This world is ugly, and it's supposed to be, and it has to be in

Host: The warehouse was half-collapsed, its concrete walls cracked like old paper, its floor covered in dust, paint, and the ghosts of noise. In one corner, a single hanging bulb swung lazily, throwing shadows that seemed to move on their own.
A drum kit sat in the center of the room — battered, scarred, and sacred — surrounded by empty spray paint cans, broken guitar strings, and fragments of glass that caught the light like tiny wounds.

Jack was sitting on an overturned amplifier, his hands covered in charcoal and paint, a streak of black across his cheek like war paint. Jeeny stood nearby, camera in hand, her eyes scanning the room as though she could hear echoes in its silence.

The air smelled of iron, smoke, and the faint sweetness of something burned long ago — creativity, chaos, or maybe both.

Jeeny: softly, her voice blending with the hum of the bulb “Shawn Crahan once said, ‘This world is ugly, and it’s supposed to be, and it has to be in order for art to lead to grandness and beauty.’”

Jack: grinning faintly, without looking up “Leave it to the guy in a mask to understand beauty.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the masks are what let him see it.”

Host: Jack dipped his fingers back into the paint — black and red — and dragged them across a blank piece of plaster board in violent, uneven strokes. Each motion was a release.

Jack: “Ugly. Yeah. That’s the part people never want to admit. Everyone wants art to come from peace. From clarity. But every beautiful thing I’ve ever made came from being broken first.”

Jeeny: “That’s because pain is the only thing honest enough to start something true.”

Jack: “You make it sound noble. Pain’s not noble. It’s filthy. It stains everything it touches.”

Jeeny: quietly “And yet you turn it into color.”

Host: He stopped painting, looking at his hand — the black smeared into the lines of his palm, the red mixed like blood in the creases.

Jack: “You ever think that maybe we romanticize suffering? That we pretend it’s fuel because otherwise, it’s just... unbearable?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But art isn’t glorifying the suffering — it’s surviving it. It’s proof that you crawled through hell and brought back a sound, a color, a word.”

Jack: leaning back, exhaling “You sound like someone who’s been there.”

Jeeny: “Everyone has. Most people just don’t paint the map on the wall afterward.”

Host: The light flickered, shadows jumping across the walls — as if the building itself breathed with them. The world outside — cold, industrial, indifferent — pressed in around this small universe of color and noise.

Jack: “You know what’s wild? Crahan’s right. The world needs to be ugly. Otherwise, we’d have nothing to rebel against. Nothing to make art mean something.”

Jeeny: “It’s the friction that makes the flame.”

Jack: “Exactly. Beauty’s not born in paradise. It’s born in the gutter, in grief, in noise. The world’s ugliness is what gives art its pulse.”

Jeeny: “And maybe artists are just translators — turning chaos into language the rest of the world can survive.”

Host: The sound of a train rumbled faintly in the distance, vibrating through the cracked windows. Dust shook loose from the rafters, glittering in the light like falling stars.

Jack: after a pause “You know, when I was younger, I thought beauty was supposed to save us.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think it’s just supposed to remind us we’re still here.”

Jeeny: “That’s the same thing.”

Host: Her voice softened, almost drowned by the hum of the bulb. She set her camera down and walked closer, standing over his unfinished piece. It wasn’t pretty — jagged lines, chaotic smears, colors colliding instead of blending.

Jeeny: “You know what I see in this?”

Jack: “A mess.”

Jeeny: “A heartbeat.”

Jack: smirking faintly “Same thing.”

Host: The bulb above them swayed, its light swinging across their faces — illuminating her calm, his chaos, both human.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder why art hits harder than truth sometimes?”

Jack: “Because truth just tells you what happened. Art makes you feel it.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The ugliness Crahan’s talking about — it’s not moral ugliness. It’s the rawness of existence. The cracks in the world that let meaning leak through.”

Jack: “The cracks in people too.”

Jeeny: “Especially in people.”

Host: She reached down, touching the edge of his painting — her fingertips coming away smudged with red. She didn’t wipe it off.

Jeeny: “You think it ever gets better? The ugliness?”

Jack: “No. But we get better at seeing what’s inside it.”

Jeeny: “Which is?”

Jack: “Color. Music. The reason we keep breathing.”

Host: The rain began outside, faint at first, then steadier — drumming on the roof like an audience applauding quietly for survival.

Jeeny: “You know, sometimes I think art doesn’t come from trying to make the world beautiful. It comes from loving it when it’s not.”

Jack: “That’s the hardest thing, isn’t it? Loving it anyway.”

Jeeny: “That’s the grandness he was talking about.”

Host: Jack set the brush down, wiped his hands on his jeans, and stood beside her. They stared at the wall — a chaos of strokes, of anger, of ache. Yet somehow, it looked alive. Not perfect, not even finished, but pulsing with truth.

Jack: “You know what I think, Jeeny?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “The world isn’t supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to be honest. Beauty’s what happens when honesty doesn’t flinch.”

Jeeny: nodding slowly “And ugliness is the price of honesty.”

Host: A gust of wind pushed through a broken window, making the candle near the paint tray flicker wildly — a moment of fragile light against ruin.

Jack: quietly, almost to himself “Maybe that’s why artists never stop. We keep trying to make sense of what’s never going to make sense. We turn pain into shape. Rage into rhythm. Grief into sound.”

Jeeny: “And in doing that, we prove the world’s still worth translating.”

Host: The light steadied, the hum deepened. Jack’s painting glistened under the bulb, the streaks of red now drying into something richer, deeper — like bruises healing.

Jeeny: “Ugly and grand at the same time.”

Jack: “Like life.”

Jeeny: “Like art.”

Host: She smiled then — small, real — and for the first time, the room didn’t feel broken. It felt earned.

Because Shawn Crahan was right —
the world is ugly, and it must be.
The ugliness gives birth to rhythm, to rebellion,
to the kind of beauty that doesn’t pretend —
the kind that bleeds and still shines.

And as the rain fell harder outside,
Jack and Jeeny stood before the wildness of creation —
not trying to tame it,
just witnessing it,
as art rose — defiant, imperfect, alive —
from the very ugliness that made it necessary.