by Alexander Hinkley for Examiner (image) [Bixton in Cross My Heart] Bixton is this week's SuicideGirl gamer of the week. She is a former GameStop employee that likes a wide variety of video games and even has some gaming tattoos! I talked to her about her personal taste in video games and whether... more

by Alexander Hinkley for Examiner


[Bixton in Cross My Heart]

Bixton is this week's SuicideGirl gamer of the week. She is a former GameStop employee that likes a wide variety of video games and even has some gaming tattoos! I talked to her about her personal taste in video games and whether or not she thinks GameStop rips people off with their used game prices.

So what are some of your favorite video games?

My choice in video games is often considered casual as I lean towards a stress less atmosphere. I enjoy RPG's, turn-based games, tower defense, side-scrollers, and the occasional button masher or adrenaline pumping zombie hunt. I guess all the obvious ones like The Legend of Zelda series, all of the Super Mario and friends series, Super Smash Bros., Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, and Ninja Town. Haha, I'm a Nintendo fan that's for sure. I don't much care for first person shooters unless it's in an arcade (like House of the Dead and Time Crisis), so my Xbox 360 gets used in other ways. Ninja Gaiden and Resident Evil are two other series's I like. And I love Limbo and Castle Crashers. Dang I think I'm going to stop now. You get the picture.

Ah a tower defense fan! What are some of your favorite TD games?

Haha to be honest I have been hooked on South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! on the 360, especially with my brother and his girlfriend. It's a riot and even better with a little help from some friends, definitely worth trying out. Ninja Town, Desktop TD, Plants Vs. Zombies, and PixelJunk Monsters. And there's an even longer list for ones I NEED to try still.

Desktop Tower Defense has to be one of my favorites.

The funny thing about the Desktop TD is it was recently suggested to me, but oh man is it addicting. The audio effects are quite distracting, I'm usually giggling to myself as I try keep up. It's intense.

What are you currently playing?

I am actually playing Blue Dragon these days since I no longer have access to a Wii to finish Skyward Sword. I used to work at GameStop and purchase games I read great reviews on. Now that I still have a sibling in the haven for me, I can just borrow his and return them when I'm done. Of course I have to wait until they're no longer needed so often times a few days or weeks after new releases I'm forced to share.

Are people ever skeptical that you are a "real" gamer just because you're a girl?
What do you say to them?

Of course, I don't know who wouldn't be. I am skeptical of even guys when they say they like video games or claim gamer status. I go through dry spells sometimes where I lack energy to do anything but sleep, and to be honest, I usually don't get into intense conversations about my gamer qualifications. Instead they're coy quips or novelty knick knacks that give it away to detail orientated folk. Thus ending their feelings of disbelief towards me.

What was it like working at GameStop? Is that a job you'd recommend for others?

It was cool for awhile, and I would recommend it to folks, but with a warning. It can be a very demanding job, and like myself, when I walk into a specialty store, I expect you to know your stuff. They were becoming strict about dress code around the time I transferred states, I got a new boss who wasn't too keen on body art and basically made work a drag with the badgering. I hear as a company as a whole, they're lenient, even encouraging body art now. But I loved it, and enjoyed the knowledge I gained the two years while I was there and of course the few friends I made working there and still talk to.

Speaking of body art, do you have any nerdy tattoos?

I have five Invincibility Stars on my right wrist, a Zombie Ninja, and a Triforce scarification.

As someone who has worked at GameStop what is your opinion of used games? Are they are rip-off?

It's a bummer that you don't get your full rupees worth when you trade in a game, but it works that way in video game life too. You build something up or purchase an item, it costs you X amount of rupees, you destroy it or sell it back and you get X/3 (a third of it back, maybe 1/2). We were just talking about tower defense games so you know what I'm talking about. The best thing about the used game aspect at GameStop is the fact that if you purchase it and within the week if you so choose you don't like it, or it's not working properly you can return/exchange it. Also they have bonuses on certain days for trade ins if you have an Edge Card with them, you get more trade-in credit and more of a discount on used items. It's the way they keep the cycle going.

Do you think anybody will ever be able to compete with GameStop in terms of the used game market?

I know other businesses will get close, only time will tell with any company. Hell I know a few people who don't even bother doing trade-ins any more because they feel they are a ripoff or are in too much control, blah blah blah. However, they somewhat pioneered it, when they were EBgames and so forth. Funny thing is they won't/don't have many rarer titles and copies of games that are worth a heck of a lot more than some newer titles. Plus they stopped carrying obsolete platforms. I still own my GameCube and once upon a time a Sega Genesis and Dreamcast (pretty sure most don't carry cartridges for the older hand held systems either). Where the heck am I supposed to go for my used games? There sure aren't any new ones out. Instead we're forced to look online and in swap-meets or Ma' N' Pa stores.

Tell me about your split tongue...

My tongue is one of my favorite mods for sure. The most physically demanding, too. It was just exhausting during healing, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I had to retrain my tongue to do everything all over again. Mastication was gosh darn difficult for a few weeks, maybe months. I can do a few tricks, of course. They were a pain to learn. Spent lots of time starring at it in the mirror, haha.

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When i, likely drunk, decided to interview Jhonen Vasquez for SuicideGirls, i knew i was embarking on a dangerous mission, and would almost immediately regret the decision. In spite of this, i rose, wobbling, from my workstation, staggered into the newswire office and declared it would be done. Asking... more

When i, likely drunk, decided to interview Jhonen Vasquez for SuicideGirls, i knew i was embarking on a dangerous mission, and would almost immediately regret the decision. In spite of this, i rose, wobbling, from my workstation, staggered into the newswire office and declared it would be done.

Asking you readers to contribute some questions would surely spell trouble, too. Allow me now to thank those of you who pried yourselves away from the naked girls for two minutes and actually took your time to think about what you were about to DO. And also to scold the rest of you. Childhood photos? Cheese?! Fucking hospital stays? People, i expect more of you, though i'm suddenly and acutely unsure why.

Jhonen's books have earned him a well-established place in comics and a hefty, if undesirable, credit for founding the Goth comic genre. His work is biting, insightful, revolting and hilarious without missing a step. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Fillerbunny, Happy Noodle Boy and other delightful characters have spawned a myriad of fandoms and questionable tattoos worldwide. His animated series Invader Zim, while short-lived, garnered immense popularity, he's worked in music video, and he's still expanding his genres. With its distinct drawing style, uncompromising humor, and bitter infectious world-view, his work has risen Jhonen to cult icon level in some 10 years, and we can only fear what the future may bring.

So here he is, appearing in SuicideGirls for the second time in all his belligerent mucusy glory, brazenly riding a giant pig directly into your brains, like the sacred whore of Babylon. Do try and enjoy.


ZE: Alright, so I had a dream about this interview last night for some unknown reason.

JV: You did?

ZE: Yes, I did. I had a question I asked you in the dream.

JV: Was this a dream where I was naked?

ZE: Yes, this is a dream where you were naked, indeed.

JV: Why was I naked in your dream?

ZE: You actually said you couldn’t do the interview unless you were, in fact, naked.

JV: Right, but it was a dream. I’m fully clothed now. Let’s make that clear.

ZE: You’re not, in fact, naked, to make the record clear, no one’s naked.

JV: The fact still stands that you had a dream where I was naked, you sick fuck.

ZE: Ehm. The question was “who the hell are you?”

JV: I’m apparently the naked guy: hater of clothing.

ZE: Is that all?

JV: Someday, I hope to at least be the guy with shoes and maybe a cummerbund.

ZE: Your new book’s called “Jellyfist”. What is a Jellyfist?

JV: Apparently it’s a horrible book of surreal comics I wrote and had Jenny do the artwork for, as my latest blight upon the comics world. As far as the word itself goes, I don’t know, we were just walking around in Chicago and Jenny was talking about something and the words “jelly” and “fist” came up in the same sentence when I stopped her and said that was a great name for the book.

ZE: What was it you guys were talking about?

JV: We were trying to figure out the logistics of someone we knew having sex.

ZE: [laughs]

JV: [laughs]
Anyhow, we concluded that massive amounts of natural and possibly supernatural physical jellies and a fist were involved.

ZE: Where was this fist going?

JV: It was pushing into the flesh of their stomach, into the gelatinous flesh of their stomach.

ZE: Through an orifice or just straight through?

JV: No, no, not fisting in the classic, playground sense.

ZE: No, of course not the classic sense. Okay.

JV: The book has nothing to do with fisting or even jelly, just in case any church groups were on the fence about picking up hundreds of copies of it.

ZE: There’s no jelly?

JV: Maybe in a couple of the stories. There’s one about young couples in love and the male cracks the female’s head open and releases a jelly-like, sort of this amoeba style creature that he then ingests which I guess could be a jelly-like thing.

ZE: Does he then give birth to the very same creature?

JV: He sort of mixes it with his own internal jelly and then launches it at a nearby child.

ZE: Launches it how?

JV: A cannon formed of flesh, a gun, forms out of his belly meat and fires it at the kid and the kid then, under the control of the jelly, crawls up between the female’s legs.

ZE: The circle of life is then complete.

JV: A sort of revisionist stork theory.

ZE: The cover image is a drawing of tiny wiener people trapped in a jar. What is that?

JV: The cover acts as a sort of “cover” to hide the contents of the book.

ZE: No, what is the idea behind the cover image?

JV: Originally, I wanted the cover to have a warm, homey, family photo album binding vibe to it, the sort of album your lace-doily-loving grandma might haul out. The jar of preserves is the only thing that stuck around from that idea, something Jenny came up with. Makes me think of all the jars of “things” you see in a Svankmejer film, like when Alice is descending in that elevator. As for the sausage shapes, I kept harping on Jenny to make the characters more balloony or sausagey, possibly to tap into the primordial human dread of balloons filled with meat.

ZE: Are these fetuses related to one of the characters in the book?

JV: Well, no one image would really tell you what the book was about, especially since I never intended for the book to be anything other than a stream of conscious nightmare with Jenny and myself doing the streaming, so we went with the ambiguous approach. If there are any baby-preservers out there buying the book based on the cover, they’ll be pretty pissed.

ZE: The press release said the project began as a really big, surreal trip. What was the very first story about, the one that started it out?

JV: It’s not so much the first story that started the project so much as the situation when the first story was done. I was working on some of my own stuff at the time, and Jenny just happened to be at my place, not doing much but wandering around the room, or playing Guitar Hero or something. I scribbled what would be the first “story” onto a scrap of paper, handed it to her and told her to draw a comic with that as the script, which she promptly did in a matter of hours. I loved how mad the end result was and pretty much decided right there to do a whole book with her. I don’t think she thought I was serious at the time.

ZE: That is what spawned Jellyfist.

JV: Yeah. It was just a fun thought, to do an entire book of stuff that even I didn’t know what the end result was going to be, other than it being fast and loose like that first comic. That’s not quite how it turned out in the end but that’s how it started off.

ZE: So you were inspired by her work.

JV: I had always liked her work, yeah, but it takes funny little moments like that to give me the bigger idea.

ZE: This is a question from one of our readers. Okay, so how was it working with Miss Goldberg? Does she share your loveable trait of absolutely despising humanity? I don’t know if you’ve worked with many females in comics or in any of the businesses you’ve worked in but I assume that this is the closest business interaction with the opposite sex. Did that change anything?

JV: Female or not, there’s always complications working with someone co-creatively, but this was a case where our differences were part of the plan, and when things started getting uglier in the process, I decided to take that one step further by doing the running commentary in the book itself. No, she doesn’t share my, what they call my “trait of despising everything”. She’s a much nicer person than I am, but I’m taller.

ZE: How would you say this compared to your earlier collaborative project with Crab Scrambly on “Everything Can be Beaten”?

JV: She smelled better than Crab.

ZE: Aww, poor Crab.

JV: Which isn’t to say that Crab smelled bad, it’s just that she smelled like cherries and Crab smelled like cinnamon...and crabs. I don’t like cinnamon.

ZE: [cat sound]

Would you say that Jellyfist is more advanced than Everything Can Be Beaten in any way? How do you feel about it?

JV: I was never very happy with Everything Can Be Beaten, based on the writing alone, but it’s a great showcase for Crab’s paintings. There was quite a bit more thought behind Jellyfist, and for all its gibbering absurdity, its’ a more complicated mess, where even the things I hate spark a bit more thought and conversation than the other book did. Maybe it’s an easy out, but incorporating my bitching into the book itself probably helped push it slightly above being just an inside joke between Jenny and I, and into something that lets the readers in a bit on what leads up to a hideous mutant project like this.

ZE: [laughs] I guess that’s the beauty of collaboration. I mean you both got something you didn’t expect, I’m sure.

JV: Well, she’d never done a book before so this whole thing was comic book boot camp for her… maybe she’s better for the wear that this project had on her mind. I hope she is.

ZE: You have traumatized her beyond repair? Will she ever work in comics again?

JV: Yes, I hope she does. She’s a great talent and a very good friend but whether or not we were designed to work together on a book like this, I don’t know, and I don’t know that we should ever do one again, not like this. Ever.

ZE: So would you say, overall, that you guys are both now happy with it?

JV: I don’t know if she’s even seen it. I kind of kept her in the dark [laughs] at the tail end of the project. I did all the layout on my computer over a few sleepless nights, long after the deadline was broken, and by that point I was so irritated at being made late on a deadline like I had never been before that some vengeful bastard part of me just wanted to do the final bit myself, and not show even her until the thing was published.

ZE: You’re a sadist.

JV: Nope. A masochist. This is comics.

ZE: You’ve been also branching out in several directions in recent years. A lot of your newest stuff involves other collaborations. Could you talk about working with bands and other artists? Is this something you want to pursue further?

JV: It was a while back, but I did the "Shut Me Up" video for Mindless Self Indulgence and people seemed to dig that. Thank YouTube for that one because I think that’s the only place people get to see it. I was pretty jazzed to hear that the band was a fan of my work, and them asking me to do a video of pretty much anything I wanted was awesome since, well, that’s pretty much how I work anyhow. That’s how that one was…they really had no direction other than “do a video” so I listened to the demo song they had sent me, and ended up with a loony retail guy chopping customers in half.

ZE: It’s still kind of on your terms.

JV: Yeah, but working with people in that way there’s always going to be some, you know, some little snags. We had a few on the video, after it was pretty much put together, because once the video was done the band ran into some trouble with airing the video without the band actually appearing in it. There were some changes made to the thing without my being involved, though I wish I had been. I like those guys and I want them to be shown in as cool or fucked up way as possible, but I don’t think the changes helped so much as they kind of flattened the thing.

ZE: You sort of cut your teeth on the comics because your comics have always been particularly cinematic.

JV: Yeah, I think when people say that, I mean, I’m very conscious of trying to do that whether it comes across or not, so when someone says it’s got a very cinematic feel to it, then I’m happy because that makes me think, “Hey, either this person is as visually retarded as I am or they are picking up on something I am successfully conveying, regardless of my otherwise crippling artistic deficiencies.” Hopefully it carries over into the non-illustrative work and into the actual motion picture work I am doing lately.

ZE: More reader questions. Have you ever felt pressure to make your subject matter more mainstream and less dark in nature?

JV: No.

ZE: Are you ever accused of stuff when there are school shootings?

JV: No. You know what, surprisingly no. I’m pretty critically invisible, which might be part of why I don’t get blamed for the school shooting or when I actually do shoot people. I don’t get blamed. Other people get blamed. I’m going to shoot you after this is done.

ZE: [laughs] Is there any subject matter you consciously try to avoid when sitting down to write a script or a comic?

JV: To date, no. It’s never crossed my mind to have to baby-sit anyone’s perception of right or wrong, no, so the only conscious decision making as far as content goes is whether or not an idea is right or wrong for the particular project. I’d love to think that the people who choose to pick my noise up are already well enough equipped with a decent balance of hard reason and absurdist thinking to not need to be sat down and told why something is okay or why it isn’t okay. It’s just like in drawing, the more you know what something is supposed to look like in reality, the better equipped you are to abstract it, to stylize it on purpose and have fun with it instead of simply interpreting it badly for lack of education.

ZE: Alright, someone has to know if you actually have a MySpace.

JV: Someone HAS to know?

ZE: They HAVE to know.

JV: What happens if they don’t find out?

ZE: No, no, listen to the rest, from what they’ve seen of your personality all signs would point to no, but they have seen some pretty convincing profiles.

JV: I’d actually like to know what happens if they just never knew, if they never found out I had a MySpace or not.

ZE: I had to include this question for that very reason.

JV: It sounds important to them. In fact, it sounds like a very big deal to them.

ZE: They have to know.

JV: Let’s have a bit of fun with that and not answer, yeah? Then we’ll scan the news sites for stories about some lunatic guy or girl, probably fifteen years old, clutching a GIR doll in their cold, dead hand, who leapt from a tall building, strapped with explosives after screaming “Why didn’t you friend me, Jhonen!? WHYEEEEEEE?!”.

ZE: They will no longer support your product.

JV: It’s creepy shit, man, how seriously people take that stuff, the levels of accessibility they think everyone should have just because they themselves write a blog about what color their shit was that day. Discretion is a dying artform. By the way, mine was blue.

ZE: Do you like processed American cheese or did you like it as a kid?

JV: That’s a horrible question. That falls into the “zany randomness” category of questioning.

ZE: I don’t know.

JV: But no, I don’t think I’ll answer that because then I’ll have lost all my power. I have to keep my mystery. I have to maintain my mystique.

ZE: [laughs] Will Questionsleep.com ever be updated?

JV: Does this person asking have any internet website building skills? Because maybe it will, maybe that’s the person that will make the site come to life. Let’s just say I’m cursed in terms of finding adequate web design help. Web designers are some of the shiftiest, most flighty, you know, sketchy people I’ve ever known and they’re dirty. They’re dirty people. Unclean, in my experience.

ZE: [laughs]

JV: They’re swarthy types.

ZE: They smell like cinnamon.

JV: No, only Crab smells like cinnamon.

ZE: Crab, sweet Crab.

JV: Only crab smells like delicious cinnamon sprinkles.

ZE: Cinnamon crab.

JV: He rolls in Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

ZE: I could so picture it.

JV: I’m picturing it now.

ZE: Frolicking.

JV: Sparkling.

ZE: [laughs]

JV: Glittering in the night.

ZE: Spends the night rolling in the cereal.

JV: There’s a lesson to be learned there, but I don’t quite know what.

ZE: Hold on here’s my favorite one from a reader. In the director’s cut of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, you mentioned you built a teepee in your back yard. Did you have any other play equipment in the back yard? [laughs] Well, did you?

JV: Jesus…I don’t even remember writing that…or even doing that. I envision a future in which I’ll be using other people’s brains as external hard drives of sorts, retaining memories that I myself have already discarded in favor of shiner, newer ones with more buttons, only, with all the misinformation about me out there I’ll be reclaiming all these diseased, distorted memories that never quite took place.

It wasn’t a teepee I built, but a concentration camp for the local children who opposed my ideas, my visions of the future in which I ruled over the neighborhood and then the planet in a kind and just and occasionally brutally mad way. The children were used as forced labor to build my ziggurat, manned by my army of intelligent insects. You know…that sorta thing.

ZE: That has all been very informative, thank you.

You can buy Jellyfist on Amazon and other Vasquez works at the Slave Labor Graphics goods dispensary. Do visit uncle Jhonen at his website, the never-ever-ever updated Questionsleep.com.

*It is my duty to inform you that i did makeup for that MSI video. UNGH!

Since Perry Farrell broke into the music scene in the early 80’s few people have had such an impact on modern music. In fact, his co-creation, Lollapalooza changed the face of American music festivals forever. But it is really the impact of bands like Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros which has cemented... more

Since Perry Farrell broke into the music scene in the early 80’s few people have had such an impact on modern music. In fact, his co-creation, Lollapalooza changed the face of American music festivals forever. But it is really the impact of bands like Jane’s Addiction and Porno for Pyros which has cemented Farrell into the world’s musical consciousness. His new collaboration, Satellite Party, is set to expand that world view. Satellite Party unites Farrell with cohorts such as producer/guitarist Nuno Bettencourt and collaborators like Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fergie, Thievery Corporation and even a spoken word appearance by the still dead Jim Morrison. I got a chance to talk with Farrell about this exciting new work on the phone while he was in Hong Kong.

Check out the official site for Perry Farrell

Daniel Robert Epstein: How’s it going in Hong Kong?

Perry Farrell: I’m having a really good time. I just went to the Museum of Science. I bopped around there for a while and had a good time. I walked the streets this afternoon and discovered some cool SoHo-type of neighborhoods. The streets in Hong Kong are like a mini-version of New York in a way. I don’t know if you’ve ever been here but there are lots of textiles, lots of clothing, lots of clothing stores, lots of cool parks to go and hang out in. So I’m taking it all in. Also the food is really out there.

DRE: Do you eat sushi?

PF: I’ll eat sushi. As a matter of fact, I’m trying things for the first time here.

DRE: Are you trying all those crazy insides of animals?

PF: Yes. Exactly.

DRE: Do you have to close your eyes before you pop it in your mouth?

PF: I almost don’t want to look, but I am looking. The city has a smell that you don’t smell in New York so I’m coming to find out what those smells are. Sometimes I’m finding out that it’s a cow’s stomach lining or part of a duck. With some of these smells, you walk by the stores and you’re just like “Oh, man.” But tonight, it was on my table.

DRE: Was it the duck vaginas?

PF: [laughs] At first I thought to myself, “Wow. I don’t really know if I want to go into this.” But honestly, when I stop and think about it, the American Indian ate every part of the buffalo. They didn’t leave anything behind. It was good thing they did that because they weren’t wasteful. So that’s how I’ve talked myself into trying everything, “Well, I’m not wasting the animal,” so it’s more like an American Indian philosophy.

DRE: Is trying these foods for the first time different than when you were trying new drugs back in the day?

PF: It’s a little bit like that. I guess you could say that [laughs].

DRE: To eat everything they have over there you would probably need drugs.

So what made you want to start Satellite Party?

PF: I was just loving the idea of putting together a themed party, almost like a sleepover party. We would dress an indoor location and just keep the party going. Like a rave but like the ’92 raves, when things were really interesting and fresh. Over the years with the rave scene, and even the rock scene, the promoters got very lazy and were just turning one out after the next. As many as three to five days a week you were trying to turn your bar over and turn your night over so they just stopped putting details into things. I wanted to put the details back into this party. I thought that the theme should be as if we were going to have a space party on a satellite. We would dress up like it is an extra special occasion and do what the music would sound like and what would the party feel like. That’s what I started building. I got real excited about that because, you know me, with Lollapalooza it takes me all year to build those three days. I like the idea of always performing myself, so Satellite Party was for me to perform music in this theme.

DRE: Did you always plan to do an album with Satellite Party?

PF: Yeah, at one time I was just going to be programming electronic music because it was just going to be a DJ thing. Then maybe I would DJ it and at some point step it up. With electronic music, house music, there are very few lyrics involved. It’s beat matched and you can play anybody’s music so you can play music for two days straight. But it started to develop into a story as I was writing one song to the next, then I started putting more and more lyrics on it and then it started turning into something very different. It became a complete story. Very odd occurrences happened like getting the chance to produce a song that was written by Jim Morrison and The Doors, that happened to fit this story perfectly. Jim’s part is the Heavenly Host. In his storyline, he’s looking at the world, as we’re all looking at the world, from the vantage point of the satellite. He’s singing about the world in a song called The Woman in the Window so I wanted to continue to develop it into a film for theatrical release. But there’s a giant leap to get there. I needed to figure out if I wanted to get right there for a theatrical release or do it in another way. That was to make sure the music was really loved because you can go right to theatrical release but if the music isn’t good or people don’t appreciate the music, the film will bomb and no one will appreciate the music. So I wanted to take the longer, slower, but I think a better method, which would be to go out there and play the music live and develop this thing very stripped down and go out there and live it, live this story of the Solutionists, who are this collective of people that are an elite group who are excellent at the art form of public display and protest. Well demonstration, demonstration is a little bit less aggressive. But they are professional demonstrators and public assemblers. So we’re going to go out and actually put together some of these fun parties, as well as a straight tour, but all the time developing the performance.

DRE: With each thing you do that’s connected to Satellite Party is it a different piece or is it a big continuing story or concept?

PF: Well, the songs all tell a story. But if you didn’t know the story and you just listened to the music, you would be able to appreciate it for what it is. But when you get the CD, the packaging of the CD will tell the story and our online, which is very close to being up, will help people begin to understand who we are and what we’re about, the Solutionists that is. We’re going to go out and actuate this story, actuate this myth. This myth really is about new renaissance artists taking responsibility and taking the Earth and beautifying the Earth and taking over through the media. We take over through the art of public display and demonstration. With a good website, like the very compelling one you guys have that I’m looking at right now, you can do a lot, you can say a lot even though I know it’s silly because you’re basically selling sex and cheesecake even though it’s not as perverse as some of these other sites, but still you can draw people in with this and you can do a lot. You can have a good time changing the world.

DRE: I read an older interview of yours from about 1998 about how you wanted to get into broadband and hit the new mediums that were coming up. You’ve been doing things like that since you started. You even did it when your life was going through some pretty heavy things. How do you keep yourself up to date on that stuff so well?

PF: Sometimes I think that it’s not so easy because being an artist, you put your head into your art, and the next thing you know, there’s five things that you don’t know that came up, that you’re not aware of. You feel like “Oh my god, I can’t believe I didn’t know about that.” But I think the world in general is taking on a lot of information. There are a lot of new avenues. If I can get spiritual for a minute, I feel that we’re able to access, if even through our dreamtime, dimensions that we weren’t able to access before. I’m communicating with people right now from Hong Kong. I get updates on artwork and an update on the video within five seconds. As I’m sitting here conversing, I’m on Friday and you guys are on Thursday. It can be overwhelming. You almost just have to relax and say “Well I will take in what I can,” and concentrate on your own art and your own dreams and on your own art forms. If you have good allies, they’ll be bringing you good ideas that you can check into. Then you can apply those to your life or not.

DRE: I believe your oldest kid is about five.

PF: That’s a yes.

DRE: Do they play music?

PF: Yes. All of my family loves music. My youngest boy was playing guitar to me this morning.

DRE: Over the Internet or is he with you?

PF: No, he’s with me. He’s gonna be three. We have music in our house all day. We sing at night and all through the day. We rehearse all day. The boys know the songs, so we all sing together.

DRE: That’s great.

I read an interview with you where I think you were being a little facetious. You said that you would only do Jane’s Addiction if money started to rain from the sky. With a band as popular as Jane’s the amount of money you might get offered might feel like money was raining from the sky. Or were you basically saying you would never get Jane’s back together?

PF: Well, I guess you’re smart because I was being facetious, although you never can tell what’s going to happen. People can apologize or come together. There could be a greater evil that we all fight for, like Martians invading the world. You never can tell who might end up being friends again, right? [laughs] But I will just tell you this. I don’t have any ambition to put Jane’s back together again. What I’m very excited about it is Satellite Party. As we build this thing, and we’ve only started, but next year in June we’re going to be going to do Europe and staying there for two months performing in festivals and clubs and opening up for some legends. So I’m excited about building Satellite Party because I think the musical potential that I’ve got in front of me is everything I’ve been looking for, for many years. It’s a hybrid of sound and it’s still developing. As we speak my drummer [Kevin Figueiredo] is putting together a drum kit and is going to include his drum triggers. That’s something that I’ve wanted from my drummer for many years. We are bringing more players in the group. We have now a second female vocalist/keyboard player so she can be playing some of the denser sounds we have on the record.

The record is a hybrid of sound. It’s got female vocals as well as male, so it’s very unisex. I’m really excited about developing this. As for Jane’s Addiction, I’m an artist and I like the idea of painting new paintings. Although I appreciate the paintings that are hung now in the galleries, so to speak, but that music was sung and played and written at a certain time in life but I’m very tied and involved in what’s going on in the modern world and the future even. I have to put the brakes on in my mind most of the time to try to stay with the world as opposed to getting to far ahead of myself. So I’m not really much interested in going to Jane’s Addiction, because Jane’s Addiction is reminiscing about the past. That’s fun but I’m really much more excited about the future.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

This October 18th a number of SuicideGirls will be appearing on an episode of CSI: NY. This kind of acceptance from such a mainstream narrative television series on a major network truly proves that SuicideGirls has become a significant part of pop culture. The episode truly focuses on the positive aspects... more

This October 18th a number of SuicideGirls will be appearing on an episode of CSI: NY. This kind of acceptance from such a mainstream narrative television series on a major network truly proves that SuicideGirls has become a significant part of pop culture. The episode truly focuses on the positive aspects of SuicideGirls. They aren’t just in the background while the main characters are showcased. The SuicideGirls are integral to the storyline which makes for a very unique and exciting episode. I had a chance to talk with the creator of all the CSI shows, Anthony E. Zuiker.

SuicideGirls CSI: NY episode airs October 18th at 10pm EST

Daniel Robert Epstein: How did this whole thing get started?

Anthony E. Zuiker: About three years ago, I was in a B. Dalton bookstore and I saw the hardback SuicideGirls book, just by accident. When I opened up the book, I found the picture of Al nude in the bathtub with a pink wig. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, outside of my wife obviously. I was so inspired to keep looking at the pictures. I brought the book back to work and then it was stolen.

DRE: Oh geez.

AZ: So I went out and bought the book again. Then about a week later it was stolen. Then I bought it again and it was stolen again. So I figure if people are stealing these books out of my office or off my coffee table, it must be something of interest to people. Then, on accident I saw the SuicideGirls on HBO Real Sex. My wife, who has impeccable taste, was watching it with me and her quote about Missy was, “That bitch can shoot” meaning she’s a great photographer. When she pointed it out to me, I was inspired by that and then pretty much the next week I saw the Icons episode on G4. That was enough for me to pick up the phone and call Missy and say, “Hey. How’d you like to do a show with the SuicideGirls playing themselves on CSI: NY?” Missy, of course, was down for it. That’s how the whole thing started.

DRE: Was the reason it is on CSI: NY because that’s the show that you’re currently working on?

AZ: Correct. It’s just the one I’m on full-time. It’s the one I can control more, so I figured that was the best bet. All three are my shows but I work fulltime on New York. Since it’s the third installment of a franchise, we can be a little more radical on this show.

I wanted to make sure that we had SuicideGirls that all got along. It was a learning curve for me in terms of that. I was really focused on getting a lot of people that were veterans and people that were from Los Angeles, so it would be easy for shooting and travel. But in the same respect I wanted to be able to give the viewers girls like Amina and Al and Fractal and Nixon. We narrowed hundreds down to about eight girls. When we did that, I went back to casting and CBS and said, “Look. These girls will be acting and playing themselves. I don’t want to hire girls and put tattoos on them and call them the PatBrats. If I can’t use the word SuicideGirls, I don’t want to do it.” I wrote the outline then it got back to me that legal was very upset about any reference to websites because if you surf the website without being a member, you can still see nudity. With the whole Janet Jackson thing, we’re under a very difficult situation with that. So I had to de-website it but I wanted to make sure that I still got the story right and that Missy was happy with the story. When she read the first outline, she loved it. I talked to the girls probably three months ahead of shooting. I had Al come out from North Carolina. I flew Tim Kern, who does a lot of the tattoos for the SuicideGirls, from the Last Rites Tattoo parlor in New York. I wanted to make sure that the girls knew somebody besides the girls on set. Tim was also hired as a technical advisor. When the girls showed up, it was just so pleasant. I feel that the SuicideGirls are American royalty. To have 18 million people see SuicideGirls in a story that’s emotionally moving and really captures their spirit makes it a special show.

DRE: Jeremy Kasten just directed Wizard of Gore with a number of SuicideGirls like Amina and Fractal.

AZ: I heard about that.

DRE: Since it is a horror movie Jeremy used special effects to make it look like Amina’s leg was cut off in the movie. But you don’t do anything like that in the CSI episode.

AZ: Well don’t forget this is a network audience. I wanted to tell a story about a girl that at the end of the day felt trapped in the Midwest and was looking for a sense of belonging and found it in the SuicideGirls. Therefore I chose to have a girl from Wyoming who desperately wanted to get out and find her place amongst other girls like her and really tell an emotional story, but still give you the essence and the spirit of the sisterhood and what they represent. I didn’t want to go for shock value or missing legs or showy tattoos. I think the website has such great cache, great style and it’s so classily done. It’s so not about the nudity. It’s about the style and the spirit of the women so I wanted to make sure that we captured that.

DRE: How much do the attitudes of the girls of the show reflect the real attitudes of the girls that are playing them?

AZ: I think pretty good. Al sometimes is perceived as being a harder, rougher individual. But she isn’t. She’s a complete sweetheart. I talked with the girls by email. I watched a lot of the first tour. I talked a lot with Missy, who was involved every step of the way from wardrobe to the production meeting to script. I got notes from the girls. I addressed almost all of their notes. But again, I wasn’t so worried about capturing the exact attitude of the individual, more of the spirit of what SuicideGirls represented. I made sure that they all had different sassy, naughty, interesting attitudes. What I was so amazed with was that when I came to the set, they were just so gung ho. They were so low maintenance and so high-spirited. I would tell them constantly, “If I hired eight actresses in this town to do the same thing, it would be a completely different ballgame.” For the most part they’d be complaining. These women from SuicideGirls didn’t complain once. They went on stage. They were ready. They kicked ass. It was a dream to work with. If I could work with the SuicideGirls every day, I would.

DRE: How did they do acting-wise?

AZ: They’re phenomenal. They had the best attitudes of any group that I’ve ever been involved in with CSI. It was just really a pleasure. They were treated like gold while they were here and they all came to play. It’s funny because a lot the girls don’t like to wear clothes. So I constantly had to keep putting clothes back on them. One of the SuicideGirls wanted to wear something a little skimpier or that showed more breasts or more ass. I had to go in with Missy and have a talk with her and say, “Look. If we do this, we’re going to waste film, waste money and the audience will never see it. It’ll be part of the DVD.” She finally played ball and put some more clothes on, but it was really the spirit of that. Also what was great is when we were taking a break, Missy would take the girls and go shoot on our sets. I walked by Nixon and she was straddled on top of a dummy. She had a saw in her hand and was sawing off the dummy’s head. You definitely got a laugh to yourself when you walked by and go, “Wow. The SuicideGirls are definitely on the set.”

DRE: I’ve watched CSI: New York pretty much since the beginning and CSI since the second season. Sometimes the forensic investigators in the show could be very judgmental. Was that something that you tried to avoid in this episode?

AZ: You’re absolutely right. This was never going to be a freak show. That was very key to me. I’m a creator of a franchise so I understand what Missy’s done and I wanted to make sure that this was captured in the perfect spirit. I didn’t want to have my characters being judgmental. I kept the SuicideGirls out in front of the show, not in the back. I had my characters reinforce that spirit, rather than be judgmental towards it. To the American public, it’s already a bit radical. So to go radical upon radical I think is a mistake. I think finding missing legs and that kind of thing is not what we do. What we do is regard the world. We’re true to it. If you’re not a SuicideGirl expert, I think you’ll be moved by the show. You’ll probably shed a tear or two. You’ll have a laugh and go, “Wow. Those girls have really inspired me.” I want to inspire the viewers as they watch my show.

DRE: CSI obviously has long arms into pop culture. Besides this episode, do you ever see a time when a television character with tattoos and piercings could be the norm on a television show without being a freak?

AZ: I think it’s possible. For us, in New York, we deal with all kinds of worlds, but I think America is still a little bit conservative in terms of television. I don’t think people can get too radical from week to week, but I think going into a world for an episode is definitely tolerable and that’s what we’re doing.

DRE: What aesthetic do you think SuicideGirls is replacing or adding out there in the world?

AZ: SuicideGirls promote individuality, strength and the courage to really live as free as possible without any shame. These are unique girls and Missy has found a way to bring these unique women together via a website. Some of these girls have never even talked to each other before, but they knew of each other and you’d think they were all best friends. There’s really a deep sisterhood involved in that. The courage of what they exude is so inspiring, to the viewer and to me because we do live in a very conservative time right now, especially politically and in terms of entertainment. I think a show like this is going to break a lot of barriers.

DRE: Did Missy have approval over aspects of the show?

AZ: It was a mutual respect. There wasn’t a lot of “No, you can’t do this.” I involved Missy in every step of the journey. The only difference we ever had together was when she was a little iffy about doing the creepy Carrie-like opening but I talked her into it. I said, “Look. I think this is really going to be great in terms of doing an homage to Carrie.” As we dumped 50 gallons of fake blood on the girls in the teaser and they’re dancing to Pantera’s “Walk,” you know that the SuicideGirls have definitely arrived on the show.

DRE: Is it a coincidence that Goth icon Edward Furlong is joining CSI this year?

AZ: It’s a coincidence, but yeah, that’s really awesome. Eddie did a great job. He’ll be in the episode a week before the SuicideGirls one airs on October 18.

DRE: I’ve spoken with the creator of The Shield, Shawn Ryan, a number of times. His show is pretty much all character development. CSI drips and drabs character development throughout a season. With the serialized drama becoming such a big thing now on television, would you like to see more of that on any of the CSIs?

AZ: No, the formula is the formula. We are a procedural drama. We do a little more character on New York than any of the other shows. Our viewers expect an element of science and mystery and as we begin to open up the characters and feature more character stuff, it’s an added value to an already successful franchise. But we have no intent of reinventing the wheel so to speak and making it all character-driven. Though we’ve been opening up the characters a bit more since we’re in seasons seven, five and three of the franchise.

DRE: Is that satisfying to you?

AZ: Absolutely because we were never going to abandon what the game plan is, but people do want to know more about our characters. So we emotionally invest our people into the cases and maybe learn something new about them. In the SuicideGirls episode we have a story about a girl from the Midwest trying to get into the spirit of the SuicideGirls and you have one of our characters emotionally invested and having an issue that will come out later in the season. So you have a couple different levels going there, which makes for a really good drama.

DRE: How surprised are you that the CSI shows are among the most popular shows on television?

AZ: Well, I think that we’re definitely in a very healthy crime cycle. I think the viewer and the world will always enjoy a great mystery and a great drama. I think that the casts have amazing chemistry and we just tell stories differently than anybody else. I think that there’s a part of the show that while you’re watching it, you’re learning. It’s captured the world’s fancy because it’s just great drama.

DRE: Do you have a theory why CSI: Miami is so popular overseas?

AZ: I do. I think it’s David Caruso. It’s the fact that it’s colorful and sexy and young and probably captures the domain of Miami better than Vegas or New York. I think it really captures Miami and you feel like you’ve been there for that one hour. That’s our recipe for success.

DRE: What’s it like to have something that’s such a powerful marketing tool, knowing that you could take just about anything and make it very popular?

AZ: Well now we’re in a very interesting time right now. We’re in the Wild Wild West of multi-platform. We have a couple different tricks up our sleeves. We’re not only doing a show with SuicideGirls, but we also have the actress who played Omen, who’s not a real SuicideGirl, hidden on the site right now. People who are on the site will look at that and go, “Oh, is she a new girl?” But she’s actually an actress. People who watch the show may be driven to the website. If they do that, they’ll be pleasantly surprised that the girl on the show is on the site. She has a profile and pictures.

DRE: What tattoos do you have?

AZ: I have a Z in the middle of my left arm and then around it is a D for Dawson my boy, J for Jennifer my wife, A for Anthony and E for Evans, which is myself and my family with the Z in the middle.

DRE: Do you want to get more?

AZ: My wife is pregnant with our third child so I’ll add one more letter which will make it like a cross. Then I’ll probably do a little bit more on my sleeve.

DRE: What city is next for CSI?

AZ: At this point I think CSI: Hawaii would be great. Then maybe I can go out there and relax and my wife can sleep on a boat or something.

DRE: Do you ever see bringing SuicideGirls back for another episode?

AZ: I got an email from Al a couple days ago that said, “Hey. If you ever want to bring us back, I’ll definitely do it again.” We’ll see how the response is. If the response is overwhelming, there’s a possibility next season that we would bring them back. But it has to really work in the fabric of our season. Right now we’re still cutting the episode together. I have a feeling it’s going to be a big success and we hope that it’s everything that we dreamed it would be and hopefully this does raise big awareness for Missy’s brand.

DRE: When you say response, does that mean from the network or from the audience?

AZ: The audience. If we get a bump in the ratings because of the SuicideGirls, that’s a good thing.

DRE: I’m not an actual SuicideGirl, do you need any fat, Jewish interviewers to be on CSI: NY?

AZ: I think we have that covered. There are millions of them. We like to subscribe to the Bruckheimer School of good-looking, edgy people.

DRE: All right. I’m out then.

AZ: So am I by the way.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

Lily Tomlin is a true comedy goddess. She’s been entertaining people with her wonderful cast of characters since Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. In fact one of my favorite movies of hers, 9 to 5, was just released in special edition DVD. But her latest movie is special because not only does she play... more

Lily Tomlin is a true comedy goddess. She’s been entertaining people with her wonderful cast of characters since Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. In fact one of my favorite movies of hers, 9 to 5, was just released in special edition DVD. But her latest movie is special because not only does she play Meryl Streep’s sister in a singing duo but it also reteams her for a fourth time with director Robert Altman. A Prairie Home Companion is a look at a fictionalized version of Garrison Keillor’s long running public radio program. It is reimagined as a song heavy variety show and the movie highlights its last night before it is shut down.

Check out the official website for A Prairie Home Companion

Daniel Robert Epstein: How was it getting to work with Robert Altman again?

Lily Tomlin: Great. Wonderful. It’s always a real opportunity and fun and blissful and we got Meryl on top of it.

DRE: The two of you obviously have a real rapport.

LT: I just absolutely love her. You can’t not love her. I don’t know what it is. She’s just so wonderful. She’s so much fun and crazy and unpretentious.

DRE: She once told me that people are nervous when they are first around her but then she disarms them with a joke.

LT: We are nervous when we see her but you just warm up with her so easily.

DRE: Did the two of you have chemistry right away?

LT: Yeah she’s so absolutely cool and delightful and fun and like a bad kid. There is this side of that just wants to misbehave and doesn’t take anything very seriously. I’m sure she takes plenty of things seriously, but she doesn’t bring that to her exchange with everybody else. She’s just playful and fun and smart and divine.

DRE: Do you and Robert keep in touch when you’re not working together?

LT: Oh yeah. I don’t see him every week or anything like that but I feel very connected to him and his wife Kathryn.

DRE: Do the two of you connect because of your comedy-improv background?

LT: No, I think originally I got in Nashville because we had the same agent. I had optioned a book for myself, called Maiden. I was still in Laugh-In in 1971 because I never dreamed I couldn’t be in movies too. I didn’t realize how hard it was to go from television to film in those days, especially if you did the kind of thing I did on Laugh-In. I had optioned this book and my partner Jane wrote the screenplay. As it turned out Bob was looking for a project for Joan Tewkesbury to direct after [writing the screenplays for] Thieves Like Us and Nashville. My agent gave him that screenplay and he was going to produce it with Joan directing. So Bob said, “well you come down to Nashville and take this part and then we’ll get to know each other and then we’ll do Maiden in the fall. Columbia had bought the screenplay and reimbursed me and we were going to do it at Columbia because Bob had just done California Split with them and they wanted him to cut six minutes out of it. They came down to the set of Nashville and he punched one of them in the nose and that guy fell in the swimming pool so we never did Maiden. I didn’t know it but Louise Fletcher was supposed to play that role of Linnea and that’s where the deaf element came in because her parents are deaf. She and I exchanged letters later because she and her husband had been in Thieves and I guess her husband had been one of the producers and they had some kind of falling out or something because Louise dropped out of Nashville.

DRE: I’m sure you’ve done long runs of theatre or a long movie shoot but you’ve never been in anything as long as your character has in Prairie Home Companion, are you able to relate to that idea of a project ending?

LT: Yeah, it’s a little like losing a lover or a death or something.

DRE: But they seem to take it very well.

LT: Well my character has probably been drinking all evening. I think that’s part of Altman or Garrison’s sensibility too. The play is sort of about mortality in general. It’s certainly a strong layer of all the content and it takes it in stride. There’s nothing you can do about it. It is just part of the flow of life and maybe that’s why they don’t angst over it. They’re sad but they go on and the girls have tried to buy a bus to get a tour going. So hope springs eternal in a sister act.

DRE: You’ve done so many projects, do you keep working so hard because of mortality?

LT: I just love to work. I do concerts all the time. I did a concert Friday night in San Jose while everybody was at the Hollywood Bowl doing a live show. Garrison was there, Meryl sang and John C. Riley was there. I couldn’t be there because I had this old date for months. It was a great date and I enjoyed it but I really wanted to be at the Bowl with all of them.

DRE: I’m sure the cast will do another concert in the future.

LT: I hope. I always beg Garrison but he always turns around and says, “Yeah.”

DRE: Have you ever had a project shut down by external forces?

LT: I don’t think I have. Well [The Incredible] Shrinking Woman was shut down because I had to go and do 9 to 5.

DRE: That’s one of my favorite films.

LT: Shrinking Woman or 9 to 5?

DRE: Both of them.

LT: We were shooting Shrinking Woman for five months because of all those special effects. I was supposed to start 9 to 5 and we just didn’t get done so the studio let us shut down for a couple months and I went and did 9 to 5 and then I came back and finished Shrinking Woman.

DRE: Tell me a good memory from The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

LT: Well a good memory? All the things I had to go through at the time. From the scene in the garbage disposal to this day the skin on the right side of my face is thinner. I have a little crease here in my eye because they had to put so much of that garbage on me and it had dye in it and I had a big allergic reaction to it. I had to put a lot of steroids on my face. It was all enflamed and peeled and I just kept doing it over and over again. Then also I rode on that darn gorilla which was all made out of fiberglass. God only knows what I have in my lungs.

DRE: I assume that’s why you never did a movie with special effects after that.

LT: Jane and I were the executive producers so I didn’t complain about it or anything. I tried to protect myself but I wanted to get the movie made. I saw fiberglass flying around in the air but I tried to wear a mask a good part of the time. Then I was to be in the lab and they put a beaker over me and stuff like that. I was 30 feet up in the air so we could do the special effects but there was guard to keep me safe. I’m supposed to be running back and forth across the table, I could have easily run off the edge and I couldn’t look down because I was supposed to be screaming.

DRE: When Jane’s credited with writing something that you are working on, do you write with her?

LT: She really writes. I’m not a writer of any kind of substance at all.

DRE: Did you understand I Heart Huckabees?

LT: Oh absolutely, that’s the kind of material that I totally understand. It’s about how we don’t know anything and how crazy being a human is and what’s really true. It’s just like in [the Broadway play] Search [for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe], what’s reality and what isn’t and how we’re all cultured and conditioned to have certain views. It depends on where you grow up, where you’re born, what era and everything else that develops your world view or even your view relating as a human. If you have a whole different acculturation, you might be extraordinarily different.

DRE: How was it working with David [O. Russell] again?

LT: I love him. I’m mad for him. To me he’s like Altman because he’s just as free but absolutely totally different. Altman’s a very different person but you always know it is going to be an adventure.

DRE: From what I read, he doesn’t seem to calm down on set.

LT: No, he doesn’t. But I’ve only been on two sets with him and he’s only made four movies. His first movie was his student film, Spanking the Monkey. Then he did Flirting with Disaster, which I did with him but he was still a new young director but he was pretty much there. Then he did Three Kings, I don’t know what happened there and then Huckabees. That was the nature of the movie like, “I’m going to find my way, I’m going to find myself.” Dustin [Hoffman] used to say it was like Jackson Pollock throwing paint at the camera. We would be doing a scene and David would be yelling through a megaphone, “Now switch lines!” and we’d switch parts which was wild. But I’m totally up for those things. I can be just as serious and constrained and I’ll try whatever comes along.

DRE: Do you still do bits with Ernestine?

LT: I do her in concert all the time. A couple years ago she did a series of commercials for an internet computer based teleconferencing company. She’s an executive now. She was dressed a little more executive, same color scheme, same jewelry; her hair was a little more groomed. But she was teaching CEOs and others how to economize and teach.

DRE: How difficult is it to stay current and gain new fans?

LT: I don’t know, that’s hard. Unless you’re on television a lot in a youth oriented vehicle, I don’t think a lot of kids get exposed to you. They might know you from some old movies like if there’s a cult following for Shrinking Woman or 9 to 5. But that’s the nature of being a performer. Kids today don’t even know who Gregory Peck is because they live in their own time. There’s always going to be leakage and people are going to know a certain project or their parents will show them something. I still have kids stop me on the street and they do the snake thing from Big Business. But when I used to open a show, kids would be in sleeping bags out in the snow though my fan base has aged with me.

DRE: Would you want to go on TV now to try to get some new fans?

LT: Sure but I can’t pander to them. It has to be organic. They’re the first ones to know if you’re authentic or not. It will either come or it won’t. If you’re on a hit show that young people watch, then people are going to know you.

DRE: Has anyone wanted to do like a new sketch comedy or variety show with you?

LT: Yeah, different things at different times. Not so much variety because I don’t think the networks have too much confidence in variety in this time. Saturday Night Live and Mad TV are anomalies. But that doesn’t mean somebody couldn’t come in with something. I’ve developed a couple of sitcoms but the story meetings are unbearable because they change things so much. Jane and I would always say, “well we’ll come up with something else.” A few years ago I had a commitment to go on air, but we could never come up with a script that we all agreed on. They always wanted to take some absolutely integral element away.

DRE: What would be an example of an integral element?

LT: Many years ago everybody on the show was going to wear a spy camera except me. I was going to make the set like my house and my office so anything that was shot at my home could be cut into the show. That was just one element of a very much larger idea. It would have been fun.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

Noah Hathaway is one of the nicest people you’ll ever have the pleasure of seeing tortured – but a least he’s only suffering for his art. In Sushi Girl, a bloody stylish homage to ‘70s Grindhouse, he plays Fish, a participant in a diamond heist gone bad. For his trouble he gets six years inside,... more

Noah Hathaway is one of the nicest people you’ll ever have the pleasure of seeing tortured – but a least he’s only suffering for his art. In Sushi Girl, a bloody stylish homage to ‘70s Grindhouse, he plays Fish, a participant in a diamond heist gone bad. For his trouble he gets six years inside, while his partners in crime remain free thanks to his silence. On the night of his release, they lay on a special dinner, which involves more pain than pleasure for Hathaway’s intriguing character.

Hathaway is perhaps best known for his role as Atreyu in the 1984 fantasy film Neverending Story. He spent his formative years within the Hollywood system – most notably playing Boxer at the tender ages of 6 in the original Battlestar Galactica TV series – however he’s refreshingly unaffected by it. This might be because, unlike other child stars of his generation, he quit while he was ahead and got out of dodge, at least for a while. Sushi Girl marks Hathaway’s return to Hollywood. Aside from an appearance in To Die, To Sleep, which filmed in 1992, it’s his first major film roll since Troll in 1986.

I meet Hathaway in an elaborate looking, but musty smelling defunct Chinese restaurant near Universal CityWalk, which serves as the location for much of the Sushi Girl action. The film was co-written and produced by longtime friend of SG Destin Pfaff, which is why this special all-access set visit is on the menu. Despite its shoestring budget, the project has an incredibly high caliber of cast, which includes Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Tony Todd (Candyman), James Duval (Donnie Darko), and martial arts legend Sonny Chiba (Street Fighter). It also features smokin’ hot newcomer Cortney Palm in the title role.

Having already chatted with Pfaff, Chiba and Palm, I sit down for my final interview of the day with Hathaway as he’s munching on a craft service chicken dinner between scenes. Our conversation quickly takes us to places one might not expect to go with the wide-eyed kid from Neverending Story. We chat about his own street fighting skills, his love of chopper bikes, his apprenticeship in the art of tattooing, and his passion for women with ink.

Nicole Powers: I understand you’ve been working as a tattoo artist in Amsterdam.

Noah Hathaway: When I moved to Amsterdam I decided…I’d been getting tattooed for so many years and I was like, I love art, I love tattooing, I’m going to learn how to tattoo. So my wife apprenticed me. She’s been a tattoo artist for 7 years. She apprenticed under a guy named Zulu. I got my first tattoo when I was 15, I’m almost 40 now, so in all these years I just kept collecting work. I was like, “God, I want to tattoo.” I was feeling left out. So that’s what I’ve been doing the last year, just tattooing. And then I got this phone call…

NP: Destin tells me it was quite serendipitous how that happened, that you got a Facebook message from him the day that you decided to head back to LA.

NH: It was crazy. I got a Facebook message at about…I normally get up 10:30, I’m not an early riser. I got up early that morning and checked my email. It was like 8 o’clock. I got a Facebook [message] from the producer saying, “Would you be interested in doing this movie with Sonny Chiba.” All he had to say for me is Sonny Chiba. I’m like, “Cool.” I hadn’t even read the script. I auditioned that night over Skype and I was on a plane four hours later…So that’s kind of how this all happened, and I’m here. This is my first picture in many years. I worked from the age of four to my early ‘20s without really stopping, so I got burned. I had been screwed over, business was suing people to get paid for the movies that you were in. It just started to wear on me. So I just disappeared for a bunch of years, and so now this is my comeback movie.

NP: What made you want to come back?

NH: I love tattooing, but when you know what you’re supposed to be doing and you’re not doing it, there’s always a little something that you feel is missing or not right. I acknowledged that. I thought, “This is what I’m supposed to be doing, what you’re good at, and what you love, so go do it.” …At the same time, I had been talking to my wife about going back to LA for pilot season this year, and the movie came up. So it’s something that I had been discussing with her, and it just all happened really quick.

NP: I guess, now you have more of a life balance with the tattooing and the acting.

NH: Well yeah. It also keeps me busy between projects, I’m not sitting around getting in trouble. I can go and work and do something else that I really enjoy doing. I’d like to open a shop in LA also, maybe a little later. We’re just finishing getting our shop up in Amsterdam. It’s not completely finished.

NP: Do you now plan to split your time between LA and Amsterdam?

NH: I’m going to try to. I’m not crazy about the cold. I spent two winters in Amsterdam and I’m not feeling it. I’m born and raised here, so I think I might go back for the summers and that’s about it.

NP: That sounds like a sensible plan. So did you grow up watching Sonny’s Street Fighter movies?

NH: Absolutely. We had a little theater a couple of blocks from my house and on Sundays all the neighborhood kids would go watch kung fu theater and cartoon Sundays for 50 cents. That’s where I saw all the Shaw Brothers and Sonny Chiba movies. I think I was 6 or 7-years old. Then I got started in marital arts. Saw Bruce Lee movies there.

NP: So getting your ass kicked by Sonny is a dream come true?

NH: Oh, absolutely, an honor. I mean, for anything to be better you’d have to bring Bruce Lee back from the dead.

NP: What marital arts disciplines have you trained in?

NH: I have a black belt in Tang soo do. I’ve taken Judo, Jujutsu and Muay Thai. I had a bad back accident, I had a horse fall on me, and so I don’t do a lot of kicking in martial arts anymore, but I box a lot. I’ve been boxing with Freddie Roach on and off for the last 15 years who trains [Manny] Pacquiao, Michael Moorer, James Toney and a litany of world champions. That’s more where I’m at now. I really like Jujitsu. I don’t do a lot of it. It’s hard on the body. I kind of drill, I don’t go full speed. I take it easy. But, yeah, I like the fast hands and the maneuvering of boxing. It’s a great sport.

NP: Do you get to do any ass kicking in this movie?

NH: No! Eighty percent of the movie is me getting beaten to death. They beat me with hammers, a sock full of broken glass, they pull my teeth out…

NP: Ouch! What have you done to deserve that?

NH: Well, they want their loot from a heist and I don’t know where it is. I don’t have it, but they think I do.

NP: Hence the ass kicking.

NH: Right. It’s going to be fun. It will be a lot of fun.

NP: Have you rehearsed these scenes?

NH: Not yet.

NP: So this is improvised ass kicking?

NH: Some of it is. They’re going to have to choreograph some of the stuff, but when you have Tony Todd, who’s the Candyman, beating you up – that’s scary in itself. I mean, if you just see us next to each other, I think I come up to his waist. He’s huge. There’s a couple of very intimidating men on this movie.

NP: Is eating a chicken dinner actually the best thing to do before getting the crap beaten out of you? Won’t it get squeezed out of you in five minutes time?

NH: Probably. Probably…That’s a pretty thought, thank you.

NP: You’re welcome. So, you said earlier that you like SuicideGirls.

NH: Of course. I’ve liked tattooed women since I was a little kid. I remember dating a girl when I was 18 or 20 who had a full back tattoo, and [purrs] it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve dated a lot of girls who are tattooed. My wife is sleeved and you know…

NP: What was the first tattoo that you got?

NH: I got my zodiac sign on my left shoulder. I’m a Scorpio. So, I got the little M with the tail.

NP: Are you still a Scorpio since they messed with the dates?

NH: Yeah, still a Scorpio…

NP: That’d be really unfortunate wouldn’t it?

NH: And you’d be shocked how when I was 15 – I mean, this was in the early ‘90s – how people freaked out. It was maybe an inch big, but I might as well have put a big tattoo across my forehead at the time.

NP: How did it go down with your parents?

NH: It didn’t. They hate them. They’ve never liked tattoos. But I think if you live for other people you don’t really enjoy your life to the fullest. I’ve been my own boss since I was like 15 or 16 anyway. I was emancipated and did my own thing at 14 or 15, so they didn’t have much say.

NP: So you had a very traditional Hollywood childhood then?

NH: It hasn’t been as crazy as a lot of the other Hollywood kids. I had a pretty good head on my shoulders. Stayed pretty grounded. I went to school with a lot of the kids that are dead and fucked up now…People crack up when I tell them who was at the school. We had Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, Christina Applegate, Scott Grimes, like a litany of ‘80s and ‘90s child stars and so it was just very surreal. Some of them are dead and some of them have been in jail. Not that I’m a saint, just being like that never interested me. I think I always had a little too much self worth to let that happen to myself. I always had too many things going on. Good things. I think you have to care enough about yourself first.

NP: And have other interests so that your world doesn’t just revolve around acting.

NH: Absolutely. Because if that’s your everything and it gets taken away, what do you have? Nothing. You’re screwed. I was a dancer and a martial artist and I always had other activities and things that I did on top and in addition to being an actor…And it wasn’t like I couldn’t get work anymore, I just didn’t want to work anymore. I wasn’t one of those kids that was struggling to stay working and miserable. I was like, I’m done. I kind of walked away from the table instead of 10 years of struggling…I was like, I’m done, finito.

NP: Have you any specific ambitions of people you still want to work with?

NH: I’d love to work with Tarentino. Robert Rodriguez, I love. My favorite genre of movies are from the late ‘60s, ‘70s. That Grindhouse experiment. They were trying to get away from the ‘50s swimming and dancing movies, so they went way the opposite and it got really gritty and raw. I really love that look.

NP: I was looking at the Street Fighter trailer just before I came here and it has such a different, un-slick look.

NH: And that’s what I love about Sonny too. For me, I think I like him better than a Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee was so pretty and perfect and polished. Sonny was just so raw. It was raw nerve, and brutal and grimy almost. That’s more of my alley.

NP: You get to the point now with movies like Crouching Tiger where you’ve almost taken the violence out of martial arts – it’s more akin to ballet.

NH: Well, Crouching Tiger was a beautiful movie. I think that’s my favorite of all the high flying wire movies. That’s beautiful. But I’ve got a lot of problems with the wire work. Never really got into it. I like it when it’s super cheesy. Like the old Shaw Brothers stuff and The 36 Chambers. I like that old, old stuff. But when they try to do the new movies and they’re using all the wire work, I’d rather see somebody really do some cool hand to hand combat in real time, you know?

NP: Right. When Bruce Lee or Sonny were doing their stuff, it wasn’t trickery, they were really doing it.

NH: Yeah, I’m not into the trickery. I want to see somebody really kick some ass, and know that they can do that. You know what I mean? There’s a big difference, especially when you know a little bit.

NP: I guess it’s not so fun when you’re on the receiving end and you’re really getting your ass kicked though.

NH: Right. I will be getting a lot of that.

NP: You really signed up for some punishment with this movie, like on every other page…

NH: Every other page…Acupuncture torture with chop sticks, I know, they really put me through the grinder in this one.

NP: What scene are you least looking forward to filming?

NH: I’m looking forward to filming everything. Really. I know I’m going to be exhausted and tired at the end of the day. It’s very emotional to act like you’re being tortured to death. It takes a lot of out you, I’m sure. Not that I really know. I’m looking forward to all of it. I’m just really glad to be working, and the people that I’m working with are awesome.

NP: That’s what Sonny was saying. I asked him why he was doing this, and he’s like, “If my friends are making films, I have to be in them.”

NH: I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been on a lot of productions, and as far as people and no egos, it’s the best production I’ve ever been on for working. Everybody knows their shit and everybody is cool. The feeling is that everybody’s family and they just want to do a great job. You know, if you’re on big productions, there’s so many bad experiences. You have people with huge egos, and fighting, and there’s no place for it. So this has been awesome.

NP: I can tell that, just from the vibe on this set. There’s no bad energy, no ones stressing out. It’s just really mellow.

NH: Yeah, it’s awesome. I couldn’t wish for a better project to come back on. And it’s something I love. I love this style of Grindhouse movie. That’s my little niche. I would be watching it, that’s the type of stuff I have in my DVD player.

NP: I can’t wait to see it.

NH: The character Mark [Hamill] has brought is just brilliant. Nobody’s ever seen him like this before.

NP: What's his character like?

NH: It’s really hard to put a finger on, but what it reminds me of is old Klaus Kinski, with that grown out bob that he used to have. He has a blond streaked, grown out bob, he has little glasses, and he’s really creepy. Like he’d have a doctor bag with tools for torture, he’s really got a great character. Nobody’s ever seen Mark Hamil like this.

NP: So it’s the complete antithesis of Luke Skywalker.

NH: Oh my god, if you saw him, you would just freak. It’s awesome.

NP: So there’s Street Fighter and Star Wars in this movie!

NH: Absolutely. You’ve got some of my favorite movies, Star Wars, Candyman, Street Fighter – it’s really a trip.

NP: Which was your favorite Star Wars?

NH: I think Empire was my favorite. I think that was the best out of the first three, you know, Star Wars, Empire and Jedi. I like the last one, because you got to see Darth come to life.

NP: As a fighter are you more Jedi or a Street Fighter?

NH: Wow, that’s a good question. I think I’d be more of a Street Fighter than a Jedi.

NP: So you’re not feelin’ the force, you’re just kicking some ass.

NH: Yeah, to me it’s about getting it done. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to be in there too long. I don’t want to think about it. I want to be as mean and as brutal and do the job quick and then be done with it and go home and have dinner. I don’t want to flip around and look pretty. I don’t care about that. I just want to get in and get out.

I mean, I’ve studied close quartered combat, like knife disarming and gun disarming. One of my martial arts instructors was working with a lot of the flight attendants after 9/11 and I was helping them with that. We were teaching the flight attendants how to disarm people with all kinds of things, trays and seat belts from planes.

I like dangerous stuff. I’ve always gone shooting and learned close quartered gun techniques and stuff, and some knife fighting. I’ve always been a little bit of a nut case. Not like I’m waiting for the apocalypse or anything, but I think it’s better to know it and not have to use it, than to have to use it and not know it – then you’re screwed.

NP: Do you have a zombie escape plan?

NH: No. I should.

NP: Yeah.

NH: Exit stage left. [laughs]

NP: I’m did an interview with the head of the Zombie Research Society.

NH: I love zombies.

NP: You do? Which is your favorite zombie movie.

NH: Dawn of the Dead. The original Dawn of the Dead. I love the first three, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. Those are, I think, by far the best.

NP: My favorite all time movie line is from Return of the Living Dead – “If you love me, you’ll let me eat your brains.”

NH: I like the comedy ones too like that. Those are a lot of fun.

NP: We need a martial arts zombie movie.

NH: That’s so funny that you said that; I started writing a script about samurais in Japan coming out of the ground and it was a zombie martial arts movie.

NP: Well, if you happen to be in Japan at a martial arts school and the apocalypse happens, you’d be surrounded by mutant ninja zombies wouldn’t you?

NH: [laughs] Right. That’s awesome. I agree. I think it would be great…I’d watch it. I love that stuff.

NP: You need to be in it. Never mind watching it.

NH: I would be.

NP: That’s your next assignment. You’ve gotta write it.

NH: I’ll get on it. It’s funny, all the producers and the director and we all have the same sensibility and quirks. We all like macabre stuff and Grindhouse, so we have things that we want to write together. I had mentioned that and they were like, “Oh, that’s really cool.” I also would like to do a ‘70s biker movie, like a Hells Angel type thing. One hasn’t been done in 25 to 30 years. You know, do a real grimy, Grindhouse-y biker movie.

NP: Have you got a bike?

NH: I’ve had one. I need to build one when I move back. I’ll have another one built.

NP: What kind?

NH: Just a custom chopper. Not too crazy…Like a panhead, a nice shovelhead, I love that ‘60s and ‘70s chopper feel.

NP: Where’s your favorite run?

NH: I like to go out to Malibu. When I used ride I’d go everywhere. I’d ride up to San Francisco and I’d ride out to Arizona. I just like to go riding. I don’t take a race bike anymore on the street, but I used to ride out. I’d go out to Willow Springs and race on the track. It’s so dangerous in Los Angeles to be on a sport bike, so I’ll put some leathers on and go take it out to the track if I want to go do that. [Otherwise] I just kind of cruise, cruise LA or wherever. Angeles Crest is nice. Just going up the PCH as far as you can go is an incredible ride. Go down to San Diego or Mexico. I’ve done all of those. I wanted to build a bike in Europe and go through the Alps during the summer. That would be absolutely incredible.

NP: Did you get into watching Top Gear at all?

NH: I love Top Gear. That’s a great show.

NP: They’ve done shows featuring some of the amazing roads in Europe, including the one in the Alps.

NH: That’s where I saw them. And what Ewan McGregor did with Long Way Round blew me away. He’s a stud. That’s amazing. I couldn’t do it. That’s really cool. I watched that one show and I was floored. That’s a trip. What was it, 20,000 miles, something like that.

[At this point Destin Pfaff walks in the room]

NP: [Talking to Destin] We’ve come up with another movie.

DP: Besides Lesbian Astronauts?

[a running joke from our previous interview]

NP: Yes, besides Lesbian Astronauts. Mutant Ninja Zombies.

DP: Done.

NH: I already started the script too.

DP: The Samurai Zombie thing? I’m into it.

NH: I am too. It’d be awesome. We can get Sonny for it.

[At this point Sonny Chiba walks in the room]

SC: I’m in.

DP: Done. We got him.


Sushi Girl premieres at Mann’s Chinese Theater on Tuesday, November 27th, and is available on VOD. For more info visit: sushigirlmovie.com.. Watch this space for news of Lesbian Astronauts and/or Mutant Ninja Zombies.

by Nicole Powers These days, it’s kinda like your computer illiterate granddad is laying down the law on the internet. Only worse. Cause your computer illiterate granddad doesn’t have the power to send your ass to jail for longer than most rapists for the crime of clicking on the wrong http link. more

by Nicole Powers

These days, it’s kinda like your computer illiterate granddad is laying down the law on the internet. Only worse. Cause your computer illiterate granddad doesn’t have the power to send your ass to jail for longer than most rapists for the crime of clicking on the wrong http link. Which is something the US government is trying to do. Fo’ realz. Yep. That.

Case in point. Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer, a.k.a. @rabite, a.k.a. Weev. He’s just been found guilty on one count of not actually hacking anything and one count of having a list of email addresses, even though no one bothered to prove he ever actually had 'em, tho everyone agrees his mate did. Confusing right? You can totally imagine Gramps throwing his hands in the air at this point and saying to hell with this good-for-nothing with two too many silly-ass names – which is pretty much what the US government is doing.

Part of the problem is that the laws Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer, fuck it, let’s just call him Weev, has been found guilty of violating – which came into being under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) – predate Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the first documented version of which, V0.9, was codified in 1991. In light of the fact that we’ve yet to come up with a fully functioning flux capacitor, as you can imagine, the application of the CFAA on today’s internet works about as well as Doc Brown’s DeLorean time machine.

***

“Couldn’t it be argued that Weev actually did something good and beneficial for society?”

Wait? Wut? If that’s the case, remind me why Grampa Government is trying to throw his ass in jail?

I’m chatting with Jay Leiderman, a chap who knows a thing or three about the law and the internet. He’s an elite California State Bar Certified Criminal Law Specialist-grade lawyer who’s defended several high profile hacktivist types, including Raynaldo Rivera of LulzSec and Commander X of the Peoples Liberation Front. He also happens to be a Twitter ninja, which is how I got to know him. A quick perusal of his @LeidermanDevine twitter feed will tell you Jay’s a rare legit legal animal who clearly gets today’s wobbly whirly web, which is why I called him up to discuss Weev’s wobbly whirly situation, which is as follows...

On November 20, 2012, in a Newark, NJ court, Weev was convicted of USC 1028, “identity theft” (as in “stealing” a list of email addresses) and USC 1030 “conspiracy to access a computer device without authorization” –– which, according to Jay, is something we technically all do multiple times every day. Given that Weev was singled out of the entirety of America’s online population for prosecution, in real terms, it’s safe to say what he’s actually more guilty of is embarrassing the fuck out of a Fortune 500 company…and the government no likey that.

Let me explain: Back in 2010 when the iPad first came out, Weev’s mate figured out that AT&T was doing a sloppy ass job with autofill on an app, and in the course of achieving this great technological feat had publicly published the e-mail addresses and ICC-IDs (the identifiers that match a person to their SIM card in a mobile device) of its entire iPad customer base on the web – with no password, no firewall, no fuck off or die warning, no nothing to protect them. Yep. Really. They were that dumb.

“There’s an AT&T web app that had a URL on it with a number at the end, and if you added one to the number you would see the next email address,” explains Weev by phone after I tracked his ass down via teh twitters. Obviously there’s quicker ways to get kicks online than adding a digit to a URL and hitting return (have you tried Googling Goatse?), so Weeve’s ever resourceful mate, Daniel Spitler, created an app called the "iPad 3G Account Slurper" which sucked up well over 100,000 addresses. “My friend just wrote a script to irate though and add one to the number again and again and again,” Weeve tells me. “It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s basic arithmetic. It could have been done manually on any iPad.”

So that explains how they “stole” the list of publicly published email addresses, but why might be a better question to ask. “Comment and criticism against large companies which go unchecked in our country,” replies Weev, when I ask him. “And making a public spectacle and ridiculing them, which I think frankly makes me the best fucking American in the room. We used to be a country that valued criticism of the powerful, and we haven’t really been in the past three decades.”

To add context, at the time, Weev and his mate (who copped a plea bargain) were working under the banner of Goatse Security, and as such, their mission in life was to explore gaping holes (I told you to Google Goatse!). AT&T’s might not have been the sexiest of holes, but it was gaping and it could be argued that it was in the public interest that Goatse Security rummage around in it.

Among the private email addresses that AT&T were publicly publishing were ones belonging to politicians (New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel), members of the military and multiple government agencies (DARPA, DHS, NSA, FAA and FCC), and high profile media types (Diane Sawyer and New York Times CEO Janet Robinson). Goatse Security could have had much lulz with the list and/or sold it for mucho dinero, an option which the duo allegedly discussed in IRC chats but put aside. Instead, they decided to go to the press to speak truth to power, which was really when the trouble began.

Weev served as Goatse’s spokesperson and spin master. It was his job to liaise with the media and present stories in a way that might titillate us lazy-ass scribes. “Hey, look, I just found a list of email addresses on a bunch publicly accessible web pages” might have been accurate, but it wasn’t the kind of story that would make copy even on the slowest of news days, so Weev sexed it up a bit. In a press release sent to several news outlets he wrote, “I stole your email,” and, like a magician offering to explain a trick, followed it up with, “Let me explain the method of theft.”

Because of this hyperbole, Weev essentially convicted himself on the first count of “identity theft.” The prosecution spent much of their time with Weeve on the stand discussing his use of the words “stole” and “theft” during cross-examination. I mean, I know it’s said that sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, but I didn’t know it was illegal! And speaking of the law’s humor bind spot, the prosecution also referred to Weev’s Encyclopedia Dramatica entry and used that against him, which, given the spoof nature of the site, is tantamount to using a Saturday Night Live skit as legitimate and damning character evidence. I. Kid. You. Not.

At no time did Goatse ever make the list publicly available – AT&T were the only ones doing that. The prosecution never really attempted to prove that Weev possessed the full list of email addresses. What neither side disputes is that Weev tapped the list for a handful of press email contacts (something he would have likely got by calling the media outlets direct anyways), then merely passed on a link to it to a journalist for verification. The journalist in question was Ryan Tate of Gawker. His story ran on June 9th, 2010, and it was because of this that the shit hit the proverbial fan.

“This access would have gone unnoticed if I hadn’t gone to the press. If I hadn’t informed AT&T’s customers,” says Weev. “They’re not really pissed about the access, they’re pissed about the speech attached to the access. God forbid corporations be subject to fair comment and criticism.”

Talking of access, the second count Weev was convicted of – “conspiracy to access a computer device without authorization” – is something that should be cause for concern for anyone that has ever clicked on anything on the web. The way this law – which predates all of One Direction and the hyperlinked internet as we know it – is interpreted means that accessing a “protected computer” could get your ass slung in jail. But what is a “protected computer” and how the fuck are you supposed to know when you're accessing one? This is where the law gets interesting. And by interesting, I mean really fucking stupid.

“The definition of protected computer comes from comes from the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, and in 1986 http hadn’t been invented yet,” says Weev. “This was a long time ago when servers were things that were only accessible by dial-up that every single one universally had a password for. There wasn’t the concept of a public network. At the time, if you were accessing a remote server, and you didn’t have permission to be there it’s clear that it wasn’t public data. But now it’s the age of the internet. We click links every day. You’ve never gotten Google’s permission to go to Google, you’ve never gotten any website’s permission that you’ve visited. It’s the universally understood aspect of the web that you can visit a public http server without pre-written authorization. It’s a ridiculous notion that you need it. And the prosecutor is using an ancient antiquated definition of a protected system, which is any system that engages in interstate commerce. So essentially, every cell phone, every computer, every public web server is a protected system, and the minute you do something that a website operator doesn’t like – if they’re rich enough of course, if they’re a Fortune 500 company – then they can have you.”

That might sound rather dramatic, but Jay, my favorite SG-lovin’ lawyer agrees. “Based upon this case, the government’s new position is that you are required to be clairvoyant in terms of determining what a protected computer is and what a non protected one is,” he tells me. “From now on you have to be a psychic…because if it isn’t password protected but it’s a ‘protected computer’ you’re potentially going to be found guilty like Weev was.”

Thank god there’s free tittysprinkles on the internet, because otherwise the risks of clicking on something you shouldn’t wouldn’t be worth price. As Weev puts it, “The law says every time that you click a link, if the person at the other end has enough money and connections, and they just don’t like you, they can have you arbitrarily thrown in jail by declaring your access – after the fact – unauthorized.”

But how did we get from “something good and beneficial for society” to “free tittysprinkles”? Well, some might see a very obvious linear connection, but those that don’t should consider this; There’s a cat and mouse game that goes on between big business and the internet security community, but it’s a symbiotic relationship nevertheless. And as consumers who are clueless when it comes to code, we should be grateful to those that are scanning for flaws, and pressuring big corporations to sort their shit out on our behalf.

“Perhaps the greatest lesson of Weev’s case is that not only is there no reward for helping these companies patch their holes and fix themselves, indeed now you’re going to be facing ten or fifteen years of prison if you do,” says Jay. “What’s the incentive to make these companies more secure? I mean, you’re better off just hacking them now. You’re better off just hacking these companies and not telling them. If you get caught essentially you’re facing about the same punishment anyway so what’s the difference?”

***

Weev is currently in the process of appealing his conviction. You can donate to help with his legal costs here.

And tell Grampa Government to get off our lawn and out of our emails.

Isn’t it time we upgraded our legal operating system?

by SG's Team Agony feat. Salome Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls. (image) [Dexter in Pop Art Clash] Q:I have been married for almost three years, and I do love my wife very much. I have multiple fantasies where I'm having... more

by SG's Team Agony feat. Salome

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


[Dexter in Pop Art Clash]

Q:I have been married for almost three years, and I do love my wife very much. I have multiple fantasies where I'm having threesomes or four-ways with groups of men and women or both. I have tried numerous times to explain this to my wife but she wants NO part of it. 
I want more not only for myself sexually but more for our relationship. 
How can I get my point across to her? Should I leave her and explore my options on my own? Or should I just forget about these fantasies?
Sexually Confused in the South


A:Dear Sexually Confused in the South,

You say you love your wife very much and want more for your relationship, but I am skeptical. You are asking for advice on how to press your wife into something that, right now, she has made it clear she does not want to do.

I hear a lot about you and what you want in your question, but nothing about what your wife wants. If you are approaching this as "Honey, this is what I want, give me permission and let me drag you along," then of course she's going to be resistant. Sex is something you share with your partner and anything new you try should be something you explore together as equals.

Try initiating a conversation with her about what SHE wants. Don't use it as a jumping off point to try talking her into your desires again; just ask questions and then listen to the answers. Ask her what she likes in your sex life now, and what she'd like more of, or less of. Ask her if there's anything she'd ever wanted to try or wondered about doing, but hasn't brought up to you. If you do this respectfully and honestly, she may surprise you. You may get some of the variety you need in your sex life, she gets to explore her own fantasies, and hopefully you will make her feel safe and secure in the idea of exploring new sexual territory with you.

However, this doesn't mean you should jump right to "we did what you wanted, now I get an orgy." Introducing additional partners into a relationship can be an incredible experience, but it can be extremely complicated to pull off. The relationship dynamics have to be right, there has to be total trust, honest and constant communication, pre-established ground rules, and a way for either partner to end the encounter or situation quickly and without fear of judgment or bad feelings. Group sex, swinging, polyamory, open relationships, or any other shade of non-monogamy are not for everyone. It would be unfair of you to demand this of your wife if it is truly not for her, or if she might be up for it but you are unwilling to put the effort into building a strong, loving and trusting relationship that will not be damaged by opening it up.

Before you can think about taking a step as huge as having sex with other people, you need to make sure your relationship is as strong as you can make it - and even then non-monogamy may not be the right choice for the two of you. Only at that point is your choice actually between subsuming your fantasies out of love for your wife or pursuing your fantasies in a life without her.


Salome

***

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

by Alexander Hinkley for Examiner (image) [Bixton in Cross My Heart] Bixton is this week's SuicideGirl gamer of the week. She is a former GameStop employee that likes a wide variety of video games and even has some gaming tattoos! I talked to her about her personal taste in video games and whether... more

by Alexander Hinkley for Examiner


[Bixton in Cross My Heart]

Bixton is this week's SuicideGirl gamer of the week. She is a former GameStop employee that likes a wide variety of video games and even has some gaming tattoos! I talked to her about her personal taste in video games and whether or not she thinks GameStop rips people off with their used game prices.

So what are some of your favorite video games?

My choice in video games is often considered casual as I lean towards a stress less atmosphere. I enjoy RPG's, turn-based games, tower defense, side-scrollers, and the occasional button masher or adrenaline pumping zombie hunt. I guess all the obvious ones like The Legend of Zelda series, all of the Super Mario and friends series, Super Smash Bros., Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, and Ninja Town. Haha, I'm a Nintendo fan that's for sure. I don't much care for first person shooters unless it's in an arcade (like House of the Dead and Time Crisis), so my Xbox 360 gets used in other ways. Ninja Gaiden and Resident Evil are two other series's I like. And I love Limbo and Castle Crashers. Dang I think I'm going to stop now. You get the picture.

Ah a tower defense fan! What are some of your favorite TD games?

Haha to be honest I have been hooked on South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! on the 360, especially with my brother and his girlfriend. It's a riot and even better with a little help from some friends, definitely worth trying out. Ninja Town, Desktop TD, Plants Vs. Zombies, and PixelJunk Monsters. And there's an even longer list for ones I NEED to try still.

Desktop Tower Defense has to be one of my favorites.

The funny thing about the Desktop TD is it was recently suggested to me, but oh man is it addicting. The audio effects are quite distracting, I'm usually giggling to myself as I try keep up. It's intense.

What are you currently playing?

I am actually playing Blue Dragon these days since I no longer have access to a Wii to finish Skyward Sword. I used to work at GameStop and purchase games I read great reviews on. Now that I still have a sibling in the haven for me, I can just borrow his and return them when I'm done. Of course I have to wait until they're no longer needed so often times a few days or weeks after new releases I'm forced to share.

Are people ever skeptical that you are a "real" gamer just because you're a girl?
What do you say to them?

Of course, I don't know who wouldn't be. I am skeptical of even guys when they say they like video games or claim gamer status. I go through dry spells sometimes where I lack energy to do anything but sleep, and to be honest, I usually don't get into intense conversations about my gamer qualifications. Instead they're coy quips or novelty knick knacks that give it away to detail orientated folk. Thus ending their feelings of disbelief towards me.

What was it like working at GameStop? Is that a job you'd recommend for others?

It was cool for awhile, and I would recommend it to folks, but with a warning. It can be a very demanding job, and like myself, when I walk into a specialty store, I expect you to know your stuff. They were becoming strict about dress code around the time I transferred states, I got a new boss who wasn't too keen on body art and basically made work a drag with the badgering. I hear as a company as a whole, they're lenient, even encouraging body art now. But I loved it, and enjoyed the knowledge I gained the two years while I was there and of course the few friends I made working there and still talk to.

Speaking of body art, do you have any nerdy tattoos?

I have five Invincibility Stars on my right wrist, a Zombie Ninja, and a Triforce scarification.

As someone who has worked at GameStop what is your opinion of used games? Are they are rip-off?

It's a bummer that you don't get your full rupees worth when you trade in a game, but it works that way in video game life too. You build something up or purchase an item, it costs you X amount of rupees, you destroy it or sell it back and you get X/3 (a third of it back, maybe 1/2). We were just talking about tower defense games so you know what I'm talking about. The best thing about the used game aspect at GameStop is the fact that if you purchase it and within the week if you so choose you don't like it, or it's not working properly you can return/exchange it. Also they have bonuses on certain days for trade ins if you have an Edge Card with them, you get more trade-in credit and more of a discount on used items. It's the way they keep the cycle going.

Do you think anybody will ever be able to compete with GameStop in terms of the used game market?

I know other businesses will get close, only time will tell with any company. Hell I know a few people who don't even bother doing trade-ins any more because they feel they are a ripoff or are in too much control, blah blah blah. However, they somewhat pioneered it, when they were EBgames and so forth. Funny thing is they won't/don't have many rarer titles and copies of games that are worth a heck of a lot more than some newer titles. Plus they stopped carrying obsolete platforms. I still own my GameCube and once upon a time a Sega Genesis and Dreamcast (pretty sure most don't carry cartridges for the older hand held systems either). Where the heck am I supposed to go for my used games? There sure aren't any new ones out. Instead we're forced to look online and in swap-meets or Ma' N' Pa stores.

Tell me about your split tongue...

My tongue is one of my favorite mods for sure. The most physically demanding, too. It was just exhausting during healing, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I had to retrain my tongue to do everything all over again. Mastication was gosh darn difficult for a few weeks, maybe months. I can do a few tricks, of course. They were a pain to learn. Spent lots of time starring at it in the mirror, haha.

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In his 30 year career of writing, directing and producing movies, John Carpenter has made more people mess their pants than Billy Madison. He is best known for directing the original Halloween, The Thing and more recently he was unofficially “inducted” into the Masters of Horror by directing two episodes... more

In his 30 year career of writing, directing and producing movies, John Carpenter has made more people mess their pants than Billy Madison. He is best known for directing the original Halloween, The Thing and more recently he was unofficially “inducted” into the Masters of Horror by directing two episodes in the first two seasons. For his latest episode Pro-Life, recently released on DVD, Carpenter again teamed with the writing duo that penned his first episode, Cigarette Burns. Pro-Life tackles the sensitive issue of abortion and whether there is a right situation for having one but puts it into a horror movie context with terrifying and gross results.

Buy the DVD of Pro-Life

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?

John Carpenter: I’m waiting for basketball to start. I’m a big basketball fan.

DRE: I’ve heard.

John: I’m going to play a couple of videogames. I’m finishing up one so I can make room for God of War 2.

DRE: It’s funny, I told a friend of mine that I was going to be talking to you and he said, “Ask him about basketball and videogames.”

John: Well, it’s March Madness so that’s always fun. I watch that out of the corner of my eye. But I’m a real big NBA fan. Right now, the Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks are just great. They had a great game the other night.

DRE: What’s your favorite team?

John: You got to love your home team. You got to be true to your home team but the Los Angeles Lakers suck. We’re just in awful shape right now. But I like the Phoenix Suns. I like the Dallas Mavericks.

DRE: Have you always been into videogames?

John: No, my son and his friends actually got me hooked on them. I guess it was in the 90’s. As my son grew up and became interested in videogames, I played along with him. I really loved it so I had my second childhood through him.

DRE: What systems do you have?

John: I have PlayStation 3, I have Xbox 360, I have PlayStation 2 but I don’t use it much anymore. I’ve got GameCube that I just don’t use. I’ve got basically everything.

DRE: I don’t know if you’ve seen 300 yet…

John: Not yet. I’m anxious to see it.

DRE: Often when film critics don’t like the story in a movie they will say it is comic-like but since 300 is already based on a comic book they started comparing 300 to a videogame. But they seem to forget that videogames, like comics, have some pretty complex stories. Would you say that videogames are starting to get close to being as complex as films?

John: With some videogames, because you’re involved in the action yourself, are truly exciting. You get lost in it. Whereas a movie is really a passive experience. You’re sitting, eating popcorn. If you’re at home, you’re drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, whatever you’re doing. That’s a different experience. That’s what I grew up with, movies as passive entertainment. When critics compare 300 to a videogame, I’m not quite sure what they’re talking about. I think they’re talking about computer generated graphics. I think that’s a way in to attack a movie on the grounds that it’s more of a videogame or a comic book or something.

DRE: They can’t insult it by calling it a comic book-like movie. They just come up with something else they don’t really understand to compare it too.

John: Well, it’s all an insult, like this is not important enough. That’s the way it always happens.

DRE: I read about some videogame you were involved with a couple of years ago, Psychopath.

John: Yeah, that’s still percolating away. I’ll be involved with anything if it pays me money.

DRE: [laughs] With Pro-Life, was it just a coincidence that you decided to film another script by Drew [McWeeny] and Scott [Swan] or did you help them with it?

John: The first project that we did on Masters of Horror was a Drew and Scott original that I read [Cigarette Burns] and I thought, “This is great. Let me do this. I want to do this.” Then the second season came up and they pitched me, “We have this idea about a monster movie in an abortion clinic.” I said, “That’s great!” I love working with those boys. They’re just really talented. As writers, they’re very open and we worked it up a little bit. They just do a great job for me.

DRE: Since Cigarette Burns is all about film buffs did you connect on that level?

John: Yeah, we connected in the sense of loving horror, loving science fiction, that kind of a thing. Drew and Scott are very talented writers. They’re very knowledgeable about the genre. That always helps you when you’re doing something like an hour cable show. I suppose we’re all geeks in our own way. My brand of geekdom goes all the way back to the 50’s and 60’s. I’m the older geek.

DRE: You’ve got a couple of years on them.

John: Yeah I do, quite a few actually.

DRE: I thought that Cigarette Burns had an interesting look to it, cinematography-wise and production design-wise while Pro-Life was a bit more straightforward.

John: It was the same crew but it’s a different story. So your look and the way it feels is always going to be dependent on the story. The story and the look of Pro-Life is very different. It is set in a clinic so you can’t really apply the same techniques.

DRE: Had you known Ron Perlman before casting him in Pro-Life?

John: I met Ron for the first time at the very end of Cigarette Burns. There’s a famous hotel in Vancouver, where everybody who’s shooting there stays, called the Sutton Place. I met him in the bar one night and I said, “I really like your work and The Name of The Rose is one of my favorites.” We started talking and then he accepted the role in Pro-Life. It was very cool.

DRE: I read that you’re not a big fan of method actors. Is that true?

John: It doesn’t matter. It depends on how much work I have to do. Some actors come prepared and ready to go. I can give you a list of those, Kurt Russell, Sam Neill, Jeff Bridges. We work ahead of time on the rehearsals and we come ready to go on the set. Some actors need emotional stimulation and support and sometimes intellectual stimulation and support right on the set as we’re doing the work. That’s a little hard. So it’s all about my comfort.

DRE: I read that Ron was a bit of a method actor, but I’m sure you guys got along.

John: I didn’t see method in him at all. We talked real briefly about how to play the character in the beginning. I just said, “Play him as a hero. Play him as a good guy. He’s a strong man. Don’t have one moment of doubt about what you’re doing except for at the end.” That was it. We just did the work. It was fun.

DRE: I shouldn’t have, but I got stoned before I watched Pro-Life.

John: I got stoned while making it.

DRE: [laughs] I really almost got sick when it Ron was aborting the male doctor’s insides.

John: Actually that was a more elaborate scene originally in the script. The boys wrote something I’ve never seen. I said, “You can’t do this, okay? We have to tone this down a little bit.”

DRE: That was toned down?

John: That was really toned down. Oh man, it went on and on. Page after page of it and it was rough.

DRE: I don’t know how much of this new trend in horror, the torture porn, you’ve seen, but it seemed like that sequence was making a comment on that just because it was so outrageous.

John: It is but you don’t see anything. It’s all implied, which is just the reverse. Torture porn is what you see, the close-up. You get to see all the grotesque stuff. Listen I’m a big fan of the Saw movies. I love that shit. I don’t know if I’d want to do it but it’s great fun to watch. It is like the zombie movies in the 60’s and 70’s, with biting chunks out of people and all that stuff. It’s all great.

DRE: I got a chance to interview Drew [McWeeny] last year. He said that you’d never be able to guess his politics from watching Pro-Life. Was it important to keep the points of view a bit murky and not make something more pointed like what Joe Dante did with his Masters of Horror episodes?

John: That’s just not me as a director. Joe did a great job with his show. He did it out of passion. That’s not the way I approach things. I didn’t want to make a political statement though I have before. In the movie called They Live, I made a pretty strong political statement. In this one I can unfortunately see both sides of it so I can understand it. If you want to know my politics, I’m a pro-choice guy because it’s none of my business as a male. That’s a decision a woman has to make. But I understand how pro-life folks feel. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. I think Ron did a good job being that guy.

DRE: He was terrifying and almost sympathetic until he sucked out the guy’s guts.

John: That’s where he goes over the top. He’s motivated and getting revenge.

DRE: I know you’ve done plenty of television in the past, including your own show. Have you ever had as much freedom script-wise and content-wise as you did with these Masters of Horrors?

John: Yeah, I’ve pretty much always had freedom. I’ve never really experienced too much censorship or lack of freedom in that area. I’ve been lucky. Actually that’s my whole career. Staggered into it. Staggered through it. Staggered to the chair. It’s always been great.

DRE: These Masters of Horror episodes just seem so personal. Is that the result of the scripts or was it the lower budget that makes things seem a bit more intimate?

John: Every director makes a movie in a different way. Takes his ten days of shooting, which is what we had, and takes it to where he wants it to go. Some people write their own scripts. Some folks have scripts written for them. Everybody’s different. But it’s fun to see everybody work.

DRE: Don Coscarelli told me he didn’t want to do an episode for the second season because he says with all the time and energy he put into making it, he feels like he could have made a feature film. Do you have the same attitude?

John: Hell, it’s fine. Look, it’s great to be able to go and prep for a few days and shoot for ten days and go home. You don’t have the physical and emotional pain of a feature. So it’s a vacation time. I still hate to get up in the morning. God, getting up is really rough. But other than that, it’s pretty much fun.

DRE: With Pro-Life, you could have taken the choice to not show the monster, what made you decide to do that?

John: Well, it would be pretty hard not to see him. He’s a pretty good monster. He’s reminiscent of an old movie that I saw when I was a kid called Curse of the Demon [directed by Jacques Tourneur]. That’s what he’s based on, sort of. Drew and Scott had a hand in fashioning him and I said, “I want him to look like your dreams too.” But we kept him in the dark. I think he’s got a big mouth. He roars a lot. Monsters are fun so why keep him in the dark? I remember once this actress and I were having lunch and she was lecturing me like, “You never show the devil. That’s just not done in movies.” I said, “Well, why not? If you could really have a great devil, show him. Where does that rule come down?” So sometimes it’s good not to see, but hell, we love watching monsters. Show me my monster.

DRE: Obviously you’re a big music fan and you do a lot of the music for your projects. How was it working with your son Cody on the music?

John: He was at the right age and he had the right talent. It worked out. It was fabulous. I’m really proud of him.

DRE: I interviewed your ex-wife [Adrienne Barbeau] last year and she said Cody’s band is wonderful.

John: He’s involved in music. He’s also in Japan right now finishing up his degree in Asian studies. He’s a Japanophile.

DRE: Did he capture the John Carpenter music flair that you wanted or did the two of you work on it together?

John: The themes are his. They’re very different than mine. They have their own unique feel to it. I’m just so delighted. It’s also really fun to see him get paid and I don’t have to worry about it.

DRE: I talked to Norman Reedus and I asked why his character in Cigarette Burns didn’t really have any reaction when he saw the angel. Norman said, “Well, what do you do when you see an angel? No one knows.” Was that what your thinking was?

John: If I walked in and saw an angel there and I had somebody like Udo Kier talking to me out of my side, I would think, “This whole thing is ridiculous. This is a fake.” I don’t know what I would think. Norman played it perfectly. I would go with what he said. No one knows.

DRE: I spoke with Will O'Neil who wrote one of those Snake Plissken comic books a few years ago. He had said that you, Kurt [Russell] and [producer] Debra Hill owned the character of Snake. Is that true?

John: Yes, but we share it with Canal Plus. It’s a long story, but the movie was originally made for a company called Avco Embassy. Avco Embassy was sold to Dino De Laurentiis. Dino De Laurentiis sold his share to Canal Plus.

DRE: So in this remake they’re talking about...

John: I don’t know that it’s a remake. I think it’s a lot about Snake before he gets to New York.

DRE: But it just made me think that maybe the remake rights might be different than the rights to the character Snake Plissken because none of the articles mentioned you guys being involved with the project. Are you guys going to be credited producers?

John: Executive producer.

DRE: Do you have any desire to be more involved?

John: My main involvement is I read the scripts and make sure the character is the same character that we wrote originally. I think that would be cool. My other main involvement in this project is to extend my hand and have a check placed in it.

DRE: It’s always nice when you don’t have to do anything, right?

John: You’re right. After 30 odd years of being in the fucking business, it’s nice to not have to do anything and get paid. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all my life.

DRE: Then the past few years must have been pretty good for you.

John: Not bad. Not bad.

DRE: Obviously Snake was a character that was perfect for the time he was in, so do you think Snake will lose the faux mullet?

John: I don’t know what to do about that. That’s not my decision. Snake is a character who was born out of the 1970’s when New York was having real problems. He came out of a post-Vietnam era and he was an anti-authoritarian. He was a really unique type of character back then. He’ll probably be reinvented for his time. But we’ll see. I don’t know if he will be mullet-less or with the mullet.

DRE: Have you ever seen any of Gerard Butler’s previous movies?

John: Yes, I like his work.

DRE: I think you’ll be very impressed after you see 300.

John: I can’t wait to see 300. It sounds really exciting. It looks great.

DRE: You don’t seem to mind these remakes, is that a result of you directing remakes yourself?

John: Well, if I’m not directing a movie, it’s not really mine. I’m flattered when somebody wants to take an old film of mine or a story of mine and rework it. I think that’s nice. I’m not trying to protect golden calf or something. It just isn’t that way. It’s just a damn movie, man.

DRE: On the other side, I don’t think you’re involved with the Halloween remake.

John: No, I bailed out of that after a while. But Rob [Zombie] has been a friend of mine for years. He did a song for me way back when [for Escape from LA]. He’s a real nice guy. He called me up when they were going to make it and I said, “Just make it your own. Hell. That’s the most important thing. Make it yours.”

DRE: If they re-use a piece of your music, will you get a check then?

John: Oh yeah. Big time. There was an agreement made, I can’t remember when it was finalized, but every time a sequel is made there are certain payments. I encourage more and more sequels.

DRE: I heard about this his project that you might be doing next, L.A. Gothic.

John: Well, I’m involved in a couple of things right now. I just don’t know. The script for L.A. Gothic is very good. I’d like to tweak it a little bit, but we’ll see. When it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, there’s always basketball.

DRE: From what I’ve heard, you might not have been too happy with your last feature film [Ghosts of Mars].

John: The experience was pretty grim for a number of different reasons. But I have to take responsibility for it. It’s probably my fault. Look, when one gets burned out on the business, it really can be destructive to you, emotionally, physically, in all sorts of ways. It’s easier when you’re young, but as you get older, it’s more and more difficult. So I decided, “You know what? Fuck this. I’m going to take some time off.” Now it’s been the best time in my life.

DRE: Does doing the Masters of Horror episodes make you think, “Maybe I could spend two years on a feature again.”?

John: Oh sure. I love making movies. I love directing. It’s always been the love of my life. But I do have other issues. Myself. My own happiness. My parents. My mom died a couple of years ago. I went through that.

DRE: It’s interesting that both of your parents were still around with you for so long because you think that a guy who made the films that you made that maybe...

John: I didn’t have parents, right?

DRE: [laughs] Oh, I really screwed this one up.

John: Yeah, I really didn’t have any parents. I was left on a doorstep.

DRE: [laughs] Do you see doing something as personal as dealing with your mother’s death in a film?

John: In this business, I’ve learned to never say never. I’m attracted to stories. If I create the story or if someone else does and it is good, I’d be interested in it. But movies are really about fake life, not real life. Fake life is more fun. Drama, comedy, horror and all those things are fun to do. That’s what I’ve been involved with, in my career so I’ll probably keep doing it.

DRE: I was actually on the set of the prequel to the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. When we were interviewing the producers, I asked them why didn’t they ask Tobe Hooper to direct and they said, “Tobe Hooper doesn't have anything to learn from me. He's done it all a million times.” To me that was just insane.

John: But there’s a grain of truth in what he said. They’re not going to be able to control Tobe like they can some young guy. They can control you better when you’re green and starting out.

DRE: So that’s what it comes down to?

John: Partially it does. If you have a commercial background or a music video background or some tricky background, you bring your panache to the project. So you run around and get a bunch of trick shots and you’re not demanding final cut, so in the end it brings a breath of fresh air to the project. Tobe’s already done his movie. He doesn’t want to do it again.

DRE: What would happen if someone wanted you to remake one of your films?

John: That’s happened. I don’t want to do that. I’ve done it. You’d be treading the same ground. Especially with the Halloweens. That’s where it came up. We finished the story off. But that’s my personal opinion.

DRE: How soon do you think you want to get a project up and running again?

John: I don’t know. Whenever it happens. If I get a project going, that’s fine. If I don’t, that’s fine. It’s not life and death.

DRE: Have you heard of SuicideGirls before?

John: I know all about you. I know everything.

DRE: It’s got tattooed, naked girls who like your films.

John: That’s my idea of heaven. Tattooed naked girls who enjoy horror movies. There’s nothing better than that.

DRE: Have you ever seen a John Carpenter related tattoo on someone?

John: I haven’t.

DRE: I’ll have to email you one.

John: Would you? I think I need to see that.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck