The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

about Mexicans, scatology and, especially, the Kuwatch Sex Aid Adventure Kit, which was advertised as including a whip, two oversized groin grinders, a fishing rod, nipple tassels, metal shop goggles, fishnet stockings and a bronzed dog dick necklace. As would happen many times later in life, they kept interrogating me about my work—not understanding whether it was supposed to be art, entertainment or comedy—and asking me to explain myself. So I exploded and, in exasperation, threw the papers up in the air. Before the last one had fluttered to the ground, Mrs. Cole, red in the face, ordered me to grab my ankles. From the corner of the room, she picked up a paddle, which had been so sadistically designed by a friend in shop class that it had holes in it to minimize wind resistance. I was given three hard, fast Christian whacks.
    By then, I was truly lost. During Friday seminars, the girls kept their purses under the wooden chairs they sat in. When they bowed their heads, I would drop to the floor and steal their lunch money. If I discovered any love letters or notes, I’d purloin them as well and, in the interest of fairness and free speech, give them to the people that they were about. If I was lucky, they caused fights, tension and terror.
    I had already been listening to rock and roll for years—but, as my penultimate project, I decided to start making money off it. The person who lent me my first rock album was Keith Cost, a big, dopey, oafish kid who looked like he was thirty but was actually in third grade. After listening to Kiss’s Love Gun and playing with the toy pop gun that came with it, I became a card-carrying member of the Kiss Army and the proud owner of countless Kiss dolls, comics, T-shirts and lunchboxes, none of which I was allowed to bring to school. My dad even took me to see their concert—my first—in 1979. About ten different teenagers asked him for his autograph because he was disguised as Gene Simmons from the Dressed to Kill album cover—complete with green suit, black wig and white makeup.
    The person who irrevocably entrenched me in rock and roll and the lifestyle that accompanies it was Neil Ruble: He smoked cigarettes, had an actual mustache, and had allegedly lost his virginity. So, naturally, I idolized him. Half friend, half bully, he opened up the floodgates to Dio, Black Sabbath, Rainbow—basically anything with Ronnie James Dio in it.
    My other unflappable source of album recommendations was Christian school. As Neil was turning me on to heavy metal, they were conducting seminars on backward masking. They would bring in Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper records and play them loudly on the P.A. system. Different teachers would take turns at the record player, spinning the albums backward with an index finger and explaining the hidden messages. Of course, the most extreme music with the most satanic messages was exactly what I wanted to listen to, chiefly because it was forbidden. They would hold up photographs of the bands to frighten us, but all that ever accomplished was to make me decide that I wanted long hair and an earring just like the rockers in the pictures.
    At the top of my Christian schoolteachers’ enemies list was Queen. They were especially against “We Are the Champions” because it was an anthem for homosexuals and, played backwards, Freddie Mercury blasphemed, “My sweet Satan.” Regardless of the fact that they had already taught us that Robert Plant said the exact same thing in “Stairway to Heaven,” once they had planted the notion that Freddie Mercury said “My sweet Satan,” we heard it every time. Also in their satanic album collection was Electric Light Orchestra, David Bowie, Adam Ant and anything else with gay themes that would give them another opportunity to align homosexuality with wrongdoing.
    Soon, the wood panels and high rafters of my basement bedroom were covered with pictures from Hit Parader, Circus and Creem . Every morning I woke up staring at Kiss, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, David Bowie, Mötley Crüe, Rush and Black Sabbath. Their hidden messages had reached me.
    The fantasy element of much of this music soon drew me to Dungeons & Dragons. If every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off of your life, every game of Dungeons & Dragons you play delays the loss of your virginity by seven hours. I was such a loser that I used to walk around school with