Metalhead Librarian BOOK
Chapter 18 - Kickstart My Heart
May 2003, Los Angeles
I was as nervous as I had ever been in my life.
I was standing in a low, gray classroom on the north side of UCLA's campus, getting ready to present my graduate-school portfolio to an audience of my professors and peers. I was at the front of the room, waiting to begin, fidgeting with my outline, making sure the projector was hooked up correctly. Cotton-mouthed and clammy, I'd always had stage fright and today was no different.
Soon after leaving LA the first time, broke and brokenhearted, I had moved back to Ohio and met my husband––the first short-haired guy I’d ever dated. West was where my heart was, so we moved to Arizona in 1995. After working several crappy sales and customer-service jobs––and even with my bad high-school transcripts––I managed to get accepted to Arizona State University at the age of 25 on academic probation. I graduated four years later with honors.
It was my husband who suggested going to library school, getting a master’s degree, and becoming a librarian. I loved books, and I was always at the library anyways, he pointed out. Of course, it should have been so obvious, but it wasn’t, not until he said something. Plus, what else was I going to do with a Medieval history degree? It was a degree of indulgence, rather than practicality.
UCLA had a great library science program, and so I applied. It was the only program I tried for, and they took me. I was thrilled to move back to Los Angeles. I’d wanted another chance in LA, this time on my terms. I felt right at home in the city. I knew my way around, reconnected with my old metal friends, and enjoyed being a graduate student.
Librarianship was close enough to perfect in terms of a career. If I was lucky, I’d get a job that I enjoyed, with a good pension. I’d never get rich, but solid middle class was OK with me. My entire life had been spent struggling financially. Solid middle class, to me, was like winning the goddamn lottery.
And now I was getting ready to finish my master’s degree––something that had, at one point, seemed impossible. Sometimes, it still felt foreign to me, like I was living in an alternate reality, or someone else’s life. All of the things that had brought me to this point—books and heavy metal and adventure and rebellion and synchronicity and magical thinking—were things that I had trouble explaining to normal people.
Normal people, like my professors and classmates at UCLA, most of whom definitely weren’t metalheads.
Somehow, I’d made it this far, and now I had to present a factual and original analysis and narrative of what I had learned at UCLA, and of what I could offer to the field of library and information science.
Everything I had worked for, every sacrifice I’d made and risk that I’d taken, every great concert I’d seen and rock star I’d met—and every shitty job I’d worked along the way—all of it came down to this One Thing.
So much was on the line. My hopes and dreams, all the effort of the past 6 years to get through school. If I bomb this presentation I am really fucked, I thought to myself.
***
The focus of the presentation was intellectual freedom, free speech, and censorship.
My heart flip-flopped in my chest. Fuck. Here goes. I took a deep breath and brought up my first PowerPoint slide on the overhead.
It was the album cover of Mötley Crüe's Shout at The Devil, complete with a pentagram and the inside spread showing the band members, looking demonic. Of the three academic advisors sitting in front of me, two of them leaned away and crossed their arms primly. But one, the younger guy from the UK, a PhD hipster with a beard and a lovely accent, leaned in toward me.
Is he a metalhead? I wondered to myself. He suddenly looked interested in what I had to say. With this tiny bit of positive body language acting as my only encouragement, I focused on him and dove straight into my material.
I explained some of the events in the mid-1980s that led to the creation of an organization called the Parent's Music Resource Center—the PMRC. Billed as a type of consumer protection agency, they sought to identify and label heavy metal and other "explicit" forms of music. Whether it be album art or graphic lyrics, sticker labels and categories were implemented to warn consumers—i.e. parents—about explicit content contained there within. Because it was the pet project of a senator’s wife—our future Second Lady, Tipper Gore—it had some clout and funding behind it, and there were hearings in Washington about creating industry-standard ratings for music. It ignited a huge debate in the country about artistic freedom and the First Amendment.
My next slide was of Frank Zappa. My PhD Hipster Professor started nodding his head.
I was 14 years old when those hearings in Washington began in 1985. Zappa testified, as well as folk-music legend John Denver, and Dee Snider of heavy rock band, Twisted Sister. They were three musicians with entirely different styles of music, all speaking on behalf of artistic freedom and the First Amendment.
“This is where the seeds of my future career as a librarian were sown,” I explained to the audience.
I told them that I had watched all the testimony and read news articles as the PMRC hearings unfolded in real time. Some of the testimony was really juicy, thought provoking, and hilariously funny—like when Tipper Gore stated that song Under the Blade by Twisted Sister was describing deviant sadomasochistic acts, while Dee Snider smugly rebutted that it was really a song about the fear of surgery, and that the only sadomasochism was in the mind of Mrs. Gore.
The PMRC sought to censor some of my favorite music, and because these musicians came together and fought back, actually testified to Congress—I was personally compelled to explore the concepts and boundaries of the First Amendment and what it actually meant.
It was the FIRST amendment because it was the most important thing, the thing upon which our republic was based. Without absolute freedom of speech, there was no freedom.
“The principles of free speech and intellectual freedom have been important to me ever since I learned what it meant from the PMRC hearings.” I could see my audience processing my words.
There were a few more slides to show—album covers, including one of Guns N’ Roses' Appetite for Destruction, Queensrÿche's Operation Mindcrime, and Megadeth’s Peace Sells...but Who’s Buying? albums—all best sellers, all my favorites, all showcasing these artists at their peak abilities.
I continued on, hoping I wasn’t losing them. Heavy metal and librarianship? I wasn’t sure anyone had ever made the connection, although just about every serious metalhead I knew was also a book-lover. Like the hipster professor on my panel.
***
“Each of these albums documented American culture in real time,” I explained. “No different than literature.” I described why each album was groundbreaking or controversial, and that, like books, this form of free speech ought to be protected and defended with much vigor.
My Hipster Professor friend was smiling and engaged as I worked my way through the point I was making, which was: that on a very personal level, my own love for marginalized, controversial music helped me understand what art was, what free intellectual inquiry meant, the parallels between art, music, literature, film and how only absolute free speech should be the standard for any healthy democracy. No Thought Police. Censorship was for dictators and despots. Libraries and librarians were an important part of defending the First Amendment and ensuring access to ideas and information, to story and to history.
As for more controversy, I went on and mentioned the various lawsuits, such as those filed against Ozzy Osborne and Judas Priest regarding fans who had, or had attempted, to commit suicide. The lawsuits directly blamed the lyrics and artists for their content, saying that either hidden messages (known as backward masking) or the very words themselves, had caused people to take these suicidal actions.
It’s no secret that some forms of heavy metal have strong occult or Satanic imagery—think Gene Simmons of KISS dressed as The Demon, spitting blood, or the song “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC—as well as a mixed bag of blatant sexual messaging, some misogyny, long-haired men either trying to dominate women with muscles and bravado, or trying to look like women, in spandex, lipstick, and scarves. Either way, promiscuity ruled.
Often, bands glorified open drug use and death. Newer artists pushed the envelope further with controversial stage shows that used imagery of violence and war in their stage shows. I showed them a slide of Marilyn Manson, and I mentioned how he had been targeted as partially responsible for the Columbine massacre because one of the shooters was, allegedly, a fan.
Being a fan heavy metal could be dangerous, too—the three kids known as the West Memphis Three were currently sitting on death row, and one of them, Damien Echols, happened to be a metalhead. The music he liked was used against him in trial, the prosecution implying that, by liking heavy metal music and wearing black clothing, he was a sadistic, child-killing Satanist. (Those three kids, the WM3, were eventually released.)
So, there was real controversy regarding heavy metal music, and widespread bias against it. It was outside the mainstream, and these bands and their fans were constantly questioned, made fun of, marginalized, and sometimes attacked in the press.
However, in all the cases I mentioned the artists weren’t directly responsible in any way—in a court of law or otherwise. In a free society, each individual is responsible for their own behavior and choices.
So far, my audience was engaged and I wasn’t losing them. I finally unclenched a little and took a sip of water.
***
Despite its bad reputation, my experiences as a metalhead had been good. I explained that, like libraries, heavy metal had been a very positive force in my life. Books were my escape, my babysitter while my mom worked, and rock and heavy metal music had been like the father I didn't have—a masculine force. It was the thing that gave me some backbone in the world—the courage to literally Shout at the Devil. It was a release for the aggression that I felt, but couldn’t act on.
Like many who gravitate toward library work and books, I’ve always considered myself an introvert. Books were my gateway and guide, while heavy music encouraged my individuality and to take chances on my dreams. Heavy metal felt like a safe haven to me. It was the music of my generation, Generation X. Some of the finest musicians in the world were playing in heavy metal bands. It was music made by people like me, for people like me.
Metalheads were my tribe—the underdogs, the introverts, the marginalized, the misfits, the book lovers, the nerds, the feelers. The brothers and sisters I didn’t have growing up as an only child.
I only mentioned it once, my belief in magic. That my specific love of heavy metal music and my life-long love of books had not only been my refuge as a young person, but had made me believe in the type of magical thinking—of possibility, overcoming the odds, of making my own luck—that had led me to Los Angeles as a teenager, and back here to UCLA as an adult to complete my education.
I was a welfare kid and a bad student and I had gone out and earned a master’s degree. I wasn't supposed to be here, I told them, but I owed it all to heavy metal and books, and now, to student loans, I joked.
My audience chuckled.
This next part was the kicker. A deep breath. Fuck. Here goes. I was either going to blow it all or nail it with this section of the presentation.
***
My last slide was the album cover to Cannibal Corpse's Butchered at Birth. The illustration depicts a woman being eviscerated by two skinless ghouls, who are lifting a bloody fetus out of her corpse to add to the collection of lifeless babies hanging behind them. It’s a graphic and shocking image, beyond decency. As a woman, it made me very uncomfortable.
The energy in the room shifted immediately, and I could tell people were uncomfortable with it, too, which is what I expected.
I explained to the room that shortly after I moved to Los Angeles when I was 18, I started working at the record company that had released this very album. I had worked with the band, had helped with publicity, and kept tabs on the controversy for my boss.
Although this album was banned in Germany, and its cover censored in various ways, Cannibal Corpse went on to become the biggest selling death metal band of all time up to this point, with over a million albums sold for Metal Blade Records. They were pioneers in the genre, and had spawned many, many copycat bands.
I told them the images were personally horrifying to me, that when I originally saw the art proofs for the album, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe any of it would be released. And then I heard the music, and I truly thought it was a joke. I was shocked that it could be called music.
But I guess that was the whole point of it. It was designed to push the boundaries and shock people.
My old boss, Brian Slagel, thought it was great. I mean, it was just an illustrated cartoon and really heavy riffs and gory lyrics, right? He was absolutely, 100%, pro artistic freedom. He’d walked away from deals—like the one at Warner Bros.—that had asked him or any of his label roster to censor themselves, and it was ultimately why he downsized the label.
He was willing to take the hit, and cut a few positions rather than voluntarily censor the content of the artists on his label for money. Brian Slagel had given platform to music and entertainment that wouldn’t otherwise have made it to market—and he was immensely successful with this strategy
But, I confessed to my audience, I still felt weird about this particular album and the band, and that I had to make a choice as a younger person whether it was right, morally right, for me to even work at Metal Blade Records.
What I didn’t tell them was that Cannibal Corpse was a negative, dark energy that weighed heavy on my heart. I believe that thoughts are things, that we attract what we put out, and I really didn’t want this type of weird misogynistic death-energy around me, because I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand how people liked this music or the art. It commercialized and normalized torture and violence against women.
Even if they were cartoon zombie women. Not real women. Fictional women, extremely illustrated and lyricized.
I tried hard to rationalize these feelings away, and I never quite could. Misogyny lurked all throughout metal music, but as a whole it wasn’t too bad or too extreme, and some of it was downright silly.
Mostly, I thought heavy metal celebrated and glorified women, and I was mostly OK with it all.
Then, there was Cannibal Corpse.
I told my audience that I had met this band, and they were seemingly normal people—but Meathook Sodomy and Rancid Amputation were actual titles of songs, I explained to them, hoping I wasn’t horrifying my audience too much.
It’s also really fucking funny, I thought to myself. I just said ‘meathook sodomy’ to a room full of librarians with a straight face, God help me.
The only redeeming thing about the band, I told them, was that they made money for the record label. People actually bought this stuff, on purpose.
***
We were, indeed, living in a free society.
The guys in Cannibal Corpse were just dudes from Buffalo with girlfriend problems and car payments. They weren’t monsters. They were pushing boundaries of entertainment and doing something different. The band explained that they were writing fictional short horror stories, set to music. I could relate to that one point alone, really. That this was fiction, all the violence and gore—it was not real.
But was it art? Even though I didn’t like it, it didn’t matter. It was still protected under the First Amendment, just like Larry Flynt’s right to publish hardcore pornographic pictures in Hustler, or your right to read the Satanic Bible or Mein Kampf.
My former boss knew all this, he knew there would be controversy, and because of it, he knew there would be a market for Cannibal Corpse. He signed the band to a multi-album contract and placed a stake in their future, and they’d sold a lot of records by indie standards. It was entertainment, and it was OK either way: If you wanted to, you could buy it. And if you didn’t want to, no one could force you. You had the freedom to choose.
There didn’t need to be any kind of censorship and labeling: in this case the band’s name, the artwork, and the album title actually served as the warning sticker. There was no ambiguity. You knew exactly what you were buying when you bought a Cannibal Corpse album: Brutal, heavy, guttural, scary music.
I also had to come to terms with my own personal feelings that two opposite things could be true at the same time. I had to reconcile that good people, like my old boss and the guys in this band, could create and promote ideas that were offensive to me. And that, even if I didn’t like it, I had to defend it from government censorship.
I had to reconcile that in the United States, people have that right, the right to make art or publish pictures, to write books or to play music that pushes boundaries and offends people. This is what artists are supposed to do. This is true freedom, freedom of expression. This is rebellion against tyranny and groupthink. This is how cultures evolve—it seeps in from the margins. Free people can inform themselves and choose what they like and don’t like. Artists can express themselves without fear.
***
And librarians, we protect access to all this, to ideas and culture, including heavy metal culture. We defend free speech––even if it isn't popular speech––from the Thought Police. We provide a level playing ground to marginalized people—whether it be from poverty, or because of race, or because of the music they like, or the God they worship, or other prejudices inherent in any society. We encourage freedom of thought and transparency and civil discussion about difficult topics. We help foster an informed citizenry for self-governance, the basis of democracy itself.
I understood all these principles in real life terms, as a young fan of heavy metal music, as an employee at Metal Blade Records, as a book lover and curious person, as an American, as the granddaughter of immigrants who fled fascism, grateful for the absolute freedom I had in choosing what to read and what to listen to and who to vote for.
“This is why I’m going to be an excellent librarian,” I told the panel.
I understood because I had been a disadvantaged kid and I knew how important books and libraries had been to me. Because, despite its bad reputation, I loved heavy metal music, which gave me courage to believe in myself and to pursue my dreams. It helped me know that anything is possible if you take action toward it. And most of all, because I was actually living the American dream, right this very moment, rising above my circumstances and taking my education further than I ever thought possible.
And with all that laid before them, I was done with my presentation. I paused and took a deep breath.
I thanked the audience for their support and friendship throughout the program, and in true metalhead fashion, Ronnie James Dio style—although I had learned it from Mama, my Sicilian grandmother—I threw a set of devil horns to conclude my presentation.
The room exploded. My normally quiet librarian friends burst into applause and cheers, with a few rowdy woo-hoo's thrown in that jolted me straight into tears. No one held back. Waves of gratitude and relief as they clapped for me, for longer than I expected. I dabbed my eyes a bit, not believing it. I’d made it. I was alive. I was done. A friend had brought me a small bouquet of pretty flowers and I clutched them like a gracious diva.
I wasn’t fucked after all. Sweet baby Jesus. In fact, I’d fucking nailed it.
The academic advisors were smiling at me. They went on to ask me a few questions about my work in the written portion of my portfolio. They enjoyed the way I had presented everything and had tied together my real-life experiences and interests with my coursework. They complimented me on the quality of the written papers and summaries I’d included in the portfolio and I took it all as a good sign.
As my time at the front of the room came to a close, the Hipster Professor told me he was impressed. He asked me the last questions, specifically about heavy metal—the bands I liked, and how I had ended up at Metal Blade Records in the first place. He was a Mötley Crüe fan, and wanted to know if I’d ever met them.
“Yeah, I did, I met Tommy Lee a few times,” I told him. Hipster Professor was super impressed. He wanted to know more. More names. More stories. More dirt.
“Wow, it’s all such a fantastic thing that I couldn’t possibly explain it in just a few minutes,” I said. I tried to deflect him from digging any deeper. “It was just a really, really fun time in my life and I was really lucky.”
While I wished I could explain the whole of it, I knew I could tell him just a very small part of the story, and really only the very best of the good parts. This wasn’t a cocktail party.
The things I saw, the things I did. Even some of my closest friends had no clue about my previous life in Los Angeles, or the hurt I felt as a child. But to go any deeper, beyond this polite small talk with my professor, wasn’t something I could do in those moments after my presentation while standing in a classroom at UCLA.
Jesus. How could I ever tell this story? What Mötley Crüe had meant to me? How seeing Guns N’ Roses changed my life? How Megadeth had affected me? How I grew up loving KISS, hoping Gene Simmons was my father? My affection for Lemmy? The real synchronicity of all the circumstances, and the experiences I had as a younger person in Los Angeles on the heavy metal scene, and how I survived—how could I begin to explain any of it?
How could I explain my transformation from there, to here?
I was still trying to figure it out and explain it to myself, more than a decade later.
Seeing my hesitation, Hipster Professor smiled at me and said in his charming British accent:
“Well, it all sounds like an epic adventure, moving to Los Angeles so young and having these experiences. You’re certainly capable, so you’ll just have to write a big, juicy book about it all someday, now won’t you? I'll look forward to reading it. Congratulations on your master’s degree, by the way. You’re going to do great work.”