An Occurrence At Lake Titicaca

When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle.

--Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin Willard, Apocalypse Now

Black Pazuzu was standing on the eastern shore of Lake Titicaca, chewing coca leaves with President Evo Morales, when he had a vision. It was the ghost of Kevin DuBrow, urging Black Pazuzu to “cum on, feel the noize.” The late Quiet Riot vocalist was resplendent in a red leather jacket he had borrowed from drummer Frankie Banali. He was thrusting his hips suggestively and doing that sweeping index finger move that had become de rigueur on the Sunset Strip back in what Black Pazuzu’s American friends referred to as “the day.”

At this point, however, Black Pazuzu was not even aware that Kevin DuBrow had recently passed on. Had he known, he no doubt would have thought it both sad and bizarre that even in death, Quiet Riot’s lead singer was relegated to covering Slade. And because bad English-language puns seem not as bad when English is your second language, it also would have occurred to him that the vocalist’s “metal health” had finally failed.

“I think the coca leaves are getting to me, Evo.”

Only when Black Pazuzu said this, he said it in Spanish.

“I know what you mean,” Morales replied, also in Spanish. The Bolivian president casually produced a banana from his coat pocket, peeled it, and took a bite. Suddenly and without preamble, he began cursing the Coca-Cola Company aloud.

Black Pazuzu groaned audibly. He knew this presidential diatribe well. Coca-Cola was the only American corporation authorized by the US federal government to import and process coca leaves from Bolivia. The gringos had also forbid the export of coca leaves to anywhere else in the world and had been funding coca crop eradication in Bolivia since 1988. This preposterous and flawed transnational scheme was called Law 1008, and Black Pazuzu was familiar with its articles and provisions. Morales himself despised it, and had famously appeared before the UN after his election, making a clear distinction between coca and its most notorious byproduct while denouncing Law 1008 to the palefaces’ pale faces. And here on the bank of Lake Titicaca, he denounced it again.

“The worst enemy of humanity is US capitalism,” Morales said for what Black Pazuzu felt was easily the thousandth time since the two men had first snorted rails off the back of a toilet tank at an Inquisition show in La Paz five years ago. (Inquisition is Morales’ favorite band—he even secretly had them flown in to play a private post-inauguration bash.) “That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neo-liberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism.”

Had there been a large crowd of coca farmers gathered, Morales’ words would have surely been met with cheers and applause. But Black Pazuzu’s thoughts had moved on to a recurring fantasy he liked to call “Live Mystical Violence.”

He imagined himself onstage in full corpsepaint, stripped to the waist and soaked in goats’ blood as he and his band shredded their way though their signature song, “La creación, la traición, la violación y la caida de los Angeles,” the unholy berserker aggression of which would no doubt bring the eternal full-metal furies of both Lucifer and Viracocha down up on the heads of gringo and brown man alike. As usual, the audience was comprised entirely of topless women and the members of Slayer.

“Fuck, yeah,” Black Pazuzu muttered as his eyes rolled back in his head. “Muerte total…”

“Silencio!” Morales shrieked, cocking his ear toward the jungle. “It’s the FARC guerillas! They’ve come to assassinate me!” The Bolivian president began calling out for his bodyguards.

A branch snapped. Tropical vegetation rustled. A pair of silhouetted figures stepped out from the dense underbrush into the sweaty Bolivian dusk. At first, Black Pazuzu couldn’t make out their faces, but he could tell they were holding hands. As the figures drew closer, Morales whipped out his TEC-9 and a machete. Just as the president was about to go shit-house on the approaching interlopers, Black Pazuzu stayed his hand. He recognized these men: It was Kevin DuBrow and former Quiet Riot guitarist Randy Rhoads.

“Hey, dudes—we’re getting the band back together,” DuBrow said with a smile. “You in?”

They all laughed and shook hands. They sat on the bank of Lake Titicaca and chewed coca leaves, plotting what would surely be their complete domination of the world metal circuit.

By the time the sun rose the next morning, all four of them had vanished.

This bullshit originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of Decibel magazine but was written in November of 2007, just days before Kevin DuBrow's death by cocaine overdose.

The Unabomber & Me

Ever since I became pen pals with Ted Kaczynski, I’ve had conflicting feelings about the mail.

Still, I joined the Freedom Club sometime around 1981. What can I say? I was young and impressionable. And I had an insatiable bloodlust for then-United Airlines president Percy Wood. To me—like most six year olds at the time—Wood was the living embodiment of the techno-fascist state. (Behind Reagan, obviously.)

Later—on September 19, 1995, to be exact—I read Uncle Ted’s Industrial Society and Its Future in the Washington Post, and it changed my life. Especially that part about “oversocialization.” But then they arrested him out in Montana and threw him in the can.

In 1998, shortly after Uncle Ted tried to hang himself, I wrote him a letter of solidarity. I told him to “keep his chin up” and implored him not to drop the soap.

When his response finally arrived from the ADX Supermax in Florence, Colorado, I was elated. Ted regaled me with tales of life on “the inside,” describing each and every inch of his 7x12-foot cell, with its polished steel mirror, concrete desk, and tap-free sink. He said he had been recruited by the Aryan Brotherhood via a secret transmission written in grapefruit juice and semen, but was debating the efficacy of gang membership in a prison where one spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. He also requested some stamps and a few dollars on the books so he could buy legal pads and, like, cigs.

I responded with a letter written on Hello Kitty stationary. I told Ted about my life, my hopes, my dreams. I told him about Cave In’s Until Your Heart Stops and Iron Monkey’s Our Problem, both of which had just been released. I figured maybe he could identify with Our Problem cover artist Mike Diana, who had been unjustly persecuted (and prosecuted) by the Floridian authorities for the supposedly “obscene” contents of his Boiled Angel zine.

In his second letter, Uncle Ted said he had never heard of Mike Diana. But he sent me a copy of a short story he had written called Ship Of Fools, along with a Xerox of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The tone of his letter was excited—he had spent one of his rare “fresh air” hours lifting weights with Larry Hoover of the Gangster Disciples and Sammy “The Bull” Gravano. He had also spotted John Walker Lindh walking around the exercise yard with Omar Abdel-Rahman. They were holding hands—not because they were into man-on-man butt sex, Uncle Ted explained—but because that’s how friends roll in the Middle East. And also probably because Rahman is blind and needed help getting around or whatever.

I was fascinated. By now it was the year 2000, and the hard drives of the world had not crashed like Uncle Ted had predicted. Better still, I had purchased my first CD burner. I made Uncle Ted copies of all the shit I was into at the time—Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone, Gogoroth’s Incipit Satan, Scissorfight’s New Hampshire, and SubArachnoid Space’s These Things Take Time. I’m not sure if he had a CD player, though.

Then I received a package wrapped in brown paper and posted with a neatly-arranged row of Eugene O’Neill one-dollar stamps. The return address was 04475-046, Florence, CO. I guess that was Uncle Ted’s official Supermax number. As you might imagine, I was hesitant to open it. But then I thought: “No, Uncle Ted is my friend.” Besides, how could he have access to bomb-making materials in a federal Supermax prison? So I opened it.

Inside was a copy of the Department of Defense’s Improvised Munitions Handbook. I guess Uncle Ted had stolen it from the prison library. The enclosed letter was written in some kind of mathematical Zodiac Killer-type code. “This is it,” I thought, “Uncle Ted is asking me to continue his fight against technological subjugation.” I fished through the packing peanuts—Uncle Ted had lovingly drawn a smiley face on each and every one—to see if he had included anything else I might need to begin my training.

That’s when I found them. Uncle Ted had returned the music I had burned for him. I thought of consulting the munitions handbook and sending him a taste of his own medicine in the form of a nail-and-splinter pipe bomb. But that’d be stooping to his level. Besides, it would never make it past the guards.

“Fuck Uncle Ted,” I thought. I knew he was full of shit all along.

This bullshit originally appeared in the December 2007 issue of Decibel magazine.

All Night, Every Night

The lights are growing dim, Otto. I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society.

—Dick Rude, Repo Man

Breathe easy, Tootsie Pop. Just close your eyes and imagine sunsets and waterfalls and rainbows and shit. Try not to dwell on the fact that it’s 11:09 AM and you haven’t slept yet. Try not to get too worked up about those three and a half hours you have to drive to get home. You might want to think, just a little bit, about the fact that you have to get your sweet rock n’ roll ass out of this hotel in exactly 51 minutes, though. That might be a pretty good idea, actually—the best one you’ve had in about, oh, maybe ten hours or so. Ever since you drove into that fucking fence. The one the city so conveniently stretched across the freeway onramp.

And where is your car, anyway, Grasshopper? Up until recently, you were pretty confident that it was in the hotel parking lot—right where you left it—but now … now that you’ve had time to think … it’s entirely possible that the police towed it away after they found your front license plate under that fence, isn’t it? Fuck. That would be a Total Drag, huh?

You do nothing to allay your fears when you call Headquarters and get Albert and Alex on speakerphone.

“Benito! How’s Fresno?”

“Awesome. I crashed my car.”

There is a brief-yet-pregnant pause.

“Are the police involved?”

“No, no—thank Christ.”

“Are you okay?”

Notice they ask this question second.

“I haven’t slept. But other than that, yeah, yeah—I’m good. But the car… the car looks like it was attacked by a mountain lion.”

“There were mountain lions involved?”

This is going so much better than expected.

“Oh, yeah … there were about half a dozen of them out on that ramp. I guess a meat truck overturned or something. There was blood everywhere. By the time I saw them, it was too late.”

One gets the sense that they’re not buying it. Or even, you know, listening.

“Great. So you’ll have the story in on time, right?”

“Yeah—of course—you know me. Just as long as the cops didn’t tow my car, we should be right on schedule.”

“I thought you said there were no cops.”

… But miracles happen on days like this, sweetheart, and it seems today is your lucky day. As it turns out, your car IS in the parking lot. Better still, both of your license plates are still attached. Yeah, your side-view has been torn off and there’s a fairly jagged hunk of metal sticking up from where the hood meets the side-panel … and yeah, the fucking thing does look like it was attacked by a mountain lion, but fuck it: You haven’t been arrested yet. So you slide that lily-white ass of yours into the driver’s seat, dial up Diamond Head’s Lightning To The Nations on the iPod and drive by that freeway onramp laughing. Like a crazy person. And then—and ONLY then—you recall why it is you do this to yourself (because it’s sure as shit not the money): It’s because you just cannot get enough. You are a glutton for punishment. And as such, punishment is almost always forthcoming. Furthermore, no good deed (or bad deed, or neutral deed) will go unpunished. So sit back and relax, Tootsie Pop. This won’t hurt a bit.

This bullshit originally published in the October 2007 issue of Decibel magazine

FULL METAL QUIZ

It seems like everybody is running their mouths these days about how “metal” they are or how metal that band is or how un-metal that one dude over there with the white belt is—but it seems like the definition of whom or what is “metal” varies from person to person. Plus, there are tangential factors to consider, like how one can be “metal” but not “kvlt” or “grim” (but one can NEVER be “kvlt” or “grim” without being “metal”), etc. etc., blah blah, blah. Lucky for you, we here at Decibel have decided to settle this shit once and for all, or at least until next time. What follows is our officially sanctioned, scientifically tested, Tony Iommi-approved Full Metal Quiz. Before you begin, remember this: There are no “right” or “wrong” answers here—and more importantly, there are no “winners.” Just “losers.”

1. In order to prove you are totally metal, you will:

a) Carve the Slayer logo into your forearm with the razor blade from that homemade necklace you stole off of Dimebag Darrell’s corpse.

b) Totally punch that chick from Nightwish in the face.

c) Go on a school shooting spree and blame it on Megadeth.

d) Have a three-way with Karl Sanders and Gene Hoglan.

2. Currently, you are:

a) Living after midnight

b) Breaking the law

c) Waiting for another thing, which you’ve been assured is coming.

d) All of the above

3. This weekend, you plan to play:

a) Arpeggios, dude. Lots and lots of arpeggios.

b) Halo, online with Trey Azagthoth.

c) With yourself.

d) Russian roulette and Slaughter Of The Soul

4. Maiden rules because:

a) Duh.

b) They have three guitar players

c) They have t-shirts that match your Vans slip-ons with the all-over Killers print.

d) “You know when Bruce says, ‘Scream for me, Long Beach,’ on Live After Death? I swear to god, he was pointing right at me when he said that, dude.”

5. Your favorite “wolf band” is:

a) Wolf

b) Leatherwolf

c) Wolves In The Throne Room

d) Ulver

6.The band t-shirt you are currently wearing is:

a) Venom

b) Slayer (a Hot Topic exclusive)

c) “You’ve probably never heard of them, dude—they’re pretty underground.”

d) Extra black

7. Your favorite Cannibal Corpse album is:

a) Butchered At Birth

b) The one with “Entrails Ripped From a Virgin’s Cunt”

c) Fuck Cannibal Corpse

d) All of the above

8. When Metallica cut their hair, you:

a) Cried like a little bitch

b) Were ten years old

c) Cut your hair

d) “Grew my hair out even longer, dude. Fuck those guys.”

9. When you found out Rob Halford was gay, you:

a) Cried like a little bitch

b) Realized what he meant by Point Of Entry

c) Questioned your own sexuality

d) Were too busy being interviewed for Heavy Metal Parking Lot to give a flying fuck

10. The last time you got drunk and threw up…

a) Your mom got real pissed and grounded you for a week

b) Jägermeister poured out of your nose and eyes but your tight broseph Randy from Goat Puncher totally hooked you with a ride home.

c) You and your girl took turns holding each other’s hair back

d) The fucking pigs made you clean out the back of the squad car with your favorite Napalm Death longsleeve, but the joke’s on them, dude, ’cause you totally took a dump on the floor of that holding cell

.

This bullshit originally appeared in the November 2007 issue of Decibel magazine.

Verdict: Vikernes

After several sad, unsuccessful forays into reality programming, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) finally stumbles upon the winning formula in late 2008, shortly after Burzum mastermind and convicted murderer Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes is released on parole. It’s a stroke of pure, unmitigated genius from the otherwise morose producers at the NRK: Why not give the national bogeyman his own TV show, complete with pretentious rhetoric, full-costume Tolkien readings and ultra-nationalist high jinks? Better yet, why not give him a gavel and a robe and prop him up as a celebrity arbiter, Judge Judy-style? Of course, it’s no fun unless the decisions are legally binding, so all litigants are required to sign a waiver agreeing that the Count’s verdicts are final.

And now we take you to today’s hearings, already in progress…

What you are witnessing is real. The participants ARE NOT actors. They are actual litigants with a case pending in a Norwegian municipal court. Both parties have agreed to dismiss their court cases and have their disputes settled here, in our forum: Count Grishnackh’s Court.

Count Grishnackh: Mr. Tiegs, am I to understand that your Lhasa Apso micturated upon the plaintiff’s Persian rug?

Roger Tiegs: Infernus, your honor.

Grishnackh: Come again?

Tiegs: That’s my stage name, your honor—you know, my nom de guerre? I figure if you get to use yours, then…

Grishnackh: Silence! I will suffer neither fools nor insubordination in my courtroom. Especially from someone who runs around calling himself “Satan’s Minister On Earth” and has the audacity to show up with all that shit on his face. You’re lucky I don’t hold you in contempt. So, pretty please—with sugar on top—just answer the question, Mr. Tiegs.

Tiegs: [Rolls eyes] Your honor, Snickers—the dog, I mean—didn’t do anything to Gaahl’s… I mean Mr. Espedal’s… I mean the plaintiff’s rug.

Gaahl: That’s bullshit, your honor! Snickers blew a hot, smelly piss all over my new Persian and then left a steaming dump at the end of the driveway. My mother stepped in it when she was bringing me my blankie and a bottle of warm breast milk, your honor.

Grishnackh: I’ll ask you to wait your turn before opening your goddamn piehole, Mr. Espedal. But tell me more about this “blankie” of which you speak. And, uh, the breast milk…

Gaahl: Oh, did I say that out loud? Sorry, your honor.

Grishnackh: You’ve been in this courtroom before, haven’t you, Mr. Espedal?

Gaahl: Not this particular courtroom, your honor, but one very similar to it, yes. It went badly.

Grishnackh: So I’m told, Mr. Espedal; so I’m told. And what about these damages you’re seeking from the defendant? 190,000 kroner seems like a lot for a rug. Mighty Jewish of you, isn’t that, Mr. Espedal? And it says here… [Puts on eyeglasses, which are around his neck on a tasteful silver chain] that you also want Mr. Tiegs to be crucified “for as long as the court will legally allow.” There’s also something about the blood of his firstborn. Isn’t this a bit excessive—even for you, Mr. Espedal?

Gaahl: Well, you see, this rug, your honor…

Grishnackh: I know, I know—I read the complaint, Mr. Espedal. “It really tied the room together.” We’ve all seen the film. But the question I have is one of motive: Why would Snickers urinate on your rug in the first place?

Gaahl: Infernus told him to do it, your honor. He’s a dog whisperer.

Grishnackh: Can you prove this, Mr. Espedal?

Gaahl: [Begins fingering his Mjolnir pendant compulsively] Well … no, your honor. But I know it to be true!

Grishnackh: [Sighs] Mr. Tiegs, are you a dog whisperer?

Tiegs: Puh-lease, your honor. I can’t even get him to listen to me when I’m talking out loud.

Grishnackh: Right. Well, just the same, I’m finding in favor of the plaintiff. As we all know, the Lhasa Apso is an inferior Oriental breed incapable of advanced Aryan aptitudes like bladder control. But 190,000 kroner for a rug is ridiculous. The defendant is ordered to pay damages in the amount of 75,000 and … oh, let’s say a pint of blood from his firstborn. [Bangs gavel] Next case!

This bullshit originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Decibel magazine.

The Satanic Rites Of Darlene Zschech

And now, if you take the Necronomicon back to the library, I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.

- Ed Begley as Dr. Henry Armitage, The Dunwich Horror

Every Walpurgis, it’s the same old shit with you, Darlene. You wake up to find yourself strapped to a stone altar, tits up and naked as a jaybird, staring at the sigil of Baphomet on the ceiling while a young Dean Stockwell look-alike hovers over you with his admittedly impressive lip broom, the unblinking eye of his crooked dick staring at you greedily as he unveils a chestful of shitty tattoos and mumbles something about his granddad and “fertility rites.” Next thing you know, he’s pawing you all over, “like, totally feeling you up and being gross.” You know violation is imminent, but you’re helpless to prevent it. And then you’re totally fucking pregnant with the Child Of Satan again.

What is it with you, Darlene? There’re only so many times I can drive you over to the clinic and wave my pepper spray at those batshit protesters. I know we used to joke about “75 and a ride,” like it’s Fast Times At Ridgemont High or some shit, but last time the doctor gave you a fucking punch-card. You’re probably psyched that your eleventh abortion is gonna be on the house or whatever, but this is getting ridiculous.

I don’t even feel bad for you anymore, because that’s what you get for drinking the mystery tea, Darlene. Fuck the Alamo—remember Rosemary’s Baby? I only made you watch it like ten times, even rewinding the parts where Ruth Gordon keeps pushing that weird health shake on poor Mia Farrow. What about Jackie Treehorn’s White Russian in The Big Lebowski? You love that movie, Darlene—especially the part where “he fixes the cable”—but you never seem to understand why The Dude ends up in the back of a cab listening to the fucking Eagles. What about that creepy urban legend about waking up in a bathtub full of ice with no kidneys? They’re called FUCKING ROOFIES, Darlene.

I happen to know that mom told you not to take mystery tea from strangers, and yet you persist in being a total blonde. This is pretty obvious shit I’m talking about here, Darlene. Basic safety training. So the next time Lucifer impregnates you, you’re on your own.

I guess I should have seen this coming, though. I mean, what kind of 15-year old girl thinks Anton LaVey is “hot”? But you’re 42 now, Darlene. Your bald plagiaristic fantasy-rapist has been dead for ten years now, and yet you still sleep with any sad goth loser who can quote a few verses from The Satanic Bible. And those are the relatively normal ones, Darlene. Some of these pompous, slow-talking weirdos you bring home from the bar give me the creeps.

As your sister and roommate, I obviously feel obligated to say all this stuff—even if it’s for the hundredth time—but I think we’re approaching critical mass here. Your selective deafness has resulted in what appears to be a severe and potentially permanent personality disorder. I feel like I need to stage some sort of intervention—or maybe “exorcism” is the proper term. But even that doesn’t seem drastic enough, Darlene. Maybe I should just sign you up for one of those extreme behavior modification programs. Like, I don’t know—the marines. Sometimes I catch myself wishing that you would just HAVE THE FUCKING KID one of these times. Maybe the unholy vengeance that will be wrought upon the unsuspecting citizens of our beloved Brisbane will make you feel so guilty and shitty that you’ll learn to give that sloppy clam-box of yours a rest. Even if you give the little monster up for adoption, you’d have to live with the fact that someone somewhere is raising a smug little Damien Beelzebub who will nonchalantly murder his rich parents, their maid, and the obsessive local priest before eventually growing up to become a flesh-eating, fire-shitting, cloven-hoofed Bringer Of Death.

Seriously, Darlene—is that what you really want?

>>This bullshit originally appeared in the January 2008 issue of Decibel magazine<<