Perfect Isolation

January 4, 2002
Dear Sir or Madam:
Attached are several email messages I am reporting to you as having been sent to me by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (Appendix A). I am forwarding these to you along with a request for assistance by you to resolve a personal issue I have with him. The included email, dated 07/19/2001 (not included) demonstrates I have made reasonable efforts to allow Mr. Reznor enough opportunity to explain himself to me, so that I would not need to involve you in my problems, lest I be accused of using this situation to promote myself. Mr. Reznor has chosen to ignore my hails, so he has chosen to involve you in his problems. In addition, the enclosed `pms’ send to the www.nin.com webmaster, Rob Sheridan (not included), demonstrate that Nothing Records/Nothing Studios was informed of this situation. At this time I will direct you to read the document titled “E! Online -- Monday Night at Morton’s” (http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Morton/Archive/99/990505.html) , and keep the contents of that paper in mind as you read through this letter. In 1995, when Mr. Reznor was touring to support his Downward Spiral album, I am alleging during Sept-Dec 1995 he showed up where I lived in response to a letter I had written to him, demanding that he give some unambiguous response to me to demonstrate that he wanted me to continue to write to him, requiring that he respond within that time frame. Prior to that time for almost a full year, I had used writing fan letters to him, sending one letter once a month, as an outlet. Although the stupidity of sending sexually oriented letters to a strange male is obvious, I expected my letters would probably not be read by him, and if they were, he would not likely care, having received that sort of thing all the time. I knew a woman who had worked for ACDC as a reader, and her job was to read the fan mail, so I expected my letters would not get past the readers. Also, given the groupie scene, I figured Mr. Reznor was too busy having sex with cheap, easy women to bother with me. Also, several months into writing letters, I took another look at him and decided maybe I was interested in attempting to pursue something with him, even though it was unlikely I would be successful. In some very important ways, Mr. Reznor and I are very similar. While he was growing up he was heavy into being a musician, while I was heavy into being an artist. During college he was heavy into a dream of making innovative music, while in college, I was heavy into persuing my dream of figuring out what the human skin’s macro geometry was, so I could duplicate it as a piece of clothing, a dream of mine, we both had trouble making friends and when growing up, were the subject of ridicule, but hung with both the in and out crowd, and are both attractive and bright. My photo is enclosed to show you what I look like (not included). I had never seen anyone like him before, and it was a shock to find out there was another person walking around, who was just like me. Being as good looking geniuses who possess similar interests and life histories, in my age range, were otherwise unavailable and it seemed unlikely I would find anyone else who suited me as much as Mr. Reznor, this left me with a sense of urgency to try to get his attention to be able to make my case with him, before someone else snapped him up. Of course now I know better. I decided that making some effort to catch Mr. Reznor’s eye was better than not trying at all because at least there was some chance I might succeed, however small. I then developed a habit of rewriting lyrics for songs he had written. I believed this the one area of his work I could improve upon, and used that as an opportunity to both try to impress him and to learn how to write song lyrics, something I had wanted to learn how to do.

The “Lyrics Rewrites” package (Appendix B) shows the fruits of my labor. I continued to write letters of a sexual and bizarre nature, as it was fun to do so and I didn’t really believe he was going to read what I had to say anyway. I figured that sex was a cheap but effective weapon by which to grab Mr. Reznor’s attention, and I included a copy of my driver’s license photo so he could see what I looked like. Also, I figured that if Mr. Reznor did get excited by my letters enough to want to do something about it, he was too busy to be able to take time out of his busy schedule to show up uninvited on my doorstep, so I need not worry about that. I thought “What’s he going to do -- show up on my doorstep?! Ha Ha!!” As it turns out the joke was on me. However I became suspicious that Mr. Reznor was actually reading the letters and planting messages in interviews he gave in the United States because for four months in a row, he would mention something in an interview that I had talked about in a letter he would have received the month before the interview was published, consecutively. This started happening after I sent the lyrics rewrites to him. In the letters I consistently mentioned how much I enjoyed reading his interviews so he would have been aware that I would be reading what he had to say in his interviews. By the forth month in a row this happened, I had become suspicious this was not a coincidence, but more likely something he was doing on purpose to try to manipulate me into giving him attention. I didn’t like the idea that Mr. Reznor might be trying to misuse his position in life to try to take advantage of me, and by that time the act of writing fan letters had begun to lose its purpose for me. However I did like Mr. Reznor, and I thought if he was trying to use the posts in the interviews to signal some mutual interest, I thought the suspected mutual interest meant perhaps we might be happy together. I decided to pursue the theory that Mr. Reznor had some special regard for me and put together a letter which I believed would provoke a response from him -- if my theory were correct he would do something, and if it were not, his silence would communicate to me that I could move on with my life and forget about him I included a full length shot of myself in which I was dressed in the skin tight body suit I had made out of cotton muslin as part of a three year research project, funded by the university I was attending at the time, photos of which I sent as part of a portfolio to every single graduate school I applied to. Yes, I was clothed, yet naked, and the stupidity of including a photo like that is obvious but I had the excuse of sending the photo as proof of research I was doing at the time, to show I was not all talk and at the same time, showing him I had a nice figure and was not an ugly cow so was an appropriate potential mate. The letter itself discussed my background and education to show why I believed I was an appropriate candidate as a potential mate, all the qualities about him I thought would make him a good parent and husband, the letter’s goal being overall to present him with a very attractive sales pitch that I thought he would want to take advantage of. I figured if I got a response, at most I would get a letter back or a phone call. It was shortly after Mr. Reznor would have received the letter, that I began to see him walking around where I lived. At the time, the first two times, I thought it was mere coincidence he was there, and that perhaps it was not him at all, just someone who dressed and looked like him. The first time I saw him while I was still living on campus, I was walking down the street, along Main Street, past the education building away from the railroad tracks, when I saw a strange man at the next intersection, jumping up and down and waving his arms as if he was trying to get away from a bee. This strange behavior attracted my attention and as he crossed the street and walked toward me, I noticed he was wearing a very loose black short sleeve net shirt that cut off at the midriff, cut off blue jean shorts, that were very short, and tan worker boots. I felt a strong urge to laugh that I stifled on the grounds that that would be rude, as his outfit was embarrassing, and I realized as he passed that it was probably Mr. Reznor. I looked around to try to confirm it and as he walked away, it certainly appeared to be him. I could only wonder if it really was him, why he was there, and found myself thinking that if it was Mr. Reznor, he had way too much time and money on his hands, and needed some new, more productive hobbies. On top of that, his skimpy clothing made him look like he was trying to get laid, that he was desperate, and that he felt like he had little to offer to others but his body. The third time I saw him, however, I walked outside of the college dormitory where I lived at the time at University of Delaware, in Newark, DE, and found Mr. Reznor, or what I thought was him, sitting outside, apparently waiting for me to come out. As I walked away, too shocked and scared to react, I saw him look up, lean forward and stare at me with a scared and excited look on his face. He then followed me a quarter mile, I later realized, as I walked back home from the drug store. As I passed by him, I saw his pale hand and unusual bright purple sleeve of the shirt he was wearing at the time. This behavior was enough to convince me who I had been seeing walking around was in fact, Mr. Reznor. The very last time I saw him, I walked by him sitting in front of a coffee shop with what appeared to by the rest of the Nine Inch Nails band. That was particularly horrifying to me, as I had to walk past them or cross the street, showing Mr. Reznor he had succeeded in upsetting me. I wasn’t about to let him win, so I had to walk past him, well aware that I was the day’s `entertainment’, with no choice about participating or not. It made me feel like a sideshow. I did not speak with the person alleged to be Trent Reznor on any of those occasions. I was too shocked and scared to and well aware that if he decided to rape me, I would have very little chance of winning a case against him because of the letters I sent to him, gushing about how attractive he was, etc, which he could produce to present me as an angry one-night- stand out for revenge. I was afraid I was going to get abducted and raped. I was also very angry because I felt compromised. In effect that by his behavior I felt he demonstrated he believed I was not much more than a piece of trash who, if I saw him walking by me on the street, I would run up to him and beg to suck his dick. Granted, given the nature of my letters I suppose I was asking to be treated like that. On the other hand, given my accomplishments and apparent intelligence, I think that Mr. Reznor should have given me the benefit of the doubt. What annoys me in particular is that Mr. Reznor is not particularly good looking in real life, he is shorter than average, and sports the stop sign look, so he could not rely on good looks to compensate for his piggish and arrogant behavior. With good looking young men every ten feet from me, who were not acting is such a piggish manner, and did not have a drinking, drug, women and anger problems, I had little or no incentive to accost him any way, particularly when I was used to having perfect looking male athlete types throw themselves at me. Too embarrassed and afraid to go to the police, I told only my brother and a friend about it. My brother laughed at me and told me I should have talked to him, and that I was rude not to, and my friend seemed to think there was nothing wrong with Mr. Reznor’s behavior. I tried writing to Mr. Reznor to try and find out why he acted the way he acted, but got no response, which made me angry for what should be fairly obvious reasons. After I figured out Mr. Reznor was not going to explain himself to me, I quit writing to him. Also, I’ve found out just recently from someone who claims to know the woman in question, that Mr. Reznor was seeing a woman who lived in the Wilmington-Newark, DE area at the time, in 1995, that I saw him around where I lived, so apparently I am not schizophrenic after all. I kept wondering why Mr. Reznor had done what he did, and even worse, after I got stalked, I found myself getting strangely obsessed with him. For some reason, I felt like if I wasn’t around him, I wouldn’t be able to survive, and I didn’t like feeling like that. He had become an unwelcome visitor in my mind that I couldn’t get rid of. What I have realized now, is that by his showing up and stalking me, implicit to his behavior on some level was the promise of fulfillment of my deep unfulfilled needs for love and acceptance, which made me an easy target for being a victim of mind control, which works in a similar manner to what occurs in cults. Articles on mind control and mind control as it occurs in cults, are included: “Traumatic Abuse in Cults” (http://www.members.aol.com/_ht_a/shawdan/essay.htm?mtbrand=AOL_US) and “How Does Mind Control Work?” (http://www.factnet.org/rancho1.htm). Mr. Reznor’s behavior seemed to demonstrate he wanted me even after being made aware of all the things about me I though would alienate people from me, and that because I was otherwise unable to make friends, that I he was the only one who would have me as a friend, now that I had the stigma of being a groupie and stalking victim attached to me. As I had used the letters as confessionals, being aware that he had been reading them and was using the information in them against me, made me feel exposed and made me feel like he owned me, like a dog. Also, because Mr. Reznor is a famous and powerful man, I was enormously flattered, and star struck, so the feeling that such a man would be so interested in me was exciting and contributed to me to get sucked into being manipulated. As a result, I fell into the familiar and deadly trap all victims of mind control fall into. I developed the mindset of a cult member and the token gesture Mr. Reznor gave by stalking me was enough to make him the center of my mental universe and sufficient to guarantee that if he beckoned, I would give him as much attention as he desired, and guaranteed that I would stay submissive and devoted. My fears of ostrization were anyone to find out about this, guaranteed I would keep quiet and not tell anyone. This served to isolate me further from everyone, so it created the sort of situation where I could only turn to him for love and attention, which were withheld. In short, he created a situation such that as I could no longer expect anyone to want me, I had to be around him in order to have my needs to love and attention be fulfilled. His behavior eliminated any choice I had about being around him or not, and made it so I had to be around him, like it or not. When Mr. Reznor put out “The Fragile”, I thought from listening to in particular the title track which sounded suspiciously like it was about me, especially because I wrote a letter to him once, post stalking in which I stated that he should not have treated me like that because I was “fragile’ (I used that word), that perhaps Mr. Reznor did have some genuine regard for me, but was insane. I thought if he did have regard for me, if I started writing to him again, and just kept writing to him, maybe that would cause him to let his guard down, and then he would talk to me so I could find out why he did what he did to me. Also, I figured that this action of writing to him permitted me to wear out my strange symbiotic need to be around him-I figured eventually it would wear itself out when he didn’t write back due to lack of reinforcement on his part, so I could use writing to him to put that problem behind me and get him out of my head. Actually if you compare the enclosed matrix from LD Online (http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/add_adhd/ael_behavior.html) to references Mr. Reznor has made to his life history, you will see that he falls directly within the high risk group for the development of an antisocial personality disorder (see diagnostic criteria at http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe04.html) . The underlying themes to Mr. Reznor’s music, in addition to a variety of reports of his bullying employees such as Richard Patrick, a reported long string of broken relationships and Mr. Reznor’s own public admission of an inner wide streak of anger, are consistent with a the indicators of the presence of antisocial personality disorder, described briefly in the enclosed sheet from mentalhealth.com. The mind control I am accusing Mr. Reznor is typical of the sort of behavior antisocial personalities engage in. So I emailed Mr. Reznor every day, sometimes several times, with anecdotes or demands, or criticisms, if I didn’t like what I was hearing of his behavior. In general, my goal was to mentor Mr. Reznor, to provide him with a safe relationship in which he was given unconditional love and support, and accountability for his behavior, to provide to him the stability that his upbringing lacked, so he could overcome the alleged personality disorder. I sensed from the original interactions in 1995, that Mr. Reznor has an overwhelming need to control everything and everyone, so I realized I couldn’t expect him to write back or acknowledge me, as to do so would require he give up having less than absolute control. More importantly, I thought allowing Mr. Reznor to have absolute control was required in order for him to feel safe enough to want to listen to what I had to say to him, so that I could help him to change. Because of the earlier interactions in 1995, that was enough for me to trust that he would be reading what I sent him and I could gauge the impact of my words on him by changes in his behavior. In fact, when I took up writing to him again, early on, I told him by email I understood all of this and would accept this as a term for giving him attention as long as his behavior changed, which it appeared to, based upon accounts of him by other people, and by self accounts by him given in interviews. There were some incidents regarding postings in interviews which appeared to be responses to things I wrote to him, again, and Mr. Reznor appeared to be responding in general to my assistance to him by appearing to display appropriate emotional reactions, become happier, better adjusted, and nicer to people. In fact, from my understanding from rumors on the Internet, for a while Trent had more or less quit abusing his employees (!). Through all of this I would become frustrated that Mr. Reznor was not emailing me back because I didn’t like having to be his mentor in order to have any relationship with him at all, and I would quit writing to him for a week or two when he did not meet my demand to email me back. But then, I’d picture him sitting there like some sort of badly trained dog, which felt isolated and unhappy because it didn’t understand what it did wrong, and then I’d get worried about what sort of trouble Mr. Reznor would get himself into, like say, committing suicide, if I left him to himself, so I’d start writing to him again. Withholding attention is, after all, a form of punishment. This was all terribly stressful to me so I wound up complaining a lot to my coworkers about him and a joke I had with a female worker, who had a boyfriend named Trent, is that she had the good Trent and I had the bad Trent. It is my understanding that Trent was telling people he had a girlfriend at the time. I can’t claim that I am what he was referring to however I can tell you if he saw me as his girlfriend, I let him think that. He didn’t fulfill obligations to me for me to feel like referring to him as my boyfriend or seeing myself as his girlfriend, in any meaningful way. One time I decided I had had enough and was not going to bother with him any more and indicated so in an email to him that if he didn’t write back, I would leave. As you will see from the email dated 02/08/2001 (Appendix A) Mr. Reznor gave what I will call a token gesture. Similar to the stalking incident, the email is ambiguous. Notice that it was sent in the middle of the night. Although Mr. Reznor states he was not posted anything, he does not explicitly state that he is not interested in me. Given that I had been emailing him so heavily, I was either completely delusional, or correct in my assumptions about what was going on with him, which is that he was reading my emails and getting some emotional benefit out of it, and not acknowledging me except when if he did not, would result in the loss of my attention. I can only assume I was correct in my assumptions, because Mr. Reznor did not state he was not interested in me. I think Mr. Reznor has dealt with enough deranged fans to know that not stating he is not interested in me is stating he is interested in me by implication. The title indicated by the email is demonstration that I was not thinking clearly as Mr. Reznor is known to have a drug and alcohol problem, an anger and promiscuity problem -- all of which make him unsuitable as is, for marriage to me. My initial response to the email was intense relief, because I believed at first it meant I had imagined the whole stalking incident, and imagined that Mr. Reznor was manipulating me. But then I realized several hours later that he was using the email to fulfill in a technical sense my demand that he email me, or be cut off from any more attention from me. Then I got angry. Still under the sway of his manipulation, I could not bring myself to stop giving him attention so I continued to email him. Before Mr. Reznor played in Philadelphia, the closest town to where I lived, I made him aware I would be coming to the show to talk to him. I let him know what seat I would be in and what I would be wearing. By that time, it seemed to me Mr. Reznor had leveled off psychologically, and my mentoring as is had begun to outlive its usefulness. I no longer felt like what I was doing was useful and felt like I was becoming an enabler. I determined it was time to require Mr. Reznor fulfill some adult responsibilities to me. At the show, during the opening act, a man wearing a NIN All Access pass came out to the row I was sitting in, stood at the row I was seated in and stared right at me. Because it was dark and hard to see him, I didn’t pay much attention and turned back to watching the show, realizing later on the man had been the one I saw walking around inside the arena before, which was wearing the NIN All Access pass. When Mr. Reznor came out on stage, several minutes into the show I saw him turn his head and look up into my section briefly. I watched him the whole show and that was the only time I saw him look anywhere but toward the pit, and he was happy during the whole of the show. I waited outside as I had promised to talk to him, only to find out he left right away after the show and didn’t talk to anyone. What I found interesting about the after show scene, was the women’s bathroom, in which I listened to one young woman, dressed in patent leather hot pants and sluttish gear typical of what one would expect a groupie to wear, comment in a very casual, tense tone of voice to her friend as she fixed her hair that she was nervous because she was going to meet ‘Trent’, and I listened to another young woman, who was chubby and plain, in plain clothes comment in a casual tone of voice about going to have a ménage a trios with ‘Trent’. Until that moment the groupie scene, in which young women exchange sexual favors for being around rock stars, was puzzling to me. I realized after hearing about these woman talk about Mr. Reznor in such casual tones of voice that the women who participate in the groupie scene are trophy hunters, as their casual tone of voice was not the demeanor of people who liked Mr. Reznor, or were interested in him as a person -- he could have been anyone and they would have acted the same, but it is the demeanor of people who were trying to use Mr., Reznor to get a trophy, with sex being the weapon. I think it very sad that someone who is as intelligent as Mr. Reznor would let himself get used like that, and it demonstrates how much he must hate himself, to let himself get used like that. This all works to prove the point some have made about how people who get into the business of being rock stars do so because they have deep unfulfilled needs. In this case, that puts them at a disadvantage for getting used. All in all, it shows you really can’t get anything for free. Of course, I doubt Mr. Reznor’s thinking is sophisticated enough for him to understand he is being taken advantage of as most of his personal life smacks of him being an intensity junkie. I think that he is so focused on getting a high off seeing how many holes he can get to let him stick his dick up into that he has the mindset of, say, a rutting goat, so stuck in tunnel vision he doesn’t understand what is really going on. That night as I drove home, I wasn’t angry. I did get very angry by the next night, and sent Mr. Reznor some very angry emails in which I insulted him profusely. And then I dumped him the night after that and told him that I was no longer `available’ to him. I couldn’t make Mr. Reznor talk to me so I did the only thing I could do, which was to cut him off emotionally. I cannot make any claims that my showing up at the concert is responsible for Mr. Reznor being happy, or looking very happy when photographed with his father in Pittsburgh the following concert to the one I attended, while his father looks depressed, or looking miserable and hang doggish in the co- interview with Marilyn Manson, the day after he would have received my angry emails, or even canceling the concert given the night following when I dumped him. Given the timeframe over which this occurred, it looks like to me my dumping Mr. Reznor made him upset enough to cancel his concert. Bear in mind this is the same man who cancelled several concerts once because his dog had to be put down. In fact, while I was fuming angrily the night of the cancelled concert, I read in the nin.com chatroom a post by the nin.com webmaster, Rob Sheridan, in which he rebuked one chatroom poster for remarking that Mr. Reznor must have cancelled his concert because a groupie gave him a throat infection, which was their supposed cause of throat problems Mr. Reznor was claiming were the cause of his canceling his concert. Posters make those sort of nasty comments about Mr. Reznor all the time, because fans do that, however that is the only time I ever saw Mr. Sheridan rebuke anyone for doing that. Mr. Sheridan’s unusual protectiveness of Mr. Reznor seems to support my suspicions about the real reason why Mr. Reznor cancelled his concert. The idea that Mr. Reznor was upset by my dumping him enough to cancel his concert just made me madder. It seemed to me this was yet another manipulative ploy by him to get me to feel sorry for him, so I would give in and continue to give him attention. Still feeling like I was under Mr. Reznor’s thumb, I continued to email him, and afraid he would continue to make token gestures to string me along so I could not leave, I sent him the email dated 05/10/00 (Appendix A), only a week after the NIN concert in Philadelphia mentioned above in this letter, threatening to expose him. To which Mr. Reznor emailed back an email denouncing me in which he uses foul language, dated 05/11/00 (Appendix A), also attached. Notice again that it was sent in the middle of the night. The inherent sloppiness of this email suggests that he is trying to get caught, as if I were just a delusional stalker, I would have nothing on him so he would have no reason to get angry at me or even respond to my allegations. More likely though that was his way of expelling me from his ‘cult’ as my email demonstrated he could no longer manipulate me. Although I hadn’t kept copies of everything, because it hadn’t occurred to me I would need to, I figured that Mr. Reznor probably saw me as being smarter than I was, even all knowing, so I figured he would perceive the email as enough of a threat as to provoke a response, an insight that proved correct. Also, I think that my email communicated to Mr. Reznor that the game was over, and in a nut shell, he got caught, so that email was his way of trying to scare me into being quiet. Simply put, either I am a delusional stalker who has nothing on him, or I am someone he is taking advantage of and he getting caught in the act. I think that Mr. Reznor has enough experience with deranged fans to know what and what not to do, so by his angry response, it is implicit that he was trying to scare me into being quiet. Being scared into being quiet has worked until now, but what I have realized is that it is better for me to have to live this down, then not to live. I got to the point where I realized that if I didn’t stand up for myself, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself and I will kill myself. I am telling you all of this so you can understand why you should help me. Being taken advantage of in the manner that I am alleging Trent Reznor took advantage of me, was like being raped for five years every day, over and over again. I am better than I was, as I used to relive the stalking particularly, all the time, and obsessed over it, and typically became violently depressed by the end of the day as the only thing I could figure is that he really had it in for me, and that I was someone he picked out of the crowd to see how much he could hurt me. I suspect now that Mr. Reznor somehow picked up on that I would potentially be so mortified that he had read my letters, that he was afraid I would not want to talk to him if he responded by mail, instead of the badly thought out plan he followed instead, which was to stalk me. I think according to his own logic, that he decided he would try to arrange an accidental meeting, so that I would walk by him, recognize him, and introduce myself to him. This plan of action, I think shows very exactly the strange manner by which Mr. Reznor’s mind appears to operate, as this plan assumed I wouldn’t figure out that he had no reason to be there except to try to talk to me, and that I wouldn’t figure out that he was trying to preserve the rock star-groupie interaction, and in doing so, treat me like a piece of trash that will run up to him and beg to suck his dick just because he is there. This is the sort of plan Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz would concoct, and was guaranteed to fail because: 1) I was raised to respect the privacy of others and would not dream of accosting a rock star if I saw them walking by on the street, 2) as for the being pushed into a rock star-groupie type interaction, it goes without saying the mere suggestion of me involving myself in any real life situation of that sort is enough to make me spit on you; and 3) Also, being as I wrote him the letter to find out if he was trying to manipulate me, well you do the math… As I have two degrees, one of which is a Master’s of Arts from Cornell University, and because I am a virgin by choice, and I grew up in a decent, well educated family in which my father has been a bank president, and serves on several non profit boards, I think this demonstrates that I am better than what Mr. Reznor has consistently treated me as, I was raised better than that, and I deserve better. Writing shameless, sexually oriented letters, after all, is just that and given my background, achievements and quality of writing, it speaks poorly of Mr. Reznor that he apparently failed to see past the surface and only took the letters at face value. I think the “Lyrics Rewrites” package (Appendix B) shows that my writing is competitive with his, and the music I have written (visit Berzerker at http://www.mp3.com) demonstrates that as a composer, I am competitive with Mr. Reznor, at least from a strictly design, compositional standpoint. Actually, if you are into palmistry, you should be interested to know I have the mark of music genius in both my palms, as I have something called a “music bee” in both palms. According to palmistry, I have the potential to be another Mozart, if you believe that sort of thing. What Mr. Reznor did to me is unnecessary, wrong, cruel and unfair. It seems to me that Trent Reznor should not continue to live unpunished for what he did to me, as I deserve far better than what was done to me, and my reputation is now compromised because of what he did to me. I feel like a perpetrator every time I think about this situation because I expect, like most people do, that someone like Mr. Reznor, who is famous, bright, intelligent, successful and good looking, to not be capable of engaging in any wrong doing. This is why I still feel like I am delusional, that he `didn’t really’ do that, and I `didn’t really’ see him show up where I lived and stalk me, even though I know intellectually that he did. Mr. Reznor is someone you want to help and you want to root for, when you see he has problems, because of all his good qualities. It is hard for me to accept that someone with so many apparent merits can at the same time contain within themselves the lowest, and basest tendencies known to man. This contradiction makes this a difficult situation for me and has managed to destroy my rather idealistic views of the world. I made no effort to hide that I had emotional problems, and deep unfulfilled needs, so Mr. Reznor could see if he gave me the time of day, I would get stuck on him. He knew what he was getting into because I provided him with enough information to determine that, and that’s what gives me the right to say that Mr. Reznor took advantage of me. I resent that I feel like he has turned me into an outcast because it makes me feel like people would rather ostracize me and destroy me than have to reexamine deeply held views that celebrities like him wouldn’t do to others what I am accusing him of. For example, I tried posting the emails in his http://www.nin.com chatroom and posed questions with the emails to point out by implication that Mr. Reznor had done exactly what I was accusing him of-taking advantage of me. Not only was pretty much everyone extremely hostile, in fact I was banned from two chatrooms for discussing this story. I received a death threat from someone in the nin.com claiming to be Trent Reznor under the username “torazzi”, which is enclosed (Appendix C). This particular individual was a believable Mr. Reznor because of the bolded passages enclosed, information that this individual volunteered. This information was things I had told Mr. Reznor and no one else. Also, after I posted the emails in the chatroom, the tr@nin.com email address was deactivated for a month or two, as my emails were returned to me. I finally told my father about what Mr. Reznor did to me, which my mother told me caused my father to cry when he told her about it. My dad also told me when I asked him why he thought Mr. Reznor did this to me is because Mr. Reznor was playing the groupie game and more importantly, for the same reason that men in Hawaii rape women who come there on vacation -- because they figure that the women are not going to come back and press charges. Similarly, Mr. Reznor’s logic has obviously relied upon the idea that I will be too embarrassed and afraid to speak out against him, and has worked as it has taken me five years to get up the nerve to speak out against him. My father also made me call the FBI, which I otherwise would not have had the nerve to do. When I attempted to press charges with the FBI, the agent in question Tony Desderio, who asked me when I called him to tell him why I was calling, as he hadn’t read the fax I sent him which included the emails Mr. Reznor sent me, asked me twice during the conversation if I was currently under psychiatric care, and then blew me off, even though Mr. Reznor has admitted publicly that he has posted in his chatroom under fake names, per the enclosed yahoo chat transcription (Appendix D), so Agent Desderio had reasonable grounds to investigate. This demoralizing experience has taught me how little my life is actually worth, and that I am a second class citizen. Agent Desdario told me that people such as Mr. Reznor have other people reading their fan mail, so it is implicit if I did receive any emails, they could not have been authorized by Mr. Reznor. Hmmm.. so now I am to believe Mr. Reznor has his people working around the clock and that in the case of giving into a stalker’s demands to write back or not get any more attention, are authorized to masquerade as him and write back and say ANYTHING? The last time I checked, the way you let a stalker know their attentions are unwanted is when it is apparent they will leave if you don’t write back, you don’t write back. Perhaps the people at Nothing Records decided reverse psychology would be the best approach in dealing with me???? Of course if you insist on thinking of me badly and insisting I must be delusional rather than conceive that there is merit to my accusations, I will very happily submit to psychiatric evaluation and brain scans, if you wish to attempt to prove I am psychotic, as long as you finance that investigation! Contrast my attempts to press charges, with Mr. Reznor having Amber Applebaum arrested, claiming that she had somehow managed to convince AOL to give her Mr. Reznor’s password so she could use his account to make charges. Even though if you have AOL as your internet service, you can set up several usernames, each with its own password, so AOL would have no reason to give her the password of someone else on the same account, and the charges she made, with likely as far as she knew, from her own account, were mostly likely put on his account in error due to merchant error, by chance. So you see, life is not fair and if someone like Mr. Reznor claims that someone else is engaging in felonious activity, no matter how unlikely it is they are doing it, the police will run to assist Mr. Reznor. By contrast, even though I have a history of problems with Mr. Reznor, and documentation enough to merit investigation, I am blown off, my mental soundness is questioned and I am treated like a perpetrator. I resent how I have been turned into a second-class citizen, just because I am accusing the mighty Trent Reznor of wrongdoing! In all of this, I am stuck between thinking I am entirely delusional and thinking I was victimized by Mr. Reznor. It is easier for me to believe I am delusional than it is for me to have to admit to myself that someone was able to take advantage of me in the devastating manner than Mr. Reznor did. Overwhelming evidence to the contrary prevents me from accepting the idea that I am delusional without proof. And I have kept quiet out of fear of public embarrassment. I am already embarrassed without this being made public. At least this way I get to tell my story in a way that is meaningful and I get to stand up to Mr. Reznor in a way that is meaningful. That is better than being continually frustrated by my fear of public embarrassment and being frustrated by not feeling strong enough to overcome that to be able to stand up to Mr. Reznor and stand my ground. I have no delusions of grandeur about the likelihood of having a relationship with Mr. Reznor. The only ideas I ever developed about that were there because he put them in there by giving me some `special’ attention. Therefore, I can hardly be upset if what I find out is I am merely delusional. That will be nothing new to me. Actually, looking back on all of this is like watching another person or remembering a bad dream. During these series of events when they were occurring, I felt always like I was half awake, stuck in a living dream from which I kept expecting to wake up from but never did. I need to understand why Mr. Reznor did this to me, so I can begin to heal. I have no power to be able to make him explain himself regarding why he did all this to me. Frankly, I am trying to figure out why he is so unwilling to speak with me to clear up what is likely a simple misunderstanding. I am after all a human being. More to the point, from my standpoint, he was the one who came out to where I lived and stalked me, and by apparently trying to instigate my attention by posting in interviews, if I did turn into the obsessive stalker type, he brought that on himself because he started it. And I wouldn’t have turned into the obsessive stalker type if way back when, when I wrote to him to try to find out why he stalked me, he had been courteous and sent me a written explanation and engaged in whatever means needed for me to have an emotional closure. That small bit of courtesy could have prevented all of the five years of grief and suffering he caused me. In addition, I am angry that I feel like I have to keep quiet about this in order for other people to want to be around me, like I have done something wrong or that making these accusations means there is something wrong with me. The only thing I did wrong here was to send some racy letters to someone who gets that sort of thing all the time, which I knew and had good reason to believe he wouldn’t even read my letters, so I could have some fun without any of the consequences!!! You can understand why I might want to do that, can’t you? If you think I am delusional, what is it about me specifically that leads you to believe I am delusional? If you have any doubt in your mind about me and if you are insistent on seeing me as delusional and someone of a highly questionable character, what motive do you believe I have for making wild accusations about a celebrity, a behavior that has great potential to do long term damage to my own career, when I am clearly someone with a bright future ahead of me as I think my writing, achievements and music demonstrate. More importantly, if I were someone you met at a party, and I never even mentioned this situation of me being a victim of Mr. Reznor’s mind control tactics and you were not aware of that situation at all, I think you would see me as a bright, upright, respectable, logical and healthy person, someone worth knowing, and someone not prone to making wild accusations of others without good reason. If you are going to throw that high regard away just because of who I am making these accusations against, what makes you believe that your mindset is not interfering with you seeing the truth to be able to determine what is true or what is not about anything? It’s not like I am the only person who has ever accused Mr. Reznor of manipulating them. Either I am respectable, upright and someone who does not make accusations of others unless I have good reason to, or I am not. And you can’t have it both ways. If you think I am lying to further myself, what is it about me specifically that makes you believe I have nothing better to do with my time than make up wild stories about celebrities and accuse them of doing things to me I know they didn’t do? And what is it about me specifically that makes you believe that making wild accusations against a celebrity is the only route I have towards becoming famous? My long list of achievements perhaps? That I am both beautiful and bright? My writing and music? My two degrees? The fact that I remain a virgin because I won’t settle for someone who I can’t see as someone I want to spend my life with? Tell me!!! What I want is for Mr. Reznor to explain if and why he did this to me, specifically what it is about me that inspired him to take advantage of me, and have him have to look me in the eye while he explains himself to me so I can see what’s really going on with him. As they say, most of what you say is not in what you say -- it’s in how you say it. Heck, if he can provide proof I am simply delusional and schizophrenic that will work equally as well. Far be it from me to be afraid of the truth. That’s why when Agent Desderio asked me the second time he asked if I was seeing a psychiatrist, I asked him if he thought I needed to. The way I see it, if someone like Mr. Reznor will go to such trouble to take advantage of me, anyone will. This is why this situation is preventing me from moving on in my romantic life to new opportunities. What can you do to help me? Regards, Appendix A Subj: Re: marriage plans 2 Date: 2/8/00 2:43:05 AM Eastern Standard Time From: tr@nin.com (Trent Reznor) To: xxxxxx fyi: I have not posted anywhere for quite some time – perhaps you are being misled by someone. tr --------------------- Headers--------------------------------- Return-Path: tr@nin.com Received: from rly-yh04.mx.aol.com (rly-yh04.mail.aol.com [172.18.147.36]) by air-yh02.mail.aol.com (v67_b1.24) with ESMTP; Tue, 08 Feb 2000 02:43:04 –0500 Received: from mail.nothingstudios.com (mail.nothingstudios.com [204.27.89.226]) by rly-yh04.mx.aol.com (v67_b1.24) with ESMTP; Tue, 08 Feb 2000 02:42:49 –0500 Received: from [202.135.77.38] by mail.nothingstudios.com (AppleShare IP Mail Server 6.2.1) id 79770 via TCP with SMTP; Tue, 08 Feb 2000 01:42:43 –0600 User-Agent: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition – 5.01 (1630) Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 18:44:24 +1100 Subject: Re: marriage plans 2 From: Trent Reznor tr@nin.com To: xxxxx Message-ID: B4C61487.2C9%tr@nin.com In-Reply-To: xxxxxx Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=”US-ASCII” Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Subj: records Date: 5/10/00 11:46:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time From : xxxxxx To: tr@nin.com Trent, I have kept copies of every single email, written thing that ever went on because I thought it might be useful for my memoirs. Just in case you wanted to deny anything, the evidence and the pattern is there. You can explain away individual situations as chance, and you will suddenly become highly unconvincing as the pattern emerges. FYI Subj: seek help now Date: 5/11/00 1:22:27 AM Eastern Standard Time From: tr@nin.com (Trent Reznor) To: xxxxxxxxxx For your “FUCKING” information, I will tell you one FINAL time: I do not know you, I have never conversed with you in ANY format with the one exception of telling you this same information, it is NOT me that you believe you have been speaking with online or anywhere else. What small bits of your delusional nonsense I have read I find extremely irritating and I am asking you to stop.
---------------------Headers-------------------------------
Return-Path: tr@nin.com Received: from rly-ye04.mx.aol.com (rly-ye04.mail.aol.com [172.18.151.201]) by air-ye03.mx.aol.com (v73.12) with ESMTP; Thu, 11 May 2000 01:22:27 –0400 Received: from mail.nothingstudios.com (mail.nothingstudios.com [204.27.89.226]) by rly-ye04.mx.aol.com (v71.10) with ESMTP; Thu, 11 May 2000 01:22:04 –0400 Received: from [209.246.78.113] by mail.nothingstudios.com (AppleShare IP Mail Server 6.3) id 122404 via TCP with SMTP; Thu, 11 May 2000 00:20:57 –0500 User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 01:21:56 –0400 Subject: seek help now
From: Trent Reznor tr@nin.com To: xxxxxxxx Message-ID: B53FBBB3.5C0%tr@nin.com In-Reply-To: xxxxxxxx Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=”US-ASCII” Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Appendix B Lyric Rewrites --- Berzerker Fixed (Wish) Today I retired my memories I chewed them up then tore them apart Hauled them up high then flung them out hard No sores left to squeeze I threw them away with my blackened heart Fixed my belief in you and my hurts by you Sealed up your lies within you imprisoned Know this is nothing new How you forget what it is you do Know I'll have sweet justice You're going to get screwed I just finished scrounging my soul I've locked me up in my frigid cell No views left to wring From twenty-one years of my life in hell I won't listen to your souped-up skewed talk Too bad you suck You know you're not going anywhere Your kind lets me hate everyone I won't change I like myself Something Sweet (Happiness in Slavery) Sheath maimed She knows she'll never escape Hips strain She knows there's nothing to say Serf shrieks How she'll refuse to get at all involved Bones drained She's been forced to need satiation In my reality My needs are what make me bleed It would be a mistake to feel sorry for me If I can't learn to like what you do to me I'll learn to change your life to life controlled forever by me I live in servility Brain maimed She knows she's lost to her identities Heart drained She'll spend her days kicking her humanity Lungs strain She's learnt how to cause the night to fall down Serf shrieks How she hates to be chained to the ground I live in servility I'm alive in servitude I live for servility I'm alive I've found all that I am Is not just where I've been Female flesh and instinct are my pains This war I'll never win oh please cut off my skin Grind me up and change me into something sweet My body is my chains and you'll help me tighten it Broken (Gave Up) Disillusioned dream The kind that heals so well Remembered I should fear Where I'm all alone No one's to blame I'm insane It's opened my eyes It took this for me to understand I'm too stupid to ever see the light I'm too far gone to give worth a damn What's left for me is to silently say goodbye Ground down my sexuality Ripped off my barriers Tore out my tenacity Ate up my gentility Stepped on my dignity Bashed out my clarity Broke down my stability It's my gift from me to you Covered with piss and gasoline I'm still repeating my tired futile lines It's hope I know I'll never find I'll let my history guide me to my burnt-out redundant demise I'll trust in you to be betrayed That's what I expect from you, actually After all the things that've been done to me There's nothing left for me to become I cried I broke it Throw it away Whine (Heresy) I've cut your eyes out Because I hate how you look at me I need to find out what it is you are to me You think you know all there is to know inside me You've made some lies up to hide your mediocrity It's too late now You prayed to God And where did that get you? You're in my hell I've stretched your arms out to put you on the level My masses are all blessed water for which you whine Your sacred chapel of grinding sinuous white pain Demands tithes of blood dripping in time with my strain Drunk on speed sweat and splintering bone You are my savior Pet (Closer) Hiding in isolation I whine in hesitation This is the culmination Of my need for penetration Hurt me I was made to suffer Cage me so life is completely hell Kill me with the worst fate possible Until I can't tell you from myself Chain me to you as your animal I want to live always by your side I'm ruined like a hardened criminal You'll have to if you're like me inside Hold me while I help myself die I'll leave you in desolation Burning from what I've started inside I'll force you to cling to nothing Then rip all of your claims away Stab me so it's your sex I can want Starve me so my mind my needs will break down Help me I'm less than perfect Without you I can't hope to know myself Chain me to you as your animal You'll have to if you're like me inside I'm ruined like a hardened criminal I want to live always by your side Hold me while I help myself die Waiting at the crossroads Down every path Pressed against my stomach Turning in my groin My throat aches for your sweet water You are the reason I'm still alive Chrysalis (The Becoming) I broke my constraints They're wrapped around me and unwinding quickly I'm chewing through filth encasing me -- I am maturing You thought I was bound to you but I'm not Crucified with you on your jumbled web of means What you thought was just me was in tunnel vision Facets you saw were your fabrication My chassis you cracked renewed itself to give me me back I won't be here long I've escaped from your jar What you enveloped was undeveloped Your customs sealed me inside a dark sticky cocoon What I changed into isn't quite what you hoped for So even if I'm pinned to you I'll fly fast away I can't always ignore sights that would draw me from you Holding myself tightly closed I can feel life drying my wings out I won't let your words destroy any of my parts Light is a deadly friend -- instinct brings my end Hiding upwards in your rafters I feel so very calm Blinded, I need to reach outward -- freedom is inside me Your hand moves fast, you'll have me smashed Curse this pressure crushing me dead Twisted (Big Man With a Gun) I’m feeling demented (brain’s twisted) I pack a machine gun I’ll rub my wet hard crotch Up and down your soft mouth Stripped stretched and nailed down To the cold hard ground You’ll pray to feel lead pumping your ass After I’ve brained maimed and raped you My will is you’ll become nothing I’ve all the power I’m stronger by far than you Your right to choose you’ll loose I’m disarmed through and through How I want to screw you Lust clears my muddled head I’m going to kill you dead Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot It’s your mind that I want to get inside Lust clears my muddled head I’m going to kill you dead Real (Hurt) I stabbed my friend today To see if she exists I focused on her face That scene somehow wasn't real Saw tears drip from her eyes Something to comprehend I'm looking at a clear cold light And I understand everything Where did I come from? I'm my only friend I've sent everyone Far away from my lands I could leave it all My kingdom of dreams I will make you scream We will watch you weep I wear a mask of life Upon my seer's throne Full of hostile thoughts I cannot use up Beneath the weight of time Compassion falls apart Kindness runs away Cruelty is my shield If I could leave myself Repeat it a million times So I'd remember it I would end me now Rightful Place (The Day the World Went Away) By choice our lives ourselves we make Stand alone or their way afraid To watch you watch time slip away Leaving you in your rightful place Walk the high hard road or soft low way Wanting control you didn’t take While you watch your dreams fall away You walk to keep your rightful place Disrupted (Star*uckers, Inc.) As you fight your spirit forcing your life to change Change drives you to examine your reality Reality reflects wasted work so viscously Viscously life makes taking action such an unimportant point Point your gaze to the point where you gave up the fight Fight for the past where your choices seemed like they were always right Right as oblivion rebuilds you as the faultless you You find yourself waylaid by pure insecurity Disrupted Corrupted Disrupted to infinity Corrupted Rearrange your wits into your useless mores Mores point your way to yourself to go toward Toward the zenith of this self-righteous feast Feast your eyes on how it comes back up unprocessed You’re busted Corrupted Disrupted Corrupted in eternity Disrupted As life wanes You call out to resolution to guide you You will wait To grab a glimpse of your overhauled life You can’t You won’t Now at the end of the life you’ve chosen Now at your end it has left you frozen (Good night!)
Appendix C FROM: torazzi SENT: May-15-00 2:20 AM EDT SUBJECT: I must confess to you I AM TRENT BITCH. I AM TRENT STOP TELLING OUR BUSINESS OR I WILL HAVE YOU KILLED AND FOUND DEAD DROWING IN A BIRD BATH. FROM: torazzi SENT: May-16-00 1:15 PM EDT SUBJECT: You still didn’t answer my questions That message meant: I, trent reznor, am not worth of you. You are too glorious for such a dweeb like me. You should love and annoy ted koppel instead. He will satisfy all of your needs: spiritually, financially and mentally and dementally. I am not ready for such a commitment, I have issues to deal with. Besides, I had been castrated so I cant have children. Permanent birth control for I know I would make an horrible father. please I obliged . see ted koppel He is waiting for you. FROM: torazzi SENT: Jun-04-00 11:40 PM EDT SUBJECT: you know what I am talking about Are you schizoid or something I have a pm you saying as painmaster that I am your father. Must I refresh your memory? Don’t play stupid You claimed that I was your father and all that you want is to be loved by me. So what is the fake story now? SENT: Jun-04-00 11:37 PM EDT TO: torazzi SUBJECT: RE: you age… What the hell are you talking about? FROM: torazzi SENT: Jun-04-00 11:35 PM EDT SUBJECT: you age.. I dunno. Long time ago you claimed that I was your absent father. Appendix D http://www.nincomfaq.tripod.com Q Do the officials ever appear under another identity A This is an part of the FAQ which starts going into the area of rumours. It has been speculated since the very beginning of the board that the officials have been creating other identities to use when reading the board, since no one not even non-officials is limited by the number of identities they can possess. As long as you have a valid email address, and no one else has taken that identity's name, you can have another identity. It was confirmed by webmaster after an interview on Yahoo!Chat December 11, 1999 where Trent Reznor had this to say about his website: We started the web site and tried to put out disinformation, Fight Club style. Our web site is fake. The web is a great way to be whoever you want to be. We play upon that. We spend so much time fucking with people. We make up people. My webmaster is the main guy that fucks with everybody. But don't tell anybody. We spend hours making up characters and fucking with people. webmaster stated in the days following the interview that although Trent was joking about the website being a 'joke', the members of their group have created identities so they might be able to interact with the board without creating such a fuss everytime they log on. he has also refused to give out any names as to who these identities are and what names they log under. In the months that have followed however the band has been "too busy" to play around with the board as much as they had before. Basically the officials do lurk on the board but the names they post under and who they are behind the identities remains to this day a mystery.