Америка 51 книга кори

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2017 by Corey Taylor

  All photographs by P. R. Brown

  “Gematria (The Killing Name)” © 2008 EMI April Music Inc. and Music That Music. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN 37219. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “Guns of Brixton” words and music by Paul Simonon. Translated by Yan Ju. Copyright © 2012 Nineden Ltd. All Rights in the U.S. and Canada Controlled and Administered by Universal—Polygram International Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

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  Da Capo Press

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  www.dacapopress.com

  @DaCapoPress; @DaCapoPR

  First Edition: August 2017

  Published by Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Set in 10-point Utopia

  Editorial production by Christine Marra, Marrathon Editorial Production Services, www.marrathoneditorial.org

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBN 978-0-306-82544-6 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-306-82545-3 (ebook)

  LSC-C

  E3-20170617-JV-NF

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1 On the Road, Revisited

  2 How Ronald Reagan Saved Christmas

  3 Red, White, and Bluetooth

  4 The Killing Name

  5 Hillary, Emails, and the Fall of the House of Kennedy

  6 The Greatest Country on Turf

  7 You Don’t Speak English

  8 Rule Americana

  9 CMFT + GOP = WTF

  10 Mother, Jugs, Speed, Sacco, and Vanzetti

  11 Join or Die

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Corey Taylor

  As always, to my family, my friends… and most of all, to my children:

  Griffin, Ryan, Angie, Haven, Lawson, Aravis

  This world will be yours later.

  I’ll try to pick up a bit before I close for the night.

  Love you all.

  All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women) do NOTHING.

  —EDMUND BURKE (paraphrased)

  Power corrupts. And Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.

  —LORD ACTON

  When they kick at your front door

  How you gonna come?

  With your hands on your head

  Or on the trigger of your gun?

  —THE CLASH, “The Guns of Brixton”

  America… what if God doesn’t care?

  —SLIPKNOT, “Gematria (The Killing Name)”

  CHAPTER 1

  ON THE ROAD, REVISITED

  SO.

  Sooooooo…

  Here’s a funny story that isn’t funny at all.

  Two political parties walk into a bar. One gets shitfaced hammered and nominates a loud, crude, egotistical, childish, bullying (yet easily butt-hurt) jackass cunt of an orange billionaire to be the president of the United States of America. The other, equally smug and unapproachable, decides to abstain from such low-quality behavior and spends the entire time reminding you that not only are they special because they’re not at all like the other candidate but also that they need you to love them for little more than that reason alone or else they will look down on you with piteous disdain and appallingly bitter bemusement. Both sides had their fair share of intelligent detractors as well as their equal legions of completely devoted zealots. Most people in the middle were left with a terrible choice to make: vote for someone you didn’t really support, thus wiping your ass with your constitutional rights as a citizen, or choose someone that nobody else was going to vote for and cast your vote that way, realizing the same result yet feeling a little better about yourself. That is exactly what a lot of people did.

  Granted, a lot of people genuinely supported the various candidates. Trump had his swamp-draining pussy grabbers, Hillary had the “I’m With Her” folk, and all the holier-than-thou angsty coffee drinkers had Stein and Johnson, vowing to take their toys and go home because Bernie wasn’t allowed to come out and play. Sheisty shit was going on all over the place, and it looked like there was absolutely no way the situation could get worse. Then we watched, in incredulous horror, as that same orange prick, the one who’d openly mocked so many others, won the Electoral College, even as he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes: DONALD FUCKING TRUMP WAS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Writing it here and now, it still doesn’t feel very real. Reading that sentence back, I have to keep stopping myself from correcting it. It’s true: Donald Trump is the president.

  He ain’t my fucking president. But he is the president, and we’ll leave it at that.

  I’ll bet boners to nipple clamps that I was just like most of you: glued to CNN in pure dread as Trump’s numbers kept getting higher and higher. So many people were texting me, saying, “Is this really happening? What the shit?!” I kept myself from losing it by calming them down, saying, “Don’t worry! It’s still early. It’ll be fine! Our country can’t be that fucking stupid!” Then, by the time Pennsylvania fell, I sat stunned on my sofa, realizing that my country was in fact that fucking stupid. I whispered a quote from the original Planet of the Apes, when Chuck Heston sees Lady Liberty up to her tits in the sand and shouts, “You maniacs! Damn you! Damn you all to Hell!”

  This book started out very different.

  It started out with a disclaimer about the dangers of foisting a despot like Donald Drumpf (real family name) on this country. It talked about a Hillary victory I was so sure was going to happen. I wasn’t really that invested in her per se—I just didn’t want the Cheeto to win. I had faith that it wouldn’t happen, that most blue-collar people would come to their senses and go the other way. But that never happened—and in fact, it got worse. The GOP, otherwise known as the Republicans, ended up keeping their majority in the Senate and doubling down on their super-majority in the House of Representatives, paving the way for a whole lot of bad defunding to go down. So the presidency and Congress are held by the Republicans, while the Supreme Court—the other third of our three tiers of government—was stuck at eight members because Congress refused to allow Barack Obama to nominate a new judge. Let’s hear it for Gorsuch, ladies and gentlemen…

  This book started out with some hope that after a Trump scare, the Democrats could reach over and take some of these working-class folks—my folks—and show them that they are in fact their political party. It started out with a vision of seeing the GOP eat a lot of crow for tying their carts to a chauvinistic cocksucker afraid of his own shadow who is easily goaded into saying something pathetic. It had a lot of instances where it would show the GOP for the hypocrites they are: purporting to be for smaller government and yet digging their fingers into just as many programs, grants, and rights as the Democrats do

. I wanted to break this shit down like a DJ after a wedding for you all. Then he won. He fucking won. No matter what he’d said or done, no matter how vile and fucked up he was or was going to be, no matter how much he’d lied and lied and lied and fucking lied… he’d won. In the big game at the political table, he’d played his Trump card and beat the house, setting it back a few points, to be sure.

  When that happened I walked over to the computer on which I write my books, opened up all the chapters I had already started on, highlighted hours’ worth of words, work, and effort… and deleted it all. Highlight. Delete. Start again. It hurt. I was tied up in fucking knots for days, simultaneously catching shit for not doing enough to get the vote out and also ducking flying turds for daring to insinuate that because Trump had won, there would be an outbreak of violence against blacks, Latinos, Muslims, the entire LGBT-plus community, women, and so on. I was harassed for “instigating the violence by suggesting that violence might happen”—which, it correctly turned out, happened whether I’d said anything or not. Swastikas were spray painted on churches and mosques across the country. People were attacked in earnest. Angry white men shouted their contempt for anyone who had the audacity to be neither white nor male on flights and on subway cars. I can say this because there are videos of this happening. There are videos, and NO ONE WAS ARRESTED OR TAKEN TO FUCKING TASK OVER IT. No punishments for obscenity or vocal hate—just wanded, waived, and sent on their way. It lasted for a while, even as the protests mounted and the Trump supporters became just as “snowflake” and “triggered” as the liberals they loved to hate. Time to tuck in and settle down to wait for what was next.

  But here’s the thing, and you’re going to think I’m fucking crazy right now: I’m GLAD he won. HOLD YOUR FUCKING HORSES, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! Before some of you angry lefty pricks start bombarding me with crazy spam and dizzying examples of why the Trump Effect is going to burn this nation into cinders, then piss on those cinders, then stuff those cinders up Melania’s bleached asshole, then grunt those same filthy ashes into a champagne glass, then have those poopy, champagne-ridden, pissy American ashes blown straight up into his own privileged asshole live on C-Span… Jesus, sorry about that folks. I really got off on a riff there, Sonny Rollins style. I don’t even remember where the hell I was going with all of that. Was I going to talk about the new First Lady’s nudes? Was I going to talk about those uncomfortable moments between Donald and Ivanka? By the way that whole pissy ashes metaphor takes on a whole new meaning given the “Golden Gate” controversy—oh, Donald…

  Anyway, before any of that absolutely happens—and there are great chances that it will—let me explain that sentiment. I’m not happy that this election has divided our country into gnarly tribes of discontent. I’m not happy that some people are scared and others think it is fair game to terrorize. I’m not happy that the protests seem to go on and on because they just keep looking for new reasons to be upset. I’m happy because it set my record straight, sharpened my gaze, and put me back on the path. Check it out.

  Yes, Donald Trump is the president (at least for now)—NOT MY PRESIDENT, but The President. That’s not to say that I’ll be happy when the Right tries to take out the various programs that are helping people, like it or not, get through their life. I won’t keep quiet when they add to the deficit because they don’t have any answers better than what is already there, but they won’t admit to it. I also won’t stand by as they try to “scale back” the powers of those who oppose them, like the intelligence communities, the “checks and balances” parts of our governments… or the American voting population. If they want a revolution, they’ll fucking get one because they suck at math: WAY MORE PEOPLE VOTED AGAINST TRUMP THAN VOTED FOR HIM, AND HE’D BETTER FUCKING REMEMBER THAT. The Orange Mandate does not exist.

  No, I’m glad for different reasons—two reasons, to be exact: because up to that point, this book was a piece of shit, and to be quite honest, so is our two-party system. This book was really just me ranting and raving about how right I was about Trump and the Right and all that shit blah blah blah fucking GET OVER YOURSELF TAYLOR. I was acting exactly like the political party I thought I supported, until I realized that was the very reason that people found it so hard to support that party—not only could they not relate to it, but they felt judged and belittled for not coming off as a shiny shell from the intelligentsia. More down-to-earth people were siding with an egomaniacal Cheeto than they were a candidate that should have smoked him like a throwaway gang member in Death Wish 2.

  They were tired of walking into vocabulary traps, akin to getting a face full of spider webs carrying laundry to the washer in the basement. Can’t say this, can’t say that… it’s ridiculous. You can’t say “god bless you”—it has to be just plain ol’ “bless you.” You can’t say certain pronouns anymore—you end up sounding like a possessed Speak & Spell when the batteries are getting low. From “Merry Christmas” to “motherfucker,” it’s become quite a lesson in pomposity. That leads to what we’ll talk about later: adverse empathy. English writer extraordinaire W. S. Gilbert said, “When everyone is somebody, then no one’s anybody.” I’ll paraphrase a bit for this case: when everything’s offensive, then nothing will be.

  As much as pundits and pollsters would love to paint the two parties in broader terms, these politicians had become people you couldn’t identify with, for better or for worse. Personally, I don’t think you should want that in a politician, but then again I think most pols are preening shit talkers with two faces and too many pockets. In Trump, at least most of us could see the idiot reflected back on us. I never had that with Hillary; to be honest, I think most Americans thought she was so busy judging them that they never took the time to listen to what she was saying. I’m not going to drag you all through that bastard election again—I’m fairly certain it added years to us all. My point is this—most of us, most of the people on the street just trying to make a living, don’t want a president who makes us feel like shit about ourselves. Like it or not, wrong or right, I believe people had that feeling about Hillary—and to be honest, about almost all Democrats, really. People don’t like being beat over the head with how much smarter you are than they are. I’m not saying that was the whole factor, but it’s definitely why most people found it easier to vote for someone else.

  Like I said, I have leaned Democrat for years. However, I’m giving serious thought to going full Independent, merely because I feel the same way a lot of people do—judged by the upper crust, and I’m talking about both parties now. Republicans hide a little better behind their guns and their God, and no pun intended but God forbid you be a little outside the box. Sure, they want you to feel at home in their party—they’re the “Party of the People”! But you have to be their kind of people. If not, they’ll take away your rights quicker than you can say “Pro-Choice.” The Dems are just as bad. One of the biggest problems with the Democrats is they’re savvy enough to embrace cutting edge liberties like abortion or transgender identities, and yet they cannot comprehend why some people have such a hard time coming to grips with that, especially people with a deep background in faith. To regular folks, these are concepts that are as foreign as speaking French to a kindergartener from Topeka. They’ve never even thought about the notion before, but now they feel like they’re being forced to deal with it, forced to support it, forced to just accept it, even though they’re not really sure if they truly understand it.

  No one explains anything anymore—they just blurt out shit like they do on Twitter or Facebook or in any of the comments sections where good grace and common sense go to die. It’s ratcheting up the narcissism at an alarming rate. But we don’t really communicate anymore anyway. We go out of our way to make slamming statements and dare a motherfucker to say anything that deigns to be contradictory and then we retaliate with pure digital venom and righteousness. Abandon all hope, ye who log on here. So it’s no wonder that anyone regarded as intelligent is regarded as an “elite libta

rd SJW” and anyone regarded as working class, maybe a little simpler in their approach to life, nothing more, is regarded as a “white trash racist redneck.” A population marginalized before they can ever have a conversation is going to do incredible things… like nominate and elect Donald Trump.

  So this book went from being a sanctimonious editorial on how much I think I know about what’s right for you in my own head and the shitty sauces held within, to a book that will now take a deeper look at what the hell is really going on, and I mean with all of it: the political parties, who they say they stand for, who they really stand for, who the people think stand for them, where all of this is going, where I hope we land, and a subtle little history lesson on politics in this country. Plus, I want to walk you through some of the cooler pieces of real estate here in these United States, stuff that maybe you forgot about, stuff that maybe you didn’t know about, places and people to tickle the fancy and engage a bit of nostalgia or—hold your ass—real patriotism, not that shit that the government tries to shill on late night television. This is more about looking under the bed for toys we always forget we have but would love to play with and cherishing that joy of rediscovery before the clamps of cynicism come rushing back to remind us of real life and the grim reality of paying bills and doing laundry… you know, REAL-LIFE SHIT.

  You see the thing that bothers me about a lot of these politicians is that we only see them on TV. We only see them in the papers. We don’t know them. “Just like you…” Motherfucker, please. When was the last time you missed a bill and spent a week or two freaking out about it? When was the last time you only got a few hours of sleep because you got young kids and if they don’t sleep, neither do you? When was the last time you had to choose between food for your kids or the electric bill? Did you ever have to go through that kind of real shit? If you did, show me some photos. Let’s see some video. Let’s hear how you’d make a sandwich if you didn’t have anything to make a sandwich with, asshole. Me? I remember all that shit. It’s the blessing and the curse of having an active mind. I remember sleeping in closets, bathtubs, on the street, in the same clothes for days because we had no money for anything. If you gave me one piece of bread right now and sent me into a kitchen bereft of anything that resembles “sandwich fixins’” I would walk out with a fucking sandwich. And I’d eat that fucker because I know what it means to be broke and desperate. I know what it means to have that sinking feeling in your gut that you might not get the rent in but there will be dinner for that next week. I’d like proof to see if Paul Ryan could come up with some shit like that before he thought about voting to gut programs like Medicare, Social Security, the ACA and certain types of welfare.