The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

M AX B ELL C ENTRE
    â€œ I WAS NOT EVEN AWARE OF A GROUP CALLED M ARILYN M ANSON UNTIL ABOUT TWO OR THREE WEEKS AGO WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN OUR OFFICE AND MY HOME HAVE BEEN INUNDATED WITH PHONE CALLS WITH CONCERNS ABOUT THIS CONCERT THAT’S PERFORMING THIS EVENING IN W INGS S TADIUM IN K ALAMAZOO … T HEIR MESSAGE IS TO KILL G OD , KILL YOUR PARENTS AND THEN COMMIT SUICIDE . I HANDED OUT TO ALL MY COLLEAGUES AN ARTICLE ABOUT WHAT M R . M ANSON CONFESSES THAT HE’S DONE AS FAR AS ON THE STAGE FROM SEXUAL TYPES OF ACTS TO A NUMBER OF VULGAR TYPES OF THINGS THAT PROMOTE VIOLENCE IN OUR SOCIETY , AND I’ M VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THAT . S O WITH THAT, WE PUT A RESOLUTION TOGETHER … THAT ANYONE UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE BE ACCOMPANIED BY THEIR PARENTS .... W E’VE RECEIVED ABOUT 10,000 SIGNATURES JUST IN THE K ALAMAZOO AREA THAT ARE AGAINST THIS CONCERT .”
    â€”S ENATOR D ALE S HUGARS OF M ICHIGAN

    Â Â Â Â Â  UNDATED
    Just got a phone call from my father. He was watching Real Stories of the Highway Patrol and said that on the show they caught a guy they had been chasing across Ohio. When they pulled him over, they found a trunk full of guns. He was a twenty-five-year-old Christian fanatic with missing teeth, and he said he was going to Florida to kill the Antichrist. The episode had been taped the same week we just played in Florida.
    Â Â Â Â Â  APRIL 1997
    I am enclosing the napkin on which I drafted a statement I had to make on MTV about our show being canceled against our will in South Carolina:
    â€œOnce again the so-called servants of God have proven my point with their hypocritical and hostile behavior. And once again they have illustrated their lack of separation between church and state and their disgusting similarities to Nazi Germany. Unfortunately everyone suffers: We suffer, our fans suffer, the constitution of the U.S.A. suffers, and the pious right-wing politicians of South Carolina suffer because everyone now sees them for the fascist idiots they are. What do we expect in a state that still flies the Confederate flag? You want a revolution? You’ll get it!”
    Â Â Â Â Â  MAY 10, 1997
    Just found out that one of my roadies, Sean McGann, died last night. He had been drinking and was trying to rappel down the catwalk. But he forgot to attach the ropes. I know it’s not my fault, but I can’t help feeling that it somehow is, because if it wasn’t for me he’d still be alive.
    Maybe I’ve lived a sheltered life, because outside of my dog Aleusha this is really the first person close to me who has died. It makes me wonder what I was thinking years ago when I tried to kill Nancy and our old bassist, Brad. Trying to kill them would have been pointless. Nature takes its own course. It’s Social Darwinism. People get what they deserve. But did Sean really deserve that?
    Â Â Â Â Â  MOTHER’S DAY, BACK LOUNGE, 6 A.M.
    I called my mother today, and realized really for the first time how shitty I had acted as a kid and how much abuse I had given her. If it weren’t for her tolerance and unconditional love and support, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I told her I loved her, and she said she already knew that. If she didn’t, her pride would have convinced her of it anyway. I’ve been seeing a lot of my father lately, too. He comes to a lot of the shows. He seems to enjoy the attention more than I do. He goes around telling people that he’s the father of the God of Fuck. I think now that we understand each other, our relationship has become so much better than it was when I was a kid. I guess when people began to accept what I did, my parents began to accept it as well.
    Â Â Â Â Â  MAY 29, 1997, PARIS
    I talked to Snoop Doggy Dogg today. Well, I’m not sure if you could really call it talked because I could hardly understand a word he was saying. But I think what he was trying to communicate was that he wanted to work with me in some sort of capacity and something involving marijuana.
    Â Â Â Â Â  JUNE 15, 1997, NEW YORK
    With the help of our civil rights lawyer Paul Cambria, we won our case against the state of New Jersey and we were able to perform on the OzzFest at Giants Stadium today, despite the objections of the stadium’s management. (It’s funny because I saw the Larry Flynt movie the other day and my friend, Edward Norton—Courtney’s