Parental Advisory - Explicit Content

Last night, G and I watched Bowling for Columbine. (I forgot to get The Hours again.) Thought provoking, to say the least. This summed it all up for me:

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Michael Moore interviewing Marilyn Manson, on Manson's music being blamed for the incident...

Manson:

The two by-products of that whole tragedy were violence in entertainment and gun control, and how perfect that that was, the two things we were going to talk about with the upcoming election... And also then we forgot about Monica Lewinsky and we forgot about the president who's shooting bombs overseas... Yet, I'm a bad guy, because I sing some rock-n-roll songs. And who's a bigger influence, the president or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to think me, but I'm gonna go with the president.

Moore:

Did you happen to know that the day Columbine happened, the United States dropped more bombs on Kosovo than any other time during that war?

Manson:

I do know that and I think that's really ironic, you know, that nobody said, well, maybe the president had an influence on this violent behavior. No, because that's not the way the media wants to take it and spin and turn it into fear. 'Cause then, you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear: There's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, "Buy the Acura," "Buy the Colgate," if you have bad breath they're not gonna talk to you, if you got pimples, the girl's not gonna fuck you. And it's just this... It's a campaign of fear and consumption... And that's what I think that it's all based on, is the whole idea, that, keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume. And that's really as simple as it can be boiled down to.

Moore:

Right. If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine and the people of that community, what would you say to them if they were here right now?

Manson:

I wouldn't say a single word to 'em... I'd listen to what they have to say. And that's what no one did.

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Don't judge a book by it's cover. Manson is a master showman, and once you get beyond the surface, his values are not so different from many thinking parents. He knows why kids are disaffected. He understands American culture.

Jorge and I have seen Marilyn Manson a couple times: once in 1993 at a Halloween Eve show in Miami Beach at the Cameo Theatre and again ten years later at Ozzfest '03 in West Palm Beach (after learning that my childhood friend and schoolmate, "Skipper," was the keyboardist for the band and having to see it with my own eyes.)