The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

before.” And he said, “Try it.” So we did, and we were wired out of our minds. We were doing lines like crazy.
    I was wearing rubber underwear that had been built only with an opening for your dick; I wore them all the time on that tour. And there were these two girls who were hanging out backstage. One was a blond and one was a redhead, and they were both pretty cute. One was studying to be a psychiatrist, and the other one was just a slut. I remember being really high and really confused and still having my pants on because I never took them off until I went to bed. And I was fucking both of them in the back lounge with this underwear on like I was some kind of debased version of Superman. My skin never touched them. It was like wearing a body condom.
    Were you afraid your heart would stop on the cocaine?
    It didn’t really bother me at the time. We thought it was really funny because it was such a cliché. Only stupid people get carried away with drugs. Like John Belushi and Corey Feldman.
    That whole tour must have been amazing. All of a sudden you went from nothing to living this rock star life on the arena circuit!
    No one had heard of us, and our album wasn’t even out yet. There were just rumors about us from the small amount of press that we had gotten from our publicist, Sioux Z., who was very excited about taking on this project even though she probably didn’t understand it. I always wanted something more. That was my problem: I always wanted more. And when I came across that way to my publicist or my record company or my producer I was always told to be patient and not expect too much or get my hopes up. Even Trent and his manager, when they signed us they said something like, “Someday I think you guys could sell as many records as Ministry.”
    That’s like 200,000 records.
    Exactly. And always in my head it felt defeating. I want to be bigger than Kiss. I don’t want to be some fucking dispensable thing. I probably shouldn’t say this, but what the fuck, nobody reads your magazine. [ He straightens out a line and snorts half of it .]
    Anyway, I felt there was always a competition from the beginning. Not from my end but from them. It made me feel defeated because I was always ahead of myself. I was always thinking of the big picture, and nobody else was. It was very disappointing all the time. What nobody understood then is this: The only way that you achieve what you want and fulfill your dreams and become great is by demanding that sort of attention. You have to make it happen. And I think nobody saw that back then but me and my band, or at least the core of the band, which was Pogo, Twiggy and myself.
    Let’s get back to the tour.
    Yeah, okay. We had a lot of interesting things that happened with Jim Rose [leader of a traveling troupe of freaks and contortionists called the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow]. He was always a great thrill to be around because he instigated a lot of interesting scenarios. There was one girl that had followed us around to most of the cities, and she was sort of overweight but cute, like a koala bear with Gothic udders, I suppose. Somehow one night she was talked into standing naked and bent over as everybody took turns trying to spit in her asshole, a game that even I found crude and couldn’t take part in.
    You’re just saying that for my benefit.
    No, that’s true. For a moment I thought, “Well, maybe.” But I was uncomfortable because I felt a little sorry for her. She seemed like the type of person that just really wanted to be accepted. She was basically being exploited for her anxiousness and her neediness, and I have a soft spot for people like that because I’m so used to wanting to be accepted that I’ve let people exploit me. There are actually certain lines I will draw as far as what I do. I’m not trying to be self-righteous: I thought it was entertaining. I just didn’t participate.
    There were things I took part in, though. The most memorable was toward the very end of Jim Rose’s time on the tour when we were getting really rowdy. What happened was Jim Rose had gathered together quite an assortment of people this time. He had really done some work. He had about ten girls, very nubile and ready to get fucked. Unfortunately that’s not what happened to them. I’m sure they were all disappointed.
    Instead, he devised a bowel movement contest to see who could receive