A FASCIANATING GUEST POST

In honor of Malevolent Creation's headlining gig at The Elbo Room in SF this evening ($5 Chocolate Russians!), IllCon is proud to present this guest post, courtesy of first-time contributor and omnipresent metal-blogging Zen master AESOP (right). This guy needs no introduction, as you all know him already. He plays in some bands, he writes stuff... But most importantly, he hails from the tip of America's Flaccid Wang, South Florida -- home of death metal, home of violent crime, home of notorious Malevolent Creation guitarist Phil Fasciana. Read on...

- Cobras

Phil Fasciana Is A Hero

The occasion was a ceremony in which Phil Fasciana of Malevolent Creation was presented with an award and a key to the city by Broward County Sherriff, Al Lamberti, and Ft. Lauderdale Mayor, Jack Seiler. I was of course asked to speak at this prestigious event, being somewhat of a celebrity from the region. It was a humid 92 degrees, on a July afternoon. I was sweating like a whore in church under my rented tuxedo. The only person who looked more uncomfortable and out of place than I did was the guest of honor. I approached the dais, took a huge swig of chocolate milk and delivered the speech of a lifetime.


Folks, we are brought together here today at the Young Circle Band Shell to honor a very special hero in our community, a man whose bravery knows no bounds, whose valor is cut from the pages of Arthurian legend, yet he lives and breathes among us. That man is of course Phillip Fasciana, guitarist of Death Metal band, Malevolent Creation. Which reminds me, you hear a lot of accolades for Deicide and Morbid Angel, but not so much Phil’s band. They too are from our beloved Sunshine State, and indeed play Death Metal, so what gives? But it isn’t for Phil’s accomplishments on the fret board that we give praise and thanks on this balmy day, no, this is a matter of far greater import.

Anyone living in the Broward County area is no stranger to crime, sometimes crimes so violent that they’d give you a boner if they weren’t so depraved. But no one knows this sad factoid more than Phil. One fateful day Mr. Fasciana had only one thing on his mind, quenching an insatiable thirst for dairy products of the chocolate persuasion, you see Mr. Fasciana is an equal opportunity enjoyer. However there was more than milk on the menu, fate also served up a tall cool glass of bloodshed, for upon entry into the store, Phil saw the owner under siege by a vicious crack-addicted Uruk Hai, armed with a gun and an unflinching will. Most of us would cower and retreat, deeming no beverage worthy of a gunshot wound, but not Phil Fasciana, no siree. At that moment Phil realized that this was no longer about cocoa-lactic luxuries, this was about freedom. Phil saw a man who had come to this country with nothing but a dream, a man who worked hard, done everything right, but still fell victim to a drug-crazed freeloader. That was all he could stand, something inside of Phil just snapped, every fiber of his being said, “No more will the downtrodden immigrant small-business owner befall such tribulations in his pursuit of the American dream!!!”



It was at this crucial moment when years of training, in the form of beating on his girlfriend, paid off. Phil took initiative and wrested the weapon away from the perpetrator. Now I want you to imagine yourself in this same scenario, how would you react? I am sure that the last thing Phil wanted to do that day was take a life, I am sure the man who wrote songs that touched our hearts with their messages of hope and love, songs like “The Will To Kill,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” and “The Fine Art of Murder” would have preferred any other end to this amazing story, a story so amazing one might call it “unbelievable.” So it is with great pride that I come here today to salute Phil Fasciana. A man who has been called a slack-jawed idiot, a mouth-breathing liar, and Neanderthal, a racist, a redneck sack of shit, a piss poor musician, a woman-beating shaved ape, a knuckle-dragging Cromagnon dipshit, a retard, a dolt, a boneheaded water-brained moron, a dunce, a fool, an ignoramus, a simpleton, a nitwit, and a freakishly dimwitted fuckstick, can now add “hero” to that laundry list of sobriquets.

But what is a hero? What exactly makes Phil Fasciana a hero? It was fate that led him to join the ranks of such mythic heroes as Ulysses, Superboy, and Bernhard Goetz, and that is what makes Phil great, he wasn’t looking to make the papers or have his name appear one more time in Blabbermouth to promote his failing band’s upcoming South American tour, he wasn’t looking for glory or poontang, he just wanted some chocolate milk, some chocolate fucking milk, is that too much to ask? As a society maybe we should all be looking for the sweet chocolate milk of liberty, the chocolate milk of a world where our children can live and grow with the help of calcium from chocolate milk. Perhaps some of us have lost our way and relinquished our own chocolate milk to fear and degradation at the hands of crime and immorality?

God bless you, Phillip Fasciana, and God Bless America and the great state of Florida.

(If you have no idea what Aesop is talking about, read this or this or this or this.)