Dear RIAA,
My name is Gary Russell and I need your help.
In 1985 you introduced the “Parental Advisory” sticker, a label which acts both as a warning sign to parents that an album may not be suitable for their children, and as a justification for not allowing said children to buy the album in which the explicit content resides.
Today—over thirty years later—I beg that you consider placing an additional “Step-Parental Advisory” sticker on these albums—particularly nu metal albums—even more particularly, late 90’s nu metal albums.
You see, I am fairly certain that my stepson is going to murder me, and I believe that the lack of a Step-Parental Advisory sticker on late 90’s nu metal albums is to blame.
I am writing you from a very dark place this evening: underneath my bed with the lights turned off. As we speak, I can hear Him slowly dragging His aluminum baseball bat—which I bought Him for athletic purposes—against the walls in the room next door.
I don’t know how much time I have left so I need you to listen to me carefully…
The lack of a Step-Parental Advisory sticker renders stepparents completely defenseless in preventing their stepchildren from purchasing late 90’s Nu Metal albums—albums that are brainwashing them with hatred and extreme violence. Without this sticker, I will never have the same authority to say “Don’t even think about it Mister” that biological parents have. Instead, He is the one who gets to say “Don’t even think about it mister,” usually when I try and feed from my trough before Slop Time.
I have tried to stop Him. It is important that people know this. I have tried and I have failed. Whenever I tell Him he cannot buy a particular late 90’s nu metal album and point out the Parental Advisory sticker, He just tells me I’m not His “real dad” and kicks me in the nuts with His impossibly large and impractical skate shoes.
If we were to have a sticker specifically for stepparents, I can’t help but feel He would not have grown as powerful as He is today. I would have had the power to stop Him.
The signs of what is soon to come have become all the more apparent in recent weeks. I have noticed that His wallet chain seems to be growing longer and longer by the day; could He perhaps be fashioning the noose He intends to destroy me with right in front of my very eyes?
Without a Step-Parental Advisory sticker, there is nothing I can do. My hands are tied. No, seriously, my hands are literally tied; He tied me up to a chair in our unfinished basement earlier this morning. I am currently typing this email out with my horribly bloodied nose. I was able to shake off my leg shackles and retreat to my bedroom, but my time is running out.
I have tried to talk to my wife about all of this, but she believes He should be able to listen to whatever He wants. I have also tried to tell her about the torture He has been putting me through, but whenever I begin to explain, He will roll past on His skateboard just out of her sight, crossing His throat with His Cheeto-stained thumb and black-painted fingernail.
It is truly the darkest shade of black I have ever seen.
He is no longer the sweet little boy my wife believes Him to be. What’s left of His heart is as frosted as the tips of His hair, His morals as loose as the fit of His JNCO jeans.
Just this morning I was awoken by late 90’s nu metal blaring through my speakers, only to discover I had a leash tied tightly around my neck. He was at the other end of the leash. This is the most emasculating thing I have ever had to admit to someone—let alone the RIAA—but my stepson proceeded to make me walk on all fours across my house while He incessantly called me a “freak.”
Truthfully, at that moment, I did feel like a freak. I felt like a freak on a leash.
If only there was a Step-Parental Advisory sticker on the albums that transformed Him into the wicked and omnipotent force that He is today, I could have had a legitimate say as to whether He could purchase them or not. I could have had a legitimate say as to when Slop Time begins—a legitimate say as to when Slop Time ends.
He also tells everyone I don’t have a dick. This has nothing to with nu metal to my knowledge, but it’s still mean because I do have a dick. I promise.
Oh god, He just started playing Drowning Pool’s “Bodies.” He appears to have reached the turn of the millennium. I fear my time has come.
It might be too late for me, but it’s not too late for the others.
Pray for me.
-Gary