Ministry

by Jourgensen, Al

  I passed out on the couch after shooting up, and my arm was hanging out. This brown recluse spider crawled around and—maybe he was attracted to the blood from the syringe—but he bit me right on the inner side of my left wrist. I didn’t feel a thing at the time. But after a few days I noticed that there were little blood bubbles on my wrist that didn’t look normal, and it started to burn and itch. I put antibiotic cream and cortisone on it, but that didn’t do a thing. The fucking spider’s teeth injected its poison straight into my vein. A week after the bite I realized this wasn’t going away, so I went into the hospital. We were rehearsing new Ministry songs, and my middle finger had swollen up like a kielbasa, so I was using it like a slide on the strings. I had all these blood bubbles on my wrist, and my left arm looked like Popeye’s—the size of a thigh. It was completely, absurdly swollen, like a mutating creature in a B-horror movie or a bad episode of Fringe. Then when we were playing, something in my finger burst, and about a pint of infected puss-mixed blood splattered down the strings and guitar frets. Everyone said, “If you don’t go to the hospital, you’re gonna die.” I realized they were right, and I was tired of cleaning blood off everything. So I wrapped my finger up with a washcloth and drove to the hospital. I pulled up and went into the emergency room. After waiting for entirely too long, the doctor saw me, and the first thing he told me was that my arm had to come off and they would have to amputate immediately. No question.

  My first response: “Uh, I don’t play drums for Def Leppard, motherfucker. I need this arm. I play guitar. You can’t do that with one arm.” They said if they didn’t amputate, they couldn’t guarantee I would live. That was the best news I heard the whole time I was there. I said, “Do whatever you have to do. Just don’t take off my arm.”

  That’s why I don’t trust doctors. They want the easy way out. They just want to hack shit off you and be done with it because it’s easier for them way that way. They had already hacked off my toe; I was dammed if I was gonna let them have my arm too. They put me out, sliced my whole arm open like a butterflied giant shrimp, and dabbed gauze all along the infected cut. Right before they put me out they had me sign a bunch of weird contracts. The first one said I couldn’t sue them if I died from the surgery, and the second said they couldn’t be held responsible if they fucked up my tattoos—like amputating my arm wouldn’t have fucked up my tattoos. They said there was a good chance the arm would be paralyzed even after the surgery and that I’d never be able to use my left hand again. Ha! Look at me today! My arm’s fine! Fucking ghouls. They just want body parts. It took me a couple months to recover from the surgery. The doctors gave me painkillers, but I definitely self-medicated as well.

  Afterwards I didn’t feel triumphant that I managed to keep my arm. I wasn’t happy I could still play guitar. I was only glad that having two arms made it easier to shoot drugs. I wasn’t getting satisfaction from watching sports, reading, or listening to music. Nothing meant anything anymore, and everything seemed like the punch line of a bad joke. I was a breathing cliché, a Kurt Cobain waiting to happen. I was spitting out teeth like they were sunflower seed shells. I’d bite into a slice of pizza and it was like, “Oh shit, not another one.” I’d feel around in my mouth and say, “Okay, that’s gone.” I saw a doctor and he said, “I’m surprised you’re even alive. You’ve done more methadone than everyone in a ghetto clinic combined.” I didn’t know it at the time, but that stuff eats away your bone marrow, your calcium that builds your teeth, your enamel. It corrodes all that shit away. I just figured, “Hey, I’m not getting dope sick because I have methadone,” and I did that for so many years, but apparently those years really fucked up my entire skeletal and dental structure. Suddenly, I had no teeth; they’d all rotted away. I had nothing. That’s when I made the conscious decision to kill myself.

  It’s the only time I’ve ever planned to commit suicide, and I couldn’t even get that right. I told my dealer, “Someone ripped me off, man. I need to borrow a gun to settle a score.” There was a guy there who was picking up some drugs who said he could help me out; he just had to go home and get the gun. I was literally minutes away from blowing my head off. To make it easier, I wanted to do a hit of crack. I rifled through my wallet for a few bucks, but I didn’t have anything. There were just a few scraps with shit scribbled on them. Most of it was useless. Then I saw a little piece of paper scrunched way in the corner; I didn’t even know it was there. I took it out, and there was a New York phone number on it. I suddenly remembered it was Revolting Cocks groupie who I had fucked and left at the hotel years earlier. I had been in touch with her since then, and I knew she had straightened out, become an artist, and was in New York. So I decided to give her a call. I’m an antisocial motherfucker, but for some reason I wanted to talk to someone, anyone before I blew my brains out. I didn’t know if she would still be at that number; it had been years since she gave it to me. I called, not expecting anything, and she answered. We started talking, and I spilled my guts about what I was going to do and told her not to feel bad, but I just wanted to talk to someone before I died. She convinced me not to kill myself, that my greatest work was still ahead of me, and that I should come to New York to stay with her so she could help me get clean.

  It wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I’m not sure it was even what I was subconsciously hoping for, because I had definitely given up. I wanted out. I just wanted to say goodbye to somebody. And of anybody in the world, why should she want to help me? I had kicked her off the RevCo bus, ditched her, and humiliated her. But she said she could tell I was a good person with untapped potential and had a lot to live for. I was practically sobbing: “I can’t stay in this lifestyle, but I can’t stop!” She said she had been through the same thing and had helped others. She told me she’d be with me and help me get clean. We’d take one step at a time. No expectations. “Just come to New York and we’ll get through this together,” she begged me. That was the first time Angie saved my life.

  I flew out to New York and stayed with Angie for a while. I kicked heroin in her apartment, which overlooked a park. It was the most back-assward thing I’ve done in my life. I looked out the window and could see heroin deals going down all night long. Talk about a tease. But I stuck it out. I was sicker than fuck. I couldn’t keep anything down. She was trying to feed me soup and saltine crackers, but I’d spew them right back up on the bed sheets. I was like a five-year-old who couldn’t even make it to the toilet to puke. It’s weird because I’d kicked drugs lots of times, but for some reason knowing this would hopefully be the last time, it hit me harder. I had a high fever, the shakes were worse: my teeth—the few I had left—were chattering. My head was aching. Even the muscles in my back were all fucked up and spasming. I wasn’t just kicking heroin; I was stopping cocaine, pills, and, hardest of all, methadone, the most evil drug in the world. Fuckin’ Nazis.

  I’d watch movies to try to get my mind off the withdrawal symptoms. And I realized that all my favorites—A Clockwork Orange, Scarface, Trainspotting, The Godfather—all had scenes with drugs: selling drugs, finding drugs, doing drugs. They were all a huge cock tease. I hated music, especially anything I’d done—I didn’t want anything to do with it. I vowed never to make music again. All music caused was pain, depression, addiction. I’d rather be a garbage man and work normal hours.

  Days passed like months, and every week I begged her to get me a gun so I could follow through with what I promised myself. She was a champ. My nurse, my angel, my savoir. Eventually I started feeling better. Angie and I had already had a thing, so it definitely wasn’t a case of the Stockholm Syndrome. Anyway, she wasn’t holding me against my will. But as I started feeling better I definitely developed a thing for this chick. Sure, she had some loose screws, but she also really had her shit together. Since she had been a crazed groupie, she had become a performance artist, gotten a journalism degree, done book editing, worked at a needle exchange, and gotten her bachelor’s degree. Wh
at she wanted with a junkie, college dropout, music has-been was beyond me. But when I was clean from everything but methadone, which I was still kicking, I planned to go back to El Paso and pick up my pickup, then drive from there to El Paso and move in with Angie at her apartment in Little Italy. We were driving there, and on the way I kept seeing these signs about Graceland, and some of them said, “Get married in Graceland.” So with Cheap Trick blasting on the stereo, I popped the question, and she said, “Yes.”

  I called Angie’s dad, Al Lukacin, to ask for her hand in marriage. It’s funny because he’s a total sports guy too. He once played in the Montreal Canadians organization. And the Philadelphia Flyers’ former general manager is Angie’s godfather. Angie’s dad is six-foot-two, and I thought he was gonna beat my ass when he first met me and saw this dreadlocked, drunk guy with tattoos show up. But he was really cool, and we still talk puck all the time. That’s why Angie has “Al” tattooed on her shoulder: Even if I fuck up, she’s still got her dad.

  We called Graceland, and they said there were no openings for six months. So we thought, “Okay, well, we’ll do it later—maybe in New York.” We kept driving. Less than an hour later the wedding department called Angie’s cell and said a Japanese couple canceled, and if we could be in Memphis the next day, we could get married at Graceland. You don’t have to have any blood test to get married in Tennessee, and you don’t need to prepare anything in advance; you just have to sign papers, so there was no problem.

  They have their own pastor named Pastor Bear. He took us on a complete private tour of Graceland and the museum there, and then he married us. Because it was spontaneous, we didn’t have a best man or a bridesmaid, so we bought a big stuffed teddy bear, and that was our best man and ring bear(er). The pastor blessed him and everything. It was great, and the first time I can remember having fun doing something legal in a long time. But it was kind of creepy at the same time. They have rocks in the backyard that have speakers built into them that play Elvis music, and of course everything has an Elvis theme. Since we hadn’t planned it, nobody outside of Angie’s dad knew we were married. My parents didn’t know, and none of our friends knew. We just did it.

  Intervention 8

  Salvation—The Guiding Light of

  Angelina Lukacin-Jourgensen

  Family members and friends agree—if it wasn’t for his wife, Angie, Al Jourgensen would have died in the early 2000s. The two started life out headed in markedly different directions. Jourgensen was born to be bad, and Lukacin was born to devout Christians, raised in a hippie commune in Vancouver, and was prevented from dating until she went to Trinity Western University, where she got her associates degree. Before she met Jourgensen Angelina Lukacin went to Langara Journalism School, worked as a writer for the school and as a reporter for a local paper. Later she earned her bachelor’s degree and became a certified public accountant. But growing up in a sheltered environment led her to rebel, and as she was climbing the professional ladder, she was partying like a scenester. She successfully merged the two worlds for a while. Then, after almost overdosing, she cleaned up her act, and became a financial adviser and eventually a band manager. She also helped Jourgensen get clean and married the then-floundering rock star. Today she manages all aspects of the Ministry brand and is CEO of the 13th Planet empire, but she still refers to herself as Al’s “wife-ager.”

  You grew up in a conservative household. When did you start to rebel?

  angelina lukacin-jourgensen When I was a teenager I heard Nina Hagen and Lena Lovich and connected with the anger of punk rock. When I got into college I got really into the music scene that was happening in Vancouver with Skinny Puppy and other bands. Their singer, Nivek Ogre, and I have the same birthday. His wife at the time, Annette, was my friend, and that’s when I started experimenting with drugs. I landed a job for the West Ender/East Ender newspaper in Vancouver, which was a weekly rag. I was an activist journalist, and I did a lot of photographs, which opened a whole new world to me. I was really into music, so the newspaper gave me a camera and free film. I was only paid to do the hard news stories, but my passion was music, so they let me review and photograph shows, and I got in for free because I was with the press. That was my first taste of the music business, and I was immediately addicted to the industry after that.

  How did you go from journalism to management?

  alj I was interviewed by BCTV. They wanted to give me my own talk show ’cause I was like this crazy-looking punk-rock chick—like I literally looked like “Like a Virgin” Madonna with a lot more eyeliner and way too much MDA. I was a freak, and they liked that. I didn’t get the job, but then the Toronto Globe & Mail called, the paper Hemingway wrote for, and I thought that was my dream job. So I packed up a suitcase and went to Toronto for this interview, but I accidently partied too hard and drank too much the night before, and I totally missed the interview. After that I was too nervous to call them back. But here I was in Toronto, and I had my suitcase. I wasn’t going back. I hooked up with this artist Lincoln Clarke, who Annette had introduced me to, who did political street art, destruction of public property stuff, along the same lines as Ron English, and I stayed in Toronto. I was temping to make money, and an opportunity came up to interview for a company called CPI, which did all the major concert promotions in Canada. I interviewed for the job and didn’t hear anything for about a week, and then I got a call from the agency, and they said, “They want you.” I was to be assistant to the president of the company, Michael Cohl, who went on to launch BCL, which turned into SFX, which turned into Clear Channel, which turned into LiveNation. He is the mastermind, like Oz. I worked for him for four years. What’s funny about that is I walked in, and the guy who interviewed me—David “Blue” Bluestein—looked at me and said, “Oh, it’s you. The agency sent the wrong person.” They had asked for someone else, but the agency had made a mistake. But Blue hired me anyway, and I had to start off doing the nightshift receptionist job, answering phones from six to midnight. A few nights went by, and I still hadn’t been introduced to Michael yet, which I thought was strange. But one night the intercom goes off, and a deep, scruffy, kind of scary voice said, “Hello.” I answer, “Hello?” Response: “I need cigarettes.” And I said, “Okay, what kind?” and the voice says, “Kools. And a diet coke!” I went to the store and got him his cigarettes, and I came back, and Michael’s office door was open, and he’s sitting at his desk with sunglasses on and his legs up on his desk. He asks, “So, who are you?” And I went, “I think I’m your new assistant.” Anyway we hit it off pretty much right away, and I worked for him for four years, and everything that I do effectively in my business today I learned from Michael. He’s a genius and was a real mentor. He was always very kind and very patient with me. One of my champions.

  Where did you go from there?

  alj I probably could have stayed working with Michael for the rest of my life and have been set, but I reached the glass ceiling and figured I wasn’t going to go anywhere else in the company. In those days women did marketing and publicity—that’s pretty much as far as you could go. As Michael said, I made a very sharp left turn in my life’s direction, and he helped me make it, although I’m sure he would have preferred if I had stayed working for him. So I wrote a business proposal in 1989 and pitched it to Michael. I asked him for money, and he gave it to me, and I went to New York to start my new journey. No one in my life ever since Michael has ever believed in me as much as he did, and I never forget that.

  What did you do in New York?

  alj I started off doing poetry and performance art and just getting any acting work—off-off-off-off-way the hell off-Broadway—and I did some singing and modeling for painters and photographers. It was fabulous. I was very unabashed and very wild. I hooked up with Steve Cannon, a New Orleans blind black poet and playwright who was one of the founders of the sixties Umbra Workshop, and he introduced me to Ishmael Reed, and Butch Morris, Miguel A
lgarin, all of whom I worked with as well as other artists from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I hooked up with this really great group of jazz musicians and started a little performance art band, “Angelina and the Orchestrina.” We performed all over the place, including Lincoln Center.

  It sounds like you had your head screwed on straight?

  alj Yeah, but I was really wild. There’s a show on TV called Bad Girls. They have nothing on me. I was insane, just partying, having a great time. I’m the girl who used to crash through bus stops just to break the glass and roll in it. I was the girl who got up on the bar and danced half-naked—I was that crazy girl. That’s part of my personality that I have to kinda keep under wraps and act more “age appropriate” these days. Besides, Al’s the crazy one. You can’t have two crazies in this business. But I’m crazy on the inside. That’s part of me. I love that girl, and I’m not ashamed of anything. There must be some reason Al married me. It can’t be because I’m good at business.