control and a very certain kind of imagined control. Racism is the belief that one race is far superior to all other colors, shapes, and sizes and that not only do people of this race have the right to do whatever they want to people but that those other colors are expected to bow down and succumb, kneel, yield, concede, and all that bullshit. That is racism. Black people don’t do that. They stick up for their culture and almost certainly amplify their pride based on hundreds of years of oppression and opposition, but even if they feel and believe that being black is better than being any other color, that’s not the same thing as racism. White people have a very different approach to those sentiments. They will steamroll you with their believed superiority even when they don’t think they’re racist themselves. It’s kind of amazing to watch sometimes, this battle between “peace over privilege.” But that’s my point: white people even have to make a conscious effort to fight a weird inherent mindset that somehow we are better than everyone else. It could just be that we humans are all psychotically egotistical and that everyone else is just better at keeping it in check than white folks. Time will tell.
