The whole idea of Hell being the center of EVIL is all wrong. Okay, let’s go back to Heaven before the Fall. There’s Lucifer the brightest of all God’s angels, and one day he just gets fed up with sitting around all day worshipping God. He says FUCK THAT! This is BORRRRING! And he decides to split the scene and start his own Heaven. But God owns all the good property and Lucifer has to go way down south before he can find something that he can afford. And he finds the perfect place, except that being in the deep south it’s REALLY FUCKIN’ HOT! But what the hell, he says, at least the rent’s cheap. And he puts up a sign that says HEAVEN SOUTH but then all these high-powered lawyers for God show up and tell him that the name “Heaven®” is copyrighted and they threaten a whopper of a lawsuit so he says fuck you and he puts up a new sign that says HELL. But then he looks around and he notices that he’s the only one there and that it’s kinda lonely, and he thinks about all those suck-ups in Heaven all kissing God’s almighty ass. Good riddance, he says! He doesn’t want any of those losers in Hell, and then he remembers one of God’s side projects, that place called Earth at the far end of some galaxy with all these HUMANS on it. Maybe when they die he can get them to come to Hell instead of Heaven. After all, they don’t know what Heaven’s really like… walkin’ on eggshells all the time so you don’t piss off God. And God is old and he goes to bed real early, like by 9 pm even on weekends right after Lawrence Welk so there’s NO NIGHTLIFE AT ALL and the TV sucks with just three shows—Lawrence Welk, Little House on the Prairie, and Hee-Haw. And as for music… GIVE ME A BREAK! MUZAK and elevator music. Heaven’s like this great big dentist office without the Novocaine! And there’s nothing to do except worship the old man. Day after day year after year millennium after millennium… I mean, the place is a PIT! Yet EVERYBODY wants to go to Heaven because they have this awesome PR firm and everywhere you look there’re these ads for how great Heaven is, blah blah blah! So Lucifer takes a business trip to Earth and he meets with Andy Warhol in New York City and he says:
“Andy, I really love those soup cans!”
“Thanks, Lucifer.”
“Call me Lou…”
“Okay Lou…”
“So Andy, I have this place. It’s like really huge. I mean, enormous! And I need somebody to come in and decorate it. You know, make it the coolest place in the universe, so all the coolest hippest people will want to go there…”
“Sounds good,” says Andy. “When can I start?”
“Well, the only problem is that you have to die first… I mean, you’ve heard of Heaven, right?”
“Um, I think so…”
“Well this will be the anti-Heaven.”
“I see. And what was this part about dying first?”
“Well, it’s just a technicality really. But once you’re there I mean, it’ll be like this non-stop-party-rock-concert-performance-art-love-in… Kinda like Amsterdam on crack!”
“Sounds great. Will you be in my next movie?”
And a few months later Lucifer put up a new sign: CLUB HELL. And with Andy Warhol’s contacts they got the best rock bands like The Doors and Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana and Alice in Chains and all these great industrial-techno and metal bands who weren’t even dead yet but they’d come to play anyway because word soon spread that CLUB HELL was THE place to play! And to make the experience even better Lucifer provided an unlimited supply of free drugs (and he eliminated bad trips and overdoses). And soon all the cool artists on Earth started killing themselves so they could get to CLUB HELL, and then the cool writers, poets, musicians, and filmmakers followed suit and pretty soon Lucifer’s place was the center of all that was happening in culture…
“This place is awesome!” said Kurt Cobain.
“Thanks, man!” said Lucifer. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, I like ‘Bleach’ better than ‘Nevermind’…”
“Me too, man! Hey, can I ask you somethin’?”
“Sure Kurt…”
“Any chance you can, you know, like keep Courtney outta here?”
“Sure thing!” said Lucifer.
“Thanks man! Whew! I was worried there for a second!”
“No problem!”
“Hey Lucifer!” said John Lennon.
“Hey John! Good to see you!”
“Kurt… Hey, you got that doubled vocals thing from me!” John Lennon said to Kurt Cobain.
“Only steal from the best!” said Kurt.
John Lennon smiled. “So Lucifer…”
“Please John, call me Lou! This is Hell! We’re all on a first name basis here!”
“Okay Lou… So I was wondering, like why they all say back on Earth that Hell is such an evil place…”
“It’s God’s PR firm,” said Lucifer. “The old man’s pissed that so many people are coming here, so he’s just spreading his lies. I mean, get real! I split from Heaven for a reason! I wanted to get away from all that oppressive shit, so why the hell would I make this some big ass prison so God wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of free will? I mean, I didn’t give ‘em free will. He did! And now he expects me to clean up his mess? Fuck that! Besides, why would I wanna surround myself with all that no-good riff-raff for eternity?”
“Makes sense,” said John Lennon, eyeing the tabs of acid on the table. “So they say there aren’t any bad trips here, is that right?”
But after a while, problems arose as more and more people wanted to get into CLUB HELL. And the last straw was when the Olsen Twins made a double suicide pact and appeared at the door and Lucifer had had enough. After that he hired God’s very own PR firm to spread the word even further that Hell was where all the evil bastards ended up after death to suffer eternal flames of woe. And Lucifer even did a few PSA’s himself, dressed in red holding a pitchfork with some fake horns on his head, the green screen behind him showing CGI images of fire and brimstone and the damned all writhing about in eternal agony. And from that point on, CLUB HELL became an invitation only place and Lucifer was the happiest angel who ever lived.
