“She starts turning everything around like ‘I wanna fuck you’ and all this weird shit.
She’s toying with my balls and I didn’t even know who this bitch was. Moral of the story is just
one of those cocksucker bitches, the ‘oh you’re doing something, you made a speech.’ The kicker
was she had the Guinness Book world record for most gangbangs. Alright, what the fuck else can
I do to you anyway? I could bash you in the face with a 2X4 but it’s not gonna matter, she’s had
the most gangbangs in world history. You’re already fucked.”
“Not a big King Diamond fan?”
“I’m not a fan of anything really. It’s all about shit that’s real and hard, totally fucking
black metal. [Edwin points to the stereo as we listen to Lars Frederickson] If you wanna be a dirt
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bag, drink liquor, and eat drugs, play some fucking scumbag music. This guy tours and plays in
Sushi shops. That shit’s real dude. Some little fucking Dungeons & Dragons faggot, what’s he
know about punk rock? Punk Rock is always real, you can always count on it. “
“Did you ever meet Nattefrost from Carpathian Forest?”
“No, but he grew up two blocks down the street from me and I never even knew. We’re
the same age. Where I used to live, you could look right down from the window and see the
Helvete II record store. I ask where I can meet some of these guys, where the black metal clubs
are. I’m like what about these guys, these guys – no one fucking knew. Some dude in the back,
he’s laughing. He had a fucking pentagram on his head. ‘Hey, aren’t you the guy from Kettle
Cadaver?’ That was kind of weird. In fucking Norway? He’s like, ‘Yeah I used to play with
Enslaved.’ ‘You know the guys from Darkthrone?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ Rick.’ So I talked to him
about Carpathian Forest and he was like ‘Yeah he’s up in Germany.’ He called me high on
mushrooms.’ I met the guy who made Count Grishnach’s mace. It was cool ‘cause I made a
bunch that looked just like them.”
“How often do you go to Norway?”
“Whenever I can, but I don’t think anytime soon. People are so dull and lame. I walk
down the street in Norway and I feel like I’m pollution. They’re so structured and strictly
pleasant. You can’t do something like a cape and corpse-paint and not have them be scared. The
guy could be looking like he’s fucking The Joker. Wait’ll you got blood running down your
knuckles and a ‘Fuck You’ tattoo on your neck. That’s why I like the US, that shit doesn’t fly.
Euronymous had his own internal censorship going where bands that sucked, he put them out of
business. The US naturally is like that because if you’re a douche-bag you’re fucked.”
“Was the music scene you came from pretty vicious growing up?”
“When I was a kid you could get your head beat in. It was gnarly. I remember my
buddies little high school band played. They got spit on, green shit dripping off their face. They
were lucky. Lucky’s walking out of there still walking. I’ve seen people beat up so bad. One dude
the crowd held to the floor and beat him in the face with the microphone stand. Five chicks vomit
on you and shit. When I do play a show and the little opening band gets their ass kicked, I could
give a shit less. That’s the territory. If you’re gonna cry about it, then hop along little bunny and
move on to the next scene. But if you come back with your busted self, keep coming back until
people remember your face, then you can stick around.”
“Obviously you’re getting more extreme as time goes by…”
“There’s no progression, it just started off. Now I’m very content with shit so I’m not
going to do anything unless I feel like it. I only want it to be real. A kid that wants to die hitting
himself in the face with a hammer is different from the guy making a spectacle out of himself… I
am skilled at hitting myself in the face with a hammer, of course. It doesn’t mean shit though…”
“What direction are you heading?”
“I want to do more of the rock n’ roll stuff. One of the bands that laughs the most is HIM,
the most hated goth ever by all men. He fucks all their girlfriends and they sit at home and bitch. I
get that now, I understand. I play shows for men. But where is the true evil? A big tough guy in
front of dudes? Or fucking all those lame guys girlfriends? I like fucking chicks…”
“You get these girls to do some pretty crazy shit though, like in the video…”
“That was like two nights ago. Behind the coffin there’s just blood splatters, this shit just
literally running off my neck. The chick was like ‘I just got new shoes, I swear if you got any
blood on my new shoes.’ I look down and they look like tampons.”
“What are the craziest shows you ever threw here?”
“The black metal shows back in the day. One guy pistol whipped another guy in the face
and shot out the window… There were the ones I’d go fucking nuts, beat people and any
available anything. There’d be people pissing on each other and shit. You go upstairs and
everyone is fucking. Wherever there are drugs, there’s always fucking.”
“How did the last tour go?”
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“Awesome. Every single night of that tour it was the same type of shit -- partying in
crack houses, getting into fights, fucking chaos… We do one bad show, it stops right there in that
city. No idea how to get amps or the drum set home. That’s what gets you into the mode -- it’s
you versus the street.”
“In the event that you finally do blow up, and you got your image on lunchboxes that
are sold to 14 year old girls at Hot Topic, what’s the number one mission now that you have
everyone’s attention?”
“(Laughs) I’ll figure it out once I get there…”
It is then that we freeze because we hear his dogs Howley and Damian barking up something
fierce. There is something sinister going on in the front yard. On edge, dizzy with liquor and
paranoia, I instinctively grab the butcher knife on the table. Edwin sees this and grabs his
machete, jumping up after my lead. We blitzkrieg into the night, leaping towards the gate below
the hill…
We come charging like wild Indians at a pack of 7 coyotes divided from Eddie’s dogs by
the property fence. The moment they see us they scatter fast as they can, charging off into the
mountainous desert region. We both stop, kind of just glance at each other, shrug, and wander
back inside to kill all remaining booze…
The next morning, passed out inside a sleeping bag with my face covered, feeling like a Nagasaki
Hibakusha, Edwin had slept Indian style to the left of me. I slid open my eye, briefly looked
around, no visible sign of movement on my behalf, I hear Edwin say “Hey Ryan…” He just
knew…
During the ride home I went back into that same, floaty sense of REM. sleep. This time
the bus rhythms were that of the world being drown in Volcanic magma, the extermination of all
human civilization in a boiling cauldron of terror…
PURITY OF THE GREYHOUND
Depression hits hard, and the world becomes so small and agoraphobically terrifying that only an
element of massive change can bring repeal to the neurotic isolation. In my case, it’s always been
alien habitat…
Weak as it sounds, this Greyhound fetish began with a girl – a lady named “3.” It was the
devastating end of a devastating run. December 2005 I had received a distress signal from the
boonies. A friend, who’d received 2 years probation over a roach, was about to be sentenced 6
months in county for pissing dirty on vodka at the age of 20. The first offense of course, which
captivates the true justice and eternal beauty of Michigan.
I rushed in like Zorro, swooped her up, and was set to launch her off on a one-way
Greyhound to Florida. One thing leads to another and a romantic limbo on par with Lost In
Translation lasts a solid 2 months. We both got way too close, way too attached, yet nothing
could extinguish the impending doomsday…
I sent her off broken hearted on Valentine’s Day 2006, and of course, a new beginning
soon became the apocalypse. I’d delivered her into a soul-sucking relationship from hell that
consumed the poor girl’s life, and she disappeared completely in a jealous control-freak haze.
From the closest person on earth to a non-existent ghost in the span of a month; a maelstrom of
drama pervading everything...
Confined to the final act of my Detroit war, I sat around like a hundred miles of frozen
concrete for the next 9 months. I watched my life crumble piece by piece into nothingness, every
possible dagger that could have been stuck in my back was. My power in the media was gone and
I was the black sheep leper of the scene. My once unstoppable juggernaut of promotions activity
came to a near standstill.
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All I could dream of was the Greyhound. That hollow land machine hauling me as a lone
passenger through vast wastelands of night. Night after night, every ticking time-clock of every
shit job, I’d close my eyes and see it -- killer motor running silently; just waiting, beckoning me…
There was only one way I could reclaim what had died within me. I had to become a
fetus in its womb, let it shape me into whatever it planned. Let the blurring yellow lines of the
highway become my mother, the hum of the engine my father…
It didn’t matter where I traveled. Like the Argonauts, sailing was the only thing that
mattered. The port of destination was the absurdity. I knew that somehow, someway, I’d
rediscover the piece of me that was lost. That’s what this is all really about. Not fame,
networking, shows, parties, chicks, or any kind of journalistic integrity. I’m reclaiming my soul
city by city, mile by mile of black tar…
This is the hypnosis as I peer out that huge window into the rolling fields at night. I’m but one in
a silent subculture that ride these things addictively -- the hard-worn woman with the deep lines
in her face, bouncing the country from one abusive relationship to the next... The one who’s
burned all bridges and headed for the new beginning that will end just the same… The con man
slinging Snickers & Skittles like a prison courtyard…
The displaced trucker, the Las Vegas fuckup, the LA star-struck, the Mexicans who speak
no English, black families on low-rent vacation to somewhere devastatingly grim like Pittsburg.
Freshly released prisoners in a trance, drug runners with the blue tear tat, the runaways returning
or fleeing home, the college kids out for a cheap thrill…
Then there are those like myself, silent and contemplating whatever agenda it is that
rumbles their scattered thoughts. Some live on those busses easily picking up females who are
traveling alone and vulnerable, hopping off at the next city with them for a romantic, hustler
fling. Some are living ghosts of that limbo who never want to come off. Then there are the
crazies, the bad luck elderly, the neophytes who weed themselves out in inter-state Darwinian
selection…
I don’t bother to talk to anyone anymore. I know all the games and I know all the faces. I
just close off into my own wonderland, enjoying that chemical stink of industrial grade
disinfectant creeping from the ever-horrifying toilet covered with gang signs and sharpie
memoirs.
The wheels keep spinning, the land keeps rushing, and every rest-stop or fueling depot
becomes a surge of Déjà vu. The bus parks in Grand Junction, Topeka, Kansas City, and you
immediately recall every video game in the corner, every hot chocolate luxury -- all the putrid
options of fried food boiling under a white or red light. After enough miles are imprinted on your
skull, you’ll know every McDonalds in the country like the back of your hand…
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PART II: EXIT STAGE WEST
(ALBUQURQUE; THE ARCTIC DESERT)
JANUARY 16TH-28TH 2007
FROSTBITTEN RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES
The very fact that Southern California has this invisible force field holding the Mediterranean
climate in place is perhaps the most head scratching mystery in our nation. Only 20 hours due
East the desert is an icicle, and the still air makes your breath that of dragon steam…
A radiant moon encircled by an outstretch nucleus of light, the orbiting body illuminating
the desert through a reflection of red sand and iced barrancas; its beams glistening a wall of light
from sharp, red-granite desert plateaus. No smog, no pollution -- you feel that howling coyote
spirit imprinted on gas station arctic wolf t-shirts. Albuquerque, the metropolis jewel of the
desert…
Mountains surround ABQ like a fortified trench, enclosing the cities grace like an
Egyptian oasis. It is confined in the way few major American capitols are. Initially settled by
frontiersmen, it’s existed ever since as this kind of Deep Space Nine port to all headed
westward…
Once it was pure East to West migration, now it’s built its solid place in the Union. It is
among a few larger cities in New Mexico that create the dynamic economic backbone of the state
and southern region. Still, it has no massive water bodies surrounding it, and an abnormal climate
for strong irrigation and rural development. Its settlement had derived from the brutal Wild
West…
This New Mexico jaunt is the initial campaign of a duel city initiative. Two weeks in
Albuquerque, then a 10 hour northbound trek to Denver for two following weeks of general bru-
ha-ha. I view these as soft targets, comprised of definite support from fellow Detroit Expatriates.
Jesus, the anti-EMINEM terrorist in Denver, mastermind of Detroit proto-noise champs
PHALLUS.
In ABQ we unearth Vertigo Venus, the most aggressively homosexual cyberpunk-experi-
industrial-new wave thingy in New Mexico’s history. What better a way to totally alienate my
audience in one fell swoop? The Vertigo boys have just signed to the well-respected industrial
label DSBP Records and have been getting airp