Ministry

by Jourgensen, Al

  Tony Campos, who was in Static-X, played bass on the tour for The Last Sucker and did a great job, but Raven was with us that whole tour watching over us. His presence was so strong. In Sweden a raven swooped down out of the sky and stole my sandwich. I was sitting on the balcony of my hotel room, and he came out of nowhere and was gone. He threw a bottle at Tommy on the bus. The two of them worked together on The Last Sucker, and I thought they were friends, but maybe Raven was mad about something Tommy did. We were sitting there at 4 a.m., drinking beer from a rack. All of a sudden a beer shot out and smacked Tommy right in the head. The first thing he said was, “Fuckin’ Raven!” Even now, we sometimes have problems with the 13th Planet e-mail and our cell phone texts for no reason. Raven will delete things at random just to let us know he’s still there. I think about him every day. I love that guy.

  We began the C U Latour in Spokane on March 25, 2008, and stayed on the road through July 13 in Serbia. We toured with Meshuggah and Ascension of the Watchers. The band is fronted by Burton C. Bell, and at the time his main band Fear Factory was broken up. But at our show in Los Angeles, Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares made nice with Burton after many years of not speaking with him, and that set the wheels in motion for Fear Factory to reunite. Having Burton out with us was great because he was a big fan and knew all the songs. Toward the end of the set I’d give him the mic and leave the stage; he’d help finish the hits, like “So What,” “Just One Fix,” “Thieves,” and “NWO,” which the crowd was waiting all night to hear but I had no interest in singing.

  I wasn’t the only one hurting on that tour. On April 17, at the Palladium in Dallas, Tony had a heart attack on stage. He had cramps in his arm and chest pains in the middle of the set, but he kept playing. We told him, “Look, man, you don’t have to finish.” And he said, “No, no. I’m fine.” He played the rest of the show, and then we drove him to the hospital. They put him on an IV drip and hooked him up to an EKG. The next day we played Houston. The hospital in Dallas wanted to keep Tony overnight, so we made plans to fly in a replacement—we always have someone learn the set in case something happens. The next day Tony pulled all the tubes out of his arm and the wires out of his chest, booked his own flight, and showed up in Houston in time for sound check. I didn’t make him do that, but I admired his dedication. He said, “No, fuck this. I’m playing bass tonight. That’s what I do.” He’s a trooper, and those are the only kind of guys I work with now.

  Intervention 11

  Al Jourgensen:

  Politics and Pussy (Minus the Pussy)—How to Save the Planet with Two Dirty Words: Social Democracy

  When I was between the ages of ten and fourteen I was actually ashamed of being middle class. My parents were in a suburb; my dad was middle class. He made enough money to pay all the bills, and we had everything we needed. There was always food on the table. Sure, there were a few luxuries we wanted, like a Lamborghini that we couldn’t have. So that’s what we wanted. I remember seeing a Lamborghini ad with this hot blonde Italian sitting on it, and I thought, “I gotta have one! The chick comes with the car, right?” That’s what advertising does in this capitalist society. The point is that people were ashamed of being middle class. They were bourgeois, which is a name they commandeered from the French, and it wasn’t terribly flattering.

  The thing is that not everyone can be rich. Not everyone can be poor. That’s why the middle class existed, and when I grew up that’s where most people fit. But today the division of classes in this country has become more pronounced. There’s rich and poor, and the middle class is getting entirely squeezed out. Nowadays, if you’re in the middle class, that’s awesome. You’re hanging in there by your fucking fingernails or your teeth, and you’re fighting to prevent yourself from sinking into poverty. Everyone talks about the 1 percent of the population who owns the majority of wealth in America. That’s why I’m very careful to point out that it’s 1 percent of the 1 percenters who are the bad apples. Not all rich people are assholes. There are some really good people with money who want to share it because they know it makes a better society; they know sharing it makes their own profits increase: If more people can buy shit, everyone’s better off. But unfortunately it’s the assholes, that tiny fraction of 1 percent, who run this world.

  The big problem is that the whole society is constructed on a foundation of greed. What’s your first memory when you were three years old? It’s Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs ads. And the reaction is, “I want that. I need that. Cocoa Puffs.” Some babies say that before ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy.’ That’s the society that we’ve built, and this is what we have to dismantle because it’s become so inherent and so basic that it’s crawled into our DNA.

  There’s nothing wrong with capitalism. What’s flawed is people’s inherent greed. When you have a capitalist system and you have ultra-greedy people, it’s just not going to work. You have to temper that. For instance, the bank regulations, the STEGAL Act that FDR instituted in the ’30s, put up a cap on the greed of banks, and then Clinton withdrew it during the ’90s when there was a Wild West of tech profits to be made in Silicon Valley before the bubble burst. That ruined everything. You need to put a cap on human greed. The system is not flawed; the people are flawed. And the people are flawed because they’re not educated from birth to know the difference between what’s right and wrong. What’s right is, “I want my Cocoa Puffs.” What’s wrong is, “I don’t have my Cocoa Puffs. I need my Cocoa Puffs.” It’s that self-centered.

  I have these wild-eyed ideas about utopia. It can all start with a few good ads by the right people to get kids involved in a shared environment, so there will be an understanding from the start that we’re all in this together. The key is that there has to be give and take on both sides because there’s greed and corruption throughout not only the entertainment industry but also the car industry, the IT industry—every industry. We just need to be more sensible and spread the wealth around a little more. The answer is something that’s been co-opted into a dirty, dirty word, and that’s the “S” word: socialism.

  Just take the music business, for instance, because that’s the industry in which I’ve wasted most of my life. Canada, Norway, Sweden—they provide for their musicians. They see the value when musicians create art for the people; the people don’t riot and get so frustrated and fed up about their lives. These countries realize the value in giving the masses an outlet to vent and to escape instead of letting their tension build up to the point at which they ask, “Why am I even living on this planet? I work sixteen-hour shifts at a job I hate; I have no downtime. I have four kids and a wife who hates me because I’m never home.”

  So much of the change that is necessary is a matter of re-education, and it needs to start on the most basic level. If your skills are “X” and your budget is “Y”—which basically means you have four kids and you can’t pay bills—maybe you ought to rearrange your life. There’s no education anymore. Everyone wants the quick buck, the easy path to success, whether it’s the stock market, the lottery, or Vegas. Everyone thinks being rich cures all. Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than being poor, but it also opens up a Pandora’s Box of new shit to worry about. So back to education. If people would think things through before they do it, whether they’re launching a business, opening a restaurant, organizing a tour—whatever—they need to know all the benefits and potential drawbacks of what they’re planning to do and have backup plans in place in case they don’t reach their aspirations. You have to go through myriad FUBARs in your mind. People are capable of it; they just don’t spend the extra time on it or expend the extra effort. I do it, and I’m a ’tard and a drunk. If I can do it, anyone can.

  And the government needs to make sure there’s an education campaign that makes sure people think things through. Think of all the permutations: “If I do this, what is the equal and opposite reaction? Can I deal with that? Okay, I’ve got that one covered. Let’s go to plan C.
If that fucks up, what am I going to do?”

  We have to retrain people. There are 8.5 billion people in the world now. That’s too many fucking people. And if we’re all going to live in proximity and not go to war and not be assholes, then we need to re-educate our basic tenement as human beings, our thought processes. Like, “Okay, well, there’s a gas line in my basement that blew up, and now my house in on fire.” That’s reactionary, and you have to fix that problem. If you had been trained beforehand to know that those pipes were put in thirty years ago and they’re only made to last for twenty-five years, you’d be more equipped to deal with the situation. It’s about being preventative as opposed to reactionary. In America we react. There’s trouble in Libya. Oh, oil prices have to go up! Problems in Iran? Oil prices go up further! And then when everything seems cool in the Middle East oil prices start to go back down. It’s just this reaction, the whole Wall Street–style speculation that’s not based on anything solid. It’s a scam; it’s a parlor game.

  People have to start seeing through this shit because it’s not going to go away. The corporations, oil companies, and drug companies are going to get away with it as long as they can unless people don’t just react but rather intercede. If they don’t, your health insurance policies and auto policies and home insurance are going to double in the next ten years. We have to stop this from happening because special interest groups are buying out all the politicians. The people need to step in, which, of course, makes me a heretic—to the Republicans.

  I sincerely believe that what profits you should also profit the person next to you.

  Maybe you have better ideas, so you’ll make more profit. But it should still profit the person who hasn’t had that idea. Again, it’s that dirty word—“Socialist.” I just feel it’s the only way to go forward as a society on this planet. There has to be some shared responsibility between people to make it a socialist state. I know that, in these brainwashed days, that sounds horrible. But seriously, that’s the only way. Just 1 percent of the population is running everything, and 99 percent is pissed off. How sustainable is that? Is that not going to lead to a mass rebellion or a war between the haves and have-nots? I’d gladly pay more taxes if it would go toward re-educating and improving society.

  Unfortunately greed begets more greed. And these fucking people have no fucking foresight. They made their profit in the short term but—say they own a department store—how are you going to run a successful department store when everyone else is poor? If nobody can afford to buy your shit, you’re gonna be poor pretty soon as well.

  What’s interesting and what people fail to realize is that the common man has a voice. The drug companies, the oil companies, and all these corporations that don’t seem to have souls thrive on the misery of others. All these organizations have shareholders. They’re owned by the people who buy the corporations’ stock. And these people need to stop being complacent. Again, that’s where re-education comes in—or indoctrination camps, according to the Republicans. Regular people need to understand the value of money, how to invest it, how to make their worth grow.

  There have been studies done on lottery winners, people who get huge amounts of money all at once. A large percentage of them find their lives more stressful and less enjoyable afterward, and some lose everything by overspending, lending to friends, and failing to realize that they have to pay taxes on their winnings. It’s sad because these people are completely clueless. Parasites crawl out of the woodwork to chip away at their winnings—some get robbed, others gamble everything away. Re-education: Okay, if you ever win the lottery, do you put the money into a 401(k)? How about a CD market account? Invest with all these people who call you with so-called golden opportunities? Is it a good idea to give to charities? Or do you buy expensive houses, give a bunch to your family, travel all around the world? And then at the end of the day you’re like, “Oh fuck, all my money’s gone. Well, I gotta play more lottery to get this back again.”

  That’s an extreme example, but there needs to be intensive training in the work force. Right now there’s nothing. Not all people are destined to become English literature or history majors, which really has no practicality outside of the aesthetic one that’s necessary to being a human being. You need to learn about this shit to enhance your understanding of life, but it’s not going to get you a fucking job.

  So now the government is retooling the entire school system to get people to be better worker drones. And you know what? I think that will work for a while. People will be happy just knowing that they have a steady job at which they make “X” amount of money. If we can all be worker drones, the middle class will be built back up. That’s the New World Order, and that’s good. It’s pretty much Roosevelt’s New Deal all over again. It’s giving it that tipping point, that boost to the working class. And that’s good. That’ll work for about twenty, thirty years. But eventually people are going to want more—not in a greedy way, but just more of a visceral way. They’ll say, “We want more out of life than just showing up to work, making ‘X’ amount of money that I can use to pay my rent and send my children to college. There must be something more.” And then the whole process will reboot itself because people will say, “Really? That’s all there is? Go to work twelve hours a day. Take care of the kids six hours a day. I never have extra money expect for made-up holidays like Christmas or Easter. I gotta buy candies on Halloween and chocolate bunnies at Easter.” It’s a scam. Stupidity is rampant. In the long run everything needs to change. And after we get through this worker-drone era, when we’ll hopefully see the rebuilding of a middle class, maybe eventually people will be educated enough and incentivized enough to realize that a social system—or at least a social democracy—is our best bet if we hope to survive as a species.

  This concludes our lefty political broadcast. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

  chapter 18

  From Beer to Eternity

  Another Brush with Death

  and Mikey’s Last Stand

  Winston Churchill once wrote, “We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.” Not bad for a pasty limey—and a good description of my life after releasing the Relapse and Buck Satan albums. The Relapse DeFiBRiLaTouR was supposed to be a resurrection for Ministry. The plan was to take it easy in the United States and then go gung-ho in Europe. We played five US shows, starting in Denver on June 17, continuing through Los Angeles and New York, and ending with two gigs in Chicago at the Vic Theatre on June 28 and June 29. Then we headed straight to Europe to play July 1 in Helsinki, Finland, at the Tuska Open Air Festival and played twenty-five more shows in Europe and Russia, ending August 12 in Saint Petersburg. We left enough downtime between shows so we wouldn’t have to kill ourselves to get from one venue to another. It should have been a cakewalk, even with my stage-phobia. But this cake was booby trapped.

  The bad omens started right before rehearsals. I have a bar in my living room, and there are a couple steps that lead from the beer fridge to the downstairs area, where I have my jogging machine, my couch, and my big-screen TV. I went to grab a beer and go to the couch, but I tripped and fell down the stairs. I don’t know if it was because of my beer buzz or the equilibrium problem that started before I was diagnosed with ulcers, but I landed hard on my knees, elbow, and face. One kneecap was split literally in half, I shattered my elbow, and I knocked out a tooth. I went to the doctor, and he took X-rays and said I should have the leg in a cast. I said, “I’m in the middle of rehearsals for a major tour! I can’t go on stage in a cast.” So I left the office and bought duct tape. I wrapped it around my knee and elbow and limped around until the end of the tour. Duct tape fixes everything—that and Krazy Glue, which I used on my elbow. There were pieces of bone coming through the skin, and I could feel little pieces of bone and cartilage rattling around under the duct tape. So I took the tape off and Krazy Glued my elbow shut, then tap
ed it back up. Home Depot can do wonders when it comes to body repair.

  Tommy Victor was busy with Prong and couldn’t make the shows, so I had my buddy Mikey and Sin Quirin on guitar. Casey Orr played bass, and we

  had Aaron Rossi on drums and John Bechdel on sampler. The first half of the set featured some songs from the new album and stuff from the three Bush-bashing records. Then we ended with a few crowd pleasers, like “Thieves,” “Just One Fix,” and “NWO.” It was supposed to be cut and dry, even with my shattered bones. No drugs—I wasn’t even drinking much. But as usual, the cosmos has a way of throwing curveballs at your head when you’re not looking. Here’s the irony: I live in El Paso. I love it, but it pretty much borders Mexico. The city propaganda will tell you the water’s fine to drink, but it’s really not. So we always have bottled water, and I’ve never had a problem.

  By the second date of the tour, which was in LA, I wasn’t feeling too well. I had to see a doctor because I wasn’t holding down food; I couldn’t even hold down liquid. It was all squirting out of my ass and I was puking. Thank God no blood was coming up. It was like that South Park episode in which the kids get the flu and have explosive diarrhea. I was alternately puking and peeing out my ass. They diagnosed me with dysentery, gave me some pills, and said it would pass.

  In countries like India and Haiti as well as places all across Africa people die of dysentery, but in the Western World the condition doesn’t usually last more than a week, after which the infection goes away and then you can crap normally. A week of chronic diarrhea is bad enough, but when you travel on a bus it’s a living hell. Everyone knows you can’t shit in a tour bus toilet or else you have to stop to clean out the whole septic system. It’s just a rule of the road. You have to put a plastic bag around the rim of the seat, like a toilet condom, and make your deposits in there. I went through a lot of those plastic bags on the Relapse tour, shitting nonstop and then throwing out these watery, brown bags at the next truck stop.