Fargo Rock City (31 page)

Perhaps this is precisely what Raskolnikov would have done had he been in my sneakers, but I seriously doubt it (and since I've never actually read
Crime and Punishment,
I guess I'll never know). Frankly, it was a pretty audacious move, perhaps influenced by the way David Lee Roth used to demand that concert promoters provided a huge bowl of M&Ms in his dressing room before every concert, but all the brown ones had to be picked out by hand.

The teller was a nice college girl with Scandinavian hair, librarian glasses, and a red sweater that seemed a little too warm for April (and yes, I really
can
remember all this). She listened to my polite complaint and directed me to an older women who was sitting at a desk. The woman called up my account on her computer and suddenly became very serious. She made an inner-office phone call and made sure I could not hear what she was saying, even though I was sitting three feet away. I was fucked. A third woman came over to the desk; she was wearing a sensible pantsuit, and I thought I was going to pee.
^A
She asked me to come with her, and we silently entered the bank's inner sanctum. I had never known that banks had such places. Where were we
going? Was she going to lock me in the fucking vault? I wondered if she just didn't feel comfortable shooting me in the lobby.

We sat down in a relatively empty room and I listened to the air conditioner, even though it seemed way too early in the year for air-conditioning (it occurred to me that this might explain the teller's need for a sweater). The woman asked me if I was comfortable. I said, “I don't know.” She pretended to smile, and I tried to make eye contact while holding an expression that tried to simulate bewilderment. We had a nice chat, and this woman explained how this “error” had occurred.

Now, I have been legally advised not to give any details about how—or why—this “error” happened (however, I will say that the explanation is much, much simpler than you'd possibly imagine). And as soon as my female jailer felt I was completely aware of the specifics of our little misunderstanding, this nameless woman in a sensible business suit made a simple, unemotional request.

“We need you to give us two thousand one hundred and sixty dollars.”

I pretended to seem shocked. In truth, I had expected the amount to be even higher, although I had no idea how much. I contemplated freaking out and feigning hysterics, but I was afraid that would only change my problem without really improving it. I shuddered a bit and I took some exaggerated deep breaths to create the illusion of confusion.

But then I noticed something.

This woman looked nervous.

Some journalists will tell you that—over time—they have learned to read people's faces during interviews. This is one skill I never had to learn. I could tell this woman knew she was almost as fucked as I was. The process of explaining the situation had unconsciously validated what she already knew: Her bank had made the kind of mistake that banks are not supposed to make. Moreover, I was a minor. I was seventeen, and I looked even younger; I couldn't be charged with a crime. I couldn't be charged with anything. And I was a good actor. I could tell everyone I had no idea what I was doing, and it would seem credible. I could claim
that I was too irresponsible to balance my checkbook and that I never even glanced at my ATM receipts. I could insist I was just a feeble-witted headbanger who didn't understand the value of money. Besides, I had even told the bank about it—twice!

If I fought this, I could get off.

I could get off.

I could get off.

Unfortunately, “getting off” would create another problem, and that one was even worse. Even though I had spent ten months buying a whole shitload of nothing, my parents had no idea about any of this. White-collar crime is not something you discuss over a roast beef supper. And even though I could trick the rest of the world into thinking I was just an ignorant teenage simpleton, I could not trick my parents. My mom would know. I would have to tell my mom I had accidentally withdrawn $2,160 over a ten-month period, and I would have to look into her disappointed face while she pretended to believe me.

I thought about the way so many of my friends bitched about their parents; they all seemed to think they were destroying their lives. I never felt like that. My parents were undoubtedly crazy, but they never did anything except make my life better. I was their seventh and final child, and they did not need this. To this day, I never want them to know anything about my life that makes me seem like the horrible person I truly am. In fact, the thought of them reading this book keeps me awake at night. It makes me want to get drunk.

In seconds, I decided that the news of my great rock 'n' roll swindle must never reach my parents. The pantsuited woman behind the desk may have been nervous, but her silence was the kind of inadvertent negotiation that could have made fictional Gordon Gecko filthy fucking rich. I played the only card in my deck: I pulled out my checkbook and wrote a check for $2,160.

Did I have that much money in my account? Of course not. I had to be creative, and this required even more deception. When I was eleven years old, my dad had suffered a stroke. He recovered, but somehow this event resulted in my underage sister
and me earning money we couldn't spend. My father had been technically disabled by the stroke, and we somehow got money to supplement the lost income (which we certainly needed, because my mom was a housewife). The money was deposited into an account in my mother's name, which I would gain full access to when I turned eighteen. This money was intended for college. But when I explained this to the anonymous, nervous banker lady, she agreed to transfer that money straight into my checking account (a wildly inappropriate move that further solidifies my suspicion that I could have beaten the rap).

To this day, I am paying off the financial aid loans I took for my freshman year of college.

I did not feel like David Lee Roth when I walked out of the bank that day. I didn't buy any track spikes either. Instead of returning to school that afternoon, I drove around the countryside and cried, listening to the KISS cassette
Hotter Than Hell.
It dawned on me that if I had never purchased
Hotter Than Hell,
I would have only had to repay $2,150. The meaninglessness of that realization buried me like an avalanche of gravel. Fuck, what difference would
that
make? There was no singular purchase that had sealed my fate; there was no eight-hundred-pound gorilla sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I had somehow pissed away two grand of my future, one blistering power chord at a time.

In 1996, the KISS reunion earned $43.6 million in revenue, by far the year's most successful tour. Obviously, the decision for Paul and Gene to reunite with Peter and Ace was a good one. Meanwhile, nobody really knows how much money KISS lost to bad decisions like 1981's
Music from the Elder
and the doomed 1979 “Super KISS” tour; according to former KISS business manager C. K. Lendt, those losses were far greater than what they made in the '90s (particularly when you factor in inflation). But what continues to make KISS so appealing is that all of these decisions—the brilliant ones, the bad ones, and especially the downright idiotic ones—were all made for the same reason:
Because this was rock 'n' roll.
When Paul was about to record his 1978 solo album in Beverly Hills, he showed up at his rented studio on the
first day and decided he didn't like the acoustics. He demanded that they change studios, which would waste $60,000. Predictably, his management advised against the move. Paul supposedly said, “Well, it's cheaper than not making an album.” This is a terrible argument, but it's a damn good point. I only shelled out $2,160, but I completely understand where Paul was coming from: It was cheaper than looking like the idiot and the liar that I was.

“Burn your bridges, take what you can get.”

Well, okay.

“Go for the throat, 'cause you paid your debt.”

True.

“Livin' well is the best revenge.”

Sort of.

“So give 'em hell.”

I tried, Gene. Really. I tried.

Warrant releases
Cherry Pie
. In a CD review for my college newspaper, I call this record “stellar.” It is three years before I am allowed to review another album.

The film
Velvet Goldmine
opened in most major markets on November 6, 1998. In the cinematic community, this was news, but only mildly so. Simply put,
Velvet Goldmine
was a good—but by no means great—movie. Chronicling the British glam rock era of the early '70s, Goldmine was visually interesting and generally fun (assuming you love glam rock and gayness), but the story was questionably conceived and poorly executed. It may actually seem better twenty years from now, when the connections between fact and fiction won't seem so impossible to separate.

However, the release of
Goldmine
was major news for people who were considered “pop cultural journalists,” and I was one of those people. The hot topic that autumn was the “glam revival.” Due to a weird collision of coincidences, every social pundit in America seemed to be claiming that glitter rock—and particularly glitter fashion—was poised to sweep the world. To be honest, it was basically just because of this one movie and Marilyn Manson, who had recently re-invented himself as David Bowie for his latest release,
Mechanical Animals.

But in this day and age, two of anything makes a trend. That
forced me (and everybody like me) to write stories with headlines like “Glam Rock Is Back On the Attack!” It just so happened that Manson was playing in nearby Cleveland the week after
Velvet Goldmine
opened, so our timing was especially fortuitous. Here's the article I wrote for
The Beacon Journal
in Akron on November 13 of that year (and remember, this story was written for a pretty broad audience, so please excuse the pedantic nature of the introduction …):

 

CLEVELAND
—When Marilyn Manson struts onstage at the 3,000-seat Music Hall tomorrow night, it's very possible—in fact, probable—that he will be sporting prosthetic breasts.

He will be covered in pasty white makeup, and he'll wear highly impractical platform shoes. And instead of donning all black, he will likely be dressed in angelic white (or possibly hot pink).

This alien, androgynous look is Manson's new attempt at shocking people. Of course, there's really nothing
new
about it: Manson is simply trying to lead the so-called “rebirth” of glam rock, a bygone genre that's having a cultural (if not necessarily musical) effect on the state of rock 'n' roll.

Glam rock was born in Britain during the early 1970s. Categorized by outlandish costuming, bisexual attitudes and synthetic pop songs, it was defined by U.K. icons like David Bowie and groups like T. Rex, Sweet and Mott the Hoople. American bands combined the theatrical elements of glam with a harder style of rock, starting with Iggy and the Stooges and evolving into Alice Cooper and KISS.

The original life span of glitter rock was brief—it started in 1970 and was dead by '74. But interest in the high-heeled era is peaking. Manson's latest album,
Mechanical Animals,
is an unabashed throwback to Bowie's 1973
Aladdin Sane
LP. The cover of the October issue of
W
magazine declares “Glam Rock Is Back,” and the accompanying story suggests glam fashion will be influencing runway models this winter. Even Tuesday's
Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee
had a segment on glam chic.

Perhaps most telling is the buzz surrounding
Velvet Goldmine,
a film that chronicles the glitter era in semifictional terms. Currently showing at Cleveland Heights' Cedar Lee Theatre,
Goldmine
has received mixed reviews. But flaws in the movie's plot seem secondary to its spacey soundtrack and provocative, sexually ambiguous cinematography. In fact,
Goldmine
costume designer Sandy Powell insists the picture is “really a fashion movie.”

Amazingly, there's even a renewed interest in the
second
era of glam: the much-maligned hair metal years of the 1980s. Sony is rumored to have signed Cinderella, Ratt and Great White to new recording contracts for a yet-to-be-named subsidiary label.

“I don't know if Sony is chasing a specific look, but I do know those bands are doing very well on club tours,” says Cinderella publicist Byron Huntas. “There's definitely interest in '80s glam. When we played at the Key Club in L.A. on Oct. 2, Marilyn Manson was in the audience. Billy Corgan [of Smashing Pumpkins] was recently spotted at a Ratt show. People love this stuff.”

Meanwhile, a handful of neo-glam rockers—Spacehog, Blur and Nancy Boy—have used glitz and posturing to achieve mild notoriety. But all that glitters is not gold; though Manson gets bushels of media attention, his much-publicized album has already fallen out of the
Billboard
Top 20. People may be talking about glam, but they don't seem to be buying it.