Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (63 page)

Dead was
the
quintessential black-metal singer: He buried his clothes for weeks underground to give them a “grave” scent; he slashed his own skin during performances; and, for inspiration, he inhaled rancid air from a plastic bag containing the decomposed remains of a crow. In 1990 Dead and the rest of Mayhem moved into a house together to work on their first full-length album,
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
—a Latin phrase that loosely translates to “Lord Satan’s Secret Rites.” During those album sessions, a style emerged that would come to define black-metal music. According to
Dark Legions
magazine:

The vibrations caused by cranking up the bass on a car stereo can cause your lungs to collapse
.

    [The music] was metamorphosing into a sleeker, melodic variant with more dynamic change in the songs, producing different “settings” to tell a tale, somewhat like a micro-opera in harsh guitars and howling vocals. Similarly, the band’s appearance went from t-shirts and jeans to black clothing, black boots, and black-and-white facepaint, or “corpsepaint,” to make them all appear dead.

THE SPLINTERING

Life in the Mayhem house was as intense as the music: Dead, who continually battled depression, didn’t get along with Euronymous. And on April 8, 1991, Euronymous came home to find Dead dead—with slit wrists and a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. (Next to him was a suicide note that read, “Please excuse all the blood.”) Before calling the police, however, Euronymous ran to the store and bought an instant camera…and then photographed Dead’s body in a variety of positions. (One of the photos later found its way onto the cover of Mayhem’s bootleg live album,
Dawn of the Black Hearts
.) According to legend, Euronymous also kept chunks of Dead’s scattered brain and mixed them into a stew, and used bone fragments from his skull to make necklaces that he gave to musicians whom he “deemed worthy.”

The well-publicized tragedy gave a huge boost not only to Mayhem’s popularity but to all of black metal. “People became more aware of us after that,” said Necrobutcher, the bassist. “It really changed the scene.” But the “scene” became too much for Necrobutcher to handle, and he soon quit the band.

THE REFORMATION

But Mayhem lived on…for a while. Singer Attila Csihar took over for Dead, while Varg Vikernes (“Count Grishnackh,” named after a
Lord of the Rings
villain) stepped in on bass. But once again, there was trouble in the band—Count Grishnackh, who suffered from paranoid delusions, became convinced that Euronymous was secretly conspiring to torture and kill him. On August 10, 1993, less than a year after joining the band, Grishnackh went to Euronymous’s apartment and stabbed him 23 times, killing him.

At Zambia’s Mfuwe Lodge, elephants still follow their traditional path to a mango tree which now leads them through the hotel’s lobby
.

The ensuing murder trial put Mayhem in the news again. And the trial revealed that not only did the bassist kill the guitarist, but Grishnackh was also responsible for a spate of infamous church-burnings that had plagued Norway for the past few years. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison. (He was released on parole 15 years later, in 2009.)

THE SHEEP OFFENSIVE

It seemed that with two members dead and one in jail, Mayhem would never rock again. Not so—in 1995 Hellhammer got a lineup together to start anew, this time with guitarist Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen and original member Sven Erik “Maniac” Kristiansen on vocals. He even lured Necrobutcher out of retirement to play bass. Soon after, Mayhem
finally
released
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
—an album that had been stalled amidst all of Mayhem’s mayhem. That was followed by
Wolf’s Lair Abyss
in 1997 and
Grand Declaration of War
in 2000. Mayhem were back in business—and were now a bona fide legend in the black-metal world. They managed to stay below the radar of the mainstream press…for a time.

But in 2003 the band made headlines again. During a show in Bergen, Norway, Maniac was cutting up a dead sheep on stage—a ritual that had become a regular part of their act—when its head somehow catapulted into the crowd, hitting 25-year-old Per Kristian Hagen. The sheep’s head knocked the young man to the floor, and he ended up with a fractured skull. Hagen filed assault charges against Mayhem. “The whole thing was an accident,” claimed Blasphemer (although he added, “but maybe it
would
be an idea for another show”). In the end, Hagen dropped the charges and the band had weathered yet another storm.

LONG DIE ROCK

With the band members now in their 40s, Mayhem is still at it. They made the news again in 2009 when they were arrested for trashing a hotel room in the Netherlands. And though they don’t expect everyone to like their music, they don’t want to be thought of as just a gimmick. According to vocalist Attila Csihar, “It took us 20 years of doing this before people realized we weren’t joking.”

THE OBITS

Some real-life newspaper obituaries written by the loved ones (and not-so-loved ones) of the dearly (and not-so-dearly) departed
.

“William Donaldson
, who died on June 22 aged 70, was described as ‘an old Wykehamist who ended up as a moderately successful Chelsea pimp,’ which was true, though he was also a failed theatrical impresario, a crack-smoking serial adulterer, and a writer of autobiographical novels.”

—Daily Telegraph
(U.K.)

“Dolores Aguilar
, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society, and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed, and there will be no lamenting over her passing. There will be no service, no prayers, and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart.”

—Vallejo Times-Herald
(New Mexico)

“Jim Adams
, 53, tired of reading obituaries noting others’ courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle as a result of simply being stubborn and not following doctor’s orders. He was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date. He loved to hear and tell jokes and spin tales of grand adventures he may or may not have had. In lieu of flowers, he asks that you make a sizeable purchase at your favorite watering hole, get rip-roaring drunk, and tell the stories he no longer can.”

—Casper Star-Tribune
(Wyoming)

“Dorothy Gibson Cully
, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. At the time of her death, Dot’s daughter Carol and Carol’s husband, Ron, were attending a ‘very important conference’ at a posh Florida resort. After learning of the death, they rushed home 10 days later. Dot’s other children—dutifully at their mother’s side helping with the funeral parlor notice, the hospice notification, revising the last will, etc.—happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress. Contributions to the hospice are welcomed. Opinions about this obit are not.”

—Raleigh News & Observer
(North Carolina)

China’s Internet censors are so strict that World of Warcraft had to put skin on the game’s skeletons
.

“Sally Baron
, age 71, of Stoughton, died Monday, Aug. 18, 2003. She took care of her family, especially Slugger, who got around better than he should have after a debilitating mining accident in 1969. Memorials in her honor can be made to any organization working for the removal of President Bush.”

—Capital Times
(Wisconsin)

“Roosevelt Conway
passed away April 2, 2005. In 1966 he came to Los Angeles, where he met and fell in love with his wife, Pee Wee. She’s a damn good mother who was faithful and devoted to her man, ‘too devoted.’ She got a wake-up call. They parted. She never went back. But she never stopped caring and doing good things for him. Like now, he didn’t have an insurance policy. But Pee Wee made it possible. She made sure he is having a good proper burial service right now. She will help anyone long as they are not playing games. It’s time for people to start giving back to her and stop calling on her so much.”

—from a memorial-service brochure, Inglewood, CA

“Patrick Pakenham
, 68, was a talented barrister and the second son of the 7th Earl and Countess of Longford; but his boisterous nature and bouts of mental illness rendered it impossible for him to sustain his position at the Bar, and he retired after 10 years’ practice. During his appearance before an irascible and unpopular judge in a drugs case, the evidence, a bag of cannabis, was produced. The judge, considering himself an expert on the subject, said to Pakenham, with whom he had clashed during the case: ‘Come on, hand the exhibit up to me quickly.’ Then he proceeded to open the package. Inserting the contents in his mouth, he chewed it and announced: ‘Yes, yes of course that is cannabis. Where was the substance found, Mr. Pakenham?’ The reply came swiftly, if inaccurately: ‘In the defendant’s anus, my Lord.’”

—Daily Telegraph
(U.K.)

Happiest profession, according to happiness polls: priests. Least happy: gas station attendants
.

THE SHIPPING NEWS

Weird stuff on boats, ships, and at sea. (Sorry, no pirates
.)

T
HE GOOD SHIP
IRONY
In April 2009, British environmental activists Raoul Surcouf and Richard Spink set out on an awareness-raising journey to Greenland’s melting polar ice cap. Their ship: the
Fleur
, a 40-foot carbon-neutral yacht that operated with solar panels and an onboard wind turbine. But weather proved their undoing: Hurricane-strength winds and high waves destroyed the solar panels and the ship’s generator. After the
Fleur
capsized a third time, Surcouf and Spink put out a call for help. The environmentalists seeking to raise awareness of the damage caused by fossil fuels were rescued by the
Overseas Yellowstone
, a 113,000-ton oil tanker.