20th Street

Lyrics:

Black cosmetics
Purple tracks
Green bruises
Tears streaking through the grime

Rough hands
Rising skirt
Used condom
Blood dripping between the legs

Carved spiderweb
Intricate cuts
Scarification
Subhuman billboard of pain

Shared needle
Crystal complexion
Puddled vomit
Mattress, dumpster, all the same.

Music Video Script:

Begins in silence. Camera pans filthy ghetto street, zooming in on garbage and debris. A homeless man is huddled up against a dumpster. A car is riddled with bullet holes, its side windows are duct-taped over and the windshield is smashed in. A convenience store’s door and windows are barred; the building next door is boarded up. Housing projects are framed against a smoggy grey sky; the area is devoid of trees or grass.

Song begins with bursts of percussion. Each burst has a staccato, gunfire-ish sound to it, and there is a pause between each burst. With each burst, the camera jerks violently forward, zooming in on a large concrete building (windows barred). As the guitars come screaming in, a foot kicks the door inwards (flying splinters of doorframe) and the camera rushes in the door. It rushes down the hallway (empty, soiled and grimy, rows of closed doors). At the end of the hallway is a staircase. Hall and staircase both have an assortment of stains; urine, vomit, and blood are among them. Halfway up the staircase is a young woman, huddled against the wall (the wall has several holes in it, some fist- and heel-sized, others more like bullets). She is rail-thin and dressed in a ragged miniskirt, torn fishnets, grubby knee-high boots (laces missing from one boot), and a dirty ripped shirt that reveals her slight cleavage. She has greasy, unkempt hair that is starting to form natural dreadlocks, and her eyes are ringed with black eyeliner, eyeshadow, and mascara. She looks very sick and strung-out, with bloodshot eyes and a greyish complexion.

The lyrics are screamed in a growling manner (reminiscent of Coal Chamber), one line at a time.

BLACK COSMETICS! A close-up shot of the woman’s eyes, nose, and cheekbones. Her eyes stare hauntingly into the camera. They have a dead, empty look to them. As the camera zooms even closer, the viewer can see that the black make-up is ingrained into the deep furrows beneath her eyes.

PURPLE TRACKS! The camera jerks from her face down to her forearms. They are riddled with lines of needle marks. Some are red and purple; some are oozing pus and blood, clearly infected. Bruises have spread across her flesh.

GREEN BRUISES! The camera zooms in on the older, more faded bruises on her arms, then pan up to her upper arms. Handprints (the finger-marks) are visible on her upper arms in faint green bruises, as if a week ago someone had shaken her by the shoulders. The camera pans back down her body, revealing a large blotch of a bruise on her belly (her shirt is too small and ripped in such a way that part of her belly is visible).

TEARS STREAKING THROUGH THE GRIME! The camera cuts to her face. It freeze-frames there. Her eyes are filled with tears, and slowly one spills over and rolls down her cheek. It leaves a path of slightly cleaner skin as it washes away bits of dirt and make-up.

Vocals cease for a while; there is a spastic instrumental part. During this part, the tears suddenly well up and explode out of her face, into a torrent of water dumping into the ocean. The camera pans down, and there is the woman again. She is under the water, flailing and choking, but she is tangled in seaweed and can’t free herself. The camera follows her viewpoint as she looks up. She can see the surface above her, the halo of light (so close and yet so far). Then a dark shape passes over top, blocking out the light.

The camera cuts to a grey concrete dungeon. It zooms towards a set of bars and the viewpoint dives straight through the keyhole and into the cell. Inside the cell, the woman is sprawled on the floor. Now she is wrapped in chains, not seaweed, and she seems to be unconscious, if alive. Her face has gone from its greyish pallor to just plain purple, and she is lying in a puddle. Her clothes and hair are drenched. The camera swerves back around to view the bars.

ROUGH HANDS! A pair of hands are wrapped around the bars of the cell. They are men’s hands: large, dirty, and calloused. A ring with a skull on it is on one finger. They are clenched tightly; the knuckles are white.

RISING SKIRT! The camera cuts back to the woman. She is still lying motionless on the cell floor (filthy, soaked cement), but now the hands from the cell bars are on her thighs. The viewer can see her from just below the knees to the bellybutton. The hands are roughly shoving her skirt up, reaching inside it.

Just before the hands reach her crotch, the camera cuts out and is replaced with a mad succession of clips shown at break-neck speed. The viewer just barely gets a glimpse of what each clip contains before it is replaced by the next one. While the clips are being shown, the vocals are just finishing the last line is a long scream (SKIIIIIIIRRRRRRRTTT!!!!!). The instruments are silent, but the scream takes over everything.
Clip #1: The hands are wrapped around her throat, squeezing (shows just from collarbone to chin).
Clip #2: She has her hands against her face, and she is hunched over and screaming. An expression of pure anguish, pain, and horror is on her face (where the camera is focussed, though she is visible from just below the shoulders up).
Clip #3 The camera appears to plunge into the ocean lens-first.
Clip #4 Chains whip along a dingy and wet cement floor like a snake striking.
Clip #5 A man is lying on top of a woman. Only their torsos are visible, but we recognize the woman from her shirt. The camera cuts out after just a brief glimpse.

The camera cuts to a used condom lying on a filthy slab of cement. The view stays there during the entire next line (USED CONDOM), but the camera is not still. It is jerking rapidly back and forth, zooming in and out and around where the condom lies.

USED CONDOM!

Now the camera zooms away from the condom and the view is replaced by blood. The blood is pooling and dripping, but the background is too dark for the viewer to make out where it’s coming from. This is the view during BLOOD DRIPPING; then the camera jerks back and forth as if the cameraperson were headbanging during BETWEEN THE. As LEGS is emitted in a long draw-out scream, the camera pulls back and we can see the woman’s thighs, with the blood running down the inside of them, appearing below her skirt.

BLOOD DRIPPING BETWEEN THE LEGS!

There is another instrumental part. During this part, the camera is rushing down the street of the ghetto. It is still jerking around unsteadily – not shaking kind of unsteady, but stop-and-start kind of unsteady. A black Cadillac drives by; its windshield is tinted and it has gleaming chrome rims and hubcaps. The side windows are unrolled, and men are leaning out of them holding pistols and scowling.

There is a small child (approximately three years old) standing on the sidewalk in front of a housing project, holding a tattered and dirty stuffed animal and crying. The child is alone.

The camera continues to pan down the street, reaching an empty lot where a group of teenage boys are standing. They are wearing shorts, muscle shirts, and ball caps, and one is holding a basketball. However, they are not playing. They are crowded around two teenage girls. One girl is done up in a white skirt and white halter top. Her discarded white high-heels have been kicked off to the side, and the heel of one of them is broken. The other girl is wearing black capris with a metal-studded belt, a black tanktop, several silver rings, and a beret over cornrows. The two girls are fighting. The girl in the white skirt is cut up and bleeding from the other girl’s rings, but has ahold of the other girl’s hair and is dragging her around by it, dodging punches and trying to drag her to the ground. The boys are yelling and cheering the girls on.

CARVED SPIDERWEB!

The camera cuts back to the young woman on the stairs. She peels off her boot, revealing a web of cuts on the side of her calf. The angry red gashes form the shape of a spiderweb, obviously designed that way on purpose.

INTRICATE CUTS!

The camera jumps back and forth between the spiderweb on her leg and the tracks and bruises on her arms, then cuts to a random succession of clips. Each clip is a picture of a design etched into flash: a scar tattoo. Some spell words such as “HATE” or “FUCK YOU”, others form shapes, patterns, and even pictures.

SCARIFICATION!

While SCARIFICATION is being screamed, the screen is blacked out. Knives hurtle past the camera (coming from behind it), stabbing into the blackness where they remain stuck (as if to a wall). The knives fly rapidly, and soon the stuck knives form the word “SCARIFICATION” with a sea of silver blades.

SUBHUMAN BILLBOARD OF PAIN!

Each syllable of SUBHUMAN BILLBOARD OF is emphasized. With its syllable, the camera jerks forward and then back again (as if the cameraperson were headbanging to the song), and with each jerk a different clip is shown. During SUB, the view plunges back into the ocean. During HU, we see the young woman huddled on the stairs again. During MAN, the camera zooms in on the woman from her lips to her chest. During BILL and BOARD, the camera rushes past a succession of billboards, advertising everything from fast-food restaurants to escort services, dating services, and casinos. During OF, the viewer sees only a brief, blank black screen.

While the word PAIN is screamed, there is a massive explosion. Debris flies at the camera, and flames are shooting everywhere. Billowing smoke has blocked out all background.

SHARED NEEDLE!

The camera freeze-frames on a used syringe lying on the pavement in an alley. Garbage is scattered around, and there is a man lying motionless off to the side (his face is not visible; he may be either passed out or dead). After a moment, a man’s hand swoops down and picks the needle up.

The camera cuts to the young woman’s arm, which is only visible from the shoulder down (the viewer can’t see her face or legs). A man’s hands tie her off, then sink the needle into her vein.

CRYSTAL COMPLEXION!

The camera cuts to a close-up of a girl’s face. The girl is between 11 and 13 years old, and her face is covered with what looks like bad acne. She reaches up and plucks a meth crystal off her cheek and places it in a baggie. As she returns the baggie to her pocket, she knocks out a small pipe. As the girl bends down to retrieve the pipe, the camera cuts away from her and to a pile of vomit on the sidewalk.

PUDDLED VOMIT!

The camera zooms in on the vomit, then cuts to a large yellow-brain stain on a sheet on a motel room bed. The camera then cuts to a young man in an alley outside a bar (the neon sign above him blinks the word “NITECLUB”, but the “T”, the “E”, and the “B” are burnt out). The young man is doubled over, retching and vomiting. Nearby, in front of the same bar, two other men and a woman are standing smoking cigarettes and ignoring the sick man.

MATTRESS, DUMPSTER, ALL THE SAME!

The camera cuts successively from the motel room bed with the stained sheet, to the alley where the viewer can now see the vomiting man, the passed-out or dead man, and several discarded needles, all near an overflowing dumpster. While ALL THE SAME is screamed, the camera zooms in to the dumpster, where there is a rustling and shifting of trash. Slowly a figure emerges from inside the dumpster. As the last strains of guitar and the last scream dies away, the figure reaches up and pulls a bloodstained T-shirt off her face. It is the woman from the staircase.