Megan Abbott made her name as a novelist with a series of crime novels set in the mid-Twentieth century. In books like “Die a Little,” “The Song Is You,” “Queenpin” and “Bury Me Deep” Abbott put her female protagonists through hell and back. They were innocents who found that they were... more

Megan Abbott made her name as a novelist with a series of crime novels set in the mid-Twentieth century. In books like “Die a Little,” “The Song Is You,” “Queenpin” and “Bury Me Deep” Abbott put her female protagonists through hell and back. They were innocents who found that they were darker and more complicated than they imagined, pushed to their limits and out of their comfort zones which often led to blackmail, murder, self-delusion and more. Last year saw the publication of “The End of Everything,” a book set in the 1980’s and featuring a thirteen year old protagonist whose best friend goes missing. The result is a brutal story that spares no one in the town.

Her new novel is “Dare Me,” a novel about a cheerleading squad who gets a new coach and upends the team and the girls’ social dynamics. Sex, drinking, betrayal, kicking another cheerleader in the stomach to purge, broken bones and ruined lives. This is not a warm and fuzzy book, but it is a great read. It’s also one of those books that’s very difficult to talk about without giving anything away, but when we reached Abbott over e-mail, we tried our best.


ALEX DUEBEN: Where did the idea for Dare Me come from?

MEGAN ABBOTT: In my last book, The End of Everything, one of the characters was a high school field hockey star. I started watching girls play and was struck by their ferocity on the field. Their aggression but also the kind of wild abandon they brought to it. That led me to cheerleading, the most dangerous sport for girls. Watching squads compete, I was fascinated by the girls’ willingness not only push themselves but to take tremendous, terrifying risks. I started thinking about it as this terrain to explore female friendship, rivalries, power, ambition. Adolescent girls feel things so powerfully and when the stakes are raised, as they are in this kind of sport, the possibilities for trouble are pretty immense.

AD: Why cheerleaders as opposed to another kind of sport?

MA: In part, the all-American-ness of it appealed. Cheerleaders are so iconic in our culture. They’re spectacles. But it’s an icon filled with contradictions: girl-next-door and sex object, an image of purity and one of titillation.

AD: Cheerleaders are also emblematic of an idea of femininity because they’re not seen as and can’t be seen as athletic in the way that women playing other sports do. Field hockey and softball players can sweat or are clearly working but cheerleaders can’t look like they’re putting in any effort.

MA: That’s a great distinction. They need to look perfect and the sparkled, smiling mask is both part of the spectacle and part of the pleasure but also becomes a way of concealing the strain, the effort, the will required.

AD: What do you think of the comparison that’s been made in calling Dare Me, “a Fight Club among girls”–flattering? accurate? puzzling?

MA: Oh, I’m flattered. Fight Club was so incisive about this crisis in masculinity—a perilous path to recover one’s manhood in a time of beset masculinity. And cheerleading to me says a great deal about femininity, womanhood, girlhood. These smiling masks that conceal these warrior selves.

AD: To what degree do you think that Dare Me has something to say about what it’s like to be a teenage girl and about the relationships between teenage girls

MA: I try not to think about that too much when I write, or you risk writing a “message” tale. And I think it really depends on each reader’s experiences, personal history. For me, though, the intensity of female friendships at that age is a rehearsal for every relationship that comes thereafter. And no relationship will ever feel quite so dramatic because you never have that intensity again. After high school, your world is bigger, your responsibilities greater. So there’s something powerful about those early friendships. They’re like an invisible tattoo you wear forever after.

AD: I find it hard to ask questions about the book just because I don’t want to give anything away, though I think that holds true for many of your books. You enjoy telling stories about characters who realize at one point that what they thought was happening isn’t happening and they don’t really know or understand the people around them. What do you find compelling about these kinds of stories?

MA: I tend to think every story is really a coming of age tale, no matter how old the characters are. All stories are, in some ways, about disillusionment, including self-disillusionment. I love that John Gardner quote: all stories have one of two plots: someone goes on a journey; or a stranger comes to town. They both involve you seeing a world you didn’t know, and the experience changes you. We can all identify with that. We’ve all had those moments, painful and powerful.

AD: Did you know what the last chapter of Dare Me would be from the beginning?

MA: Maybe halfway through the first draft. In my original conception, it wouldn’t have been possible. Both Addy and Beth changed dramatically from my early ideas of them. They each became more complicated and willful. They kept surprising me.

AD: Why did you go from telling stories about adults in period pieces to your last two novels which are set in contemporary times and focusing on young women?

MA: After writing four books set in the mid-century, I wanted to shake things up for myself. I’d never tried writing anything that had any connection to my own life, so I wondered what it would be like to set a book in a world I knew, that felt palpably real. And as for writing about young women girls, it felt like there was so much room to explore there. There’s still so much that, as a culture, we don’t want to think about when we think about teenage girls. There’s a yearning for them to be pure, unsullied, blank rather than reckon with their darker corners. Their desires, their aggression, their rage, their ambitions. So it’s ripe territory.

AD: I know that you have a background as an academic and received your Ph.D. from NYU. Did you always want to be a writer or at what point did you turn to novel writing?

MA: Growing up, I never could quite imagine how one would be lucky enough to be a novelist. It felt too impractical, a big dream. It really wasn’t until I was in grad school and I decided to focus on 1940s-50s hardboiled crime fiction and film noir for my dissertation. It was an excuse to read tons of these wonderful dark books. Reading them back to back, it was like falling in love. I found myself wanting to write my way into their glamorous world—movie studios, racetracks, nightclubs but also the big emotions of life laid bare. Longing, greed, envy, regret. So I began writing my first novel, Die a Little as a way to try to write myself into that world. And once I started, I was hooked. I couldn’t stop.

AD: Was part of the appeal in writing your earlier books the setting because it sounds as though you have a love for the period?

MA: Yes, transporting myself back in time was probably the primary appeal. Not necessarily the “real” past, but the past shimmering in my head from growing up on Golden-Age Hollywood. Writing in those worlds was, in part, a fantasy, a kind of dreaming on paper.

AD: You said that the other appeal for the crime novels you read was that the big emotions of life were laid bare and I couldn’t help but think that it’s when we’re young is when that tends to happen most. It’s easier to write such a story in a contemporary setting if you’re dealing with teenagers.

MA: Definitely. That’s what made the leap seem so natural. The world is a pretty noir place when you’re young. Everything feels so urgent, so overwhelming. You’re just consumed by your own urges. And you’re constantly prevented from doing what you want to do.

AD: You wrote a nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine, about crime fiction and white masculinity. In what ways are your early novels–and even Dare Me and The End of Everything–a response to that book and the tradition and ideas that it identifies and analyzes?

MA: Not consciously. That’s two different parts of my head. I try not to analyze my own fiction or “make points” with it. Otherwise, it just kills it for me. The imaginative part of my head is so unconscious and I fear putting too much light on in there!

AD: Are you in the midst of another novel?

MA: Yes, it’s called The Fever and is about a mysterious outbreak among high schoolers in a small town.

by Nahp A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups. (image) [Spliff Suicide in Wild Card] This week Spliff explains why she stands behind Ass Appreciation. Members: 8,020 / Comments: 82,077 WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: Aside from the fact that I love booty – all kinds of booty – I really... more

by Nahp

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.


[Spliff Suicide in Wild Card]

This week Spliff explains why she stands behind Ass Appreciation.

Members: 8,020 / Comments: 82,077

WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: Aside from the fact that I love booty – all kinds of booty – I really love this group for the members and the owner Bepps. It's a community within the site made for all us ass lovers to unite. I also really enjoy that there are threads made for some girls to just post their glorious bums. I personally have a thread with 72 pages of only mine.

DISCUSSION TIP: In this group you can discuss openly just about anything ass related you want. A lot of threads will just make you simply want to say "DAMN!"

MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: The Post Your Own Ass thread is by far the most popular. I love this thread because there's daily new cute booty pictures of not just SG's and hopefuls, but also members.

BEST RANDOM QUOTE: "What a delightful derrière!" – I love this because I always here ass, booty, butt, bum. But derriere makes it sounds sexier. Also, "Your ass has to be illegal in at least 48 states!"

WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: Anyone who loves a good behind, weather it be small ones, fat ones, asses in panties, or asses and heels.


***
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Like his name would suggest, Aesop Rock is a storyteller. But instead of shrouding lessons on morality within recycled folklore, the hip-hop emcee cuts to the chase, illuminating the human condition through unfettered observations on the strangeness of people and the shape-shifting worlds we inhabit. more

Like his name would suggest, Aesop Rock is a storyteller. But instead of shrouding lessons on morality within recycled folklore, the hip-hop emcee cuts to the chase, illuminating the human condition through unfettered observations on the strangeness of people and the shape-shifting worlds we inhabit. Born and raised in New York, Aesop has never lacked for subject matter. One could say that the city chooses her storytellers, and not the other way around. Aesop's refined staccato raps eloquently around even the harshest of big city truths, and when he zigs before he zags, the wordplay is nothing short of spectacular. His detailed, non-linear narratives explore the tension that exists between innocence and the sordid aspects of human nature; the self-inflicted identity crisis that exists when one dabbles in role play -- when the virgin taunts the whore, or when the pornographer becomes the ice-cream man. As Aesop puts it, his attraction lies in what happens when "fluffy meets evil."

Aesop sat down with SuicideGirls to talk about life as an indie-rapper and about his new full-length album "None Shall Pass," a collection of apocalyptic lullabies two years in the making, out August 28 on Definitive Jux.

Erin Broadley: Let’s start by talking about the “Walleyball” short you scored for one of the McSweeney’s Wolphin DVDs.

Aesop Rock: Oh cool.

EB: I thought it was amazing. What drew you to that project?

AR: I had done a benefit for McSweeney’s that was a children’s creative writing fund and workshop here in San Francisco. I was a fan and I just walked in and said, “I want to do a benefit show for you.” So we did that and then I let it be known that I was down to get involved in whatever they wanted to do. At the time they were just starting that Wolphin series which is their new DVD magazine of short films.

EB: I saw the one with the short film where Dennis Hopper tries to blow himself up.

AR: Yeah, when I walked in that’s the first thing I saw. I walked in and this guy was like, “Look at this weird Dennis Hopper thing!” I was down with it. Basically one of the guys that runs McSweeney’s was like, “Well, my donation is this movie called ‘Walleyball’. We just got back from filming at the border.” He showed it to me and I go, “This is fucking nuts.” He explained to me that technically when you hit the volleyball over the [California/Mexico border] fence you’re importing and exporting goods illegally from Mexico. I thought it was so great. He was like, “Would you like to do some music? You would have to do it by tomorrow.” It was very quick and I said, “Yeah, I can whip up some volleyball playing music if you want.”

EB: [Laughs]

AR: I just wanted to be a part of it. I tired to make something that sounds like goofy volleyball music.

EB: Right, something a little beach-y.

AR: A little beach-y.

EB: A little scary, maybe. The narrator talks about how there are motion sensors and it’s a militarized border and all that shit -- it kind of takes the fun out of prancing around barefoot on the sand.

AR: Right! I felt like if I did goofy volleyball music it would weirdly compliment that.

EB: Are the challenges different when it comes to making songs for an album versus making music for McSweeney’s or the song [“All Day”] you did for Nike?

AR: I’ve aligned myself with independent labels and it’s allowed me to do whatever I want basically. Which is this gift and curse because on one hand it’s awesome; it’s kind of like what everyone wants. On the other hand, if you run out of ideas you don’t have anyone to blame beside yourself. Occasionally I’ll get these side gigs, like the Nike project or the stuff I’ve done with Jeremy Fish; they come to me with an idea and it’s basically more of an assignment. Like, “Can you pull this off with this little? We have a starting point; the starting point is this fisherman.” Usually I’m into it as long as they’re not steering my hand all the way through. I liked Nike’s idea of, “Hey, can you do music for athletes to train to?” I sit here and go, “Well that’s the weirdest thing anyone’s asked me to do.”

To a degree it’s refreshing for someone in my position to get a little bit of direction. Sometimes when I’m working on Aesop Rock material, if I have writer’s block I’m like, “Fuck.” You know, it’s all on my shoulders and if I don’t come up with something soon then everyone’s looking at me. Whereas [with Nike and McSweeney’s] if they have an idea it takes away some of the hard part and it turns it more into this puzzle that you have to figure out. Like, “Yeah, I can do this volleyball music.”

EB: What’s the story with the song you did for Nike’s “Original Run” series? I never heard of it until I found out you were involved.

AR: It’s a series they’re doing now but they had only done two --one with LCD Soundsystem -- up until they asked me. The basic idea was 45 minutes of continuous music. They wanted mostly instrumental stuff.

EB: I’m surprised they didn’t want you rapping over the music like, “Run the fuck faster. Don’t stop asshole.”

AR: Yeah [laughs]. It would have been fun to do that.

EB: Are you a big runner?

AR: No. But luckily my wife is. She was very much a lab rat during the whole process. Any project that comes to me that’s odd or that I don’t understand why I’m being asked to do it, I’ll usually do.

EB: Sure, it’s the odd requests that pique your interest.

AR: Exactly.

EB: How are things going with the preparation for the None Shall Pass release?

AR: So far, so good. I’m swamped but it’s better to be busy than bored. I’ve got two videos that are both started but not finished. We finally finished booking the tour. I’ve got more going on now than ever before which is good but it all hinges on whether or not people like the record. It’s all up in the air. Right now I have more little groups of people that I’m working with at one time than I’ve ever had. It’s nerve racking because I’m a bit of a control freak and I like to oversee everything. I have this chip on my shoulder where I need to be in charge. I have to figure out a way to trust. I know I drive everyone I work with completely crazy. I run myself ragged a lot and then I’ll be like, “Well, you know, I’ve got to loosen up because I’m going to make enemies this way.” Especially this time around, just because there are so many little projects going at once, I think I have to take some Valium or something.

EB: Don’t we all?

AR: [Laughs]

EB: Well, when discussing your past albums, reviewers have mentioned your ability to stand out because of your vulnerable storytelling style, as opposed to the tough-guy MC role. Do you have any thoughts about whether or not this kind of battle-culture mentality has taken hip-hop to a place where it’s more about machismo than music?

AR: Well, it’s hard to say because a lot of hip-hop does sound more like machismo and acrobatics and, to a degree, there’s nothing wrong with it. That kind of competitiveness gets people involved and increases skills at writing faster but that being said, there comes a point where you just say, “Okay, I can’t do this anymore.” There are only so many albums where I can talk about me and be braggadocios. There comes a time when you just need to talk about something else or you need to just take all these things you’ve learned and go in a new direction. A lot of people have a hard time digesting that. It’s weird because I get all these labels of being sort of “out there” or being left field.

EB: Yeah I read something that described you as an indie-rap surrealist.

AR: Yeah, yeah. It’s just so easy to be left field in rap because it’s such a small box. There’s not very many people doing something that’s hot. Everyone keeps doing a slight variation of the same thing and it’s been like that for 30 years. At some point, whether you’re going to get criticized or not, you’ve got to do something or it just gets boring. So at the risk of getting a bunch of hate, I just take things into my own hands and try something different. Whether or not it fails is up in the air but I just can’t talk about myself anymore. The way that hip-hop has grown, it’s done the opposite of what a lot of genres have done. As it ages, it gets more refined and what you’re “allowed to do” gets to be less and less. Whereas other genres kind of can…

EB: …They can leap all over the place.

AR: Yeah. Rap music gets criticized a lot for doing anything that’s against the grain or out of the mold a little bit. Like I said, it doesn’t take much to go out of the mold because rap is so self-conscious and everyone’s so aware of what the definition of hip-hop is and whether or not what you’re doing is okay within the genre. It’s stupid and there are definitely a lot of people that are pretty close-minded and consciously sort of trying to hold back what should be a natural evolution. It turns into what we have now, which is a bunch of people doing second and third rate versions of stuff that already existed 10 or 15 years ago. It’s just laziness.

EB: How does this record fit in with your previous work? What new directions did you step into, if any?

AR: When I wrap a record, over the course of making these random songs something will click and you make a discovery and you’re like, “This is the first stepping stone into what I do next.” It’s hard to put into words but there’s definitely a different overall sound. I want to be talking at people less and I want to be talking with people more. I’d rather be engaging. I want people to be pulled into a record rather than be sort of preached at or talked at. Those were conscious things that I wanted to do. I don’t know if being on the West coast changed it as much as the fact that I was out of New York. I’m not out and about as much in this city. I’m in my comfort zone in New York. I’d been there so long so moving and pulling myself out of that was a pretty major thing for me.

EB: How long have you been in San Francisco?

AR: Almost two years -- a little over a year and a half. Being out of my comfort zone was something I was scared of forever. Then once I did it I was like, “Ah, this is actually kind of more comfortable in a way.” I don’t know that many people here and I kind of like that. I don’t have as many distractions.

EB: It’s kind of an anonymous freedom.

AR: Exactly, I can just kind of get lost. I have to MapQuest going to the grocery store.

EB: [Laughs]

AR: Yeah, it’s fun. It’s sort of this strange land. Everything I feared almost turned out to be refreshing. I still have a bit of an East Coat mind state and I still struggle. The whole idea was to come out here for a while and then move back to New York with my wife at some point. That’s still the plan but for now I’m just on this extended field trip. There’s a lot of art and culture in San Francisco specifically. I’m just sort of walking around in a foreign place every day. It’s cool but everything I’ve known and learned is from the perspective and attitude that comes from New York and Long Island. When you’re in New York you’ve got this “I’m never going to leave” attitude. It’s comfortable and you think, “This is it for me. I’m here and I’m going to put my flag here.” Then something happens and you either build up the courage to leave or because of whatever turn of events, you get out of New York. Now I almost understand New York more because I’m looking at it from the outside. When I do ultimately return there it’ll almost be more meaningful. Now I know what it’s like to be elsewhere. I’ve traveled so much -- I’ve been around the world but I’m never in any one place for more than one night. So this is sort of kind of interesting.

EB: I think there are people in all cities with that “I’ll never leave” mentality. I know people who will probably live in Kentucky for the entirety of their lives.

AR: Yeah, you feel this sort of kinship with your home territory. But then there are also people who are constantly on the move. I think there’s something wrong with those kinds of people.

EB: Damn gypsies [laughs].

AR: Yeah. People that can’t stay planted for more than a few months, they’re definitely running. It takes a special person to live like that; usually they end up being tour managers or something. They’re a special breed. Someone that can stay on the couch for a couple weeks and then pick up and go on tour and the day after that tour ends get a job on another tour. It’s the weirdest job to ever have probably.

EB: I don’t know anybody that says they want to grow up to be a tour manager.

AR: No, it’s kind of something you fall into. I know a guy who’s been saying, “This will be my last tour,” for the last three years.

EB: So, Jeremy Fish, the visual artist you collaborate with a lot, also lives in San Francisco. He did the None Shall Pass artwork and you guys also collaborated on a short story called The Next Best Thing, a children’s book of sorts, right?

AR: Yeah. When I moved out here I was a fan of him but I didn’t know he was a fan of me. We have a friend in common and basically he got in touch with me because he got the opportunity to pitch a cartoon to Disney and he said, “Hey, do you want to do some music for this if it ever were to go through?” I was like, “Fuck yeah, that sounds crazy.” I was like, “And by the way I’m moving to San Francisco next week. So why don’t we meet up?” So, long story short, the cartoon bounced around in TV land for a while. The pitch still exists but we’ve since moved on. In the meantime we became really good friends. He’s one of the only people I actually know and have become close to since I moved out here. It just became really natural for us to work together regardless. So the first thing we did was that book and record, which is similar to those old Disney books and records that used to come out where you sort of played the record and turned pages along with the record. I was interested in trying to think of different ways to bring visual arts and music together more often. It’s kind of a crime how little it happens these days.

EB: Yeah, Jeremy’s stuff is great. Did you by chance pick up that Lost Girls series that Alan Moore did?

AR: Uh-uh.

EB: It’s a set of graphic novels about, like, what really happens with all of the female characters from children’s books like Wendy from Peter Pan and Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy from The Wizard of OZ. It’s very pornographic -- an adult book -- but there’s this children’s element as well. It’s like using these children’s stories as a vehicle for adult content. It’s fascinating. Next time you’re in a comic shop you should check it out.

AR: Right, right. I’ll check it out. That was interesting, what you just mentioned. With Jeremy’s stuff and my stuff, we both work in this little world of trying to mix cute and evil together. I’m trying to describe this evil situation using fluffy terminology or I’m trying to describe a fluffy situation getting kind of evil or pornographic. And Jeremy’s signature is this skulls-and-bunnies thing where it’s fluffy meets evil. I tend to be attracted to that stuff. It’s finding good in every amount of evil and finding a little evil in all the good, and describing any situation like that.

EB: I understand you have a visual art background as well and studied painting in college. What are some of the differences or similarities between collaborating with someone on a visual project versus in the recording studio?

AR: It’s a similar process. I only like to collaborate with people that I’m comfortable with and share a similar vision [artistically] or have a friendship. Someone like Jeremy I just knew would work because I felt his stuff looked like a visual representation of what some of my music felt like. He agreed with that so it worked out. Musically I’ve somehow aligned myself with people I was a fan of before I knew them. When it comes to a lot of my friends, I’m just fans of their music anyway so it’s easier to trust these people. I have a hard time trusting. The people I trust most are the artists that I collaborate with where I can say, “I need you to do this with me. I need it to be kind of like this but I want you to put your spin on it and I need it by this day.” I trust that they’ll pull it off. I guess the whole idea with collaboration is that you give the other person some leeway.

EB: I came across a Dutch documentary from several years back on Def Jux in general and there was one part where you talked about the rough time you were going through at that point in your life…

AR: Yeah, that was a bad era for me.

EB: You talked about shutting down and bottoming out emotionally and feeling like you weren’t able to function. I think most artists can totally relate to how you felt at that point. Do those feelings still threaten or affect your creativity? Or have you put them to bed for the most part?

AR: Yeah, I don’t know. Everyone is different. Some people can go through every day with a robotic shield up and some are more affected. It’s hard to say, but that [documentary] was a testament to a way more turbulent time with what stuff was going on for me. I was very uncomfortable with the fact that my music was making noise. I had achieved this slight degree of success and I didn’t know what to do with it.

EB: Right, people coming at you from all angles.

AR: Yeah. I just didn’t know what to do. I’m not good at receiving that kind of attention. What I do is always kind of based in the art side of things. You know, I went to school for painting…

EB: Right, which is a very solitary art form.

AR: Yeah. The fact that I was making music in this indie way was very much based on the fact that I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I like to create shit -- I like to stay up at night and create things and make something out of nothing so that when I wake up I have something to show for yesterday. That was how I always did everything. But then, before you know it, someone takes notice and it’s cool, but then more people notice. It’s a little weird because before you know it, it’s really strange and you don’t know how to react. Because you’re like, “This is just what I do.” I still have those ups and downs all the time. I guess I’m just predisposed to being that kind of person.

But I’m more grounded right now than I’ve ever been. Probably my marriage has something to do with it. That combined with cutting certain things out of my life that were negatively affecting me -- trying to grow up a little and realize that I’ve got to be accountable for my actions and in doing that, I have to focus on certain things and make some decisions. You don’t want to grow up but once you do it you realize that your life gets a lot easier. I became a little more focused on what I needed to do. I’m still uncomfortable with the publicity aspect of all this but I like to make music so I can try to find some sort of balance.

EB: Are you ever worried that at a certain point -- for example if this album were to truly blow up -- do you ever worry that the attention will make you take a step back and not want to release future albums?

AR: Yeah, totally. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but yes, I would, in a second, step back. I’ve already almost stepped back a few times. Some days it’s almost not worth it to go through the industry side when all I want to do is make some jams. I always tell this to my girl too, I’m just like, “Look, there’s going to be a day where I’m just going to snap and be like fuck all this shit and I’m going to get a job at Starbucks up the street.”

EB: I could see you in a green apron. It’s a good look for you.

AR: Thank you. There are times where I’m like, “You know what; the stress that I’m experiencing right now is quite simply not worth it.” But somehow I get talked through it all the time; I have people around me that are like, “Hey, don’t worry man. It’s going to be fine. You’re making a good record.” I’ve got this little cheerleader squad that helps me out. I’m not going to lose friends or relationships over this shit. I’m not going to fucking deal with people critiquing my lifestyle.

EB: Yeah, forget it.

AR: If it ever delves too deep into that territory, it kind of loses its fun and I’m more than happy to just step out of it. Either that or I’ll just release all my music for free.

EB: Sure, or you could just host open mics at the Starbucks you’re going to work for.

AR: There you go…I think you’re onto something [laughs].

For more information and tour dates, go to www.myspace.com/aesoprockwins or www.definitivejux.net.

by Laurelin (image) I sit here in bed, the television muted, my iTunes silenced. I sit here in bed with my cell phone on vibrate; my hands ready to receive at any moment. All night, my hands, waiting. Waiting for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. I almost welcome that familiar twinge,... more

by Laurelin




I sit here in bed, the television muted, my iTunes silenced. I sit here in bed with my cell phone on vibrate; my hands ready to receive at any moment. All night, my hands, waiting. Waiting for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. I almost welcome that familiar twinge, that feeling that leaves me so full of emptiness. I remember I heard once that you’re never more alive than when your heart is breaking. Mine is already broken, and apparently I like nothing more than to make the same mistakes twice.

I almost don’t even know who “he” is. At this point there are so many people who could fill that void that I feel stupid, because while there are so many, there are in fact, so few.

My ex, who I haven’t spoken to in months, says he’s on his way to the bar. I miss him, but I don’t really, and when he doesn’t show tonight I feel better for not having put the picture he painted me for my birthday back on the wall. I keep thinking, “One day I can hang it,” but it’s been one year and it’s still stuffed in the back of my closet next to the framed photo of the ex that used to hit me and the clothing I wore when I would wrestle bachelors for money at the strip club in hot oil and whipped cream. I don’t know why I even think I can stand to look at it, and for one fleeting moment it’s clear as day and I don’t know why I haven’t burned it.

I find myself sitting here, wishing for anything. The last guy I liked had my friends in absolute giggles; comparing the new guy to the old one, leaving me a little bewildered because this new one was honest and sweet… at least in the beginning. So he wasn’t as muscular or tall. And then, just like all the rest, he was suddenly gone, and I was left with nothing. In the beginning we had laughed over how cold we both seemed (we weren’t really). In the beginning I had thought, “He’s not cold at all,” but in the end I thought, “He was right,” though I never cried.

I never cried. There are some guys who make you think; some who make who question your very essence. There are some guys who make you feel like nothing will ever be the same. The ones who break you, day after day, month after month, year after year. There are those guys that no matter how many times you tell yourself they’re going to stay buried they always seem to surface just when you’re at your most vulnerable. There are the guys that never call; and those are the ones who are made for nothing more than heart breaking and other lies.




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by Nicole Powers (image) Occupy Wall Street offshoot StrikeDebt, a collective which aims to help free the masses from the bondage of debt, officially kicks off its Rolling Jubilee with a telethon tonight which will be webcast live from NYC's Le Poisson Rouge at 8 PM EST. The fundraising event will... more

by Nicole Powers



Occupy Wall Street offshoot StrikeDebt, a collective which aims to help free the masses from the bondage of debt, officially kicks off its Rolling Jubilee with a telethon tonight which will be webcast live from NYC's Le Poisson Rouge at 8 PM EST. The fundraising event will feature a slew of progressively-minded celebs including comedienne Janeane Garofalo and Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead.

The Rolling Jubilee, which takes its name from the multi-faith tradition in ancient civilizations whereby slaves would be freed and debt forgiven, is essentially a people's bailout. Working with industry experts, StrikeDebt aims to buy debt on the open market for cents on the dollar and then forgive it.

Within days of setting up PayPal and WePay accounts, StrikeDebt’s initial goal of raising $50,000 was exceeded. So far over 5,000 individuals have donated a collective total of over $200,000 – which is enough to forgive in excess of $4 million in debt.

Since 62% of all bankruptcies are caused by health issues, medical debt is at the top of StrikeDebt’s shopping list. Indeed, this morning the group announced via Twitter that they had purchased their first $100,000 of medical debut.

Because companies that own bad debt sell it for a fraction of its face value, for every $10 donation StrikeDebt gets they estimate they will be able to erase approximately $200-worth of debt.

Support the People's Bailout and help StrikeDebt erase millions of dollars worth of misery by donating via WePay at rollingjubilee.org/.

The 501(c) non-profit organization promises 100% of the money raised will go to the process of buying and abolishing debt, and that in the interests of transparency, a full accounting of funds received and spent will be reported on their website.

Watch tonight’s Rolling Jubilee Telethon via Livestream and follow @StrikeDebt for updates.

Portishead’s pre-Coachella, private rehearsal in L.A. is about to get a lot less private. It’s still daylight but people are lined up for a city block outside the Mayan Theater on downtown’s Hill Street. Inside, the venue is crowded with industry types and journalists -- experienced and sometimes weary... more

Portishead’s pre-Coachella, private rehearsal in L.A. is about to get a lot less private. It’s still daylight but people are lined up for a city block outside the Mayan Theater on downtown’s Hill Street. Inside, the venue is crowded with industry types and journalists -- experienced and sometimes weary veterans of many rehearsals, concerts, and bands -- and even they buzz with anticipation for tonight’s performance. There is a flush of excitement in the air that has become contagious. This is the first time Portishead has played a gig in Los Angeles in a decade and it might be the last. Singer Beth Gibbons takes the stage and at the first sound of her voice, the crowd goes silent, enchanted. By the encore’s finish, Gibbons eases off stage and into the crowd. She smiles, shakes hands… she is both delicate and devastating. The crowd goes nuts.

The media may love its rock gods and heathen priests, but it loves its elusive characters as well. Portishead’s power comes from the unspoken, sensual language used to craft each song, piece by piece, with the elegance and self-discipline of musicians who respect one another. Theirs is a camaraderie borne from essential privacy. The band has no public story, per se. They neither feed the headlines nor have managed media personas of any sort. They lead private lives and from that, draw great strength and create great art. Geoff’s rhythm reinforces Beth’s meaning, while Adrian’s tone shapes our mood. The music is mysterious but never misleads; it is never what you expect, but shows it’s meaning when you finally just shut up and listen. Some say its theme is loneliness, but others might say it’s about the possibility of human connection. Regardless, its affect on the audience is spellbinding.

Three days before the rehearsal, I meet with Portishead at the Roosevelt Hotel: Beth is relaxing in her room, Adrian Utley is busy with another interview, Geoff Barrow and I are sitting poolside and we can’t stop laughing. I’ve just given him permission to throw me in the pool. We are surrounded by strange people acting up in strange ways and it’s making him a bit uncomfortable so I’ve suggested an alternative way to relieve the stress of an afternoon filled with press and publicity functions. Indeed, poolside is an odd place to find oneself with Portishead, discussing Third, the band’s new album and first in ten years, released April 29 to coincide with band’s appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Erin Broadley: You seem like you have a very healthy sense of humor. Do you think Portishead is misinterpreted as overly serious most of the time?

Geoff Barrow: Yeah, massively, but you don’t really get to hear from us a lot. Most people are full of bullshit so there’s not many truths out there. You’ve got to take everything with a pinch of salt. I mean, we are [laughs] fairly serious about making music but… I can’t really take myself seriously as a performer. I’m 36-years-old; I’ll probably lose my hair in a couple of years and put a nice little ponch on, you know. Our seriousness comes down to trying to project our music in [a certain] way… we look really miserable because we’re just trying desperately. A lot of people nowadays have backing tracks and tape and we just don’t. We shit our pants every time we play. So far we’ve been really lucky and things have worked out. But you never know in a big gig scenario. We do live on the knife-edge of it actually sounding any good or totally rubbish. [Some bands] work in ginormous situations. We work in a studio.

EB: Controlled, personal…

GB: Yeah, controlled environment. But when it comes to taking ourselves seriously, Beth really doesn’t take herself seriously at all.

EB: One thing Beth said about you is that you’re a contradiction of sorts: in some senses very traditional and then in other senses just hell bent on breaking the rules. How do you find the balance between the two?

GB: I’m passionate about music. I think there’s just so much shit everywhere… politically, business wise, the way that people interact, communication. Portishead really comes about through frustration and we write about the inability for human beings to communicate, human conditioning and the way you’re supposed to live your bullshit life, things that you’re supposed to buy that you don’t really need, mass marketing demographic swipes… talent-less fucks being popular for no reason. It always happens; it was always sex symbols. I’m not a grumpy old fuck at all but I feel passionate that we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere and we constantly keep on taking those wrong turns. I mean, I think sites like yours make a difference to people. I think that you can live outside the box without fuckin’ being attacked.

EB: Like you can create your own little world where what you do makes sense.

GB: Yeah, and you’re not alone in that world. Because that’s always the preconception that as soon as you disagree with the mainstay of kind of human conditioning then you’re ostracized outside and it’s bullshit, really. It’s strange because we’ve always been considered like dance music…

EB: Really?

GB: Well, I think so, by people who hang around by pools like this.

EB: [Laughs] Doing laps…

GB: [Laughs] Doing laps, drinking cocktails, doing their party drugs, getting their skin cancer. It’s pretty weird; the most horrible people I’ve ever met have actually been through dance music. And all the people I really love are the people that make rock and roll [laughs]. But there’s a definite distinction, especially in England because dance music is so enormous. Dance music in England is extreme electronic, Detroit-based, doing loads of pills and getting off your head… that kind of vibe.

EB: You have always seemed a bit more organic than that.

GB: I mean, we’re fairly hard to categorize but [I don’t know whether] that’s not a good or bad thing, really.

EB: What are some of the other misconceptions that you run in to?

GB: We write music for people to chill out to. That’s the biggest misconception you could ever have.

EB: Do you think people are overly hyping the fact that it’s been so long between albums?

GB: Of course, yeah.

EB: Some are calling it a reunion but, well, you guys never broke up.

GB: We didn’t, no.

EB: How do you keep from being frustrated with that kind of thing?

GB: Well, the thing is, the media as it works, most people you see have already answered your questions. That’s why they’re asking that question because they want a certain answer, because it works for their publication, because it lets them deliver what it is they need to deliver. There’s a lot of journalists out there so they want to make sure they get the job the next time… then it all turns into one cluster-fuck of crap [laughs].

EB: [Laughs]

GB: So, it’s really weird. We’ve met some really nice people and done some good interviews but all you’re doing is fulfilling their needs for product.

EB: The balance between art and commerce…

GB: Oh, massively, yeah. I think that that’s the big thing. I think it’s a ginormous thing, actually, that we seem to always struggle with. When we do TV shows, sometimes we present ourselves in maybe a slightly harsher way. People have got this preconception that we’re actually this arty, English culture…

EB: Standoffish?

GB: Yeah, they might think we’re standoffish because we just present music in quite a harsh way sometimes. In England, recently, when they were telling us to play this track and chop this up it’s like, “You asked us on, you know what our record sounds like. This is us. If you don’t like it then fuck off.”

EB: It seems a lot of popular music lately is compromised by compromise.

GB: [Laughs] So why doesn’t it sell anything? Because it’s shit and it’s been compromised.

EB: It’s like the snake eating it’s own tail.

GB: Yeah, feed the monster. We call it “feeding the monster” all the time …

EB: Feed me, Seymour!

GB: [Laughs]

EB: Being on both sides of the glass, as a producer and musician, how do you know when a song or album is done?

GB: It’s in your gut, really. That’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. I always over think everything [laughs]. But it’s in your gut when it feels finished.

EB: Like, when your kid grows up and you finally just know it’s time to kick it out of the house.

GB: Yeah, exactly. I’ve got two little girls. One’s been sick back in England at the moment. She’s not seriously sick but she’s only four and a half so we’re a bit nervous about it. Kids are kids.

EB: She’s got your feisty genes. She’ll be a fighter.

GB: [Laughs] I fuckin’ hope so.

EB: What were some of your favorite parts of this recording process? You wrote something on your website comparing it to a Tomb Raider or “Lost”. This journey with no answers…

GB: It is. That’s what it was like. And now since we finished it, all the doors are open again so we can really go back into those things again.

EB: Do you enjoy recording?

GB: I enjoy the recording process because the writing and recording and mixing process for us kind of all happen at once, even though we do eventually do a mix of all the tracks at the end. We generally try and write and record at the same time and keep on edging it. Like, one track might have started off as an acoustic track and ends up as something completely different at the end of the album. It’s not over-remixing; it’s just evolving. We definitely try hard not to do just standards. The idea for us is to progress musically, all the time, if we can. The whole idea of this album was to progress, to sound like us, but not repeat ourselves. Which is really hard.

EB: You did an interview with Pitchfork where you were talking about how you like to discover new things in the studio. What are some favorite tricks you’ve discovered? Like something that came about randomly but turned out really well…

GB: There’s very little randomness in our studio. On this album there’s a track called “The Rip” and it starts with an acoustic guitar and vocal and then I put some drums on it and a synth bass from the start because the idea of an acoustic track was doing my head in. I thought, I’ll write this completely different thing. I decided to play half the track acoustically and then fade the track in, which is kind of like a studio thing anyway, but I did it and listened to it back I was like… there’s these things that you do, they’re really rare, like once every five years you get something that gives you chills. And that’s what you do it for, totally.

EB: It’s different for every artist but for actors sometimes the only reason that they do movies is to get to experience something they’ve never experienced before. Is it the same for you?

GB: Yeah, I think it is. We changed. It might be subtle direction change to some people but it could be massive to others. I’ve heard the people go, “Oh I can’t listen to that its weird, that’s not Portishead.” And it’s like, “Well, it is because we’re us.” But other people go, “Oh yeah, it’s great, I really like that…

EB: Who is anyone to decide what Portishead sounds like?

GB: Yeah. But you get these people, especially nowadays in our media friendly world. It was sort of weird; in 1998 we did this massive tour and we did all this stuff and then I kind of quit music for like three years.

EB: You also started your own label, Invada, during that time.

GB: Yeah. The label mainly deals with drone metal and just experimental jazz stuff and anything that’s just fucked and a bit interesting. I met so many nice people that are just so not into the music industry… no commercial aspirations because they know what they’re doing is just fucking odd. I met those people and just instantly it was like…

EB: You’re home.

GB: Yeah. It really was. And I discovered bands like Sunn O))) and Ohm. I fuckin’ love Ohm. And people like Electric Wizard and bands like Silver Apples and lots of old English psych stuff. The Coral, we produced their album and they’ve got an amazing collection of stuff. Interesting, old, horror rock-and-roll stuff.

EB: I read that you love old soundtracks and they’re a big influence on you.

GB: Yeah. Not so much on this record but in the past it used to be. Soundtrack people used to be able to really experiment with sound. Because they don’t have to write a song, they just have to hit a drum and put it through an echo and all that kind of mad stuff. So lots of stuff… Can, the Plastic People of the Universe who are a Czech republic psychedelic band from the mid-70s, they’re brilliant. Really out there. And they got locked away for playing music.

EB: In jail?

GB: Yeah. In the Czech Republic.

EB: Wow. Are you excited about where this album might take you? You’ve said before that with the amount of time that went by between albums, what it allowed you to do was get rid of that pressure to come out with a big success which was nice because then you got to do whatever you wanted.

GB: Well, we’re contract free now in publishing and recording. So, to be honest, we’re just kind of not too sure whether we want to play the media game anymore, at all. I think we could always play it and I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. I just mean that if we release interesting music then hopefully people will be interested in it. I think that we might disappear even more and just carry on releasing music and just let the music talk.

EB: Would you miss performing live?

GB: Well, we could possibly still do that. I just don’t know how because if you consider traditionally on a 10-pound album in the UK, the band would get 80 pence and then we would give 20 percent to management and then might end up with 15 pence on an album or something. And I’m not just talking about money here, but obviously that’s what you need to live.

EB: That’s the thing, we can talk about art versus commerce all we want but at the end of the day you gotta eat. Your family’s gotta eat.

GB: Exactly. So we’re going to investigate. We’re talking to people about deals but, to be honest, I’m finding it’s tougher and tougher doing the interview thing and finding it tougher and tougher to communicate with the media. Because, there are some brilliant journalists out there, but everyone’s got to do shit to survive and sometimes I’d rather not be part of that game. And that’s a really lucky position to be in, to have that choice. But sometimes I think we just think, fucking hell, how ridiculous is this. I think you can just put out a mission statement and just put out how you feel about that stuff on the Internet now. Why we took so long to make this record [is because] we had to feel it, really. So the future’s going to be interesting, I’m actually genuinely excited about releasing music by ourselves and not having to compromise.

EB: How’s it been with your fans?

GB: We have very little contact with our fans, really. It’s not because we don’t want to, because everything that we do is in our music...

EB: Audiences can be harsh, like asking you to apologize for taking time to record the album you wanted.

GB: [Laughs] Yeah. See, that’s kind of fairly weird. That’s just the monster. The monster has created people like that. They basically go, “Well, I want it now.”

EB: They’re all Veruca Salts.

GB: Basically, yeah. That’s who I see; Veruca Salts everywhere. But they don’t know any different because that’s the way they’ve always had what they wanted, because manufacturing in China is cheap.

EB: And information is cheap.

GB: Yeah, exactly.

EB: But you have you draw the line somewhere because an album might belong to you but the band doesn’t.

GB: Yeah, I know, but a lot of people probably think that the bands do. Strangely enough, I think a lot more people in America think that the band owes them something more than any other country. That’s what I’ve noticed. Like, “Why haven’t you done this?” That is the weird thing about the Internet. We dip our toe into it. I usually drunkenly add a blog [laughs].

EB: How do you keep from losing your head?

GB: I kind of do, a lot. I kick the shit out of stuff. It’s usually just using my punch bag or throwing Yorkshire pudding through a window, which I did recently. I burnt it and it was after a bad week so I just chucked them through the kitchen window. Not a good idea, really.

EB: There’s nothing like the sound of a shattering window.

GB: [Laughs] I know. Dangerous! I play a lot of football, you know, soccer. It’s never violent ‘cause I’m fairly unfit… any anger that I have is just taken out by collapsing on the floor.

[Both laugh]

Third is available in stores now. For more information go to Portishead’s official site.

by Symbol I want to preface this by saying I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a guy with a reasonable amount of life experience, who took a few psychology courses in university, and who talks to a lot of people about their problems and their stories. If you have some sort of psychological condition... more

by Symbol

I want to preface this by saying I’m not a psychologist. I’m just a guy with a reasonable amount of life experience, who took a few psychology courses in university, and who talks to a lot of people about their problems and their stories. If you have some sort of psychological condition you should absolutely seek professional help, not just look for advice in an online article.


I read somewhere once that children who grow up in households full of domestic violence are often, themselves, prone to being violent as adults. I suppose it varies from person to person, and I’m guessing there has to be a great deal of the nature/nurture argument at play there too (would you have been violent anyway?).

I grew up in a house full of violence; you couldn’t ask for a better poster boy for how untrue the violence begets violence theory is.

Well, At least in my case.

My mother had what you might call a "casual drug problem" to the point where she did so many drugs I'd often be neglected - that was the happiest of scenarios. Her chosen lifestyle meant she had equally bad taste in men, the kind who'd hit her if she did something to upset them, or me if I was in reach. I can count the number of cigarette burn scars that dot my skin like way-point markers, each one a debt I owe to her one boyfriend — let’s call him “Paul.”

Paul was one of the most unintelligent people I've ever encountered (and that says a lot); when my mother finally ended things with him the driveling note he sent her was child-like, terribly written and embarrassing enough to make a 4 year old turn their nose up at the spelling and grammar.

I'm sure, somewhere, I have an equal number of tiny scars from BB injuries - shooting at me (or our dog) with his air pistol was one of his favorite pastimes. In retrospect I know now that he was just using her for sex, drugs and money, but I’ll never understand why my mother couldn’t see that too…

All things considered I was a pretty happy-go-lucky child. Shit just seemed to flock to me, like some sort of bad mojo magnet. I had a beautiful black and white tom cat for as long as I can remember. His name was Rasputin, and I loved him as much as I knew how. Unfortunately he lived up to his name sake; I’ll never forget the day my mother came home and told me he was dead. He’d been kicked to death, for fun, by skinheads – and when the owner of the local Chinese restaurant came running out to stop them (he was a family friend) they hospitalized him too.

The next pet we got was a long-haired King Sheppard. The dog had been police trained, but had been thrown out of the police service for being too docile – when they’d give it the attack command he would bark, knock the person down then lay on top of them and clean their face. Not very good for catching criminals, but the bond I had with that animal was out of this world. This dog was so large that I’d ride it around the house – up the stairs, down the stairs; I’d fall asleep straddling his back in front of the TV, and he’d carry me to bed.

We’d named him “Chuck” because he’d been chucked out of the police force –Chuck was incredibly loyal to me. The abuse at Paul’s hands let up once Chuck arrived on the scene, mostly because he’d freak out if the son of a bitch tried to hit me. But when he was really angry he’d just take the dog outside and chain it up in the yard, then he could dispense beatings at his leisure.

I'm pretty sure this would have gone on indefinitely except one day (as socio-paths will do) he went too far. A combination of events made it impossible for him to hide his depravity from the other watchful people in my life. He started the day off with a bang, literally – pushing my mother, backwards, down two flights of stairs. She survived, but 32 years later she still has lasting knee, back and neck injuries. Ironically the only thing that saved her was that she was probably stoned.

Needless to say the sight of seeing your mother thrown down forty-odd stairs is distressing to a six year old, and like any small child would do, I cried. I'm guessing he was in a particularly bad mood that day because his reaction to my crying was particularly excessive, even for him.

My mother had been heating up her hair curlers in the living room; she had the old plug in kind that sat on metal rods and one by one you'd pull them off and put them into your hair. I'd been left sitting on the couch, and when I started to cry he stormed into the room, kicked over the curlers (spilling them all onto the floor) and with a strong hand shoved me off the couch.

I landed, back first, on the exposed heated rods.

Burns of that severity, combined with a mother who is so injured she can't go to work, are bound to get attention - and for him, it got the worst kind. My grandmother came by the house to find out why my mother hadn't been at work and to pick me up (by this point she was, thankfully, my primary care giver) the scene she encountered made her go through the roof.

Now my grandmother wasn't anything like my mother...If anything, she's the singular role model in my family that made me the person I am today. My grandmother served as an officer of the courts in the UK and was a polar opposite to my mother - she took me from that place and I don't remember ever going back. The last I heard of that place, he was still living there but he'd had my dog put down (the dog had attacked him when he hurt me). I guess he was lashing out the only way he knew how.

This wasn't the last abusive man that my mother would bring into our house; I suppose I should be thankful that they were only ever physically violent. When I got old enough I'd antagonize them specifically, redirecting their anger to me instead of at my mum. I'd do this any time I thought she was about to get hit. When you're 9 or 10 years old "being mouthy" seems to come naturally, and it wasn't a difficult task to get these full grown "men" to unhinge in my directly instead of hers. This is the start of what would ultimately be the long-term White Knight complex I struggled with for many years. To this day, there is no single easier way to make me angry or violent than to raise your hand against women or children (or animals).

With all that in consideration, I'm one of the gentlest people I know. The aversion I have to violence comes in all forms, much to the lament of a few lovers I've had in the past. I've dated women who have expressed interest in being choked, strangled or who wanted to engage in "role play" that involved violent scenarios. I'm incredibly not cool with that, it actually makes me physically sick - bringing up all sorts of buried memories that I don't want to explore (things like the smell of my own flesh burning).

It also leads to me having a strong intolerance for "mainstream" pornographic films, the kind that are nothing but degradation and objectification personified. I'm especially put off by “torture porn", and what most people would call "fetplay". I have no desire to see someone tied up, choking, bound or otherwise hurt. There's nothing sexy or tantalizing about that to me. If that’s your bag, well that’s entirely up to you – but I’m really upfront about that, and I think that’s the only respectful way to handle it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I have a strong intolerance (hatred, in fact) towards drugs (including cigarettes) - they've been a constant negative aspect in my life; not only leading to my own physical abuse, but the death of Scott, my surrogate older brother: Scott was killed when, during a mountain climbing trip in Western Canada, his group’s guide decided it was okay to get high and then proceeded to lead his group onto a trail that was frozen over – the entire group fell to their deaths, except for the stoned guide who survived.

An ex of mine kept a LiveJournal profile in which she would chronicle, in great detail, the ways in which she'd been sexually exploited and/or tortured. She was addicted to heroin, and would let people use and abuse her in exchange for the drug she so badly craved. I pushed her to the point where she had to make a choice between the drug or me, and she chose the drug.

She was absolutely driven to that lifestyle, but reading her journal (which was a huge mistake) made me physically ill and I was never able to look at her the same way again. I ran into her a couple of years ago and we're both very different people now (she's got a kid and is on her second marriage) but in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but remember all the "terrible" things she'd solicited, or let, other people to do to her.

The “White Knight” syndrome, like any other psychological classification, is something that some people live with their entire lives without really knowing it. Many people, myself included, mistakenly believe that their upbringing was just “proper” and that they don’t have any issues they need to deal with in this regard. This simply isn’t the case, it’s a damaging cycle and it’s something that, if it goes unchecked, can lead to a life of problems and self-destruction.

If you perpetually find yourself attracted to people you perceive as needing to be “helped,” “fixed” or “saved,” this is a warning sign. Aside from being incredibly insulting to many people, it’s also a sign that you have just as much as problem as the person you perceive having the issues. People don’t need saving, and if they do – they need to learn to ask you for themselves. Projecting your need to “rescue” or “heal” other people is a dangerous path to start down, and once you do it can become a major aspect of your life.

It's not a reasonable mental state to find yourself in, really... having this deep-seated need to right all the wrongs and injustices towards women across the world - I mean I've reigned it back in significantly over the years, but it's resulted in me ending up in relationships with heroin users and alcoholics, in some vain attempt to "help" them. I guess the most important lessons I've learned, at least for me, are:

1. You can't help people who don't want to be helped; and it’s insulting to assume otherwise.

2. Never, ever, ask your partner about their exes; unless you can categorically accept whatever they tell you – and deal with it. They’re exes for a reason.



If you, or someone you know, suffer from a similar psychological predisposition, they might find this book helpful (or you might) in trying to figure out what makes them act the way they do: The White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself from Your Need to Rescue Others.


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It’s December 25th 1986, and Nikki Sixx is alone in his mansion, crouched naked under his Christmas tree with a needle in his arm, scribbling in his diary about watching his “holiday spirit coagulate in a spoon.” He writes, “Merry Christmas…it’s just you and me, diary. Welcome to my life.” This... more

It’s December 25th 1986, and Nikki Sixx is alone in his mansion, crouched naked under his Christmas tree with a needle in his arm, scribbling in his diary about watching his “holiday spirit coagulate in a spoon.” He writes, “Merry Christmas…it’s just you and me, diary. Welcome to my life.”

This is just one scene from a particularly harrowing chapter in Motley Crue bassist and founder Nikki Sixx’s new memoir “The Heroin Diaries” -- a collection of riveting entries from his personal journals spanning one year from 1986 to 1987, a year he considers the height of his downward spiral into drug addiction. It’s a story about drugs, depression, and the train-wreck of self-destruction -- but ultimately it’s one man’s story about survival told with unflinching and unapologetic honesty.

Sober now for 6 years, Sixx is the founder of the charity Running Wild in the Night (a fundraising program for the Covenant House) and will donate part of the proceeds from the book to help troubled kids get off the streets and away from drugs.

SuicideGirls caught up with the original glam-metal bad boy to chat about his darker days and why the future looks so bright…

Erin Broadley: You’ve never really been shy about talking to people about your demons and your past. But at what point, if there is a point, do you ever worry about the risk of feeling overexposed?

Nikki Sixx: Well, no. This is a different thing. It’s me throwing myself under the wheels of the bus so that I can show what the outcome is. For me to be able to find the journals, get the commentary from everybody else and then write the overview kind of helped me to see my own past clearer, which would be great for people who read the book because they’ll experience that arch that goes from adolescence to adulthood…we all make mistakes. We all fuck up. We all do whatever we do in our lives but I can see where mine became a downward spiral. I’m not saying, “Don’t do drugs, don’t drink.” I’m not.

EB: You’re not up on any pedestal or soapbox, for sure.

NS: I am so against that. You know, my friends drink. I don’t care. My friends do lots of stuff that I don’t do. And I’m sure I do things that they don’t do. We’re all individuals on this planet. So you know, I’m just one guy [and I] happen to have a spotlight on me. If I can show that experience and it can help to sell the project, which will donate money for [the charity] Covenant House. This is for the at risk kids, you know, it’s one year of my life of giving back and I’ve had so many years of gifts.

EB: In your diaries, on February 13th, 1987 you wrote about heroes and whether or not people idolize others for their music or their lifestyles. You say for you it’s both. Do you think it’s part of the quandary the entertainment industry is in where heroes are built out of excess and fans end up falling into that themselves?

NS: You know it’s such a touchy subject for the fans. I would like to come out of this where a girl looks at me and goes, “That guy’s fuckable.”

EB: [Laughs]

NS: And a guy looks at me and goes, “That guy looks like he could kick some ass.” People in general would go, “Wow, like he’s not fucked up anymore. He’s even fucking better. He’s even a better musician.” If I can come out like that for people, maybe it’s setting a new model for what the tattooed, crazy, rock and roller can be like, you know, but I’m not straightedge.

EB: Right. Well that’s a whole other level of extreme that I find just completely alienating in its own right.

NS: Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, I’m very at ease and comfortable in my own skin. I just want people that are around me to go, “Wow, that guy’s just on his own journey. He doesn’t preach at us.” I’m really good if you want to ask me what my experience was with something like, “How did you deal with it?” Well this is how I dealt with it. I don’t tell them that’s how they should deal with it and that’s kind of like what the book’s about.

EB: The book reads very much more like a dialogue and a conversation than a manual of regret, especially with the outside commentary. Does that make sense?

NS: Yeah. I won’t apologize for any of the wrecked cars, destroyed hotel rooms or broken hearts.

EB: [Laughs]

NS: I don’t regret any tattoos. We are a combination of all the things that we’ve done. That experience is who you are today and I don’t know what I’ll be like five years from now. I’m sure I’ll be on a pretty similar path because this is the most comfortable path I’ve been on. I’ll still be a photographer, a musician, a producer, a writer and it’s just kind of where I’m at. I don’t think I would have ever got here if I hadn’t exorcised those demons. Not the addiction, we know that would kill me, we have proof.

EB: At one point, you know, in your diary you write, “I’ve been up to no good again but it’s given me a killer idea for a song.”

NS: [Laughs]

EB: I feel like it’s a really tricky situation when the things that are hurting you, are not healthy for you, also happen to be so intrinsically tied into what you’re getting paid for and the lifestyle you’re getting paid to live. You mentioned that a lot of people didn’t yell at you for fucking up because you were the cash flow.

NS: Right.

EB: Can art and stability co-exist?

NS: It is interesting because, you know, they say Dali was mentally insane.

EB: Right. His mustache sure was.

NS: Well, his mustache definitely was insane. They definitely should have committed that mustache.

EB: [Laughs]

NS: So, what would his artwork have been like if he’d been put on antidepressants and psychosis medications? I mean, nobody will ever know. You know, Johnny Thunders had to die to make it the end of that story and so did Sid Vicious and so did Bon Scott and some of these amazing painters and poets and guys like William Burroughs. They carried the needle right to the end. I don’t know where my story ends. I don’t know what a different soundtrack my life would have been if I would have done something different.

EB: At another point in the diary you write, “The drugs are ruining the show and we’re all scared to death”. At what point did that thought really first materialize for you with Motley Crue?

NS: You know, it’s interesting because there’s a part of me that knew I had a problem probably even before Motley Crue. It’s like I was destined for the outcome. It was just interesting. I looked back and I was so full on. I remember like 17, 16-years-old taking elephant tranquilizers. I mean, why? Why? I had to do much soul searching to try to find an answer. Part of it was just straight up being young and who I surrounded myself with. When you’re unhealthy, you don’t really surround yourself with healthy people. When you don’t have role models that are healthy, who are you going to get your feedback from?

EB: Another thing you wrote is, “Why can’t I do drugs like normal people?”

NS: I can’t do anything like normal people.

EB: [Laughs]

NS: It’s just not possible.

EB: Well, it’s part of your charm.

NS: I love too deep. It’s unbelievable how in love I get about anything or anybody. I’m so passionate about everything. I’ve actually learned a bit of balance. I mean, going through this divorce and being single for the last year and a half has been real interesting where I’ve re-evaluated a lot of the things, like where you’ve made the mistakes in relationships with the people that you thought would be lifelong partners.

EB: Uh-huh, like redefining your definition of what a life partner is.

NS: Yeah, exactly. You know, exactly. So, this whole thing is a journey, a very interesting journey and hopefully one that still smells and tastes rock and roll.

EB: You wrote in February 1987 that, “Everybody thinks I’m so tough as nails, if only they only knew.” A lot of times people have a hard time keeping a private diary because they’re always afraid that somebody’s going to read it. It’s like, “Oh what if I do die and everybody reads it finds out all these things going on in my head and my insecurities.” You know, the whole diary keeping process is kind of a lost art form today because everybody’s blogging.

NS: Right, right, everybody blogs it. They blog and they spell check.

EB: Right, it’s not a diary if you spell check, asshole!

NS: Exactly. Especially if you re-read it and go, “Well that doesn’t make me look good.” I mean, just that relationship with the pen and the paper and my own barricaded world -- it was freeing.

EB: Yeah, barricaded in your closet.

NS: In my closet. I still do it today, not the closet but the writing. I have this weird thing that I’m always on the floor. I always have to sit on the floor and it freaks people out. Not like in restaurants or businesses, but if I go to someone’s house, you know, and we’re flopping in the front room, I’m like the first one on the floor.

EB: I do that too. When people are over at my house I always sit on the floor. I think it stems from very young party, social situations where we were just camping out on the floor, drinking or doing our business. Like a floor powwow situation.

NS: Yeah, it is. It’s very much like a powwow.

EB: The only people on the couches are the ones that are passed out.

NS: Exactly, the couch is more like a gurney.

EB: Yeah, exactly [laughs]. In the editing process of the diaries, did you have any moments where you were like, “I just don’t want to include that in the published version?”

NS: No.

EB: No? There was no censorship after the fact?

NS: Nope, absolutely not. It’s forbidden in my world.

EB: That’s great…I think that’s needed. Censorship, especially self-censorship has become so prevalent. I mean it’s everywhere and we don’t even realize it anymore. You know the whole phrase, “Think before you speak,” well, stop it already. There is no kind of stream of consciousness.

NS: Well, are we going to get shit for it? Are you going to be publicly ridiculed for it? If it’s in a text message if you don’t put “ha, ha, ha” or “LOL”, are they going to know it was sarcasm? Oh Jesus, and I’m guilty of it. I mean, I live on text messages.

EB: Uh huh, I’ve definitely sent out a few “LOL-s” in my life.

NS: I’ve sent a few out, and a lot of “ha-ha-ha-s” because I’m very dry. I’ll say something and I’ll get back, “Are you pissed?” And I’ll send back, “LOL.”

EB: With other drug-based memoirs like, I don’t know, my problem with books like the Basketball Diaries is that they still had too much self-preservation going on in the writing process, you know?

NS: Right, right. I mean I read them and I was like, “Looks cool to me.” [Jim Carroll] never really looked bad. Everybody else looked bad and he was kind of like a victim.

EB: Right, the tortured artist. You don’t veil your Jeckyll-Hyde personality in the Heroin Diaries at all. I thought that was interesting to read, especially from somebody who is as in the public eye and has been in the public eye for a long time. You’re not afraid of not looking cool.

NS: No, after being in Motley Crue, you’re not afraid of that. I got over that a long time ago. This probably isn’t a good book to send to a girl before I date her.

EB: [Laughs] Right, or maybe it is… just to get it over with.

NS: Get it over with. It’s like a deterrent. It’s like when girls wear a fake wedding ring. I’ll just carry the book around with me and give it to girls.

EB: Speaking of the Basketball Diaries, I had issues with the way different characters were portrayed, especially the addict-dealer relationship in that book.

NS: Yeah, yeah.

EB: You’re very frank about how you both loved to hate each other and hated to love each other. It’s just a very interesting dynamic.

NS: It must be very frustrating for a guy who has the same habit as me to be going to a mansion and I’m throwing down $1,000 at a time. And there are just $20,000 Persian rugs and antiques that are just destroyed. From his point of view I would be like, “Fuck you, you spoiled piece of shit.”

EB: You’re throwing it all away, but at the same time --

NS: He’s no better. I mean it’s incestual, isn’t it? It’s very broken. I remember sitting down over the cocaine, talking about how bad cocaine was. I mean, you know, its like, “This is really bad. We shouldn’t be doing this. Pass me the mirror.” It’s a very interesting, very weird life.

EB: In the forward of the book you mention there were people that wouldn’t get involved in this because they were afraid of tarnishing their reputation. Was that unexpected?

NS: Well, from the get-go there was a charitable piece to the puzzle and that was the thing is to talk to people. I said, “You’ve got to be honest if you want to do something charitable.” We didn’t need another fluff piece out there on this subject, on any subject, to be honest with you, and I have such a thing about telling it how it is. I’ll be honest with you, I tell it how it is, and sometimes a year later it’s not how it is anymore. People change, thank God. Things change and people don’t always like it when you change. And you don’t always like it as an artist when you change. I was an asshole. I’m not anymore but sometimes I can be. Yeah, “I was a dick. That was then, this is now either accept my apology or not.” You want to know who people are when you look them in the eyes. My experience is that people want to do the right thing. It’s fear, everything is fear based. The more I look, everything in life is fear based. Fear of everything. Fear of writing the right thing in your blog or the fear of, “Is the song going to fit the format?” Or the fear of, “Is my hairstyle in?” Fear of, “How come we’re called a shit metal band, or how come we’re called crap-rock band.

EB: Crack rock?

NS: Crap-rock, like when it was rap-rock then it got turned into crap rock.

EB: [Laughs] I was going to say, that’s a weird genre, crack rock.

NS: Crack rock that would be the opposite of straight edge. We’re crack rock, we just do crack.

EB: [Laughs] We just do crack and sing about crack.

NS: Yeah, every song is about crack.

EB: Butt crack and cocaine crack.

NS: Both cracks.

EB: Oh God [laughs].

NS: Oh my God.


"The Heroin Diaries" is in stores September 18th. For more information go to www.theheroindiaries.net, www.myspace.com/nikkisixx and www.nikkisixx.net

A.J. Focht The Star Wars legend will continue with Star Wars: Episode VII. Michael Arndt, the scribe behind Toy Story 3, is currently working on a treatment. However, Disney is looking to ensure they have the best talent working on the new series of films, and has brought in Steven Spielberg and J.J. more

A.J. Focht

The Star Wars legend will continue with Star Wars: Episode VII. Michael Arndt, the scribe behind Toy Story 3, is currently working on a treatment. However, Disney is looking to ensure they have the best talent working on the new series of films, and has brought in Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams to supervise the development of the project.

Earlier in the week, there were rumors that Disney was looking to capitalize on another nerd market by buying out Hasbro. But those rumors appear to be just that. Hasbro doesn’t have any plans to sell out to Disney right now, and there’s no solid proof that this deal was discussed at all.



At a conference down in São Paulo, Brazil, Marvel Entertainment International President Simon Philips let some intriguing details about Iron Man 3 slip. Iron Man and War Machine won’t be the only ones suiting up in the film; Gwyneth Paltrow will be donning an Iron Man suit as Pepper Potts. It isn’t confirmed if the armor she will wear is the Rescue armor that Pepper wears in the comics, but one way or another, Pepper is getting in the action on May 3, 2013.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. television series may be happening sooner than anyone thought. The pilot –– which is being co-written by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen –– is scheduled to go into production in January. At the rate they are moving, the series might be picked up as early as Fall 2013.

The Avengers brought together some of Marvel comics’ best known superheroes. The rest of the big names have been leased out by Marvel Studios. Most of these rights reside with FOX Studios, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. Due to the success of The Avengers, FOX has hired Mark Millar to work with the remaining FOX superhero properties to help develop some sort of Avengers-like cohesion. He will be working with directors like Josh Trank to help the Marvel movies fit together.



The long awaited World War Z trailer has finally hit the internet. It’s been five years between studios, but Brad Pitt is ready to take on the zombie hoards. The film is a new take on the zombie outbreak, although it does not follow the documentary style of the book. World War Z will be in theaters everywhere on June 21, 2013.



We’ve known that Neil Gaiman was in line to write a new episode of Doctor Who, but it has now been revealed that Gaiman is bringing back the Cybermen in his episode, which will be entitled, ‘The Last Cyberman.’ Gaiman talked in a recent interview about the challenges of bringing the Cybermen back and making them scary again.

DC Comics fans can now enjoy their favorite comics without leaving their home. The company has expanded their digital output to include the Amazon Kindle Store, the NOOK store, and Apple’s iBookstore. Each Wednesday, new DC titles will be available online at these locations, and online at Comixology and via the DC Comics app.

by SG's Team Agony feat. Jaeci Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls. (image) [Jaeci in Be My Lover] Q: I have fallen in love with my best guy friend. When it started, I didn't even realize it since I was with my ex-boyfriend. more

by SG's Team Agony feat. Jaeci

Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.


[Jaeci in Be My Lover]

Q: I have fallen in love with my best guy friend. When it started, I didn't even realize it since I was with my ex-boyfriend. I broke up with the ex five months ago after being with him for over two years because he made me feel bad about myself and guilty for all the things that went wrong in our relationship. He didn't even take care of me when I started to get drunk on my 21st birthday! Instead, my best friend did, while the ex got drunk and more upset that he didn't step up. It only took me the weekend to get over him because I fell out of love with him six months before.

My best friend was there for me a lot and, before I knew it, he was all I thought about. We went out for about a month and then out of nowhere he tells me, “I had fun with you but I'm sorry you are in my friend zone” –– after we had shared everything together.

I am not an easy girl at all. It's been two months since then and somehow when it's just the two of us we get lost in our conversations. If anyone ever met him they would see how great of a guy he is and not be able to believe he pulled such an asshole move. This past weekend he and I had another heart to heart and he said he was sorry. I confessed how much I loved him and how lucky he was that it was me and not just some other girl because she probably would have left and /or made his life miserable.

I know he says we should just stay friends and he doesn't want to lose me, but we've already passed the point of being 'just friends.' I also don't believe him because of the way he looks at me and knows what I'm thinking. He also acts like he has a school yard crush by teasing me a lot too.

Next week, he, our two friends who are a couple, and me are going beach camping. I have to share a tent with him for a night, and I have no idea how to go about this. What should I do?

Thank you for your time. I love you girls!


A: The short answer: You are going to bring your own sleeping bag or blankets and you are not going to insist on spooning him. It shouldn't matter that the friends you are going with are a couple –– there are two of you, platonic or romantic, so no one is a third wheel. You'll have a great time. If something happens, so be it. If not –– c'est la vie.

The long answer: When he apologized for trying to be with you then cutting it short for friendship's sake, did he say he was sorry because he didn't want to be with you in the first place/led you on, or did he say he was sorry because he was too concerned about the preservation of your friendship to stay with you? Did he give you any indication of his motivation?

Sometimes, best friends precisely the people you can't date, even if they seem like exactly who you wish you could. One of my best gals tried dating her bff. They had a magical connection at first because of how intense their relationship had always been, how close they feel, how much they have been through, how he knows her inside and out. The sex was apparently awesome. But, despite everything, she too was friend-zoned. They ultimately parted ways, albeit after much more of a lengthy and heart-wrenching game.

Reality bites, eh.

When someone says, “You're in my friend zone” for them it generally means, uh, “You're in my friend zone.” It usually doesn't mean, “I'm secretly in love with you –– no, really!” Strong feelings of any kind are easy to get lost in. Everything seems more intense when you love someone –– even if you aren't in love with them. You can definitely mistake platonic love and a surprising, but probably fleeting, physical attraction for “OH MY GOD WEDDING BELLLLSSSS!” Maybe he felt a little spark, you showed you wanted him, it seemed like a great idea until it was totally not a great idea. Also, not everyone associates sex with love and the physical connection you may have had in that month you were together does not necessarily have anything to do with romantic affection.

Please be careful not to project your feelings onto him. It's easy to see only what you want to see. To me, it sounds a lot like he cares, and not so much like he wants to be with you. Don't get crushed by deciding you ought to be together when it isn't what both people want.

If there's no click this weekend – and don't spend the whole camping trip waiting for it, wanting it, expecting it, or asking for it – set your sights elsewhere and put him back in the friend zone he has for so long inhabited. Don't set yourself up for heartbreak. There are plenty of people out there who would love you to be in their girlfriend zone and he can, hopefully, go back to being the best buddy that he was before.

Xx

Auntie Jaeci

***

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

Before punk and new wave erupted in New York City in the late '70s, female pop singers were like carefully crafted charms dangled from a bracelet; they were chanteuses whose sexuality was packaged as the ultimate pop commodity. When the tokenism of '60s rock finally gave way to the rebel yell... more

Before punk and new wave erupted in New York City in the late '70s, female pop singers were like carefully crafted charms dangled from a bracelet; they were chanteuses whose sexuality was packaged as the ultimate pop commodity. When the tokenism of '60s rock finally gave way to the rebel yell of late '70s and early '80s punk, female singers pushed a brazen, me-first attitude and redefined tough-girl with a heart of gold, or in Debbie Harry's case, the romantic she is, a heart of glass. And though some said she was too beautiful for punk, Debbie Harry was more than just somebody’s darling.

Harry remembers always wanting to write music. "I got so much out of listening to other people’s music," she says, "that the idea of making my own was just irresistible." After high school in the early '60s she landed in New York City and worked odd jobs as a secretary and even a Playboy Bunny before settling into her role as singer for the band The Wind in the Willows, a folk rock ensemble very true to the era. But it wasn't until she abandoned folk for an edgier collaboration with guitarist and lover Chris Stein, that Harry came into her own and began perfecting the Blondie persona we know today and have been captivated by for years. It’s is a complicated and unaffected beauty, what she once described as "that age-old tantalizing persona of innocence and sexuality."

With the pieces in place, it didn't take long for Blondie to make a name for itself. New Wave by genre, punk rock in attitude, the band quickly became associated with the burgeoning CBGB’s scene. Blondie had this ultra-cool, somewhat nonchalant blue-collar decadence about it that made the band irresistible. New York knew it and it wasn’t long before the rest of the world caught on. After the release of Blondie's debut "Parallel Lines" in 1976 and its hit single "Heart of Glass", the band was catapulted to success and Debbie Harry's impact was already becoming that of legend.

However influential, it is 30 years since she first stepped into the limelight with Blondie and the last thing Debbie Harry wants is to be considered a token of yesterday. While many of her punk peers have faded into obscurity or become over-glorified icons of their former selves, she continues to write music and push new ground. With the release of “Necessary Evil”, her sixth solo album and first in over a decade, Debbie Harry proves that she’s still got what it takes. Out now, the album is some of her more original work to date, a collection of songs that string together like snapshots from the eyes of a woman who has loved, lost, and loved again, and doesn’t regret a damn thing.

SuicideGirls caught up with her for an afternoon chat…

Erin Broadley: Hello. How are you?

Debbie Harry: Hello. I’m good. How are you?

EB: Very busy [laughs].

DH: Oh, I know!

EB: How has the reception been so far to Necessary Evil?

DH: It’s good. It’s going crazy, really. I’ve been talking to so many people. I’m surprised, actually, that so many people are interested, but it’s great. I’m feeling very encouraged.

EB: Good! You’ve said that the music you’ve been listening to these days is much more left of center and that was something you really wanted to bring out in this album. Do you think you succeeded, perhaps compared to your previous solo releases?

DH: Well, I think I was more involved with actually writing the music on this one than the others. I was much more deeply involved in the creation of the songs from A to Z, really. Since I was working with two other people, it was such a small group. Usually with Blondie, working with six people and a producer, it’s a lot of heads, a lot of opinions and styles and stuff to make it to one thing. This was sort of a lot simpler, a little bit more basic, really.

EB: Fewer cooks in the kitchen?

DH: Yeah, yeah.

EB: One thing you said was that you wanted to get away from your cute girl sound and get a bit more aggressive and darker with your vocals. I think this album really plays up your devilish sense of humor. Why was that a choice you decided to make this time around?

DH: Well, it just seemed very natural to me … a very comfortable place to be. I just sort of followed my [instincts].

EB: A lot of the focus on you has always involved your groundbreaking role as a woman running a rock band in the ‘70s. Your partner Chris Stein once said that, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the male rock establishment was really sexist and you got knocked around heavily. Are there any particular recollections from that period that stand out? Do you think it’s much different now?

DH: Well yeah, I do. To some degree, there’s a lot more girls and women actually doing stuff in the industry and in many industries, for that matter. Things have really changed in that respect. [When it coms to] selling sexuality, compared to what goes on today it looked like I was selling shoes or
something!

EB: [Laughs]

DH: I was doing hardly anything compared to the stuff that is revealed today. You know, so I feel like I’m sort of behind the times when it comes to that.

EB: Right. You once said that it was the age-old persona of innocence mixed with sexuality that really worked for you – that mysterious combination. Do you think that seductive mystery of innocence is even possible anymore with the way the media exploits female sexuality? It seems more fleeting than ever.

DH: Yeah, I think you’re right. I would imagine it would be very difficult to sort of make that happen today in a big way. It’s a much more sophisticated world. Even with very, very young performers it’s [like that]. I mean, just take for example those baby beauty pageants.

EB: Oh, man [laughs].

DH: That exemplifies it in a nutshell.

EB: Those are creepy, huh?

DH: I know it’s just weird.

EB: Yeah. Well, earlier this year you were part of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors tour. It was hilarious because the other day my friend told me about a dream she had where you and Cyndi Lauper collaborated on a duet.

DH: Ah [laughs]. I haven’t spoken to her but I sort of got the idea that she wanted to make [the True Colors tour] a regular event, which I think is dynamite. As far as us doing a duet, I totally would love it. I think she’s such a mad woman, you know, she’s done some great songs. I think it would be quite something if we did that. Shirley Manson and I once started to record a song together but we never actually finished it.

EB: Yeah, she seems like a real blast to work with.

DH: She’s so good. She’s so talented.

EB: At this point in your career, is it nice not to have that pressure that younger musicians face in between albums to put something out right away once they wrap a record? Do you find it more creatively rewarding to embrace other art forms in your down time and let an album evolve naturally?

DH: Sure, that’s kind of an ideal situation. I think we are all driven by our own demons or compulsions, as it were. I’m probably somewhat of a driven person; I really want to keep working. You know, I would really, really like to do another Blondie CD. That would be my next sort of “conquering Everest” type of thing [laughs]. It’s just something that I’d like to do. I don’t have any kind of schedule or any approximate idea when or if, but it’s something that I would like to do.

EB: Yeah, sometimes as an artist it’s like you feel like you have all this time on your hands and then, simultaneously, you feel there’s just not enough time to fit it all in.

DH: Yeah, touring takes up a lot of time. It really does. You know, I really don’t want to stop playing, I think that playing live is one of the most important things.

EB: I read that growing up you felt too anchored and craved the life of a gypsy.

DH: [Sighs] Yeah. [Laughs]

EB: Do you think that roaming gypsy quality of touring was part of what seduced you into the music world?

DH: Maybe. It made it seem romantic and alluring but I think it was really the music that made me want to do it. I got so much out of listening to other people’s music that the idea of making my own was just irresistible.

EB: Right, being in a band can either satiate someone’s restless nature or it can encourage it even more.

DH: Yeah, yeah, I know. We talked about this on the tour bus, about how you have to be sort of cut out for it. I’ve worked with musicians that really don’t like touring; they don’t like being on the road. It makes them really nervous and uptight and everything. But most of us just really get into the groove; we really like being footloose, you know. It’s really true.

EB: In September, at the Vodaphone Live Music Awards in London, you presented Iggy Pop with a lifetime achievement award.

DH: Yeah.

EB: In another interview, when asked about maintaining relationships with your peers from early punk scene, you said, “Well I’ve been to a lot of funerals.”

DH: [Laughs] I’ve made some terrible comments.

EB: [Laughs] What was that like, presenting Iggy with that award? How have your relationships with your peers changed over the years?

DH: Well, one of the sad things about getting on with your life and your career is that you get really separated from these people and you don’t see them very often. It really takes an effort to stay in touch with them because you’re all working and, as you say, traveling a lot. You know, I hadn’t seen Iggy for a long time so I was really happy to present him with that award, even though he wasn’t there [laughs]. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be there though.

EB: Yeah, he’s been touring like crazy for the past year with the Stooges.

DH: Yeah, why would he not want to keep playing? He’s so incredible. I mean, you work your whole life to be able to do something great. Why should you stop? He’s just so great. I mean, that voice and that body … forget it.

EB: [Laughs]

DH: Those songs … he writes great songs.

EB: That’s how people still feel about you, with or without Blondie. It’s the same as what you said about Iggy, “Why stop? It’s a blessing that I’m still able to make music for a living and that I still want to.”

DH: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I totally feel that way.

EB: Another thing you did this year was interview Tamara Coniff, the editor and publisher of Billboard, as part of New York University’s “CEOs in the Arts Speaker Series.” What was that experience like, to be the one conducting an interview and turning the tables in a way, after so many years at their editorial discretion?

DH: Right. Well, I don’t know if I exactly interviewed her but she is a very dynamic, well-organized person and she spoke wonderfully. She was talking to an audience of people who wanted to get into journalism and get into the field of publishing. They were really hanging on every word, believe me, it was quite something. I think
more than anything we were just taking questions from the audience. She’s got really smart, vibrant ideas and the energy to pull it off, you know. I think people are really attracted to that kind of force.

EB: That’s something that you can relate to [laughs].

DH: Yeah, definitely.

EB:You’re also an actress. You just wrapped a film called Elegy that has a great cast--Dennis Hopper, Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz. What kind of character do you play?

DH: Yeah. I play Dennis Hopper’s character’s wife. I have kind of a small part but
it’s a very dramatic scene [that takes place on] Dennis’ deathbed, actually. I play his estranged wife of many years. So it’s a very sad, very moving scene.

EB: Sounds intense.

DH: Yeah, I’ve never played a death scene before. It was really something.

EB: All the funerals in the world can’t prepare you for something like that.

DH: [Laughs] No, not really. It was a really good experience for me to have to work like that. Being around such powerful actors, I mean, they were all just so down to business, they were just focused on their jobs, very nice off camera, very relaxed, very civil, and couldn’t have been nicer. No “I am the star” kind of treatment; nothing like that. Just really great people and then on camera, click, to work, focused like crazy. It was totally professional and a really great experience for me.

EB: With acting and performing in general, is it a challenge to be able to turn it on and off without losing your head?

DH: You know, it’s a process and I think that you sort of get used to doing that. Not all scenes are complete, bust out, dramatic deep scenes. A lot is kind of normal and you’re just tying the links of those emotional moments together. It’s not like
you’re going full tilt all the time, every single day. There is that spread – you make a map about how you’re going to work your emotions and how you’re going to spend your energy, so to speak.

EB: Right. Well, in the ‘70s with Blondie you said that, above all, you thought of yourself as an actress playing a rock singer.

DH: Yeah, unfortunately.

EB: Why so?

DH: [Laughs] I feel like that so much it’s ridiculous. I know that I’m actually singing and stuff like that but I somehow feel that, more than that, I’m spreading a kind of an emotional feeling. I feel like I tell stories to music. And you know, my singing has improved but I’m not a natural singer. I’m not naturally an incredible great singer, but I get by. My best thing is that I’m really able to tell a story and make emotion come to life.

EB: There’s been talk about a biopic about you and Blondie but I know that you’ve really come to dislike traditional biopics. What do you think it takes to truly capture an artist’s life on celluloid?

DH: I don’t know, I really don’t know. I think the things that I object to about portraying musicians or music in films, they sort of whitewash things a little bit too much. I think that really everybody really knows -- well, maybe not everybody -- but a lot of people really know what’s going on and these sort of depictions, these cleaned up versions of people’s lives, it’s just kind of boring and stupid.

EB: Do you have plans for New Year’s. I know you always prefer to work on New Year's.

DH: Yeah, we don’t have a booking right now, but maybe something will turn up. It’s either that or find a good party.

EB: That’s always the hard part about New Year’s because you always end up not having
fun because you party hop and you keep waiting for something.

DH: Yeah, you’ve got to choose something anyway, to settle into it, you know, you’re right because party hopping can be a complete drag.

EB: Yeah, you know, all of a sudden it’s 4 AM and you haven’t had your New Year’s kiss and you’re drunk in your party dress and you didn’t have any fun [laughs].

DH: Oh God.

EB: [Laughs]

DH: [Laughs]

EB: Now, you took the photos for this album yourself, correct?

DH: Yeah.

EB: You do a bit of painting as well. Have photography and painting been a big passion of yours?

DH: I think I’ve always been interested in painting although I haven’t done it regularly in a long time. Every once in a while I’ll have a minute or two or get the urge. Photography is kind of a new thing.

EB: They’re amazing photographs, the self-portraits.

DH: Yeah, I lived with a photographer for almost 15 years so I think I must have picked something up. He was always talking about F-stops and speed. With a digital camera it’s kind of simple, you know, I didn’t have a huge budget but I wanted to spend the money as much on the music as I could. So I took the picture [laughs].

EB: On another note, I read that you went topless bungee jumping in New Zealand.

DH: Oh, that was years ago.

EB: Was it? You said you probably wouldn’t do it again, that it was not necessarily the sanest thing you’ve ever done.

DH: No [laughs] but it was the end of a really long tour. We all just hopped into this van and went down to the bay. You know, they had a huge crane hanging out over the bay and all the guys were going to go. I just wanted to watch but then, I don’t know, I just sort of said, “Oh hell.”

EB: Why the decision to go topless? I mean, you’re a brave woman.

DH: I figured if I was going to go I should just be prepared.

EB: Just go all out.

DH: I figured, if I’m going to die I might as well go big. I probably didn’t whip my top off until the very last minute.

EB: Any other crazy hijinks you’ve gotten into lately?

DH: No, not really, not too crazy lately. I mean, I guess I’m so used to crazy that it doesn’t seem crazy anymore.

EB: Right, crazy becomes the norm then you’re an artist.

DH: Yeah. I guess the most sort of funny thing I did recently was rent a bike and ride around London for a while right along side of the road.That was pretty recklessI guess.

EB: How long did you ride for?

DH: A couple hours.

EB: [Laughs] You crazy, crazy, lady.

DH: It is kind of nutty, believe me.

Look for Debbie Harry on tour for the remainder of the year. For more information go to www.deborahharry.com