September 15, 2007
Sarah Goss and Owen Autumn
Written by Girth McDürchstein on September 15, 2007 4:15 AM
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We’ve received tens of messages from fans demanding to know why I find Owen Autumn so terrifying. Shouldn’t somebody rippling with muscle, confidence, and penile enormity (I should note that this public image is why I refuse to allow any recent pictures of me to surface, with the notable exception of my unfortunate mugshot) kick the fucking shit out of a fat, washed-up loser, like I do in my song “Thunderbird”? The answer may surprise you.
When I was a kid, my dad always used to say, “Pick your battles wise, son, ‘cause that pussycat could have alligator teeth.” He later died of a heart-attack while trying to decapitate a suspiciously well-armed postal worker, but his point remains: you can’t judge the ferocity of an opponent based solely on lack of physical training, intellect, or stamina; if the motherfucker is insane—and Owen Autumn is—he might do anything to win if you pick a fight.
I hated Owen instantly, from the first moment I saw him back in 1995. His band, Ghosts for Algernon, tainted perfectly awesome metal venues with his—whatever it is that he plays. That hodgepodge of techno, synth-pop, and gay space calypso of the future bullshit. I hated the music, of course, but more than that, I hated the man. He’d stamp around clubs, preening like a 19th-century whore, making obscene demands and always managing to get his way. He made me ill, especially since he had so much handed to him on a silver platter while Abysmal Crucifix struggled to succeed. I wanted a piece of Owen Autumn, but I soon found out why the entire L.A. metal scene deferred to his mighty power.
One night, I saw Owen at the Rainbow and decided to start some shit with him. Jam and Tommy warned me not to, but what the fuck do they know? They aren’t even in the band anymore. So I went across to the table where he sat, laughing and stuffing his face full of nachos, beat my fists down on the table and roared, “Look, motherfucker, I’m sick of your bullshit!”
Without missing a beat, Owen lunged across the table and dive-bombed me, pinning me to the floor. As I struggled to break free, his nostrils blasted hot, spicy breath into my face. Owen leaned away as I began to cough, then brandished a serrated knife and held it to my throat.
“Listen, motherfucker,” he whispered. I could feel his heart racing, among other things. “You wanna mess with me? Do you?”
“A little,” I nodded.
“You gotta go through my dancing lady.”
“Who is she?”
Instead of answering, he slid the dull side of the knife along my neck. It felt wet and sticky for some reason. As he pressed it against my skin, I shoved forward with all my weight and knocked him back against his table. I leaped to my feet, pointed down at him, and shrieked, “This fuckin’ fag got a boner!”
Owen Autumn looked humiliated at first, but that was short-lived. For some reason, everyone in the club applauded. This is what I later dubbed the Owen Effect™. His lack of social skills, ignorance, and obnoxiousness were all ignored and rewarded by virtue of genial politeness and fear of his insanity.
However, I still hated Owen Autumn and plotted to destroy him…until I discovered, after a few months, I suffered from a variety of medical problems. Much of my hair had fallen out, my skin had grown scaly and ashen, my eyes sunk deep into the pits of their sockets—I looked like a monster. My appearance degraded so much that when I called women onstage to have public sex with me, I had even fewer volunteers than usual. The only takers were female truckers and prostitutes looking for handouts. Years later, Margo told me she was one of these prostitutes, but I wouldn’t give her the time of day.
I soon realized something serious and medical had happened, so I went to see the general practitioner at the VD clinic (we used to call STDs “VD” back in those days, for you younger fans). After running a battery of tests, he told me, “You’ve been poisoned.”
“What?”
“There’s a street drug circulating in the gay bars around West Hollywood called Kolbenine. A small amount rubbed around the lip of the anus—”
“Dude!”
“—provides a…let’s just call it a pleasurable sensation, upon penetration. However, higher doses can cause what we in the medical community call ‘monsterism.’”
“Is that true?”
“Well…Kolbenine exists and is causing this,” he said. “I’ve seen this condition on many, many, many, many male asses. We have a quick-fix here for that, but you’ll probably need to take about a week’s worth.”
He tossed me an orange bottle loaded to the top with red caplets. “Are you sure this is right?”
The doctor shrugged. “We’ll find out in a week, won’t we?”
It did clear things up, but I received the message loud and clear: Owen Autumn was not only willing to threaten people with knives—he had no problem using poison to ravage people’s good looks.
You can now understand my fear when Owen confronted me and demanded Sarah’s hand, but let me tell you something else: things got very strange between both myself and Sarah around that time. She and I fought like cats and dogs over D.J. Koko, who I swore—and still swear, despite all evidence to the contrary—was just a friend. On top of this, the night before his brutal attack, Owen and I had a brief, strange heart-to-heart. I had never talked to him before as a real person. In fact, until that point I found myself thinking of Owen Autumn as a Highlander-esque Immortal.
I happened to see him on Third Street, inside the porn shop that also sells Mexican food, La Comida Chi-Chi. I sat at my usual table, eating burritos while browsing a collection of magazines featuring the delightful brown-skinned ladies of the Polynesian islands. By the time I saw Owen Autumn enter the cafeteria area, it was too late to leave without being seen. He got some food and, to my surprise, sat down across from me.
“You’ve been with a lot of women, right?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, I haven’t.”
“Duh.”
“I need some advice on what to do,” Owen pleaded, taking a huge bite from his taco. “I’m sure you’ve had experience in similar areas. Say you’ve fallen for this girl, but you’ve found out she’s with some guy and they’re pretty tight—like engaged, maybe.”
“Fuck his shit up,” I said plainly.
“What if you don’t know who he is?”
“Find out. Destroy him. Take him out of the picture and make sure nobody sees. If she links it back to you, the chick’s never gonna go for it. So, who is she?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Is she worth it?”
Owen sighed. “I hope so.”
Turns out, she was.
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