this machine's broke

I got the deluxe edition of The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails recently, which was a good thing because I think I lost my original copy. The deluxe edition doesn't seem all that special. The second disc has selections of B-sides and remixes that were released on the CD singles from that era. I haven't really checked to see if there were any videos or anything like that, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were.

This is the first time I've listened to it in a long time, and it's still pretty savage. This was one of my favorite albums growing up, which probably explains why I was such a miserable teenager.

When I used to work in the mall, there was one dude who was a friend of one of my coworkers, and the three of us used to get together for cigarette breaks in the mall tunnels sometimes (employee passages that are kinda like the backstage of full throttle capitalism). I think the other dude worked at the B. Dalton Booksellers or something simlarly mall-y. Bookseller was a pretty cool guy. I think he was into D&D and Magic the Gathering and Vampire the Masquerade and shit like that--a total Food Court Druid, though he didn't look the part. He looked more like one of the dudes from Bare Naked Ladies, or like a guy who could hang with those guys. You know what I mean.

Anyway, he was always telling these weird stories--I guess he was into real magic and was part of a coven or whatever. Hey, to each his own. I'm superstitious enough not to fuck with that shit. He went on once about protection spells and getting magically attacked by some black magic coven and I guess some shit went down, but he pulled through okay. Once he told me this story about how he met Trent Reznor in Manhattan by chance and ended up going to lunch or dinner with him. Apparently he saw Trent on the street walking around and probably being all Trent-like but trying to be low key about it. The Food Court Druid approached him and Trent was all "you know who I am?" and Druid was all, "yeah." Then Trent said "don't say anything," and then they got something to eat and had this deep conversation.

I'm pretty sure that's how the story went. Personally, I'm more apt to believe all that shit about magic than Trent Reznor taking random people who recognize him out to lunch then spilling his soul, but who knows. The Downward Spiral is pretty fucked up, and I mean, just look at the guy...

[from sickamongthepure.com]

That's someone who could use a hug. We all could, really.