(image) Check back each month for the next exclusive installment of the poetry, pencil and ink series TG on SG from Tank Girl and her pen pals Alan Martin and Rufus Dayglo. Like The Rolling Stones, Tankie is getting remastered. The original Tank Girl series, as it originally appeared in Deadline magazine... more

Check back each month for the next exclusive installment of the poetry, pencil and ink series TG on SG from Tank Girl and her pen pals Alan Martin and Rufus Dayglo.

Like The Rolling Stones, Tankie is getting remastered. The original Tank Girl series, as it originally appeared in Deadline magazine (with all the nasty 90s colouring removed), is being released in two volumes. Rejoice, and purchase!


Member Info: TankGirl_TGonSG / Large Image Library / More TG on SG.

I wasn't born a dating expert. I do (or have done) many other interesting jobs: stand-up comic, crisis worker (*), substitute teacher, martial arts instructor, video store clerk, and heavy metal musician. One of my favorite gigs was working as a commentator for an indy pro-wrestling show. The after-parties... more

I wasn't born a dating expert. I do (or have done) many other interesting jobs: stand-up comic, crisis worker (*), substitute teacher, martial arts instructor, video store clerk, and heavy metal musician.

One of my favorite gigs was working as a commentator for an indy pro-wrestling show. The after-parties were great. No one can party like professional wrestlers. If you enjoy crazy stories and a superhuman tolerance for alcohol, wrestlers are your huckleberry.

On the less fun side, being in a locker room of tall, tanned, muscular Adonises plays havoc with the body image.

I'll be honest; being around these guys brought out a lot of my insecurities. They were skilled, athletic, and extroverted. I was a skinny, short guy whose only contribution to the show was holding a microphone and bursting into self-righteous histrionics when one of the bad guys bonked one of the good guys on the melon with a chair.

One night though, that changed. I was standing in a nightclub with a guy I'll call the Champ when we both happened to notice a girl on the dance floor doing some very interesting things with her hips.

I love women who know how to move their bodies to the music. Judging from the Champ's expression, I wasn't the only one.

"She is so hot," he said.

"Why don't you go over and talk to her?" I suggested.

I'll never forget the look the Champ gave me. He looked like I'd asked him to sprout wings and fly to Mars.

That's when it hit me.

The Champ can't approach women.

It was a dizzying realization. Here was a guy at the top of his profession. He's toured the world. He can body slam with the best of them. He can make a crowd fall in love with him or turn against him with a few words and a gesture. He lives a life that most guys can only imagine in their dreams.

Yet at this moment, in this bar, I can do something he can't.

There are two points to this story. The first has to do with approaching strange women in bars, and we're going to leave that one for another day. In the meantime, meditate on the idea that macking da honeys is both easier and harder than it looks. Like the Dagobah Cave in Empire Strikes Back, all you will find is what you bring with you.

The second lesson has to do with comparing yourself to other people: Don't do it.

Comparisons are a natural temptation. It's human nature to look around and see where we stack up. For some of us, some of the time, this can be helpful and provide motivation.

But for most of us, most of the time, it's a bad idea.

Firstly, when you start making comparisons, you are measuring yourself by other people instead of by your own standards. I did that for a lot of years, and it left me pretty miserable. It wasn't until I started blazing my own trail that I really found out how much joy I could find just in being alive.

Secondly, there's no way you can win. If the people around you are 'better' than you, you get depressed. If you're 'better' than them...well, that's because they suck. And as soon as they go away, you're nothing again until someone shows up to compare yourself to (**).

And finally, it's because...you never know. The guy at the bar with the two hundred dollar Ed Hardy t-shirt and the ridiculous hair might look like he's got it all figured out, but chances are he has just as many problems as you do, especially when it comes down to women (***). There are guys who do well with women and guys who don't, and you can't always tell which is which just by looking.

Do the things that make you happy, walk your own path, and the right women will be there. You might not be a pro-wrestler. You might not even be a dating expert with self-esteem issues.

But you're you. And that's more than enough.


(*) One of my specialties...suicide prevention. Isn't it ironic, don't ya think? I wonder if I can write off my membership to this site as professional development.

(**) By the bye, there's another, more insidious form of comparison which comes from comparing yourself to the person you think you should be. If this is you, remember that as adults we have freedom, power, and choice. And with that freedom comes the right to f--k things up, dust ourselves off, forgive ourselves, and laugh about it without some whiny voice in the back of our heads going: "You idiot, a real man would have at least TALKED to her!"

(***) In the words of one famous rapper: "I got a ninety-nine problems and at least twenty or thirty of them are bitch-related."


Dan Brodribb is a professional stand-up comic and writer. He is currently working on a book called Dating for Shy Guys. Learn more about him at: danbrodribb.blogspot.com.

(image) In my old neighborhood of Central Square in Cambridge, MA, there's a falafel joint that used to be a White Castle. While some might wring their hands at the notion of a bastion of the oldest burger chain in the US being supplanted by cuisine from the Middle East, I embrace this as a manifestation... more

In my old neighborhood of Central Square in Cambridge, MA, there's a falafel joint that used to be a White Castle. While some might wring their hands at the notion of a bastion of the oldest burger chain in the US being supplanted by cuisine from the Middle East, I embrace this as a manifestation of the Great American Melting Pot that made America... uhmmm... Great. And Melty.

It's in this same spirit of a White Castle location being the site of transformation and enrichment through the American immigrant experience that I embrace and rejoice in the recent assignment of actor Kal Penn --
Kumar himself from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay -- to the Obama administration's Office of Public Liaison. As associate director there, according to The LA Times, he'll be doing "outreach to young people, arts professionals and the Asian American community."

Why is this so cool? Because Harold and Kumar are the most patriotic buds in pop culture since Willie and Joe, the two loveable lug GIs created by cartoonist Bill Mauldin for Stars and Stripes.

Yeah, on their most basic level, the Harold & Kumar movies are stoner comedies, Cheech and Chong flicks for the new millennium. But there's really something sublime bubbling bong-toke-like just under the surface of these two flicks, and that's a deep and abiding love for the promise of America. If it's not a new kind of patriotism, then maybe it's a new rhetoric of patriotism. Albeit one with lots of fart, shit, piss, blowjob, dick and pube jokes. But it's really a beautiful vision -- one uniquely suited for this time, and this administration.

Both Harold & Kumar movies (and alas, now that Penn has taken this job in DC, it looks like there won't be a third one) present an ideal of American patriotism which is defined by inclusion and diversity. In the Harold-&-Kumar-verse, it's unpatriotic and un-American to be an exclusionary dick.

Harold & Kumar writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, in creating their stoner diptych, put their heroes through a series of encounters that glorify diversity and inclusiveness and expose the profound douchebagery of exclusion and prejudice.

Right off the bat in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (even typing these words makes me crave a giant bag of Slyders) we're shown racial adversity as experienced by the film's unlikely heroes at the hands of Billy (Ethan Embry) and J.D. (Robert Tinkler). These two shining examples of jerks dead-bird-drop a pile of extra work on the desk of Harold (played by John Cho, who'll be part of another multi-ethnic and multi-species celebration of diversity when he takes over as Mr. Sulu in Star Trek).

Sure, no matter the ethnicity of the guy who gets loaded with somebody else's work at quitting time on a Friday night, douchebagery is afoot.
But it's depicted as a specifically un-American, specifically racist form of douchebagery when J.D. makes a crack about how he gets all "his" work done by passing it off to Asian guys. "Those Asian guys love crunching numbers! You probably just made his weekend!"

It's this bullshit stereotyping that Hurwitz and Schlossberg wanted to bash with their Harold and Kumar characters. "The high school we went to had a lot of Indian and Asian kids," Schlossberg told The New York Times. "Typically, in movies, these guys are the foreign-exchange students and martial-arts guys. We thought there's something wrong here. We wanted our movie to feel and look like the real world."

Looking over my notes taken during a night of watching both Harold & Kumar movies, I realize that I could burn through a lot of words recapping all the racist, exclusionary fucktards who get in Harold and Kumar's way in the first movie alone as they go in quest of White Castle burgers.

From the pack of drooling extreme sports punks who shout to Harold, as they steal his parking spot, "This is America! Learn to drive!" to the racial-profiling cops of Muckleburg, New Jersey: "What's with that name? Koooo-mar? With, like, three o's and shit? What happened to good old-fashioned American names like Dave and Jim?".

These dicks are foiled by the nice folks who are part of this multi-ethnic and accepting vision of America, like the hideously deformed, pus-leaking, gospel-singin' Freakshow (Law & Order's Christopher Meloni) and his hot wife Liane (Watchmen's Malin Akerman) to the sort of Yoda-like Tarik (Gary Anthony Williams), who says, "Look at me. I'm fat, Black, can't dance, and I have two gay fathers. People have been messing with me my whole life. I learned a long time ago there's no sense getting all riled up every time a bunch of idiots give you a hard time. In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should. Plus, I have a really large penis. That keeps me happy!"

The thematic zenith of the tokin' (and Tolkien-esque?) epic that is the two Harold & Kumar movies is embodied in a speech made by Kumar as he tries to talk Harold into hang-gliding the last couple hundred yards to White Castle. It's a speech that could be dismissed as just a goofy comedy climax pep-talk, like the one John Belushi made at the in Animal House ("Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" etc...), if it didn't dovetail so beautifully with the message of the rest of the movie:

That speech is sincere. It's a real expression of patriotism on the part of writers Hurwitz and Schlossberg. It really wasn't just about the burgers. Kumar's dad did come to America and realize the American Dream. He became a doctor. Sure, there's friction between Kumar and his dad. But in their quests for personal fulfillment, be it through burgers or an MD, they've both attained something beautiful. And Harold only grows a pair of balls and stands up to Billy and J.D. after he's gotten his slice of the American Dream and washed it down with Cherry Cokes.

***

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was released on July 30, 2004, just one day after the historic Democratic national Convention at which Barack Obama first exploded into the nation's awareness with his totally kickass speech. Consider the notes that both Obama and Kumar hit:

Source


And while you're at it, compare the jerkweed Jersey cop's comment "What happened to good old-fashioned American names like 'Dave' and 'Jim?'" to Obama's statement that "My parents... would give me an African name, Barack, or 'blessed,' believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success."

(Then compare these comments to those from Texas State Representative and Asshole Fuckface honoree Betty Brown who said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with.")

Harold, Kumar and Obama's 2004 vision of America is empowering, so much so that by the start of 2008's Guantanamo Bay, Harold, nourished spiritually and physically by his American Dream White Castle munchie run, says as he settles in for the plane ride, "It's like I'm a whole new Harold! Better! Faster! Stronger!" This new improved Harold stood up to the bullying tactics of J.D. and Billy -- and Rob Corddry's Bill of Rights ass-wiping bugfuck Secretary Fox in Guantanamo -- to get his Hollywood ending with the girl of his dreams -- how American is that!

Sure, Kal Penn has a lot more qualifications to take up this new job besides just having played Kumar (though his experience bonding over a doobie with the film's affable George W. has got to help him make friends across the isle right?). He campaigned for Obama, he's been taking graduate courses in International Studies online through Stanford, and he's taught two courses, "Images of Asian Americans in the Media" and "Contemporary American Teen Films," at U Penn (source). But it's the unique combination of the patriotism of Harold & Kumar and the opportunity, diversity and promise that Obama's presidency embodies that makes his new appointment as inspirational and American as apple pie -- served in a falafel place that used to be a White Castle.


Michael Marano 2009.

Horror writer, pop culture commentator and Public Radio film critic Michael Marano previously wrote "Ten Lessons Spider-Man Can Teach Our First Nerd President", and has a new fiction collection in the works about the crazy shit he lived through in the 1980s entitled Stories from the Plague Years.

Hello, minions. After a week absence, I have returned. I apologize for not being there for you on Tuesday. An Asshole Fuckface entered my right eustachian tube and felled me for a couple of days. It was touch and go, almost perished and all that stuff. But now I am alive again and my eustachian tube is... more

Hello, minions. After a week absence, I have returned. I apologize for not being there for you on Tuesday. An Asshole Fuckface entered my right eustachian tube and felled me for a couple of days. It was touch and go, almost perished and all that stuff. But now I am alive again and my eustachian tube is popping and pain free, which means the Asshole Fuckfaces of the world are quivering in their boots because they are about to be exposed. So, grab your favorite antibiotic because this is going to be messy.

First up, some religious Asshole Fuckfacery.

Finally, some Asshole Fuckfaces made a public service announcement against gay marriage. It’s a delightful piece of art.



Holy shit. Their “freedom will be taken away.” They are going to be locked in dungeons and fed dung beetles. That’s just one result of gays marrying. Also, that poor doctor has to choose between doing her job the way she wants or letting gay people live. How fucked up is that?

How terrible is it that a mother has to send her kids to a school in which teachers actually teach students that gay people are not an abomination? What kind of world are we living in? And why aren't there any religious schools for her to send her child to? And why wouldn't a woman so devoted to her crazy religious beliefs that she would appear in an ad send her kid to a private school? Indeed, why wouldn't she home school her spawn so she can properly pass on her crazy unfiltered beliefs?

That other girl says she “will have no choice.” That’s right. You didn’t know this but she is going to be forced to marry a woman and engage in oral sex for the rest of her life. The gays are coming people, and they are coming like a storm. It’s going to be raining cocks (on men) and vaginas (on women).

What’s next? People marrying dogs? Yes, actually, that is next. We’ve already started fucking them in preparation for the groundbreaking dog marriage bill of 2012. After that, we are going to want to marry badgers, panthers, and sofas. You think we are destroying marriage now, wait until I marry my carpet. A storm is coming indeed.

Next, some of our anti-gay friends spiritual Asshole Fuckfaces are busy in Iraq.

Remember when we liberated Iraq? How awesome was that? Not awesome for gay people, apparently.

Who would have thought “liberating” religious extremists living in the birthplace of the Shiite religion would lead to something horrible?

And it’s not just street killings. It seems the wonderful Iraqi government has decided to execute gays for being, well, gay.

Good times. Hope you are enjoying your freedom.

Next up, some Asshole Fuckface advice from Texas.

Ah, Texas, you do not let me down. Look, I understand it’s hard being super white and stupid, especially in today’s world, with all of these foreign types coming in and walking around like they own the place. Obviously, there are solutions to help the super white. Texas State Representative Betty Brown unveiled one this week.

Yes. Please. Look, it’s hard being an old, white lady who was raised around names like Jones, Stephens and Blake to suddenly be looking at a name like Dat Si Cho. How about you change that name to Dan Milford? America just became a little bit easier, did it not?

Makes a lot of sense.

Next up, some Democratic Party Asshole Fuckfacery.

Remember how Harry Reid is the biggest, most spineless, waste of space ever to walk the halls of Congress? Remember how Harry allowed Joe Lieberman to remain Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, even after he spoke at the Republican National Convention and called Obama all sorts of names? Remember when Joe allowed George Bush to do whatever the fuck he wanted while he was Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and Democrats said he should be removed this year because he’s an Asshole Fuckface who will screw with Obama’s agenda? And then Harry let him stay?

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Harry Reid should be waterboarded.

Finally, I save the worst Asshole Fuckface conduct for last. There is something horrible happening in America and many are not even aware of it. It is growing in strength every week and may soon become a serious threat to our daily life.

It is called Adam Lambert. It is a contestant on American Idol. It is being hailed as the greatest find in American Idol history. Here you can watch it rape a Rolling Stones song.



How happy would Andrew Lloyd Webber be with that? I believe doing a gay musical version of any Rolling Stones song is a crime against humanity. Sadly, it cannot be stopped. The judges on American Idol apparently jerk off every time it takes the stage. It’s like watching an asteroid heading towards Earth. We will all suffer – particularly those of us with young daughters.

Daughtry was bad enough, this is unforgivable.

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

This Page lets you see all the members journals by most recent update. You can also get to it by click "all" above the right column member blogs listing.

While fans of the Distillers and other next-generation punk bands should ultimately find this transition natural and easy to follow, Spinnerette --- the new vehicle for former Distillers lead Brody Dalle -- has a decidedly more gentle rock edge as debuted on their first release, the "Ghetto Love... more

While fans of the Distillers and other next-generation punk bands should ultimately find this transition natural and easy to follow, Spinnerette --- the new vehicle for former Distillers lead Brody Dalle -- has a decidedly more gentle rock edge as debuted on their first release, the "Ghetto Love EP."

With languid, thumping rhythms and wiggling guitar underscoring Dalle's considerably quieter but no less fierce vocals, tunes like "Ghetto Love" and "Valium Knights" are the perfect comedown to a rowdy gig from the Distillers, the soothing medication to take after amped Distillers albums like 2002's Sing Sing Death House. The first Spinnerette album, A Prescription for Mankind, will emerge in June.

In a telephone chat with SG, Dalle spoke about her current project, old musical formats, and a fresh approach to creativity in light of becoming a mother in the years since the Distillers parted ways. (She has a daughter, Camille, with her husband, Queens of the Stone Age/Eagles of Death Metal frontman Josh Homme.) In both talent and attitude, she could be in the running for Hot Rock Mom of the Year.

Tamara Palmer: In the few years since you last put an album out, there have been so many changes in the music industry. Have you had to take any precautions against your album or material leaking online before you could have a chance put it out?

Brody Dalle: You know what? I haven't thought about it. We haven't been particularly precious about it and I think having an attitude like that totally helps. If it happens, it happens but I haven't thought about it. You can manifest things if you get too precious and scared or if you think about something too much so I'm glad that's not been a part of my mental process, worrying about whether it's gonna leak or not. I know the Yeah Yeah Yeah's [album] did and that really sucked for them.

This is under a different name so people don't really know it. I think that's one thing that we have going for us. People are probably like, "Who's that?" or "Who cares?" if they have seen it. If it was the Distillers, there'd probably be more of a danger of that happening.

TP: It can go both ways, either by stimulating sales or by cutting into them.

BD: It used to help bands. I remember when we were on [record label] Hellcat and the Offspring album leaked. And they sold 12 million fucking records, so it didn't hurt at all, you know? That was way before the downloading thing took over, when people were excited and they'd hear [the bootleg] and then they'd go get the hard copy. Whereas now, when people have it, they have it. The ADD generation, they're just -- they're movin' on.

TP: That's what I'm afraid of, that the market for the physical product might not be the same as it used to be.


BD: Yeah, it's true, it's really, really unfortunate. There's so much stuff out there for people to buy, we're just getting bombarded with things. I think people just either get overwhelmed or they don't care anymore? It sounds really fucked up, but people are getting really complacent, and if they can just download songs straight to their iPod, why would they need to have this extra thing laying around unless they really are a fan or they really give a shit.

TP: I feel like a dinosaur because I DJ with vinyl and I've got lots of vinyl in the house.

BD: No, that's a dying art and that's beautiful. You should just hold on to that because pretty soon -- I mean, actually, vinyl's kind of had a resurgence, I'm sure you know that.

TP: It seems like it, and right when everyone seemed like they were putting the final nail in the vinyl coffin. Are you doing any kind of vinyl?

BD: Yeah, of course! Yeah, we're doing a single for "Sex Bomb" with a remix by Adam Freeland, and that's coming out in about a month. That's kind of a special release thing that we did, and we'll definitely press up vinyl [for the album]. It's just been a long process to try and just even have this record crown itself. It's been a real uphill battle.

TP: Well, you've had a lot going on as well.

BD: Yeah, but the changes within the industry and people being so gun shy about signing new bands or something they don't know about and people having a hard time having any faith in anything. I looked in the LA Weekly the other day and there were, like, no shows, and I was like, "What the fuck is going on?" I know there's a recession, but entertainment, that's a leisure.

TP: You'd think it'd be more plentiful at this time.

BD: Fuck yeah! But there's nothing going on, I don't know, there's something depressing in the music I'm hearing right now, but hopefully that'll change.

TP: Are you finding difficulties when it comes to booking shows or are you going to tour?

BD: We're definitely gonna tour, it's just a matter of raising the profile of Spinnerette. If if it were the Distillers, it'd be no problem, we could play wherever we wanted and it'd be easy-peasy. But because it's a new band, people don't know about it, but we're going on tour for sure. It starts May 29 on the East Coast and then the record comes out. Then, we'll do the West Coast and the touring will start. Because I have a little girl, it'll be spread out.

TP: That sounds way more civilized anyway.

BD: Yeah, and at this point in my life, even if I didn't have Camille, I don't think I could do an eight-week tour. I think I might just go crazy.

TP: That kind of lifestyle is either for you or not for you: A different city every day for months on end.

BD: Yeah, have you ever toured? I know you guys do the Suicide Girls tour and perform?

TP: I mean, I'm not a performing . . . [laughs]

BD: You're just the writer.

TP: Exactly! But I have been on the road with a band, just not for more than two or three days. I have slept in the little bunks on the tour bus before and don't understand how anyone could do that for very long.

BD: Believe me, it becomes your safe place, like, "I just want to get to my bunk! I just want to get to my bunk." It's like your little haven.

TP: It's a little bit too claustrophobic for me.

BD: That's what we all thought when we first started doing it, but then it becomes your womb.

TP: I can see how it could be.

BD: Also the movement -- a lot of people get car sick, but I don't have that problem so it's like being rocked to sleep.

TP: Okay, I can see how it could sort of be like Magic Fingers.

BD: [laughs] Totally!

TP: So, since you'll be doing short stints on the road, will Camille come with you?

BD: No, not to start, not until we can build a bigger profile and enough momentum. She'll be at home with her daddy. He has a break in his touring cycle, so it works out really good.

TP: Will this be the first time you have been apart from her?

BD: No, we've been apart here and there. My dad died and I was gone for four weeks, which was gnarly, but it was in Australia. That was the longest; that was pretty brutal. She was about a year old, but my husband was here and his family was there so that made a big difference. That was so intense; that's not a good example because my mind was on this awful thing. Josh and I have gone to England once for eight days, he played and it was just kind of a mummy and daddy get-away. You gotta have them. But she's been on tour; she's been on tour with Queens a couple times. She's ready to be a road dog.

TP: What's her interest in music? Is she a rock child?

BD: She has really eclectic tastes and I think it's because we do. I'm not trying to shove anything down her throat. She picks what she likes. She loves Eagles of Death Metal, of course. Basically, she loves the stuff that she hears a lot. When we're in the process of making a record, that's what she hears all the time so she's obsessed with Spinnerette. I remember one time [Distillers/Spinnerette guitarist] Tony [Bevilacqua] and I were driving in the car and she wouldn't let us take it out and play something else. She threw a little tantrum, it was really cute.

TP: She's probably also your own harshest critic, too.

BD: Totally! She will also hear the first bar and she'll know what it is. She loves Cibo Matto actually lately. She loves the Ramones.

TP: Kids love the Ramones!

BD: They do! But come on, how could you not?

TP: So Spinnerette is really almost as new as having a child, or are they about the same age?

BD: It's a bit younger, we've had a couple of incarnations. It started in 2006 after Camille was born. The Distillers broke up before I got pregnant and I played with a whole bunch of people including one of my girlfriends who played bass. Tony and I would just play for hours and gather people together to start something new, and then I got pregnant and put everything on hold. As soon as Camille was born, I went over to [writing partner/member of Eleven] Alain Johannes' house and started demo'ing. It wasn't really even spoken about; it just blossomed into this thing. One of the first songs we wrote was "Ghetto Love" and once we had written it, we were like, "Wow, let's do another one!" And onward it went and then it had a title and became this thing, and the record company wanted us to make a record so they paid for it and onward and upward, that's what happened.

TP: So you didn't cook up any musical concepts when you were pregnant, it just evolved later?

BD: I mean, I did have a lot of ideas, but nothing's really come to fruition until now. It's taken a long time. There's no such thing as accidents, I don't think.

TP: Did you have more to do on this project than you did on the Distillers records? It seemed like that band went through a lot of lineup changes, but you remained at the core. Did you have to handle everything yourself?

BD: I was very hands-on, and if you're talking about the music part, I played everything from Wurlitzer to bass to guitar to percussion. So it's a much more musical project. It's definitely what I want to be doing and is a bit more intricate than the Distillers were. I love the Distillers, but this is really just straight-ahead, easy, not much to think about - except my lyrics, I thought about my lyrics a lot. But the music was simple. And Spinnerette is definitely shooting in a different direction.

(image) SuicideGirls was headbanging alongside Keanu Reeves, Dustin Hoffman and The Chelsea Girls at the American premiere of the rockumentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood last night. Benji and Joel Madden, Henry Rollins, Mark McGrath, Chris Jericho, Ryan Gosling and... more

SuicideGirls was headbanging alongside Keanu Reeves, Dustin Hoffman and The Chelsea Girls at the American premiere of the rockumentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood last night. Benji and Joel Madden, Henry Rollins, Mark McGrath, Chris Jericho, Ryan Gosling and Rufus Sewell also came out to show their support.

The film is a real-life twist on Spinal Tap, telling the story of two friends, Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb "Geza" Reiner, who, at the age of fourteen, pledged to rock together forever. As instigators of the speed metal sound, their band, Anvil, inspired a generation (Metallica, Guns N' Roses and Anthrax, to name but a few). They toured the world with The Scorpions, Bon Jovi and Whitesnake, but while all these band's went on to sell millions, for whatever reason, Anvil faded into obscurity.

Fortunately for them, one fan-turned-friend, Sacha "Teabag" Gervasi, never forgot Anvil's awesomeness. After finding success in Hollywood as the screenwriter of the Steven Spielberg-directed film The Terminal, Gervasi looked up the band that had made a man of him (literally) back in the eighties. He found that, despite their spectacular lack of success in the intervening two decades, Robb and Lips had never given up on their friendship or their dream. Finding this incredibly inspirational, Gervasi decided to tell their story.

At its core, Anvil: The Story of Anvil is an epic anthem about friendship, and the Los Angeles premiere reflected this. Gervasi's buddy Keanu Reeves introduced the film, and friend of the band (and SG) Scott Ian of Anthrax took to the stage with Anvil for a hard rockin' post-film performance. Thanks to the noise this film has created, Lips and Robb, who are now in their fifties, are finally set to get the attention they deserve.

"It was extraordinary," said an excited Gervasi when SG asked him for his post-premiere reaction this morning. "It was overwhelming having Dustin Hoffman come up to me and say it's the most incredibly moving, human film he's ever seen."

Unlike many a Hollywood premiere, where the celebs walk the red carpet for the benefit of the cameras before discretely slipping out the back door before the film starts, the stars in attendance hung around until Anvil's very last chord.

"Dustin Hoffman sat through an Anvil metal concert," Gervasi enthused. "On his feet stamping and cheering. Dustin Hoffman headbanging to '666'!!!"

"I'm beyond words man, I gotta tell you, it's really out there," said Lips, who remains down to earth despite his new found celebrity fanbase (which includes Madonna, Trent Reznor and David Byrne). "The effect of this movie, regardless of your status, of who you are, what kind of person you are, how successful or unsuccessful you are, the kind of effect this has on them is the same. It's such a universal feeling that people seem get from the movie...It doesn't matter who you are, what walk of life, it will affect you and make you feel good."


The Story of Anvil opens in the US on Friday, April 10. Catch Anvil live and see the film on the Anvil Experience tour. Go to AnvilMovie.com for more info, and read our interview with Sacha Gervasi HERE.

Images from left to right:
Top: Steve "Lips" Kudlow, Dustin "Headbanger" Hoffman and Robb "Geza" Reiner. Bottom: Keanu "The Wall" Reeves, Eddie "Metal Show" Trunk, Chris "Man of 1,004 Holds" Jericho and Sacha "Teabag" Gervasi.

Friendship and a strong work ethic are core values for Sarah Connor Chronicles star Lena Headey. The Bermuda-born actress, who was raised in the working-class town of Huddersfield in the North of England, has come a long way, but she remains very down to earth. Since her film debut opposite Jeremy Irons... more

Friendship and a strong work ethic are core values for Sarah Connor Chronicles star Lena Headey. The Bermuda-born actress, who was raised in the working-class town of Huddersfield in the North of England, has come a long way, but she remains very down to earth.

Since her film debut opposite Jeremy Irons in Waterland back in 1992, Headey has built up a lengthy list of credits. Her breakout role didn't arrive until 2006 however, when she played the heroic Queen of Sparta in director Zack Snyder's highly stylized retelling of the story of the Spartan's epic battle with Persia. Having worked to protect her husband, the King of Sparta, in 300, Headey was then called on to protect her on-screen son, John Connor, from the Terminator in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

While working on the Fox TV series, Headey forged a close bond with special effects guru Robert Hall (whose credits also include Buffy, Angel and Pineapple Express) and his partner in slime, producer and actress Bobbi Sue Luther. So when Robert and Bobbi decided to branch out and make their own blood and guts genre horror flick, Headey was more than happy to jump on board.

Though made on a beyond-low budget that was supplemented by friends and favors, Laid To Rest, which was the first film to be shot on Panasonic's new HPX-3000 high-def DV camcorder, has a polished analog look despite its bargain digital price tag. Shot on location at a deserted psychiatric hospital in Maryland, the film exemplifies the DIY methodology of Hollywood's next generation filmmakers.

With Season 2 of Sarah Connor coming to a close, and the fate of a follow up season still hanging in the balance, Headey ultimately hopes to join their ranks. Over the past couple of years, during downtime on TSCC set, the actress worked on her own project, which she describes as a "quirky ensemble comedy." Having penned and prepped it, with The Chronicles behind her for the time being, she now hopes to direct and produce it. If all goes Headey's way, she'll soon be the one making calls to friends for favors.

SuicideGirls called up Headey while she was enjoying a rare moment of rest, surrounded by her dogs, on the couch at her Los Angeles home.

Nicole Powers: I wanted to start at the very beginning, because you've had an interesting life, I mean you were born in Bermuda!

Lena Headey: I was. I was there till I saw five.

NP: Do you have any memories of Bermuda?

LH: I don't really. I look at books on it, photographs, and I do that thing like everybody, it's that sort of edited memory where you think, 'I sort of remember,' but you don't really have a physical memory.

NP: In a way it might be a good thing, because going from Bermuda to Huddersfield might have been I bit of a shock.

LH: Yeah. Quite traumatic!

My mom and dad were in the [police] cadets in Yorkshire, and I don't know what it was about Huddersfield and Bermuda, if it was a twin town, but they took trainees out for a year to Bermuda. They went out there for a year and I came along as a treat midway through.

NP: I can imagine, if it was a twin town thing, no disrespect to the North of England, because I'm from there, but I think someone maybe got a raw deal there.

LH: Yeah! Huddersfield! [laughs]

NP: So your family moved back to Huddersfield and you were there until you were seventeen?

LH: Yeah. I moved to London and worked and lived on various sofas in various houses for about two, probably three years. Then when I was twenty I moved properly down with my friend and we got a flat, and I lived there until two years ago when I moved out here.

NP: Couch surfing being an important skill in any actor's early career.

LH: Yeah. I was a really good couch surfer, but thankfully I had lots of lovely people who really looked after me.

NP: Did you develop a preference for any particular kind of couch?

LH: I liked to have a couch with a dog. I stayed with one friend who had three animals, so I quite liked staying there.

NP: Your online bio says you were in a school play at the Royal Nation Theatre, and someone spotted you and you ended up in a movie opposite Jeremy Irons.

LH: That's actually the truth!

NP: So what kind of school production was it?

LH: Well they did this thing at the Royal National Theatre every year -- I hope they still do it because it's a great opportunity -- where they take youth theater groups and high schools...and they pick about nine to go and do a performance over three nights. So three schools a night get to perform on the Olivier Stage which is pretty magnificent for people who come from a normal high school. And that's what we did. We did this play, which was a fabulous idea from my drama teacher who was like, "Let's do a musical about Vietnam."

NP: A musical about Vietnam?

LH: [laughs] Yes. Fabulous! And that begun my illustrious career.

NP: You have to tell me about a couple of the musical numbers from Vietnam: The Musical.

LH: We were all kind of running around with guns, and then we would stop and sing sad songs about lost sons and weeping mothers. So it had a good sentiment.

NP: Was there any tap dancing involved?

LH: No tap dancing. Just lots of sort of kneeling and singing earnestly about death.

NP: So that makes the story about you being spotted in this production all the more remarkable.

LH: I wasn't spotted in the production...You had to put pictures of the cast up in the foyers, and [my drama teacher] took pictures of us all at school kind of standing around. A casting director called Susie Figgis, who cast Waterland, which was my first film, saw the picture and though, "Oh, she can come and read." And that was it. It was kind of bonkers. It was a little Kodak print picture, and that's how it started. It was mad.

NP: Since then you've worked a lot. You've got a really impressive résumé that was, for the most part, under the radar.

LH: It's not been constant. I wish it had. I've had a couple of years when it's been scary, but it happens to everyone. It's not the most stable career...It's such a weird thing acting. There are jobs you do for love and, I always thought that would be the way, and then you get a mortgage and you get responsibilities and sometimes you've got to do something that will pay the bills because it's too stressful.

NP: So what would you consider your breakthrough role?

LH: I think it was probably 300. If you're talking about something that changed things, I guess it was 300 because it was so huge...

It's a funny thing, I had no deathly ambition to become super famous. I just want to work. I want to be able to put a roof over my head, and make great films and also create a path for me to make movies as a director...I consider myself a working actor and not a famous actor.

NP: In 300, as with Sarah Connor, you're the woman behind the man, working to protect the man, and fighting alongside the man. Does it frustrate you that there's so few strong roles for women?

LH: Sometimes. Sometimes it's frustrating. But throughout Sarah Connor, I've been writing a lot. It's inspired me to write pieces for me and other women and men I know who are great actors who don't necessarily get the chance to do the things they're capable of. I just think it is really frustrating that the great roles for women are given to the top cream of actresses. But that's just the way it is. If you are famous and a great actress, and you bring money in, that then allows you to get the cream of the crop in terms of scripts and characters.

NP: One of the reasons I like the part that you play in Laid To Rest , and also the part that Bobbi plays, is that although it's a genre horror movie, neither of your characters dissolve into the usual pathetic girly hysterical archetype.

LH: Absolutely. I think Rob's a really smart filmmaker. He's just beginning, and I think he's super capable. And I love with Bobbi's character, with the amnesia and kind of really not knowing what's going on, that she was never like a dizzy fool. I enjoyed that, and also they're my mates -- number one -- I'm up for doing anything creative with friends. It's always really good fun and satisfying.

NP: Did you talk about the character beforehand and make the choice that you didn't want to be archetypical screaming girlies?

LH: Well I didn't. I'm sure Bobbi and Rob talked about it for a long, long time. I know Bobbi was nervous about doing it and she pulled it off amazingly well, and I think she's great in the movie.

I'd just done a movie in Rhode Island, and then flew the night that I finished to Rob and Bobbi in Maryland to the mad fucking psycho ward they were filming in. And we just did it. I mean they were shooting for 28 days and nights, straight through pretty much, and I just walked in and did it. It was fun for me. It was a character, instead of playing some pretty girl or someone's girlfriend or something. It was nice to play this woman who was simple, and wanted to take care of someone, and that's really all she was.

NP: How did it come about? How did they convince you to do it -- because it was a very low budget independent movie?

LH: Well, friendship goes along way with me, especially good friends. And I'd seen Rob's first movie he did called, Lightning Bug, and I absolutely fell in love with it. It really charmed me as a film. I just think he's got great potential as a filmmaker and Bobbi's amazing, and can convince anyone to do anything. She's got a producer's persuasion down pat. And then we've got a group of mates and everyone does their own stuff, and then they go, "Do you mind coming in to make cups of tea?" And I'm like, "Absolutely." That's what it's about for me. You can go and make your money and do all of that stuff but then you get back to basics, and it's really exciting and it fills a void perhaps.

NP: I understand that originally you were begging Robert to give your character an eye patch.

LH: Yeah. It's kind of an obsession.

NP: Why the eye patch obsession?

LH: Well, it started a long time ago. I read a script, like ten years ago, and it never got made. Maybe this is why. It was about this crazed, inbred woman, who has one eye and she wore an eye patch. It was a black comedy, and I loved it. I'd love to play her and go full hog with prosthetic teeth and all that. I've been obsessed with having an eye patch...But sadly this wasn't the role for the eye patch.

NP: Hopefully one will come. So you're in Maryland, in an old mental institution, running around with piles of gore. It must have been surreal.

LH: Yeah. I mean the night when I arrived, I got picked up at the airport and we drove to the location, and, honestly, it was quite amazing this place, really bizarre, and kind of interesting and weird. This mental hospital was fucking huge, like vast. As we drove in, there was this massive thunderstorm. It was pitch black, and then lightening would go, and it would light up the entire place. There were two kind of big buildings and then tons of outbuildings where the staff would live and the patients would live.

It was so strange. Just sort of being in that place. There was a morgue downstairs, though I don't think any bodies were in it anymore. But it was the place where they would keep people. They also performed lobotomies until just before it closed, so it's got a huge history. Being there -- I'm a complete believer in other beings being here -- not aliens obviously...

NP: The supernatural?

LH: Yes. So, there were a couple of times when you were sitting there and you're not being used, and you've got a couple of hours, and you'd just go and sit in the main wing of the hospital. It was a long corridor with lots and lots of rooms off it. It was really weird --- really weird. I had my little dog with me, and she would run up the corridor to a certain point, and I would throw a ball and she wouldn't go and get the ball. Every time she'd stop at a door. It was a closed door...and it kept happening.

NP: Where you glad to be out of there by the end?

LH: I was, but I tell you, to make a film of that genre, it's a great place to be. If you're making a horror movie and you've got somewhere like that, it's pretty fantastic. You've got millions of rooms you can dress any way you want. Everything's there for you and it's got a definite tense feeling about it.

NP: Having seen the end result, with all the effects completed, what surprised you the most?

LH: I think it's always surprising when you've got no budget. No budget filmmaking can look very basic when you're watching it being done. I just think visually it's really incredible. All the big crane shots they did outside. I love that one shot where the crane just keep moving and it's all one take, and the guys runs out of the barn, and keeps going, and the mist is curling around -- things like that I'm just impressed by. I think there's no right or wrong in filmmaking. I think you can't really judge too harshly. People are laying out their brain and their heart and experimenting, and it's a complete lesson to try and make movies and see your mistakes and learn. I just think anyone who gets up and actually makes a film deserves some respect. It's a tough thing to fucking do, to pull off.

I think it looks great. I think Bobbi's really great, I think she should be proud of herself. You know, it's a smart horror movie, and their aren't a lot of those, even though I enjoy all of them.

NP: You're working on producing now?

LH: Yes. I've got a script I've written that's a comedy. I've had it for a year, and I've now finished Sarah Connor so I've got time. My heads opened up a little, which is nice. So I finished my script, and I've got a trailer which I shot and I'm editing that, and I'm gong to send them on out and see what happens.

NP: What kind of comedy is it?

LH: It's a quirky ensemble comedy about a group of slightly mad but connected people in Los Angeles. It's kind of a caper with slight odd romance. Everyone's very strange but very amusing. It'll be easy on the eye, and it'll hopefully make people laugh.

NP: And your were writing this while you were doing Sarah Connor?

LH: Yeah. I wrote a short, and I shot it last year, and I somehow managed to get Piper Perabo and John Cleese and various other people to be in it.

NP: Wow. You got John Cleese!

LH: I did. I somehow managed to persuade John Cleese to come hang out and be silly, and, as always, he was wonderful.

NP: Did you know him prior to that?

LH: I did Jungle Book with him years and years ago, and he's a lovely man and we became friends. I hadn't seen him for a long time, and I rung him and I just said, "Would you do me a huge favor." And he said, "I don't usually do this, but for you I will."

NP: I notice the cool people, who are like that, are the ones that continually work. You can do something that shoots you into superstardom, but at the end of the day, if you're not a pleasant person to be around, people aren't going to want to work with you moving forward.

LH: Absolutely. It's true, it's true. That's what I mean about being a working actress. This is my job. I don't see it as a bestowance of greatness. This is just what I do. I pay a mortgage with it, and I also have immense fun and enjoyment in it. When you come up with people that you like and support you, and you can pay that back to other people who want to make movies and help them out, it's a really cool way to live.

NP: Hollywood divas exist, but often only for a very short time in the grand scheme of things.

LH: I think that divas do exist, because people who bring in money box office-wise, they're allowed to behave like that. There is a sort of tolerance for it because it equals money. It's a tricky one. I just hope I can stay in the industry and learn as I keep working either as an actress or, god willing, be able to make my own movies. It's an amazing arena to be in, and yet it needs to be treated with respect. You're always learning, you can never think, "Right! I'm done. I've done it!" There's always things to do, and always people to learn from. All the directors I've worked with -- it's the best university in the world.

NP: Coming from the North of England too, there is this real Northern value of "being down to earth." There's no greater compliment that you can pay someone "up North," than saying, they're great, cause they're "really down to earth."

LH: It's very true. Also, I was brought up with a massive work ethic, like nothing comes for free, and you do it, you commit and you do it. I still believe in that.

NP: When you stop working, what do you do for fun?

LH: I drink. I do a little bit of that. I've literally just finished, Monday I finished work at 10 p.m., and it's been pretty much two years of my life. I'm tired but I'm also so excited about what potentially could happen in the next few months. I've got four dogs, and so I'm walking them, and I'm hanging out with my husband, and seeing mates, and just sort of enjoying my house, which I love. It's sort of a holiday for me. When you don't see something a lot of the time, it's just enjoyable just living instead of just working.

NP: We'll you've traveled so much with your career, I'm sure you're enjoying having a holiday at home.

LH: Exactly.

NP: I understand that you have quite a lot of body art.

LH: Yes.

NP: You don't really see it on Sarah Connor.

LH: Well no, because they hate that I have it. The powers that be say she would never have them...So they cover them up. I don't really mind them doing that because they're my tattoos, they're not Sarah Connor's. It's just part of being an actor.

I personally love them. I find them charming and I feel that they're part of me. A lot of people don't like them, especially in the industry, but everybody has them now. I tell you, if you could find the perfect chemistry for covering up a tattoo, you'd be a billionaire.

NP: What do they use on you? Just heavy foundation?

LH: Thee are lots and lots of products for tattoo coverage. It's a very laborious process to get them done, to get them covered. I know people are constantly working on ways to do it quickly. If you can find the right ingredients so the skin doesn't wrinkle and it doesn't go dry and it doesn't change color, I'm telling you that's the secret billionaire's ingredient. If you can get that, you're fucking laughing.

NP: What's your favorite tattoo?

LH: I like them all really. I've just had my back piece finished and I love that. It's a big piece on my back with peonies and swallows. It's got a lot of movement in it, and it's just something I'd always wanted to do. It goes from my lower back, it sort of curls around my womanly shapes, and then it just comes up around my shoulder.

NP: Where did you have that done?

LH: I had that done in Brooklyn in New York, by a friend of mine called Chops who has a shop called Hold Fast. He's now moved to Portland, but he came to stay with us, and he finished it off for me here in Los Angeles.

NP: How many hours under the needle was that?

LH: I'd say seven, on and off. But I fell asleep during the last one. I find it incredibly relaxing.

NP: The pain doesn't bother you at all?

LH: Sometimes, on various bits, on various parts of my body it does, but Chops is really wonderful. He's very fast and he's one of the most lovely men in the world. He did Rob's arm, and he did a couple of tattoos on Bobbi. We all went round to Bobbi's for dinner and he brought his tattoo kit. We had dinner, and then we had a little bit of ink.

NP: I told our Twitter followers that I was going to be chatting to you, and I got some questions from them that I should ask you. @clairaudience wants to know what scares you about the future and technology?

LH: I'm already scared by technology because I'm rubbish at it...That's what's funny about it. Literally, I'm rubbish...That's why it's called acting -- I'm so far from Sarah Connor it's not even funny.

NP: Next question from Twitter: @trevor31u wants to know how you feel about following in the footsteps of Linda Hamilton?

LH: Like I say, I don't consider my legacy, or anything like that. I did my job. I did my job as best I could and I committed to playing her and that's it really. It's not rocket science. I can't explain anymore than that.

NP: I think because you make things so simplistic, that's why your characters are so real. You don't have this formal training that says you need to walk in certain ways and project your voice, you're not putting all these things on top of what you're doing. Your MO is that you just want to make it believable.

LH: Absolutely. I think for example, you take Sean Penn in Milk and you take Mickey Rouke in The Wrestler. Two brilliant performances but very different ways of acting. I mean Mickey Rouke, very real, very raw, a very honest performance, and moving and open. Sean Penn became this other person. It was like he inhabited someone else's body, and it was a fucking amazing performance. So there's lots of different ways of acting, but for me, I'm not playing a historical character, I'm playing a mother who is a single parent, bringing up a teenage son, who also happens to save the world -- as a byline to her life. And the way I would play that is someone who's passionate and scared and angry and a mother, all these things. So I approach that just trying to be honest within the boundaries of her...There are different ways to be angry, and there are different ways to show excitement, and different ways to show lust, and all these things, and I just think, with all these people, how would it come through them.

NP: The final Twitter question is rather bizarre, but here we go: @bob_hope wants to know if you like pound cake?

LH: What is pound cake.

NP: It's one of those generic spongy things.

LH: Not really a massive sponge fan to be honest. Do you know what I love? My friends bring it out -- Angel Delight! As bad as it is, on those cold mornings I think, "Oh, I'm going to whip up a bowl of Butterscotch Angel Delight." It is the most pikey, white trash desert you could ever have, but occasionally that's good.


The season 2 finale of The Sarah Connor Chronicles will air on Fox on Friday, April 10 at 8 PM ET/PT.

Laid To Rest will be available on DVD on Tuesday, April 21. You can also follow Laid To Rest and the film's stylish serial killer ChromeSkull (ChromeSkullVictims.com) on MySpace and Facebook.

(image) I've been fortunate to have lived many extraordinary lives and reincarnations in just this one lifetime. Forget about all the others. One life at a time, baby! That's my motto these days. Let the chips fall wherever they may. I'd much much rather be an anonymous starving writer... more

I've been fortunate to have lived many extraordinary lives and reincarnations in just this one lifetime. Forget about all the others. One life at a time, baby! That's my motto these days.

Let the chips fall wherever they may. I'd much much rather be an anonymous starving writer living under a tree full of monkeys shitting down my neck here in Brazil any old day than ever go back to being a famous celebrity tattoo artist or even an obscenely overpaid movie star...

Back in the Nineties though, back in another lifetime, we had a little gang, me and Johnny Depp and Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop. We even dubbed ourselves the Death is Certain Club. We all wore the same skull ring and we all had the same tattoo. We were tight. Brothers...

Anyway, I hadn't seen Johnny Depp in a few months. I think the last time he'd come around, we'd both been in a big old barroom brawl involving hecklers and Hells Angels and cops and high-risk adventures and drama. The usual legendary shit we always seemed to fall into together whenever he came to visit New York City.

The following account is about the day I almost hung out with Hunter Thompson. It didn't come off quite as planned...

But I will say this: I've hung out with Hells Angels for a LOT longer than Hunter Thompson ever did, and I never got my ass kicked by 'em... Maybe cuz I don't drink the way Hunter did, God rest his soul...

- Jonathan Shaw
Rio De Janeiro, 2009



The Day I Gave Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson the Finger
by Jonathan Shaw

I was walking around the 26th street flea market, killing time, waiting for the call from Johnny Depp to come through on my little Nokia cell phone. It was another late summer Sunday afternoon in the mid-90's and I was a big shot New York City underground tattoo artist with a pocket full of cash and a fancy new cell phone, waiting for a call from my big deal fucking movie star brother.

A few years earlier I was a loser. Broke and unknown, living in a little shack in a squalid favela in Brazil with no electricity or running water, no phone, no money, no friends, circling the drain in drug addiction and obscurity. But now I was here. Reincarnated again. What a life!

Johnny had called an hour earlier and told me that he and Hunter Thompson were sitting up in Hunter's room in some fancy hotel where they were both staying somewhere way the fuck uptown doing press or doing lines or doing some fucking legendary thing.

Hunter S. Fucking Thompson! He'd always been one of my big literary heroes, ever since I'd first gobbled up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with a handful of good 1970's LSD as a crazed, rootless teenager running the streets of Hollywood with other wild-eyed Manson Family refugees.

JD hadn't been round to visit NYC for a few months, so we were overdue for a reunion. Now he was staying way the fuck uptown, way up there in the sanctified stratosphere of the 50's. Maybe it was the 60's...70's. It all got to be a big blur up there in the high numbers for guys like me and my friends and neighbors, Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop. We rarely strayed from our sheltered little septic bunkers way downtown on the Lower East Side.

So there I was, nursing a psychic nosebleed, wandering around the flea market up there in the 20's, like a dark helmeted deep sea diver taking time to decompress in safe, familiar waters to keep from moving up too fast and getting a deadly case of the bends or something. I walked around in my usual afternoon stupor, not really shopping though, since I actually had a plan for the rest of that day, and even a destination. Somewhere to go on my old Triumph Bonneville 650 -- as soon as JD called.

"JS! What's up, buddy?"

A familiar voice snaps me out of my spell and I look up. It's just my friend, Biker Billy. 6'4" and 275 pounds of heavily tattooed muscle-bound hustle. Biker Billy was a sometimes Hells Angel hang around who haunted the flea market like some diamond Rolex-wearing, shaggy-grinning lunatic pirate scourge. I'd known Billy since before he was an FXR-riding sidewalk commando. Since he was still just a schoolboy, a button-down uptown preppy who went nuts on liquor and drugs on the downtown scene and suddenly emerged one day looking like some hung-over shabby tattooed Kossak, mercilessly reinventing himself as a cheap second-generation knockoff of guys like me. There seems to be a very fine line between fear and love and respect and imitation sometimes. Just ask Captain Jack the Pirate... But that's another story.

So Biker Billy looms and lurks and hovers over me as he tells me he's got something I've just fucking gotta see. I blow him off. Biker Billy's ALWAYS got something you just gotta see. That's his hustle.

But sometimes he really did come through -- not that I'd ever give him the satisfaction of letting him know it. Finally, after much sneering and pestering back and forth, the two of us shifting around on the flea market asphalt like a couple of angry crabs in the desert sand, I gave Biker Billy a shot at the big time.

"Alright, hot shot, let's see watcha got," I sneered as he reached in the inside pocket of his leather jacket, looking around like a criminal.

"Cut the shit," I said to counter his contrived dramatic effect and disguise my own growing curiosity. Then Biker Billy produced a dusty looking zip-loc bag and handed it to me proudly.

"What the fuck is this?" I spat. It looked like an old bag of dried up dog shit.

"Check it out, dude," he smirked. That same smirk was plastered on my memory banks like Puerto Rican gang graffiti on a jailhouse wall. He wore that smirk when he sat down at my desk at the tattoo shop a year earlier and unveiled a gruesome decapitated human head in a jar for me...So I was prepared as I cautiously opened the bag and rolled a turd-like item out onto the palm of my hand. Fuck. I was holding a petrified human finger! With a perfectly manicured fingernail. There were four more fingers in the plastic bag. Biker Billy had robbed a fucking grave or something now...Fucking tattooed freak.

"Where did this shit come from, man?" I asked casually.

"They're souvenirs some guy brought back from 'Nam, I think," he said.

"You THINK!?"

"Well, the guy I got 'em from told me..."

"Some guy told you..." I sneered, already depreciating the goods, hopefully driving the eventual price down. Biker Billy shrugged, losing ground. "Talk about a fuckin' trick bag..."

"I'll give em to ya cheap, man," he whispered desperately.

"Whatever, dude," I said unaffected, holding the bag away from me as if it stunk.

"How much you want for this shit anyway?"

"For you, man...Fifty bucks."

"Fifty bucks?!? For THIS!? You gotta be fuckin' kidding!" I knew Billy didn't pay more than twenty, so I figured I'd just try and get him down to thirty and let him make a ten spot for his trouble. Who else was he gonna sell a bag of somebody's severed, dried-up digits to around here?

"This shit ain't for me man," I said shaking my head, handing him his bag back, lowering the boom on his ass.

"Gimme forty," he said suddenly, refusing to take the bag.

"Uhh uhhn" I said. This was the moment of truth. "I'll give ya thirty... and ya better take it fast, Billy, before I change my fuckin' mind."

"Thirty five," he tried. I had him.

"No way! I don't WANT this shit, Billy!"

"Ok ok. Gimme the thirty," he said, biting the dust as I quickly stuffed the bag of dubious origin in my pocket. I handed him thirty and walked away fast, leaving him standing him there talking to himself. I was halfway across the lot when I answered the call.

"JS," I said.

"What's up, fucker," that ultra famous voice crackled through the airwaves.

"Nothin' to it, man. What's up witchoo, big time?"

"Just finishing up here. You comin' up? Hunter wants to meet you."

"That makes two of us, brother. How soon?"

"Whenever you get here. We'll dangle with Hunter for a minute,
then go down your way. You motorized?"

"Got a spare helmet if ya don't mind sittin' bitch for a minute. See ya in fifteen." I hung up, putting the Nokia in my pocket with my bag full of fingers as I got on the old Triumph and gave it a kick...



I'd forgotten all about my bizarre little purchase by the time I pulled the bike up on the sidewalk in front of the plush hotel. A dour-faced white haired porter in a red monkey-grinder's suit approached purposefully with a look of disdain as I got off my dirty black wasp, obviously about to shoo me off hotel property like an oversized shit fly.

"I'm here to see my brother, Johnny Depp," I said casually, as I planted a greasy black motorcycle boot onto their fancy-pants red carpet.

"Johhny Depp..." He mumbled. "Oh, yes, of course! Yes sir, just go to right up to the desk and they'll announce you...I'll keep an eye on your...Motorcycle for you, sir..." Instant attitude change, right before my eyes. I glided like Fred Astaire over to the front desk.

"May I help you, sir?" A pleasant young front desk jockey in a spotless black suit said in an ear-pleasing British accent. I especially dug the 'sir' thing.

"Uhh, Johnny Depp's room?" I said.

"Oh, of course," he said, looking relieved, as if I'd suddenly solved a puzzling riddle for him.

"I'll ring you up just now," he said pleasantly.

"And your name, sir?"

"JS."

"Yes sir," he said as he lifted the phone and called the room. After a minute, the handsome young man frowned, ever so pleasantly. "I'm so sorry, sir. They don't appear to be answering in that room. Would you care to have a seat for a moment?"

"Can't I just go up?" I said. "He's expecting me. I just spoke to him a few minutes ago..."

"I'm sorry, sir. All visitors must be announced."

Then I remembered. They were in Hunter's room. I told the desk guy to try Hunter Thompson's room and he did.

After a minute, same frown, same story. Shit. I staggered over to a plush white sofa and plopped my greasy biker ass down in defeat. Hurry up and then fucking wait. So I sat there and waited. And I waited.

Every once in a while I wandered over to the front desk and the pleasant handsome young man in the spotless black suit looked up from whatever he was doing to try the room again. Same frown. Same helpless shrug. I went back to my post, waiting.

Half an hour later I was sick of waiting. I paced the lobby, watching the elevator, looking at my Rolex. What if I just made a run for the elevator and went up? Fuck. I didn't even know the room number. I looked over at the pleasant young man behind the desk. He managed to smile reassuringly and shrug helplessly at the same fucking time. He was good. British. A born diplomat. Probably gay. He wasn't gonna give me that fucking room number. No way. Hotel policy. I shrugged back and tried to smile, squeezing out something that probably looked more like an agonized gold-toothed rigor mortis grimace.

Forty-five minutes gone by. Fuck this. I was done. I walked back up to the front desk and asked the pleasant young man for an envelope and a piece of stationary. He gladly obliged.

Here I was. Just another big fucking loser, a greasy old nobody waiting in a fucking fancy hotel lobby for some movie star who didn't give a shit. Self-pity is a terrible malady. And I was drowning in it, going down fast.

Vindictive, I sat back down on the sofa and laid out the crisp sheet of hotel stationary on the table in front of me. Fifty-three minutes passed. Fair enough...I got out my Mont Blanc and I wrote:

I looked around. Then I reached in my pocket and took out the dusty zip-loc bag, lowered it discreetly between my knees and opened it. Nobody around. Fuck it. I reached in the plastic bag and extracted a finger with a good-looking fingernail on it. Middle, I think. That would do the trick.

Then I remembered Hunter. A writer of his status was certainly worthy of a finger of his very own. I popped out another one. Index. I quickly rolled the two dried digits in my hastily scrawled note like a burrito and dropped it into the envelope. I licked the envelope somewhat distastefully, wondering vaguely about possible diseases. I stood up and looked at my watch.

Over an hour. Ample justification. I looked at the elevator. Fuck it. I sauntered over to the pleasantly smiling, helplessly shrugging young British diplomat at the front desk. He smiled back pleasantly. No turning back now.

"Something's come up, man. I gotta go," I said. "Would you please make sure this envelope gets delivered to Johnny Depp personally? Its very important."

"Of course I will," the pleasant young hotel man smiled pleasantly, reassuringly, taking the grim package from my sweaty hand. I thanked him and walked quickly out of the hotel. I got back on my greasy old motorcycle and rode the fuck out of there.

I would've gladly given a thousand bucks to be a roach on the wall of that fucking hotel room when they opened that envelope!

Here's Johnny Depp's full account, faithfully reconstructed from my own memories of the many times I've heard him tell the story over the last ten years:

Here's what Hunter had to say:



(c) Jonathan Shaw 2009.

Jonathan Shaw began writing as a contributor for the LA Free Press in the late 60s. In the early 70s, he trained as a tattoo artist in Long Beach under the legendary Bob Shaw. He opened his own joint, Fun City Tattoo, in 1976 in New York's East Village. After traveling the world extensively as a tattoo artist and managing editor of tattoo magazines, he retired from tattooing in 2001, moving to Rio De Janeiro to begin his next chapter as a full time writer. His first book, Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes, is available from Amazon.com. To read more of Jonathan's writing check his blog at ScabVendor.com. You can also follow Jonathan on Twitter @jsfuncity.

Oh, Peter Sagal. Has thou forsaken us? By all the gods of mythology, Peter, why do they "have to"? Where is that rule? Why say farewell? So they can make room for baseball and soap operas and needlepoint, obsessions and interests that are oh so much more relevant to adults than our brand of... more

Oh, Peter Sagal. Has thou forsaken us?

I am thirty-five. And married with a daughter. I’m a grownup who thinks about car payments and deadlines and vacuuming and the horrible state of the economy. And I am also a card-carrying, proud, never-deny-it, geek.

Of course, as I have been writing this column for close to a year, this should not surprise you, dear reader. I just felt the need to say it.

I’ve been a geek for many, many years. I have always loved sci-fi and fantasy, but squashed it a bit in high school to fit in and be cool. (I failed.) I never became comfortable with myself till I accepted that yeah, I like robots and RPGs and Star Wars and Star Trek and zombies and Cthulhu and superheroes.

Notice. I say I “like.” Not I “liked.” Tense is important.

I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. I read L’Engle, Hickman and Saberhagen (and even wrote some Lost Swords fanfic before I knew what fanfic was). I had an Atari and a Commodore 64, and access to a Ms Pac-Man machine at the local gas station where my dad would take me as a reward for good grades. Being geeky kept me sane and kept my imagination strong. Reading and experiencing these magical worlds encouraged me to steal my mom’s word processor and start banging out my first novels and short stories at age twelve.

I’m not alone. My social circle consists mostly of geeks, people who understand me and are passionate about the same things. I married a geek. We are all adults, taxpayers, parents. People who can debate politics with one breath and when exactly Heroes jumped the shark with the next.

We are not losers. We shower regularly. We are aware of current events. We are productive members of society. And, Peter Sagal, one of us is even the president.

I truly love finding out that famous people, the pop culture icons that we look up to, are geeks too. Vin Diesel role plays. Stephen Colbert can recite Tom Bombadil lyrics on the spot from memory. And, Peter, you yourself had a bona-fide geekgasm when Leonard Nimoy appeared on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!.

I love Wait, Wait for its snarky tone and Sagal’s charisma. Only in recent years did I discover he was a geek, which made me like it more. Although I admit it does make me raise my eyebrows when he mocks geeks, apparently going for the “smelly guy in his mom’s basement” cliche for a cheap laugh, which has happened on WWDTM more than once. If you’re going to mock us, mock us for the real stuff: obsessive comic book bagging, boarding and boxing instead of reading, or the incessant “let me tell you about my character” virus that spreads throughout RPG circles.

The blog post in question was in response to an essay about how he spent his geeky childhood reading Lord of the Rings and letting his Hobbit-inspired imagination run wild, and worries about how his daughters are spending their childhoods, looking at various flickering screens. It sounded like he is grumbling, “Kids these days… when I was a boy, we didn’t HAVE video games or the Internet, we read the books and we LIKED IT.”

Are you trying to be what you think an adult is supposed to be; are you squashing what you are in order to fit a mold? You claim to have "geek cred" but then you put down all you've learned. So what if Elvish or Klingon aren't "useful"? Did you learn about the dangers of over-surveilance in 1984? Did you learn about appreciating the simple things from life in the Shire in LoTR? And hell, what were Spider-Man and Buffy the Vampire Slayer but metaphors for how high school can really suck and be overwhelming -- and how the gift of magic bullet-like superpowers wouldn't just fix everything? Read sci-fi short stories from the 1940's and see if you can determine what the people in the real world were thinking about nuclear radiation. A lot of speculative fiction is just a slightly tilted mirror of our own world, commenting on it.

And by the way, I look at what our heroes faced in The Two Towers and think, gee, maybe my bad afternoon with a burned dinner and cranky kiddo isn't so hard to deal with. So yeah, Tolkien did teach me a thing about parenting.

Upon hearing Zach Ricks' latest Geek Survival Guide podcast (fabulously funny advice that you’ll probably never need -- although this episode was dealing with how non-geeks treat geeks, so it had some more solid advice alongside the usual topics such as army ants, vampires, and gremlins), my six-year-old daughter piped up that she was definitely a Pokemon geek, also a Star Wars geek. Yeah, she plays the games on her DS, but only for a limited time every day. When her time is up, she leaves the little flickering screen, runs upstairs, puts on a costume, and plays Darth Vader. Or another costume lets her be a karate master. Or she goes to the kitchen table to draw up her own Pokemon, complete with name and special powers and evolutions. She has an unwavering ambition to be an inventor and has promised me a set of Boba Fett armor, complete with jetpack. We are raising a little geek, and I am absolutely thrilled.

And you know, since my husband and I are geeks too, we can understand her Pokemon comments, and play Lego Star Wars with her, and discuss how Darth Vader eats if he has his helmet on all the time. Another way being geeky has helped our parenting.

By all the gods of mythology, Peter, why do they "have to"? Where is that rule? Why say farewell? So they can make room for baseball and soap operas and needlepoint, obsessions and interests that are oh so much more relevant to adults than our brand of geek? You can still understand the real world and enjoy speculative fiction.

And what if one of your daughters grows up to create the next D&D? Or to write the next Sandman? Or to direct the next Dark Knight? Will you then wish she had left the “childish things” behind?

It was your geekiness that made your Leonard Nimoy interview so damn good, and I’m willing to bet it’s the geek in your personality that’s made me such a fan for ten years. But I have to admit, your talk of wishing you had been less geeky in the past breaks my heart just a little bit, Peter. Geeks have enough trouble defending ourselves, it actively hurts us to have someone act like their once geeky life was a waste of time.

Really, all I can say to you is, "SoH DIchDaq jatlh SoH 'oH QoS!" (Or, if you prefer, in Elvish, "O shor mae O eisi mysia.")


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.