Well, this one's a real kick in the nuts. I always knew that at some point ol' Zodiac Mindwarp would cross that hazy line between savage-cool and just plain savage, leaving every one of my detractors wide open to sneer and say "Well, what do you think of your big fuckin' hero now?" And here it is. "Collateral Damage" is Mark's chap-book sized journal of the Love Reaction's brief US tour last year, a Spinal Tap-esque coast to coast affair- you know, straight from New York to California. The requisite drinking, jerking off, and opening band slag-fest ensues. Fair enough. But it's his opening salvos, written in the wake of 9/11,which cut a little too deep, even for die-hard Z fans. He starts out with a pseudo-sarcastic rant about the bloated evil inherent in Corporate America- you know, the ones that deserved to get fried alive in the Trade Center. This is a pretty common view, I've come to realize since the disaster, and it's shared by many in the UK and Europe, not to mention in the Middle East. But Jesus, bro, we just got bombed. Then he goes on to say,
"Yes, I know, 'the firemen, the secretaries, innocent families, etc.'
Collateral damage, baby.
Reality.
How does it feel America? Down on your ass, instead of some poor, dirt eating mother and her babies four thousand miles away.
The cosmic equilibrium shifts..."
Then he goes on to joke about how uptight we are about saying "Nigger". This is because one of the songs the Love Reaction planned on debuting on the US dates was called "Twenty Thousand Women", a song in which Z plans, in Wilt Chamberlin-esque fashion, to "Fuck twenty thousand women, several of them apparently being motherfucking nigger bitches." That part is actually funny, especially since Mark always assumed he was a lot smarter than Axl Rose. There's not much difference between the two bits, really. Certainly not in intent- they're both written for scumbag chortling, nothing more. Just one's not all that funny. See, I get the idea. Zodiac Mindwarp is the alpha dog, so don't look him in the eye unless you want to get bit. I also get that the rest of the world thinks Americans are all fat, nasty savages that eat their young, which is only true in certain parts of the country. I guess the combination of his unbridled braggadocio and live, in color atrocity was just too much to resist. It's still a dirty move, though. Me, I'll get over it. How can I not? My pen name is Sleazegrinder, for fuck's sake. But it does make me wonder if Manning the writer is ever going to break away from Zodiac the warring leather beast and get Super Real, as he's wont to say. Here's a guy, after all, that spends countless hours in dusty libraries hunting up the wisdom of Victorian ghosts, who falls madly in love with women, some of which probably aren't even "motherfucking bitches", who's got at least one kid that he cherishes. "Collateral Damage" certainly makes for a decent addendum to "Fucked By Rock", but utilizing his substantial prowess for bulletproof poetry solely for the sake of sleazy laughs might be getting too easy for Mark Manning. Or maybe I'm just a pussy that can't take it when terrorists blow up buildings just three hours south of here and put the whole country into a queasy panic that still hasn't gone away. One or the other.