The Seven Deadly Sins

by Corey Taylor

  Sometimes I feel like a leper in a health club because in every category, I categorically do not fit. That can be a scary concept late at night when all you get are silent screams of doubt and defiance. But the glutton inside is just pulling for me and mine. Something has to drive us to do our best and worst. Something has to lift our lids in the morning and keep us from shitting the bed. That something is the hunger. So before we go throwing gluttony under the deadly bus, take a look at our sweet teeth and our hobbies and our careers and our needs and realize that we have to read between the lines a little bit and come to terms with the fact that without “sins” like gluttony, our hearts’ desires would be swamp grass and tasteless oxygen. Our aspirations would sink like an old Carolina brick. But with just the right amount of gluttony in our lives, we keep our hands busy, our stomachs working, and our eyes on the prize. No one can tell me that it is a sin to want something in excess, or at least no one can convince me it is a sin anyway. I know there are consequences to our actions, but when the reward is rich and the resolve is rigid and strong, this intergalactic herd of advanced apes could just be ripe for enlightenment. I have seen great things in our future, but all that can change when we stop yearning for something great, for ourselves or otherwise.

  Look, I do not want anyone to be hurt or suffer. I do not want anyone to feel trapped in his or her own life. I want people to feel what we were all meant to feel. But I want you all to let go of that guilt you let swing around from your backs. You are carrying exponential pain, the corpses of past mistakes. You mean to tell me we are given a gift of sensation and prescience only to be treated like bastards and irritants when we try to find the boundaries for ourselves? And who said that guy who invented the Hover Chair could be named Tom Kruse? There is only one Tom Cruise by gum and he is a smiling, gnarly, rich alien psycho and I love his movies. I do not give a shit—he kicks ass. I got lost again, huh? Fuck me, I have to call someone about that....

  I lived in a closet, woke up in a dumpster and nearly died several times. Now I work every day doing what I was born to do. I am a glutton for my work, my passion, and my creations. I am where I am because it is never enough to have done anything—it only matters what I am doing. I love being a father and a star all at once, and I do each with the same zeal I have had for years and years. I would have nothing without my capacity for hunger. It has brought me so many blessings that I stopped counting them long ago. Now knowing that, knowing me, and knowing common sense, do me a favor and take a deep breath, slow down, and answer this question: If all that is true and amazing, who the hell can call gluttony a sin? If hunger is the root of all desire, how can that not fuel our dexterity?

  I refuse to hide behind logic that dictates that normal behavior has to be vanilla and bland. I resist the doctrine that dignifies the notion of civilized decorum and that we cannot embrace our inner cravings. This kind of thinking keeps us tied to superstitions and cheapens our attempts to ascend to a better level of consciousness. Call me crazy, but is it a coincidence that almost all of these sins are the very sensations that make us feel alive? Is it me, or does it feel like ghosts from the past are still holding our puppet strings? I am sick and fucking tired of these so-called texts of faith that sell us salvation through the murder of our senses. They have no faith in the human sense of moderation. They have no faith in people. They are hypocrites. They are scared to death of their own weak wills and subscribe to believing that we are all the same. We are all “sinners.” If they want to fall from grace and sell themselves short, so be it. But they can leave us alone, for fuck’s sake. No one is going to shill to me a new set of standards. I am a defiant voice of sanity in the last ward on earth. Do not let them convince you that you are crazy. They are the ones twisting the spin. So they are the obvious choices to pass out the sins.

  Our quiet noon in the sun may seem like a distant fantasy. Our quest for true oneness may merely be an ambling stop way off in the distance. But hope can put years back on the end of your life. The power of the mind is almost otherworldly sometimes. There are mysteries within enigmas in the future. Maybe we will never have a good answer for anything.

  Me? Make no mistakes—I will be around. I will drink my double-thick shakes in triple-digit heat until they finally take my words away as well. I have no fear anymore. Why should I? It is just life, man. Life is only as frivolous as we make it. You build too many walls around it and you will find yourself locked out of your own life. If you feel like there is something better, tell the person next to you. Then tell them to tell the person next to them, and so on and so forth. Who knows? Maybe word will get back to me in the end.

  Then I will rest my case.

  chapter 10

  For Your Consideration. . . The New Magnificent Seven

  I remember when they changed the Coke.

  I was twelve years old living in Elk Run Heights, Iowa. It was a pinky print of a town on the outskirts of Waterloo. This might be the first time anyone has ever written about it. But alas, its mention stops here. I was living with my mom and her band of alcoholics in a stout duplex across the street from a convenience store called Pronto, where I usually stole my breakfast and lunch every morning. It was there, in 1985, where I was introduced to the New Coke. I paid it little attention since we were a Pepsi household, but over the next few days I came to realize the importance of what I was witnessing. People were fucking pissed. The new CEO of Coca-Cola kept appearing on shows like 60 Minutes and Current Affair, hair slicked back and chugging gallons of the stuff. The New Coke had a new look, too—more modern than the classic design and a precursor to the labels we see today, ironically enough, on Pepsi products. The problem was that it tasted like shit. The Old Coke had a sugary-sweet slight bitterness to it; the New Coke was a combo of battery acid and Golden Griddle pancake syrup. The world was on the brink of destruction. People were fighting in the streets and appearing on Donahue to decry the treatment of a beloved national treasure, all of which made me smirk because at the end of the day, who really gave a one-wipe shit if they changed the flavor? Even the CEO of Pepsi came out to laud the fact that they would never change their own product, another bit of O’ Henry since Pepsi had been changing and perfecting their formulas for decades.

  Then, one day, a wholly different Coke showed up, sitting alongside the ever-dwindling crates of New Coke taking up space on the supermarket shelves. It was called Coca-Cola Classic and it began flying out the door with ever-growing urgency. People sighed a soda-soaked sigh of relief, knowing they had their old reliable back, even if it had been renamed and given to compensate for the mess that New Coke had stirred up. A lot of people have put forth the interesting theory that Coca-Cola used the whole scenario to help kick-start slumping sales of Old Coke, that by taking it away and providing an inferior alternative it jogged people’s memories and taste buds and left them wanting their beverages back. It is actually quite ingenious, if that is what the plan had been in the first place. I am not sure I could find anyone today that could tell me what New Coke really tasted like anymore. I have my own recollection, but it is fleeting at best. I only drank Cherry Coke myself.

  This business plan has not always been a failure, however. The art of replacing the old with the new has been practiced since the birth of industry. The battles between Schick and Gillette, Levi’s and Lee jeans, Ford and Chevrolet are pieces of Americana. The marketplace is only as healthy as the commerce it provides, and the strength and quality of the products ensure an even playing field—fair game for a fight for dominance. Technology has advanced the speed of exceptional design. The biggerbetter-now is as commonplace as the four-slice toaster and as complicated as an LED flat-screen television as thin as a magazine. We as consumers have been conditioned to insist on the latest and greatest. Reciprocation is rewarded with steady and loyal business. Capital ignorance is given a pink slip and the cold shoulder. If you do not believe, ask yourself when was the last time you tried to buy an eight-track tape.

  You might be
asking yourself, “Where in the hell is he going with all of this?” Well, it just so happens there is quite a bit of method among all this madness. If Webster’s Dictionary and Monty Python have taught us anything, it is that an argument is a collected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. I am making an argument that these seven suspect deadly sins are not at all what their promo pack has promised. They are neither deadly nor are they sins; rather, they are character flaws that have been worked into every major fictional hero or villain since the dawn of literary time. But they are not sins, as I have said repeatedly and hopefully have successfully proven. Sins are just one of the many things that make us human. I truly disapprove of the idea that we are all very different. I think we have more in common than we realize.

  So my proposition is very simple: We need a new set of seven deadly sins. We need to update our list of what bends us to scare the hell out of the rest of the planet. This new list should not only be a reflection of the adverb “deadly,” but it should also be a reflection of the times we find ourselves in now. Times change and so should our notion of what sins are actually deadly. They should, by their own nature, be unique. In other words, they need to stand on their own terms and not bleed into one another.

  This problem should be evident in the original list. There are sins here that overlap and negate themselves. For instance, I think envy can lead to sins but is not a sin in and of itself. Envy can lead to theft and murder. But just being an envious prick is not enough to burn in the Southern Hot Box. Wanting is a natural drive for us skin-covered geeks. The major duality you have to look at is the close proximity between envy and greed. Like I have said before, you cannot have envy without greed. But can you have greed without envy? See, I believe they cancel each other out. Then you have gluttony—same damn thing. You have three sins on the list that are very near to being indistinguishable. In fact, greed has tendrils that stretch in all directions like ancient ivy climbing the family homestead. It is in vanity and also in lust: The vain are greedy for the attention of others and the lustful are greedy for the sex of pretty much everyone. And any one of these can make us angry when we have no sense that we have been sated.

  We are looking at this list in the entirely wrong way. We are dealing with ethereal feelings and not physicality. We are putting forth the notion that feelings are sins, and that is simply wrong. I say if you feel the need to have a list entitled the Seven Deadly Sins, then you should make it direct and deadly. And what kind of a host would I be if I did not have the answers to my own hypothetical questions? Do not answer that—I am serving my world famous Nacho Dip later. Anyway, I have assembled a new list, a morbid bunch that are not only sins but are also crimes. Some of them may overlap as well, but that never stopped the original authors from making the first list so incestuous. Prepare yourselves, dear readers. I give you the New Seven Deadly Sins:

  1. Murder: besides child abuse, the most evil act you could ever commit

  2. Child abuse: the crushing of the last bit of true innocence on earth

  3. Rape: the vile process with which power perverts the powerful

  4. Torture: another word for using might to an unfair advantage

  5. Theft: the bitter byproduct of unchecked and overwrought envy

  6. Lying: making truth a dirty word and destroyer of trust

  7. Bad music: a vessel that elevates mediocrity for acceptance and praise

  I know what you are thinking. You are saying to yourself, “You had me until you hit bad music, what the fuck, dude?” Trust me—all questions will be answered at the end, but only those submitted in writing and still only those written in blue or black ink, thank you.

  Yep, these are my submissions for the new Deadly Sins, and I think they are infinitely more appropriate than the prior list. When you really look at them, the New Seven has it all: deadly consequences, sinful intentions, and terrible realities. This shit is too real not to be taken seriously. Murder in America alone has climbed steadily since the 1960s. Child abuse is staggeringly prevalent today. Rape has revealed an even darker shade of hell. Torture has become synonymous with “my country ’tis of thee.” Theft has been with us for hundreds of years, but today it is less about survival and more about profit. Lying was a pauper’s folly until the rich realized they could keep better secrets from us by being deceptive. Bad music is just fucking wrong. These are modern times, with modern maladies. We need modern sins with modern methods to fight them. Amendments are made to the Constitution as society evolves. Why can’t we make the adjustments in our Second Half so we can beat the number one defense by getting it right? Yeah, that is a football reference. Deal with it. Moving on....

  As I sit here, getting cigarette ash all over my computer, I realize the original list was assembled because of its delicacies and overtones. But this is not a time for nuance or insinuation. This is a time to be direct. People are fed up with innuendo and euphemisms. They want straight answers to earnest questions, and the new list should be a reflection of this. It should put it out there in bold face where the line starts and ends. The guidelines should not be inferred; lead us not into assumption. Just show us the way and we can get there on our own damn strength. So where the ancients left off, I have decided to proceed with a bit of nostalgia and a firm belief in what should be. Daylight is burning fast within the confines of our legacy. I would hate to leave the party too soon and miss out on the favors, so let’s dig in and sort this out before I get arrested for jumping through the glass table, or at least before I streak the neighbors in my Red Skull mask.

  Murder is the first on the block. It is the quintessential sin, really: to take a life, whether human or otherwise, out of malice or for profit or for no reason at all. It takes a lot to be more offensive or repulsive than murder. How this was not an original on the first seven I will never know. To me it is a no-brainer: If you take a life, you forfeit your own. That may be a very Right wing way to view it, but to me some shit is just fucking necessary. Am I the only one who can draw the conclusion that murder in the world has accelerated since the rapid decrease in executions? I think it is because there are no repercussions anymore. If you kill someone and you get convicted, there is a good chance you will end up with a better life than you had before. You will get fed, you will get a bed, and you will have access to an education, an exercise program, and a fairly trained physician. No one lives in fear of breaking the law. We have taken away the last consequence for taking away a life. The ultimate sin should have the ultimate penalty. I do not mean for those whose guilt is on the fence; this form of punishment has no room for ambiguity. I mean if you are guilty of murder beyond a shadow of a doubt, you deserve to die, period. You deserve to be taken out behind the shed and destroyed.

  Murder is a violation of your human membership. Trust me: I distinguish between murder and circumstances like death on the battlefield or self-defense against abuse or other criminal activity. I am talking about premeditated, cold-blooded murder. There are people in this world who want to watch it all turn to ash and gray and there is no helping them—no form of rehabilitation will bring them back from the cool black of evil. That kind of numbness is a death inside the human soul, an exit of the compassion that helps us all do incredible things for each other. There are ghouls and there are saviors among us all. Keeping the ghouls around is a waste of time. If we hope to achieve greatness, we must prove there is punishment on this plane of existence. Stop leaving the judgments to a supposed divine spirit; the ignorant do not care that “god is going to send them to hell.” Send them a real message: that we will not tolerate trespasses against our brothers, sisters, children, pets. Vengeance and justice are luxuries we can afford.

  Child abuse is something I am even more bombastic about. Being a product of child abuse and neglect, I am very sensitive to this subject. I am almost as fiery about it as I am about murder. Anyone who mistreats a child must be made to suffer as strongly as anyone who kills is made to suffer. A child is really just a bl
ank piece of paper at the end of the day. When you systematically break down and decimate their souls and their innocence, you kill our chances to last forever. The way some children are treated in this day and age is repugnant. We are raising a generation that will thrive on malevolence and pain. You expect us to make it to another millennium when the kids we are bringing into the world cannot even differentiate love from cruelty? I have watched the escalation of child abuse with a panic that is squeezing my heart into pulp with every offense. Who the fuck do these people think they are? They treat children like used tissue and discard them with as much ambivalence. I am horrified at the concept that with enough pain, these kids will grow up to carry on the “family tradition.” The only thing that gives me pause to react is remembering one soul who came out of it with a deeper compassion for the human race: me.

  There is no fate I can conjure that would be painful enough for child abusers, especially pedophiles. NAMBLA can try to sway an ignorant populace all they want, but they are still vile fucking scum. I have always believed that a society is only as strong as the ways they protect their children. I have to be honest: I have no idea how strong our nation or the world at large truly is. I see news coverage of atrocities against our young all the time. I feel the pain of the world in my chest and I am stopped dead with anxiety. Can we not all agree that we must protect our young? I do not mean by sheltering them from being kids. I mean by setting precedence and punishing those who perpetrate these acts with cold indifference to their cries for mercy. They are lower than the darkest seas and more evil than the highest form of corruption. To me, there is no higher form of corruption. Child abuse is a steely knife in the heart of our greatest treasures. We need to end it now.