by Corey Taylor
I was expected to perform in one of their living rooms.
We entered the winner’s house and two things struck me at once, and both made me want to run for my life. One, everything in this house looked like it cost a million fucking dollars. Just out of self-preservation I did not want to touch anything; if these people sued me, I would owe them money after death. Two, I found myself surrounded by a contingent of hopped-up teenagers, all decked in costumes, ready to party with Corey Taylor. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this was going to be a long night.
They set me up in the corner of the living room on a wooden bar stool, with an intern from the radio station trying in vain to get a very modest PA system to work so I could sing for these people. The speakers themselves were about the size of two packs of cigarettes and sounded about as savory. Finally, we jettisoned the PA idea in favor of having everyone there crowd around so they could hear me clearly. It was a surreal scene out of Spinal Tap: to my right were the radio people, to my left was my label representative, immediately in front of me were all the costumed folk, and behind them were all the parents, staring in disbelief that any of these kids gave a bear’s fart about the fat Goth in the beanie with the guitar. I played my song and a couple others, retired my gig fiddle to its case, and went directly to the kitchen, where the parents were guarding the alcohol.
The rest of the night is a befuddling blur. After fifteen minutes the parents and I were doing shots of Canadian Club, challenging each other to see how many we could do inside thirty seconds. Within an hour I was so shit-faced I was back in the living room teaching the youngsters how to do “The Time Warp” from Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was on VH1. I have no idea when I left or how I got back to my hotel room, but when I came to, the sun was up, my pillow was stuck to my face, and a very confused housekeeper had ignored my “do not disturb” sign, leaning over me and asking me in broken English if I wanted turn-down service. To put it mildly, I did not.
I cannot even remember why I told you that story. I know there was a reason, but now that reason has escaped my Nerf-like brain. You know what? Give me til the end of this chapter—I am sure it will come back to me. Either that or I will end up wandering the house in my Doctor Who pajamas picking at my gums with a no. 2 pencil and talking to the dust particles swarming around my head in a vain attempt to communicate with their kind. I am here to tell you: too much coffee in the morning makes for very strange habits when no one else is paying attention. But I suspect there might be some interesting YouTube footage coming your way if my family planted hidden cameras around that place. I will be the first to say it: I apologize . . . and my family is a bunch of bastards.
Just when I thought things would never get as weird as I had already discovered, it just went ahead and fucking did without asking.
I have homes in Des Moines, where my kids and grandmother live, and Las Vegas, where my family on my wife’s side live. I split time between the two, but lately I have been spending more time in Las Vegas because, as the paternal catalyst, I have a responsibility to my married side to come take up too much space on the couch and occasionally kill a spider. Just recently we moved into a new house in a very nice neighborhood, with more space and speed bumps and everything. It felt like a proper place to raise kids and have dinners with family friends—all the stuff you do when you are either getting older or looking for an investment property or both. I was very excited myself because the place came with recessed speaker systems in every room and a pool table—you know, the important stuff. So we eagerly moved in. The house directly across the street was empty, but some of the neighbors on either side waved, smiled, and made us feel pretty good as we shoved all our stuff into our new home. There was parking for almost everyone (which is no easy feat—there are a lot of us) and a wonderful backyard. It was perfect in every way.
Then the “empty” house across the street turned out to be not so empty.
When you peek inside the windows, it looks innocuous enough: just a collection of big, empty pseudo-adobe rooms painted Southwestern Peach in an attempt to give it that modern rustic feel. There is not a scrap of furniture in the joint, not even a remnant abandoned in haste because there was no room left on the truck for anything else. It is flat-out un-fucking-lived in. But every other night, 8 p.m. until 11 p.m., that house turns into some sort of crazy rave-like TV party. There are eerie blue lights that illuminate the upstairs rooms and hallways, concentrating in the upper living room area. It looks like a group of Gremlins are dragging twenty-five-inch plasmas around while tripping on massive tabs of E. I have seen it with both eyes, and it is fucked up. These events are punctuated with really loud fucking noises as well, like a rugby match between Australia and Great Britain just across the street and everything is on the line. It is fucking out of control over there, and it just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Shit is starting to bleed into our house now, with unexplained activity going on in the west part of the damn house. What the hell am I going to do with another fucked up house? Am I supposed to wander around with invisible vittles and treat this like an undead soiree? James fucking Francis, I cannot win!
To sum up this chapter, I find myself thinking about more than just the tales I have been told and the various chats I have been privy to over the years. You see, if you have not already figured it out, I am very much an extroverted social vessel who loves nothing more than to drink shit tons of coffee and chew the metaphorical fat with me and mine, my collection of crazy iconoclasts that I have surrounded myself with for what feels like centuries. I have always been fascinated by tales of the Algonquin Round Table from yesteryear, an amazing confluence of intellect and personalities that saw the likes of Dorothy Parker, Will Rogers, and others trading barbs over dinners and dexterous displays of heady witticisms. In my life I have had these same types of moments, going all the way back to 1992 when we the people could invade a Perkins Restaurant at midnight, plunk down a dollar for a bottomless pot of coffee (split among twelve people), smoke our asses off for hours, and just talk good shit until the sun came up. Those are truly some of my most cherished memories—traversing the psyches of my fabulous friends, who were just as fucked up and brilliant as I was, jotting down notes on receipts, writing lyrics on McDonald’s applications, discovering ways to make every dream you ever had come true. I can recall nearly every conversation that occurred at those tables and in those booths. I had not just found my place in the world; I found myself in that particular world. I saved myself from that clichéd and depressed destruction most crazy geniuses find when they are young. The damnable tragedy is that I will never get to thank those long-lost friends for helping me get through it all. So I go on, moving through different talks into this place we call the future, feeling the road more than seeing it, because to me that is so much more rewarding once you reach your destination.
Ultimately that is what this chapter is: a way to collect these spirit-laden yarns together for posterity while simultaneously offering a subtle little dedication to those souls out there who helped mold me, shape me, chisel me out of pure attitude and profundity into the glorious fuck up I am today. I want them to know I am doing my best to carry on those conversations, to continue that Silly String Theory we loved so much back then. That, to me, is the real proof of relativity: time may not exist forward, but I can trace my own back across the years with the help of the safety line provided by a thousand pure hours of smiling cogitation and wild-eyed postulation, solving world hunger and starting fake bands, being a man and learning to love women and vice versa or both. Things like convention matter so little when the world is new to you. All that really matters is finding a place in that world that feels like no one else was there before you. Nothing kills ingenuity like that tired sense that maybe you are just repeating someone else and their fading footsteps. Therefore, I use these memories to track the unexplained and the undiscovered because they were and remain wonderful, they were and remain eloquent and irreverent, and they are very much alive in my minefi
eld of a mind.
My kitchen table has replaced that Perkins Restaurant. I draw people in like a vegan spider to rip through their creative bends and offer my own inspiration to them in return for a blast of quickened curiosity. Sure, I certainly do not enjoy them as often as I used to; I am, of course, the workaholic machine that is Corey Fuckin’ Taylor after all, and I have shit to do every spare second not spent allowing myself to inexplicably go unconscious for another round of sleep cycles. But I still have great friends who I like to verbally joust with at every stolen opportunity. It definitely keeps me interested in this sadly banal and barren place called Earth, and it helps me accrue things like the different ghost stories some of us have dragged behind us for years, suddenly ready to dump them off to share with the world. I had a simile here about new shoes at a Salvation Army drop box, but I really do not feel that is correct, because we are not letting go of them; we are surely only sharing them with the rest of the class. At a time when so many of us are so desperately trying to find ways to connect with the rest of the aberrant cell divisions called humans, why not try something like sitting down and talking? And if you are talking, why not try sharing? And if you are sharing, why not share a bit about something as exciting and polarizing as ghosts? Just a thought . . .
By the time you read this, I will be miles away from here, looking for my next excursion and plotting more creative ways to fuck with your heads. I might be dressed nicely; I might also be in that nice tutu number I wore in London on Halloween back in 2010. You really never know when it comes to what the hell goes on in my frosted flaky crust of a brain. But I can definitely tell you one thing: I am always looking for a great conversation, because at the end of the day I am a collector who overdoes it at every turn. If I love it, I will go above and beyond to add it to the Vault. I keep the great conversations in a very special hellish place inside that I can access at will, kind of like a pleasure memory palace. In there, nothing is off limits, nothing is over the limit, and nothing is limited. The only way is all the way, as I have been known to say in the past. But if you are worth it, I will collect you. I will add you to my history. Maybe some day I will add you to pages like these. I believe that everyone needs to live forever, because no single life is better or worse than the other. Maybe that is my endgame in all this.
My friends gave me these personal ghost stories so that I might share them with you, hopefully to encourage and enable you to do that likewise with your friends. By doing this, not only do you prove that none of us are alone; you also carry on that wonderful conversation I adore—the one that stretches across the years, never wavers or falters, and yet brings us closer to happiness than anything else has yet in life. We are our own treasured historians. We are our own witnesses to what we have done. When you share that with someone else, the chances of being remembered improve exponentially. This is the true key to immortality. This is the belt loop that will hold together the fabric of what is real and what is imagined to blend this tapestry into the rest of this world.
So . . . know any good ghost stories?
A Haunting in New York?
THE OLD SAYING has always been “necessity is the mother of invention.” I have found this to be true on several occasions, not only for the many inspired creations that I see on a nightly basis when it comes to the sensation that is “As Seen on TV,” but I myself have reveled in the concept a time or two. Sometimes I get more done when I know there is a hard deadline and I have no clue as to what is next. Suddenly the paranoia and panic hits you like a handful of frozen cow shit. And then the miraculous happens: a trigger clicks, the wheels spin themselves out of the muddy thought process, and you are off and running, typing away like a madman or fervently scribbling lyrics and music in mystic notebooks like a wizard on crack who was able to recall an incantation thought lost aeons ago. It is a beautiful thing when you remember you happen to be really clever—at least when your brain gets out of its own way.
Ironically this is the crux of where I happened to be while I was working on this book. I was all but finished writing, had gone and shot most of these weird photos you see within, and was busy clearing up any refuse clinging to this hunk of wood pulp and ink. I was jovial and elated—book two was nearly in the bag. Who would have thought I would be putting the final touches on another book? For fuck’s sake, I was still pinching myself over getting away with the first one. So this was more due diligence than victory lap—time to kick the tires, air them up, and make sure the lug nuts were on nice and tight. But in doing so, I realized this vicious bastard of a book was in fact . . . not long enough. What the fuck . . . not long enough? How could it be that I, the Great Big Mouth, the One and Only Motherfucker, was at a loss for words? Had I sustained some sort of wicked blow to the cerebellum? Never mind all that shit—had I been hit on the head? What the French, totes?
Of course, I knew the problem. I had scheduled another ghost hunt, and because I am “busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest” (you can thank Geoff Head for that wonderfully visual quote), I had been forced to cancel a trip at the last minute to the Squirrel Cage Jailhouse in Omaha, Nebraska, even after they had graciously made arrangements contrary to their operating hours. So with much chagrin, I thanked them for their kindness, begged out of the engagement, and decided I would have ample verbiage for the tome you are currently cradling between your groceries and your purse—at least that is what I imagine you have it stuck in. Anywhere else is either gross, illegal, or out of my experience circle. Anyway, I was a little light in the chapters and unable to reschedule the Squirrel Cage Jailhouse or anywhere else for that matter. What in the name of Odin’s soul patch was I going to do?
Thankfully, necessity was about to give birth to my salvation.
On January 22, 2013, I woke up in the literally freezing but spiritually warm city of Buffalo, New York, and prepared myself for the second night of the House of Gold and Bones US tour. The boys in Stone Sour and I were thrilled to be out on the road, especially Johnny Chow that day—this was his hometown, and his whole family would be making the chilly trek to see him perform that night at the Rapids Theatre in Niagara Falls, not too far away from Buffalo. We were ecstatic—the tour was already off to a grand start and expectations were very high. In my time on the road I could not recall if I had ever played the Rapids Theatre, so to me it was just one more venue I could add to my list of recollections. That was before I got a provocative text from The Boss, who was already at the gig setting things up. “The club is supposedly haunted, so you will have more material for your book,” she matter-of-factly stated.
Really? Interesting . . .
A haunting in New York? Color me stoked. This was perfect—I could kill two birds with one stone. Play an awesome gig in a pretty historical building and go on a ghost hunt, all while staying on schedule and fulfilling my quota at the same glorious time. I could not believe my luck, really. I kept waiting for the catch, but it never came. I could work and investigate. Plus, I did not have much press, so I could spend most of the night running around the club, taking it all in and waiting for something spooky to happen. That is the thing about kismet: just when you think the universe will never realign in your favor, a pebble out in space bounces off a forgotten Russian satellite and clears a path straight to your face with enlightenment, opportunity, and a little lucky “fuck yeah.” That is exactly what the universe was giving me in that one moment between pajamas and blue jeans: an opportunity to catch up when before there was only the Hoover Dam of calamities. Good thing karma and I are on immaculate speaking terms right now.
I immediately packed my things, checked out of the hotel in haste, and raced to the venue. Being a whore for content, before I left I went online and did some slick-quick research, just to get my bearings on this new little wrinkle I would be adding to my sticky skin. Luckily, there was a Wikipedia page. Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone and their fucking mom has a Wikipedia page these days? Shit, even William Hung still has a page
on that bastard website. Is it really necessary to know the complete history of the Twinkie? I thought that was what the show How It’s Made was for. Note to self: look into frivolous use of Wikipedia entries for redundancy and rampant pointlessness. Shit, where was I . . .
The Rapids Theatre was originally built and opened way back in 1921 under the moniker “The Bellevue Theater.” In its early heyday it was both a movie theater and a vaudeville house, hosting the acts of the day and showing various big cinematic hits when they would roll through town. But as my digging progressed, I unearthed that this particular venue had gone through a lot of different names over the ninety-plus years in its tenure. It would open, close, and reopen under many different owners, with a plethora of assorted names: the Late Show Discotheque, the Masquerade, Centre Stage, the Pleasure Dome, then just the Dome Theater. People seemed willing to pay any price to own the place as well: one person bought at $18,000, and yet another procured it for $85,000. In 2009 it was finally renovated at a nice nifty sum and renamed the Rapids Theatre. Maybe this shifty and piecemeal story is why the tales of the paranormal are fairly succinct.
The prevalent story that seems to be where all this ghostly talk comes from is the one about a scorned actress who purportedly hung herself in the rafters in the back of the theater. Her spirit is said to roam the halls of the theater, giving glimpses to bystanders and walking the stage when the lights are low and no one is around. There is a bit of contention about what the real stressor for the suicide seemed to be: one legend maintained it was merely a lover who had left her for another woman, another said it was her fiancé, and still another made it clear it was her estranged husband. The only tidbit these versions have in common is that she had been pregnant and unfortunately lost the child. However, in all my research, I found no news report that said anything of the sort regarding any version of the tale. Something like that most certainly would have appeared in the papers. But there is no mention of such a terrible occurrence anywhere. So this might just be an old wives’ tale that has been passed down from owner to owner, staff to staff. That tracks more than a horribly sad suicide that slipped through the cracks between buyouts. The stories persist, though, because apparently the presence of something above and beyond is very real. Shadows move where no one was. Whistling can be heard floating through the complex. Footsteps race around the hardwoods and behind people. One of the security guards talked about slipping and almost falling before invisible hands suddenly caught and righted him. Having a little in common with something like that, I was inclined to believe that one.
