I had the tremendous opportunity to meet one of the most influential people in my life the last 25 years this week.
I got to meet Mr. Brain Warner (aka Marilyn Manson) on Wednesday afternoon before his show in Kansas City. It was 113 heat index that day and made all the sense that it was hotter than hell before I met an individual that is "Bigger Than Satan".
Manson has had a strong complexity in my life since 1995 or so, I would regularly get grounded or cause full blown fights with my Dad over listening to his music, buying his merch, sneaking out to his shows, etc back when I was like 13-15. My school suspended me multiple times for the various Manson apparel I'd wear to school ('I Am The God Of Fuck' shirt, "You Might As Well Kill Yourself,You're Already Dead" suicide shirt, The 3 face Jesus "beLIEve" shirt,etc.) He instilled a super defiant attitude and praise of myself into me. He was the prime example of a rock star in my life, a true uncompromising figure that stood by his beliefs no matter the societal cost. Needless to say, he has been an important figure to me for 2/3 my life essentially. I have so many rare collectibles and endless variants of the albums in CD,cassette,vinyl, etc. I still own about 30 of his vintage shirts as well, many of them reselling near 150-200 a piece now.
I waited out in that exhausting heat while waiting for the Manson team to get set up and ended up meeting a few girls that were regulars to Manson's backstage area. They provided some good conversation while I sweltered out in that sauna Mother Nature created for us. I finally jumped on the bus and had a seat next to him for about 5 minutes and just had a discussion on current hip hop. I sat down and started going on the "You've meant a lot to me for 25 years as an artist and person, blah,blah,blah" stuff for a sentence or two before I caught myself. This dude hears this shit all the time, so I'm just going to talk person to person, no pedestal involved. I wore a shirt I have of a black Jesus toting a pistol that says "Shout Out My Nigga Jesus" which he loved and kind of led into the conversation about current hip hop. He said he current 'new' favorites were Bill Saber and A$AP Ferg, the latter of which wrote a song called "Marilyn Manson" (unreleased currently). He then said "All those rapper guys like me a lot for some reason" to which I retorted "It's cause you are 100% yourself, you stand against the grain with no remorse to the feelings hurt along the way, you are your own person and not a creation of society or corporation" to which he laughed and said "I guess so". The meeting ended a couple minutes later after just general talks about family and it being insanely fucking hot out.
The show itself was extremely meh, Manson kind of didn't find his groove until the last 1/3 the set or so, just kind of butchering lyrics and things along the way. Not sure if it was a product of the heat, exhaustion, substance abuse or a culmination of all those things. I still thoroughly enjoyed the day tho, even if I subjected myself to that heat for 8+ hours in a basically no shade provided area. It was a meeting I'd been waiting for since I was a crazy as fuck, wild and rebellious teenager.
Thanks for being far more personable than I imagined, the angsty teen in me couldn't wait to send an IM on AOL Messenger to my entire buddy list.
