by Corey Taylor
Of course, it was all a lie.
Yeah man, are you fucking kidding me? Everyone in that neighborhood dealt crank when they weren’t beating their spouses. The kids were dicks, the dogs were rabid, the air smelled like weed and exhaust, all the cars were up on blocks because they didn’t run (didn’t really matter if the engines worked or not—none of them had wheels anyway), and the grass was interrupted on all sides by the junkyards that bordered that little hamlet. It was pure folly: Fool’s Gold Paradise. I knew it then and I know it now—there is no singular view of the United States of America. Every city, town, state, county, coast, quarter, section, region, area, and arena is completely different, and though we all have stunning similarities regardless of distance, those differences are one of the reasons we represent one of the most fascinating countries on Planet Earth. From the Mason-Dixon Line to the Continental Divide, the good ol’ US-of-A is so diverse in its scenery, cultures, peoples, landscapes, seasons, and raison d’êtres that you could try to cover it with as many pictures and examples as possible, and you’d never scratch the surface. Its faces are as varied as its languages; its scars as deep as any ocean and as painful as any tragedy. So when the White House, in its infinite wisdom, writes a statement on National Holocaust Remembrance Day—a day specifically about the Holocaust of World War II—and that statement makes no mention about the atrocities committed against the Jews, instead choosing to make some half-assed poke about “they weren’t the only ones affected by the Holocaust,” that sends a clear message to people who aren’t fucking stupid: CERTAIN AMERICANS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS, CERTAIN PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS, AND CERTAIN LIVES MATTER MORE THAN MOST. It’s disgusting on a level that most white people can’t fathom. Why? Because they have no real understanding of a pain or a violation like that.
Forgive me, but I’m going to get really fucking serious on you all right now.
All I hear from people all the fucking time is, “You have to give Trump a chance.” This is the mantra I keep hearing from my friends who are conservative across the board, not just fiscally like myself. They keep nudging me and saying, “Okay, it looks bad, but you have to give Trump a chance.” I thought about it. Really, I did. For a few weeks I just sat and observed, trying to wrestle my anger back into its restraints and log chains. I did my very best to put aside my vitriol on the great Cheeto and waited to give him a chance. So I watched—watched as he nominated shithead after shithead to this cabinet, including a woman auspiciously for Secretary of Education who not only pushes a very faith-based lesson program heavy on Creationism but also misspelled several words on Inauguration Day. I watched as the Cheeto kept getting bent out of shape like a petulant cunt, going on his late-night Twitter rants, accusing CNN of being fake news (Christ, he even managed to work it into his statement for Black History Month) and Saturday Night Live and the New York Times of being irrelevant. I watched as his cabinet tried desperately to push through an immigration ban that would protect no one yet discriminate against millions of specific people. I watched as the Cheeto blew up on North Korea, Iran, Mexico, Australia… and yet not one fucking word about Russia. I watched as millions of people, for better or worse, marched in nearly every city around the world in solidarity against this president. I’d never seen anything like it. I’ve lived through eight other POTUSes, and I have never seen this level of revilement in my entire life. But still, people are asking me to give him a chance. He has a fucking white nationalist press boy who looks like he showers in dumpster juice and a vice president who could be a stunt double for Ed Harris on Westworld. But I should give him a chance. No one has seen his wife since the inauguration, but people continue to call his daughter the First Lady. But I should give him a chance. He and his cabinet are causing Americans to tear this country apart. But I should give him a chance.
I don’t think so.
His ego refuses to admit that there’s anything wrong with what’s being said and done in his name or with his terrible version of “leading.” His narcissism won’t allow him to have an apologetic side, making him push his shitty chips in on a bet that no one can win. He is in a constant state of resting cunt face, physically incapable of distinguishing between falling asleep while angry and painfully explosive diarrhea. He gives off the impression of a joyless, bloodless, calculating cocksucker with no regard for anyone’s well-being other than his own—not even his children or his wife. These qualities might actually be effective in a leader if they didn’t look like they swallowed tiny children the way boa constrictors do. He’s too odd looking to be a Bond villain and too severe to be taken lightly. He has surrounded himself with yes men and women to keep his id on stroke. There are signals and there are warnings. So before I go any fucking further and give myself an aneurysm with this level of stupidity, tell me again why I should give him a fucking chance. Even if I took into consideration what might be a few good ideas for our financial futures, he’s still not a good leader. He’s not. I will gladly debate this until the day I fucking die. The Cheeto is not a good leader. I mean, who the fuck starts shit with Australia?!
I’m no kumbaya hippy-dippy dipshit. I don’t expect people to get along, hold hands, hug, and make out all the time while they make Robitussin brownies and read Archie Zombie comics. I have no illusions about how evolved we actually are. I know we still have a need for capital punishment and our Second Amendment rights. I know people tend to get monster hard-ons for each other, causing them to assault with extreme prejudice. But I do expect our leader to keep his fucking cool. I do expect him (or her) to at least try to bring us all together instead of merely strengthen his fucking base. I expect him to at least try to pretend to give a shit about other people. You can’t do that when you specifically narrow the scope of the internal terrorism laws to be more Islam-centric and to let Neo-Nazis off the fucking hook. You don’t do that by making it painfully clear that the whiter you are, the better off you’ll be in Trump’s America.
In my America people embrace each other like a good bag of M&Ms—you know what you got is awesome on the inside, whether or not the outside is different. We’ve been given this gift of a country, and yet none of us can figure out who deserves to be here. Well, I say “given,” even though we did kind of help ourselves to this land, taking advantage of a culture that had no system of ownership or money. Then we kicked them all across the country after telling them, “Okay, this time, we swear we won’t take this land from you! You guys can totally have this to live on without any of us screaming ‘imminent domain’ on you again! Look—no crossed fingers or eyes or toes! It’s all yours!” Anyone who doesn’t have family in the various native tribes of this land is a refugee and an immigrant. Our ancestors either came here to escape or were brought here. So seeing as this country was founded by refugees and immigrants, let me give you a little taste of who looks and feels like an American.
America looks like Samuel, the fifty-four-year-old black American pastor who gets up early every morning to take his grandchildren to school, then goes to his church to look after his congregation. It looks like Maya, the Muslim American making a living as a waitress while she works her way through college. It looks like Rosa, a Latin American doing everything she can to keep her family together because some were born here and some were born in Mexico. It looks like Brian, a Caucasian American who works with his brothers at their father’s mill when he’s not serving with the National Guard on the weekends. It looks like Jim, an Asian American who works with teenagers to keep them out of gangs and with their families instead of homeless and addicted to drugs. It looks like all these people, all their families, all their friends, all their friends’ families, and everyone else I haven’t even thought of. This is America, not that vanilla, boring, bullshit, “whites only” version that some of these fanatics would love to have. Besides, if they get rid of all the black people, Hispanic people, Asians, Muslims, Jews, members of the native tribes, and any color other than “notebook paper,” who the fuck will they all find to hate?
Huh? The easy answer is each other, but that’s a little too easy, right? Wouldn’t it be funny to see Klansmen, all confused and full of shitty hate, burning crosses in front of rabbit holes or doghouses? How weird would it be watching these racist mooks trying to keep different breeds of cats or birds from hanging out together? The pure state of frustration in their tiny little minds would hopefully cause cerebral hemorrhaging. But the crazy part of this whole idea is that it’s their country too. No matter how upset we get, no matter how out of whack their ideas about people of color are, this is America. If they’re not advocating harming another person, they can say and think whatever they want.
That’s right: the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights protects any type of speech that is not deemed “hate speech” and doesn’t advocate violence. This is one of the bedrocks this country was built upon—and you’re not going to like this, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Before you egg my house, TP my trees, and soap my fucking windows, HEAR ME THE FUCK OUT. I’m not advocating for what the Klan, the Westboro Baptist Church, or any of the other hate groups say; I am against everything they stand for. And I know that they do tend to advocate for violence against anyone who can’t blend in with a bed sheet. But if they’re not calling for action against the other races, it’s protected by the Constitution of the United States. I’m sorry, but it is. This is why I get so fucking upset about the crazy angry violent protests against Milo Yiannopoulos’s speaking engagements. Do you realize that by starting riots and setting fires at his events (and any other place you’re not happy about, honestly) you are no fucking better than they are? By answering their cries for mediocre fascism with the same viciousness and anger, you have become the fucking problem yourselves. Same thing with all the protests against the Cheeto: all you are doing is galvanizing his base and steeling them against any common sense you might be making. You’re basically guaranteeing his re-election. So pick your fucking spots, and as for the rest, KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF, YA PANSY-ASS COCKSUCKERS.
This shit is not rocket science. It’s not even fucking science. It’s machinery. We all need each other for this country to run smoothly. The business folks need the landscaping folks. The artist folks need the trucking folks. The music folks need the travel folks (and the trucking folks). Every collar in America, from white to blue, needs each other. Every class in the United States must rely on each other, no exceptions. We are the bacteria that keeps this living organism with a red-white-and-blue flag running and chugging along. We all need to coalesce, coexist, and understand one thing: WE ARE NOT ALL GOING TO FUCKING GET ALONG, BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE GOING TO FIGHT CONSTANTLY. Sorry, hippies. We are not evolved enough to appreciate each other for our souls yet, so we’re going to have to get by on tolerating for the sake of peace. There’s nothing wrong with that sentiment when you take into consideration that even if we were all fucking sedated and faded and free, we’d still be finding shit to hate on when no one’s looking. Utopia doesn’t exist; there’s no such thing as the world commune. I’m not saying that it can’t happen. I’m not even saying I wouldn’t like to see that shit happen. I’d love to shed cloth and go around shirtless in sweatpants because looks and color and culture don’t matter. But I’m also a pragmatist. The world we know is fractious and ragged, beaten down by centuries of programming telling us that anyone different is suspicious and, therefore, the enemy. This mentality is boiled down to one sentiment: “If you’re not like me, I don’t like you.” We need to completely re-evaluate not only how we approach each other but also how we look at ourselves. If we immediately assume a stranger is inferior, we will always enter every conversation saturated with contempt and condescension.
We are a society made up of saints, thieves, killers, critics, lovers, builders, artists, and businessmen. We are the parts that make the sum “something else, indeed.” We are the country that has broken every promise we’ve made to every race, religion, republic, and rebellion in our nearly 250 years of existence. We have saved some, invaded others, and sold the rest down the river of deceit. History may look on us with a sense of sad purpose, but for now we’re outpacing our bad publicity as fast as we can. In this reality, in this universe, our word of mouth is still holding strong, beckoning the tired, the hungry, and those huddled masses of yesteryear, pushing hair out of dirty faces and gently telling the gypsy spirits that everything will be okay, you’re here now, and “here” means the land of the free, the home of the brave, and a partridge in a pear tree. The world is onto us now; it knows we’re not perfect. But as long as idealists like myself keep the faith and the fire burning, maybe that word of mouth won’t have that shade of satire to it, that sense of two-faced debauchery. Maybe it’ll hold up in court if enough of us testify. Nevertheless, there’s a reason we’re the bogeymen in a lot of countries regardless of what the politics are, the devil-headed democracy bent on owning the world—not even ruling it but owning it, because “Master makes money on the rent, not the upkeep.”
So do me a fucking favor. Everybody listening out there? You in the back, digging in your ear, pay attention. We all know you’re going to forget you were digging in your ear, then stick your finger in your mouth and make yourself throw up on the taste of earwax. So listen up.
If you’ve got some petty shit holding you back from really acknowledging and familiarizing yourself with your neighbors or other people in general, remind yourself of this little nugget, like a super-tight snap on the waistband of your brain: everything you find offensive that makes you hate in a stereotypical way, remember you can find all that same shit in people of your own color, your own creed, and your own sexuality. America is black, brown, red, yellow, white, gay, straight, and free to be so. Oh and by the way, if it isn’t hurting anyone, it’s also none of my or your fucking business. I’m not trying to create contention; I’m trying to expand the way people look at each other. If we know we’re different and we don’t expect each other to be the same, maybe we’ll get over ourselves and get with it. Then we can just make peace with the fact that people in general just irritate us for no reason other than it’s just other people.
The days of wine and roses have been replaced by the nights of brandy and dandelions. The winds of change are turning into a tornado of revolution, picking up Auntie Em’s house and slamming it down in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. I’m not going to try to sway either side one way or another, but I will say this: the Trumpers have bullshitted themselves into believing that the only people who voted for HRC were the so-called coastal elites. They love their little map with the blue bits (higher populated areas) and the massive red parts (very misleading, seeing as they’ve filled in lower populated/unpopulated areas instead of leaving it gray). They’ve lied to themselves that the Cheeto has a “mandate,” that more people voted for Trump than Clinton II. The thing is, though, not only did Clinton get 3 million more votes in the popular category, but when you factor in the people who voted for Johnson, Stein, and others, then include the people who didn’t vote, you have a lot more people—way more people—who didn’t vote for Trump. So Trumpers, I wouldn’t get cocky. We outnumber you by nearly 10 million. If the time comes, if the shit hits the fan, there are way more of us than there are of you, and we have more conviction. Do not commit the cardinal sin of believing everything the Orange Leader tells you—even a halfway intelligent person knows that 98 percent of the shit he sends out there is fucking lies and bullshit.
One of these days this war will end. But first it has to begin, in earnest.
But what do I know? I’m an asshole, right?
CHAPTER 11
JOIN OR DIE
WHEN I WAS A KID I SAW THINGS VERY SIMPLY.
I have memories that are cascaded in orange speckles, with tiny dots of light, dancing around the brown in my hair and around my face and eyes. As an adult I know now that this was sunlight doing its best to shine through the hard polyester knit of the living room curtains in our old house in Clear Lake, Iowa, the dots merely
dust particles refracting light and standing out against the dark brown of our old scratchy couch I used to call “Rowlf” because it looked like it was made from the same material as that crazy piano-playing dog from The Muppets. I used to kneel on Rowlf and look out the window on sunny days when I was too tired to go outside and play, and I would jump up and down to unleash the meteor shower of dust bits into the air so I could swat at them and make them go nuts, caught in the maelstrom of wind in my hand’s wake. It’s a vivid recollection I have—not attached to any one memory, mind you, but one that feels like a scene I relived over and over even as I remember it now, over and over. I guess the point is that I’ve always looked at things differently from how others see the world. Yes, I could distill and observe quietly and simply, but I could also unleash my imagination at a very young age, turning things as common and arbitrary as dust particles into celestial bodies of wonder. As I got old enough to appreciate this gift, it became harder and harder for me to relate my visions to other people. Maybe that’s why I have tried so hard to make sure I still relate to people in general. When your brain has a tendency to drift and reconstruct, you have to maintain a tether to this world or else you’ll be doomed to drift in and out of realms of fancy until even the ones you love become strangers in your mind’s own movie.
That’s how life is for me, even when talking about something as urbane and stepped on as this crazy fucking country called the United States of America. On the one hand, I love the challenge in taking all of this in: the purest form of buffoonery and boundless talent crashing together to form some sort of hyper-Greece, full of warriors, artists, and imbeciles all on the verge of greatness because in a democracy you can do and be anything you want as long as you obey the laws. Now some of those same crazies will fight you all day, making claims that this is not in fact a democracy. However, only in a democracy could someone come out and say some dumb shit like that. Boy, do we ever say some dumb-ass shit. We say so much dumb shit that we even find ourselves becoming accustomed to the cesspool of our egos, deciding all at once that every fucking idea we come up with is not only true if we can get enough people to agree with it but also cool on top of it all. Our idiotic forms of celebrity are living asshole proof of this statement.
