Running To The Edge Of Immaturity

1.13.10

4:51 pm

Yesterday I had an urge to listen to Manson's most recent release, "The High End Of Low".

Don't know why, didn't ask.

Still just terrible as far as the lyrics and boring as far as the music, for the most part.

Around the time of the album's release, there was a video made for the first single "Arma-God-Damn-Mother-Fucking-Geddon".

The video was pointless.

There was absolutely nothing in it.

About a week later, Manson made a comment on his web site that they'd used about twenty four cameras for the shoot, but, since he KNEW the record label would never release the video he wanted to make, he decided to only use footage from three...yes, three...of the twenty four cameras.

Ha! Take that Interscope!

Manson 1, clear thinking 0!

I was curious if he'd even edited an uncut version (he didn't) and went over to Manson's site to find, instead, a new video for the next single off the record, "Running To The Edge Of The World."

The song is just as trite as you would imagine with a title like that; all acoustic guitars and "emotion" and lyrics about burning everything to ashes etc.

But the video...

So, the whole point of the album was to let everyone know that he and Evan Rachel Wood had broken up and he now hates her and feels betrayed and blah blah blah.

Maybe if he'd stayed married to the living goddess Dita Von Teese this album would have been better and "Eat Me, Drink Me" would never have happened.

But me be am digressing.

The first three quarters of the new video is something startlingly original for Manson: him in front of a camera, singing.

It was strangely compelling.

He was just staring right at and around the camera and occasionally toying with a piece of sheer material, almost like a shy child hiding behind his mother's dress or something.

I was actually expecting the "climax" of the video to be one, single tear slipping from his heavily mascaraed eye, lending the tiniest bit of maturity and real emotion (as real as emotion in a music video can be anyway...) to the song, the album and the artist.

Man, have I misjudged Marilyn Manson.

Around the last minute of the video, you start seeing flashes of...stuff; maybe a woman, maybe Manson dressed as a woman, you're not sure.

Then you see a bathroom scene with Manson clearing a patch in a steamed up mirror and just looking at himself.

We see a razor lying on the counter ("oh great", was my first thought, "more drugs or self mutilation, how 1995"), a close up of a blonde chick (actually a chick, not Manson) who looks a bit like Evan Rachel Wood and finally, Manson writing in a notebook then closing it with a sense of finality.

Suicide.

Of course.

Manson, Manson, Manson, you'll have to do better than THAT if you want to shock-

Then came the last thirty seconds of the video: Manson, repeatedly punching the girl, wearing only a bra and panties, in the face.

Not playfully.

Just beating this girl mercilessly.

The beating is intercut with her face, getting progressively bloodier.

The last shot of the video is the girl, topless, covered in her own blood, lying crumpled in the bathtub.

...

Okay, Manson, you win this one.

It was pretty goddamn shocking in its starkness and its brutality.

Then, after a minute, I reconsidered.

It was more shocking to see just how immature this whole thing was.

What was this but a simple "fuck you" to ERW?

"You broke up with me so I made a music video that has me beating someone who looks like you to death and leaving the body in a bathtub".

Jesus! That is some puerile shit!

The only thing about this video you can say in Manson's favor is that at least he was sober enough to conceptualize and film it, and I'm not even sure just how involved/sober he was!

So, just in case anyone was concerned that Manson had maybe grown up and possibly straightened himself out a bit...no worries, he's still the angry, muddled man-child he has been for the past few years.

I can only hope the rumors of him and Lady Gaga are real because I'd LOVE to see her version of the RTTEOTW video...

Just picture it...Manson, looking more like a combination of Ronald McDonald and the Joker (Caesar Romero, not Heath Ledger), lying on a gold lamé water bed, surrounded by blood and sequin-smeared two-foot dildoes.

We see Lady Gaga, wearing high heels made of teeth coated with gore, playing piano as the music fades.

The glints of her glasses, made from Manson's testicles...

F ì n.

6:55 pm

I was planning on dispensing with New Year's Resolutions as I have for the past 8 years or so, but I have just decided to make one.

I resolve to hang up immediately when, after I identify myself and the institution, the person calling pauses and then says, with that blissfully ignorant tone that says more clearly than words "what deviltry is this?! what is this little voice I hear? is there a small man standing in the cup of my ear?", "....Hello?"

Talk about a bad first impression.

What I gather from these occurrences is that the "person" (read: "horse fart") calling picked up the phone, dialed the number and then, in the four seconds between the call going through and me answering it, forgot, not only where they were calling, but also the basic principle of the telephone as well, namely, that it's a device that allows you to speak to people who are in places other than where you are.

This is good resolution and here's why: first off, it's going to help me avoid strokes caused by pondering how anyone who is able to work a telephone could be so stupid and secondly, it just might assist these ambulatory fucking goldfish with their cognitive skills.

Maybe.

And, the best part, the cherry on the fucking sundae, is that if they call back asking what happened, I can easily convince them that the magic gem stones powering this arcane wizard's talking device must be in need of some polishing or perhaps that the imps that are running back and forth with our voices trapped in tiny, little bottles might have tripped on some stray unicorn hair.

These fucking HAH!!!!  The phone JUST rang and, after telling them who I was and where they were calling in a perfectly clear voice, they paused and fucking said, "...hello?" and I FUCKING HUNG UP!

HAPPY MOTHERFUCKING NEW YEAR!

2010, I AM GOING TO STICK IT IN AND BREAK IT OFF, YOU FUCKING STOAT!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!