Hello, girls and boys! I once lost here and with a dream of becoming an SG, I plan to make soon! I think the rest is just. Sorry for bad english, I'm not good at other languages. ;p

I'm done dating girls; i'm turning zoophile Anyways, check out this awesome band, please! and let me know what you think about their songs How was your christmas and all ? (image) Love, S. more

I'm done dating girls; i'm turning zoophile

Anyways, check out this awesome band, please! and let me know what you think about their songs

How was your christmas and all ?



Love, S.

guys, i am so bad at keeping up with this website. i'm probably just going to have to get my boyfriend to shoot a set for me since it's the only way i'll feel comfortable! (image) how is everyone!? i'm currently at home in indiana for break but i'm returning to nyc in two days. more

guys, i am so bad at keeping up with this website. i'm probably just going to have to get my boyfriend to shoot a set for me since it's the only way i'll feel comfortable!






how is everyone!? i'm currently at home in indiana for break but i'm returning to nyc in two days. i recently moved to brooklyn and i love it. maybe i'll do a set in my apartment?

Sleeves up and down to work ... I went to Copanhagen and met some cool people and learnt some cool things, the climate summit however didn't come to an agreement. The campaign "Hopenhagen" was changed by some very creative people to "Nopenhagen" and "Brokenhagen". I... more

Sleeves up and down to work ...

I went to Copanhagen and met some cool people and learnt some cool things, the climate summit however didn't come to an agreement. The campaign "Hopenhagen" was changed by some very creative people to "Nopenhagen" and "Brokenhagen". I went to the ALBA where i saw Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez. That was pretty epic, I went with my Bolivian crew LOL and we represented ourselves quite well and our president did us proud. However the amazing Chavez spoke until people got tired and left, I'm all for his politics but that man can talk the cows home (if that's the correct expression).

















I've also been CRAZY about "Jerk" culture





On a personal level, me and my best friend are now together
We have been an offical couple for only two weeks now, but it seems much longer, I'm happy.
Plus the sex is fucking amazing

Dita Von Teese is one of the world's most dazzling women. The Swarovski-adorned mistress of striptease has done more to preserve and promote the hallowed art of burlesque than any other performer alive today. Her sexy and spectacular shows feature stunning costumes and larger-than-life props, but... more

Dita Von Teese is one of the world's most dazzling women. The Swarovski-adorned mistress of striptease has done more to preserve and promote the hallowed art of burlesque than any other performer alive today. Her sexy and spectacular shows feature stunning costumes and larger-than-life props, but are always grounded in the purity of the classic art form. Thus they have an innate dignity that never relies on the kind of bump and grind sleaze that many of Dita's contemporaries mistake for erotica.

In a league of her own, the Michigan born and Orange County raised girl, who once had aspirations of becoming a ballerina, is an international glamour icon. Celebrated both for her performance art and her impeccable vintage style, her world-class status was sealed in October 2006 when she became the first ever featured headlining guest performer at the legendary Crazy Horse in Paris. She returned to the prestigious cabaret club in February of this year for a limited two week run which was so successful that she was immediately booked again for another series of shows the following month.

The hottest ticket in town, Dita's run at the Crazy Horse attracted such luminaries as Jean Paul Gaultier, Kanye West, Kylie Minogue, and Stephen Spielberg, among others. Her performances are as rare as they are exotic however, in part due to the time and expense they take to conceive. Fortunately those who are unable to witness Dita in the flesh have two new options. The first is a DVD of Dita's Crazy Horse show. The second is Stripteese, a set of three miniature flip-books books which capture individual facets of her repertoire and come packaged together in a deluxe gift box.

We caught up with Dita to find out more about the books and DVD, her new Opium Den set which was 4 years in the making, her plans for shows in Paris and Vegas in 2010, and her life in the romance capital of the world.

Nicole Powers: From reading your last interview with SG (with Daniel Robert Epstein in 2006), I understand you're keen that people appreciate the history of burlesque. The format of this set of books harks back to vintage Victoriana. What inspired you to do the mini flip-book format?

Dita Von Teese: The photographer, Sheryl Nields approached me with this book idea, and we took it to my publisher. Sheryl and I had worked together on several occasions for magazines and ad campaigns. I always liked working with her a lot, and trusted her to shoot my shows, which is rare for me because with all the time and money it takes for me to build a show, I don't let just anyone shoot them. But I really love her as an artist and as a person, and I loved her idea for this book. I just showed up and did my hair and makeup and did my show for her as she shot it stop-animation style. The end result is fabulous. I'm happy with the way the three little flip books look tucked inside the velvet-flocked bookcase. It's been selling well for the holidays.

NP: What was the technical process to capture images that would move as you flipped them. Was it done on a still or video camera? And how long did it take?

DVT: It was shot on a still camera and on the RED camera. Each show was shot in its entirety and we used the one we liked best. I think we did two days of shooting for it, several months apart from each other because the first was just done for fun, before the idea for the book.

NP: The packaging is exquisite. Where you involved in the design of that too?

DVT: Actually, for this book, all I did was describe the kind of look I wanted, and then approve it. I've always had this obsession with velvet flocked wallpaper, because when I was little, like 5, I remember that the house I moved into has this gold flocked wallpaper in the dining room, and I was devastated that my mother had it torn down. So I always have this flocked wallpaper in my houses since I first moved out as a teenager, and the cover of the book is inspired by it too.

They did a great job. I've been working on my step-by-step how to beauty book, so I didn't have a lot of time to devote to the design of this flip-book, so I kind of left the design to them and was thrilled that it came out so beautifully. I just wanted to pose for the pictures and do the promotion and signings for this book this time around, because my other book Burlesque and The Art of the Teese was an arduous task because I insisted on being hands-on. This time I had to let go a little bit.

NP: Stripteese depicts three of your burlesque sets: Bird of Paradise, Classic and Martini Glass. What's the creative process you follow when you decide to create a new set?

DVT: The Bird of Paradise and the Martini are longtime shows of mine, but I wanted to do a third more intimate striptease for this too -- "the Classic" -- which isn't a stage show I do. I wanted to make one of the books more of an intimate striptease, and less burlesque-y. So I wore this beautiful magenta silk corset that Mr. Pearl made for me. I think it's my favorite of the three flip-books.

With regards to the process of actually making a new burlesque number, it's different every time. Some of the shows I make take about four to six months to create if it's a real rush, but most of them take much longer. For instance, my newest act, The Opium Den, took about four years to complete because the set is very elaborate, the costume was intense to make, the hand props were difficult, and I had a hard time deciding how I wanted the show to play out, so I kept procrastinating on finishing it.

And the music presented a whole new challenge. I have all my show music custom made for me these days, and so for this Chinese themed show there was a chance to do something really unique with the music. It's very traditionally cinematic at the start, somewhat dark, then turns ultra sexy, then turns somewhat humorous with some real retro burlesque Chinese music.

For one of the songs I took The Cure's "Lullaby" and had it turned into this powerful and sexy Chinese song. People go wild over it when it kicks in, because you recognize it, and it's very powerful. I have this incredible music guy that I work with, he always manages to pull off my absurd ideas. He has the patience of a saint, which is vital when you're working with someone like me who has absolutely no musical vocabulary.

But every show I make is different and presents new challenges. The three new shows I made for The Crazy Horse were really fun because I got to work closely with the dancers to create shows with them, which I loved. I also recorded two songs for those shows. Singing was a whole new thing for me, but I got offered a record deal from it, which is hilarious to me because I'm really terrified of singing, probably because I hate the sound of my own voice.

NP: I understand your longtime friend Catherine D'Lish designs your costumes. I assume this must be quite a collaborative process. How does that work?

DVT: Well, she's a fabulous costume designer, and it was fun all those years when we would work together because we both had this obsession with Swarovski crystal and we would like to see how far we could take it, how many crystals could we get on a costume. I'm sponsored by Swarovski, so we were able to order all these extravagant custom-cut rhinestones in any color, shape and size we wanted, and she would have this amazing team working for her, like a family. It was great because, as a fellow performer, she knows how the costumes have to work, and could figure out inventive ways for the pieces to come off. Catherine has been performing herself a lot more these days, so she's been shifting focus on her own shows, so this year I decided to work with some other designers for the shows that I did at The Crazy Horse.

I worked with Christian Dior and Elie Saab on the gowns, and Mr. Pearl on the corsets, Stephen Jones did my headpieces, and Christian Louboutin made custom shoes for me. It was amazing to work closely with Elie Saab, he did three gowns made in the haute couture atelier in Paris. There was one insane moment where I asked for a swatch of the fabric one of the gowns was made of, this very fine almost invisible tulle that had silver beaded stars all over it. It's this long trailing beautiful gown [which has] miles of this gorgeous beaded tulle...So they come back with two things -- a piece of plain tulle and a bag of the beads. I had no idea that each and every bead -- hundreds of thousands of them -- was embroidered on by hand. It was amazing. That's what true haute couture is. I'm baffled by the details in the workmanship, and of course, shocked that I get to wear them onstage.

Right now I'm working with Mr. Pearl on a new costume. He's meticulous in his fittings, and has incredible taste, so it's nice to let it go and trust everything to him. It's all Swarovski jonquil, which is a beautiful canary yellow, and it's got tons of yellow curled ostrich. It's been in the works about two years now because the beadwork is very fine, and the fit of his corsets is beyond anything. Somehow he gets the tiniest waist you can imagine, but he makes the corsets out of this very fine mesh, so it's hardly there, and is like a second skin. Honestly, no one knows how he does it. That's why Jean Paul Gaultier and all the designers in Paris enlist him. No one can do what he does!

I'm baffled by the feel and the look of his corsets. I know that when I'm long gone, those corsets he has made for me are going to be the most important pieces of clothing I ever owned. He's a very good friend, and my Paris apartment is very near to him, so we have fittings and sip violet champagne. Mr. Pearl is obsessed with violets. He always brings me a little bunch of them and he smells of violet perfume. He's the most elegant man in existence!

NP: You've been so influential fashion-wise, bringing vintage and burlesque style into the mainstream. You've also designed a super-cute T for H&M for their Fashion Against Aids campaign and have a limited edition Wonderbra lingerie line. Do you have any other future projects clothing-wise?

DVT: I love working with Wonderbra. It's been a really great collaboration the past two years. I also have a signature stocking collection. I would really love to branch out into a clothing line, maybe a line that looks at my own vintage clothing collection and recreates some of those amazing lost designs.

NP: Could you see yourself devoting more of your life to fashion design down the line?

DVT: I would definitely like to continue working with lingerie, and if the right opportunity comes along that I feel I can put my name on and my energy into, and feel good about, yes, I would like to do more. But I'm careful about which things I lend my name to. I've been offered jeans campaigns, and obviously, that wouldn't make sense for me.

NP: Your frequently go en pointe in your shows and are seen wearing pink/red point shoes in the Bird of Paradise images. This question's for the ballet geek in me (SG actually has a ballet group). Are you traditional in your choice of pointe shoe? Or do you go for a little comfort and modern day technology with a Gaynor Minden type shoe?

DVT: I haven't been dancing on pointe as often as I used to. Somewhere along the way I started having high heels made as backup for all the shows I do on pointe, because I would get so nervous over "real" dancers being in the audience. At The Crazy Horse, all the Paris Opera Ballet stars came to see me, and that was daunting! But I still dance on pointe from time to time onstage, especially for my Powder Compact and Carousel show, and of course for the burlesque Swan Lake [The Black Swan].

And yes, I go for the Gaynor Mindens. A friend of mine with ABT [American Ballet Theatre] told me years ago that they would change my life and make me more stable onstage, and she was right. I've been dancing on pointe since I was 11 years old. I learned the right way the hard way and at this point, at 37, I don't need the extra suffering, and I like the extra flex Gaynors. But I would love to see the SG ballet troupe someday! You would love the music I had made, it's all the most famous parts of Swan Lake re-recorded in striptease big band style. It's hilariously genius!

NP: Do you still take ballet classes?

DVT: Yes, I just started up again the other day. My friend Liz Goldwyn, who also has a fabulous burlesque book called Pretty Things, brought me to a bitch of a Balanchine class. My inner thighs are on fire still! I also used to take private classes with a Russian teacher. I love the flamboyant Russian style. I'm always looking for ballet classes with funny teachers and live piano accompaniment.

NP: What else do you do to keep in shape?

DVT: I do a lot of Pilates. I work out with Mari Windsor in LA. She's amazing. I do that about 4-5 times a week. She has this amazing DVD every girl should have. It's a 20 minute butt and leg workout with a rubber band. I do it when I'm traveling. Sometimes I do yoga too, and then I also have a little trampoline that I take out in my house, and I run and dance on that thing to my favorite obnoxious dance music. It's a killer cardio workout. I love to eat you see, so I have to work out. I believe that variety is the key to keeping up the momentum and having a successful workout regime.

NP: At his point in your career, how many people do you have in your creative team?

DVT: Well, still no glam squad, no stylist, no hair/makeup team. I like being self-reliant in that way. I have a few favorite makeup and hair people that I work with on certain shoots, but I don't use a team for red carpet things or anything like that. I think independence is vital. But I have a manager, publicist, a prop wrangler, a personal assistant and a pet sitter, and I guess I have about three attorneys that specialize in different things. I guess that's not exactly a "creative" team. My manager is really the only one I work with on a creative level. I can't live without her. I can count on her for everything. When I'm making a new show, creatively, I usually think about the show and research and hire someone. For instance, I hired trip ropers for roping lessons for my cowgirl show, and I hired a bull rider to teach me how to ride my mechanical-bull lipstick, and yeah, I smoked opium the traditional way to "get a feel" for my Opium Den show. Research!

NP: Your shows -- and the photos in Stripteese -- feature elaborate props. Who designs and builds them?

DVT: I work with a few different prop makers. I go to different people for different kinds of projects. I have my favorite welders, foam sculptors, etc... I'm very involved in the creation of the props, and I do a lot of the cosmetic work on them too. Most of the glitters and rhinestones I do myself. It's therapeutic.

NP: My singing teacher always said you should "f*** the lighting guy." I think he was being a little OTT (he was rather theatrical and flamboyant), but it sure helps if you're nice to them. In performance (and life) so much is about the lighting. Any tips?

DVT: Oh yeah, well I agree. Lighting is so important and I cringe when I see how little attention is paid to burlesque show lighting. I learned a lot at The Crazy Horse in Paris. They're the masters at lighting naked women to perfection. So when I was performing there, I would keep a sketchpad and draw diagrams of the lighting during rehearsals, and make friends with the lighting team and ask lots of questions. Lighting can make or break you, and beautiful, artistic light is what makes a show look grand and beautiful.

I get really excited when I'm at venues with exciting lighting rigs! And although I don't go so far as to "f*** the lighting guy," as your friend suggested, I have been known to send gifts and notes and to hang out with them and "ooh" and "aah" over their talents to show my gratitude. I did a show with someone recently who was dreadful to the crew, and I watched first hand what happens when you throw attitude. Those lighting guys aged her ass 20 years! So yes, make friends with the lighting guy!

The key is light that comes from all angles, especially from underneath and sides. You have to fill the ass with light. No white light, no red light, ever. And speaking of lighting, I always have good lighting in my house too. Dimmer switches in every room!

NP: You have a DVD of your Crazy Horse residency coming out. I know in the past you've said that you don't like to film your shows, but after watching the Bettie Page movie the other night it made me feel sad that so much of her work was destroyed under pressure from the government. Your work has been captured for posterity -- and, unlike Bettie, you own or get royalties from most of it. That's got to be a big upside right?

DVT: Yeah, I get funny about being filmed, for a few reasons. It's hard to capture the feeling that one gets when watching a live show, and also I'm not so willing to just hand over these shows that I put all my own money and time and heart and soul into, so it's rare that I come to an agreement that works for me and makes it worthwhile. But I've been filming more of my shows lately. Besides the Crazy Horse DVD, I filmed some shows I did at the Casino de Paris too, which is the big stage Josephine Baker and Mistinguett danced on. I filmed my Opium Den act and some others on that grand stage, and will probably release some of that footage next year.

NP: Burlesque is shrouded with such a rich history, and performing at such a historic venue must add a whole new dimension to your work. What have you learnt while working at The Crazy Horse?

DVT: The Crazy Horse is amazing. It's so cool to be backstage with those girls, they're incredible talents, and they work so hard. They're like racehorses! So beautiful. The Crazy Horse has been open since 1951, and the list of famous people that have been there to see that show is just mind-boggling. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe, Gypsy Rose Lee, Salvador Dali, Mae West, lots of US presidents.

It's a very special place. The girls are so disciplined. They get weighed in weekly to keep their ideal weight that is set for them. They're drop-dead gorgeous, and insanely talented dancers. And the best part is that they all get along, like a team. I spent a lot of time working with them and I love them so much.

It was daunting to go in there the first time. I was the first guest star ever to come in there, so they were rather suspicious of me at first. But I insisted on not having special treatment, and I worked hard, and we discovered a mutual admiration for each other. I don't have nearly the kind of dance training they have, but they would come to me for advice on other aspects of performing, and they would always come to see my other shows around Paris. I have great friendships with many of the girls. I think they are extraordinary, and I'm glad that The Crazy Horse is seeing a revival. I'm their biggest fan. I think it's the best show ever!

NP: Will there be more Dita shows at the Crazy Horse in 2010?

DVT: I'm most likely going to bring the show I did in Paris, the one that's on the DVD, to the Las Vegas Crazy Horse at The MGM Grand sometime in 2010. It's a much different show than the one I did there a few years ago. It's much more elaborate and I do three full numbers instead of just one. And I am also in the process of thinking of the new acts I want to do in Paris for another run.

The thing is that none of my existing shows fit on that intimate stage, so I have to create special shows for their stage. The Crazy Horse is like being in a movie. The audience can see every little gesture. It's much different than the burlesque I usually perform on big stages, and most of my stage props are too tall to fit on that stage. The Crazy Horse stage is a little more than 6 feet tall to make the girls look very tall. They're all between 5'8 and 5'10.

NP: I understand you've recently moved to Paris. Is it really one of the most romantic cities in the world?

DVT: I love it. It's beautiful. I've traveled the world and I still can't find anything nearly as beautiful. I love the architecture and the pride that Parisians have in their city. I've been living there part-time, and I love the challenges that being in a new country presents. I love the ways that it also makes me appreciate America too. There are great things about both places. It's changed my life to have a place in Paris in addition to my place in Los Angeles. I'm really happy that I finally did it. I realized one day when I was talking to an old friend from 15 years ago; I mentioned I wanted to live in Paris and he reminded me I said that way back when. So I was like, "What am I waiting for? Why am I afraid?" I just did it. And it's not always easy, but I like the independence it makes me feel.

NP: What are some of your favorite haunts? And why?

DVT: In Paris? There are so many restaurants I love. There's La Perouse, which is probably the sexiest, most romantic restaurant ever. It's a very old, antique historic place. You can book these private little rooms, and the waiter rings a bell before entering the room, so you have total privacy in this plush little antique salon. The antique mirrors are still on the walls that bear engravings where ladies checked to see if the diamonds they were gifted were authentic. It's the best place to seduce and be seduced, and the food is delicious too.

I also frequent a restaurant and bar called Mathis. I saw Yves Saint Laurent there before he passed away. It's the place to be in Paris, very elegant and the food is divine. I also love to go to a brasserie called Bofinger where I order plates of oysters and bulots. For bars, I usually go to a place called Montana, or The Hemingway Bar at The Ritz. I love to go buy my tea and have lunch at Mariages Freres in the afternoons, and for late night dining after shows I go to a place called Poule Au Pot. They have a gold plaque with my name at my table because I was there every night after The Crazy Horse!

In LA, I don't go out very often. I go to Chateau Marmont sometimes, but mostly I'm a homebody. I go to bed early and wake up early. I like having the days in LA. I also spend a lot of time in my favorite traditional Korean spas in Korea town. My favorite one is open 24 hours and I go there for three hour long massages and scrubs. It's cheap and fabulous. And I love to just disappear and sit there with all the girls and watch Korean soap operas.

NP: You wrote a chapter on stripping in my friend Carrie Borzillo's book Cherry Bomb in which you wrote that when stripping one-on-one for someone special you should also "tease him with your words." Are you a fan of sexting too? And, if so, has it ever got you in trouble?

DVT: Oh yes, I love sexy-texting! But I'm also a good a love-lust letter writer. I write with rose-scented red ink on my personal stationery. A stranger recently tried to blackmail me to buy back some love letters I wrote to a boyfriend 15 years ago, and I said, "Feel free to sell them on eBay if you want. What do I care if people find out that I'm romantic!"

That's one downfall of fame, I get lots of people that want to extort money from me to buy things that they think -- hope -- will be scandalous for me. Really, what could be scandalous for me? I'm a burlesque dancer!

I really don't write anything I would be embarrassed of anyway, and I only sexy-message with my beau, and he's even more discreet about his privacy than I am. I never sexy-texted with guys I was casually dating. Trust is important. And again, I don't think it's a big scandal for a burlesque dancer to get caught sexy texting!

NP Being sexy is a lot of fun, but as we peel the layers off we all just want to feel secure and loved. What makes you feel loved and secure?

DVT: My very closest friends, the friends I've had for twenty years. And my family. It's nice to be around the people I don't have to keep up any image for, that I can trust with everything.

NP: Having had a romance very much in the public eye, are you keen to keep your private life private at this point? And how possible is that?

DVT: It's really difficult. There's only so much you can do. Right now, I'm trying to preserve the privacy of a fairly new relationship, but it's not easy between relentless journalists that won't let you get away with not discussing personal things, and then there's paparazzi. Sometimes pictures pop up on the internet and we had no idea whatsoever that we were being followed and photographed, and that's an odd feeling.

But I accept that people want to know. I know that personally, I don't like reading endless interviews from actors that refuse to discuss anything but their acting craft. It's boring. You have to give a little something.

NP: I interviewed your ex, Marilyn Manson, recently. We had an hour-long conversation, during which he repeatedly talked about the loss he felt after past relationships and the trouble he's had dealing with it. I also have another friend going through a tough divorce right now. What advice would you give when it comes to moving on and the mental adjustments you need to make to make that happen?

DVT: It's funny because I've been some kind of divorce counselor for a few of my girlfriends that are going through it now. One of my friends wants me to write a book with my little mantras and pearls of wisdom. I'm full of them! I guess the best advice I have is to accept the pain and to know that it's part of the risk we take in loving. Inevitably we learn from heartbreak and we recover, and hopefully emerge ready to become a better partner for someone new.

In the midst of a hellacious heartbreak, I work my ass off to stay occupied, and I try to imagine myself further down the line when I'm right again, and in love again. I've been through enough heartache to know that we don't ever die from it, and we always find someone better suited to us. And I personally force myself to think hard about what I did wrong and try to get my revenge by being a better person for someone new. My revenge is always based in living well and trying to be better. It works every single time!

NP: What do you look for in a relationship now? And how has that changed as you grow older and wiser?

DVT: I guess I've just realized that I want to be with someone that inspires me to want to be a better person, and that feels the same way. No one is perfect, so it's up to us to choose the things that are OK and the things that are not. I'm not perfect. I'm just looking for someone who can accept my crazy, and I can accept theirs. I know which things I will no longer accept in my relationships, and I'm not afraid to say no anymore. I know that I'm wiser about a lot of things in love, and I'm grateful for all the experiences, good and bad.

NP: How do you find new inspiration and happiness in your life?

DVT: Well, I enjoy what I do for a living, and I like to keep trying new things and challenging myself. I don't have trouble finding inspiration, it's just finding ways to execute the ideas. That's usually where the frustration lies. As far as happiness, well, I think of it as being like the weather, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, [but] you can't appreciate the good weather without the bad.

NP: You have an upcoming film project, Mata Hari (written by Martha Fiennes). Can you talk a little about this?

DVT: Well, it's just a script right now. It's not actually in production. It's an amazing script, and I would love to play Mata Hari, especially because the other Mata Hari films were hardly factual, and this script sets the record straight on her. I don't really have any interest in acting unless it's in films I would actually like to see, so I pass on most of the acting projects that come my way. I really like being true to myself and doing what I do. I have no problem being content to be a burlesque dancer. I didn't do it as a stepping stone to "bigger" things, I did it because I love it.

NP: Stripteese will make an excellent Christmas gift. What's on your Xmas list?

DVT: Mostly I love Christmas because I like seeing my friends and family, and being home for a change, and baking cookies and entertaining. But when it comes to gifts, I really like sentimental gifts, or things I use all the time, like teacups and martini shakers, vintage picture frames, scented candles. It's easy when you look around my house and see all the stuff I collect. Just stop by an antique store and pick up some silly trinket and I'm happy!


Stripteese is available from Amazon.com and all fine booksellers.

Meet Dita at her two Los Angeles book signing events: Friday December 18 @ Hennessey and Ingalls at Space 15 Twenty (7 PM), and Sunday December 20 @ at Revamp Vintage (2 PM).

For more information on Dita's appearances, performances, books, DVDs and lingerie go to Dita.net.

Just looked at my "favorite suicide girls" and realized that I totally have a thing for brunettes. Although sexy redheads are pretty awesome too! Apartment searching again today... Please, let this one be the place!

Aaaand New Year's Day draws to a close. I feel as if I should've, I don't know, burned a giant pyre of fir trees for a Pagan fertility goddess.

There are only a handful of comedians whose album releases qualify as cultural events, but Patton Oswalt is one of them. Tracks from his new CD, My Weakness is Strong are already being dissected by comedy enthusiasts in coffee shops around the country and picked apart on social networks like Twitter for... more

There are only a handful of comedians whose album releases qualify as cultural events, but Patton Oswalt is one of them. Tracks from his new CD, My Weakness is Strong are already being dissected by comedy enthusiasts in coffee shops around the country and picked apart on social networks like Twitter for the exquisite one-liners, the acutely-lobbed political grenades, and moments of inspired lunacy that compare to his memorable tangle with a screaming heckler on his last album, Werewolves and Lollipops. That CD, released during the death throes of the Bush administration, was widely hailed for its stance of supreme indignation and undercurrent of soul-weariness that mirrored the national mood at the time, and cemented Oswalt’s reputation as a comedian who loses no ground by going topical and getting angry.

Since that time, the 40 year-old and new father has continued to play to rabid fans at intimate clubs, tossing out brief, memorable bits such as one in which a Youtube user is re-imagined as an insatiable Roman emperor. An acting career that began with a run on King of Queens has also accelerated, with Oswalt winning critical kudos for his voice work in the 2007 animated adventure Ratatouille. This week also sees the release of Big Fan, a pitch black indie comedy that marks the directing debut of Robert Siegel, screenwriter of The Wrestler. Oswalt plays Paul Aufiero, a 35 year-old trapped in a state of permanent adolescence, living with his mother, and pouring his love and his energy into an obsession with the New York Giants – a one-sided relationship if there ever was one. “He loves his team, and he shows them he loves them through suffering,” is how Oswalt summed it up to me when we met up last week at a Manhattan bar to talk about the film, as well as the state of comedy in 2009.


Patton Oswalt: I’ve done a lot of interviews with you guys, with the late, great Dan Epstein.

Ryan Stewart: I know, I think I’ve read them all. Great stuff.

PO: So, what the fuck happened? Did they ever know? No one has ever told me.

RS: I honestly don’t know. I read that it was sudden and unexpected, but I don’t have a connection there.

PO: But it was never explained. And I met him a couple of times and he always seemed so hale and hearty. I mean, what the fuck? That just sucks so fucking hard.

RS: I was sort of brought in during the wake of that whole thing. I would like to have gotten to know him, though.

PO: Oh, he was the best. I would get into fights with him. I would be like “Why did you just ask me that? That’s stupid!” And he’d be like “Oh, um, sorry…” I always just loved how we would go back and forth, it was so great.

RS: Could you back him down?

PO: No! He would totally defend it. He would hand it right back to me, and I loved it, it was great. I loved it!

RS: Someone just told me that the original title of Big Fan was Paul Aufiero, which kind of stopped me, cause that’s a way, way better title. There’s just something about it. Agree?

PO: Are you kidding? I think it’s a fantastic title. I also thought Sydney was a way better title than Hard Eight. But there you go! [laughs]

RS: The only other obsessive sports movie that comes to my mind is the one where Jimmy Fallon is one of those guys, but he’s also dating Drew Barrymore. Unrealistic!

PO: Yeah, but that character was a functioning guy. His fandom was the kind of fandom that enhances a life. Paul’s is fandom in place of a life. But you know, in a weird way, there’s also a love story in this movie. It’s just that, as Robert put it, it’s an unrequited love. He loves his team. And he’s going to show them he loves them through suffering. It’s that classic case of “You’ll really start to love me when I don’t leave you after I’ve been abused.” It’s that kind of thing, that whole pathology.

RS: I know guys like Paul. Mid-thirties, no ambition. They seem to get along okay, for the most part.

PO: Go to some rep. theaters in L.A. on a weeknight, like I do all the time. Go to the New Beverly and you’ll see some people for whom movies have completely replaced their lives. It’s no longer a supplement to their existence, it is their existence. It’s very, very sad, those autograph hounds, those guys with the weird, tattered copies of the Leonard Maltin movie guide, checking off what they’ve seen and haven’t seen – that’s really fucked up.

RS: Does Paul have an out? Does he have opportunity?

PO: I think he has nothing but opportunity, but there’s really no ability on his part to pursue it. The opportunities are there and they will continue to be there, but he’s actively waging a war against that door being opened. He does not want to change, at all, and it really activates him when someone comes along and tries to make him change. He really fights against that. He’s kind of a perfect combination of sad and noble.

RS: Was it easy to get into the headspace of a low-energy, low-ambition kind of guy?

PO: Well, as ambitious as I am with my comedy and as a writer, I do have that aspect in me where I just want to sit back and watch movies. And I’ve also seen people like that in my life. In show business, you see a lot of delusional, damaged people. People who’ve rejected life. They’ve really, really rejected life. I see that in a lot of my friends and in me – where we have one foot on the edge of having way too much passion for our own good, you know? You also see that in the biographies of some people like H.P. Lovecraft. That’s one that immediately comes to mind as a guy who was just, like, against life.

RS: The obsession is ultimately a symptom of what? Boredom or depression?

PO: That’s a good question. Which came first? Would this person have filled his life with something else if the object of his fan desire wasn’t there? Or would he just be this weird kind of empty shell? I can’t say! [laughs]

RS: What I loved most about the movie was that sudden ramp-up in the beginning of the third act. We’re suddenly made aware that we haven’t been privy to al of his thoughts. Did you like that?

PO: Yes! That’s what I really loved. This is one of those rare movies where it goes into the third act and you’re suddenly like “I have no fucking idea what’s going to happen now … but it seems to be going someplace really bad.” Things start to get really, really bad. Yeah, that’s also what I dug about it. The fact that you asked that question is, I think, what makes it such a good movie. It’s that you just do not know, and the movie is not going to go, okay, let’s hold up here and let me answer some of your questions. It just doesn’t do that. Instead, it opens this tiny window. It’s like those great movies of the early 70s, like McCabe & Mrs. Miller or Night Moves, where it’s like “Hmm..that’s all I’m gonna see, now I’ve got to put the rest together myself.” People used to get excited by that. They were like, okay, now I’m engaged – let’s figure this movie out.

RS: Now, not so much!

PO: Ehhhhhh, not so much! Didn’t Reader’s Digest just file for bankruptcy? A magazine that boils books and magazines down to shorter versions? People didn’t have the attention span to read that!

RS: Going back to the movie nerd parallel, I also saw a specific comparison to the way that today’s seasoned movie nerd is expected to have a finely-honed opinion about each studio, like it’s a team.

PO: Good lord, yes! I never thought of it that way. Or even a production company, like, saying “Oh, they always put out this or that.” I mean, just look at the Weinstein Co., with that New York Times Profile on Sunday. They’re being treated just like a sports franchise that’s gone into some weird twilight phase. It’s all like, what happened to their glory years? The company becomes a bigger personality than the people involved.

RS: Why can’t people just consume their entertainment without getting under the hood and getting a closer look at their icons?

PO: I’m going to argue that there is something inside of us that seeks out things to worship and elevate, if only to give us something to aim at in ourselves. The only way we survived as a species was that we evolved. The main thing about evolution is improvement and refinement, and it certainly helps that process if you have a target or a symbol that you can focus on for your improvement. Oddly enough, the fact that we have religion is proof that evolution is real. It’s further proof, to me, anyway. We seek a godhead or a demigod or some other elevated figure that we can evolve toward. We invented that and we focus on it, in order to give us something to aim towards, just subconsciously. So, the fact that we invented religion and the fact that we created God proves that evolution is real.

RS: I think you might have blown my mind.

PO: You’re welcome.

RS: I thought you were going in a simpler direction, of just saying that we want to best our own Philly Phil [Paul’s rival, who he spars with throughout the movie on a radio call-in show] across the street. We have to top our rival.

PO: That’s just a tinier version, though. That’s just a cul de sac of evolution. That might be the definition of a failure – a guy who picks a really lame target to defeat, and then once he’s defeated them, that’s it; that’s all he’s gonna get. He’s never gonna do anything amazing, because he picked a shitty target to focus on. Pick a better target! Get a bigger weapon, as Boots Riley of The Coup would say.

RS: I don’t think Michael Rapaport would mind me saying that he’s a spectacular douchebag.

PO: He was amazing. In scene after scene, this guy was completely tireless. He would just do take after take. And what was really weird was that, in talking to him in real life, he’s just this sweet, kind of goofy guy. He was like “Hey everyone, how ya doin?” and always talking with people, but then in the scene … and it wasn’t like he did some crazy thing where he was like “Oh, now I’ve got to put my actor face on.” He would just slowly crank it up. He was so fucking annoying! But you know, most actors don’t want to play that kind of abrasive, repulsive guy any more, and this guy, he just loves playing characters.

RS: I think Paul resents that Philly Phil doesn’t give a shit, he just spews forth whatever is at the top of his mind. Meanwhile, Paul is going as far as to craft his bon mots in a notebook ahead of time.

PO: Right, he’s just spewing forth the easiest things that everyone else says. Although, even through struggling in his notebook to write that stuff down, Paul’s still struggling for his art. “I showed my team my love through my industry and my labor.” It’s basically like Salieri pledging to Jesus, you know? I think in his mind, this is all a performance. “This is my art and I prepare, the same way that a musician tunes up or an athlete warms up, basically. That day job I have? That’s just to pay for my art."
RS: Do comedians tend to pocket some good comeback lines, in case they need them to slap down a heckler or fight with Carlos Mencia?

PO: I certainly don’t. I think it becomes so clear, if you’re up on stage, that you had a line ready. I prefer to talk to them and let them hang themselves. I never have something where it’s like “Just wait, I’m gonna wham him with this line.” Instead, I amplify whatever it is that they’re doing until they pop. I can handle hecklers pretty well, and it’s not because I’m so amazing. It’s because I’ve been defeated by hecklers many times and the world didn’t end the next day. That’s why I’m without fear now. I’ve seen it crash and burn so many times that it doesn’t matter to me, either way. It’s not going to change a thing about tomorrow. I think a lot of hecklers are like “Boy, he’s gonna remember me,” but I just tune that out and then I take care of them and then I reactivate what I’m doing. I go back to doing the material that I like. Hecklers really have no impact on me, you know? On my second album, I deal with a heckler on one of the tracks and when the producer of the album played me the thing to say, you know, you should leave this in here, I had totally forgotten that it happened. It just meant nothing to me. I find it so boring.

RS: Was that the guy who gave a kind of Lynyrd Skynyrd yell?

PO: It was a guy who makes some weird noise during a bit where I’m building up to something, and there’s some silence on there, and then he starts yelling. I can barely even remember what I said to him, because it didn’t mean anything. I had totally checked out during that, and I didn’t want to include that on the track, because if you actually listen to what I’m saying you can tell that there’s no passion in what I’m saying. I’m more like, “Ugh, I gotta deal with this guy,” and then I go right back to what I was doing.

RS: I think that was also the album where you commented on the state of comedy at the time, and you said it was a golden age because comedy fans were having to seek out the comedians.

PO: It’s gotten ten times better. Those audiences have stuck around and the comedians who are flourishing now are so fucking good.

RS: Like who?

PO: Well, where do you live? They’re out there. Anthony Jeselnik. Natasha Leggero. James Adomian. Kyle Kinane. There are so many that are coming up right now that are just fucking amazing. Not just good. I’m talking about holy-shit-they’ve-found-their-voice-way-early. They’re just gonna run with it, they’re amazing. And these young comedians are starting to get looked at for TV, and the fact that Conan O’Brien is in L.A. now and is very interested in showcasing young comedians, and the fact that Jimmy Fallon is very much looking for young comedians in New York, both of those scenes are just so fucking fantastic right now. It ended up getting way better than I described it back then. I thought that it was happening in waves, and maybe it is, maybe this will end up being a wave, but if it is it’s gonna be a fucking huge one, with all of these people coming up. It’s just ridiculous right now.

RS: But I want open-mic wingnuts, too! I want Dr. Pepper.

PO: Hey, I hope those guys come back too – they’re fun! Nothing wrong with that, but for the most part the shows themselves are not being put on by the clubs, they’re being put on by other comedians. The ones putting them on are lovers of comedy. And every night, there’s some great shit going on. It’s fantastic.

RS: Do you expect your comedy to become less political going forward, now that we’ve sort of said goodbye to all that?

PO: No. There’s plenty of political stuff on my new album. I think, if anything, politics is always affecting the world in one way or the other. What’s great about Obama is just watching to see how certain people react to him. I mean, that is fascinating. It’s just as crazed and insane as how I felt about Bush, you know? What’s really great about it is that I can look at a lot of the ways people are dealing with Obama – not just comedians, I mean the public – and I see a lot of what I did wrong during the Bush years, a lot of the easy stuff like the Hitler comparisons.

RS: The stuff about Bush causing the biblical apocalypse, and that stuff?

PO: Well, actually, the apocalypse one was one where I felt like I went for something a little better. But I do look at what they’re doing with Obama and I know that I was just as guilty of that. I fucked that up. It’s good to see it from the other side and be able to go “Oh, so that’s where I was wrong.

RS: So, how does a comedian approach Obama?

PO: Well, I’ve never found more ways to say “There’s a black guy in the White House” without actually saying “There’s a black guy in the White House.” [redneck voice] “I want my country back! We are on the verge of fascism!” It’s so great, it’s fascinating! There is nothing more fun for a comedian than watching a country lose its shit.

Big Fan opens in select cities this Friday. My Weakness is Strong, Patton Oswalt’s new comedy album, is in stores this week.

By and large, the decade in film was one of maturing talents, as opposed to new arrivals. We didn’t see a new Quentin Tarantino who could alter the way popular cinema saw itself, and we didn’t see any new, Brando-esque actors who blazed an original enough trail to change their craft forever. It was... more

By and large, the decade in film was one of maturing talents, as opposed to new arrivals. We didn’t see a new Quentin Tarantino who could alter the way popular cinema saw itself, and we didn’t see any new, Brando-esque actors who blazed an original enough trail to change their craft forever. It was more a decade of expertise: of young filmmakers like Sofia Coppola, Joe Wright, Paul Thomas Anderson and Richard Linklater, who demonstrated a deep reverence for their forebears and an ability to process the wisdom of the past into new works of exceptional quality and beauty. (Almost all of them seem to have taken something from the departed Stanley Kubrick). Those directors who did blaze a path of their own tended to do so in such a unique and original manner, as in the case of Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly, that no one will likely be influenced by the work.

It was a decade in which blockbusters were produced at ever-higher budgets and new extremes of quality: high in the case of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and low in the case of the unwatchable Transformers films. It was a typically lax decade for marginalized genres such as science-fiction, Westerns and musicals, while Oscar bait issue dramas, hastily-made biopics and portentous crime sagas like Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River were a dime a dozen. It was an excellent decade for European and Asian directors, with names like Claire Denis, Philippe Besson, the Dardennes, Hsiao-hsien Hou and Edward Yang all regularly topping critics’ lists. It was a decade of modest revival for greats like Scorsese, Coppola, and the Coen Brothers, while Spielberg more or less continued to tread water.

It was also a decade of uncertainty. The way films are consumed, the way they’re crafted by studios and by individual filmmakers, the way reviews are written and received by the public, the way technology has created new kinds of movie-watching experiences – it’s all led to a collective upheaval in the industry that still has yet to shake out. What we currently think of as a typical movie-going experience will likely – in fact, almost certainly – be far different a decade from now. The idea of trudging down to a local theater may seem quaint if the typical high-end consumer has a wall-mounted, HD viewing screen that’s 3D capable, and any new film can be downloaded with a few key strokes and a credit card number. The future awaits. In the meantime, here is my list of the best films of the past decade.

1. Before Sunset



Before Sunset is a blur of constant motion, with its central, early-thirties couple frequently walking towards and away from the camera at a brisk pace, catching rides in fast-moving cars and boats, and finally trudging up the stairs to a top-floor apartment. The point, unsubtle but valid, is that life’s forward momentum is as unstoppable as an ocean wave, and only the fools among us would let a chance for real happiness pass us by as we’re pushed inexorably along. This immeasurably superior sequel to Richard Linklater’s 1995 one-night-in-Paris romance, Before Sunrise, which clocks in at barely 80 minutes long, is so unusually knowing about the staying power of true love, the way dreams can affect our lives, and the reality of time never being on our side, that if you see it once, it may haunt you forever.


2. Three Times



The badge around her neck reads: "I suffer from epilepsy. Please do not call an ambulance. Just move me to a warm, safe place." She strums guitar on stage at night and engages in pointless love affairs during the day. Maybe she was happier a hundred years ago. Three Times, from Taiwanese master Hsiao-hsien Hou, shows us a love affair played out in three time periods, always with the same actors. In 1911, the young couple is confident and self-aware, but restrained by social mores. In 1966, an ancient order is crumbling and excitement abounds. An open doorway in a pool hall points to an unknown future. In 2005, freedom has dissipated again, into a morass of text messages and social confusion, while an ascendant, modern world is glimpsed as their motorcycle flies across elevated freeways. Who’s to say one era is more or less free than another?


3. L’Enfant



It’s been remarked that the Dardenne brothers’ masterpiece L’Enfant is told from a God’s eye perspective. If so, that’s a terrifying thought. A dying steel town in the heart of Belgium is the setting for this unusually absorbing crime drama, which follows, in a noticeably detached and nonjudgmental fashion, petty con man Bruno and his girlfriend Sonia as they deal with a new, valuable item that has fallen into their laps: their baby. Bruno’s decision to sell his newborn child to a black market adoption ring is only one several surprising decisions he makes throughout the film; we’re consistently taken aback by his actions because his moral center is a black hole, perhaps as random as the universe itself. L’Enfant gazes deeply into our modern, money-mad world and asks, without a hint of glibness, whether traditional morality has any place in it at all.


4. Donnie Darko



Philosophy of Time Travel is the name of the secret textbook at the center of Donnie Darko, and that book title encapsulates the main character’s naïve, but endearing belief: that it’s somehow possible to discover a theorem or formula for skipping directly over the pain of one’s high-school years. This amazingly complex science-fiction film, a rollercoaster of invention from first-time director Richard Kelly, follows the travails of angsty teen Donnie Darko, a reluctant prophet who beliefs himself privy to knowledge of the future – specifically an impending doomsday – and thus feels entitled to spend his remaining days fixing the world for the better. Donnie Darko has more to say about the horror film-scariness of being on the cusp of adulthood, and about the power of youth to shatter forever the outdated notions of their parents, than all of those 80s teen movies put together.


5. Marie Antoinette



For many of us, the key factor of our lives is not whether we’ll ever grow up, but whether we’ll do so in time. Marie Antoinette boldly appropriates the biography of a doomed French queen to tell the story of an essentially modern young girl who is being dangerously sheltered against the harsh realities of the outside world and yet slowly develops her own innate, rebellious instincts, which she needs more urgently than she realizes. Sofia Coppola’s ditzy, celebrity-and-shoe obsessed teen queen, who moves through 18th century Versailles to the beat of a pop-punk soundtrack (she might as well be wearing earbuds), only slowly comes to understand that those courtesans plying her with the latest fashions and gossip are actually trying to tamp down her true power – her political power. It’s a weighty metaphor for the state of our own deliberately distracted youth culture.


6. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu



We begin in the shabby apartment of Mr. Lazarescu, a Romanian senior played by Ion Fiscuteanu, who spends his time complaining on the phone to distant relatives. Most of them seem to have defected to Canada, maybe to get away from him. We end nearly three hours later, after riding shotgun with an angelic ambulance driver who has taken the stricken Lazarescu on a heroic, Stygian journey through a long, rainy night of visiting multiple hospitals, trying to find one that will admit him for surgery despite severe overcrowding. There’s never been a film like Cristi Puiu’s Lazarescu, which so expertly draws us into a mundane medical crisis and keeps our hearts in our throats at every turn. When Lazarescu finally dies, quietly, on a gurney in a prep room, we only know it because the film ends at that moment, without any cues. The story is over.


7. The New World



With Stanley Kubrick having departed just before the dawn of this decade, Terrence Malick is now our greatest living cine-poet. The New World, remarkably only his fourth feature film, takes the seemingly mundane phrase of the film’s title and invests it with startling vibrancy, restaging the arrival of the Jamestown colonists and their fateful first encounter with those for whom this world was not “new” at all. Like all of Malick’s masterpieces, The New World runs by its own internal chronometer, not by any preconceived notion of pacing for a feature film. It practically breathes in its environment, examining every blade of grass in an unspoiled Eden, which is populated by an ancient people called “the naturals” by the arriving English. Without judgment or political agenda, just an unparalleled eye, Malick frames this initial encounter as what it was: a singular, momentous event in human history.


8. Wendy and Lucy



Imagine having no safety net; no family or friends to count on, no job, no savings and no roof over your head, only $500 in cash and a barely-functioning old clunker. Then the car breaks down. Wendy and Lucy tells the gripping, no-frills story of a twenty-something girl in just such a situation, on her way to Alaska to work at a fish cannery when she’s waylaid by cruel fate and trapped in a featureless strip mall town with her hungry dog Lucy to consider and her options shrinking by the hour. Where can she turn? Influenced by Umberto D. and other classics of Italian neorealism, Kelly Reichardt masterfully dramatizes how terrifying life on the margins of American society can become for those who fall through the cracks. Wendy and Lucy is the kind of film they used to fear would spark a revolution.


9. There Will Be Blood



During a candid moment in this film, early California oilman Daniel Plainview expresses his personal philosophy: “I don’t like most people. I want to earn enough money to get away from them.” It’s that last part, the implied promise that once he has his own security, he’ll go away and stop siphoning off the resources of the poor and the credulous, which somehow sets him up as possibly morally superior to his religious alter-ego, Eli Sunday, a shameless evangelical charlatan with no such insights into his own black heart. America’s two founding lynchpins, big business and organized religion, are treated to their own masterfully-observed dual biopics in this, a huge but welcome departure for cinematic showman P.T. Anderson. The childish quarrel between Plainview and Sunday over who is the more righteous conman gets more soul-sucking by the minute and before it’s all over, see title.


10. Vanilla Sky



The most common question posed in recent sci-fi films: is it better to live in the real world or a dream world? While The Matrix unfairly stacked the deck by making daily life in the dream world a continuation of the regular work grind, Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky took an infinitely more intriguing tack: what if you could personally program that world? What if you could have an apartment, job and identity specifically tailored to your tastes; your choice of women, each of them completely “your type”; even the everyday backdrops of life designed to remind you of your personal record collection. Still seem like an easy choice? This exceptional sci-fi film, full of unexpected twists and searing cinematography, cuts straight to two of the modern world’s most pressing philosophical questions: What is reality? And why should we care?



Honorable Mention: Two Lovers, Waking Life, Killer of Sheep, Son Frere, Millennium Mambo, Home, Sweeney Todd, Julia, Inland Empire, Atonement

This is a great day to stick to a plan... many things to do in many different areas of life and a lot of days I just take it as it comes, but today is a plan day. And yes, visiting SG is definitely part of the plan. I just feel like DOING stuff today and not just reacting...

In honor of the holidays, please enjoy haikus about food excess: Old man seeks doctor "I eat Spam daily", he says. Angioplasty Mother overfeeds Half ton son loses control Burgers bring no joy Your turn. Gimme some of that 5-7-5...

What a holiday! I am officially all Christmas Cookie'd out, in our family, baking cookies is a huge tradition every year. Here is a glimpse of all the choices we get to choose from. (image) I ended up having to leave for Minnesota early, due to a huge snow storm moving in. We ended up being stuck... more

What a holiday!

I am officially all Christmas Cookie'd out, in our family, baking cookies is a huge tradition every year. Here is a glimpse of all the choices we get to choose from.



I ended up having to leave for Minnesota early, due to a huge snow storm moving in. We ended up being stuck in Minnesota for longer than we intended but we finally made it home to a disaster. We had to call a neighbor to plow out our driveway, apparently there was 30 inches of snow there!

Although our driveway was plowed by the time we got there, my tires are completely bald, so we were not even able to get up to the house...my car is currently parked at the end of our 1/4 mile long drive way getting buried in snow drifts.

My husband and I walked up to the house to find our house absolutely freezing! It was 44 degrees when we got in there. My husband went downstairs to the basement to see what was wrong with the furnace, but instead, he found 4 inches of water in our basement. Our grinder pump is spewing water into the basement, instead of outside!

We now know whats wrong with the furnace....we ran out of propane!! With all of the snow on our property, it is going to be damn near impossible for someone to come out to our house to fill it up. So, under a bunch of blankets, in mittens, two layers of socks, and next to a space heater we sit. Luckily, Bella, our Rottweiler loves to snuggle, so she is helping keep us warm.

I took some photos right before I left for Minnesota, it looked like winter wonderland here in Iowa! The trees covered with frost, and white every where, soooo beautiful!!







Now for some very sad news, Murphy, our 6 year old cat, passed away yesterday from an unknown cause. This was absolutely devastating to our whole family, animals included. They are all wandering about looking for him, especially his brother Bruce. They came from the same litter and have never been apart from each other. Here is a photo of Murphy.

Worst Christmas morning EVER. How I Spent My Christmas I woke up at 5ish this morning because my mother asked me to go with her to help the homeless on Christmas morning. I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing to begin with but I figured I should do something for the less fortunate at least once... more

Worst Christmas morning EVER.


How I Spent My Christmas

I woke up at 5ish this morning because my mother asked me to go with her to help the homeless on Christmas morning. I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing to begin with but I figured I should do something for the less fortunate at least once in my life. I've never done any kind of community work on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, though I do it on occasion, I was not interested at all in waking up before sunrise, and even less so in "working" for free. But, it's Christmas, you know? And it's pretty impossible to feel alright about yourself after saying "No, I don't want to help the homeless on Christmas." I was expecting a soup kitchen type scenario the next morning. I thought that might actually be a good experience for me.

So we get to the meet up location where everything was being organized and during the prep speech I find out that we are NOT working with the shelter, the police DO NOT want us there. The plan is to show up on Skid Row hand out toiletries, sandwiches and sleeping bags out of our trucks and SUVs and then the hell out once everything was gone. I am already not feeling so good about myself.

We load up the trucks and SUVs, and caravan (led by a giant Escalade, can you smell the irony?) from Cerritos to downtown Los Angeles. We get there and it's a madhouse, of course. They told us it would be. After we parked at the end of the street we walked down to where the trucks with the blankets, food and toiletries were parked. Someone was stopped in the middle of the street. The car had been swarmed by people standing in front of the car, coming from behind, practically halfway inside the car via the driver side window. It looked like something you might see in an apocalyptic zombie movie. The driver was handing out McDonald's burgers. Not sure how smart of a move that was but maybe it's just my memories of the LA riots from when I was a kid that has me over cautious about mobs.

The street was flooded with people. There was yelling, fighting, Christmas caroling. In fact, there was a pickup truck full of smiling kids singing carols at the top of their lungs being accompanied by acoustic guitars. Feliz Navidad seemed to be their favorite.

"Hey, don't you want to sing?"

"NO."

People were gathering and snapping pictures, taking video of themselves "having fun" - not of them with the residents, mind you. I talked to one a guy who was holding some of the items that had been given away. He said his family was coming up from San Diego tomorrow. They would be in town for a few hours. He asked what I liked to do for fun and if I lived around here. Then he asked for my number. Asked if I had a boyfriend. When I told him I did he gracefully exited the conversation. No one else was interested in chatting with me.

Soon appeared as though we were starting to head out. I asked one of the ladies we were working with if we should try picking up some of the trash that was around. There were wrappers from new blankets that had been bought. Empty boxes were on the sidewalks. She just said "nah" and sort of laughed like I had just said something hilarious. I looked around and this other woman was motioning to her boyfriend, husband or fiance, to starting walking back to the car with her. He had a ciagarette and a cup of coffee. She motioned for him to "just leave it!" And I looked back and forth at them with a look that I thought was saying "You're not fucking serious, are you?" I guess it didn't come across that way because he hesitantly put his empty (or possibly half empty) coffee cup on the sidewalk. Way to listen to your conscience instead of your girlfriend, guy. And, of course, I didn't say anything to them, nor did I pick up after them and I still feel like an asshole for that. I couldn't even come up with anything TO say about it until I was back in the car with my mom and sister. I pretty much exploded into a rambling mess of angry words and tears while telling them what I saw. They weren't with me while we were out there. This was a pretty crappy Christmas experience.

If I didn't already make it clear: If you want to do something good for others, make sure it doesn't include showing up in your luxury SUVs, creating a scene, taking tons of pictures of you and your friends patting yourselves on the back, leaving your trash all over the streets then driving off before the clock even reaches the next hour.

There was a peculiar notion going around my high school in the white bread and meatloaf suburb of Akron, Ohio where I grew up that said that bands like DEVO were “wimp rock.” But seeing DEVO at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood where I had the privilege of sitting in on the final rehearsal for their... more

There was a peculiar notion going around my high school in the white bread and meatloaf suburb of Akron, Ohio where I grew up that said that bands like DEVO were “wimp rock.” But seeing DEVO at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood where I had the privilege of sitting in on the final rehearsal for their current tour gave the lie to that. Even with several members of the band having passed sixty years old and the rest closing in quick, DEVO rocks like no other band on Planet Earth.

It’s easy to forget today just what a revelation DEVO’s first album was when it came out. For a lot of people in those days, seeing the band on Saturday Night Live on October 14th 1978 (Fred Willard was the host!) was akin to the previous generation seeing The Beatles live on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. DEVO’s appearance probably launched a thousand bands that night. It literally gave me a reason to live. The soul-less imitation of “rock and roll” we were force fed in the Ohio suburbs in those days was pretty much Muzak with a beat. Then along came DEVO and nothing was ever the same again.

In 1980 they even cracked the mainstream with their top ten hit Whip It. But just a few short years later their career took several wrong turns, including co-writing a song with would-be Reagan-assassin John Hinkley Jr. and signing with a label they likened to the Titanic the way every band on it sank without a trace.

In 1995, though, a funny thing happened. Girl U Want, an obscure album track from the same LP that had produced Whip It was featured in the movie Tank Girl and all of a sudden the kids wanted to know about DEVO. The band once again donned their trademark yellow industrial waste clean-up suits (originally purchased at the MF Murdock Janitorial Supply Company in Akron, Ohio) and showed them what de-evolution was all about. For the past 14 years DEVO have been playing shows consisting mainly of their earliest material.

But now something new is on the horizon. Their first and third albums are at long last available in re-mastered versions and DEVO is on the road promoting these with a series of two-night stands across America playing the first LP in its entirety on the first night and the third LP the following evening. But what’s even more exciting DEVO is recording their first album of new material since 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps. The results are set to come out some time next year with an even more extensive tour.

I spoke to DEVO’s front man and fellow Akron-ite Mark Mothersbaugh about all this stuff and about getting spit on by John Lennon.

Brad Warner: I’m about ten years younger than you and I grew up near Akron in Wadsworth, Ohio…

Mark Mothersbaugh: Oh! Where are you now?

BW: Right now I’m in St. Paul. But I live in Santa Monica.

MM: You made it out at least!

BW: Seeing you guys on Saturday Night Live in 1978 was a big deal for me. I’d already started playing guitar at the time. But I thought rock music was over. I thought I was working in a dead art form. And DEVO was something that was cool again. It really meant a lot to me.

MM: Well thank you.

BW: So I’m pretty excited that you guys are doing a tour and you’re reissuing the first album and Freedom of Choice. Is that right?

MM: Affirmative. They’ll probably reissue more of the catalogue. Those are just two that are linked up with some shows we’re gonna do.

BW: That’s cool. That first album I actually wore out. It got to where the record sounded like shit because I’d played it so many times. So what’s different about this new version? Is it re-mastered?

MM: Now that it’s almost absurd to put out records, they have some little extras that come with it. I think even the regular one’s gonna be yellow vinyl and red vinyl. They’re very high quality vinyl compared to what they used to make records out of in the old days. So they’re definitely collector’s discs. And the packages are enhanced. On some of them you can get different versions of it, DVD footage and stuff like that. (NOTE: The CD reissue of the first album contains a bonus live recording of the entire album played at London’s HMV Forum in May, 2009. The CD reissue of Freedom of Choice adds the contents of the DEVO-Live EP originally released in 1980 shortly after the LP. You can also order an Ultra Devo-luxe edition from their website that contains both re-mastered CDs, plus 2 bonus DVDs and a colored vinyl single.)

BW: Sounds great. So why are you doing this now?

MM: I think for DEVO we’ve decided that we’re shocked that no one came along to take our place. So we have to go back out there and start talking about de-evolution again and remind people what’s really wrong on planet Earth. So early next year there will be new music coming out. But for the uninitiated and those who were somewhere else when it happened we’re putting out some of the essential listening material to help bring them up to speed. And we’re doing shows to accompany the releases in a number of cities around the US. We’re literally doing album one on the first night starting on side one track one of the vinyl. Almost like you’re hearing live vinyl. We’ll play through the first side of the album and we’ll flip over and play the second side of the album.

BW: Cool!

MM: And the next night we do the same thing with Freedom of Choice. If you would’ve asked me a year ago if that sounds like I good idea I would’ve said that doesn’t sound like a great live show. What changed my mind was last May we played All Tomorrow’s Parties in London at the Forum and we did album one. I just thought, we never put them in this order and that vinyl was supposed to be act one and act two of a listening experience. It doesn’t have the same build as a live show. It’s something different.

BW: Right.

MM: I thought this is gonna have weird energy to it. But it was really great! It’s not a new concept. All Tomorrow’s Parties started a long time ago. And a lot of people are doing their albums live.

BW: Yeah, I saw Brian Wilson do Pet Sounds live.

MM: There’s a lot of people doing that. Now I finally understand it. I had never thought about it. But once I heard us do it I could think of a couple dozen bands I’d love to hear do their first album live. It made me think of when DEVO played Inland Invasion a few years ago. And Billy Idol came out and he played "White Wedding" and "Rebel Yell" and everybody was going crazy. Then he said, “Now here’s my new album!” And everybody’s kinda like… the wind went out of the sails. And the audience was kind of polite. Then after about 40 minutes of that he played "Dancing With Myself" and everybody went crazy again.

BW: That’s gotta be a weird experience, though. Cuz for you or for him it’s like this is what you did 20 years ago and it must not seem that relevant. But if the audience is into it…

MM: Yeah. But there are some things about doing that that are interesting. We play every year, though. The last 13 years we’ve done festivals, a lot of European and Asian shows, Australian shows, and a lot in the US. We played Lalapalooza a few times back like ten years ago. We’d do like three weeks a year, four weeks a year at the most and then that was it.

BW: And this time you’re putting it back together.

MM: Yeah. But there is an element where you’re going, I remember the first time we put on these yellow suits. I proudly felt like I was a McDonald’s cheeseburger in that yellow plastic box. And now 30 or 35 years later, I still feel like a McDonald’s cheeseburger. But now maybe it’s like a double patty cheeseburger!

BW: I was gonna ask you about that. Cuz it kind of surprised me. I was living in Japan in 1996 and I read about you guys putting on the yellow suits again and that was the last thing I ever expected to see DEVO do. But on the other hand it sort of made sense. Cuz you guys were never anti-commercial as such. You were trying to do it your own way.

MM: In defense of that, there aren’t any other bands that come to mind that all wear plastic yellow suits unless they’re DEVO tribute bands.

BW: That’s true!

MM: Everybody wears blue jeans. That’s the uniform of the last 50 years. People wear it and they don’t even know they’re wearing a uniform, but they are. That is the uniform. I think our yellow suits, when people call ‘em a uniform it makes me smile. Because at least ours was creative. We created it ourselves as opposed to just buying into Levi’s ads. DEVO wasn’t really about being sexy. We weren’t really anti-style. But style meant something totally different to us.

BW: Sure. That’s pretty evident.

MM: We wanted to look like a machine. We wanted to look like a team. At the time it was like Kenny Rogers…

BW: I remember! God, that was awful. Talk about denim uniforms!

MM: Or it was like Elton John and his band, or Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. We wanted to look like parts of a machine on stage. We were more influenced by Agit Prop from Germany and Europe in the late 20s and 30s and Bauhaus, geometric shapes and the Italian Futurists and the Russian Suprematists. We were interested in pure art. And the yellow suits always felt to us like we were art. We thought we were in some ways much less commercial than anybody else because of that.

BW: Yeah. It’s funny that it became commercial. That’s interesting to me. You did "Whip It" and all of a sudden everybody was into it. But there was always that problem of did the mass audience really get it. Or did it even matter if they got it? There was that whole thing about "Whip It" being taken as sexual innuendo and all that.

MM: It’s only fitting that that would be the song that was most remembered in the United States and had the most airwave success. But that’s OK. People by nature don’t come to art or music to get educated or to get vitamins. They’re there cuz they’re trying to escape from the world. But DEVO managed to sneak in some vitamin-enriched information as a side feature and that was kinda good. Some people probably never got it and never would get it. But there were always those kids out there who wanted to know what it means. You might’ve been a fan of some band like that when you were a kid. Where you look at the album cover for every bit of information you can get. You’re looking for every clue. The posturing in the photographs, the type that’s picked for the title of the band and the album. All that stuff is really important to you at a certain age. It was to us too. We designed our own album covers and designed our own merchandise and costumes and stage shows. We totally understood the importance of all the areas of the aesthetic. It wasn’t just about sonic music or just trying to get on the radio. It was a lot bigger.

BW: The most brilliant piece of DEVO merchandise I saw at that shop Wacko in Los Feliz, the DEVO doll with the interchangeable heads.

MM: The company that did those, I wasn’t really into the style that they were doing the artwork in. I had plenty of arguments about it. But the big blow was that they weren’t doing a set of five. Because that’s what DEVO is. It’s a set of five guys. We went around in circles. And finally I said, we’re allowed to have accessories, right? They said, yeah. So I said I want it to have five heads so pole can change the heads on the dolls. A true DEVO fan would take the hit and buy five of them.

BW: Talking about other bands, I’m sure you must know Polysics from Japan.

MM: Yeah. We played with the last time we were over there.

BW: What do you think of them? They’re so DEVO.

MM: They are! And they do some of our stuff better than we do it. It kind of freaks me out. And their fans love it. I don’t know what their fans think of DEVO. They’re so into Polysics maybe they don’t even know. And they’re a great band live.

BW: Oh yeah. I like them a lot. One other thing I wanted to ask you about because I’m from Akron. You guys did a show at the Akron Civic Theater last November in support of the Obama campaign. How was that to go back there? I know Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders was there and The Black Keys played too.

MM: That was appropriately unpleasant and also had a lot of pleasant moments too. Of course there were members of my family who were really upset that DEVO was supporting Obama, which I could not believe. I said, you guys are in the most most depressed butt fucked part of the country. Why would you be against getting rid of blood-suckers? They could not see it.

BW: I know. I never understood how Ohio people could support the very forces that were oppressing them.

MM: But it works. On the other hand we played at a place we hadn’t played in, in 30 years. It was almost 30 years to the day of the last time we played at the Akron Civic Thetare. And we wrote a lot of our early songs in less than a mile radius from that building. So it was kind of interesting to be back there. And Chrissy, who was kind of freaky on the phone before then, when we got to the show she was a total pro. It was really pleasant to work with her. And The Black Keys, I’ve always liked them. It was my wife’s idea. She said why don’t we do something for Obama. She was worried because Ohio was a swing state in the last two votes before that and had gone Republican at the last minute. So we went back there to say, come on exert your freedom of choice. And I think that that’s what won Obama the campaign, the DEVO concert.

BW: It probably was.

MM: Well if you want to be honest about it, probably not. But it was kinda nice to play there. The energy was really good. Everybody was really great. Akron-ites were excited that we were playing there again.

BW: Yeah, you were rejected there at the time and then you come back and everybody thinks it’s great.

MM: That’s fairly common. Bands have to leave their hometowns to get discovered. Especially if you’re doing original material. There was no appreciation at all for that back in the Seventies. We would lie and say we were a Top Forty band so we could get a gig. We’d be up there going, “Here’s another song by Aerosmith. It’s called… Jocko Homo!” At that point there’d be some out of work factory guy who was bummed out anyway, some Vietnam vet who came back and the factories are all closed he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do with his life. He’d slam his beer down and go, “That’s it! You callin’ me a monkey you mother fucker?” We’d once again get paid to quit, beat up, chased out or a combination of the three.

BW: That’s amazing. Cuz I’m friends with a guy I think you know, Rod Firestone from the Rubber City Rebels.

MM: Oh yeah! God, that’s a name from the past! We spent a lot of time with Rod during the formative years. He was instrumental in DEVO having a home base in Akron cuz he had a club that he opened and he allowed DEVO to play there. Then, of course, we ended up bringing Pere Ubu down there too. That was like the cultural island in an otherwise really dark, culture-less factory town.

BW: He always likes telling stories about The Crypt (a bar that originally catered to workers at the nearby Goodyear factory which Rod Firestone and his band-mate Buzz Clic transformed into Akron’s first punk rock club).

MM: It was a cool club. I was the soundman for a while for his band.

BW: Yeah, he told me you were the soundman for the Rubber City Rebels! They still play a few times a year. I met them when they did a tour of Japan. I was reading about you in David Giffels’ book about DEVO. Do you like that book, or is that a touchy subject?

MM: We weren’t part of it. We weren’t interviewed for it. It’s got a lot of misinformation in it. My feeling about that is, whatever. There was this one guy who was tangentially connected to us for a while who got involved. And it’s definitely the story of DEVO from the point of view of this guy who didn’t get to be part of the band.

BW: The story I wanted to ask you about from that book isn’t one of those stories. It’s in there about John Lennon coming up to you…

MM: That’s true.

BW: I wanted to hear that story.

MM: When we started going to New York we turned into a phenomenon. Which was pretty cool. Every time we whether it was CBGBs or Max’s Kansas City after the first show that we played it was a mob scene. It was always packed. In New York at the time it was customary for people that were celebrities to be able to call Max’s or CBGB’s or the other clubs and say, this is Mick Jagger and I’d like to bring Charlie Watts and Keith Richards to the DEVO show tonight and Bianca my wife and a couple friends. And they’d go, OK and put them on the guest list. But then they’d charge that against DEVO’s part of the take.

BW: (laughs) That’s awful!

MM: So every night we played in New York we’d have people like Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, all the filmmakers, all the actresses, all the people in bands. There’d be Frank Zappa’s band or whoever was in town. Brian Eno, Robert Fripp. They all showed up on our guest list. But that just meant we’d have to beg for gas money to drive back in our Econoline that held all the equipment and held the band. We didn’t have any place to stay. We’d have to crash inside the van.

BW: That’s like a twelve-hour drive back to Akron from New York. I’ve done that.

MM: Something like that. I don’t remember how long it was back to Akron. But I remember one night we were sitting outside of Max’s and we’d just played a set. I was waiting for everybody to leave so I could go in and finish unloading our equipment and drive back to Akron. I was in the passenger seat. And I looked around and it’s John Lennon and Ian Hunter from Mott the Hoople. They’re really drunk and they come out and John Lennon stuck his head in the car. And he got up about six inches from my face and started singing “Uncontrollable Urge” really loud. He obviously understood that the “yeah yeah yeah” part was a permutation of what he’d done. And the opening of the song, I don’t know if you ever paid attention, but it goes like dah-dah-duh-DAH, dah-dah-duh-DAH.

BW: Oh yeah! Like "I Want to Hold Your Hand"!

MM: Yeah. I took it right off "I Want to Hold Your Hand". Then the “yeah yeah yeahs” come in. So he knew it was a mutation of him. And he sang it for me right there with alcohol stinking spittle right into my face. I was in shock and about as high as you can get for the rest of the night. I couldn’t believe it.

BW: That’s amazing.

MM: And him and Ian, they just kinda put their arms around each other and started wobbling down the street singing the song all the way down Park Avenue or whatever street that was.

BW: I’m really looking forward to the tour and the new album. What’s the new stuff like?

MM: It sounds like DEVO, that’s for sure. Some of it sounds like it’s early, some of it sounds like the third or fourth album. And some of it is like the later stuff with more electronics. But lyrically it’s the same as what we always did. If it has anything to do with love it’s usually kind of absurdist. Other than that, without lecturing, we talk about the issue of de-evolution and things falling apart.

BW: Are you bringing the guitars back then?

MM: Yeah there’s some really good guitar stuff. One of the things I insisted Bob 1 (lead guitarist and Mark’s younger brother) do was I told him he had to play a lead that outdoes Smart Patrol. I told him this has got to be his new signature solo. So we’ll see if other people think of it that way.

BW: I’m looking forward to it and to the tour. Good luck!

MM: And thank you, SuicideGirls!

Awesome actress:
Tilda Swinton in The Limits Of Controle by Jim Jarmush.



The movie trailer:


A nice scene by Jim Jarmush with Iggy Pop and Tom Waits:
Coffee And Cigarettes.

I bought a crazy macked-out espresso machine for approximately one zillion dollars. Now I am zooted out of my brain.

"I didn't quite know what to expect from this interview," confesses Jason Reitman. The multi-award winning 32-year old writer and director may be secure in his ability to produce great movies, but he admits to being "scared" at the prospect of being interrogated by SuicideGirls. more

"I didn't quite know what to expect from this interview," confesses Jason Reitman. The multi-award winning 32-year old writer and director may be secure in his ability to produce great movies, but he admits to being "scared" at the prospect of being interrogated by SuicideGirls.

It's taken us over a month to tie Jason down, during which time we've been communicating directly by Twitter and via his film and personal publicists. He's very much in demand right now. His first two movies, Thank You For Smoking, a satire set in the tobacco industry, and Juno, a dark comedy about teen pregnancy written by longtime friend of SG Diablo Cody, left indelible marks on the moviemaking landscape. Both films were unabashedly quirky yet each achieved mainstream critical and commercial acclaim -- and more importantly sparked a dialog about their respective subjects that reached far beyond the confines of the entertainment world. It's perhaps this capacity to make us think and to spark meaningful discussion that is Jason's greatest gift.

Though Jason grew up very much within the Hollywood machine (Jason's dad Ivan Reitman produced and/or directed an impressively long list of titles which includes the beloved Animal House, Ghostbusters and Beethoven franchises), creatively he's always preferred to walk the less traveled path. Intelligent and idiosyncratic, his latest comedy, Up In The Air, is no exception. Starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizer who chooses air-miles over attachment and celebrates his solitary existence, the film (which features real-world characters cast from the ranks of the recently downsized) ultimately takes flight on a path that our Hollywood-trained brains may instinctively resist. However, with a nod to Jason's libertarian leanings, the choice is right for Ryan Bingham, and that's what counts.

Though Up In The Air has just gone on wide release today, it's already been nominated for six Golden Globes, more than any other film in the class of 2009. Consequently Jason's press commitments have just got a whole lot crazier. To compound the pressure on his already over-filled schedule, he's just returned from a trip to his Canadian homeland, where he and his dad (who co-produced Up In The Air) were honored with turns carrying the Winter Olympic flame.

We finally caught up with Jason mid-afternoon on Monday as he was heading over to a satellite studio for a live remote appearance on the Faux News show Happy Hour. Once on the phone Jason was beyond generous with his time, and over the course of two phone calls, one before and one after his TV appearance, we talked about the new movie, his affinity with its leading character, and a few other topics that only SG would dare to bring up.

Nicole Powers: Where are you calling in from?

Jason Reitman: I am in Los Angeles, calling from my car. I'm sorry that I'm calling in from my car.

NP: That is quite alright. I'm happy to be taking with you. I know that you've been a bit of a busy boy. I've been following your Twitter account, all the places you've been flying to and from. You also tweeted about SuicideGirls covering the movie, and you wrote about how you always wondered what happened behind our door.

JR: Yeah. My trailer company is across the hall from that door with the skull and crossbones on it, if indeed that is your guys' office.

NP: It was. We've actually just moved, but up until November it was our office.

JR: Fair enough. It always kind of was a curiosity.

NP: I'm just wondering what was going on in your imagination behind that door. What was the movie in your mind like?

JR: That's interesting. Let me think about that for a second. That's an excellent question. Well obviously there's a lot of tattoo and piercing appreciation happening, and I imagine heavy satirical dialog being passed back and forth, and probably things that I don't even want to say out loud.

NP: In one of your tweets on the subject you somehow thought we'd be chastising you for being "a VERY bad director."

JR: Yes, yes. Well I can't help but in my mind create linkage between -- I'm like blushing -- between the whole SuicideGirls' culture and perhaps the S&M crowd.

NP: And somehow, in the movie that's going on in your mind, Jason Reitman is in the naughty boy punishment room?

JR: Yes exactly. Well, I'm under the impression there is a naughty boy room. It's a large closet sized room within the SuicideGirls headquarters and that's where these girls take very conservative boys and chastise them. I would imagine my fear going into a meeting within the SuicideGirls headquarters would be similar to the fear I had meeting Diablo Cody for the first time.

NP: So there's no need to ask if you've been naughty or nice this Christmas, you're just expecting a lump of coal in your stocking?

JR: No. I'm nice. But I guess that would go along with the mythology for me, that no matter what I would say I would be perceived as naughty by the Suicide Girl...

[Break so Jason can go live on Faux News' Happy Hour.]

JR: Sorry about that.

NP: That's quite alright. How was Happy Hour for you?

JR: Really strange. Did you actually watch that?

NP: I just saw a brief clip of it then had to run back upstairs because the TV's in another room.

JR: It's strange to do those live interviews where you're talking directly to a camera. You don't see who you're talking to and it's hard to build a rhythm because you're working with a little earpiece in your ear. And then you get asked a question about healthcare reform and it's like there's no good way to answer this question. I'm not going to weigh in on healthcare.

NP: Especially on a show called Happy Hour that's based in a bar.

JR: Right. Exactly. I mean look, I applaud them for trying to take politics down to a low-key kind of conversation. We have too little of that. We have too much arguing and too little conversation, so that's kind of cool, but, you know, there's something dark and insidious about all the cable news networks.

[Returning to our previous topic of conversation.]

I though about it a little more. I'm trying to imagine what's going on behind the doors of the SuicideGirls. And yeah, I think it's girls dressed like an American Apparel ad billboard gone wrong, intermittently having political conversations and making out with each other.

NP: Which is exactly how it is.

JR: See!!! Fuck!!!

NP: When I worked in that old office I'd be sat in a corner with my head down transcribing an interview. And because my office was the only room with a white wall, they'd do a lot of photography in my office. I'd be completely involved in my own little world transcribing a heavy political interview with someone like Greg Palast, and then I'd look up and there'd be a naked girl standing on a box.

JR: [laughs]

NP: I don't know if you've seen that Flip Strip iPhone app where the girls are clothed and then you flip your iPhone upside down and their clothes fall off, well that was shot in my office.

JR: I'm going to make a very revealing admission here. I have both SuicideGirls' applications on my iPhone, although I've never played the second one, that one called Seduce [A SuicideGirl]. Because it's actually like a racy game and I find the only time I play my iPhone apps is on a plane and it doesn't seem like I can play that game on a plane...I think I would probably get in trouble, a marshal might actually tap me on the shoulder.

I remember David Cross used to do a whole bit about why do they sell pornographic magazine at the airport. Like is someone really buying Club Magazine, then bringing it on a plane and then leafing through it casually mid-flight?

NP: I think they could be going to the toilet mid-flight.

JR: Ooooh! Do you think that happens on planes?

NP: I'm sure it does. I had friends who worked as air hostesses and they would talk about that stuff all the time. They would just roll their eyes at the people who attempted to join the Mile High Club and would forget to do things like lock the bathroom door when they went in. And they'd laugh at how people would surreptitiously sneak up the isle one by one -- because obviously two people can't just troop into a toilet together, one person has to go in and then the other person has to sneak in. So they would watch these people and it would just be like comedy to them.

JR: You can't really sneak in. I think at this point if you wanna join the Mile High Club -- which I'm not a member of -- you probably just have to be ready for the admission that everyone's going to know exactly what you're doing.

You know it's funny, the scene in the movie where George and [his love/lust interest] Vera talk about that was a completely improvised scene. I realized that I needed to get them from this flirty conversation about their mileage cards up to the bedroom, and there just didn't seem to be enough connective tissue. They just didn't seem to have reached that flirtatious point in the conversation where they could just go up to the room. On the day of I said, "Hey, do you think we could do a little improv about how you need to join the Mile High Club?" We had a quick conversation about it, we set up two cameras looking at each of them so we could inter-cut the same shot, and they just went for it. It was just kind of amazing.

NP: From what I understand, the key is to do it in the toilets at the back of the plane because then at least people's heads are facing forward. Then you have to wait for the hostesses to be doing trolley service so there's none at the back of the plane watching the bathroom doors.

JR: Yeah, but the big question then is how do you leave to room? I guess once you're done you don't care. What are they going to do? Kick you off the plane at that point? So the point is, as long as you can get into the bathroom then you're fine.

NP: Yeah.

JR: And if you're really wealthy they now have these rooms, like Singapore Airlines and Emirates Airlines, they have actual rooms that you can have in first class. But then I guess there's no joy to that right? If you just buy your way in.

NP: Exactly. There's absolutely no sport to it.

It's funny, I was at the JPL open house [with my pal Heathervescent], and they were talking about Virgin Galactic's commercial flights into space. Some JPL scientist was saying he couldn't understand why folks would want to pay a fortune for the flights since they'll only allow time for about 15 minutes of weightlessness. He said it'd take 5 minutes to get up there and out of your harness, during which time approximately half of the tourists would get space sick, and that you'd only have about five minutes in zero gravity before you'd have to get back in your harness for re-entry. I explained to him that it was all about people wanting to join the 60-Mile High Club and have sex in space. The Mile High Club is not exclusive enough, it's all about the 60-Mile High Club.

JR: But what if you have performance anxiety and you only have five minutes?

NP: It'd be an expensive place to get performance anxiety.

JR: [laughs] You'd definitely want to pop a blue pill. You can't have any accidents up there.

NP: So Jason's tip for gravity-free flight is to remember to pack the blue pill?

JR: Pop a blue pill and pack the lube.

NP: [laughs] So I also noticed in an image you posted via Twitter that you conveniently condensed all the questions from your LA Up In The Air junket into an easy to use pie chart. I'm all about visual aids, and, since you've gone to the trouble of creating it, it'd be churlish of me not to make use of it. I therefore thought we should rattle through the top ten seemingly obligatory question topics with quick-fire word association-style responses so we can then move on to fresher ground. Does that work for you?

JR: That's fine. I mean it's actually a pie chart from all of my interviews, not just the LA junket. I've been doing interviews for about three months on this film, and it's a culmination of everything. So it's not only what the press of Los Angeles are interested in, but the press of the world.

NP: So the first one would be Clooney.

JR: Charm machine.

NP: Economy.

JR: Heartbreaking.

NP: Real people.

JR: This makes no sense, but what popped into my head was, "even better than the real thing."

NP: Project.

JR: What brought me to this project? Self-examination.

NP: Interesting, that goes into a question I have down the line. But back to the list, "Book."

JR: What attracted me to the book? Sitting right in front of me.

NP: Dad

JR: My hero.

NP: Anna / Vera.

JR: Two sides of the same coin.

NP: What's next?

JR: Labor Day.

NP: Miles.

JR: Embarrassing obsession.

NP: Technology.

JR: Love it / hate it.

NP: Going back to this idea of self examination, this film is very much in the same vein as Thank You For Smoking. Both films explore the dichotomy of how their respective super smart central characters justify their morally questionable career choices -- to themselves, their family, and the audience. They use their intellect and humor as a weapon against that which fundamentally is indefensible. I guess my first question is what draws you to these characters?

JR: Well I guess I don't find what they do fundamentally indefensible. I don't view these issues with levels of morality, I kind of feel they're just choices. I'm interested in the less favorably viewed choice. I like to take characters who have an open-minded point of view on an otherwise polarizing issue. And so issues like cigarettes, and teen pregnancy and abortion, and, not only corporate termination, but, even more so, the idea of living alone, are ideas where people have dead-set points of views. That really interests me, why people often think that they should tell other people what to think and how to act. I'm attracted to characters who kind of fight the party line.

NP: In interviews you've said that you see a lot of yourself in George Clooney's character. On the surface you've spoken about how it's because you fly a lot, but I guess underneath that there is something deeper than that going on....George's character, and the character in Thank You For Not Smoking, they do have morally questionable careers. Is there a part of you that sees being a Hollywood director as something less than noble?

JR: No. I think you're on the right track but the wrong road. At the end of the day I actually don't see anything wrong with what those guys do for a living. For me it's more a question of how do you simultaneously have those values and be that open-minded, but also be a parent or a member of a community. For Thank You For Smoking the big question for me was how do you be a libertarian -- I consider myself a libertarian -- and a father at the same time. It's hard to have a heart and be a libertarian, and yet that's exactly how I consider myself. I consider myself to be tentative and have a big heart but also to have fairly cold libertarian views, so they just kind of clash.

Juno for me dealt with the idea [of] when do you decide to grow up? So hidden within this film that seems to be about teen pregnancy and adoption for me is a movie about the moment that you decide to grow up. And me, as the guy who directed it, I think I was 29 or 30 when I directed it and I had just become a father, that was kind of a big deal.

With this new one, hidden within a film that seems to be about corporate termination and the economy is a movie about the decision whether to be alone or not. Being alone is kind of a controversial idea in this society, and it's certainly something I deal with all the time. Even though I'm certainly a rooted person by Hollywood standards -- I'm a father, I'm a husband earlier than most in this industry, I have kind of a close-knit family -- I still daydream about waking up in a city where I know nobody and have nothing, and I consider that to be a fairly dark side of me.

I supposed that's the beauty of making films. I get to explore different lives and that's one of the reasons I do it for a living. Every two years I get to make a new movie and I get to put on a new set of clothes. I get to see what it would be like to be a libertarian lobbyist living in DC. I get to see what it would be like to be not only Juno, but one of the Lorings in Juno. In this movie I get to see what it would be like if I actually never settled down. If I just lived by my daily itinerary what would happen. And in that I get to almost apologize for the darkest parts of my psyche.

It's funny, I watched Nine the musical last night and there's a great scene in which Daniel Day-Lewis [who plays Guido Contini, a character which is based on the Italian playboy / director Federico Fellini] and Marion Cotillard [who plays Guido's wife, Luisa Contini] have a great conversation about this exact thing; That as a director you strangely get to apologize for the darker parts of your brain through your movies, and I think I do that.

NP: Also, and this is what Nine explores too, the world excuses you because you're an artist. The world excuses you for your darker behavior and peccadilloes because it's acceptable as an artist.

JR: Right. And for me it's not, you know, for being a roving philanderer or alcoholic. For me it's more for the deep recesses of my mind, and the sheer amount of being absent that happens because of my passion for filmmaking.

NP: You talk about Juno being about the point the character decides to grow up, but the crux of this movie is that moment when you finally think Clooney's character is going to choose the emotionally mature option. He has a choice of growing up and becoming an emotional adult or continuing on his previous course. Is there a part of that which applies to you in that Hollywood allows you to be a permanent child?

JR: Yeah, certainly. That kind of permeates the industry. Although strangely, even though my films seem to across the board examine this behavior, I am kind of a notable exception to the rule. I was born an old man, and that's something that everyone seems to know about me. That would be the wonderful juxtaposition between Diablo and I, that she will die a young soul and I was born an old man.

NP: You talk about the film being a reflection of the guilt that you feel being absent from your family because of your filmmaking...For me, one of pleasures I feel being up in the air is that it's the one time you can have your phone switched off guilt-free and for the most part you're disconnected from the internet. It's the one place you can switch off and disconnect from the world. I can imagine you have such a high-pressure career, and the pressure of being a family man too, so airports and airplanes must be somewhat of a sanctuary for you.

JR: Yeah, it's funny, that's originally the reason I started going to movie theaters. I started going to the movies because that was one of the few places I could disconnect from the world. At a certain point, because of cell phones, they stopped being that way, but airplanes continue to be that way. It is the one place in the world where you can break free of everything and live un-tethered, where no one can reach you, and you can kind of be whomever you want. You sit next to a stranger and you have the kind of conversation that you would never have with someone you knew well. You learn about professions and ways of life that you otherwise would never hear about, and you sometimes open up and say things that you wouldn't say to someone you know well.

NP: I'm not looking forward to the time when all economy seats have web access as standard. That's just going to make an airplane an extension of the office, and that's going to change flying.

JR: That's happened. It's done. I mean, this is the last year of flying without internet that's pervasive. You know, half the flights at this point have it, within a year all of them will. And you're right, it will be a sad moment because it is the last place where you talk to strangers. And there's something exciting about talking to strangers. I love being surrounded by strangers. I love going to Coachella alone and walking amongst strangers. I like sitting on planes and starting conversations with people I know nothing about, knowing that there's sort of a strange time limit on our relationship, and that's going to go away. It's almost done.

NP: When I interviewed Diablo Cody, she spoke about how at some point she'd like to see "an extreme directors cut" of Jennifer's Body [a film which Reitman co-produced but didn't direct]. She said the movie was originally "longer, looser, weirder, more ambiguous." Are there any scenes in Up In The Air you regret losing that you had to cut for whatever reason?

JR: On Up In The Air I had final cut, and even on the previous two films I basically had final cut. I'm a big believer in tight movies. I don't like any extra fat on them. I don't like anything that breaks up the rhythm or the tone. I think the best directors cut of all time is the Cohen brother's Blood Simple where they actually made the movie shorter.

The Up In The Air DVD will have all the extra scenes and it has the directors commentary on why I deleted those scenes. I think perhaps there is one moment, and it's four lines of dialog that I really questioned whether or not I should take out, and that's the only one. It was a little personal character moment. But no, I don't think you'll see two and a half hour director's cuts of my movies. That's just not how I think as a director.

NP: Out of interest, what were the four lines?

JR: It was George Clooney talking to his sister Kara, played by Amy Morton. They had just gone to the rehearsal dinner of their younger sister, played by Melanie Lynskey, and they're about to go to sleep. They're just about to walk into their hotel rooms when George says to Amy, "Can you believe she's getting married, she's just a kid." And Amy goes, "Actually she's 37-years old. She's just squeaking by." And that was it. I loved that line. I thought it was unusual and ballsy, and the kind of thing you don't see in other movies. It spoke to the pressure on women in their late thirties, the kind of identity crisis that women go through. It was the kind of line that enough people asked me [about] when they read the script that it was just dangerous enough to be great. The only reason I lost it was that we were just in that wedding sequence a little too long, that was about it.

NP: If looking back on this movie that's the only area that you have ambiguous thoughts about, you must be pretty damn pleased with this movie.

JR: [laughs] Well you know I make very quick decisions and I don't really re-think them much. I make a decision and I move on. I think that's part of what makes me a good director. I don't over think things, at least on films. I may over think in real life, but on my films I make quick decisions and I move on, and I don't regret them.

NP: You're Canadian. Are you still a green carder or have you done the U.S. citizenship thing?

JR: I'm a green card. I will give up the right to vote as long as I don't have to do jury duty.

NP: Is that due to your libertarian leanings or about the inconvenience factor?

JR: Pure inconvenience. I work every day of the year and the idea of not being able to work for a week is just terrifying to me. And honestly, I think as a voter I would just get frustrated.

NP: I hear you. One final question, you carried the torch in the pre-Olympics ceremony, and indeed it was your director father that passed the torch on to you, which has all sorts of metaphorical connotations. If that was a scene in a movie my eyes would be rolling with the clumsiness of the heavy symbolism.

JR: Yeah, and I'm asked so much about it and there really is nothing I can say more than it is what it is. My father's passed the torch to me in life and he's passed the torch now literally and there's no metaphor, there's nothing I can add that will bring any more relevance to that.

NP: Did it spark any internal thoughts, or any kind of discussion between you and your dad?

JR: No. It didn't create any conversation about torch-passing. All it really created was a conversation about how fortunate we are to be sharing this moment together. So often fathers and sons just don't even get along, whereas he's my hero. That we get to share this moment in our work life together, and after decades of having exhaustive conversations about filmmaking to actually make a movie together, for it to be successful and then in that same year for us to carry the torch for our country and feel that Canadian simultaneously, it was a moment that left us both in tears. There's no words to describe how prideful I think we both felt.

NP: Well congratulations to both of you.

JR: Hey, thank you very much. Have a very happy and healthy 2010, and let the rest of the folks at SuicideGirls know that I continue to be a big fan.


Up In The Air opens on wide release in theaters today.

If you don't like the Dandy Warhols latest record, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, right now, give it a listen in a few years. You'll probably love it. While the Warhols have achieved some mainstream success, their music has rarely been appreciated by the masses at the time of its release. Frontman... more

If you don't like the Dandy Warhols latest record, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, right now, give it a listen in a few years. You'll probably love it. While the Warhols have achieved some mainstream success, their music has rarely been appreciated by the masses at the time of its release. Frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor's rejection of whatever is current and trendy has resonated with fans and puzzled scenesters since 1995. In the past decade, the Dandies have done everything from droning Velvet-Underground-style rock to bouncy ‘80s synth-pop. This time around, despite flirting with disco a little bit at the beginning of the album, they've made a solid guitar record. In fact, some of the biggest names in guitar make guest appearances here: Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits) and Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers). Taylor-Taylor's infamous wit has remained constant through all the changes in the Dandy's sound, so it's no surprise that he had some interesting thing to tell SuicideGirls about trends, innovation, and his band's new album. Jay Hathaway: Where are you today? How's the touring going so far? Courtney Taylor-Taylor: I'm home. Tour was amazing. We played all but three shows in the country at night. Castles and fortresses tour of Europe. JH: Five or six years ago, you seemed to have a serious vendetta against huge pants. What was your problem with them? CTT: Ha. Huge pants. Hahahaha. So silly. JH: You actually stopped wearing something because everyone else was doing it? You don't seem like someone who would really care what everyone else is doing. CTT: Oh, I most certainly do care what everyone else is doing and I usually want no part of it. Like religion and TV and fashion trends. JH: What's the worst fashion trend of the past few years? CTT: Well, I had to stop wearing stretch jeans when everyone started wearing them. That bummed me out, but whatever. At least a lot of people looked cooler for a minute. JH: Who do you think of as innovative in music right now? CTT: Jack White always is. I like Black Moth Super Rainbow. TV on the Radio is probably the most innovative project in the world today. We're very innovative on a number of levels. Timbaland is always trying to innovate and usually does. Pop Levi is pretty great too. The Fleet Foxes are very innovative when they're not being a jam band. JH: Have you noticed anybody ripping off the Dandies recently? CTT: You mean besides the Switches? God I loved that song. I'm not sure if I'd recognize it if we got ripped ‘cause I would probably just think, "Wow, this is cool. Just how rock should be made." I tend to like bands that people say sound like us. JH: What are you most proud of about your new record? Any regrets? CTT: I'm proud to have made a record without any regrets. I'm most proud of just how fuckin' good this record is. My band is a pack of such creative weirdos and everyone works their ass off to get it to happen. And for, like, two years more or less nonstop in the studio. What a beast this thing is. JH: You're known for changing up your sound dramatically with each album. Which of your previous records are you most bored with right now? Which one holds up best for you? CTT: Just heard Monkey House when we were in Belgium and it sounded incredible. The new one blew my mind a week or so later at a party in Galway. I haven't heard our other records for a while so I'm not bored of any of them. JH: How do you feel about the state of the recording industry right now? What would you like to see happen to it? CTT: I like it. There's a lot of great music getting heard by the people whom it is intended for. What more could one want? JH: What's the most accurate thing a critic has ever said about you? CTT: The Warhols make the brightest possible music from the darkest place. JH: What was playing with Mark Knopfler like? Did you have a lot in common with him? How would he rate as a drinking buddy? CTT: Mike Campbell is the drinkin' buddy type. Mark Knopfler is a long dinner with an '85 Chateauneuf-du-Pape kinda buddy. Great stories without any sudden bursts of energy. JH: What's the best guitar record you've heard lately? CTT: Probably Earth to the Dandy Warhols. JH: What was the last book you finished? Was it any good? CTT: Robert Ludlum something. Definitely not anything I recommend for anyone NOT on tour. Easy to read and if you lose your place you can just start anywhere. I would've loved to meet the guy, though. Damn smart motherfucker. JH: You've said a lot about how spontaneously your band creates songs. What was the most intentional, premeditated thing about Earth to the Dandy Warhols? CTT: Showing up at practice on time. JH: Is there a particular context in which one can optimally enjoy your new album? CTT: For who? Me? I'd say drunk after playing a show. That's when I don't want to talk to anyone and I’m tired and can't play anymore but don't want the music to end. JH: What's the best line you've ever written, and why? CTT: I can't think of every line right now and/or analyze their value on the spot but what comes to mind is "just a casual, casual easy thing. Is it? It is for me." I find that one just so clear and sweet. I really don't write them, though. I'm not a good enough writer to come up with stuff like that. I just sort of wait around and leave myself open to them and sooner or later they come. I'm kind of uncomfortable taking credit for it. JH: You've put a lot of money back into the band (by building The Odditorium, for example), but what's the most ridiculous or extravagant thing you've spent money on? CTT: I'm pretty frugal. Can't think of anything right off. JH: What is your relationship with Portland like right now? You seem to be in love/hate with one another. CTT: I love it right now. We've been more or less forgotten again and that's always the time that I enjoy home the most. Our new record is getting a lot of attention so I’m expecting things to get nasty again pretty soon. We're doing a lot less press this time and that should help. This "new" Portland can be a competitive and bitter little place. JH: After DiG!, would you ever consider being the subject of a documentary again? CTT: Nope. Ridiculous. Don't let anyone else edit you. They can make you into anything they want. JH: What are your observations about people who really get the Dandy Warhols? What else do they have in common? CTT: They're probably frustrated with themselves somewhat regularly but they admit it and maybe even enjoy the cleansing process of mucking around in their deepest, blackest, shittiest parts of their character. I have found that the most consistent thing is they all seem to be actively interested in being better people. That and they're consistently the kind of people who are culturally fairly well informed.

Earth to the Dandy Warhols is in stores now. For more information and tour dates go to www.dandywarhols.com.

Evan Williams describes himself as "an American entrepreneur, originally a farm boy from Nebraska, who's been very lucky in business and life." This statement might be true if he was merely responsible for one giant leap in the Web 2.0 world. However, as someone partly responsible for two... more

Evan Williams describes himself as "an American entrepreneur, originally a farm boy from Nebraska, who's been very lucky in business and life." This statement might be true if he was merely responsible for one giant leap in the Web 2.0 world. However, as someone partly responsible for two monumental jumps forward, one has to conclude that he's being over-modest by attributing his success to luck rather than his capacity for vision, tenacity and good judgment.

In 1999, Pyra Labs, a company Williams co-founded, launched Blogger, a web-based service that put easy to use blog publishing tools in the hands of the masses and helped fuel the proliferation of the web log phenomenon. The company was sold to Google for an undisclosed sum in 2003. Williams however had caught the start-up bug, and left Google the following year to co-found Odeo.com, an aggregator and search engine for podcasts. The Odeo concept never really took off, but a side project started at the company did. The original five-character SMS shortcode-friendly name for that venture was Twttr.

Odeo was reorganized and re-branded as Obvious Corp. in 2006, and Twitter, which had added a couple of vowels to its name, became the center of attention. After winning SXSW's Web Award in March 2007, Twitter was spun off as an entity unto itself. Since then, Twitter has grown exponentially, with usership increasing by 900% this past year. The site has leapt over giants like LiveJournal and Linkedin in terms of monthly visits, rising from #22 (in Jan '08) to #3 (in Jan '09) in Compete.com's list of the Top 25 Social Networks.

Unlike other, increasingly cumbersome, social networking sites, Twitter's success lies in its simplicity. It has stayed true to its original concept: delivering brief Facebook style status updates to social groups in real-time via SMS. The service, which can also be accessed via RSS and the web, combats our propensity for digital diarrhea (which was, ironically, enabled by the likes of Blogger), by asking one simple question and limiting posts in response to 140 cellphone-friendly characters.

We tracked down Evan Williams (Twitter's CEO as of October 2008) -- via Twitter of course -- to ask him about the rules he tweets by, the people he follows, and his vision for the service's future.


Nicole Powers: Twitter has progressed way beyond the "What are you doing?" concept and has become a hub for group dialog and a place to let random thoughts fly. Have you thought about replacing that question?


Evan Williams: Yes, we have thought about that. It's a question about the question, because it worked really well to make Twitter approachable, and clear, how to use it. This was something I saw when I worked on Blogger for a bunch of years, we didn't have any direction at all for people, and it was this intimidating thing...kind of like a blank sheet of paper, so we tried to make Twitter very focused. Just say what you're doing, it doesn't have to be profound, or interesting, or anything. But, obviously, it's also limiting. Most users get beyond that and realize just from observing how people use it that they don't have to take that terribly literally. But in some ways I think it trivializes what's going on, and it does limit people's perceptions -- especially new users I think. We're still struggling with that. I wouldn't be surprised if we change it at some point, but we haven't made any decisions.

NP: Have you any thoughts on what you'd change it to?

EW: My favorite option is "What's happening?" That sounds a little too like we're trying to be hip, but I think the most accurate thing to say would be "What's happening?" Because what Twitter really is is what people are doing and what's happening around them, and some of the most interesting news cases are when people are reporting on things that are around them, or events. "What's happening?" can also apply to yourself, what you're thinking about or what's happening in the world that you're commenting on.

NP: How about a simple "Wassup?" That covers what's happening and what you're thinking.

EW: Yeah. Maybe.

NP: Because it's so new, we're still figuring out social etiquette on Twitter. What rules do you personally tweet by?

EW: I personally don't like to have a lot of rules. I'm sure I do have my own rules but I always hesitate to imply that there's any rules, because I think the beauty of Twitter is that people use it however it works for them. I think it changes depending on how many followers and what people are expecting from you. For the majority of users Twitter's very much about people that they know or people who are close to them, the friends and family type use. It's very casual. You can tweet about things that would be mundane except for the fact that you care about this person, and maybe you're interested in what they're doing at the moment. Right now I have over a hundred thousand followers so I try not to let that freak me out, because, if I did, I think I'd become much less interesting, trying to be interesting too much. So I don't know if I have any rules beyond that, but I try to just still be personable and personal and not trivial but not think about it too much.

NP: In a way "micro-blogging" is a very confusing moniker for Twitter because those that blog and tweet like yourself, know the two forms of communication have a very different feel and purpose. A blog is a more formal, well thought out thing, and Twitter takes the pressure off blogging because it really is just a thought thrown out into the world. What mental criteria do you use when you express in the different forms?

EW: They definitely overlap. One comment on the term "micro-blogging", it's not one that we've ever used to describe Twitter. We see micro-blogging as one of the many use cases for Twitter. There are people who use it very much like a blog, although blogs are used in every possible way so it's hard to even define what that means. Twittering has definitely impacted how much I blog. I hardly ever blog now, and I've blogged for years. I think, in a lot of ways they serve the same basic purpose, which is having a thought and wanting to share it with the world. The main difference for me is whether or not I want to take the time to flesh out something a little bit more on a blog, and that just comes down to the length I think.

NP: I like your less is more approach. I sort of feel that when photos went from print to jpeg, and when text went from paper to websites and blogs, in a way we became overwhelmed with a compulsion for what I call digital diarrhea. All of a sudden there were no limits imposed by cost, and we're actually learning now that we need to impose limits on ourselves, and that's a lesson that Twitter's teaching the masses with the strict 140 character count.

EW: It's something that goes very well with the fact that there's more and more voices out there, and more and more people who are publishing and saying things that are interesting to pay attention to. At least having some constraints on the verboseness of everyone's thoughts is helpful in order to tap in and listen to more voices.

NP: It's like a conversation that no one's allowed to hog.

EW: Yes. Exactly.

NP: Twitter has created a new hierarchy of celebrity. [At the time of writing] Stephen Fry, who's a relatively unknown here in the U.S., is the leading non-presidential Twitterer* (according to Twitterholic Barack Obama has the largest Twitter following). Fry is way ahead of Britney Spears for example. Are you enjoying how Twitter members have reshuffled the world order, and created one of their own?

EW: [laughs] Yes, definitely. I think it's very early, and very exciting for us to see the celebrities outside the geek world adopting it. It's really exciting with someone like Stephen; Stephen is really understanding it and using it as a medium of its own rather than just a promotional vehicle for other things.

A lot of celebrities are looking at social media, and are considering that they have to have a social media strategy, and Twitter and Facebook and all these things need to be incorporated. It'll be really interesting to see how that fleshes out over the next few months. I remember in the early days of blogging, when I was a popular blogger for the first year or two -- it was a very good sign when I became not a popular blogger and people who were much more skilled in that medium became the attraction rather than the geeks.

NP: Are there any celebs that you might not have followed in the real world that you now follow because of the way they tweet?

EW: Yeah. I don't follow many in the real world, but the ones I've been enjoying on Twitter, well Shaquille O'Neal is an interesting example. I'm not a basketball fan, in the same vein with Lance Armstrong, it's not a world I would pay much attention to, but I follow their twitters and it's interesting to see their lives and what they're talking about. Rainn Wilson is another one. Rainn plays Dwight in The Office, the U.S. version, and he's hilarious. His Twitter persona is somewhat like his character on the show. He just started but he seems to be taking to it.

NP: The way certain celebs use Twitter actually takes the power away from the paparazzi and the vacuous celebrity mags and blogs. Celebs are actually letting followers know what they're really thinking and doing, which is a genius way to combat the rumor-mill.

EW: Yes. And some have become very aware of that. Certainly Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have been talking about that aspect. It was hilarious, a couple of weeks ago Demi actually posted a picture of a paparazzi on TwitPic, completely turning the tables, and she made some jokes laughing at him.

NP: It seems like a very special time on Twitter right now, very reminiscent of the early days of MySpace, before it became commercialized. One of the beauties of Twitter right now is that you're focusing on building it and getting it right before you monetize it. As a user and a fan of your own service, do you worry what will happen once the twits invade Twitter?

EW: [laughs] I don't worry about the things that we're going to do because I think there's a lot of opportunities for monetization that actually enhance the user experience, and enhance what people are already doing. I think the dynamics are different than say a MySpace, where they sort of had to put a lot of ads on there on the pages that maybe work against the flow of what people are trying to do. With Twitter, I think there's a lot of opportunity to help people and make money at the same time.

Once of the things we've been talking about for a long time is search, and how we want to build that more and more into the product -- search is an area of course on the web that's always been highly monetizable. We don't expect Twitter search to have the same type of ads or work as well as web search, but I think when people are seeking particular information there is an opportunity to answer their queries, and there are people who want to be among the answers to their query. So monetizing search I think will make a lot of sense in the same way that Google have ads in their search that don't interfere, and in many cases help the user experience.

What I do worry about more, and we're seeing it somewhat today, is as Twitter gets bigger and bigger there are people who are trying to game the system, and basically spam it for their own gain. It gets harder and harder to deal with. Most popular properties, Google and Facebook and MySpace and everybody else, have to deal with spammers, and we are now too, and we'll have to invest more and more into that. I think that's the bigger threat...obviously I'm biased, but I don't think our own monetization efforts will be something that users reject.

NP: Your service is free, as is much of the internet. Are we getting to a point where people need to start valuing the stuff on the net? Now that we have micro-blogging should we have micro-payments for the content and services that we use?

EW: People have talked about that for years and it hasn't seemed to work for one reason or another. I think the economic climate that we're in, and getting deeper into, is definitely going to bring up these questions again. How should these things be paid for? Obviously they cost money. Advertising has been the default answer, it hasn't been the only answer, but over the short history of the web it's been the one winning answer time and time again for most mainstream services. Whether that will still be the answer -- I don't know. I tend to think that a combination of subscription and advertising probably makes sense for most services, and we see a likelihood that the same will be true for Twitter.

I think there's pretty good reasons why micro-payments for content haven't worked out that well, and, in part, it is there's just so much competition for attention -- it's still the scarcest commodity -- and there's always people who are willing to do something for free, and so you have to be really special and rare to be able to charge money, at least for content.

NP: You've recently announced a $35 million injection of venture capital. You still have a relatively small 29-person headcount, so what are you planning to spend it on?

EW: Well, we also have a good amount of money left in the bank from our last financing. But the reason the we did that, took that investment, is basically because we feel like we're just getting started, and our growth is phenomenal, and as that continues over the next few months and couple of years, our cost is definitely going to go up substantially.

We need to grow the team in a lot of ways right now. I mean it's great that we're so small but it's also painful in some scenarios, so we have pretty ambitious hiring goals across all aspects of the company. We're going to keep the majority of the people technical, and product and engineering will continue to be the bulk of the company, but we're really thinking long term.

We don't know all the ways we're going to use that money, hopefully we'll keep a lot of it in the bank. If we never need a lot of it, that's great, but in the climate we're in we don't want to assume too much, and we don't want any short term concerns to distort the potential of our long term vision, and our investors and the boards and everybody is very on board for building a very long term viable company. We need to do that step by step, and we need to invest a lot to get there.

NP: What additions and refinements would you like to see on the site?

EW: There's a ton of stuff we want to add and improve but the interesting thing is for most of Twitter's history the vast majority of our resources have gone into just keeping up with the growth. There were some fairly publicly painful scaling issues early on. Really, up until about six months ago, we had really bad reliability problems. The product has really changed very little since we launched it, and it a lot of ways that's very good.

I think simplicity is definitely key, but we think there's a ton of ways it can be enhanced. One is to make it just a lot easier, especially easier to get started. As we're seeing more and more mainstream users coming on the service, we have a lot of awareness right now but we want to get a lot better about turning that awareness into engagement. It's still way to hard when you first find out about Twitter to really make it useful and interesting -- that comes down to finding people to follow, connecting with your friends, understanding even what it does and what the concept is. There's a lot to do just on the user experience.

NP: It's interesting how you do adapt Twitter, and make it work for you. For me, the initial idea of having all these updates by cell phone horrified me, because I'm one of these people that's over-connected rather than under-connected. So the way I use it -- I don't even connect it to my phone -- but I use it as almost a ticker-tape of the collective consciousness on my computer.

EW: Do you have a client on your computer of just the website?

NP: I guess I should use a client so it automatically updates. I mean, talk about collective consciousness, today the one thing that dropped onto our Twitter radar has been TwitterFox, the Naan Studio application which does updates via Firefox.

EW: Yes, and we hear that a lot, people find how Twitter works for them, and a lot of times they love the SMS or they hate the SMS and a desktop client or an iPhone client really works for them. That's one of the beauties of it. We've been really fortunate with our third-party developers, who have built a lot of these alternative ways to experience Twitter, and they've added a lot of value. What we haven't done enough of, and this goes back to were we need to improve, is helping people discover those different ways, and really walking them through what the different options are, and just ramping them up from an uninitiated state to get them engaged.

NP: As you expand, and get more mainstream users, and perhaps less responsible users, will you have to police the site more? I know that you say you hate rules, but for example, Google have recently started more aggressively policing Blooger's content. Can you see a point where you're going to have to have a department to police in the same way other social networking sites do?

EW: I probably wouldn't use the term "policing." We already do have people dedicated to suspending accounts if they spam or are otherwise violating our terms of service. That will definitely have to continue and be a bigger part of our efforts. Part of that will be technical and algorithmic ways to discover fishy behavior and part of it will always have to be manual review.

In cases where it's clear cut and people are definitely being nefarious, then it's actually a little bit easier to deal with than when people are gaming the system in some way but are fairly legit users in other ways. For example there's what we call aggressive following. It's something a lot of people do in order to get attention. As you know when you follow someone, most people will get an email and then they'll check out your profile and those people will follow you back, out of obligation or some other reason.

NP: Right. There is this social etiquette that makes you think if they're following me I should follow them to be polite.

EW: Exactly, and we really hate people feeling obligated to follow someone, especially when that person's just following someone in order to get attention. So part of that is user behavior and the social norms that need to develop around Twitter, so people understand that they don't need to do that. And then also discourage or de-incentivize someone from doing the aggressive behavior, because I think that lessens the value of the network for everyone.

NP: You don't want it to be reduced a popularity contest, with people collecting friends but not adding to the conversation.

EW: Exactly.



*Since writing this article, Britney Spears has overtaken Stephen Fry, marking the end of an era of geek rule at Twitter.

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Dita Von Teese is one of the world's most dazzling women. The Swarovski-adorned mistress of striptease has done more to preserve and promote the hallowed art of burlesque than any other performer alive today. Her sexy and spectacular shows feature stunning costumes and larger-than-life props, but... more

Dita Von Teese is one of the world's most dazzling women. The Swarovski-adorned mistress of striptease has done more to preserve and promote the hallowed art of burlesque than any other performer alive today. Her sexy and spectacular shows feature stunning costumes and larger-than-life props, but are always grounded in the purity of the classic art form. Thus they have an innate dignity that never relies on the kind of bump and grind sleaze that many of Dita's contemporaries mistake for erotica.

In a league of her own, the Michigan born and Orange County raised girl, who once had aspirations of becoming a ballerina, is an international glamour icon. Celebrated both for her performance art and her impeccable vintage style, her world-class status was sealed in October 2006 when she became the first ever featured headlining guest performer at the legendary Crazy Horse in Paris. She returned to the prestigious cabaret club in February of this year for a limited two week run which was so successful that she was immediately booked again for another series of shows the following month.

The hottest ticket in town, Dita's run at the Crazy Horse attracted such luminaries as Jean Paul Gaultier, Kanye West, Kylie Minogue, and Stephen Spielberg, among others. Her performances are as rare as they are exotic however, in part due to the time and expense they take to conceive. Fortunately those who are unable to witness Dita in the flesh have two new options. The first is a DVD of Dita's Crazy Horse show. The second is Stripteese, a set of three miniature flip-books books which capture individual facets of her repertoire and come packaged together in a deluxe gift box.

We caught up with Dita to find out more about the books and DVD, her new Opium Den set which was 4 years in the making, her plans for shows in Paris and Vegas in 2010, and her life in the romance capital of the world.

Nicole Powers: From reading your last interview with SG (with Daniel Robert Epstein in 2006), I understand you're keen that people appreciate the history of burlesque. The format of this set of books harks back to vintage Victoriana. What inspired you to do the mini flip-book format?

Dita Von Teese: The photographer, Sheryl Nields approached me with this book idea, and we took it to my publisher. Sheryl and I had worked together on several occasions for magazines and ad campaigns. I always liked working with her a lot, and trusted her to shoot my shows, which is rare for me because with all the time and money it takes for me to build a show, I don't let just anyone shoot them. But I really love her as an artist and as a person, and I loved her idea for this book. I just showed up and did my hair and makeup and did my show for her as she shot it stop-animation style. The end result is fabulous. I'm happy with the way the three little flip books look tucked inside the velvet-flocked bookcase. It's been selling well for the holidays.

NP: What was the technical process to capture images that would move as you flipped them. Was it done on a still or video camera? And how long did it take?

DVT: It was shot on a still camera and on the RED camera. Each show was shot in its entirety and we used the one we liked best. I think we did two days of shooting for it, several months apart from each other because the first was just done for fun, before the idea for the book.

NP: The packaging is exquisite. Where you involved in the design of that too?

DVT: Actually, for this book, all I did was describe the kind of look I wanted, and then approve it. I've always had this obsession with velvet flocked wallpaper, because when I was little, like 5, I remember that the house I moved into has this gold flocked wallpaper in the dining room, and I was devastated that my mother had it torn down. So I always have this flocked wallpaper in my houses since I first moved out as a teenager, and the cover of the book is inspired by it too.

They did a great job. I've been working on my step-by-step how to beauty book, so I didn't have a lot of time to devote to the design of this flip-book, so I kind of left the design to them and was thrilled that it came out so beautifully. I just wanted to pose for the pictures and do the promotion and signings for this book this time around, because my other book Burlesque and The Art of the Teese was an arduous task because I insisted on being hands-on. This time I had to let go a little bit.

NP: Stripteese depicts three of your burlesque sets: Bird of Paradise, Classic and Martini Glass. What's the creative process you follow when you decide to create a new set?

DVT: The Bird of Paradise and the Martini are longtime shows of mine, but I wanted to do a third more intimate striptease for this too -- "the Classic" -- which isn't a stage show I do. I wanted to make one of the books more of an intimate striptease, and less burlesque-y. So I wore this beautiful magenta silk corset that Mr. Pearl made for me. I think it's my favorite of the three flip-books.

With regards to the process of actually making a new burlesque number, it's different every time. Some of the shows I make take about four to six months to create if it's a real rush, but most of them take much longer. For instance, my newest act, The Opium Den, took about four years to complete because the set is very elaborate, the costume was intense to make, the hand props were difficult, and I had a hard time deciding how I wanted the show to play out, so I kept procrastinating on finishing it.

And the music presented a whole new challenge. I have all my show music custom made for me these days, and so for this Chinese themed show there was a chance to do something really unique with the music. It's very traditionally cinematic at the start, somewhat dark, then turns ultra sexy, then turns somewhat humorous with some real retro burlesque Chinese music.

For one of the songs I took The Cure's "Lullaby" and had it turned into this powerful and sexy Chinese song. People go wild over it when it kicks in, because you recognize it, and it's very powerful. I have this incredible music guy that I work with, he always manages to pull off my absurd ideas. He has the patience of a saint, which is vital when you're working with someone like me who has absolutely no musical vocabulary.

But every show I make is different and presents new challenges. The three new shows I made for The Crazy Horse were really fun because I got to work closely with the dancers to create shows with them, which I loved. I also recorded two songs for those shows. Singing was a whole new thing for me, but I got offered a record deal from it, which is hilarious to me because I'm really terrified of singing, probably because I hate the sound of my own voice.

NP: I understand your longtime friend Catherine D'Lish designs your costumes. I assume this must be quite a collaborative process. How does that work?

DVT: Well, she's a fabulous costume designer, and it was fun all those years when we would work together because we both had this obsession with Swarovski crystal and we would like to see how far we could take it, how many crystals could we get on a costume. I'm sponsored by Swarovski, so we were able to order all these extravagant custom-cut rhinestones in any color, shape and size we wanted, and she would have this amazing team working for her, like a family. It was great because, as a fellow performer, she knows how the costumes have to work, and could figure out inventive ways for the pieces to come off. Catherine has been performing herself a lot more these days, so she's been shifting focus on her own shows, so this year I decided to work with some other designers for the shows that I did at The Crazy Horse.

I worked with Christian Dior and Elie Saab on the gowns, and Mr. Pearl on the corsets, Stephen Jones did my headpieces, and Christian Louboutin made custom shoes for me. It was amazing to work closely with Elie Saab, he did three gowns made in the haute couture atelier in Paris. There was one insane moment where I asked for a swatch of the fabric one of the gowns was made of, this very fine almost invisible tulle that had silver beaded stars all over it. It's this long trailing beautiful gown [which has] miles of this gorgeous beaded tulle...So they come back with two things -- a piece of plain tulle and a bag of the beads. I had no idea that each and every bead -- hundreds of thousands of them -- was embroidered on by hand. It was amazing. That's what true haute couture is. I'm baffled by the details in the workmanship, and of course, shocked that I get to wear them onstage.

Right now I'm working with Mr. Pearl on a new costume. He's meticulous in his fittings, and has incredible taste, so it's nice to let it go and trust everything to him. It's all Swarovski jonquil, which is a beautiful canary yellow, and it's got tons of yellow curled ostrich. It's been in the works about two years now because the beadwork is very fine, and the fit of his corsets is beyond anything. Somehow he gets the tiniest waist you can imagine, but he makes the corsets out of this very fine mesh, so it's hardly there, and is like a second skin. Honestly, no one knows how he does it. That's why Jean Paul Gaultier and all the designers in Paris enlist him. No one can do what he does!

I'm baffled by the feel and the look of his corsets. I know that when I'm long gone, those corsets he has made for me are going to be the most important pieces of clothing I ever owned. He's a very good friend, and my Paris apartment is very near to him, so we have fittings and sip violet champagne. Mr. Pearl is obsessed with violets. He always brings me a little bunch of them and he smells of violet perfume. He's the most elegant man in existence!

NP: You've been so influential fashion-wise, bringing vintage and burlesque style into the mainstream. You've also designed a super-cute T for H&M for their Fashion Against Aids campaign and have a limited edition Wonderbra lingerie line. Do you have any other future projects clothing-wise?

DVT: I love working with Wonderbra. It's been a really great collaboration the past two years. I also have a signature stocking collection. I would really love to branch out into a clothing line, maybe a line that looks at my own vintage clothing collection and recreates some of those amazing lost designs.

NP: Could you see yourself devoting more of your life to fashion design down the line?

DVT: I would definitely like to continue working with lingerie, and if the right opportunity comes along that I feel I can put my name on and my energy into, and feel good about, yes, I would like to do more. But I'm careful about which things I lend my name to. I've been offered jeans campaigns, and obviously, that wouldn't make sense for me.

NP: Your frequently go en pointe in your shows and are seen wearing pink/red point shoes in the Bird of Paradise images. This question's for the ballet geek in me (SG actually has a ballet group). Are you traditional in your choice of pointe shoe? Or do you go for a little comfort and modern day technology with a Gaynor Minden type shoe?

DVT: I haven't been dancing on pointe as often as I used to. Somewhere along the way I started having high heels made as backup for all the shows I do on pointe, because I would get so nervous over "real" dancers being in the audience. At The Crazy Horse, all the Paris Opera Ballet stars came to see me, and that was daunting! But I still dance on pointe from time to time onstage, especially for my Powder Compact and Carousel show, and of course for the burlesque Swan Lake [The Black Swan].

And yes, I go for the Gaynor Mindens. A friend of mine with ABT [American Ballet Theatre] told me years ago that they would change my life and make me more stable onstage, and she was right. I've been dancing on pointe since I was 11 years old. I learned the right way the hard way and at this point, at 37, I don't need the extra suffering, and I like the extra flex Gaynors. But I would love to see the SG ballet troupe someday! You would love the music I had made, it's all the most famous parts of Swan Lake re-recorded in striptease big band style. It's hilariously genius!

NP: Do you still take ballet classes?

DVT: Yes, I just started up again the other day. My friend Liz Goldwyn, who also has a fabulous burlesque book called Pretty Things, brought me to a bitch of a Balanchine class. My inner thighs are on fire still! I also used to take private classes with a Russian teacher. I love the flamboyant Russian style. I'm always looking for ballet classes with funny teachers and live piano accompaniment.

NP: What else do you do to keep in shape?

DVT: I do a lot of Pilates. I work out with Mari Windsor in LA. She's amazing. I do that about 4-5 times a week. She has this amazing DVD every girl should have. It's a 20 minute butt and leg workout with a rubber band. I do it when I'm traveling. Sometimes I do yoga too, and then I also have a little trampoline that I take out in my house, and I run and dance on that thing to my favorite obnoxious dance music. It's a killer cardio workout. I love to eat you see, so I have to work out. I believe that variety is the key to keeping up the momentum and having a successful workout regime.

NP: At his point in your career, how many people do you have in your creative team?

DVT: Well, still no glam squad, no stylist, no hair/makeup team. I like being self-reliant in that way. I have a few favorite makeup and hair people that I work with on certain shoots, but I don't use a team for red carpet things or anything like that. I think independence is vital. But I have a manager, publicist, a prop wrangler, a personal assistant and a pet sitter, and I guess I have about three attorneys that specialize in different things. I guess that's not exactly a "creative" team. My manager is really the only one I work with on a creative level. I can't live without her. I can count on her for everything. When I'm making a new show, creatively, I usually think about the show and research and hire someone. For instance, I hired trip ropers for roping lessons for my cowgirl show, and I hired a bull rider to teach me how to ride my mechanical-bull lipstick, and yeah, I smoked opium the traditional way to "get a feel" for my Opium Den show. Research!

NP: Your shows -- and the photos in Stripteese -- feature elaborate props. Who designs and builds them?

DVT: I work with a few different prop makers. I go to different people for different kinds of projects. I have my favorite welders, foam sculptors, etc... I'm very involved in the creation of the props, and I do a lot of the cosmetic work on them too. Most of the glitters and rhinestones I do myself. It's therapeutic.

NP: My singing teacher always said you should "f*** the lighting guy." I think he was being a little OTT (he was rather theatrical and flamboyant), but it sure helps if you're nice to them. In performance (and life) so much is about the lighting. Any tips?

DVT: Oh yeah, well I agree. Lighting is so important and I cringe when I see how little attention is paid to burlesque show lighting. I learned a lot at The Crazy Horse in Paris. They're the masters at lighting naked women to perfection. So when I was performing there, I would keep a sketchpad and draw diagrams of the lighting during rehearsals, and make friends with the lighting team and ask lots of questions. Lighting can make or break you, and beautiful, artistic light is what makes a show look grand and beautiful.

I get really excited when I'm at venues with exciting lighting rigs! And although I don't go so far as to "f*** the lighting guy," as your friend suggested, I have been known to send gifts and notes and to hang out with them and "ooh" and "aah" over their talents to show my gratitude. I did a show with someone recently who was dreadful to the crew, and I watched first hand what happens when you throw attitude. Those lighting guys aged her ass 20 years! So yes, make friends with the lighting guy!

The key is light that comes from all angles, especially from underneath and sides. You have to fill the ass with light. No white light, no red light, ever. And speaking of lighting, I always have good lighting in my house too. Dimmer switches in every room!

NP: You have a DVD of your Crazy Horse residency coming out. I know in the past you've said that you don't like to film your shows, but after watching the Bettie Page movie the other night it made me feel sad that so much of her work was destroyed under pressure from the government. Your work has been captured for posterity -- and, unlike Bettie, you own or get royalties from most of it. That's got to be a big upside right?

DVT: Yeah, I get funny about being filmed, for a few reasons. It's hard to capture the feeling that one gets when watching a live show, and also I'm not so willing to just hand over these shows that I put all my own money and time and heart and soul into, so it's rare that I come to an agreement that works for me and makes it worthwhile. But I've been filming more of my shows lately. Besides the Crazy Horse DVD, I filmed some shows I did at the Casino de Paris too, which is the big stage Josephine Baker and Mistinguett danced on. I filmed my Opium Den act and some others on that grand stage, and will probably release some of that footage next year.

NP: Burlesque is shrouded with such a rich history, and performing at such a historic venue must add a whole new dimension to your work. What have you learnt while working at The Crazy Horse?

DVT: The Crazy Horse is amazing. It's so cool to be backstage with those girls, they're incredible talents, and they work so hard. They're like racehorses! So beautiful. The Crazy Horse has been open since 1951, and the list of famous people that have been there to see that show is just mind-boggling. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe, Gypsy Rose Lee, Salvador Dali, Mae West, lots of US presidents.

It's a very special place. The girls are so disciplined. They get weighed in weekly to keep their ideal weight that is set for them. They're drop-dead gorgeous, and insanely talented dancers. And the best part is that they all get along, like a team. I spent a lot of time working with them and I love them so much.

It was daunting to go in there the first time. I was the first guest star ever to come in there, so they were rather suspicious of me at first. But I insisted on not having special treatment, and I worked hard, and we discovered a mutual admiration for each other. I don't have nearly the kind of dance training they have, but they would come to me for advice on other aspects of performing, and they would always come to see my other shows around Paris. I have great friendships with many of the girls. I think they are extraordinary, and I'm glad that The Crazy Horse is seeing a revival. I'm their biggest fan. I think it's the best show ever!

NP: Will there be more Dita shows at the Crazy Horse in 2010?

DVT: I'm most likely going to bring the show I did in Paris, the one that's on the DVD, to the Las Vegas Crazy Horse at The MGM Grand sometime in 2010. It's a much different show than the one I did there a few years ago. It's much more elaborate and I do three full numbers instead of just one. And I am also in the process of thinking of the new acts I want to do in Paris for another run.

The thing is that none of my existing shows fit on that intimate stage, so I have to create special shows for their stage. The Crazy Horse is like being in a movie. The audience can see every little gesture. It's much different than the burlesque I usually perform on big stages, and most of my stage props are too tall to fit on that stage. The Crazy Horse stage is a little more than 6 feet tall to make the girls look very tall. They're all between 5'8 and 5'10.

NP: I understand you've recently moved to Paris. Is it really one of the most romantic cities in the world?

DVT: I love it. It's beautiful. I've traveled the world and I still can't find anything nearly as beautiful. I love the architecture and the pride that Parisians have in their city. I've been living there part-time, and I love the challenges that being in a new country presents. I love the ways that it also makes me appreciate America too. There are great things about both places. It's changed my life to have a place in Paris in addition to my place in Los Angeles. I'm really happy that I finally did it. I realized one day when I was talking to an old friend from 15 years ago; I mentioned I wanted to live in Paris and he reminded me I said that way back when. So I was like, "What am I waiting for? Why am I afraid?" I just did it. And it's not always easy, but I like the independence it makes me feel.

NP: What are some of your favorite haunts? And why?

DVT: In Paris? There are so many restaurants I love. There's La Perouse, which is probably the sexiest, most romantic restaurant ever. It's a very old, antique historic place. You can book these private little rooms, and the waiter rings a bell before entering the room, so you have total privacy in this plush little antique salon. The antique mirrors are still on the walls that bear engravings where ladies checked to see if the diamonds they were gifted were authentic. It's the best place to seduce and be seduced, and the food is delicious too.

I also frequent a restaurant and bar called Mathis. I saw Yves Saint Laurent there before he passed away. It's the place to be in Paris, very elegant and the food is divine. I also love to go to a brasserie called Bofinger where I order plates of oysters and bulots. For bars, I usually go to a place called Montana, or The Hemingway Bar at The Ritz. I love to go buy my tea and have lunch at Mariages Freres in the afternoons, and for late night dining after shows I go to a place called Poule Au Pot. They have a gold plaque with my name at my table because I was there every night after The Crazy Horse!

In LA, I don't go out very often. I go to Chateau Marmont sometimes, but mostly I'm a homebody. I go to bed early and wake up early. I like having the days in LA. I also spend a lot of time in my favorite traditional Korean spas in Korea town. My favorite one is open 24 hours and I go there for three hour long massages and scrubs. It's cheap and fabulous. And I love to just disappear and sit there with all the girls and watch Korean soap operas.

NP: You wrote a chapter on stripping in my friend Carrie Borzillo's book Cherry Bomb in which you wrote that when stripping one-on-one for someone special you should also "tease him with your words." Are you a fan of sexting too? And, if so, has it ever got you in trouble?

DVT: Oh yes, I love sexy-texting! But I'm also a good a love-lust letter writer. I write with rose-scented red ink on my personal stationery. A stranger recently tried to blackmail me to buy back some love letters I wrote to a boyfriend 15 years ago, and I said, "Feel free to sell them on eBay if you want. What do I care if people find out that I'm romantic!"

That's one downfall of fame, I get lots of people that want to extort money from me to buy things that they think -- hope -- will be scandalous for me. Really, what could be scandalous for me? I'm a burlesque dancer!

I really don't write anything I would be embarrassed of anyway, and I only sexy-message with my beau, and he's even more discreet about his privacy than I am. I never sexy-texted with guys I was casually dating. Trust is important. And again, I don't think it's a big scandal for a burlesque dancer to get caught sexy texting!

NP Being sexy is a lot of fun, but as we peel the layers off we all just want to feel secure and loved. What makes you feel loved and secure?

DVT: My very closest friends, the friends I've had for twenty years. And my family. It's nice to be around the people I don't have to keep up any image for, that I can trust with everything.

NP: Having had a romance very much in the public eye, are you keen to keep your private life private at this point? And how possible is that?

DVT: It's really difficult. There's only so much you can do. Right now, I'm trying to preserve the privacy of a fairly new relationship, but it's not easy between relentless journalists that won't let you get away with not discussing personal things, and then there's paparazzi. Sometimes pictures pop up on the internet and we had no idea whatsoever that we were being followed and photographed, and that's an odd feeling.

But I accept that people want to know. I know that personally, I don't like reading endless interviews from actors that refuse to discuss anything but their acting craft. It's boring. You have to give a little something.

NP: I interviewed your ex, Marilyn Manson, recently. We had an hour-long conversation, during which he repeatedly talked about the loss he felt after past relationships and the trouble he's had dealing with it. I also have another friend going through a tough divorce right now. What advice would you give when it comes to moving on and the mental adjustments you need to make to make that happen?

DVT: It's funny because I've been some kind of divorce counselor for a few of my girlfriends that are going through it now. One of my friends wants me to write a book with my little mantras and pearls of wisdom. I'm full of them! I guess the best advice I have is to accept the pain and to know that it's part of the risk we take in loving. Inevitably we learn from heartbreak and we recover, and hopefully emerge ready to become a better partner for someone new.

In the midst of a hellacious heartbreak, I work my ass off to stay occupied, and I try to imagine myself further down the line when I'm right again, and in love again. I've been through enough heartache to know that we don't ever die from it, and we always find someone better suited to us. And I personally force myself to think hard about what I did wrong and try to get my revenge by being a better person for someone new. My revenge is always based in living well and trying to be better. It works every single time!

NP: What do you look for in a relationship now? And how has that changed as you grow older and wiser?

DVT: I guess I've just realized that I want to be with someone that inspires me to want to be a better person, and that feels the same way. No one is perfect, so it's up to us to choose the things that are OK and the things that are not. I'm not perfect. I'm just looking for someone who can accept my crazy, and I can accept theirs. I know which things I will no longer accept in my relationships, and I'm not afraid to say no anymore. I know that I'm wiser about a lot of things in love, and I'm grateful for all the experiences, good and bad.

NP: How do you find new inspiration and happiness in your life?

DVT: Well, I enjoy what I do for a living, and I like to keep trying new things and challenging myself. I don't have trouble finding inspiration, it's just finding ways to execute the ideas. That's usually where the frustration lies. As far as happiness, well, I think of it as being like the weather, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, [but] you can't appreciate the good weather without the bad.

NP: You have an upcoming film project, Mata Hari (written by Martha Fiennes). Can you talk a little about this?

DVT: Well, it's just a script right now. It's not actually in production. It's an amazing script, and I would love to play Mata Hari, especially because the other Mata Hari films were hardly factual, and this script sets the record straight on her. I don't really have any interest in acting unless it's in films I would actually like to see, so I pass on most of the acting projects that come my way. I really like being true to myself and doing what I do. I have no problem being content to be a burlesque dancer. I didn't do it as a stepping stone to "bigger" things, I did it because I love it.

NP: Stripteese will make an excellent Christmas gift. What's on your Xmas list?

DVT: Mostly I love Christmas because I like seeing my friends and family, and being home for a change, and baking cookies and entertaining. But when it comes to gifts, I really like sentimental gifts, or things I use all the time, like teacups and martini shakers, vintage picture frames, scented candles. It's easy when you look around my house and see all the stuff I collect. Just stop by an antique store and pick up some silly trinket and I'm happy!


Stripteese is available from Amazon.com and all fine booksellers.

Meet Dita at her two Los Angeles book signing events: Friday December 18 @ Hennessey and Ingalls at Space 15 Twenty (7 PM), and Sunday December 20 @ at Revamp Vintage (2 PM).

For more information on Dita's appearances, performances, books, DVDs and lingerie go to Dita.net.

“Every other band was on stage because they wanted to be rock stars, this band was on stage because they had no fucking choice,” sums up Tony Wilson’s narrative. A camera pans across stark landscape of decrepit factories and abandoned warehouses. Wilson says, “I don’t see this as the story of a... more

“Every other band was on stage because they wanted to be rock stars, this band was on stage because they had no fucking choice,” sums up Tony Wilson’s narrative. A camera pans across stark landscape of decrepit factories and abandoned warehouses. Wilson says, “I don’t see this as the story of a group, but of a city.” The group was Joy Division and the city was Manchester, England. It was 1976 and the group was about to change music, and their city, forever.

Joy Division, the true story of the meteoric rise and fall of one of the most influential bands of our time, is the new documentary from director Grant Gee and producer Tom Atencio that traces the band’s history through never-before seen footage, bootlegged audio recordings and rare photos, as well as through in-depth (and at times incredibly painful) interviews with bassist Peter Hook, guitarist/keyboardist Bernard Sumner, drummer Stephen Morris, and Factory Records founder, the late Tony Wilson.

Joy Division formed in 1976 in Salford, just outside of Manchester, after Hook and Sumner caught a Sex Pistols show and decided to give punk rock a shot. The band’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, was released on Tony Wilson’s Factory Records in 1979 and quickly established Joy Division as the aggressive yet atmospheric post-punk pioneers we know today. Theirs was music you could lose yourself in over and over again. But by February of 1980 the momentum of success had begun to take its toll on the band, most notably singer Ian Curtis, who’s physical and emotional fragility was unable to sustain the pressure of expectation. On May 18 1980, a 23-year-old Curtis hung himself, mere days before the band was to hop a flight to America for what would have been their first stateside tour. The band’s brilliant second album, Closer, was released after Curtis’ death. Joy Division was no more, but their story became that of legend.

The day after the documentary's Los Angeles screening I met up with Peter Hook at Rhino Records for our interview...

Erin Broadley: Did you enjoy the screening last night?

Peter Hook: It was a bit weird but good. It was quite odd because it was so arty and sort of restrained. I thought it would have been a bit wilder, really. It wasn’t as crazy as I thought it was going to be.

EB: What led to the decision to get involved with the documentary? When Anton Corbijn’s Joy Division biopic, Control, came out last year, there was speculation as to whether or not the band was happy with that fictional representation.

PH: The interesting thing is that the Joy Division documentary actually came about before Control, but Control happened quicker. I don’t think the documentary would have happened afterwards because we would have been so sick of talking about Joy Division, and so sick of living with it, that we wouldn’t have been able to do it. You wouldn’t have been able to give it the objectivity. It wouldn’t have been as fresh and honest. Tom Atencio’s timing was perfect, really. The interesting thing about the documentary is that I’ve never heard Bernard and Stephen talk about Joy Division like that. It’s something that we didn’t do, and we haven’t done.

EB: There’s that point in the documentary where it’s said that men don’t talk.

PH: It’s true. The sad aspect of it is, that if the three of us had done the interview together, you wouldn’t have said hardly anything. You just wouldn’t do it. Separately you’d do it. The interviews were done by John Savage, who’s a great friend of ours, an old journalist from Manchester who started in the punk era just the same way that we did. So you’re talking to someone you know very well, who knows the story very well. And obviously Tom Atencio we’ve worked with since 1982, so we know him very well. You open up to these people much more than you would do to somebody you didn’t know. And, to me, in the documentary it paid off.

EB: The documentary starts with Tony Wilson saying it’s more than just a story about a group; it’s a story about a city.

PH: Yeah, that’s Tony Wilson’s interpretation of it… that it all was about Manchester. And I suppose it is. You are subconsciously fueled by your surroundings, especially when you’re a kid. And the thing is that Manchester gave me the fuel to want to get out. And ironically it draws me back, every time I leave. When I leave here now I’ll be going back to Manchester. It’s quite odd seeing all these places in the world, all these different cultures, and you still always go home to Manchester.

EB: Maybe Tony saw things more like a scene.

PH: He’s a journalist. I’m just a stupid fucking musician. [Smiles] I don’t see any further than the end of me guitar.

EB: [Laughs] Well, I did love your description of him as an alien with tentacles.

PH: [Laughs] In that time, considering I’m just a working class tosser from Salford, to see somebody like him, it was like Doctor Who. It was wild.

EB: Was it hard for him to win Joy Division’s trust?

PH: Not particularly. Tony was a very confident guy. He was a star in his own right when he met us. So he always treated you in the same way, which was with a healthy dose of disdain [laughs]. He was always the boss and was treated in a sort of reverent manner. The Joy Division story is to do with Manchester. And it’s to do with the re-growth of Manchester that happened at the end of the ‘70s, and the fact that Factory Records, the Hacienda, Joy Division and New Order came from that. It’s a tale of regeneration. It does have an effect on me when I see it. I find the documentary, and Control, still quite upsetting really. It really does tug at your heartstrings. It’s always difficult for me to watch either of them. I certainly don’t find it a joyous occasion. But I do think that the two of them go together so well, which was something I didn’t expect. Very surprised. I was fuckin’ amazed at some of the stuff Tom got because he had stuff that I hadn’t heard. And I was like, “Where’d you get that from?!” Everybody has a different memory. It was hilarious last night when the documentary said that Bernard came up with the name for Joy Division. I don’t remember that at all. As far as I was concerned, it was Ian that had the book the House of Dolls and came up with the name Joy Division. So his memory of it is completely fuckin’ opposite to mine.

EB: Everything I’ve read has linked it to Ian as well.

PH: Yeah, it was Ian! It was Ian’s book. [Laughs] It’s funny that everybody has a different memory. And none of it is true. It has to be an amalgamation of it that’s true. It depends who you ask.

EB: Even a documentary is just a patchwork semblance of what really happened. One thing that’s said in the end of the documentary is that since there were only two things Joy Division actually created, Unknown Pleasures and Closer, that everything since has just been “merchandising memory.”

PH: Yeah. Well, it probably would have been nice if the “merchandising memory” was actually done by the band.

EB: [Laughs]

PH: It was quite interesting. Because we were punks when we first began, we didn’t do fan clubs, we didn’t do t-shirts… we felt it was crap and it was robbing people and it was mindless cashing in. We didn’t do Joy Division t-shirts. Ever. But when we got investigated by the tax man because of the Hacienda, the tax man said to us, “What I see whenever I walk round Manchester is Joy Division t-shirts. And in your accounts I don’t see any money for Joy Division t-shirts. Where’s the money for the Joy Division t-shirts?” And we said, “Well, we don’t do them because we don’t believe in it; we think it’s cheap merchandising gimmick.” And he went, “Well frankly I don’t believe you and I’m fining you.”

EB: Wow.

PH: He fined us for hiding our t-shirt revenue when we never fucking had any. So let that be a warning to you.

EB: [Laughs] Okay, well if I walk around and I see anyone wearing t-shirts with my name on them, I’ll make sure to put a stop to it.

PH: Mhmm. Make sure you get the dough.

EB: In the early Manchester scene, one thing that is brought up in the documentary is Joy Division’s “I’m fucked” mentality versus the “Fuck you” attitude of other punk bands. I thought that was a really interesting way to sum it up. Where did you find the balance?

PH: [Laughs] Yeah. I think the balance was sort of thrust upon you, really. If anything, as Bernard says, and as I said last night, we must be the only two people that don’t like Unknown Pleasures, which is quite ironic when you’re the one who bloody wrote it. Quite odd, really. The thing is, I appreciate it now what Martin [Hannett, the producer] did. At the time I was too young. I was too obnoxious -- a full of myself youngster -- to appreciate anything. To me, Martin was like you parents… fuck off. That’s why I became a punk, so I could tell everyone to fuck off, and that’s it.

EB: What was it about that album that you thought made it so impenetrable?

PH: I thought it was too subtle. I wanted it to be the way we sounded live, like the Ramones. [Laughs] But I’m prepared to admit that I was wrong. Martin gave it a depth, gave it the appeal and the ability to last a long time. To get music that you can lose yourself in is quite rare. Martin had that ability. He made Joy Division so that you could lose yourself. He proved that he could make it last, and he did make it last. I think Bernard and I would have made a much more one-dimensional record, because it was always Bernard and I who were the most pushy. Martin made a very three-dimensional, if not four-dimensional, record. Something you could lose yourself in; it had lasting power. [Laughs] He was a fucking maniac… a really weird character. A genius, but obviously troubled. He was a gift to us and basically Bernard and I learned how to do produce so then when he got difficult, we got rid of him and did it ourselves. It’s all about ego isn’t it?

EB: When you started you could barely play your instruments but then…

PH: …it all happened so quick. That was the thing about punk. The ideology of it was let’s not wait, let’s do it now. It was very instantaneous. What I liked about punk was that you admired the people who just got up and did it, regardless of whether it was bad or good. The thing you appreciated was that they just got up and did it. There was one wonderful band from Manchester called The Worst… and they were the worst. They had no songs; it was just a drummer and a guitarist and they’d just do it. That was what punk was all about. It couldn’t last. It was like bloody metal machine music. But in the context of what we were doing -- and the building that we were using, a squat on Oxford road in Manchester for all the bands to play in -- it was perfect.

EB: The first TV appearance you guys did was Granada, right?

PH: Yeah, I remember how nervous we were. I remember going out in the afternoon and Rob Gretton [Joy Division’s manager] buying me that shirt that I wore because he felt that the shirt that I had was too scruffy. So he took me and paid 3 pound 50 for that shirt and I wore it that night. I wore it for ages until it got ripped when I did a gig with Dexy’s Midnight Runners in Birmingham. I can remember ripping that fucking shirt on me bass cab.

EB: Was it emotional?

PH: It was. I remember I was really pissed off. Really fucking annoyed because I liked that shirt. But it’s the nerves mainly. I remember how nervous we were [to play Granada]. That was a big thing to happen to you. It was fantastic. I remember the momentous occasion very well. To get to go to Granada studios, and to go into the Cantina dressing rooms, it was like, fuckin’ hell!

EB: Like you said, it all happened very quickly. Do you think you were ever fully aware of how much that momentum had caught up to you guys or how much pressure was mounting towards the end?

PH: No, we were very young and very fit so we were ok. You were only aware of the pull it was having on Ian because he wasn’t well. So that was a problem. The thing is, when you start you desperately want to play anywhere and do anything. It was interesting because I remember us doing a concert in Oldham near Manchester as Joy Division and nobody came. Nobody. No one. [Laughs]

EB: Just a dog and the bartender?

PH: Just the bartender. And he started sweeping up while we were on. Then six months later you’re playing to a packed room. Same material but to a crowd that are going ape shit. It’s wild when you think of the gulf in that. We started getting popular after the Buzzcocks tour, which was wonderful because we actually blew the Buzzcocks off a couple of nights… fucking blew ‘em out of the water. It was fantastic. Hilarious. We started getting offered loads of gigs and Ian, even though he was ill, because he’d being working for this and working towards this, was desperate to do the gigs. It was heartbreaking for him to have to admit that physically he wasn’t up to it, and he fought that right ‘til the end. He was his own worst enemy. Basically what Ian would do to you, you’d say, “Ian you’re ill. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing this.” And he’d go, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” And you’d go, “Thank God for that. Right, let’s get on with it.” It was always him. He was never pushed to these gigs kicking and screaming. He pushed himself because he didn’t want to let you down.

On our part, you can only put it down to inexperience and naiveté. I did a Radio 4 thing in England recently, and the guy said to me, “How could you let that happen?” And you’re like, “Oh fuck.” But it’s true, you see. How could you let it happen? You dickhead, you fucking did that. How could you let that happen? You’re like, “Oh fuck, I did that.” We did. We should have stopped it. But we were all so caught up in the whole occasion and because Ian was going, “Don’t worry, you’re fine, I’ll look after me self, we’ll be all right.” You’re like, “Oh thank God we don’t have to worry about that now he said that he’s okay.”

EB: But don’t you think at a certain point, because you guys were so young, it was the responsibilities of your managers with the experience not to let that happen? Somebody on the periphery looking out? Where were they?

PH: Yes. There was a lot more people that made bigger mistakes. His psychiatrist, his doctor, the people treating him in the hospital, they all fucking let him go.

EB: I don’t think its up to a bunch of 22-year-olds to be able to…

PH: Yeah, but it still doesn’t stop you from not feeling responsible. It also doesn’t stop people from turning around and saying to you that it’s all your fault. But there is a responsibility, which I suppose is one of the things you have to live with… “What if I’d have done this?” If it happened to me 10 or 20 years ago, I would have just gone, “Stop… fucking sort it out.” Then we were too young, too naïve, too hopeful and you were so grateful for the things that you were being given, you were desperate not to pass it up. It was a combination of all that, plus the guy telling you it was ok. None of us knew. It was really, really sad. I was with him the night before he died and I drove him home and we were so excited about going to America. That was why I was in such shock when I was told because I’d been with him on Friday night. I drove him home. How’d you get from that to that? Fuckin’ hell man. It’s unbelievable. It was unbelievable. Who the fuck knows what happened.

EB: For a lot of people the end of Joy Division was a symbolic loss. And the fact that the band never made it to America just made it even more precious to Manchester.

PH: Yeah, even I often wonder what would have happened. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I don’t know, really. It’s a very difficult decision. I was doing an interview before and the guy said to me, “Oh, you’ve been in two of the most important bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s," and I suppose the thing is, if Ian hadn’t have died it would have been one band. It’s weird the way that things work out, really. People always say, “Well what do you think Joy Division would have been like if Ian had lived?” And I think “Blue Monday” would have been by Joy Division, with Ian singing. I don’t think our development would have changed that much. With Ian singing New Order, I think you would have gone the same way.

EB: You have the New Order Live In Glasgow DVD that just came out. What’s going on with that?

PH: Well, it was planned before New Order split up. The record company asked us if we’d do one this tour so it was done simply as that. Stephen and I got involved in the production of it. We oversaw the editing, put the pictures together, we mixed the sound and put it all together. Stephen went and collected the rare and unseen footage, which I thought was wonderful. [Laughs] But when I saw the headline “New Order Celebrates Career in Glasgow,” I don’t remember it being very celebratory, to be honest, but maybe that’s just me. It was nice to be involved in it. I think one of the bad things that’s happened to musicians is that when you don’t get involved in everything that you do, then there’s no quality control and that I find off-putting and is a sad part of our business. So I was delighted to be involved in it and to do it to the best of our ability. It’s all the more poignant because New Order have split up. It makes it quite an odd situation. To be honest with you, it’s an odd situation to be here talking about it. Because I’d rather not. [Laughs]

EB: Then you don’t have to…

PH: [Laughs] No, I don’t mind. The thing is, whilst my memories of New Order at the moment are very clouded by the split and what happened after it, I’m the first one to sit up and look at it and go, “Well fucking hell we achieved something wonderful.” And I’m glad, especially because Stephen and I were involved in doing this one. This is a celebration of our career; it just wasn’t a very celebratory night. Basically we were all getting on each other’s fucking nerves. We were all sick to death of each other and it wasn’t a great atmosphere, but as it happens, your professionalism overcame that and you still created something wonderful. I suppose that’s the thing about the chemistry of groups, is that a group can still hate each other but actually create something quite brilliant. You always seem to need a bit of angst and a bit of pain to make great music. So I suppose New Order were very lucky in that they found a way to stay in constant pain. [Laughs].

EB: Well what’s up next for you?

PH: These days I'm deejaying. I’m on the “old fucker who used to be in a band” circuit, as my mate calls it. And I’ve got a new group I’m working on called Freebase, with Manny who used to be in the Stone Roses, and Andy Rourke who used to be in the Smiths, which is coming along quite well, yeah. I’m quite happy.

Joy Division, the documentary, is out now on DVD. Buy it here. Also available on DVD is New Order: Live in Glasgow. Buy it here.

Richard Patrick, Filter’s (hybrid) driving force, is frustrated. With one man down (the Webmaster of a fan site), and an ex-band member currently on the frontline in Iraq, what’s going on in the Middle East is less remote for him than for most. So, while supporting our troops, he’s speaking out against... more

Richard Patrick, Filter’s (hybrid) driving force, is frustrated. With one man down (the Webmaster of a fan site), and an ex-band member currently on the frontline in Iraq, what’s going on in the Middle East is less remote for him than for most. So, while supporting our troops, he’s speaking out against the war, but feels his cries of protest on Filter's May 2008 album release Anthems For The Damned are lost on a nation that downloads everything and values little.

In 2002 General Motors ironically launched their gas-guzzling H2 to the sounds of Filter’s “The Only Way (Is The Wrong Way).” In 2003, to fuel a hunger for democracy –– and oil ––America invaded Iraq. With our government, economy, environment –– and music industry –– in crisis, Richard talks about how he reconciles his need to make a living with his own value system. But let’s take care of the prerequisite business first:

Nicole Powers: You have The Pulse Sessions coming out later this year. That’s a live album right?

Richard Patrick: Yeah. We’re going to do a live record that’s recorded in the studio. We’ll just jump in a studio and set up our gear and play live.

NP: And later on you’ve got a remix album coming out?

RP: Yes, that looks like November 4th. It’s going to be Remix For The Dammed.

NP: Have you got any favorite remixes you’d like to talk about?

RP: I’d say my favorite remix is by one of my original programmers, Rae DiLeo. It’s one of his last parting things that he’s going to be doing with us for a little while because he’s going off and doing different things. John Spiker’s going to be the new sound design guy.

NP: In the early days you were known for combining electronica with rock, but Anthems is a very non-electronic, organic rock sound? Is that the direction you’re going in musically?

RP: Actually the stuff I’m writing right now for a record that I’m going to release sometime next year is actually way more heavy industrial, more electronic. There’s probably not going to be that many live drums on it.

NP: So it’s back full circle to your early Nine Inch Nails days?

RP: Well, Nine Inch Nails was influenced by Skinny Puppy and Ministry… But the reality is, yeah, I miss those old days. I feel that Filter needs to return to the “Hey Man, Nice Shot” era. I was a young angry man when I did that, and then I kind of went of into different worlds musically and I think I’m coming full circle because now I just want to do heavier, darker music. I thought Anthems was darker, but I grow more and more frustrated with the state of affairs in the world and I think my music should reflect that kind of anger.

NP: Recently you did a Huffington Post. In one of the opening paragraphs you talk about your idols, Bono and John Lennon, and say they taught you to speak your mind. Do you get frustrated that more people don’t?

RP: Neil Young even said it, back in the day, that rock and roll could change things. Rock and roll can’t do anything anymore. It’s true. I literally released an anti-war, pro-troops record and it was almost like falling upon deaf ears. Right now the audience seem like they’re OK with talking about bling and G5s and money, they’re totally happy with that. As a human being that lives on this little planet and knows how fragile the world is, I had to say something…

People heard my record and they heard I’m bitching about my commander-in-chief. I’m bitching about things that need to be said. On every song on the record I’m talking about issues and I have to say, I didn’t want to just close my mouth and go ‘OK, here’s another song about love. Or here’s another song about being hurt.’ I had to actually talk about some real facts.

NP: I love the lyrics of your song “Lie After Lie.” The lies we’re talking about aren’t little ones, and there’s been so many of them, yet Obama and McCain are so close in the polls. How many lies will it take before people will see the writing on the wall?

RP: Well, this country, they voted a guy into office who they could have a beer with. It’s like Bill Maher said, this country voted in a fucking retard because they wanted to be able to have a beer with him. And now look at us, we’re all fucking paying the price.

NP: It’s almost like half of America is happy with their heads in the sand, and actually wants to be lied to so they can avoid the truth.

RP: There’s more talk about Palin’s eye-glasses and her naughty librarian hair cut –– the Democrats are talking about universal healthcare –– does anyone care about that? Most of my friends don’t have fucking insurance. Now I’ve turned forty, things go wrong in your body. I have an issue with my back all of a sudden. And I go to a doctor and I spend tens of thousands of dollars, but I’m insured and I’m, quote unquote, successful, and I do really well and so I have money…

I like hanging out with young people, and they can’t even afford medicine if they got sick. And the funny thing is you know they’re not spending any money on education. This country would rather spend a trillion dollars on a fucking war for oil…We’re pouring money into this thing, and yet where does the country stand on education? If you want a good one you have to spend your own money and put your kids in private school.

NP: Well I think part of it is that they want to keep the country dumb.

RP: Yes, exactly. They want kids in public school so they’re not educated, so they don’t talk about stuff. I don’t have my head in the sand. I live in a world where I wake up every day, if I feel like making some music I can. If I don’t want to, I don’t have to. So if I want to sit in front of three newspapers and three or four TiVoed news shows, PBS, Fox News, just trying to get a general viewpoint, I can sit around and I can watch show after show after show on TV about the environment being fucked up. Most people fucking get in a car and then they drive for two hours on the fucking freeways, then they get to a job and work their asses off and they come home and they’re exhausted. Then they’ve got to hang out with their kids for a little while, and they’re in bed by nine o’ clock. Done. They don’t have time to think. They don’t have time to complain.

I’ve woken up. I got sober like five years ago. I’ve had all this time to sit back and watch what they’re doing. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, they’re oil men –– they’re fucking oil men. So what do they do? Need more oil. Invade country that’s got oil. Now it’s their answer to the huge crisis, the gasoline shortage. What’s their huge answer? Drill! They want to drill in Alaska. That’s only going to affect our oil supplies at like 7 per cent. Where do we get the rest of it? We get it from fucking Saudi Arabia.

NP: I think the masses aren’t getting angry because it’s not affecting them enough. It’s not like Vietnam where everyone had friends and loved ones that were being called up.

RP: People are being drafted...

NP: That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, because the cover of Anthems for the Damned, that’s a pretty powerful statement. It features the dog tags and rifle of Justin Eyerly who ran one of your fan sites. I understand he signed up for the reserves to pay for college, got called up and died a couple of weeks after he was deployed. What do his family think of the cover?

RP: I talk to them once a year right around Thanksgiving, and I haven’t really talked to them about him. I know his friend Meghan Darney was so honored to supply the picture. She took the picture of the inverted rifle. But I have to call them and find out what they think. A friend of ours left a CD on his grave.

NP: And your former bass player, Frank Cavanagh, recently enlisted and is in Iraq right now. Did he share his reasons for enlisting with you?

RP: He comes from a military background. His brother’s in the army, and his uncles were in the army, and his dad was in the army, and it’s like if you’re at war you join the army in some families. He was thirty-five and he said ‘I missed the cut-off age and I can never be in the army.’…And then they changed the cut-off age to thirty-seven, ‘cause they need more troops, and he went in...It’s a calling. It’s something that you do in certain families. He just wanted to see it for himself, and I’m dying to get back over there.

NP: You played a benefit concert for the troops in Kuwait in March of this year just before Frank shipped off to Iraq in April. How was that?

RP: Yes, I played the Operation MySpace concert with Disturbed, and DJ Z-Trip and Jessica Simpson, and it was amazing. It’s a twenty-seven hour flight and I’m sitting there and I’m in Business Class looking down…When you’re flying over the United States it’s just a grid of lights. Even the smaller cities are well lit. Everything looks like it’s really neat, clean and taken care of…When you fly over Iraq it’s just dismal. There’s one naked little light down there…

You land, and you’re looking around and there’s a row of thirty Black Hawk helicopters, and you’re like ‘wow, each one of those is worth forty million bucks.’ So you look at it and think that’s a whole town’s library – it’s a fleet of libraries…You look over and see a guard tower and you’re like wow, that’s a bridge in Minnesota. It’s astounding what we're wasting our money on there.

NP: Obviously you now drive a hybrid car, but in 2002 your song “The Only Way (Is The Wrong Way)” was used to promote the then new H2 vehicle. If you knew then what you know now, would you still have allowed that to happen?

RP: I probably would have allowed a lot more. I probably would have done that JC Penny commercial they asked me to do. Here’s why: The music industry is under attack by theft…In this day and age, you’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do. Humvee, yes. Someone’s going to use a song. If he doesn’t use my song, he’s going to use someone else’s song. I want to put my kids through college. And the reality is, when people talk about selling out and stuff like that, it’s a whole different ball game when people are constantly ripping artists off –– constantly on the internet. The internet is a big, huge, evil thing. It’s got a lot of good, but it’s got a lot of bad…

People aren’t paying for music. So all this time, effort and money that we spent sitting in studios making music –– people aren’t paying for that. It's destroying the music industry. So when I saw Snoop Dogg selling Taco Bell I was like get it, ‘get in there and get you some money. Do what you gotta do.’ Our industry has been anally raped in the last eight years by technology and by people who just don’t get it. They’re like ‘Filter doesn’t need any money, I’m just going to download this off allmp3.com and get the thing for free.’ They just don’t care. They don’t know right from wrong anymore. So Humvee, that’s how I make my living… That’s how I’m going to put my kids through school.

NP: Isn’t there some implied endorsement though? I guess that’s the other side of it, the responsibility and implied endorsement. Isn’t there a danger there?

RP: I’m not sure what you’re asking.

NP: When someone hears a band’s song promoting a product, there’s an implied endorsement of that product.

RP: Yes. Or it’s just a song they use in the background. It’s not an endorsement. It’s just music. “Hey Man, Nice Shot” was in the Iron Man soundtrack. Do I endorse Iron Man the character? No. It’s just music in the background…

All that endorsement stuff, all that’s off the table. I mean I’ll endorse Barack Obama, and he could use my song, and stuff like that. I think I’d be bummed out if McCain used my song.

NP: Would you sue like Jackson Browne?

RP: All these old guys have tons of money, they made money back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, you know what I mean. It’s like rap artists. Rap artists get in there and they do everything. They sell their songs on the radio. They’ll sell their songs through beer commercials. They’ll put out a clothing line. They'll take their name and turn it into a brand, and divvy it up, and just make money. When a rock artist does it all of sudden it’s oh, he’s endorsing, he’s evil…

Yeah, Humvee baby, H2, it’s a well designed machine. Yes, it’s an SUV. It’s a car. It’s a product. Do I endorse that? No. What I endorse is ‘yes, you want some music, I’ll give you some music.’ I don’t sit around and hold up a sign outside of my house saying I want you to go buy an H3. It’s not the same. That’s making a living….It’s like a free bit of advertising for your band at this point in time. It’s like I saw a commercial, I heard this really cool song, I’m going to find that song. ‘Cause MTV’s not going to play your video.

NP: Commercials do work like radio these days. But you talk about branding and rap artists; I think it’s gone too far. It saddens me when you hear these guys aspiring to be a brand, because I think the artistry has to come first, and then if you can exploit it commercially that’s great.

RP: Artistry does have to come first and you do have to be an artist at the same time, but the reality is everybody’s on this planet to make a living…Back in the day during the grunge era we could sit there and say no to a lot of things, but you can’t say no to those things anymore. You can’t call up Reebok and tell them ‘no, don’t use my song,’ because, literally, if you’re going to compete in a world with 900 channels on Direct TV. There’s room for 900 channels on Direct TV. Think of that. Think of the internet. You know it’s so funny because I keep doing these dot com magazines; I didn’t even know half of them existed. There are so many dot comes out there. There are so many places a person can go, you have to say yes to a beer commercial.

Think of my music being used for an alcohol ad. I mean I’m a recovering alcoholic, but in this day and age it’s like I can’t be pissed at Bud Light for being Bud Light just because I’m an alcoholic. People like to drink beer, and if they’re going to use my song and pay me a million dollars, then why not me as opposed to the other guy that doesn’t give a fuck. I get what you’re saying. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, but at the same time, take a look what’s happening to the entertainment dollar.

NP: It’s also a question of value. I mean people will think nothing of dropping twenty bucks on a meal out which takes fifteen minutes to prepare, but they won’t pay twenty bucks for an album that maybe took two years to prepare.

RP: Exactly. Exactly. That’s my point. People are literally like, how can I get this for free on the internet…This is the Wild West at this point in time. I’ve sold fifty thousand records this time, and because I’m independent, I’m actually doing better than when I was signed to a major. It’s like you’re living in opposite land. I’m actually going to see more money from my independent record that sold fifty thousand copies, than my zillion selling major label record. My video cost less than twenty thousand dollars to make –– for “Soldiers of Misfortune.” My last video cost four hundred thousand dollars at a major.

NP: Ouch. Imagine recouping that.

RP: I’m probably not going to go gold on Anthems, but I’m going to make more money on Anthems. So, everything’s off the table. It’s a whole new world.

NP: The upside of the internet is that it takes the record labels out of the picture, and you now have a direct relationship with your fans.

RP: Yes. If I want to get online and tell three hundred thousand people that have signed up to a mailing list or whatever on OfficialFilter.com, I can do that. I guess to go back to that earlier statement when we were kind of talking about the SUV, it is a fine line, you do have to be careful as far as licensing your songs. But at the same time everybody’s got to put their kids through school, and you just hope that you pick the right things to be a part of. Believe it or not, the H3 ads were award winning. That particular advertising campaign was pretty cool looking. It was pretty slick. Would I sell my song for a tampon commercial? I probably wouldn’t. So it is a double-edged sword, and you do have to be careful, but you just have to hope that you make the right decision, and that your fans can deal witt those decisions. That’s my statement on that.

Filter kick-off a seven date mini tour in Reno, NV on September 17. Click HERE for more info.

During his 16-year career of DJing and producing electronic music, Moby (born Richard Melville Hall) has emerged as a confident social and political voice in a largely faceless scene. He's worked tirelessly to benefit causes ranging from the Humane Society (which receives the proceeds from his MobyGratis.com... more

During his 16-year career of DJing and producing electronic music, Moby (born Richard Melville Hall) has emerged as a confident social and political voice in a largely faceless scene. He's worked tirelessly to benefit causes ranging from the Humane Society (which receives the proceeds from his MobyGratis.com Web site) to the political action committee MoveOn.org, with whom he's worked on several campaigns.

But Moby's true charm lies in his ability to balance the serious with the lighthearted, to work hard and play hard. We caught up with him to discuss his feelings about November 4, why the death of the music business rocks, and his patronage of an emerging cinematic genre: Spaghetti porn.

Tamara Palmer: How did you arrive at the decision to endorse Barack Obama?

Moby: It was difficult because I've known Hillary [Clinton] for a long time and I really wanted to be a Hillary supporter, but one of the ways that Obama sort of won me over was he ran such a good campaign. And what we've seen with the Bush administration is - like in a weird way, I could almost forgive them for being so ideologically driven if they were competent. But like the Bush administration, they're the worst of all possible worlds, where they were complete ideologues and they were arrogant and incompetent at the same time. When I look at Barack Obama, apart from the fact that on a policy level I agree with just about all of his initiatives, he seems really capable. He ran a way better campaign than Hillary, he's run an amazingly better campaign than John McCain.

If this was 10 years ago, I wouldn't vote for John McCain, but I wouldn't be too troubled at the thought of him being President. But now, John McCain 2008 - I don't even know who this person is. The Economist had a cover that was like, "Will the real John McCain stand up?" Because, in the old days, he was moderate and he was bipartisan - he crafted McCain/Feingold, he worked with Ted Kennedy. But now, he just seems like an angry, crazy lunatic. And to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate, it's probably the most irresponsible thing he's done in his entire life. So when I vote in the election, I'll be voting enthusiastically for Obama and Joe Biden. But I'll be voting just as enthusiastically and motivated by fear of Sarah Palin as President of the United States. I don't think anyone who's ever run for President is less qualified.

As Governor of Wasilla - they keep talking about how she had experience as Governor of Wasilla - the Governor of Wasilla does nothing. The Governor of Wasilla has a staff meeting and signs checks. They don't oversee the police department, they don't oversee the fire department, they don't oversee the schools. As the Governor of - I'm sorry, the Mayor of Wasilla - she had no real responsibilities. The thought of her being V.P. or being President terrifies me.

TP: Now, do you think that there's a danger that we can become too cocky and sure of an outcome? That's what I'm afraid of, that people will think that Obama's got it in the bag and maybe they think they don't need to make the effort.

RMH: The polls look good, but the polls are also confusing and misleading. Polling has always been a very inexact science, but it was a lot easier when everyone had landlines and everyone came home after 7 o'clock at night. So now, there's general election polling, there's polling of likely voters, there's polling based on past voting habits and voting records. But now, the majority of people between the ages of 18 and 32 don't have landlines, or at least a significant percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 32. And you can't do blind polling calls to cell phones, at least as far as I know. So there's a whole demographic who are not being included in these statistical samples.

So the fact that Obama is ahead in most of the polls is either very encouraging or irrelevant. Polls are fun and they're interesting to pay attention to and they're good to an extent. Like, because Obama was polling so well in Michigan, McCain closed down his campaign offices in Michigan. But I can't see how any Democrat at this point could be complacent. I mean, there's no guarantee that Obama will win, because there's no guarantee what people will do when they get into the voting booths.

Who knows what's going to happen? Obama might win Pennsylvania, he might win Ohio, he might win Florida, he might win Virginia. He might have this remarkable sweep. We might wake up the next day and see that basically Obama has had more electoral votes than anyone since Reagan. Or we might wake up the next day and realize that we've lost the election and we have to spend the next four years with a 72-year-old Alzheimer's patient and a crazy woman who believes that dinosaurs and humans co-existed running the country.

TP: That alone is so frightening. People always joke about moving to another country if they win, but. . .

RMH: See, McCain as President would be bad. Palin as President would be disastrous. My fear in criticizing her is that I don't want to make it seem that I am in any way misogynist. There's so many people that he could have picked who were qualified and he chose this woman who he had met once for 45 minutes. I don't play basketball for the simple reason that I'm no good at basketball. I'm not qualified to be a basketball player. The same reason I don't play football. I'm not tall, I'm not big, so I know I shouldn't be playing basketball or football. I have a relatively objective understanding of my strengths and weaknesses.

I know I shouldn't be Vice President of the United States because I've never held elected office and I don't know enough. The arrogance behind Sarah Palin believing that she could be the President of the United States - anyone else in her position, when asked to run as the running mate, would have said no. She should have said, "I'm flattered, but I'm a first term Governor." She's only left the country twice. That arrogance, that hubris that somehow has led her to think that she's capable of being President of the United States is what terrifies me the most.

I feel like she's been caught up in the fame making and how they've created her into this Republican pinup lady. And in all honesty, I'd much rather have you as the Vice President or the President any day of the week. Even though you might not think you're quite as capable, you're far more capable than she is intellectually and as a human relating to other people.

It's sad. The majority of people I know are more qualified to be Vice President than Sarah Palin. You would almost be hard pressed in any big city to find someone less qualified than Sarah Palin to be Vice President. I think you'd have to start trolling the ranks of junior high schools and elementary schools to find people less qualified than her to be Vice President.

TP: Do you have any specific plans for "Super Tuesday?"

RMH: Well, everybody I know is hosting election parties. The last election party I went to in 2004, I went with a bunch of people who worked at the DNC, people who work for MoveOn and people who worked for the Kerry campaign and it was so depressing. It was like a wake. We sat there, we watched the results come in and when they declared Florida for Bush, everyone just started drinking and drinking and drinking and it was just a big, drunken, sad mess. There were people in the corner, sort of rocking themselves back and forth, not able to believe that America had re-elected George Bush. So I'm a little bit wary of going to election night parties and maybe I'll just take a handful of Xanax and go to sleep for 12 hours and wake up and see what happened.

TP: That's not a bad plan. I feel like it's going to be so tense that I might not want to be at a bar or big public gathering either.

RMH: I did the same thing in 2000. If you remember, in 2000 at first they called Florida for Gore, so everyone I know was cheering like, "We won! We won!" And then all of a sudden, they said, "No, it's too close to call." And so we had this moment of euphoria followed by this moment of fear followed by three weeks of dangling chads and recounts.

TP: I do feel like people are expecting to get some sort of instant gratification on that day, when we may very well have no idea. . .

RMH: That's the thing. The biggest variable in the election is voter registration. If we wake up after election night and we've won, it will be because Obama ran a great campaign, he raised tons of money. But also, we have all these groups - whether it's the AFL-CIO or MoveOn or the National Organization for Women - have registered so many voters. And already, they're looking at the returns that have come in for early voting and Democrats are voting almost twice as much as Republicans.

TP: That's really a new trend, isn't it?

RMH: Yes, early voters were always Republicans, like the 75-year-old people that would go to the senior center and vote. And now we're seeing African-Americans and Latinos and college students all voting early, which I find really encouraging but again, we won't know until the day after the election.

TP: Times are tough in the music biz, do you feel the pinch when it comes to making your own albums?

RMH: If you talk to people in the music business, everyone talks about the death of the album, which I guess to an extent is true. But the demise of the record business in some ways I find sort of emancipating. Now, there isn't as much commercial pressure. In the old days, you had to sell a ton of records just to keep the record company interested. And now, nobody sells tons of records. What I think is really nice is that the artists who are actually doing well now are the artists who are making great music. Now, musicians have to be able to play live and they have to be able to write good songs and I find that really encouraging. People are selling fewer records, but the records themselves are getting better. I see the death of the album in that no one is selling 10 million albums anymore. But I still think the album can be a really remarkable, cohesive art form.

TP: You are releasing a remix album of your most current album Last Night right now, but are you working on a new album, too?

RMH: Yes.

TP: What's that shaping up to sound like? Do you have a concept?

RMH: I want to make a really emotional, beautiful record. I don't know if I will succeed, but my goal is to make something very personal, very melodic, very beautiful. And hopefully interesting at the same time, because sometimes, when people try to make beautiful art, it can kind of come off as sort of saccharine-y, and so I have to figure out how to make something that's emotional and beautiful that will affect people emotionally without it being too sugary.

TP: Well, as we know well here at Suicide Girls, there's a lot to be said for dark beauty!

RMH: Yes, it's a very mournful record. But hopefully uplifting mournfulness, where it's beautiful and melancholy at the same time.

TP: You recently had a contest for anyone to create a video for your song "Ooh Yeah," and you chose this Italian-looking porno-type video as the winner. Is it true that it had to be heavily edited for general consumption?

RMH: I don't know which version you saw?

TP: What I saw was clean, but super suggestive.

RMH: There was never really an X-Rated version, but now what's really nice about making a video is that 99% of people will see it on YouTube, so it doesn't have to be [clean]. The last video for my song "Disco Lies" involved a giant chicken killing and eating a person. It was really funny - I hope it was funny - but it was really gory. In the old days, you couldn't do that. That's the same way with this one; even the clean version is pretty dirty.

TP: Do you know anything about the fellow whose video you selected?

RMH: No, I know he's Italian and lives in Italy. One of the things I found so endearing about the video is that it's sort of this fake '70s American porn, but it's so Italian. You've got the pizza boy walking down what is so clearly an old Italian street. The only thing I wanted is that I wanted all the text to be in Italian, because I thought that made it funnier, but he didn't understand because he's Italian and to him, Italian text-there's nothing funny about it. It's almost like spaghetti porn. You know when they'd shoot spaghetti westerns in Italy? This is spaghetti porn.


Click HERE to view a video of our interview.

Like them or not, you can't deny that Editors have achieved a rare combination of critical and commercial success. Their debut album, The Back Room, went platinum and earned the band a 2006 Mercury Prize nomination. They followed that with 2007's An End Has a Start, which hit #1 in the UK and... more

Like them or not, you can't deny that Editors have achieved a rare combination of critical and commercial success. Their debut album, The Back Room, went platinum and earned the band a 2006 Mercury Prize nomination. They followed that with 2007's An End Has a Start, which hit #1 in the UK and landed Editors on the US charts for the first time.

Now Editors are back with In This Light and On This Evening, a strong third record that might just help them conquer America. They've changed things up quite a bit, dropping their trademark guitar sound and putting synths front and center. Editors also brought on legendary producer Mark "Flood" Ellis‚ (known for his work with Depeche Mode, U2 and many other huge acts) and the result is something very different, yet still immediately recognizable as an Editors album.

Bassist Russell Leetch talked to SuicideGirls about the new record.

Russell Leetch: Hello, Jay, how are you?

Jay Hathaway: I'm good. I wish they'd put your album on the hold music, instead of whatever I was just listening to.

RL: Was it shit? There's a lot of shit at Sony, they've got some terrible acts.

JH: [laughs]

RL: I can't vouch for all acts on the label. [laughs]

JH: Before I ask you any serious questions ... I was just reading your Wikipedia page. Are you still growing a beard? What's the deal with that?

RL: [laughs] You know, the problem with Wikipedia is that your friends can edit it, and they can put stupid shit in place of what's supposed to be there. It becomes very miscellaneous. I can't actually grow a beard. Maybe on my 30th birthday I'll have a beard. I don't know.

JH: Cool, cool. So, you're living in New York now, right?

RL: Yeah.

JH: I've heard a lot about how the new album was influenced by London. Did New York have an influence on it as well?

RL: I went out to more smaller shows, and got back into watching bands and being excited about music again. For a while, because we've been a band for quite some time, and we've played so much, I just got a little bit tired of certain things. Being there, I felt quite refreshed. I guess it did rub off on us in some ways.

JH: Is your outlook on the future as dark as this album might suggest?

RL: I don't know what it suggests, really. All kinds of things come through. At the end of Bricks and Mortar, there's a nice sentiment of "I hope life's good with you." I think if you go into a city at nighttime, any city, you're bound to see a lot of the things that are touched upon. It can be such a hedonistic, good experience, but then you can come out of a bar and witness some really horrible violence. It kind of feels threatening, but also good at the same time. It's the same everywhere.

JH: There are a lot of references in your lyrics to guns and God. What's the story behind that?

RL: All of us are atheists, we just don't think there's anything really there ... how could there be so many problems? The modern world relies a lot on people going on about religions to justify wars. How does that work? I think that's troubling to a lot of people in our generation.

JH: So, you all had to sing on this album ...

RL: Yeah, on the backing vocals. Flood [Producer Mark "Flood" Ellis] made us! He was like, "So, Tom does all the backing vocals?" and we were like, "Well, yeah, 'cause he can sing the best." He said, "Well, you all sing in tune, and it'll sound like someone else's voice. That's what you want for the backing vocals." When we started singing, we'd be laughing and going "We are really bad at this!" But the Boxer vocals are from all four of us, and they sound quite nice and eerie. It was opening us up to the fact that being a bit shit can be to your advantage.

JH: It's not going to sound like everything else, at least.

RL: There was a lot of freedom with that kind of thing on the record. It's quite a different Editors record from the first two. I really like the sonics of it. I think it's got a really nice, warm tone. It's quite an inviting record, I think.

JH: And then the really big change was that you used so many more synths. It seems like the dance music side of Editors came out a lot more obviously on this record ...

RL: I think that's exactly right. Everyone's going "Oh my God, you just suddenly got synthesizers." Well, no. They're on both of the previous records, but they're as backgrounds, rather than at the forefront. Having a riff on a keyboard is quite different from having it on a guitar, but it was just more fun writing on the synthesizers. We've always loved 808s and 909s and drum machines generally. We're much bigger fans of New Order than of Joy Division, by a long way.

JH: That says a lot right there. So, you end up getting remixed a lot more, too, since you're going in that direction ...

RL: Yeah, remixes can be really good. The Tiesto one for us has been pretty big across Europe. It's been a big dance hit. It's kind of cool that your band can get integrated into the dance world and people might discover you that way. I quite like that.

JH: Have you heard your songs in a club yet?

RL: Yeah! We were in club in Paris (this was a couple of years ago) the Sebastian remix that happened for us got played. I just thought that the production on it was absolutely immense. He did a really good job.

JH: Do you miss playing bass, though?

RL: Not at all. It's nice to roam about and play different instruments and stuff. I grew up playing the piano, so that's my main instrument. I just play bass in the band, really. That's kind of fun, just being more varied.

JH: So you guys already had the musical expertise to play all the synth parts for the album?

RL: We knew what oscillators and waveforms were, so we kind of understand what synthesis is. And we like a certain type of synth. We like something with a bit of grit. Something with a bit of power. There's a lot of modern synth music which can be a little bit wet. We wanted it all to be kind of played on, like analog synths. Still to be a band. Kind of how people saw it in the '70s, when these things were invented and people started making bands out of them, especially the Krautrock influence. Something like Neu! That's a big part of this record for us.

JH: Are you planning on directing any more videos?

RL: Oh! I didn't direct that Bones video. I compiled a load of footage that was off a video camera, that's the best explanation for it. I wouldn't class that as directing, it wasn't good enough.

JH: Well, are you going to have another go at doing some video stuff? Did you enjoy doing that?

RL: I didn't really enjoy it, no. We just got asked to make a video diary of what we were seeing each day. Sometimes it's a little bit tiresome. Like, today, all we're doing is playing cards. It's like, "That could be a music video for 4 minutes, but it'd be a bit rubbish. Find something a little bit more inventive." We've got Arni & Kinski, who did the video for Smokers, doing our new video for You Don't Know Love, which I'm really excited about seeing. Some videos, I really love, and others I really don't like. For example, the Papillon video, I'm not a fan of it. Some of our fans are, some aren't. But when someone does a video, we pass it over to the director and they can have their artistic license.

JH: Did the other guys in the band like it?

RL: [laughs] Uh, the majority didn't, actually, for that one.

JH: Interesting ...

RL: Well, it became too late in the day for us to get a video that we would all like. It got to the release date without a video, so some favors had to be pulled in. Things like that happen. People liked it. That's cool. It's just funny how sometimes people take it that it's us, that we've decided the video. We try to have as much control over it, but sometimes it's just not our idea.

JH: What was it like working with Flood?

RL: It was fun. It was really good. I think everyone would have an idea or a preconception of what he's going to be like. He's a very ordinary, nice guy, who speaks a very straight-talking, non-highbrow kind of talk. He's made some amazing records, from Nick Cave to Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, U2. You'd imagine that someone that's got a big repertoire to be a bit of an arsehole, but he just wasn't. He joined Editors very well, and we're looking forward to working with him again pretty soon.

JH: Since a lot of people know Flood for his work with U2 ... how do you guys feel about U2?

RL: I guess some of us like them and others don't. They've never been one of my favorite bands. I'd leave that to R.E.M. or Radiohead or Spiritualized. I've never been into getting all of their albums and listening through. I'd go and watch the 360 Tour, it'd be a fun night out. As a band, I don't know ... they're just there, aren't they? They've been around a long time.

JH: Do you guys ever want to be the biggest band in the world? Like U2, but cooler, or something?

RL: I think if you want to be absolutely massive, you definitely lose cool. I don't think you can be like ... I don't know who's done that well. Maybe R.E.M. a few years ago? They were still pretty cool when they were huge. It's hard to do. We're not cool enough in some people's books anyway.

JH: What's the biggest rock star moment you guys have had? Ever smashed any hotel rooms?

RL: No, I think it's stupid when people trash hotel rooms. There's cleaners who have to clean, and yeah, you can pay some money, but that's pretty scummy, I think. If you're going to be extravagant, I think it's best to go to really nice restaurants and blow some money on some really nice wine and food. Do it that way, rather than being a dickhead. If anything, we'll go and spend a large amount of money on some fine dining.

JH: What was living in Birmingham like?

RL: I think the equivalent in the US is Pittsburgh. There's not that much there. It's a post-industrial city. It's a bit a grey. There's not a lot going on. It doesn't invite people to go and visit it, that's for sure.

JH: That's fair. It's sort of a post-industrial album, in a way ...

RL: I think we've definitely always had that vibe, and I guess that stems from where we're from. The big grey canvas of concrete definitely rings true. We definitely weren't brought up in the country, that's for sure.

JH: What were you guys like in school?

RL: We were all good, I think. We were just regular kind of guys. Not too mischievous, but not like the brightest bunch. [laughs] Got on with people. Grade C students. Maybe Bs, actually. Good Bs.

JH: Since this is for SuicideGirls, I feel like I should ask: does anyone in Editors have tattoos?

RL: Yeah, Chris does. Chris has got three roses on his arm.

In This Light and On This Evening is out on iTunes now, and in stores January 2010.