Lately, whenever I stick my head out the window to see what's the haps, it comes back covered in layers of clammy fog. I know the goddamn devil sun is still lurking behind the clouds, though, because they're fluorescent grey and burn my eyeballs. It's June, and I'm wearing the sweater... more

Lately, whenever I stick my head out the window to see what's the haps, it comes back covered in layers of clammy fog. I know the goddamn devil sun is still lurking behind the clouds, though, because they're fluorescent grey and burn my eyeballs. It's June, and I'm wearing the sweater my mom got me for Jewish Christmas. What gives? I've had to come up with some indoor activities, like drinking tea and making lists of my faults and tasting new pills and listening to shoegaze. It's almost like being in Liverpool or Glasgow (I have never been to Liverpool or Glasgow). Is it mere happenstance that this moist mindfuck coincides with an explosion of excellent post punk, Brit pop, and other U.K. influenced creations? Or have these bands somehow combined forces to precipitate a climate change? Conspiracy or not, they're a lot of gloomy fun.

Blank Dogs

A shadowy figure until recently, Mike Sniper, a.k.a. Blank Dogs, makes post punk that's simultaneously spooky and infectious. His new EP, Under and Under, might be his most accessible affair yet; his hooks capture the heart-clutching loveliness of Joy Division and New Order, while lo-fi production and vocal tracks that sound as if they're coming from underwater keep things dirty. Spacey sound effects and dreamy lyrical imagery add a somewhat cinematic element.

A solo artist who couldn't be bothered with press photos, he gathered an unintentional amount of buzz for keeping his face and identity hidden, until the mystique threatened to overtake the music and he moved to fix that by getting a band together, playing live and letting everyone know he's just a regular guy who goes to shows and runs a label, not some hooded phantasm. I had the good fortune of meeting him recently and found him to be quite personable, that is, until he vanished in a puff of smoke.



Little Boots

Equally hardworking but vastly different from Blank Dogs, U.K. popster Little Boots (a.k.a. Victoria Hesketh of Blackpool, England) explores two conflicting poles of dance music: on the one hand, she's necessarily glam and performs to hip-shaking crowds wearing tight and glittery little numbers; on the other, the magic of the Internet has allowed us a peek into her daily life as she revels in the inherent geekiness of spending hours alone in one's room with electronics. There's something more than a little thrilling about going along for the ride as she builds up a club hit from a few simple elements, tests it out in her pajamas, then performs it on late night television a few months later. I'm still not sure exactly how a Stylophone works, but she makes it look and sound just as good as Bowie did on his early hit, "Space Oddity."



Her recently single, "New in Town," brings me back to the spring of 2002, when I went to Reading ostensibly for a debate tournament but mainly to drink alcopops and dance in packed house parties while wondering if my debate partner wanted to kiss me. Are you out there, James Tabor? I hope you've made something of yourself, you egotistical British bastard.



She's currently touring everywhere and then some in support of her debut album, Hands. Go experience her adorability firsthand.

The Slits Return

-Ari Upp to Impose.tv, March 2008

Bless their hearts. The Slits participated in the first wave of punk when they were just teenagers, bringing a much needed dose of wry feminism to the movement when they toured with The Clash and the Buzzcocks in the late 1970's. They quickly progressed beyond the parameters of the genre, using primal, disembodied female sounds and reggae beats to create something uniquely subversive. By the time they recorded their first album in 1979, they'd grown into a style some call post punk and others consider a category all on its own.

In a development that should warm the hearts of all you tough/sexy woman enthusiasts, founding member Ari Upp reformed the Slits with a mixture of old and new members in 2006 after a 25-year hiatus and recorded a three-song EP of new material. That's not nearly enough Slits for me, so I was psyched to find out they've got a full-length due out in October. I haven't gotten my dirty hands on it yet (and would hate to see what Ari would do to anyone who leaked it) but I'm betting it'll be a combination of their signature "punky reggae" and some new sounds we're not expecting.



She and Him and Moz

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the meta-awesomeness that is She and Him. You see, in the quirky indie film that I anticipate someone will make about my life, yours truly will doubtlessly be played by Zooey Deschanel. But Zooey also made one of my favorite albums of last year, so to prepare for this role she'll need to listen to...her own music. And now I hear tell that She and Him have covered a song by my platonic husband Morrissey for the film 500 Days of Summer. How incestuous.

The soundtrack looks so good, I'll probably see it for that alone, even though the trailer reveals that it will inevitably make me cry (he loves her! she's a free spirit who doesn't do relationships!). The Smiths, Regina Skektor, The Black Lips, Carla Bruni, and Wolfmother all appear on the tracklist. I appreciate the thought director Marc Webb seems to have put into the film's music; there's a great, spoiler-free breakdown of it here.

He even responds graciously to The Playlist's prediction that the movie will suck more precious, sugary, cock and ruin more good songs than Garden State (which, for the record, also made me cry):

You tell em, Webb! Here's hoping this film will be good enough so I don't feel all self-loathing and manipulated for turning on the waterworks (fuck you, Zach Braff).

Love and Rockets Tribute Album

It doesn't get much more English than this: a slew of bands influenced by Love and Rockets are releasing a tribute album to the legendary Northampton alternative rock band. It will include tracks from the likes of The Flaming Lips, Black Francis, War Tapes, a Place to Bury Strangers, and not one but three friends of SG: the Dandy Warhols, Chantal Claret of Morningwood, and Maynard James Keenan's Puscifer. I've already ranted for far too long, so I'll let the album's MySpace page speak for itself. Until next time, kids, keep warm and dry, and remember to wear your Wellies...I don't want you catching cold.




Hunter is a Brooklyn-based writer currently contributing to Vice, The New York Press, Impose, and The L Magazine. If you email her at hunter.suicide AT gmail DOT com, chances are she'd love to add your publication to that list. Seriously, she's got some time on her hands.

Michael Vick totally doesn’t want to make dogs engage in brutal combat and then murder them with his bare hands if they lose. Anymore. The canine-fighting kingpin is attempting to simultaneously prove that he’s an NFL-caliber quarterback and animal lover. And nobody should fall for either... more

Michael Vick totally doesn’t want to make dogs engage in brutal combat and then murder them with his bare hands if they lose. Anymore. The canine-fighting kingpin is attempting to simultaneously prove that he’s an NFL-caliber quarterback and animal lover. And nobody should fall for either pile of dog shit.

Barricade your doggie doors: Vick has left the clink and is serving under home confinement through July 20. It’s the ass end of his 23-month sentence for running a dog fighting ring, and Vick is using this time to wage a public relations campaign for himself. Specifically, he met with the Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle, of all people, while still penned. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to arrange for Vick to be neutered.

Instead, Vick supposedly wants to join a program to fight staged dog skirmishes. Taken to its logical extreme, it’s the equivalent of the late Jeffrey Dahmer spearheading an anti-cannibalism crusade. Forget that Vick’s effort to modify his ruthless image seems as unconvincing as it does insincere. There’s already an anti-dog fighting program: it’s called “just don’t fucking do it.”

The anti-Rover-battle movement doesn’t need funding or a spokesman. Most human beings never thought of getting involved with a monstrous, clandestine society where domesticated animals are pitted against each other. It’s not a normal temptation like escorts, blow, or illicit poker -- you have to be one fucked-up scumbag to even be aware that dog-fighting is an option as a pastime.

Young males should focus on normal concerns, like whether one’s phony I.D. is good enough to allow admittance into a tavern; attending an animal mêlée should be the furthest thing from their minds. Any youngster who thinks otherwise needs to talk to a shrink, not hear a public service announcement.

It’s true even without enduring his utterly lame apology: everyone knows Vick’s preferred blood sport is unconscionably disgusting. That goes for all. Even we carnivores condemned Vick; we did so during mealtime conversations when we weren’t tearing chunks off pork ribs with our incisors. A1 aficionados and plant-consumers are united in the desire to see Vick disappear from the public consciousness. That includes hoping he’s kept off the field for as long as possible.

While the former Atlanta Falcon is currently indefinitely suspended by the NFL, he’ll apply for reinstatement after he’s done his time. And it shouldn’t matter if he gets to play again. Every team should pass on him because he’s a shitty human being. Sadly, that won’t be enough to keep him out of the game, as some shady owner will give him a shot.

If the mystery franchise had any sense, they’d pass because he’s additionally a shitty quarterback. One key number for football geeks says a lot. Specifically, Vick owns an underwhelming 75.7 career passer rating. It’s an insanely complex stat that attempts to measure throwing effectiveness, but all you have to know is that 1) higher is better, and 2) a mark of 80 is only about average.

Worse, the man who once went by the alias Ron Mexico has been sacked 9.75 percent of the times he’s dropped back to pass. For those unfamiliar with the statistic, that sucks. In fact it totally sucks, especially for an uncommonly mobile quarterback who should be able to evade defenders. The problem was that the dog-hater ran like a spooked housecat any time he faced even a hint of pressure. His scurrying led to his tackling.

He got to three Pro Bowls, but that was largely due to his ability to sucker voters with his capacity to generate highlight-type rushes. Vick basically ran around like a video game character, playing like a freaky athlete instead of being a damn quarterback. There’s a huge difference.

Vick hasn’t played in the NFL since 2006, and his banishment won’t be long enough no matter how long it lasts. It will be quite tough to forgive Vick, much less think he’s capable of leaving behind the callous mentality that allowed him to participate in a literally bloodthirsty activity.

A good step for Vick would be to visit an animal shelter and see the neglected, lovable animals that would be a joyful addition to any home. Hopefully, such a trip would make an impression upon him. And hopefully, the shelter’s employees would grab him, duct tape bacon to his junk, open the cages, and lock the facility’s doors from the outside. In dog terms, Vick will always be a rabid bitch.


Anthony Bialy is SG's no-jocks-required Sweaty Pursuits sports columnist. He follows sports religiously even though he's quite bad at them. He ran cross country and played rugby in college, and was horrid at both. He schedules his life around his favorite NHL team's games, and sadly lists his alma mater winning the NCAA basketball championship as his happiest moment. He likes other things besides sports, too, and requests a minute to think of them.

The most horrifying moment for me in my life as a dating expert was the moment I realized that most of the advice I had spent years dismissing as trite clichés was 100% true. * "Be yourself." Check. * "Don't over-think things." Check. * "Don't have sex on... more

The most horrifying moment for me in my life as a dating expert was the moment I realized that most of the advice I had spent years dismissing as trite clichés was 100% true.

* "Be yourself." Check.

* "Don't over-think things." Check.

* "Don't have sex on the first date." Okay, that one I don't buy into yet. But I'm at the point where I could be convinced, which is something, I guess.

Still, it's embarrassing. I put a lot of hours in, after all: reading books, wondering if I'll ever get laid, going on dates, getting laid, talking to strangers about their boy and/or girlfriend problems, wondering if I'll ever get laid again, lying awake in bed next to the Wrong Girl thinking "How did this happen AGAIN?"

With all that experience, I feel I should have something more insightful to say than "Be honest" or "Know what you want."

That's the trouble with the truth. Even if it's a cliché, it stays true, whether we want to hear it or not.

You wouldn't know it from reading this column, but I'm not a big fan of giving unsolicited advice (*). Unless someone really wants my opinion, I dodge casual requests for guidance like Spider-Man evading pumpkin bombs. I'll use every conversational tool at my disposal to avoid answering from "What do YOU think you should do?" to "Boy, I could sure use a bite to eat right now" to "Sorry, I wasn't listening. I was busy picturing you naked (**)."

The truth is, even when they ask for it, most people don't want to hear advice. Ninety percent of the time, they know perfectly well what they need to do. They don't want guidance; they want support and reassurance. They want to hear that they're an okay person and that the bad things that keep happening aren't their fault. Sometimes they don't want to hear anything. Sometimes, they just want someone to listen. (Another cliché. God damn it!)

Most days, I try and do just that. But every once in a while, I am consumed by the urge to impress someone and I can't resist sticking my oar in the water.

"You can't love someone else until you can love yourself," I'll say cheerfully. "Dating is a numbers game. Put yourself out there."

I'm kind of an asshole sometimes.

The weird thing is, often one of those clichés will be the exact right advice for that person. And boy do they ever hate it.

"Put yourself out there!" They'll sputter. "That's your dating advice? That's trite!"

It's IS trite. It's been said a million times or more since the dawn of time. Yet people don't do it. Then they wonder why they're not getting what they want. And when a likable, talented, sexually irresistible dating writer tells them why they aren't getting what they want, they get mad at the advice (***).

We've all done it. Why? Because we don't just want advice. We want SPECIAL advice.

We want to believe our problems are more dramatic or different or more insurmountable that other people's problems. We don't want the 'be yourself' breadcrumbs that feed the plebes. We want unique advice as befits our station. Better yet, we want advice that will let us keep doing what we're doing and somehow give us different results. And if it blames some nebulous group (women, men, media steretypes and/or the Delaware Union of Shoemakers & Chimney Sweeps are my personal faves) instead of holding us personally accountable, that would also be a bonus.

The trouble is, the simple stuff is what works. As advice goes, "eat properly and exercise" sounds banal, but it's the only healthy way to get in shape. Similarly, if you want successful relationships, you're going to have to do the things people in successful relationships do.

There are no short-cuts. No argument will change the truth. You can't run from the devil in your own back pocket.

Here's another true thing, I've learned: Advice does you no good unless you test it for yourself. Reading it won't help. Thinking about it won't help. Debating it on the internet won't help. You have to try things and see if they work for you.

That's why I'm grateful for the time I put into dating, even if in some ways, it led me right back to where I started in the first place. There really is no substitute for experience.

That's a cliché I can get behind.


(*) I'm also not so good at TAKING unsolicited advice, so I guess it evens out.

(**) Not for use on close family members.

(***) Sometimes they get mad at the writer. But he IS kind of an asshole.



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

There are some very horrible people in the world. Luckily for us, they tend to shoot their mouths off or pick up severed feet off the road to train their dogs. That means they draw attention to themselves, which means I have something to write about on Thursday. Oh, sweet Jesus did they do a job this... more

There are some very horrible people in the world. Luckily for us, they tend to shoot their mouths off or pick up severed feet off the road to train their dogs. That means they draw attention to themselves, which means I have something to write about on Thursday. Oh, sweet Jesus did they do a job this week. Serious Asshole Fuckfacery about to commence. Put on your favorite plastic burka because this is going to be ugly.

First up, some conservative Asshole Fuckfacery.

Conservatives have finally come to the conclusion that we have to kill all things American that do not adhere to their belief system. This week, they began to call for a boycott of General Motors, because the Treasury Department is going to own 60% of company stock after the company emerges from bankruptcy. Obviously, that means the company should be destroyed and all the workers that go along with it. Because loving America means ruining American lives for ideology.

Hugh Hewitt explains.

Yes. The company should remain private and just die. That would be more American.

A fat, deaf, drug addict, three-time divorced, multi-millionaire, voice of the common man also chimed in.

Indeed. Why, I remember just last year when Limbaugh and company called for boycotts against Bear Sterns, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, AIG and Citibank. Oh, wait, those companies don’t have unions, so they said nothing about boycotting them.

A conservative boycott would be, sadly, consistent with their current economic ideas. Basically, they would be boycotting something they own, hoping to drive it out of business, so companies they don’t own would flourish. This way, their money would go overseas and they would lose about $50 billion in taxpayer money. It’s quite an intelligent stance to take.

Kudos, conservative idiots, you have hit a new low.

Oh, wait, I spoke too soon. Turns out Republican Asshole Fuckfacery knows no bounds in its attempts to undermine America.

During these shaky economic times, our government is doing all it can to stabilize the situation. While the Obama administration may not always make the right move, it’s probably best not to undermine the president, you know, because we are all Americans and fucking him actually FUCKS US.

Illinois GOP Congressman Mark Kirk recently explained to our friends in China that the Obama administration is lying to them.

Uh, oh. Hey. Don’t….

Oh, good. You went ahead and did it. You went right ahead an told the the Chinese that the US government was lying to them because “we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor.” Obviously, the best way to build trust is to tell them they are being lied to. You are American to the core, guy stepping in where he doesn’t belong.

Next up, some Special Olympics Asshole Fuckfacery.

It’s hard trying to drive around town when there is a Special Olympics run in progress. It’s especially hard when you are an Asshole Fuckface named David Schwartz of Santa Clarita, California.

So, he called kids running in the Special Olympics “faggots.” That’s not really special. But he wasn’t done yet. Schwartz then threw a bolt at the kids.

Oh, shit. You didn’t notice the Sheriff’s deputies running alongside? Bummer. That's a shame. I would have preferred the hero who called kids with handicaps "faggots" and threw metal objects at them got away with it.

He needs a dickectomy.

Next up, some pimp ]Asshole Fuckfacery.

Pimping a teenage girl out can be kind of a bitch. Sometimes they want something for all the strangers they are fucking for money. It can be quite a problem. Thankfully, an Australian pimp devised the perfect payment plan.

Hey, it’s sort of meat. And she was sixteen. My understanding is teenagers love McDonalds. She's loving it!

Enjoy the prison food! And, please, someone turn his anus into a McNugget.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper You may also enjoy his blog, Stop All Monsters.

If the new film Moon puts you in mind of David Bowie's lyrical, space-is-a-lonely-place ballad, "Space Oddity," that's probably not a total coincidence - it was directed by his 38 year-old son, Duncan Jones, who formerly went under the much less conservative name, Zowie Bowie. After... more

If the new film Moon puts you in mind of David Bowie's lyrical, space-is-a-lonely-place ballad, "Space Oddity," that's probably not a total coincidence - it was directed by his 38 year-old son, Duncan Jones, who formerly went under the much less conservative name, Zowie Bowie. After years of directing commercials and trying to move on from what he describes as a youth marked by isolation and periods of self-discovery, Jones has emerged with a new identity as a respected indie filmmaker.

His feature debut, Moon, which wowed crowds at Sundance, is a haunting, poetic, science-fiction drama about a solitary astronaut who operates a mining station on the far side of the moon, roughly ten years in the future. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is days away from completing a three-year rotation and returning to his wife and child when bizarre happenings begin to occur on the lunar station, including power glitches and strange behavior on the part of his robot companion, Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), culminating in the shocking arrival of another human being at the base - himself.

SuicideGirls recently sat down with Duncan Jones to talk about Moon and the possibilities of space travel. Please note that this interview contains massive, unavoidable spoilers for Moon.

Ryan Stewart: Are you planning to buy a ticket on a Virgin Galactic flight when they become available?

Duncan Jones: One of the producers on the film is a guy called Trevor Beattie, who used to be my boss back in the UK when I worked in advertising. He is one of the first passengers scheduled to be on a Virgin Galactic flight. He's had a space thing his whole life. He's one of those guys who pays to sit in a MiG. I'm not a good flyer as it is! [laughs] I feel like I've got so much I want to do in my life that I don't want to put myself in such a precarious situation. It must be an amazing experience, though, and I can't wait for Trevor to tell me all about it. I'll be a rapt audience. Maybe when I'm in my mid-90s, and there's not a lot left to do, I might take a shot at it.

RS: Who do you think is keeping moon exploration alive as a goal these days? Is it these space hobbyists?

DJ: Yeah, anyone who is willing to pay $200,000 a ticket for four minutes of weightlessness -- that's an interesting market. There are people willing to pay that much for that experience, and that means entrepreneurs like Richard Branson will pave the way to make that experience happen. But I think that is limited, though. It may be incremental. Maybe from these little flights we will eventually start to get space hotels, things like that, but personally I think there's a huge difference between what Virgin Galactic could do and setting up a space hotel. I can't remember what altitudes Virgin Galactic reaches, but to do that is much easier than actually reaching low-Earth orbit, or actually lifting the cargo into low-Earth orbit that you'd need to set up a space hotel or something. I don't think private enterprise is going to bridge that gap. I think it's going to need to be either a national effort or an international effort, to really start colonizing space. I read a book by a guy named Robert Zubrin called Entering Space, and the idea of setting up a moon base for Helium-3 mining was a good argument, from this non-fiction book, as to why you would set up a base. It would pay for itself, it's a profitable enterprise. As soon as you get a profit motive in there, things happen. They find ways to make it happen.

RS: I understand you screened the film recently for some NASA folks?

DJ: Yeah, we did a screening at the NASA Space Center in Houston and the beauty of it was that it wasn't a PR stunt, we didn't organize it. There's a professor at the Space Center who does a lecture series and he asked me if I wanted to show the film. He'd been reading online that we'd done this film about Helium-3 mining and that's something that people at NASA are working on. We went down there and we did the screening, it was a fantastic experience, and we did a Q&A afterward. They asked me why the base looked so sturdy, like a bunker, and not like the kind of stuff they are designing that they are going to transport with them. I said "Well, in the future I assume you won't want to continue carrying everything with you, you'll want to use the resources on the moon to build things" and a woman in the audience raised her hand and said, "I'm actually working on something called Mooncrete, which is concrete that mixes lunar regolith and ice water from the moon's polar caps." So, it was great - they basically started talking amongst each other and I just sat back and watched them. It was truly an amazing experience.

RS: It's interesting that you chose to make your protagonist, Sam Bell, a very blue-collar guy instead of a scientist or traditional astronaut.

DJ: That definitely came out of the conversations that Sam Rockwell and I had when we first met up. We met for another project that didn't happen, because it was a little too ambitious for a first film. I desperately wanted to work with him, and meeting him in person only reinforced that because he was such a nice guy and he didn't have a big ego. He wasn't a prima donna, just someone that I could relate to very well. We're of a similar age and we have similar interests and a similar background, and I thought that I needed to do my first film with him, even if this film isn't right - the one I was pitching him at the time - even if that wasn't right, I knew I needed to put that aside and just come up with something entirely new, in order to work with him. And that's pretty much what happened, I started writing a project for Sam Rockwell.

So, we started talking about the kind of science-fiction films that we both liked and the kind of roles that he liked to play. We talked about films like Outlander, Silent Running, and Ridley Scott's Alien, which seemed to concentrate on these blue-collar people, working within these really harsh, desolate, alien science-fiction environments. The story became: how does this human being survive or maintain their humanity, or how is that humanity chipped away at by these settings? That became the story we wanted to tell, and that's why the focus became to tell the story of a blue-collar guy, just doing his work on the far side of the moon.

RS: What emerged as the biggest challenge, in terms of the actor-director relationship? What needed work?

DJ: I think the thing we had to work on the most was just differentiating the two Sams. How does this guy, who is essentially one person, develop these two very different personalities, and why did that happen? What happens when you throw these two guys into conflict with each other and how do they resolve that? So, that's kind of what we worked on the most. Sam would ask me questions like "Why is Sam 2 so different from Sam 1?" and I would explain that Sam 1 has been on his own, on this base, for three years. He's been trying to work on his faults, because he wants to go back to his family, he misses his family. He's managed to resolve his issues and sort them out with his wife, and he just wants to see his daughter. Whereas, Sam 2, who has just been woken up and believes he's at the start of his three-year contract, is a very, very different guy. He's an angry man who has accepted a job and is now faced with this ridiculous, mindfuck of a scenario, and he's stuck here with his own clone, and he himself is a clone! So, he's got a lot of issues to deal with. That immediately makes these two guys very different, and obviously the conflict is that they both hate seeing each other, because they're a constant reminder of the fact that neither of them are the original Sam. They have a reason to hate each other, but they also realize that they're kind of stuck that way and they're ultimately on the same side, and they become friends. That's where the resolution comes in.

RS: There's a recurring theme of the negative effects of long-term isolation. Did you have any experience with that?

DJ: Quite a lot, I was at boarding school! [laughs] And then later on, more directly, I went to graduate school. It's no coincidence that Sam's three-year contract is the same as the amount of time I spent in Nashville, Tennessee, in graduate school. I was in the middle of Nashville and I'd only gone to Nashville because I'd followed my girlfriend who'd gotten into graduate school. Within a couple of months of being there, we broke up, and then I was stuck in Nashville. I felt too guilty to just give up on graduate school because I'd broken up with my girlfriend, so I stuck it out for three years and it was miserable. But I wouldn't change it, because it made me the person I am and it gave me a story. It gave me an experience I could draw on, and I think it comes out in the film.

RS: If you met another Duncan Jones, how do you think you'd react?

DJ: I think it would depend on if I met me now, or the me who was in graduate school or younger. It actually took me a really long time to feel comfortable in my own skin. I was quite angry, I had low self-esteem, I didn't know where I fit in in the world. I didn't know what to do with my life. I was a very, very frustrated young man. So, I think that the me now, meeting that me, I would be fine with him but I know he'd be pissed off. I think what I'd want to do would be to put a hand on "my" shoulder and say, "You know what? You just need to chill out and enjoy life a little bit and have a bit more faith in yourself, and things will turn out okay." That was definitely in my mind when I was writing this film, the idea of being able to go back and talk to yourself right now. What are you like to deal with, for other people? If you met yourself in person, would you see only faults? Would you appreciate the good things about yourself? What is the thing that you would immediately react to? I think that's a really interesting thought experience.

RS: Sounds like a lot of high-concept ideas went into the mix for this film.

DJ: [laughs] Yeah, I've used them all up now, like the Wachowskis with The Matrix. I think I've got some other things that I want to talk about, though. I think one of the benefits of not making a film until now - I just turned 38 last week - is that I do have a lot of life experiences of varying sorts, experiences that everyone goes through at some point in their lives and you can approach these topics from different angles, so I don't think I'm going to run out of things to talk about.

RS: The similarities between Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey are quite significant - you seem to invite that comparison, especially with Gerty.

DJ: There was no question in my mind when we were writing the script that people were going to make the association with Hal 9000. There were two ways I could have gone with that. I could have just pretended that no one was going to make that assumption, or we could have done what we ended up doing, which was to let the audience make that assumption and then play around with those expectations. The audience will set themselves up: they're thinking HAL, we've let them think HAL, and then Gerty ends up being a very different character, and that's the way we decided to play it. It worked well for us, letting the audience make their assumptions, because it becomes a surprise as Gerty's story unfolds.

RS: Did you come up with those creepy smiley-face emotions that Gerty uses for expressions?

DJ: I came up with those, and I actually had to fight for that. Everyone was very concerned, both when I suggested it, and when we started putting it in there. They were concerned that it would look silly, that it would look cheap, that it wouldn't sell - meaning you wouldn't believe that it would be designed to look like that. But I really pushed for it. I said, "This is the way it's got to be." And my justification was that Gerty is built to look after Sam. The rest of the facility is industrial space and Gerty is one of the few things that was built to interface with a person, but this company is also dealing with what they view as a disposable, non-human being in Sam, and it's a very patronizing way that they deal with him. So, the emoticons, I thought, were a really good way of subconsciously getting that idea across. Here's a machine that this clone is going to have to deal with, and just to keep it simple because he's such a blue-collar guy, we'll have these little emoticons, these little faces in order for him to get an idea of the tone of what Gerty is saying to him. The whole idea of emoticons is something I use all the time, because of Twitter, and because I use all of those social networking tools and send e-mails. I'm always second-guessing myself in terms of what people might think I'm saying, what the intention is. So I use emoticons all the time.

RS: Did you ever see Moon as a perils-of-cloning story? Was that secondary?

DJ: That was definitely secondary. It was always supposed to be about the human situation that Sam Bell finds himself in, and about how he deals with it. As far as the company and what their intentions are, this was certainly an A-political film. I'm not making any judgments. It's actually very tongue-in-cheek that Lunar Industries is a green energy company. This is not Shell or Exxon, it's all green energy, but the fact that they are a company that's run for profit means they are going to cut corners wherever they can. One of those corners is Sam.

RS: Do you want to revisit this world at some point? I've heard you want all of your films to exist in the same Duncan Jonesiverse.

DJ: They will be in the same universe. Also, Sam has agreed to do a little cameo in the next film, which will be an epilogue of what happens to Sam Bell when he returns to Earth. So that will be really good fun, but yeah, the next film does take place in the same timeline and the same universe. And then I'm gonna go off and do some non-science fiction films afterwards, I hope, but there is a third film in the far-distant future. I don't mean it takes place in the far-distant future, I mean in terms of my career. [laughs] After the next few films down the line that I want to do, there will be that third film, a kind of third act in this world. It's all going to happen slowly over the years.

RS: Is there another big science-fiction topic that interests you?

DJ: Well, I think this will read better on film than just me saying it, but yeah, the idea of corporate government. The idea of no longer having nation states, but corporate states, I think that's a very interesting idea. That's the third film, that's going to be an aspect of it. Not like Gattaca, but the idea of a way of life being run by companies as opposed to being run by indigenous cultures that have formed into nation states. Instead of patriotism, there would be a corporate patriotism.

RS: Considering all the issues we have on this planet, do you think getting to the moon and beyond should be a top priority?

DJ: No. I think the absolutely essential thing is for us to get off of fossil fuels. I think we need to come up with a system that allows us to have a large amount of renewable energy, an energy source that is plentiful. If you think about it, almost all of the world's problems are bound up in petroleum. If we had a plentiful energy source, we could desalinate - we could start desalination planets all over the planet. There was a documentary in the UK that explained all of the slightly science-fiction technologies that you could use to cool the planet down, and one of them were these automated, robot ships that you could send out to ionize the water they're in and spray it into the air, to create ionized water vapor. If you had enough of these ships doing this - I think you would need a couple hundred - over time it would slowly start to cool the Earth. And you could stop it whenever you wanted. There are all these things you can do, if only you have a controlled and plentiful energy source.

Moon opens in select cities on June 12.

I spent last week on a UK Tour:Smart tour. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If a person like me who has been in the business for 30 years is still learning about the business, you should be too. My week ended at Unconvention (which has to be the best name ever for an unconventional... more

I spent last week on a UK Tour:Smart tour. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If a person like me who has been in the business for 30 years is still learning about the business, you should be too. My week ended at Unconvention (which has to be the best name ever for an unconventional convention). It’s also a testament to Colin Consterdine’s temperament that despite hitting him square in the face with a box of blueberry muffins at SXSW (I mean SQUARE) he still invited me to participate. There were so many great ideas for marketing your band, your music, and your brand to the world and trying to get some attention above the ever growing crowd of people.

Here are tips: (More broad strategy, philosophical stuff, but if you get it, you can sustain. If you can sustain, you can apply your specific lessons and SUCCCCEEEED.)

1. You need fans before you need the guy that is the lawyer for The Eagles
2. Build momentum before you start thinking about business structures
3. Keep your day job while you play and build a fan base. Keep working until you get fired
4. If you can sustain you can succeed. You will need to focus and make choices. When you bet everything on one thing it will blow up in your face
5. The moment you have the leverage to get the deal you think you wanted, you don’t need the deal any more
6. There simply is NO ONE WAY to ‘monetize’ making music. There are a million different ways. Find ten ways that suit you
7. I feel like it’s 1977 all over again. Get creative, be original...(or hijack, remix, whatever someone else’s great idea).

While at Unconvention I met Vijay Nair from India who told me that because India has neither traditional copyright nor any of the million organizations that will help you (like we have in the States), he eventually came to some GREAT conclusions and actions on his own. I loved his idea of giving away a free copy of his album and inviting a fan to turn on another fan to his music. If that isn't the whole fucking point of it then WHAT IS?!!

Another great example of this is a local Chicago artist, Joe Pug. I read about Joe in a blog on Chicagoist (that gave a nice review of his album). But, what really got me is that Joe included his personal email address in the article and invited anyone who wanted a copy of his album to email him. The catch -- you had to ask for at least two and promise to send one to a friend. Genius! Someone at my company did just that and sent one copy of Joe’s album to friend who works in publishing in LA and another all the way to France.

Another exponent of unconventional DIY promotion is Tom Fort from Cobalt and the Hired Guns, who keeps showing up at my events. I saw him at SXSW and at a panel I did with the Chicago Cultural Center. He knows my assistant’s name and even sent her a real paper, hand-written postcard for his band’s upcoming show. That postcard is still displayed on her desk and always reminds me Tom.

It’s simple, simple stuff.

So.... still think you need a deal? Let’s think about this. Once you have a few of the elements in place to get a deal...

• a fan base
• a web site
• a CLUE
• a great recording (or maybe a few)
• some archive video footage
• a work ethic
• an immunity to hard floors, soft tacos, and mediocre plumbing
• a few live albums or demos
• several t-shirts
• shag-a-bility
• noise Noise, or, to be more accurate, other-members-of-the-band canceling headphones

....The LAST THING YOU NEED is a deal!

AND why bother? Many major label A&R men won’t even consider signing artists until they have squillions of friends on MySpace, and thousands of self or indie released records under their belt. And once you’ve reached that level, do you really need a label anyway? Why not bring on board the staff you now know you need, then, for all intents and purposes, YOU ARE your own full service label anyway AND you’ll get to keep 100% of the profits rather than a meager 10-15% (and that’s AFTER the label has recouped 100% of the shared costs!).

Maybe you should sit and ponder how much you really need a deal versus how much you want to say to some other loser in a bar, "we're signed - you're not!!" These conversations, rather revealingly, never talk about the important nuts and bolts of the deals but instead about the amount of cash up front (probably the least important part of any deal with any chance of longevity). It’s smart marketing that really makes a difference. We put a version of the new Pigface album out on an 8-Track cartridge to be difficult, to sound good, and also to prompt a few YouTube video moments of people breaking into Grandad’s car so they can listen to it.



As for me, I’ve finally finished the new Pigface album and i'm taking a break from being the label guy. My friends at Full Effect Records are dealing with that shit this time around so I can concentrate on the nearly finished new book and the school the school the SCHOOOOOOOL! . I’m very proud of this album and hope you all enjoy some new music.

Also, our friends S-Endz and Sam Coley attended my event at Hare and Hounds in Birmingham, and Sam made this kick-ass video (see below). S-Endz’ band, Swami is in Canada on tour -- of course touring :SMART. And a special thanks to Jenny at Capsule for putting the event together.



Upcoming Martin Atkins dates:

Saturday, June 27 - Chicago IL
Martin Atkins DJ set / Pigface CD Release Party at Vampire Night
@ Lucky Number Grill; 1931 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, IL 60647
Time TBD / FREE ADMISSION if dressed like a vampire or $5 at the door.
Info:MySpace.com/VampireNightChicago

Friday, July 10th - Baltimore, MD.
Martin Atkins Gallery showcase/sale of his artwork at The Metro Gallery
@ 1700 N. Charles St.; Baltimore, MD 21201
8 PM to 11 PM / Doors open at 7 PM / FREE WINE from 7 PM to 8 PM.
Info: sarah@themetrogallery.net

Saturday, July 11th - Baltimore, MD.
Martin Atkins DJ set / Pigface CD Release Party at Orpheus, Baltimore.
@ 1003 E. Pratt St. Baltimore, MD 21202
DJ Set from 11 PM to 12 AM / More details TBA


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

There's nothing half-hearted about the new album from Marilyn Manson, The High End of Low, which explores love, hate, revenge, loss and despair. Off stage, many find Manson's passion disconcerting, but the singer/songwriter considers anything that veers towards apathy to be inherently "worthless."... more

There's nothing half-hearted about the new album from Marilyn Manson, The High End of Low, which explores love, hate, revenge, loss and despair. Off stage, many find Manson's passion disconcerting, but the singer/songwriter considers anything that veers towards apathy to be inherently "worthless." It's therefore not surprising to hear that during the recording process Manson pushed himself and his band to extremes, the resulting album returning him to the kind of form he's not seen in a decade.

Very personal lyrically, and more melodic than past efforts, the album is the result of the much-anticipated reunion of Manson and Twiggy Ramirez -- the pair's last studio collaboration being the concept album Holy Wood, which came out in 2000. The lineup for the album was rounded out by longtime Manson drummer Ginger Fish and producer/drummer/keyboardist Chris Vrenna of Nine Inch Nails and Tweaker (who joined the band in 2004 when Fish was injured and moved from drums to keyboards upon his return to health).

The reunion with Twiggy wasn't the only emotionally charged ingredient in The High End of Low mix however, the period of recording, from November 2008 to Jan, 2009, also coincided with the very public disintegration of Manson's relationship with Evan Rachel Wood, whom he dated following the failure of his marriage to Dita Von Teese. The 15 tracks on the album, which appear on the finished product in the order they were written, therefore chronicle Manson's emotional journey during this gut-wrenching time.

SuicideGirls caught up with Manson on the eve of a European tour to promote the new release. When asked about the album during our interview, it's hard for Manson to separate the music from the emotions and events that lie behind it. He also talks very candidly about the identity crisis that was sparked by this emotional turmoil, and his battle to figure out exactly who Marilyn Manson is.


NP: I've been reading in interviews that this is a more autobiographical album. Did that make it harder to write?

MM: Well, it was very difficult getting to the process of writing. Twiggy and I getting back together was probably more dramatic than we even realized... Because we were best friends, brothers, we lived together. I've never lived alone. I went from living at home to going on tour and hotels and rats and crack and Twiggy and New Orleans, and then a series of unmentionable, nefarious women people. And I think that there was an enormous void in both of our lives.

It wasn't even really a fight that we got into, it was something very silly, and one of us probably expected the other to call the next day to resolve it. But I think everything happens for a reason...We ran into each other at a hotel completely randomly and I could see in his face that he looked like I felt a year before that.

The last record, Eat Me, Drink Me, was very much about a broken person. In fact it's not that I don't like it, or it makes me sad to listen to, but it's a record that we're probably not going to play anything off of. We might play "If I Was Your Vampire" because I think it's the record that's the most confident on the album, even though it's first [on the CD], because it was written last.

The difference between that and the new album, besides all of the personal things, [on] the new album, the songs appear in the order they were written. I don't know how that compares the two because there's a lot of differences, obviously, starting with Twiggy and I [being] back together.

He did things that were great, I think. He learned to be this musician. I mean he's always been a guitar player but no one's ever seen him as a guitar player because he's always played bass [live]. No one realizes that he wrote the guitar riff for "Beautiful People' or "Dope Show."

But anyway, he was just playing this music that was eventually intimidating to me because he had become a different type of musician while away from me. As a guitar player I felt, why wasn't he always the guitar player? What were we thinking? And, for me, I think there's nobody that plays bass better than him. His bass guitar sounds like he's playing it with his dick. It's the best bass that I could ever imagine. No one else can have that sound.

He just shines as a guitar player, and it took me a long time to get to the singing part. I had a bit of a disintegration, one world ended and another sort of began. It was probably inserting Twiggy into a situation where I had built a lifestyle now that was very isolated, very dependent on another person.

It wasn't the same way that I look at relationships now. There's big difference between weakness and desire, between love and dependence...The person that I really needed in my life, and I think that it threw some kind of disastrous monkey wrench in, but if I was actually given the choice to pick, which I should never have to pick, I wouldn't know what to say -- it's an unfair thing to say. But the first and foremost thing that stood out to me that was important in my life was that I saw my friend that I hadn't seen in seven years and he needed me. It didn't matter about the music, he needed me, and I wish that I had had him when I felt that way, when my life was falling apart and I got divorced, and all that garbage happened. I was just glad to be there for him because he's like a little brother to me, and I finally got to the point of making the first song.

NP: You talk about Twiggy being like a brother. You often hurt the people closest to you. That's what families do, they argue and then they come back together.

MM: Well, you're right about that. The other part of it is, and this was advice that I got from one of my idols Alejandro Jodorowsky, a director who had great influence on me. He said to me, because he's always read my tarot, and I mistook what he said...I even quoted it a lot of times in interviews, because he read my tarot and he said, "This year you will come together with your twin." I mistook that for the wrong relationship because at the end of the year there was Twiggy. That was what he meant. He even told me that when I saw him again after that. It was my foolishness and my projection, what I wanted to see, and Twiggy is that.

But you can have both. I can be married to my art but you can love more than one thing, and there's different types of love. It takes finding the right person that is able to make you stop thinking about your work, if you want to even use that word. Because it's hard when you're an artist; When does it turn off? Who knows? But it should turn of when you're with the person that you're romantically involved with. That's the point that I'm trying to be at now in my life. And that's a different point that I've never been at.

And it took me living alone, because I'd never lived alone. From November to January 5th is when I sang and wrote the lyrics. And that signifies something that the record's actually about. It's about that experience for me. It's not about any one particular thing, but it's about loss, it's about understanding loss.

When someone doesn't appreciate the concept of...If you call someone and say, "I need you," and they say, "Well I'll be there when I can," that's someone who doesn't understand loss. Because "when you can" -- that might not happen 15 minutes later, and the only way you learn that, the way I learnt it, is when someone dies, or you lose something, you lose your money, you lose everything.

I've got nothing to lose now so in one way I have nothing to be afraid of, and that makes me feel really dangerous. And in another way that makes me value the things that I do have more than anything, and I'll fight and kill for them with no hesitation. The only thing that stops me from that is that I don't want to go to jail because it would prevent me from being what I want to be, and I don't want to be ass-raped on a daily basis. It's really that simple.

NP: You talk about how you're expressing loss, but you do it in a very angry way...

MM: You hear it as angry?

NP: I think over much of it you're raging, and raging hard.

MM: Just out of curiosity which part of the record do you find angry? The first half, or the center, or the second?

NP: Well the first half is much more angry than the second half. Does that represent the emotional journey you went on?

MM: Well that's unusual for me. Because the first half to me feels, well, I can see where you see it's angry. I feel it's bitter in a weak way. I feel like it's, you know, the easiest thing to do first is to give up in the Shakespearean sense of 'Oh, I will love you forever, the world doesn't accept us let's die.' That's cowardice to me now. That's what I was coming off of going into the record. Going into "Devour," that first song, that's me establishing the fact that I learned the lesson that I can go there, and I chose not to -- and that's a true story. That song's not about anybody but me. That song's about the fact that I'm willing to go there. If someone says "I love you 'til we die" -- OK, then let's do it. But I think that's cowardice now, so that's not the same person that sings track 15. I definitely changed, and I changed essentially over the course of the record.

I understand that you hear the first half as angry, I guess maybe I should look at it in a different way. I hear the second half of the record as threatening. The first half of the record is kind of angry, but it's bitter and it's weak and it's uncertain, which is where anger comes from, which is not where threatening comes from. There's a confidence that starts to rebuild itself, and I think that it starts right about the point of "WOW." That song sticks out to me enough that I got it tattooed on my wrist. I wanted to do a song that was everything that I had to remember represented who I am and why I started this in the first place.

It's funny to me because the first time I played the song, without any singing on it, because the music is so absurd. We just started recording it and I refused to let anybody try and do what they're supposed to do. I said, "Just hit record." I made Twiggy play keyboards, and I started playing guitar with one string on it, and I had a microphone and we got done and the first thing we said was "Wow." Well that's what it is. It's like the "Macarena" of nonsense and confusion, and it really represents something that we always strive to accomplish.

You cannot fake a record like The Idiot, which is one of my favorite records. I mean, I don't wanna go to Berlin and become a heroin addict, which is essentially the backstory that everybody knows about with The Idiot and Bowie and Iggy Pop and Brian Eno. But that record has such a feel to it that is real -- and that's what this record had to become. I had to allow it to be real. I stopped questioning or fine-tuning.

NP: You talk about the second half of the album after "WOW" being threatening, but before "WOW" you have a track called "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies." That's a song where, if you'd written the lyrics down in a note and sent it to someone, it would have earned you a restraining order.

MM: Absolutely. What's interesting about the lyrics is that I did not write them down before I sang them. I had maybe scribbles of ideas. I would go into my room and I would have this chair that I referred to as the cockpit -- not in the phallic sense although it did earn that. It was like an airplane seat. I'd lean back, I like to sing on my back, and hold the microphone -- it's not supposed to be held -- but that's like me I'm not supposed to be held.

And Chris Vrenna, who was recording everything, had headphones. He and I were the only two people listening to me recording....Chris, he was assigned the job of writing down my lyrics. I would tell them to him, and they didn't make sense to him.

That song, to be specific, "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies," I sang it twice. I sang it once in November. The original version of it, which I'd like to put somewhere, is 25 minutes long. It's uncensored, and it's unedited, and it's just what came out of my head at 3.45 AM until 25 minutes later.

It got to the point where we'd finished the record and we decided we don't want to make a double or triple record. There's not enough room on a CD for a 25-minute song but I've refused to edit it because there was a purity about what I did because it was almost channeled. It's completely right out of my head. I actually never listened to it again. I'd only listened to it the time I sang it.

We finished the record, we finished track 15 on my birthday, and later that night, still on January 5th [I asked] how many minutes do I have left on this CD that they're going to put in Wal-Mart or Target or wherever the fuck they're going to try and put it, which is a waste of time. And it was 9 minutes.

I said, "Roll it, and I'm going to sing it." And I sang it, and what appears on the record is one exact performance. I went back and I spoke on top of it. But it's the exact first thing that came out of my mouth. I never listened to the first one and they're slightly different words.

I felt like this record was something I had already sung and it was something I had already done. By no means is it off the cuff or frivolous or cavalier, like I just said whatever. These were ideas that spent a lot of time in my head, I just didn't do it in the same way I had done it in the past where it was more calculated, where this is the verse, this is the chorus, this is the part that's going to upset just about everyone. I didn't care when they said, "Well do you really want to put a 9-minute song on the record?" I said, "What are they going to do? Return it? I don't really give a shit. It doesn't matter to me. This is the song that I wanna do." It was liberating to get back to that point.

NP: It seems like such an honest album, in a way it's almost like you're listening to a diary. Obviously what you've been through has been very public so it's not like people don't know what it's referring to 'cause it's already out there. Was it cathartic for you? I mean, one of the reasons people write diaries and put their thoughts and emotions on paper is that whole better-out-than-in thing -- it helps people to move on. Did you have that experience?

MM: Not exactly. I'd never kept a diary because I always felt like I didn't know what would happen to it when I was dead. I have never been able to keep a diary. Making this record I filmed and recorded everything, every phone conversation, everything. I was like Howard Hughes but without the money.

You think the record's honest, I think the record could just as easily be looked at as a lie...because it's so focused where my head was on cinema. It's partly the fact that I almost gave up music and tried to focus all my energy on making a film. I tend to surround myself with, my friends are either actors or directors, or people involved in that, and it becomes a question, am I acting on the record? Am I directing?

And if I'm acting, it's so method acting you can't even understand which person is real -- the character or the actor? It really becomes confusing. I don't even try and question it. I think if I play the record for somebody, and, like you said, if it was on paper, printed out, there's two options; It's either you meet a girl who finds it to be terribly romantic or you get put into a mental hospital, which both seem fun. But I'm going to go with the romantic thing because I don't like the smocks that they have in mental hospitals. Your ass hangs out -- and the foods not good. I've been there before.

NP: Yeah the robes with the back slit and ties aren't very attractive. It's not a good look.

MM: Yeah. I prefer to self-medicate. I don't like doctors telling me what to do.

NP: Do you separate yourself from the character of Marilyn Manson? And when your cameras rolled, was it you or the character you created that they were filming?

MM: You know I've thought about it, I was watching this show that I got kind of attached to, it's called The United States of Terror and it was about someone with MPD, multiple personality disorder. I was amused by it. It's weird because this person has different personalities and they dress up in different outfits and they talk differently. It's so weird. And now I caught myself saying that, and I thought, "Woah, I do that."

...So I started to contemplate the idea of, yeah, maybe I am a little crazy, but whatever. You can't really have one without the other. You can't have whatever it is that people like about me, or people hate about me, without the part of me, the other side of me that is so complex that I have to fight with that to keep the other part in charge.

That's the struggle in life is to find somebody who understands that and isn't afraid of that. I think the mistake that I've made in the past is I've met people that pity that, or I've met people that are similar, and then no one's in charge. It's like the short bus, when they open the door and everyone's running wild. It's crazy.

I'm in such a different place and it was really so much about making this record. I don't really care how that comes across when it's written down in print. It sounds like the type of thing some stupid band would say about the catharsis and the importance of the art and all the bullshit, and all that. It's real simple, it's not even a challenge, if I'm going to be a rock star it's balls deep. That's the only way that it goes.

I want to respect and try and grow from all of my influences and I want to be something that makes a dent in the world. I want to be a villain. Everyone wants to say, "What's it like being a role model?" It's a lot harder to be a fucking villain. Role models are mannequins, villains make problems and problems are what changes the world. All artists are villains, and that's what I like to be.

Besides the fact that I think just normally in relationships I've found that I don't like to be an asshole to girls in relationships. But I think just the danger factor of what I am, I don't know what it is that I say such terrible things and it comes across as cute and charming. But it always amazes me because I've tried to make myself very un-likeable -- it just backfires on me.

NP: You say that you try to make yourself un-likeable. But to some extent are you trapped by your own persona? Who Marilyn Manson is is such a strong and defined personality....

MM: ...I'm trapped by my insecurities, my self-esteem, and that's the reason I had to create something...I created the name Marilyn Manson, and I created the band without even having a song. I had an idea of what I wanted to get to, and that idea was just as powerful as what it ended up getting to.

NP: But there must be a side of Marilyn Manson that does stuff that's not "in character," that loves organic gardening or I Love Lucy re-runs.

MM: Of course. I'm sitting next to my cat, Lily, and it's the one girl, and she's the only virgin I know, and she loves me. I've had her for seven years. And I like to watch movies. I'm romantic. For whatever reason girls like the things that I have to say. It amuses me and amazes me, and I feel lucky sometimes. I feel like what I do is I write. I tried to be a writer for journalism, it just didn't suit me. So somehow I ended up writing songs. And I like to paint. These are two things that I feel like I can do best to communicate with people.

But I understand the persona thing...At some point I think I lost track of who I was before I made this record, and that's a really big problem. It's not as simple as if you're just someone who has one identity, then OK, you have an identity crisis. If you're someone who has two, one is for strangers and people you don't know, and also the people you do know, and the other one is only for the people that you know personally. Then, at that point, you don't know who you are. That's almost what destroyed me because I didn't know what to be. I didn't know which one to be.

What I realized was, I'm all of it. I can't be described as one or the other. It can't be on stage or off stage, it can't be Brian Warner or Marilyn Manson, it's all of it. It's just everything. It's one big movie. There's parts of it that are stupid and boring, there's parts of it that are exciting, pornographic and violent, there are parts of it that are dramatic and heartwarming, there's all of that. It's just a movie, and that's the only way I can deal with it.

I can't try to define myself on other people's terms because it's impossible and it ends up destroying me and breaking my heart to try and be something that is really the opposite of why I created being me. I just didn't feel like I fit. And I'm not the ultimate outsider. I'm not trying to be that.

The record is ultimately about somebody who is falling from grace, and I have in so many ways. Whether it's with family, enemies, fans, personally, lovers, career, art, whatever it is. And then you want to fit back in and you feel like, maybe I should give up my wings. Maybe I should give up who I am and then I'll fit in. And then you find yourself completely unlovable. You're worthless above and below and that's where I was in the record towards the end of the record.

I realized, it, and was very angry. I almost gave up and became everything that I thought I represented the opposite of. Instead of being that person, I wanted to give up and kill myself. I can't take it anymore. I was Nero wanting to burn the city down. Instead of that it became redemption...If you want to find out who your real friends are, sink the ship. The first ones to jump aren't your friends.

NP: It's interesting that you talk about wanting to fit in because that's the antithesis of what Marilyn Manson is perceived to be about. Your extreme look, the extreme things you say, that's the trademark of someone that doesn't care what people think.

MM: Right. Maybe that's the wrong way of saying it -- fit in. I wanted to be accepted, to be liked -- and that doesn't mean by everyone. There's a difference also that I want to clarify; When people say "I don't give a shit what other people think" -- that's bullshit. I give a shit what everyone thinks. I won't be judged by other people. I care what people I don't know think. I want them to think that I fucking hate them or I want to change their opinion, but to say you don't care, that's apathetic, that's worthless. But I don't live my life in judgment by them. I didn't mean I was trying to fit into that.

I was trying to find a place to exist, I felt completely like the book Stranger In A Strange Land, or Man That Fell To Earth. I felt lost. I felt like I couldn't be like what everyone wanted me to be, and it was because I stopped being me. It's something that everyone can relate to. It's not some kind of complex metaphor, and I'm not someone so completely complicated everyone can't [understand]. I'm human. I'm normal. I'm as fucked up as anyone else. I don't have all the answers. I just try and sing about it, and for whatever reason I've managed to communicate that in a way that people identify with it. And that's something I want to hold on to. I want to deliver that. I don't want to cater to it, I want to give them what they want. They want me to be me, and this is me being me more than I've been able to in the past.

NP: We'd talked previously about multiple personalities, and you talk about how you have difficulty marrying the Manson that you are with your friends and the Manson that you are in public. One of the ways I know psychiatrists try and deal with that is they try to bring the two personalities closer together, so they slowly become one. Is that a process that you've been through?

MM: I personally feel that the world began to end at the dawn of psychiatry and the questioning of relativity. When we started to unravel and question things, when people started to have too many question marks to where they started to doubt themselves -- people already doubted themselves, that's why religion was invented. Psychiatry, technically, I think for the most part, was simply a very clever attempt at replacing religion for financial purposes, in my opinion.

I'm not talking about psychology, I'm talking about psychiatry. Because psychiatrists, I've gone to a psychiatrist before and a psychiatrist [asked] me, "Why are you here?" And I said, "Well, everyone told me I was crazy, and my mom's in a mental asylum, so I guess that's what I'm supposed to be here for." And he said, "Well, what are your problems?" And I said, "Well, I can't deal with the stress of being under the scrutiny of the public so it's hard for me to go out around people, it's hard for me to connect to people." [The psychiatrist said,] "OK, well that's always going to exist, so that's incurable. What else are your problems?" [I said,] "Well, I'm obsessive. If you put something in front of me, if you put a big bag of dicks in front of me, I will sort them out and check the foreskins. If you give me a pair of tweezers I'll pluck every hair out of my body. If you give me a big, giant bag of drugs I'll do them all. Whatever it is I'll stick to it. What I want to keep that in is art. I want to keep me creating." He said, "Well, that's incurable too. So what you need to do is you need to not go anywhere and create art." That was the summation of my psychiatry experience.

Then I went to AA after that. It was kind of a weekend of fun for me, and I got asked for my autograph and so it wasn't anonymous. I think Alcoholics Anonymous should be a ski mask and a bottle of whiskey and you get in there drunk and you're anonymous, and you're like, "I'm drunk and it's anonymous." That's what I think it should be.

NP: Yeah the name Alcoholics Anonymous is false advertising. It should be replaced with Alcoholics Unanonymous. If it's anonymous, why do you have to stand up and say your name?

MM: Correct.

NP: You talk about how it's hard to be in the public eye...

MM: Well no, I want to clarify that, because what I realized was, when people always ask me is there a difference between you as Marilyn Manson or Brian Warner. What I came to understand is that when I go on stage I'm singing my most personal feelings to strangers, and a lot of times I've written those feelings to people that I know. So there's just two worlds and I don't know how that defines me. But that's the difference between those two different worlds.

I don't think you can really shut off who you are, and there's varying levels. If someone says, "Well it's an act." I think, what isn't an act? Everything is an act, it's just a matter of if you want to direct, you want to star, you want to be an extra. What do you want to do with it? And at this point I'm just trying to live every day where it's more happy than it is sad. And I figured out the secret to life: Do drugs and drink when you're in a good mood, not in a band mood. [laughs] It's a little bit simple.

Before I go on a tear about this bizarre new game Blueberry Garden, we should chat about indie games (since it is one). I'm nuts about indie culture, and if you're on this site, you probably are as well. You dig the alternative over the mainstream, the underdog over the overlords. I don't doubt your taste in indie film, music, comics, and, of course, erotica, is impeccable.

Shooting my next movie this summer in Baltimore. I am so excited I can barely breathe. Any Baltimore folk on here?

Our media is pretty much a sad, dried up piece of dung. They sat idly by as the Bush Administration lied about intelligence and took us to war. Actually, they kind of gave Bush a wrap-around the while it was going on. They decided not to tell us about the Bush torture program for one whole year after... more

Our media is pretty much a sad, dried up piece of dung. They sat idly by as the Bush Administration lied about intelligence and took us to war. Actually, they kind of gave Bush a wrap-around the while it was going on. They decided not to tell us about the Bush torture program for one whole year after it was uncovered. Their coverage of the current economic crisis has been woeful, to say the least. Those are just the big examples. The media is a shell of its former self and has basically become a national embarrassment. Nothing exemplifies how lame our media has become more than Liz Cheney.

Liz Cheney is the daughter of Dick Cheney. You may have possibly seen her spewing nonsense from her hate hole over the past couple of weeks because she has been invited on news program after news program to espouse torture and criticize President Obama. She is qualified, after all, because she was raised by a monster. And worst of all, she’s usually allowed to be the only guest, so her lying goes unchallenged, because our journalists are cowards and lack knowledge. Being the lone guest is considered a privilege and is reserved only for high officials and newsmakers, which she is not. She is someone’s daughter. The daughter of a man no one will defend. So, naturally, our media allows her to step up and defend dear old dad.

The media does not hold her feet over the fire and go after her father for his obvious war crimes. Instead, they allow her to go on the offensive against Obama and all things Democratic. The Cheney family plan is to attack as a defense. Our media’s complicity in this act is no different that their horrifying coverage leading up to the war. A wrong was committed, justice needs to be served and they are allowing the war criminal’s daughter to attack the president on our airwaves. A new low? It’s pretty pathetic.

The exciting thing about a democracy is that if our government won’t take the appropriate action, our media is supposed to step up and do their job. That then informs the masses and pressure is put upon the government and problems, like war criminals running about, are resolved. In this case, the war criminal’s daughter is the one running the narrative. How awesome is that?



Stick around, Pol Pot’s daughter chimes in after the break!

There’s nothing quite like the daughter of a war criminal accusing the current president of “hand-holding” terrorists and then watching as the “journalist” does not tear her a new asshole. Kudos. I’d like to note here that during Obama’s speech he backed up the use of troops in Afghanistan because terrorists are “determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can,” and re-committed to destroying terror networks. He just didn’t throw down support for anally raping boys. Dear "Journalist" here's a possible follow up question:

Liz, you claim Obama is “hand-holding” terrorists, but while your father was in office, women and children were raped by interrogators. Are you saying Obama should continue with the rape?

Imagine. The. Answer.

And it’s not like this is an isolate incident. The woman has been all over the media. Just check out what she’s been up to since May 12th.

Embarrassing. There is no excuse for having the daughter of Dick Cheney on television. None. She’s worthless and a liar.

Oh, wait. Turns out there is an awesome reason.

She’s a great guest. It’s awesome when a guest can come on and lie about her daddy's involvement in the most important issues facing our country.

FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday and Friday for more from FearTheReaper. You may also enjoy his blog, Stop All Monsters.

I discovered that I’ve encountered many things in my life without knowing their names. When I was in college I dated a cutter. I didn’t know he was a “cutter” -- I just thought he was a slightly freaky young man who hurt himself in an attempt to impress and/or control me. (That... more

I discovered that I’ve encountered many things in my life without knowing their names. When I was in college I dated a cutter. I didn’t know he was a “cutter” -- I just thought he was a slightly freaky young man who hurt himself in an attempt to impress and/or control me. (That was fun.)

Later, I fell into a mailing list that I thought was for Babylon 5 fans -- older and wiser, I now realize that a good many of them were furries, as one of their pastimes was to talk about which characters on B5 would make good animals. I followed along like a foreigner caught in a protest who yells the sounds she hears around her to fit into the crowd, the passion moving me without actually wondering if I’d really like to fuck an anthropomorphic fox who vaguely resembles Marcus Cole.

I wouldn’t, for what it’s worth.

And I heard about alternate reality games (ARGs) way back in the day before they were called that, when the failed EA game Majestic was announced. I thought this were a terrible idea. A game that went into the real world, that called you and emailed you? I was working closely with the Electronic Software Ratings Board at the time to create a privacy policy for the computer gaming company I worked for, and privacy was a huge thing on my mind. Didn’t this just break all those rules?

Yeah, I know. And I thought the iPod was a stupid idea too. I’m willing to admit I’m wrong.

EA screwed up because they required payment for the game, and canceled it for lack of players -- not the huge privacy kerfuffle that I had anticipated, but I suck at predictions. Regardless, online privacy and ARGs was just discussed in the ARG Netcast, an excellent weekly podcast about ARGs featuring some of the big names in ARG creation today.

I am slow to catch on to things like this, I admit. (See above iPod comment.) I finally heard about ARGs in 2007 and became fascinated by the idea. See, an alternate reality game is a game that claims it is not a game, but has a central narrative, often on a website or within a novel, with a paths, or ‘rabbit holes’ that lead elsewhere: other websites, phone numbers to call, even places to visit for messages. Each path will offer more information, a puzzle, or a clue. ARGs can have hundreds of pieces of extra content to discover, and it's as immersive as you can make it. The first successful ARGs were devised as marketing material for existing licenses or products (The Beast was connected to the film AI: Artificial Intelligence), but they've expanded since then.

Some ARGs happen in real time, with a definitive start and end. The Beast was one, running three months and engaging three million people. But as I am a late-comer, I’ve been more interested in the ARGs that connect with books. What I’m finding about novel ARGs is that they allow you to be as lazy as you like. The good ones are solid, stand-alone stories that you can enjoy at a casual level, or you can delve deeper and get intensive with your investigation. My first true ARG that I played was with my six-year-old daughter when he started reading the kids’ books, The 39 Clues. We follow two orphans as they discover they’re part of a very powerful family who are all searching for clues that will lead to great power. We have read two novels, and gone online where we took a quiz to see where in the family we belong (there are four branches of the family, resembling closely the four houses of Hogwarts….) Since then we’ve done research, figured out puzzles and played games to learn more about the secrets of the family, and it’s been a lot of fun.

Now that I’ve exposed my wuss characteristics, that I had to play the kid’s game to get into ARGs, I’m more and more interested. I got the Urban Sleuth app for my new iPod Touch, which is doing big time ARGs for major cities, but also allows for other ARGs to be uploaded and played for those of us in the non-important cities. It also allows for people to create their own city-based games, and I’m hoping to check out the content creator tools.

But my first real "big girl" ARG will be out shortly, and I can't wait. I got a chance to check out an advanced copy of the new ARG, Personal Effects: Dark Art, a novel about an art therapist who works with the criminally insane. The story was strong, creepy, and a decent stand-alone product, but I was curious about the ARG standpoint. I didn't get to see any of the extra content that comes with the retail version of the book, and this content is central to the ARG.

When I visited the science fiction convention Balticon in May, I got to hang out with author J.C. Hutchins and see the final book itself. Personal Effects like most ARGs has clues, numbers and websites in the book, but it stands alone because also comes with a lot of extra content such as ID cards for characters in the book, birth certificates, death certificates, notes, and, since the main character is an art therapist, reproductions of art pieces in the book. The amount of extra content was surprising, and I think putting the rabbit hole in your hands (like a portable hole from D&D) instead of making you search it out on the web will be a stronger pull -- the clues in your hand will likely pique your curiosity and make you seek out more answers.

(When I say "you" I mean "me.")

The book also has another phenomenon: one of the supporting characters is actually a person online, and has been interacting with people since fall '08. She’s a gamer and a blogger, quite active on Twitter. Whether she’s real or not is a matter of contention -- clearly there’s someone charming and whip-smart on the other end, and her game writing is well-informed. And as ARGs have been telling us since their birth: this is not a game.

I'll purposefully leave her name out of it. You can find her if you read the book, and if you're already reading her and you don't know she's fictional, then it really shouldn't matter to you, should it?


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