Violent
J of Insane Clown Posse claims that people become Juggalos (followers of the
Detroit rap duo) even before they listen to ICP music. This is definitely true of me. I can pinpoint the moment I became a
Juggalette. I was in 8th
grade, and the members of Insane Clown Posse were most likely still in diapers. Eric Schwab, a popular and good looking 7th
grade boy, saw me carrying my books down the hall. He came up to me, knocked them out of my
hands and simply said, “Pick ‘em up, bitch.”
Other students and teachers walked past, seeming not to notice. When I think about the teachers who stand by
and let bullying happen, often favoring the popular bullies, I want to let ICP
do the talking -- “We’ll rip your head off and swing it by the hair/until we
get blood everywhere.” (“Get Ya Wicked On”)
I identify with Juggalos
because they are social outcasts who call themselves a “Family.” They defend each other when the powers that
be are silent or impotent.
Moreover,
according to experiencefestival.com, “For
the Juggalo community, the overall message of staying true to oneself and
refusing to change for anyone is the true meaning and purpose of living.” Considering that I wear a wedding ring I gave
myself, inscribed with the message, “To Thine Own Self Be True,” I think this
is a pretty good definition of my philosophy.
However, as an almost fifty year old high school
teacher, I have been criticized for defending Insane Clown Posse, whose lyrics
describe unspeakable acts of violence, sex, drug use and other criminal
behavior. The FBI has listed Juggalos as
a “gang” and certain individuals claiming to be Juggalos have committed real crimes,
ranging from misdemeanor drug possession to stabbing people to death. Yes, they are entertainers, and yes, they
provide a cathartic and effervescent experience, but, in the words of the
station manager from Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness, their “methods are unsound.”
I do relate ICP to Kurtz in a lot of ways. As Marianna Torgovnik, in “Primitivism and
the African Woman in Heart of Darkness,” writes:
“Conrad
provides additional testimony to the attraction violence exerts for many men in
our culture, perhaps as an outlet for the many alternative values
conventionally barred to them: free emotional expression, openness to the
“feminine” views of mothers of wives, identification with other men on a basis
other than competition. Under such
conditions, ritualized enactments of violence and death become flirtations with
boundary dissolution; they both test and affirm men’s need to maintain
separation, difference, and control as attributes of masculinity. They become simulacra of, but also charms
against the loss of self, inscribed in the fullest erotic experience. Kurtz’s rituals of human sacrifice and
cannibalism may thus have been motivated by the same Western mixture of
thanatophilia and thanatophobia found in other men of his time.”
I
suppose when I listen to “Fearless” (“I’ll shoot a game of pool with the grim
reaper and let him beat me; I’ll meet Jeffrey Dahlmer at some kind of bar, let
him take me home and eat me”) or “The Juggla” (“If you're a little kid I'm a take ya/And if
you're neck I'm a break ya/If you're an old lady I'm a mug ya/ Cuz bitch, you
can't fuck with the juggla”) I do feel, like Marlow, “as if something
altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought and odious to the soul had been
thrust upon me unexpectedly.” And of course, I
am carefully selecting the least offensive lyrics to quote here; most of them
are simply nothing I would want to repeat in any public medium of
communication.
But
for me, ICP are more than monstrous. They are also funny. The song, “I Stuck Her with My Wang” is
simply unprintable, describing X-rated acts in every imaginable place including
the home improvement aisle of Meier’s. I
enjoy their attack on the materialism of Christmas (although they insult one of
my favorite holiday characters) in “Santa Claus is a Fat B---, another year and
I ain’t got s—t”. I like the audacity
and absurdity of “The Neden Game” song (“To get your attention in a crowded
place/I’d walk right up and stick my --- in your face”) and the braggadocio of
“Whut” (“Had syphilis three times/committed mad felony crimes”).
They
are also spiritual. Everyone talks about
(and makes fun of) their song “Miracles,” but I love it. I love the message about “taking nothing for
granted,” as we see all the wonders of creation around us every day. I also appreciate the question, “Where’s God
when the s—t goes down?” Rapping about suffering in the world, they ask, “If he was up there chillin', lettin' this
happen/ Doin' nuttin', He'd be in need of a slappin'/But we're all clueless to
how it works/There are no experts and that's what hurts.” Okay, so it’s maybe not as eloquent as the
Book of Job, but it makes the same point, and speaks to the same spiritual
longing.
When someone crosses my boundaries or
threatens my loved ones, I am able (by the grace of God) to exercise restraint
most of the time and not react with hate and anger. During such times, to access and release my
feelings, I have listened to (and sung along with) one of my favorite ICP
songs, “Rainbows and Stuff,” over and over, at top volume:
“I
like ice cream, cherry pie and lemonade with summer breeze
I
like rainbows, leafy trails and puppy dogs with bumble bees
I
like cotton candy, gum and bumper cars and carnivals
Golden
skies and hazel eyes and sand in between my toes BUT
something
tells me that I hate you
something
tells me I must kill you…”
This
act of catharsis/sublimation ultimately enables me to act more sanely and
rationally, with genuine love and tolerance of others, even those who seek to
harm me.
ICP
lyrics have, in the words of Conrad, “to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness
of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares.” The line, “I turn
the moon off and dance in the darkness” (“Jump Around”) is one of the finest
images I can imagine. Of Violent J or Shaggy I might say, with Marlow, “He had
kicked himself loose of the earth.
Confound the man! He had kicked
the very earth to pieces.”
Yes,
I do
remember Insane Clown Posse’s “abject threats, the colossal scale of [their]
vile desires…” (“I ate a dead body; I
ain’t proud of it; I told you all about it and you applauded” –“Down with the
Clown”) but when I read about “Steak, Blow Job and Shut the F--k up Day” in a
supposedly funny email about Valentine’s Day, where “now it’s the guy’s turn
for a holiday” or when old men start shooting themselves in front of
schoolchildren to protest gay marriage, or a principal tells a bullied girl to
“be less outspoken” to avoid her classmates’ death threats, I turn to Insane Clown Posse, as Marlow turns
to Kurtz, “for relief, positively for relief.” I, too, will remain loyal to the
Nightmare of my choice.
