The Dalai Lama recently said, "Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication.” He says that celibacy, ultimately, brings a better life with “more freedom” and less ups and downs. I found this interesting... more

The Dalai Lama recently said, "Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication.” He says that celibacy, ultimately, brings a better life with “more freedom” and less ups and downs.

I found this interesting and wanted to ponder it further and engage in discussion with my friend, Brad Warner. Brad is sometimes referred to as a Buddhist teacher and people often ask me if I ask Brad about Buddhist shit. Mostly I don’t. We normally eat burritos and talk about how much sex we are or are not having, but since I’m a curious kitten and this topic was fresh in my mind I decided to ask him what his thoughts were.

Who am I to disagree with the Dalai Lama? Hence, I looked within myself to figure out where my feelings lay on the subject. And then asked Brad for his.

I definitely see what the Dalai Lama’s saying. I have several journals full of romantic anguish that would depress a holocaust survivor. I can understand how a life without the distractions of all that might be could ultimately more desirable, and for a while I sat with that.

I realized that when I reach for my journal it’s often to get the feelings out that might bore my friends, since its pages contain more angst than can be hammered out with a night’s drinking.

While at times life is taxing, I’m usually living in the land of the blissfully content. I’ve had my heart broken but I’ve also experienced true intimacy and found out what love is. I’ve bonded myself to several individuals for life through our relational and lustful encounters -- and I wouldn’t miss that for the world.

Maybe I’m just an intensity junky, but what goes up, must come down and isn’t it better to engage in a rich life experience, when it comes to this stuff anyway, than to abstain from romantic relationships entirely? That’s what I think I think, but I wanted to clarify my position and see what Brad’s thoughts are.

Aspen: Do you agree that sex and dating ultimately cause suffering and attachment?

Brad: Sure. But just about anything you do causes suffering and attachment. Any kind of personal interaction leads to suffering and attachment. When monks leave family life behind they just form new attachments in the monastery. It’s impossible to really live free of human attachment, except for maybe a few people who live in the mountains, but in general, yes.

Aspen: Isn’t it more important to have a well-rounded human existence with interpersonal relationships than it is to try to avoid suffering?

Brad: People think that because I’m a Buddhist teacher I’m an advocate of not having these human attachments, but it’s next to impossible to actually do so.

Aspen: So then maybe a better goal would be to learn to deal with your suffering...

Brad: Yeah. I come across as sounding kind of boring in that way, because really the best way to be free from suffering, as much as possible, would be a marriage or a monogamous relationship, or these kinds of boring things. When I go on SuicideGirls and I start reading that people are into polyamory. It’s a nice fantasy but it normally doesn’t really work.

[Brad is surprised I don’t know what that is and explains its an extended polyamorous family, and alternative lifestyle. According to Wiki, it’s having more than one intimate relationship with the consent of everyone involved. Brad picks up a guitar and starts to strum it. He and I discuss the fact that we’re both suffering right now as I write this.]

Aspen: Even the dog is suffering.

Brad: Really? Even the dog?

Aspen: Yes. She wants you to give her as much attention as you are giving that guitar right now. What are you suffering about?

Brad: Cookies.

Aspen: Do you think there is suffering even when we’re in love and the sex is mutually agreeable and both participants are laying around afterwards all dreamy?

Brad: If you really looked closely you could see some.

Aspen: How would searching for suffering serve me?

Brad: Suffering is always a matter of comparing what you have now with what you think it ought to be. I’m not saying you should look for it, I’m just saying it’s there.

Aspen: Do you think that all of us in this urban experience have pressure from society to have an enhanced sexual desire?

Brad: Yes. There is a great push in the advertising community and incentive to promote the idea of sex, because sex sells. In our media saturated culture, you are constantly being told various things about sex. Most of the people who are telling you don’t have a clue. They are presenting fantasies or something that isn’t real…like the Playboy mansion. This is the life the Buddha lived before he left the palace to embark on his own spiritual journey.

Aspen: So you are saying the Buddha is like Hugh Heffner?

Brad: Yes. He was like Hugh until his early 30s. There are all kinds of stories about him having hotties at his disposal and he saw that that was not an end to suffering…to keep coming back to that word.

[Brad then plays with the dog and tells me since she’s fixed she’s not suffering.]

Aspen: How do you feel about love?

Brad: Oh….um…..love….love stinks. Remember that song? Love is a funny thing. In Christianity, it’s all about love and Buddhism tends to value the word compassion a lot more so…Then there’s the agape love. There is something called love that you could say holds the whole universe together, an interconnectedness. Love in the emotional sense tends to be problematic.

Aspen: Does it always involve attachment? There is often a fine line between intimacy and co-dependency. It causes an extraordinary amount of pain in the world. If you don’t love someone, they can’t hurt you.

Brad: Yeah, I’m sort of thinking about my own life and this marriage that’s ending. Its also culturally bound. I tend to be kind of cold.

Aspen: Yeah, I can see that.

Brad: I’m not really Mr. Cuddly. I’m not a “Mr. I-love-you-all-the-time” kind of person, so when you say love it means different things to different people.

Aspen: Yes, but I asked you.

Brad: I don’t think too much about love.

Aspen: Don’t you think too much about everything?

Brad: Yeah. Um…..I don’t have any great deep thoughts related to the word love.

Aspen: What about the word burrito?

Brad: I have a lot more associations with the word burrito because I had a good one in San Fran with Soyrizo. What do you think about love?

Aspen: I think its something people chase like food and when people don’t, its just so they don’t get hurt.

Brad: I think men and women think different things about love. Men say “I love you” in the heat of the moment without really understanding what that means to the woman. I’ve never gone out searching for lots of sex. It’s mostly not worth the trouble. That’s what the internet is for.

Aspen: Why? Because it’s often less fulfilling than you would like?

Brad: Yes and it often has to do with your upbringing. My parents stayed together until my mom died, so it’s just not something you go and do. I have the same sort of urges of any man….I sound very confused and weird….

Aspen: I see how the roller-coaster inherently caused by dating would go against the typical Buddhist path of staying even-keeled. How can one keep a steady mind if they want to experience a healthy dating life while keeping steady on their spiritual path?

Brad: You’re probably not going to and it’s a tradeoff.

Aspen: Well when the endorphins kick in, you’re too high to stare at the wall and when you do you just think about sex.

Brad: When you are in that state you cant really think clearly.

Aspen: Why would you ever want to avoid that experience entirely?

Brad: Well its standard in Buddhist practice to avoid states of bliss because bliss is the other side of terror. So that’s why you’d want to avoid that terrific state because it always has a backside to it. This is why the long term relationship is better….if you get through that bliss state you can get through the flip side and then settle in a place that is neither one of those.

Aspen: Awesome. I dig. Do you think people turn to spiritual journey when they are looking for love, or after they have it?

Brad: Both. I think often people get into these spiritual groups because they are looking for a love experience but that’s also why people join cults…because they feel they are loved by the cult and that can create a kind of drive toward looking for that.

Aspen: Does urban living affect one’s spirituality?

Brad: Yes it does but then so does rural living. These days it might be equal because of the internet and everything. I’ve spent time in Tassajara [an SF Buddhist mountain retreat] where no technology is allowed and its very isolated. I was talking to a guy I know who spends a lot of time there and also a lot in San Francisco and he was saying he thinks that we get acclimated to the sounds of the city and you are actually primed to react to that and it’s in your nature to be alert to sounds that might hurt you so he was thinking that based on his two experiences that we are expending energy to shut out all of these sounds. So like a billboard that flashes something to you, it is causing a response and all of that is taking a toll.

Aspen: So you think that people seek refuge from the stimuli?

Brad: Oh yeah. More often what I see people doing is searching for stimulus. I find myself doing this, like when you surf the internet, people are spending hours on the internet looking for stimulation. The worst thing I do I go on YouTube looking for old bands. It causes a reaction so sometimes people want to be away from that. And what’s really important is to find a way for people to live in that environment. This will gradually change the environment itself but it will take time. The economy is a reaction to over stimulation and we’ve put ourselves in an economic recession to avoid stimulus. When you go around you see blank billboards and you didn’t see that in Los Angeles two years ago. When things go too far it’s over consumption and we sort of recognize that we are over consuming, but we don’t know how to do it in a comfortable way, so you have all these very deep unconscious reactions…

[I’m yawning and he says doing zazen makes him fall asleep too easily.]

Aspen: Do you think those in urban society are more promiscuous than in rural areas?

Brad: Not necessarily. I think were more open about it. Christians are more promiscuous but they hide it well. Like Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter. Maybe were a little bit more in this kind of a society but…..it’s a common idea to idealize rural life. That it’s free of temptation….but sometimes in a rural society sometimes all there is to do is fuck.

Promiscuity always seems to lead to misery but people seem to mask it because they’re going to have more orgasms. Well the orgasm lasts a minute but you’ve invested a week into getting a minute long orgasm. You’ve invested a week of miserable hunting and pursuit and you cant help but get tangled into peoples lives.

Aspen: Does zazen affect your sex life?

Brad: There are two ways it affects your sex life. The sort of net result of doing zazen is that your life is more balanced so you start to pay attention to everything. When you start noticing everything, sex is just one of the things that happens. It doesn’t become less exciting, and it can become more stimulating because you’re more present. When everything becomes extraordinary, sex becomes less of a contrast to the rest of your life.

Aspen: Do you have anything specific to say about LA and sex and spirituality?

Brad: Los Angeles is a funny city when you talk about sex and spirituality because the entertainment industry is based here. A large portion of the population is involved in the entertainment Industry. In the ‘60s there was a huge spiritual movement here and it’s always struck me as being flaky. The actors have too much time on their hands -- that’s sort of a caricature but I think its very true. The entertainment industry is based on sex. Everyone needs to look sexy and everyone is better looking in LA.

Aspen: Everyone is very focused on grooming here.

Brad: When I go back to Knoxville everyone is a lot fatter. They seem healthier here. In LA the emphasis is always on getting something from it, like being in the spiritual community is good networking. Like scientology and this weird thing where they get together and yell at you but when spirituality is done for a gaining ideal then you’re just back into the same trap of anything where you’re trying to gain something like enlightenment or peace of mind.

Aspen: Meaning you aren’t content.

Brad: Well that’s part of it but the Zen focus tends to be on seeing what you really are now without trying to alter it deliberately. And it changes as you see it whereas other spiritual practices focus on….well I want to be this and how am I going to get to be this person I want to be.

Aspen: Well right now I’m a mess, Brad.

Brad: Well then that is very helpful because what you want to be is an idea created by that mess so it’s not a sound starting point. If this messiness creates an idea of what it wants to be then the idea is fundamentally flawed so its better to look at the mess and if you keep looking at it, it sort of gradually sort of fixes itself. But I don’t think there is any other way to do it.

Aspen: Well if you are looking at yourself where you are now, then why do zazen?

Brad: Because it’s the best way.

Aspen: According to whom? You?

Brad: Well yeah. Because you’re sitting still and a blank wall doesn’t lie to you it just kind of presents. It’s kind of an amazing thing how that wall will present to you everything that you are.

Aspen: Usually it just presents my grocery list and the calls I need to return.

Brad: Yeah that too. At least you remember.


Brad Warner is currently on a book tour to spread the gospel about his latest spiritual guide, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate.

Mike Watt is the man in the van with a bass in his hand. The Minutemen and fIREHOSE co-founder, who, after taking to the stage with the reformed Stooges, is currently touring with his band the Missingmen, is known for jamming econo since day one. For those of you not familiar with Wattspeak, "jamming... more

Mike Watt is the man in the van with a bass in his hand. The Minutemen and fIREHOSE co-founder, who, after taking to the stage with the reformed Stooges, is currently touring with his band the Missingmen, is known for jamming econo since day one. For those of you not familiar with Wattspeak, "jamming econo" is Watt's slang term referring to the idea of doing things economically. For example, touring the country in a Ford Econoline van, carrying your own equipment, booking your own shows -- cutting out the middleman whenever you can.

The Minutemen were known for their short songs and to-the-point lyrics, which also serve as a perfect example for Watt's ethos. Why confine yourself to a "verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus" format of music when you can get your point across in a more economical way -- with crushing bass lines, fast intense drumming and ripping guitar parts clocking in at about one minute and thirty seconds at a time.

Watt's music is also very hard to put into one category and he likes it like that. Fellow Minuteman, the late D. Boon (who tragically died at the age of 27 in a van accident in 1985) once said, "Punk is whatever we made it to be." By this, Boon meant that punk, by definition, was the way in which you did something and not what the music sounded like or what the people playing it wore. It's also been made clear that punk to Watt was never an angle to sell records. Which is exactly the point. Watt considers that labeling shit is the job of marketing men and his job is to make that real hard.

Watt is also relentless in his efforts to keep making music and keep inspiring young people to be creative. Talking with him though, I learned that inspiring people is not what it's all about -- it's also about getting inspired from others in return.

Chis Goodman: I've read before that you kayak and bike during the week to stay in shape. How does a normal day play out for ya?

Mike Watt That stuff with the bicycle and the kayak, that's early in the morning when I get up. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I do the kayak and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I do the bicycle. San Pedro is in the harbor of LA so I'm close enough to do the kayak. I pedal kind of along the shore too...near the warehouses. Ya know I'm 51 now and I'm a little less resilient since I'm less young so I have to work a bit. I'm no jock, no athlete. A lot of that stuff is just good for the head.

CG: Do you think that helps with writing, getting out there in the morning?

MW: Yeah, in fact I write a lot of music and words when I'm doing that stuff instead of in the old days when I'd write with the bass in my hands. It seems the music exists in it's own world more abstract and more free...You feel different rhythms than the stuff you're used to working your fingers on a machine...a bass or something. It's more in the head. Honestly, your body is moving so there's rhythms from that that aren't happening when you're sitting there with a bass in your hands.

CG: Henry Miller said something about how to write you've got to actually get outside sometimes instead of just sitting in your room thinking about what it's like to be doing something

MW: Yeah. You need a little distance or perspective. Sometimes with the thing in your hand you revert to what you already know. It's reruns. Like track houses...but maybe you put the garage on a different side.

CG: You've always felt that the live show was what's most important, right? That everything is just to get people to go to the shows?

MW: That goes back to the Minuteman days. Me and D. Boon were talkin' about things and we decided to divide the world into two categories...gigs and flyers. Everything that wasn't a gig was a flyer that was from our initial reaction to the punk movement and seeing the gigs. See ya gotta understand where we were coming from. We were coming from arena rock. We didn't know about these little clubs and shit. In punk the gig was the main deal. We felt like that was where we had the most control over the situation.

CG: Seems like anyone can record on a computer these days for a couple of bucks. How do you feel about the fact that anyone can start a band and record their stuff and put it up on the internet now without too much of a struggle? Do you think that since things revolve around the internet so much that it's taking away from the live show?

MW: Well a gig is a gig cause there's human beings and you witness them and you connect with them. But as far as the internet, that's an interesting way too. The metaphor would be like it's a telephone pole to put your flyer on. It's just a means. There are good uses for it like a fanzine. You do it yourself, no middleman. Bring your stuff right to the people. The big burden that ain't been solved is being creative. And I don't think that should burden should ever be solved. It should always be a problem. What should never be a problem is shit costing too much or you being cut out cause you're the wrong kinda people -- wrong class, wrong land -- that we need to do away with. But the struggle to come up with something creative to create your own voice should always be kinda difficult and challenging.

CG: That sets me up perfectly for my next question. Where do you think people's creative energies need to be going in this day and age? Do you think we're going to have a new purpose for music?

MW: Well, man, that's part of the cats making it. Music though is a long tradition and a big part of the culture. Ronnie Asheton said a great thing: "You listen to lots of the truth," the cats before you that made music, "but you gotta mix in your own blood and make it personal." You're talking Henry Miller -- Henry Miller, a writer, wrote very original novels but he probably didn't invent many words. He's using words all kinds of other writers used.

CG: Right. We've got 26 letters and it's up to you what you do with them.

MW: Right! The way he used them was very original though. It's kind of a two-sided thing. You're using something from a tradition but then you're making it very personal. It helps everything, you help other cats get brave to get personal with their thing. The whole bunch of us, lifted up. That's the mission for young people...Yeah, lift us all up. Ya know, all of us by being persona,l it's both things at the same time...All of us together but all of us individualistic at the same time. It's trippy!

CG: That's why I wanted to do this interview, to help people get inspired by hearing what you had to say. You seem to have always served as a forward driving creative and inspiring kinda dude.

MW: You gotta serve as the example, right? They see you and think, "Wow, he's trying!" And this is a chain reaction. It goes down all the years, ya know? Woody Guthrie, DaVinci, all these cats bouncing off of each other and learning from old things but daring to be bold and experiment. Or be like Tesla and invent something that can help everyone.

CG: So you're telling people you gotta just use the world as a bench test and just get out there and try it, whatever it is?

MW: Yeah. You know, it's like skateboarding. You gotta try shit that's too hard. You know you're gonna fall down but you get back up. A skateboard's not a lot of money and you can use it to come up with your own style. It's a great metaphor for the trip. When I was a kid, skateboards had clay wheels and you couldn't even go on the street with them. Then your thing came out and it's a whole new trip. Then this guy Trotsky, talking about the penknife. The art isn't the penknife, it's what's to be carved with the penknife. It's the potential. Ya talk about movements or machines like basses or 'puters to type words on. These are just vehicles to get the idea through and not ends unto themselves.

CG: It ties back into taking the bike out to get your brain working and your blood pumping.

MW: The thing I've learned is that it's about learning. You put yourself in challenging situations and you'll learn a little more. Everyone has something to teach and every body's got something to learn.

CG: One of my favorite quotes of yours was, "I come from the tradition where you find out where the wall is by trying to push against it. Not conceptually agreeing where it should be." So punk to you was always more of how you do something than what the thing you do is, or what it looks or sounds like?

MW: Yeah, it was a movement we were a part of. Me and D. Boon. It seemed people were interested in taking chances with expression. And since they didn't have much bones [money] like us. They jammed econo. The style thing was kinda up to each band, to each group of people, each person doing it. It wasn't so much a sound itself, it was more of a place to bring your trip to.

CG: Let me ask you about writers. What are your personal favorites or who would you recommend people read?

MW: Emma Goldman, she had some good writin' if you're talking political. Fiction people like Jim [James] Joyce, William Faulkner. With poems I've been getting into Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" again. I find in my middle-time here, I'm re-reading a lot I read in my 20s. Those words didn't change but I've changed so they mean something different to me now. Writers, hell, I like Nick Tosches, Richard Meltzer who's coming from a musical angel, Thomas Pynchon books.

CG: Whitman had a lot to say with "Leaves of Grass." At a heavy time too.

MW: He did, that poem is wild. If there's anything good about the US it's in that poem. I read his only regret was not touring with it. He wanted to speak it at places like farms for working people. He wrote that first edition in 1855 trying to stop Civil War, which was a slow thing coming. The second edition was during the war. The last one was in the last year of his life. It went from 12 poems to over 400. On this last tour with the Stooges I went to his house in Camden, NJ. The last place he lived. That same day I went across the river to Philly to the first house John Coltrane bought on 33rd street. He lived there for 6 years. I got to see two of my hero's pads.

CG: I recently read "Ascension" by Eric Nicenson. I'm a big fan of John Coltrane too.

MW: His music is very inspirational. I didn't know about any jazz 'til I met punk people. Raymond Pettibone learned me about John Coltrane. I grew up in navy housing and I just didn't know. Then I heard it with punk and I thought they were doing punk too, man. It sounded so crazy. I knew they were a little bit older but I didn't know he was dead. I really became a big listener of his. He said that "all musicians are after some kind of truth," probably anyone in the arts, or any human really.

CG: Bruce Lee said that what he wanted to learn was a way to express himself honestly. Not lying to himself. And that was very difficult.

MW: I dig that. Just being alive and makin' something of it. Life made something of you, ya know! That's the way I look at it. You're inspired by other people doing it too, it's not like you got the shit by the tail. Like you said, ya just gotta get out there and do it.

CG: What's next on your list of things to do?

MW: I might be coming out east this spring with my Missingmen. I've got a third opera I've written and I wanna come out East and record with them. You're by Pittsburgh, I play there a lot. I know a great musician from there. A young guy in a great band called Black Moth Super Rainbow. I've been recording a lot. People send me songs and I putt bass on it. This modern stuff with Pro Tools we couldn't do in the old days. Last year in May and December I made two albums in Tokyo. They're coming out this year. Me and K [Watt's ex-wife Kira Roessler] are almost done with the new Dos album. I've got my Secondmen going, the organ, bass and drum trio. There's a lot of music happening.

CG: How about your other project, Funanori?

MW: That's something I was doing a year and a half ago but I'm still engaged with that project. I'm tryin' to put bass to music with this weird kinda banjo thing called sanshin. With those two albums I made I took [Wilco guitarist] Nels Cline over cause he'd never been there before and we made "Brothers Sisters Daughter." The same two musicians Nels and I played with, we put backing music to spoken words by [seminal '60s music critic] Richard Meltzer. We made an album called Spielgusher that's coming out this year. Richard is one of the people to write about rock music and tell that it's more than silly teenage stuff. He knew there was something about Jimi Hendrix.

CG: Back to Nels Cline. The first time I heard him was on the opera style album Contemplating the Engine Room. His guitar playing on that is ridiculous. It's almost like a joke how good he is. Can you tell me a little about that album?

MW: I was really inspired by this guy Richard Mckenna. He wrote this great fuckin' book called The Sand Pebbles. He was an engine room guy in the Navy like my father. He thought to be a great writer you just read Hemmingway or Steinbeck, stuff like that. He was never educated as a writer. They made a movie out of it with Steve McQueen and I'd say check that out too. When me and D. Boon were boys that was our favorite movie. You'd dig the book. It's about the human condition. When I read it I knew the guy was in the Navy. You could tell the cat lived it. That's what I mean, if you can make art and put life into it and make it come alive then that is a happening thing! You can pretend too though -- like John Fogerty with "Born on the Bayou." He was born in Berkley. That's a very Northwest bayou.

CG: So would you say that it's mostly mental hangups that keep people from doing their thing -- that keep them from being creative?

MW: Mostly mental. I was talking before about the class thing or being born in the wrong land...Wrong, I don't know...Gender? These limitations are kinda screwed up. Obviously a cat born in the hood is gonna have struggles that other cats don't have before he even gets a shot at trying art. But then there's the mental thing! People that don't have the physical hang ups still find something to hang up on! It's like me and D. Boon as young guys with the arena rock mentality in our heads. It's all we knew but it was just an idea. It was just one way of doing something. Then we saw these cats in Hollywood writing their own songs. They didn't care about what should be or what could be. They just did it. We saw them and we said, "We can do that." It took that to shake up those weird paradigms in our head like arena rock, that we thought were reality but it wasn't reality...Just one way of doing something.

CG: So the goal is to get out there, just go for it, and trip people out -- maybe hope it opens their minds up a little?

MW: Hopefully it works both ways! Hopefully you get yours opened up too! It's a taking turns kinda trip.

CG: Any last words of advice to give?

MW: Yeah man. I owe the debt to the scene. I never looked it as a steppingstone or something to grow out of. I still think the things I learned in those days. The only way to keep it alive is to be real about it. I was asking cats so I should be hoping to have cats ask me stuff. Look man. In the beginning of "Leaves of Grass" in the first lines, I got it right here, this is weird cause this shit is 150 years old. Why is it still so relevant?

"What I assume you shall assume. For every atom belonging to me as good as belongs to you."

See, ya know what I mean? We're brothers. Hopefully I'll see you when we come through Pittsburgh. Thanks for asking me good things.


Mike Watt + The Missingmen are currently on tour. Go to Hootpage.com for more info.

(image) As of lately I've been feeling totally lost, reality just doesn't seem to fit with me anymore. I feel like a fish out of water...tomorrow is my next photo shoot and i hope it goes well, this time the theme will be more about how i feel than actual things. My heart doesnt beat as hard... more

As of lately I've been feeling totally lost, reality just doesn't seem to fit with me anymore. I feel like a fish out of water...tomorrow is my next photo shoot and i hope it goes well, this time the theme will be more about how i feel than actual things. My heart doesnt beat as hard as it used to and sometimes it just doesnt beat. I've come to realize that i have to let go and keep on going with my life. Im in love with someone who has stopped feeling anything for me and i am clinging into a hope, a stupid hope that he might see ma again and feel that he, as me, cannot live without me... I just want to tell him face to face that i still love him and i havent stopped loving him...he has found someone else, he told me, he told me i could live with him again, i could move in again but...3 days later he said he had found someone else and just didnt want me anymore. I can hear my friggin heart breaking and falling to the ground, all over the floor. I didnt pick the pieces up, i felt dead inside, dead....

It is time for you to put on your best pair of golashes to spelunk through the Asshole Fuckfaces. For you, it’s just a good time and a way to make yourself feel better about your loathsome life by making fun of others. For me, it’s deadly serious. I practice the ancient religion of No Fuckish. more

It is time for you to put on your best pair of golashes to spelunk through the Asshole Fuckfaces. For you, it’s just a good time and a way to make yourself feel better about your loathsome life by making fun of others. For me, it’s deadly serious. I practice the ancient religion of No Fuckish. We No Fuckacarians believe if the Asshole Fuckfaces of the world are not exposed, Vlad the Impaler will rise from the dead and slaughter everyone. So, my fellow Fuckacarians and I must scour the Earth each week looking for Asshole Fuckfaces to drag into the light.

First up, some Democratic Asshole Fuckfacery.

What kind of person are you if you use your power to make a criminal act legal while criminals help you to attain an even more powerful position, which is a criminal act that is being illegally taped via the criminal act you are trying to help make legal? You’re an Asshole Fuckface, of course. After all, that is what this article is about.

Jane Harmon, a Democrat from Torrance, California, is not only an Asshole Fuckface, but could also be jackass of the decade.

That’s some nice work. Just another American lawmaker doing what she can to help another country with their American espionage problem.

Actually, Jane, IT DOES! That’s the exciting part. The phone call was recorded by the NSA using a warrantless wiretap. Of course, the Department of Justice did not pursue a criminal investigation because Jane is one of the biggest proponents of warrantless wiretapping in Congress. Welcome to the story of the worst Congressperson alive.

It would actually be better if Harman was innocent and was completely screwed over because she was one of the biggest defenders of the warrantless wiretapping program. She went as far as to call for prosecution of The New York Times for revealing the program. You know, the program that taped her committing a crime. Or not. The one that just taped her without a warrant.

Holy shit, is there a worse person in Congress? Please investigate and prosecute this Asshole Fuckface immediately.

Next up, some GOP Asshole Fuckfacery.

Republicans are so fucking stupid it is amazing. They seem to have no understanding that people write stuff down, record with video and take pictures. For years now, they have been calling Democrats out with absolute bullshit to inflame the masses, even though it is often untrue, while ignoring the fact that Republicans are often guilty of the same non-incident they are trying to create. It’s pretty enjoyable to watch.

This week they went after Barack Obama because when he met with Hugo Chavez he acted like an adult instead of an angry three-year-old. Republicans were apparently very upset that Obama smiled and shook Hugo’s hand.

Um. So. First up, George Bush walked around holding the Saudi king’s hand, like a schoolgirl. Second, Obama is not “friends with Venezuela.” He spoke to the man. That’s it. I speak to many people I can’t stand. It’s called being an adult. Third, Chavez is a legitimate leader and most of Latin America hates us because of all the murdering of South Americans we have supported. You should pick up a history book about Argentina sometime, Newt. Finally, here’s a photo of Republicans smiling and hanging out with America’s enemies.



I believe the kids call that “pwned,” you Asshole Fuckface. Oh, and I’d like to add a video of Obama actually laying down the law to Chavez. Wow, check out the adult doing business. That’s how it works, Newt. Also, your name is Newt. We are at a point now where the Republican's sad floundering is floundering.

Next up, some Libertarian Asshole Fuckfacery.

Remember how crazy it was last week when the Governor of Texas hinted that his state could secede from the United States of America? Wow, that was fun. Also, it’s kind of illegal to secede, but who’s keeping track of all that legal mumbo jumbo?

Then it seemed as if the Governor Rick Perry had learned his lesson. He backed down from his crazy talk and tried to play nice. That’s when crazy, batshit, Ron “I know nothing about history” Paul stepped into the controversy.



Holy shit, what a complete and total moron. I thought he would never top his deluded and ignorant ideas about America and poverty during the early 1900’s, but he has.

Um. Hey, do you remember that thing between the American Revolution and now? Here’s a hint: 1861-1865. 600,000+ Americans killed. No? Ron, you’re basically saying it’s very American for Americans to kill 600,000 other Americans. I’d like to congratulate you on your most warped distortion to date in order to make the world fit into your rigid and hilarious views. I wish you luck with your idea that a secession from the union held together by the Constitution is constitutional and “American.”

Finally, some extraordinary Iraqi Asshole Fuckfacery.

Last week, I also discussed how Iraq is getting their gay killing hat on. This week we learn the horrifying measures Iraqis are taking to kill gays. Prepare to vomit.

Oh, God, I don’t like where this is going.

Hi, worst thing ever, my name is FearTheReaper. One would think such a heinous act would not be something that would be taped and go viral. One would be wrong.

Because that’s something you want in your pocket. Iraq, you are totally handling freedom well.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper

Channing Tatum's big break was Step Up, the little dance movie nobody foresaw becoming a franchise (Step Up 3D is currently in development). Now he's a box-office headliner, with leading roles in both this weekend's action-drama Fighting and this summer's tentpole movie G.I. Joe: The Rise... more

Channing Tatum's big break was Step Up, the little dance movie nobody foresaw becoming a franchise (Step Up 3D is currently in development). Now he's a box-office headliner, with leading roles in both this weekend's action-drama Fighting and this summer's tentpole movie G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

G.I. Joe casts Tatum as Duke, the toy kids played with throughout the '80s. Fighting is more reality based. Tatum plays Shawn, a street kid who gets into the New York City underground fighting circuit. As its title implies, the film has a few scenes of fisticuffs. It showcases Tatum as an action hero, but in between bouts, Shawn is still a real character trying to survive, find love and just fit in.

Despite the testosterone-heavy nature of these two roles, the good-looking athlete-turned-dancer-turned-model-turned-actor is rapidly proving he's able to deliver mature, nuanced performances well beyond the scope of his earlier two dimensional Abercrombie & Fitch and Dolce & Gabbana ad campaigns.

In 2008 he was seen on screens in the MTV-backed Stop-Loss, a powerful film about the Army’s controversial practice of forcing troops who have completed their terms of service back into action. The following year, Channing set the critics buzzing with his small but significant part in Dito Montiel's (of punk band Major Conflict) autobiographical film about his tough upbringing on the streets of Astoria, NY. The film, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which starred Robert Downey, Jr. and Shia LaBeouf, was Montiel's first as a write/director. It speaks volumes that for his second such venture, Fighting, Montiel chose Channing as his lead.

Question: Did your dancing background help with the fighting scenes?

Channing Tatum: Yeah, I'd say that dancing has helped probably in everything, even in acting. Like you're comfortable with your body, you can relax. You don't get tight or tense or even choreography moving with people, staging, knowing your distance and stuff like that. The most dangerous thing is distance when you're doing those fake fights. You're swinging with all your might and they have to time you and you always make eye contact so you can't know exactly how far you're away because you're looking in someone's eyes. Then you swing and you just gotta know.

Q: What do you feel when you fight?

CT: Terror. Absolute fear. Well, it depends. If you're like in a professional fight, a professional fight is all about keeping your composure, and that's what a professional fighter is. Martial arts in general is nothing more than an art form to take the mystery out of fighting. You want to know what it feels like to get hit in the head. You don't know what it feels like to start to get choked out, so there's nothing you're not ready for. You get hit and you're like, all right, that's just normal. That's what martial arts is. A regular fight, like a fight on the street is a little more uncomposed and it's more visceral and just kind of emotionally prompted. A professional fighter, if he gets in a fight on the street, he is more than likely to take the impassioned person apart because he is just going to be coming in, in reckless abandonment, and the composed fighter will just be able to, you know, keep calm and take it over.

Q: Were you ever lost in your life, like Shawn, until someone special came along and guided you?

CT: I've had the real amazing situation that I've always had someone in my life like that. Whether they were interchangeable or not, there's always someone that came by at the right moment to put things in perspective for me and really make me look at something maybe like how I wasn't before. I've had 1000 of them, people that just...they're your little guardian angel that comes in right at the moment. I remember I got so pissed off one day about something, I don't even remember what it was now, but I had one of my friend's little boys with me and I took him out for the day. I was like, "God, I hate it when whatever happened." And he looks up and he goes, "You shouldn't hate anything." And I was just like [tearing], "You're right, I'm sorry." He was so young he could barely even walk and he was like, "You shouldn't hate anything." I was like oh my God, you're absolutely [right] -- shit!

Q: You seem like you haven't fallen into that ego trap of Hollywood stars yet. How long can that last?

CT: I think you try your hardest to stay out of the spotlight and you don't listen to people. As sweet as you guys are, I don't read what is written because I think it can warp you, just like you just said. You have enough people telling you you're something, a part of that is going to assimilate in your head. I don't read what other people write. I don't want to know. I just want to keep doing the things that I'm doing and hanging out with the people that know me from before I was in acting.

Q: What were you like growing up, before all this?

CT: I was just an athlete. I was born in Alabama and I moved to Mississippi for a while, and then to Florida. Then all through that section of time, I was just playing sports. I mean, baseball, football, soccer, martial arts... Anything physical that I could get into, I was into. It kept me out of a lot of trouble. Anytime I was not doing something, I'd go get into trouble, so they just kept pushing me into anything that would take up my time.

Then after high school I went to college and played a year in college football. I figured out that wasn't what I wanted to do, and that's kind of what I was working at my entire life. I wanted to go play college football. After that was over I didn't know what to do. I had no clue. So I went back home and I tried to go back to school, but that just didn't work for me. I wasn't the school book type and I just started working. I did every job you can possibly imagine from framing houses to telemarketing.

I worked in a puppy/kitty nursery. I've done just about everything that you can possibly imagine. Then I started working in the clubs, like dancing and stuff like that. In this big club I just had like a crew, and we would go and put on these big shows at these clubs, so that got really crazy for about a year.

After that I was like, I gotta get out of here. People are doing stupid things, drugs and drinking and I'm like I gotta out. So I decided like in my brilliance to go down to Miami, because I think that's gonna be smarter. Real quiet, sweet little beach town, you know? And it did, but I got seen on the street for modeling there. Someone came up to me and asked me if I wanted to have representation and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. It sounded really shady and the guy was really shady so I didn't go with him, but it got me interested in just seeing what this modeling thing was. I went into the agency that he was talking about and they took me around the world.

Q: Why did you get into trouble as a kid?

CT: What kid doesn't get in trouble? Just normal trouble. Like in Florida you go around and they're always building a house and there's people not there, so you're inside playing around on the stuff that's not yours and breaking stuff. Just trouble. I wasn't stealing cars or anything like that. I was never that bad of a kid but it could have easily went there.

Q: You mentioned drugs in the club scene. Were you ever tempted?

CT: Yeah, I mean in just growing up I think that I've had my brush with it, but I've never been a drug user. No, definitely not.

Q: What kind of relationship did you have with your dad?

CT: Me and my dad, we have a great relationship now, but I think every kid that I've ever known, except for maybe one and that's my best friend, that's the hardest relationship for a guy, for a young guy trying to grow up, is trying to figure out that relationship and how to make it good because he's trying to not make the mistakes that maybe he made through you. I think that's counterintuitive. The kid's never going to learn anything if you don't let him fall down, if you keep trying to be like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that. I think that's the only thing that me and my father didn't agree with. I wanted to touch the pot to know it's hot, because otherwise I just don't know if it's true.

Q: Is G.I. Joe going to be your big franchise?

CT: It's going to be, I guess, X-Men and Transformers and Mission Impossible is the only way I can kind of explain it. It's not as exactly as it effects driven. No, it's definitely effects driven. It's a huge $170 million movie. It's just a big kid sort of driven film.

Q: Is that daunting for you to be the lead in it?

CT: It's not only daunting, that type of a film in general, for a seasoned actor or an actor that had done one of those films before, lower on the call sheet. I was terrified of the movie. I didn't really feel ready for it. You don't know what you're reacting to and they're like, "Look right!" You're like [gasps]. Then they're like, "Look left!" And you don't know what's happening.

Q: Did you have trouble saying any of the cheesy action lines with a straight face?

CT: Every one of the lines, every single one. The one that was, and I don't think they actually made it into the movie, was "Action figures sold separately." Something like that. They wanted me to put it in the film.

Q: Are you prepared for the fans' reaction to it?

CT: It is going to be crazy. No. I don't think I could honestly say that I'm ready. If it does good. If it doesn't do good, then I'm totally ready. It's just going to be like it is now.

Q: What if it made you a $20 million actor?

CT: If I ever make it near that, then I'll flip over this table and like, I'll start break dancing right here. I promise. God, I can't even image making that much money. I'm nowhere near the A list, trust me.

Q: What are you doing next?

CT: I don't really have anything coming up. There's a bunch of things that I'm now starting, my producing career. My company, which is just a couple buddies that are my writing partners and we're just starting to write now.

Q: What do you call it?

CT: 33 and Out. Just 33, out! It just means for us to work, to get to work because I love it. Look, I love acting but I think I'm going to really enjoy being on the other side one day. I like creating and almost not being in the spotlight. I like just to be the creative person that gets to write something that I think is interesting and see it come to life.

Q: But until then, as an actor, what will we see you in after G.I. Joe?

CT: I'm trying to figure out what movie. There's all these scripts out there that there's directors attached but no one can read the scripts because they're so top secret and you're like, "How do I want this movie? Look, I love you as a director and I would bend over backwards to do anything you're going to do, but I just want to know what it is."

Like J.J. [Abrams] does which is really smart. He won't let anything out about anything which is kind of smart. They're doing it and they're doing it big so I don't know. It's one of those things where you go into the meetings and you're like okay. You've got to sign the confidential agreement and everything and then they sort of tell you what it is. You're like okay, all right, I understand what that character is. I think I would enjoy that in your version of that, so can I read a script? Then they're like, "Hmm, we'll call you." You're just like shit, because no one's making little movies anymore. It's just going to be big movies for a little while and maybe little small independents. These little 'tweeners like Fighting, they're just going to be less and less I think. I think so. Either way, I appreciate it.

The great thing about the music business and bands on the road is that pretty much everybody has a useful tip for something. One of the most important things you can do is open your mind to the possibility that you can learn something from anywhere. It's easy to be open to learning something from... more

The great thing about the music business and bands on the road is that pretty much everybody has a useful tip for something. One of the most important things you can do is open your mind to the possibility that you can learn something from anywhere.

It's easy to be open to learning something from me, right? I've been in a bunch of bands, I have dreadlocks, and I wrote a book. What about admitting to yourself that you might have something to learn from the opening band? I mean, they're opening for you, right? What could you possibly learn from them?

Case in point is self-proclaimed international experts on Ovis aries and pharmaceuticals, the brilliantly named Sheep on Drugs (pickled in alcohol as they may be). These not very sheep-like rockers studiously demonstrated the fact that when you drink lots and lots of vodka your sweat starts to smell like vodka. However it was in their pursuit of cash to fund their beverage experimentation that I leant a second, even more key lesson. It was at their merchandise booth that I first saw the concept of the begging bowl interfaced with delightful, disarming honesty that extracted money from everyone who walked past: "Alcohol Fund -- Please give generously."



This tip alone has saved many an evening, and filled many a empty gas tank, stomach, heart, and mind at the end of a grueling day on the road. It is priceless.

We wanted to hear more of these stories so we launched a contest at SXSW. We asked attendees for their nuggets of wisdom -- the person that came up with the most helpful, relevant and/or unique tip would win $4000 worth of really great gear (free being one of the best kinds of gear).

People from all over the world shared brilliant ideas, from the ethereal talking about the spiritual crusade that bands embark upon to the much more down to earth, who shared gems like, "Buy large bottles of Gatorade to use as portable truckers piss buckets to reduce the number of pit-stops during long drives." -- Glorious one and all.

(Note: I've seen the other end of this double-edged sword when, on the road with Dope somebody mistook a lime flavored Gatorade bottle filled with piss for a lime flavored Gatorade. Oh how we laughed, but that is the kind of stuff that breaks up a band.)

There were some tips that were repeated in different ways by different people, all boy-scout-ish in nature:

* Be prepared

* Expect the unexpected (usually instantly ridiculed only by those that have never been on the road)

* Find friends first and musicians second

* Treat your audience as if they were the band and instead of being in the band imagine you are fans of your audience.

That is a great way to describe the reverse of the traditional audience/band relationship and how it should work. It conveniently takes into account that bands should be humble and treasure even the smallest audience and not complain to all who will listen that another 90 (or 900) people should have showed up.

There was also some terrific advice that sadly didn't make the short-list/potentially prize-winning cut:

* Jeff Sheppard from the Sarah & Jeff show wrote "GET ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE! (CAA or AAA)." Which is so much of a no-brainer that it sometimes gets forgotten.

* Emilio Castellanos said, "No matter what happens record everything." (Does not apply if your name is Richard Nixon.)

* John Thomas said, "Just get started. It's easier to change or correct course than it is to get your butt off the couch for the first time." I really liked that too.

* And, "Have a sense of humor in one hand and a big stick in the other and whatever you do don't let anyone know you have a credit card," from Sean Rial -- this made me laugh a LOT!

Surprisingly, one idea that wasn't addressed in the hundreds of entries was something that took me a long time to get to: The Customer Is Always Right.

I couldn't understand how a show that I knew was flawed, where the sound was bad, where someone had obviously fucked up, where things weren't right (or at least not the way they were supposed to be) could seem amazing and enjoyable to anyone. I've gotten into countless arguments with someone who said, "That's the best show I've ever seen." I've spent a lot of energy explaining why it wasn't, going on at length, "If only you had seen us three nights earlier with better sound, better lights, better voices, better, more focused laser light energy, better crowd, less bad notes, more height from the jumps..." The end result being what.....? A confused audience member who just had a great experience explained away and a confused band member convincing fans one at time that we were unworthy.

After years of this, I figured it out. The customer, it turns out, is always right. So when your shambolic 25th show comes to an untimely end, a drum kit falls over, the singer fails to hit high notes and the bass player struggling with only two strings left on his lack-luster bass guitar duels with the incompetent guitarist shredding (except that his guitar isn't plugged in) and somebody says, "That was great!" - it was. And who the fuck are you to take that away from anybody?

Be humble. Be nice. And even though you're not selling anything to anyone anymore, remember the customer is always right.

If you want to read all the rest of tips (and you can vote too) the top 52 are HERE. I encourage you to leave your own tip too. You won't be entered in the competition to win $4000 worth of equipment from PreSonus, Pearl Drums, Dean Guitars, or Trueline Drumsticks (you've missed the boat on that one), but you'll earn a place in my heart forever and who knows, your piece of advice might be the one that saves someone's ass one day.


Martin Atkins has drummed with PiL, Killing Joke, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Pigface, and The Damage Manual, among others. As owner of the now 20-year old Invisible Records, he has worked with artists such as Thrill Kill Kult, Einsturzende Neubauten, Chemlab, Chris Connelly, Sheep On Drugs, Murder Inc, and Psychic TV. Martin teaches a course on Business of Touring at Columbia College in Chicago, IL, and has written a survival guide for touring bands, Tour Smart: And Break The Band, which features contributions from Henry Rollins, Cynthia Plastercaster, The Enigma, the Suicide Girls, Zim Zum (formerly of Marilyn Manson), Kevin Lyman, and various other managers, journalists, venues, agents, sponsors, radio personalities and the like.

Too embarrassed to talk to your friends about your foot fetish? Not sure when to tell your partner about those, um, nasty genital warts? Need some Gotha Stewart home-ec advice for your next soiree? Not sure how to get your foot in the door of that fab new career you want? I got you covered. Miss Truth... more

Too embarrassed to talk to your friends about your foot fetish? Not sure when to tell your partner about those, um, nasty genital warts? Need some Gotha Stewart home-ec advice for your next soiree? Not sure how to get your foot in the door of that fab new career you want? I got you covered. Miss Truth Hurts is here to answer all of your love, life, sex, career, and relationship questions. Ask anything. I've been there/done that (except for the warts) and I've dished out advice to readers just like you through the pages of my advice book/lifestyle guide, Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star.

Send your questions, dilemmas, and conundrums to misstruthhurts@suicidegirls.com.

Alternatively, SG members can send a message via the site to MissTruthHurts.

We won't use your name, just the city you're writing from.


Q: I've had my dog Sweetie for three years. I've had my boyfriend for six months. I love my dog. I love my BF. My BF doesn't love my dog. And my dog positively loathes my BF. We were in bed the other night and Sweetie bit him in the ass at the most inopportune moment. BF says, "Sweetie goes or I go." I'm leaning towards keeping Sweetie but my friends say I'm nuts. The BF is gorgeous, talented, brave, sober, well-off, and worships the ground I walk on. Sweetie? He's truly been my best friend. What would you do?

-Sad in Seattle

A: Dogs over dudes my friend. Dogs are more loyal, loving, and faithful, and generously lavish their owners with affection. They come when they're called, they like to spoon and cuddle, and they always stay the night. And, let's not forget dogs are a good judge of character. If your dog is not digging your dude, then maybe he's onto something. I would trust your companion's instincts on this one instead of your hormones. And, besides, if the guy really loved you, he wouldn't ask you to make this heart-breaking choice. What kind of guy makes his girl get rid of something she loves? Especially a little pooch?! A good guy and a true animal lover would never put you in this position, and his ultimatum shows what kind of person he really is. Put your beau up for adoption and tell your girlfriends to stop thinking so desperately.


Q: My significant other and I are really oral and I have recently introduced him to toys and that's all good. But, he got a flavored gel that gets hot when you blow on it and I can't stand that sensation! He, however, seems to love it. How do I break it to him that I am hot and tingly enough down there without killing his recent excitement about using this stuff?

-Burning in Bellefonte

A: No boy is worth burning your beaver for! Tell your man that while you love the idea of a fun, flavored gel, that the specific gel he picked out is just cooking your coochie too much and you'd like to try another. There are hundreds of choices when it comes to gels, lubes, and oils. Go to a sex store with him and pick up a bunch of those small sample size gels for a buck or two and see what works best for you. If he's stuck on the brand and flavor that he bought, then just use it on him for hand jobs, titty fucks, and, if it's edible, BJs.


Q: Does a good sense of humor really matter if the guy is ugly?

-Overly Worried in Overland Park, Kansas

A: Of course it does! Look at all the not-so-handsome funnymen who land hot babes. Take David Spade for instance. He's short, not Hollywood-handsome by any stretch of the imagination, and has hooked up with some of the most beautiful women in the world, such as Heather Locklear, Pamela Anderson, Lara Flynn Boyle, Nicollette Sheriden, and countless Playboy Playmates. Sure, he has money, but those hotties do too, so it's clearly the sense of humor that got the gals hitting the sheets with this frumpy funnyman.


Q: I am a 32-year-old woman engaged to a 26-year-old man. Things are not smooth sailing. I have a 13-year-old and a 9-year-old and they always come first. My kids are very attached to my fiancé, but I'm afraid if I marry him I'll never be happy. If I say black, he says white. I don't know what to do.

-Torn in Toronto

A: Just like couples shouldn't "stay together for the kids," you can't marry a guy just because your kids like him. It will do them no service to have to witness an unhappy relationship day in-day out. Break it off now before you're in too deep.


Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna is Suicide Girls' sex, love, and life advice columnist. She is an entertainment journalist, rock wife, and author of Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star and Eyewitness Nirvana: The Day-by-Day Chronicle.

www.myspace.com/carrieborzillovrenna
www.carriebv.com

(image) This past weekend SG was hanging out at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Though you can't help but have fun mixing with folks dressed up as their fave horror film characters, vendors who sell all manner of bloodcurdling merchandise, and movie types... more

This past weekend SG was hanging out at Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Though you can't help but have fun mixing with folks dressed up as their fave horror film characters, vendors who sell all manner of bloodcurdling merchandise, and movie types such as Tony Moran (Halloween), Bill Moseley (Repo!, Devil’s Rejects), Corey Haim (Silver Bullet, Lost Boys), Robert Hall (writer/director Laid To Rest) and Paul Solet (director of Grace), after three days manning the SG booth boredom can set in -- thus our ever resourceful girls came up with the following off-schedule Fangoria activities....

Top 5 Things To Do When You're Bored At A Horror Convention

#1. Find a celebrity to stalk. Leandra and Trystan have photographic evidence of their highly successful "Operation Blue Hawk" which was set in motion to track the illusive Seth Green down -- and Bob has just posted a video which documents the entire enterprise.

#2. Scream as loud as you can, just for the hell of it. Antigone has a video of Sash doing this and Leandra has a video of Tristyn and Irinka showing off their high-volume oral skills.

#3. Make friends with the celebrities who are at the convention to sign autographs. Tony Moran (a.k.a. the original Michael Myers) was particularly sweet and gave the girls free signed prints and gummi bears (see images in Xtine’s blog).

#4. Take your shirt off and rub your boobs together (we're told Irinka has a snap of Sash doing this) or do cartwheels down the isles.

#5. Take a bazlillion pictures of each other doing dumb things.

For more SG/Fangoria action watch ShockTillYouDrop.com's video, view more images HERE, and listen to Bobbi Sue Luther and Robert Hall of Laid To Rest (Fangoria's cover story this month) talk about low budget horror movie making on SG Radios's Fangoria Special podcast (HOUR 1, HOUR 2).

Additional reporting: Sash, Bob, Antigone, Sinsemilla, Tristyn and Leandra.

Diary entry - 4/18/1312 Had a very good day today. Woke up early, as the rain had broken through the straw roof. Again. Me bed of leaves is in need of replacement. Being winter, however, there’s no leaves about, so I just may need to take some straw from the roof. Also will have to sweep out... more

Diary entry - 4/18/1312

Had a very good day today. Woke up early, as the rain had broken through the straw roof. Again. Me bed of leaves is in need of replacement. Being winter, however, there’s no leaves about, so I just may need to take some straw from the roof. Also will have to sweep out the reed floor, because of all the mud, crumbs and animal drippings. Michael is suffering from dysentery, as well, and has done a number on the floor more than once.

Ate porridge with some ripe cheese. Not too many maggots in the cheese this morning, which I took as a sign things is turning ‘round a bit. After breakfast, left my seven-year-old son Jean, to plow the field with Lord Marat’s ox I borrowed. I prayed nothing would happen to the beast, as I need the boy to live. He's strong for a seven-year-old! I took some wheat up to Lord Marat’s mill. He was generous in only taking one sixth of me wheat in exchange for using his mill. Milling didn’t take too long. After went out to work in the Lord’s field.

Saw a wild boar while working the carrots. Oh, I would have liked to have killed it and had a nice feast for the others, but not really worth being killed for, now is it? Especially right on the heels of watching Charles burned alive for killing those wild ducks. Lord Marat doesn’t take kindly to killing wild game on his land. Anyway, I’ve got bread and ale waiting for me tonight.

Heard John’s arm fell off yesterday. Shame that. He had a problem with the fungus in his rye flour over the winter, so it’s not a big surprise. I knew he had turned blotchy red. Apparently, he’s just babbling and staring at the sky now. Hopefully Lord Marat can find something for him to do that just requires one arm. It’s a shame it happened now, right after he paid Lord Marat a death duty and a fine for inheriting his father’s land. Losing his best pig and then having to give his second best pig to the church as an inheritance tax, and now an arm? Seems a bit too much for one man to bear.

The boy came by the field to tell me the priest had stopped by to collect the tithe. Five eggs, bag of flour, basket of firewood, 1/10th of me wheat and a chicken. Don’t get me started on them priests, livin’ the life up there, with all the food they want and going at it with all those young boys.

Just then, a crowd comes down the road, making noise and carrying signs. I saw Gaston and asked him what was going on. He says the King wanted to take an extra 3% in taxes from Lord Marat. Can you imagine? Three percent?!?! Course, I was enraged. We all were - even though he's going to use the money to give we peasants a bit more wheat. I grabbed me pitchfork and joined the mob, as we marched through the village. How dare the King Philip make Lord Marat pay more taxes! It’s an outrage! When’s it going to stop! Someone called it a “Porridge Party.” Not sure why, something about that time when they tossed all that porridge in the Reine because of the church taken too high a tithe. Whatever, porridge party is a good name as any, but it’s still just another indignation meeting. It was odd to have some of the knights involved in this one, especially after they raped me brother’s wife and daughters before killing him. Jacque actually said a couple of the knights started this march. We ended up burning down the local garrison. The king’s knights ran like women. It was a damned good time.

When I got home, learned me wife had gone into labor and died during birth, while I was at the porridge party. The baby died, as well. And to top it off, me youngest son, Lawrence, succumbed to the Black Death. What a fucking day! After the tithe and giving the wheat to use the mill, I haven’t anything left to hire gravediggers, so I spent the night with a hoe digging graves for me family. The whole time I was digging, I still couldn’t get that 3% out of me mind. Lord Marat has to pay a whole 3% to the King?!?!? Enough is enough! I expect more Porridge Parties!

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper

Ah spring, rebirth, the flowers are blooming and the air smells like orange blossom (well it does somewhere, here in NYC it smells like pee and exhaust) and the weather is getting good and an overwhelming sense of optimism grips me like Hellboy's fist. I am an optimistic person by nature but for... more

Ah spring, rebirth, the flowers are blooming and the air smells like orange blossom (well it does somewhere, here in NYC it smells like pee and exhaust) and the weather is getting good and an overwhelming sense of optimism grips me like Hellboy's fist.

I am an optimistic person by nature but for some reason right now it's on ten. I've got so many things coming to fruition right now, new Anthrax record, Pearl's debut record, my Lobo book for DC, kicking ass at poker on Ultimate Bet (I fucking won their 200K Sunday tourney two weeks ago can I get a fucking HELL YEAH!!!) and of course eating and drinking like a maniac. I love that word, maniac. It's hilariously descriptive. Willard Scott is a maniac. That just kills me.

One of the definitions of maniac is an obsessive enthusiast and I guess you can say that I am an obsessive enthusiast over everything I do so when I was approached to be a part of a wine pairing where wines are going to be paired with Led Zeppelin songs, I maniacally answered yes. The event is taking place in NYC on May 2 at City Winery, which is an amazing wine bar/restaurant/live music venue.

My friend Joe Bastianich (restaurateur, winemaker, guitar player and headbanger, he co-owns Babbo, Osteria Mozza, The Spotted Pig etc etc with Mario Batali) came up with this concept a few months ago and asked me what I thought about it. At that moment I realized Joe was a maniac like me and I told him I thought it was a great idea. I wasn't sure how he would pull it off but I loved his passion for it. To take Jimmy Page's riffs and figure out what wine would go best with let's say "Kashmir" or "Whole Lotta Love" was a leap only an obsessive enthusiast could make.

Well, he did it. He tried it out at a restaurant called Becco in NYC and the event sold out instantly. Now he's taking it up to another level and flying in the best Zeppelin cover band in the world, Six Foot Nurse from LA (as well as yours truly) to be a part of this one. They've paired six amazing wines with six Zeppelin songs. Joe and wine writer David Lynch are going to explain the reasons why each wine goes with each particular song and then The Nurse is gonna blow your head off.

You don't have to be a wine aficionado to understand that you're gonna get drunk on killer booze and hear the closest thing to Zeppelin circa '74. I am going to jam three songs with The Nurse as well and I expect it to be an amazing evening. Talk about your viticultural mash-up!! Click HERE for more info.

A couple of weeks ago I got invited to a wine tasting dinner at The Harrison in NYC thrown by my friend Evan Yurman. Evan's another maniac. A maniac about metal (actual metal, not musical metal), stones, design, wine, food and real muscle cars. He's got a Mustang with an 800HP NASCAR engine in it. It's louder than ten Harley's. When he starts it every car alarm in lower Manhattan goes off. It's the most evil looking car I've ever seen, all matte black. It makes Kurt Russell's car in Death Proof look like the Griswold's wagon in Vacation. The wine tasting was all California Cabs from 1987 which was a great year for those wines and now is the time to drink'em if you got'em.

Of the fifteen (!) wines poured my favorites were the Opus One which was really light, more Pinot-ish, the Heitz Martha's Vineyard which had hints of eucalyptus, berries and tobacco all making a really drinkable wine, the Abreu which even though it was corked still tasted great, the Joseph Phelps Insignia which had notes of coffee and chocolate and was super soft, my second favorite actually. My favorite wine of the evening was the Chateau Montelena. Perfectly balanced. I give it three sixes.

We drank some crazy old Cognac after all that wine and then went to the Brandy Library, a real fancy pants joint where they will ask you to leave if you order a Jack and Coke. I wouldn't order one but I was in a happy ball-busting drunken state and was tempted to ask for Southern Comfort or even better some Malibu. Someone in our party magically produced three bottles of Chateau Margaux and I did my best to finish it.

Wow was I hungover the next day. And the day after that. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

All this talk is making me thirsty.

Off to the Spotted Pig for a pint of bitter.

Cheers,
Scott


www.anthrax.com
www.myspace.com/scottian
Facebook.com/pages/Scott-Ian/6026309977?ref=s
www.ultimatebet.com/scott-ian/?ubAffilID=73329
www.nonelouder.com
twitter.com/Scott_Ian



Scott Ian is SuicideGirls' monthly Food Coma columnist. Click HERE for more of his musing on sustenance and libations. He plays guitar for revolutionary metal band Anthrax and also for Pearl.

Hey guys! It's been forever! A lot has happened! I guess the main thing that happened was my 2 broken ribs, and a 3rd fractured;. Happened snowboarding, while I was competing. Ollied onto a rail, and slid off and tacoed over it! Road to recovery has been long, and shitty. My car also got totaled... more

Hey guys! It's been forever! A lot has happened! I guess the main thing that happened was my 2 broken ribs, and a 3rd fractured;. Happened snowboarding, while I was competing. Ollied onto a rail, and slid off and tacoed over it! Road to recovery has been long, and shitty.

My car also got totaled almost 2 weeks ago. I'm so sad with out a car right now!

Here's some photos for you all!


Couple weeks ago, at a friends party before Get Right I think...


Painting the Graffiti wall in Athens.


Oh heyyyy.


This is from back in November, when we went to Holiday valley..


Portrait by John Crosby


Moments before the broken ribs!


St Patricks day at grimers! In my sling.. Hahaha.


Ohh, just got out of the hospital...


My friend Graces new kitty, Saki!


Using my sling for bigger and better things...


I did win some USASA stuff this year!

http://suicidegirls.com/members/Joleene/albums/site/10133/

http://suicidegirls.com/members/Joleene/albums/site/10133/

http://suicidegirls.com/members/Joleene/albums/site/10133/

Please help out on my set!!!!!