David Cross is so deadpan, you might not even be able to tell he’s joking. Certainly when you type his text out and read it, it feels totally straight. That’s why it’s funny. He says things that are inappropriate or ridiculous in casual conversation, then moves on. It’s not that he’s “on”... more

David Cross is so deadpan, you might not even be able to tell he’s joking. Certainly when you type his text out and read it, it feels totally straight. That’s why it’s funny. He says things that are inappropriate or ridiculous in casual conversation, then moves on. It’s not that he’s “on” like a lot of comedians who aren’t comfortable unless someone’s laughing. Cross might prefer if you didn’t get it and reported a sarcastic remark as fact. Not so fast, David Cross - we’re onto you.

His new show, The Incredibly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, gives Cross another vehicle for that type of humor. The IFC series stars Cross in the title character. He created and wrote the show about an energy drink salesman sent to England to head up the company’s U.K. sales force. Todd keeps lying about his accomplishments, his abilities and even his home address. It makes his bad decisions worse when he tries to cover for his fibs.

Fans might not recognize Cross with normal skin tones. His most famous role could be Tobias on Arrested Development, where he painted himself blue as an aspiring Blue Man Group performer. He also created Mr. Show with Bob Odenkirk and popped up on The Colbert Report as liberal radio personality Russ Lieber. He’ll also be seen shortly on Arrested creator Mitch Hurwitz’ new show Running Wilde with Will Arnett, who also costars in Todd Margaret.

Consequently there's double the reason to talk to Cross right now. As Fox revealed their plans for adding Cross to the cast of Running Wilde, the man himself is gearing up to launch Todd Margaret. Relaxing in a hotel room at The Beverly Hilton, Cross kept most of his attention on Todd Margaret. The beard he sports on Running Wilde was the only reference to his Fox show.

FT: Did you try out other female names for the last name?

DC: No, that just popped into my head and I was like, “Let’s go with it.” It just fits I think.

FT: Is it ever addressed in the series?

DC: You know what? It was in the script but in editing, we took them all out. I think one stays because we couldn’t cut around it but we did have in every script somebody going, “Margaret? That’s a girl’s name.” Every episode had that but we took it out in editing.

FT: Why’s that?

DC: It was a different joke for the show. It felt a little wacky and as we were editing it we were taking some of the overt wackiness of it out.

FT: Did you want to go blue and let Will Arnett drop F bombs?

DC: Yeah. Will’s character is probably the most fun to write for because he says the most vile, awful, heinous, sexist inappropriate shit. Those were really fun things to write for and IFC’s been great at saying, “We’re not going to bleep it. Write what you want.” There are a couple of words we can’t use that have different weight in the states than they do in the U.K. Specifically “cunt” which in the U.K. is like saying, “Oh, you jerk.” Here, I don't know, women have a problem with it. I don't know what it is. So we were encouraging ourselves to push the envelope on awful stuff that Will says.

FT: Is there a different version for the U.K.?

DC: Outside of maybe two or three things that I fought for and then IFC just said, “No, we like it better this way,” there are maybe two or three things but it’s pretty much the same thing. Although Channel 4 and all the stations in the U.K., you get to show more of the show because they’re not dependent on ad revenue. So there are some differences but that’s just in the stuff we get to show, the time. It’s not content differences.

FT: When Todd chugs energy drinks and starts ranting, did you just improvise or did you write that whole thing out?

DC: Well, we kind of had the advantage of taking the stuff I riffed in the pilot, because we reshot that, and then taking the best bits out and then making that the script for the pilot reshoot. So the only thing that was improvised was the Barack Obama thing I think. Over and over again, all day, I loved it. I love the energy drink, the cheap shit energy drink that we actually got that we put the labels on. I love that it was about 97 degrees Celsius in the café when we were shooting and just getting to do it over and over again all day was just a treat.

FT: What did it actually taste like?

DC: Whatever the cheapest they can get by the gross. I don’t even know what the real energy drink was.

FT: Did you have a spit bucket?

DC: No, because we were able to cheat a lot of it but I had to down a couple of them and you see it. I definitely let a bunch spill. Meisner, heavy Meisner.

FT: Is lying always funny?

DC: Unless you’re in politics. I mean, it’s funny when you work for the treasury or the banking industry. They love it. They love lying. Or in the pharmaceutical industry. Then it’s a rip snorter.

FT: On TV, is it funny?

DC: Oh, then no. No. Absolutely not.

FT: Why does Todd keep trying to cover up?

DC: He’s just one of those guys that that is in part why it’s so frustrating. You watch him, because any of us would at some point when they’re confronted with this would just go, “Okay, yes, all right, look, I’m sorry. I lied about this thing. You’re right, I screwed up but come on, let’s start over again.” He just never takes the golden opportunity that’s handed to him, especially from Dave’s character who clearly doesn’t believe anything he’s saying. He gives him a couple of outs constantly. In episode one I go, “I live at 21 and 50 Church Avenue.” Then I come to the office, he’s like, “Hey, I went on Google Earth, 21 and 50 Church Avenue.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah, when were you going to tell me? How long were you going to keep that a secret from me?” “What?” “You lived in a hospital?” Because one of them’s a hospital and instead of going, “All right, I made that up,” I just go, “Oh, yeah, my dad was bipolar so whatever.”

FT: Isn’t it harder to keep coming up with those explanations than to just admit it?

DC: In real life, of course but you have to have a very bright, sophisticated genius writer to do that and we were lucky enough to get me.

FT: How do you describe your comedy? Is it even possible to articulate it?

DC: Well, you’re absolutely right so I just don’t describe my comedy. I let others if they choose to do it but I don’t. I agree with you, it is a hard thing to quantify. Also, when people write about the science of comedy, it’s just boring and detrimental almost.

FT: If I used words like extreme or surreal would I be on the right track?

DC: No. I don't think so. That’s up to you. It’s also subjective and I’m inside of it. I don’t see it as surreal. I can point to a Magritte painting and I can look at certain films and say, “Oh, that’s surreal” but comedy is not really. I don't think it’s really surreal.

FT: Has this become a double PR tour for you, with Running Wilde?

DC: Not really. People have asked questions which I think are understandable and inevitable but the focus is on Todd Margaret and the Running Wilde guys were here a couple days ago. My connection with that show is much different. This one I created, I wrote and I star in. That one I’m guest acting on here and there. Absolutely ecstatic that I get to be part of the show but that’s just acting.

FT: If that took off, would it make Todd Margaret a limited series?

DC: No, Todd Margaret is my absolute most important thing to me right now creatively. I mean, I have my butterfly collection but no, Todd Margaret is first and foremost. I have a story to tell. I want to tell it. I know where it goes. I had a blast writing it and shooting it. Literally, this is trite as hell, but the best cast and crew you could ever hope for. I think IFC is going to, I imagine, continue to support it and be excited about it. This is what I want to do. Eventually I’ll have to do something so I earn some money. I can’t go for years without making any money but I would do this until the story was satisfied. It’s so gratifying. I’m very proud of it.

FT: Being a solo project, is it more in your voice than other things you’ve done?

DC: No. I mean, the idea, the initial idea came from me but outside of that, I cowrote it with Shaun Pye. Outside of basically the pilot, it’s very collaborative. Between IFC, RDF and Channel 4, they’re all very encouraging and pretty much like, “Yeah, do what you want. We trust you.” Also there’s nothing autobiographical about it at all. It’s just this funny cool story. Maybe if I didn’t do standup it would feel more solo but it’s not.

FT: Is the Russ Lieber thing over?

DC: Oh God, yeah. I haven’t done that in years and years. That sort of had an unofficial ending I guess.

FT: They must have realized they didn’t need to fake a rival for him because he’d get real ones in politics.

DC: Right, right, as the show kind of found itself.

FT: Have you ever seen Tobias costumes for Halloween?

DC: Oh God yeah, I see pictures all the time. I’ve seen that a lot. This one guy got Tobias tattooed on his calf. That’s very odd.

The Incredibly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret premieres October 1 on IFC.

William Gibson will always be the cyberpunk prophet, the man whose Hugo-winning 1984 debut novel Neuromancer, about a future underworld dystopia where radically advanced computing possibilities exist in tandem with sex, drugs and political skullduggery, introduced the notion of “cyberspace” to the... more

William Gibson will always be the cyberpunk prophet, the man whose Hugo-winning 1984 debut novel Neuromancer, about a future underworld dystopia where radically advanced computing possibilities exist in tandem with sex, drugs and political skullduggery, introduced the notion of “cyberspace” to the public and predicted the emergence of a world wide web, along with computers of ever-increasing intelligence and dubious motive. In the post-September 11th world, however, his attention has increasingly focused not on a new imagined future (the branch of Matrix-style cyber fiction his work spawned chugs along regardless) but on the complexities of the present. In a recent NYT op-ed about Google’s tightening grip on our lives, Gibson conceded that “science fiction never imagined Google” and characterized the search engine as a “coral reef of human minds” with an impact so potentially transformative that it should cause us to consider new ideas like “training wheel” identities for today’s minors, whose every stupid, impolitic thought is being cached to their potential future detriment.

Gibson’s recent fiction has echoed his contemporary concerns. His aughts-focused Bigend Trilogy (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and the newly-released Zero History) follows the atypical adventures of a handful of iPhone-obsessed, cosmopolitan scrappers such as ex-rock star/freelance journalist Hollis Henry, myopic drug addict and talented translator Milgrim, and the titular Hubertus Bigend, an amoral advertising entrepreneur and “cool hunter” whose appearance has been described by Gibson as “Tom Cruise on a diet of virgin blood and truffled chocolates,” and whose latest ephemeral fixation in Zero History is a high-end toy called a Festo Penguin, which is a remote-controlled airship shaped like a flying bird. The rootless nature of these characters, the flexibility of their identities, the volume of cultural data they must process moment to moment: it’s all indicative of a decade of whiplash change, and one in which the future points in infinite directions, depending on your vantage point. SuicideGirls recently called up William Gibson in a Seattle hotel to discuss his current state of mind.



Ryan Stewart: How’s the room service there?

William Gibson: Well, I haven’t had a chance to get into it yet, but I think it’s going to be okay!

RS: I was surprised to learn just now, from Google, that those Festo Air Penguins you write about are real. What is it about them that fascinates you?

WG: Well, I was initially attracted by their extraordinary beauty and elegance. And I assumed that, as with everything I’ve published since Pattern Recognition, that someone somewhere will Google every term and gizmo mentioned in the book just to figure out which ones are made up and which ones are real. [laughs] If you check out any of the Festo balloon remotes, they’re just hypnotic, I think. They’re hypnotically beautiful. The company has this really interesting design philosophy, in that they base everything on biologics. They actually move because they’re like animals, not because they’re built to move like animals. They work because they’re shaped like Manta rays and penguins, and I find that to be an inherently, extremely interesting way to design. So, they’re there in the book as these gorgeous things that a very wealthy man can buy to play with, but which have been turned to comically sinister usage.

RS: Speaking of sinister, you open the book by giving the lay of the land in Myrtle Beach, where the main character is traveling, and he casually notes Confederate flags among many other details that fill that environment. I’m sure that wasn’t meant to go unnoticed, though. Was that a comment on the inescapability of geography?

WG: Not exactly, but I wouldn’t be unhappy for someone to assume that. In retrospect I think it was an instinctive move to indicate that geopolitics – even local geopolitics – survive in what we increasingly take for granted as a post-geographical world. And Milgrim is really good at noticing details, but he’s also good at not telling you what he thinks about them. [laughs] He just sort of slides it by, like ‘And there’s a Confederate flag…’ What’s more telling about that chapter for me would be the traditional concrete lawn jockey boy who’s been painted green like a Martian in order to be more politically correct. And that’s something that I’ve actually seen. That’s an option in concrete lawn jockey boys, and I assume it’s done for that reason.

RS: The recent Wikileaks scandal was also a good reminder of the continued battle for preeminence between geography and cyberspace, I think. The long arm of the law couldn’t reach him.

WG: Well, yeah, and that’s something that’s been around as a concept since the early days of the Internet, but I think it’s the biggest and bluntest example. It’s the biggest one-shot example that we’ve seen. Organized Internet piracy of copyrighted material is some ways similar, in that it can become business as usual and we can become used to it. The Wikileaks case is sort of like all of those Bruce Sterling rants about the post-national digital world. There it is – it just happened!

RS: The federal agent character in the book, Winnie, was one I couldn’t help but find irritating because of her phonetic twitter grammar, which is frequently displayed. “Where R U?” and so forth.

WG: I may have been stretching a bit, with that. She was obviously texting, in a sense. I assumed that she wouldn’t have had any presence on twitter other than as a Fed and a mom, so I gave her that texty thing, you know?

RS: Do you tend to notice that, when people you’re communicating with do it?

WG: I’ll tell you where I notice it a lot -- I notice it in Youtube comment threads. But I didn’t think that Winnie would waste the keystrokes on Milgrim until something really started happening. Actually, something I was working on last night required me to look at all the tweets that appear in the book, and her tweets do become terser, but more grammatically correct. Once she’s got something to work with, she’s sending like one-word tweets, but they aren’t really abbreviated.

RS: She’s able to get her point across.

WG: Yeah.

RS: When a pop star like, say, Britney Spears puts out an album and the song titles have those deliberate misspellings, what message do you think is being communicated?

WG: I don’t think of it as a message, necessarily, although I haven’t actually thought of what Britney or her songwriters might see as a motive in doing that. I suspect that they would be shooting for identification. They want the reader to recognize them as just another person. I think they want to be relatable.

RS: The English major in me bristles at it, I guess.

WG: I was an English major too, but I married a socio-linguist, and that sort of cured me. [laughs] It really cured me of looking down on people who don’t use proper English. Languages don’t stabilize until they’re dead. That’s rule number one of socio-linguistics. And societies that have these huge, formal governmental bodies that attempt to keep their language from changing – they have languages that change just as much as anybody else’s. Like France. So, yeah, I think that God help us, Britney Spears is what’s happening to the evolution of our language. It’s an evolution that is, in my view, nothing more than an infinite number of accidents. Some of the things that are going to change the English language are incredibly stupid. But it’ll happen because that kind of evolution works, apparently, the way biological evolution works. If we could access spoken English from fifty years from now, I’m not sure how much of it we’d be able to understand, but I wouldn’t necessarily assume that the people fifty years could be said to be speaking some degraded form of English. I mean, God only knows what the Elizabethans would think of us.

RS: The book’s ostensible subject is marketing, but not really mass marketing; you’re interested in exploring a kind of niche, anti-marketing that attracts by making a product seem scarce.

WG: Well, I’m inclined to think that many of the people I know are functionally immune to a lot of mass marketing, but they’re not immune to other kinds of marketing. And if marketing is what we now do, in our supposedly largely post-industrial society, then marketing will find new ways. People will be coming up with marketing that gets you in the places the old marketing couldn’t.

RS: Marketing that sells us on the exclusivity of a thing is something I would normally associate with the rich, but the book’s vibe seems to be that there are other, positive attributes to it, in that it can attract pro-active types. It’s deep, sociological stuff.

WG: Yeah, interviews after the fact of writing a book are difficult for me, because I don’t want to present myself as someone who knows what he’s talking about. [laughs] If a book is working for me, I sort of help it write itself. I don’t start with a number of ideas that I’ve come to and then attempt to illustrate them with an act of fiction. When I commit an act of fiction I often find within it questions that I’m unable to answer. So, my position after the fact is to gesture, to point at the text and say ‘What do you think it is?’ There’s an assumption that I serve a didactic function, but I actually don’t. My motive is just to try to get people to wonder about the place of marketing in our culture and our society. I’m not going to hand them a token that says ‘Fear marketing, flee now!’ or something like that. If we did that, how would we even make a living? It’s what we do.

RS: It’s interesting how this trilogy of present-day books you’ve now completed falls neatly within a decade that’s still very undefined. Do you imagine that this decade will continue to be thought of as a decade of interruption? The September 11th decade?

WG: I don’t know if I’ll ever live to see this, but I keep waiting for the first person to call it the turn of the century. [laughs] There’s going to come a day when someone says ‘Back at the turn of the century…’ and everybody will instantly nod and go ‘Yeah...’ and ever after we will refer to it as the turn of the century. I think that will be what we call the first ten years of this century by the time we get to the 2020s or the 2030s. As to what it will be characterized by, there’s really no telling. If I were somehow magically offered a body of knowledge from the real future, but only one body of knowledge, what I would want to know is: what do they think of us? I think that would tell me everything I need to know about where they are at, and it would tell me so much more about the world I live in than I could possibly know now, because so many things are going to happen in the meantime. History is a speculative discipline, it’s not the study of a fixed body of information. Our view of the Victorians is nothing like the Victorians’ view of themselves, and I would assume that our view of ourselves is nothing remotely like the future’s view of us. And I’m inclined to think that we know way more about the Victorians than they knew about themselves. So, I don’t see any reason to think that we know more about ourselves than the future will be able to uncover.

RS: Do you feel like you’ve been well-placed to give the aughts some degree of shaping, through your work?

WG: Well, I sort of feel like I came to it with the oven mitts of genre science-fiction, which turned out to be marvelous things with which to heft the crazy, steaming casserole of the first decade of the 21st century, the contents of which we all still find quite baffling. I basically came to the task because I had the toolkit, you know? I had my standard-issue science-fiction writer toolkit that I earned sometime around 1981, and it’s really the only toolkit that I ever learned to work with. Having been an English major, I was taught that the only way to look at the science-fiction of the past, historically, is to look at the past in which it was written, which is invariably what gave it life and meaning for its author. So, when I began to write near-future science-fiction around 1981, I was very self-conscious about that, like ‘I’m writing some 1980s science-fiction here, and one day if anyone cares to look at it they’ll have to make sense of it in terms of what was going on at the moment I wrote it.’ So, I’ve kept that awareness as I’ve kept writing, but as I’ve kept writing the world outside the window was getting weirder and weirder.

RS: Weirder in what sense?

WG : Because of exponential technologically-driven change. I would look at the imaginary future on my computer screen and then look out the window or look at CNN and think that pretty soon we’re going to be past this [piece that I’m writing]. The window or CNN will offer a higher quota of cognitive dissonance than this stuff I’m sitting here imagining, I’d think. And that was really the beginning of the project that led to these three books, although the three previous books were also a kind of conscious segue into the present, but I did it in a way that was much less obvious. Those books were set in what is essentially now, or what has become an alternate past, and the thing that I kept to myself was my assumption that almost all of the characters were characters from the day in which I was writing those books, rather than the result of any attempt of mine to imagine how someone from the near future would perceive things. A character like Rydell, the hapless policeman [in the Bridge trilogy], really feels like a 90s guy. He thinks like a 90s guy and he speaks like a 90s guy and he basically is a 90s guy – there’s a lot of that in those books. And I found that this delighted me to do that, and to my amazement nobody complained. Nobody called me on it and said ‘Why do you have these archaic protagonists running around in this near future that you want us to believe in?’

RS: Your protagonists in Zero History , along with ones in Spook Country and other books, are very cosmopolitan. Their ability to function in a culturally dense cityscape is a key to their success. Do you think cosmopolitanism should be taught? Is it a form of literacy?

WG: I suppose it is a form a literacy. I try not to be too didactic a novelist, because I think that if I was I would be serving a fairly low function as an artist. But none of us are free of our biases, and I would think that it would be quite remarkable for me to write a protagonist who was a sympathetic character to any degree, who was either a racist, a tribalist, a nationalist, or a fundamentalist ideologue. Those are negatives for me, so I guess I would see the sympathetic characters in Spook Country as being defined more by their absence of characteristics like that than by anything in particular that they are into. They all seem to be people who are, to some extent, capable of caring about the people who are immediately around them. They also tend to be what I would see as not overly ambitious, although sometimes they just kind of take off. I sort of wind a character up and then set it down in a book and it goes off and develops its own mean, competitive edge, in which case I just let it do what it’s going to do, and I think that way in the end I’ll have a more naturalistic depiction of how people actually behave.

RS: Another author recently described to me a book he’s writing, which takes place in a future decimated by worst-case scenario global warming, but that’s in the background because the characters are focused on their own lives, finding happiness. That reminded me of your work, which often deals with thriving in whatever reality is given.

WG: Yeah, yeah, and the book you describe sounds like an entirely worthy project, as described. I’ve often thought about the real future, what it might be, since that’s the way science-fiction works in our society, but the kind of book you describe is one that we too seldom see, in which there’s been some extremely big and possibly bad change, and yet if you’re shooting for high naturalism you have to depict the characters going through everything that humans go through as they grow and get old and die. It’s not all about your plot points, you know? But closer to the traditional core of genre science-fiction, it’s all about the plot. The traditional version of that [book] would be that it’s all about the climate change. And it would also be about androgenic climate change, and the characters would get some time machine and go back and kill the guy who was about to invent the internal combustion engine. That’s a deliberately childish example, but that’s closer to what genre science-fiction has done, something broad like that. There are very few books that have attempted that sort of future. It’s probably easier to do something like that with alternative histories. You change one factor and Protestantism never happens and the Catholic church is ruling the world and you come in on characters who are just fully living their lives. So, it’s been done, though we think of works like that as falling outside the genre, but nonetheless they’re obviously science-fiction.

RS: What did you think of Inception?

WG: I loved it! Loved it. And I don’t love movies because of what I imagine the director was trying to do, I just love them when they work so brilliantly. I think the previous twelve months have been a really rich film year for me, because there have been three science-fiction films that I found, for different reasons, to be wonderfully satisfying: one was Moon, one was Splice, and one was Inception . I hadn’t thought about the fact that they all have single noun titles. That’s actually kind of scary. [laughs] Inception was the action film I always wanted to see. There’ve been so many times that I’ll be watching an action film and thinking ‘I could so love this if only it was ten times smarter.’ And Inception felt that way to me.

RS: I liked it too. I thought it was bold of Nolan to sort of radically re-conceive the idea of a dream state as a kind of stable holodeck.

WG: Yeah, after thinking about it and reading some reviews, what the script suggests that they’re doing doesn’t really have much to do with any psychological model of dreaming that I know of. I say this only having seen it once, and having subsequently read quite a few reviews, although I was fortunate to see it with almost no idea of what it was about. Just through sheer luck I got a completely spoiler-free viewing, partly because I went to see it the day it came out, which is something I never do, but a friend dragged me along. What they’re doing has very little to do with any experiential model of dreaming that I’ve had in my own life of dreams. They talk about building dreams. If what the characters are saying is true, in terms of what is going on in the movie, they are making these hard constructs into which they will go and also take the victim and play some psychodrama out. But those hard constructs also aren’t really stable, because they start breaking up with spectacular and surrealistically gorgeous CG effects, for no particular reason. Somehow I don’t think that’s what it’s about. It amazes me that people approach Inception as though it were a piece of hard science-fiction, as opposed to being a Borges story. The modality that it works in is the modality of a Borges story like The Aleph or The Circular Ruins . Those are stories that are closer to myth and fairy tale than they are to hard science-fiction. So, when people attack the premise as though the premise was a failure, I think it’s probably one of those cases of the critics’ expectations being the whole thing. Maybe it didn’t meet their expectations, but that could be because it was actually something else. I loved it, and I felt this extraordinary feeling of gratitude on leaving the theater. I think it was gratitude that it had actually been possible for somebody to spend that much money on a movie that I really loved. It’s been a long time since I had that feeling.




Zero History is available in bookstores everywhere.

"I do try like hell to not be ashamed. But, sometimes I am, I have to admit," says New Jersey-born comedienne, actress and activist, Janeane Garofalo. We've been talking for close to 45 minutes - mostly about TV, politics, the media, and the toxicity of contemporary pop culture. As I switch... more

"I do try like hell to not be ashamed. But, sometimes I am, I have to admit," says New Jersey-born comedienne, actress and activist, Janeane Garofalo. We've been talking for close to 45 minutes - mostly about TV, politics, the media, and the toxicity of contemporary pop culture. As I switch the tape recorder off and the conversation winds down, we briefly discuss what Garofalo herself turns to in order to unwind, which is the source of her current state of angst.

"Sometimes I fall dreadfully short, behavior-wise, activity-wise. Sometimes I'll watch bad television, sometimes I'll read crappy magazines and I'm ashamed, because I've done it," she admits. The New York resident, who recently released a new stand up DVD entitled If You Will, is currently living outside of her comfort zone in a Los Angeles hotel while filming the Criminal Minds spin-off Suspect Behavior (which also stars Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker).

Like crack down a pipe, The Young and the Restless is coming down the cable into her hotel room, and Garofalo is unable to resist her nightly SOAPnet fix. "I discovered it when I started staying here two months ago. And I have been falling asleep to it," she reveals when asked about her "guilty pleasures" (my words not hers).

Though a daytime drama might just be a pleasant - if unsubstantial - distraction for anyone else, for the earnestly politically correct Garofalo it's a matter of personal integrity. "If I'm going to be falling asleep, I should be reading," says the Air America alum, who doesn't want to be guilty of denigrating the work of fellow actors by using my "guilty pleasure" phrase, nor of indulging in the potentially socially toxic material we've previously been discussing.

"I do feel guilt and it is my pleasure," adds Garofalo, who it seems is constantly torn between her desire to fix society and her need to participate in it - flaws and all. Holding herself to impossible standards of moral perfection may be the source of undue anxiety, but Garofalo's awareness of her own - and our culture's - shortcomings brings sharp social commentary to her humor, and makes for an illuminating conversation - which, after a little small talk, soon turns to topics that carry more gravitas than glasses.

Nicole Powers: You rock the nerd glasses like no one else I know. You look so hot in them. But on the DVD you describe yourself as "a bit of a neo-luddite" when it comes to technology. I feel so led astray. On 24, you did all this crazy geek shit and you totally looked like you could actually do it.

Janeane Garofalo: Yeah, but I am not computer savvy. I don't use a computer. But that is not the glasses' fault. They're not nerd glasses anymore, nor have they been for years. These glasses, whether they be cat eye or Clark Kent glasses, are now such a standard of the Lower East Side of New York, that the nerd issue is long gone. So you can't be angry at me.

NP: I'm just jealous. I'm a geek, but I can't work it in glasses like that.

JG: I bet you could...I think most people look better with glasses. Especially if they are in the right frames, it enhances the character of their face. I'm glad I have to wear glasses. Not only because I like them, but, as I get older, so I don't have to worry about people really recognizing all the signs of aging around my eyes. I know I shouldn't care about those things, but I have to be honest, it does bother me to witness the aging process and glasses hide that a little bit...The show that I'm on now, I don't wear glasses I wear contacts. And, it's in HD, which is the scourge of my existence. I wish so much my character could wear glasses, just so I could hide behind them.

NP: This is the new Criminal Intent?

JG: It's Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. But I can understand why you'd be confused because there's 8 million crime procedural shows, all with similar names.

NP: I have every confidence now that there are more crimes solved on TV each week then there are solved in real life by police in America.

JG: That's why we like those shows isn't it? We like to imagine there is a fully functioning and honest judicial system where things are properly adjudicated through the courts and the bad guys always get caught. That's why these shows are popular. Because we want to believe...In the same way, medical dramas are popular - 'cause you want to believe there's all those doctors out there who care, who will go the extra mile for you.

NP: What's going to make your crime procedural stand apart from the others?

JG: That's the problem with TV isn't it? Hopefully just having Forest Whittaker will set it apart in some way. But this is my dilemma with network television. As much as I love working there - because it is wonderful to have a job - ask anybody who's unemployed. I am filled with gratitude for working. What I'm not thrilled about is network television's constraints that they put on the writers...

I wish we had more freedom. But that's the nature of mainstream television. It doesn't really allow you to be too terribly different under the auspices of the crime genre. But Forest, just watching him work, he really is different. It's not like any other detective that I've seen. He just does it differently. He just has his own style. And, hopefully, I will be able to bring something different to it - at least that's my intention.

NP: So are you Forest's sidekick?

JG: I am indeed. It's a wonderful cast. It's Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, Matt Ryan and Richard Schiff from The West Wing. It's nice to work with him again. The cast is fantastic and the crew is great. It's a real joy to work there. But I am not thrilled with all this violence - especially the violence against women. It really pricks at my conscience.

NP: Right. I love Law & Order, but the SVU series...

JG: Yeah, that bothers me.

NP: It makes me feel uncomfortable.

JG: Me too.

NP: Because it does make the crimes salacious and titillating.

JG: Salacious - that's the word I use on a daily basis. On a daily basis. It actually sometimes keeps me up at night, because my conscience is bothering me about it. Believe me, I'm not alone on the show in this feeling. Hopefully we will be able to get past that, because myself and the other cast members, our consciences do feel what you're feeling, and the word salacious is a perfect way to describe it.

NP: There is this weird imbalance, especially on network TV. You can show sex as part of a crime because then it's technically not sexy, but of course we all know that they're making it that way.

JG: It's for titillation purposes.

NP: But you can't show sex in a positive way, in a purely sexual way, because that's sex.

JG: It's totally fucked. And it's not culturally helpful. I don't want to be culturally irresponsible. But luckily, everyone in the cast - Forest especially - we are all hyper aware of that. So, even though they have that stuff, believe me, we are trying to move past that. I'm hoping that we can because we don't need more of it in the culture.

It's no different than British Petroleum pumping shit out into the gulf is it? It's like a pipe pumping out toxic waste, and luckily I'm working with people who are aware that that is not what we want to be doing, and hopefully we won't. But, unfortunately, you know that bullshit phrase that people use: We give the people want they want?

NP: Right, yes.

JG: Like it's the public demanding this kind of tawdry nonsense. I don't like that kind of pass the buck attitude, but a lot of stuff [like] that happens when you take these jobs on television. They sort of say, "Yeah, look, I didn't want to do that either, but the public likes it." I don't buy that. If you give them good stuff, they love it too. I mean, look at Mad Men.

NP: Also look at Oprah. I remember when the afternoon talk show circuit had devolved into this sordid and sensational scene. Then Oprah chose to break out and take the high ground, and look where Oprah is now compared to the other hosts of that era.

JG: Of course. It's a flawed argument. Sure there's some segment of the public that likes to eat shit. Fine. That's not my problem. We don't have to feed them that - right? But if you give the public good things, they do like that too. It's not fair to presume that the whole of the public and the aggregate wants a mediocre product. Also that's a weird point of origin for a show isn't it? Luckily, we have these discussions, like the one you are having now. I don't know if other shows have these discussions - maybe they do.

NP: Is it a fairly collaborative process between you and the writers?

JG: Yes. It is in that we can have these discussions. But sometimes I, and the cast, we don't prevail. We are overridden by the powers that be...So it is collaborative in that they are quite open to us at any time coming in to the offices and saying that. They go, "Eventually, once we're on our feet and the show is airing, we're going to move away from that." Then the cast always says, "But why are we starting there?"

But they feel like to start there is the way to get people, which I disagree with. But they feel like that's how you do it. You give them something they are familiar with and then you can move and get more creative. I hope in a way, in this case, they're right and I'm wrong, because I do want people to watch it. I do want to work there. I do want to keep my job. I do want to do a good show. I don't want to be part of something that I don't think is helpful culturally, and I don't want to do anything that's tawdry, masquerading as a crime series. Does that make sense?

NP: Absolutely. It is just so weird, the relationship that television in particular has with human sexuality. The flip side of that is this whole spate of shows highlighting teen pregnancy. All they've done is open their legs and forgotten to use a condom and we reward these kids with TV shows and magazine covers.

JG: It's no different than toxic waste or mercury in fish. It's low level poisoning...All of this mainstream entertainment, if you will, and mainstream tabloid journalism and mainstream corporate media news, lots of it is no different than mercury poisoning and low-level degradation. Bit by bit, piece by piece. They say you are what you eat, but you are what you read, you are what you see, you are what you process, and you are what you do with it.

NP: Right. Young children learn by repeating what they see.

JG: It's patterning and desensitization. It's a lack of consciousness. The collective unconscious is being degraded. But, you know, this is not new. This has been happening for years.

NP: It's been happening for years, but I guess the one thing that is new with reality TV is the glorification of dysfunction.

JG: You're right. And it's so-called reality TV, because it's not is it? Because what is it? The Hawthorne Effect, meaning that nobody can behave naturally because they're aware of being watched.

NP: The very fact that you're observing changes behavior.

JG: Exactly. And the producers of these shows encourage bad behavior, and then the editors are cast with editing it to the worst way. It is this chain where the shit is rolling down hill, and everybody passes the buck. Everybody says that this is what the public wants. Everybody just wants to keep their jobs. Everybody just wants to get a paycheck because they want to put their kids in a nice school...But, especially if you have kids, you should care more about this shit. You're being emotionally, mentally and intellectually shoved and pushed and prodded until you are just a blunt object, you know, societaly...I'm getting so hepped up here I'm not even articulating myself correctly. Do you know what I mean? So we're all just dense. We just don't care. You lose your empathy for people. You lose your perspective on what is proper behavior. How to appropriately treat one another.

NP: We've become desensitized to bad behavior en masse, as a society.

JG: It's just garbage, garbage, garbage. Tabloid magazines, sub-par news, crappy television programming, these reality shows where people are fighting, and, also, just the language in general. Just the degradation of the English language. The slang and the coarseness. Then add to that the texting and the sexting, and just the snark and the culture of cruelty, all of it - it's just a sea of garbage. Hopefully though, what will happen is there will be a renaissance out of it, of people rejecting this, moving in a different direction, saying, "You know what? I can't take this anymore."

NP: I'd like to think that will be the case, but the direction we're going in, I mean, can you get lower than Jersey Shore?

JG: Well, The Hills is just as shit, isn't it? The only difference is socio-economics.

NP: I guess you're right.

JG: People seem to pick on the Jersey Shore kids because it seems worse. But what is the difference between The Hills, The Kardashians and Jersey Shore? Money.

NP: You're absolutely right.

JG: What's the difference between political crime, corporate crime and the mafia? Better suits. Money. [That's] the difference between the Cosa Nostra, the actual mafia, and say Bush, Cheney, British Petroleum and Karl Rove. What is the difference between organized and political corporate crime? Better suits and they don't use double negatives.

And what's the difference between a gang of street thugs and corporate and political criminals? Money. And how we process it. Somehow Dick Cheney is considered different than any other gang member in East LA, for no reason other than imbued money/power status. And, of course, that guys like Dick Cheney are above the law, and guys in East LA are not.

NP: Right. And guys like Dick Cheney are absolute master manipulators.

JG: Yeah. They are sociopaths. Dick Cheney is a sociopath. He has no empathy. He clearly does not feel remorse, and, he clearly has no problem lying.

NP: I know that you hate the Tea Party movement, but that's a so-called "grassroots" bunch of folks that are virtually all victims of sociopaths. They're victims of manipulators who are cynically and deliberately motivating uneducated people to act against their self-interest.

JG: Exactly. Okay, the Tea Party movement, the Tea Baggers, they are suckers right? But they also are racist. Racist. It's not a populist movement at all. It's a racist movement. The first Tea Party was scheduled for Obama's inauguration day, so clearly they were upset with the job he was doing before he even did it. Never before has anyone asked to see a president's birth certificate. The Tea Party movement is built on one thing - hatred of the color of the man's skin and fear of modern multicultural America. I've never met more apologists for racists in my life then I have from the Tea Party movement.

But yes, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey, all these cynics at the top, all these sociopaths at the top - they suffer from what [psychiatrists now] call Antisocial Personality Disorder - which, in behavioral psychology, is somebody that continuously does things that harm society, feels no remorse, guilt, [they're] not tethered to honesty.

NP: They're smart enough to know that racism is wrong, but they have no qualms about using it as a manipulation tool - to unite through a common hatred.

JG: Unite through hate. That is what the Republican Party stands for. That's what they've been standing for, more or less, since the Civil Rights era. The conservative movement and the Republican party of the last 40 years has been moving steadily to the right, and steadily to being the party of wedge issues. Because contemporary society has outgrown the Republican Party, so they have to do this. They have to keep micromanaging, and keep inspiring hate wherever they can - fear wherever they can - so that they can manipulate people into voting against their better interest. That's just a tale as old as time. What is the difference between that and any gang member, anywhere? It's the same.

NP: I think that gang behavior is more honest.

JG: Yes, it is.

NP: I think your average Tea Partier is a victim of abuse and manipulation.

JG: But they're still racist aren't they?

NP: They're blinded by hatred.

JG: And fear.

NP: But the people who are truly evil are the people that are inciting and manipulating that hatred and fear.

JG: Exactly.

NP: It's just classic mind control, and tactics of distraction. I mean the Tea Baggers aren't even talking about the tax breaks for the rich.

JG: Of course not! It's not about policy. It's about emotion. It's all limbic brain. It has nothing to do with actual policy. You can tell a right-winger - whether it be a Tea Bagger or whatever you want to call them - anything but the truth. They'll believe anything you tell them, but the truth. In fact the truth causes them to become confused and angry. They get quite reactive. They don't like facts. They don't like to think of the big picture. They don't like to be empathetic. They don't like to see things from many perspectives. They don't like nuance. It's all the limbic brain. It's neuroscience. It's emotional.

NP: The other thing that they use to manipulate is religion. It's just another manipulation tool in American politics.

JG: In all politics...It has been utilized and used as a weapon, as a divider, in every culture in every era. It's not new. One would hope we would've outgrown it by now. There's nothing inherently wrong with religion in and of itself. I don't care, especially if you're a guy like Martin Luther King. More power to you if you're going to use religion as a tool to better yourself and society. Wonderful. But that's not how most leaders use it. I also happen to like science. I'm interested in it. It answers the big questions and it comforts me. I don't know why more people who are religious don't feel comforted by scientific answers because they're fine with every other area of technology.

NP: People that reject science and believe humans walked around with dinosaurs, still watch TV and use cell phones.

JG: Exactly. They also will avail themselves of medical technology. Say they have a premature baby, they will use every area of medical technology to save their baby but they will still vote against stem cell research.

I'm getting all hepped up lady. This is crazy. I have to go soon. I have to go to work. But we have gotten into many interesting areas. I hope you don't feel that I'm being too strident with you.

NP: Not at all. SuicideGirls is all about being strident. I think there's a need to be more so. I believe that one of the greatest ills in this country is apathy. When you allow apathy to rule, that's when the people that aren't apathetic, like the Tea Baggers that are fueled with hate, can bring their minority agenda to the fore.

JG: Exactly. There's a famous phrase: Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people. I think Margaret Mead said it. She meant it in a positive way, but it also can be used the other way. Never underestimate the power of guys like Karl Rove, and how much damage they can do.

These right-wingers never ultimately win, because time marches on and it marches past them. If conservatives always won, we'd still own slaves and women would never vote. They never ultimately win - right? But they do a hell of a lot of damage in the meantime kicking and screaming towards a more evolved society.

...Don't lose faith, or heart. The news and everything focuses undo attention on these people. The majority of the country is not backward like this. It's a good titillating news story, to focus on these people as if they are legitimate. They aren't. They imbue them with legitimacy, just like they imbued in the Civil Rights era legitimacy on the people that were beating up Civil Rights marchers. But they're not legitimate.

NP: That's why I'm really enjoying the stand Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are taking at the moment, organizing their own opposing rallies.

JG: Of course, and you know, we can all do it...Every single one of us can take a stand personally. We can all do it. And, it does make a difference. The biggest thing, and you're quite right, apathy. That's the worst place you can be in, because then life just happens to you. All this stuff just happens to you, and you're just witnessing the back slide of culture, and you're not doing anything about it.

NP: Right. We're all complaining about Jersey Shore while watching it.

JG: Right. And also, who gives a shit ultimately? Why are we complaining about Jersey Shore? The editors and the producers of the show have made them look horrible. Just like in The Hills or The Kardashians - wherever these crap-tastic shows are. These people are edited to look at their worst, but you know, there's no reason to be watching it. It's like eating junk food. Just don't do it. Just put it down. Nobody is compelling you to watch it?

...Sometimes I'll do a radio interview and they try and discuss Jersey Shore, and I'll say, "I don't know. I haven't seen that, but do you want to talk about the Tea Party? There's other ways we can go with this conversation." And most people treat you like you're an asshole.

NP: No, I'm glad that you're fighting the fight. I very much hope with your TV show that you can push back, and you and Forest and the writers can get it to a place where you're comfortable and proud, and it moves the genre in a healthier direction.

JG: Yeah, I hope so too. Like I said, the network, they've been very good about listening, talking about this, which I think is unusual...Maybe they weren't thinking about it before - 'cause they were just making a product. Hopefully the cast is making them think about it. Or, I may get fired. That's always a possibility. I may get fired. I have to accept that. If you're going to discuss these types of things, and if its possible that somebody finds it irritating, you always have to be ready - or I do - I just have to be ready for somebody to say, "Well, maybe you shouldn't be here." Even though I want to have a job, like anyone, I have to accept they might say, "Look, this is the show we're doing, make a decision." I just have to always know that that may happen. I hope it doesn't, but I'm ready for it if it does.

NP: Well, I'm hoping for the more positive of those two outcomes.

JG: I hope so too, but you know, we'll see. I guess we'll see.


Janeane Garofalo: If You Will - Live in Seattle is available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior will debut on CBS in 2011.

The Exorcist is considered the scariest movie of all time. Generations cowered before VHS copies, and new audiences got to see an updated version which retained the infamous upside down spider-walk in 2000. Now on Blu Ray, both versions of the film are re-mastered in high definition, and are packaged... more

The Exorcist is considered the scariest movie of all time. Generations cowered before VHS copies, and new audiences got to see an updated version which retained the infamous upside down spider-walk in 2000. Now on Blu Ray, both versions of the film are re-mastered in high definition, and are packaged with a bonus behind the scenes documentary about the making of the film.

Linda Blair played Regan MacNeil, the teenaged girl possessed by a demon. She famously floated over the bed and her head spun 360 degrees with the help of old school special effects that still look better than any CGI creation. She then returned to the franchise for the critically panned Exorcist II: The Heretic and, in 1990, a spoof of The Exorcist called Repossessed (Leslie "Naked Gun" Nielsen was the comedy priest.)

None of Blair’s subsequent roles ever matched the acclaim or success of The Exorcist however. By her ‘20s, a series of women’s prison movies and B horror films defined her professionally, and drug problems eclipsed her career for a time. The Exorcist keeps coming back to haunt her though, and Blair has participated in several re-release events with a smile.

Now Blair’s focus is on distinctly positive spiritual endeavors - she's penned a pro-vegan book, and works to promote the wellbeing of animals. She still acts, and, as the latest release shows, The Exorcist still calls. At 51, her lean figure and healthy complexion are a clear endorsement of her lifestyle. A veteran of the press circuit, Blair enthusiastically greets reporters with a plan to promote the good stuff while speaking frankly about the bad.

SG: Are you proof that clean living works?

LB: My entire life, my mother was very much into supplements and eating healthy and she read a lot of magazines no matter what her interest was. My brother was hockey, I was of course a variety of things from the horses and the articles on that and whether you are a runner or whether you sail or whether you play piano. Whatever it is, there are so many great articles and things. So she would read and she would outline things with supplements. I hated food when I was young, so in order to get me to eat she knew that I had to have certain things. Then as I got older, everybody accused me of being pudgy for so long so I found my balance. That’s how I became a vegetarian and then a vegan. It has to do with the environment and how we treat the planet. So yes, I think if I can be a testament to changing people’s eating habits then that’s a good thing.
SG: Is it easier now that it’s more popular and people accommodate it?
LB: Sure, I mean, I didn’t know what it was years ago either. Vegetarian, vegan, what? Huh? And way back when, if you were a vegetarian, you were a freak, right? You were like a hippy. You were like, “You’re crazy.” Now of course it’s hip to be vegan and vegetarian. I don’t care how we get there. I just want to make it a better place. Of course it’s all how we farm animals and the foods we eat. It makes a difference. Heart disease, diabetes, all these things are so tied into it. They can find much of this information. We’re working on getting the new website, getting the information in there. It’s still a work in progress but LindaBlairworldheart.org and Healthworld. It used to be quite prominent, my old website about six years ago but ever since I moved up on the property with the dogs and creating that part, we had a couple of hiccups. So we’re just putting Healthworld and everything back together.
SG: Is it fun that every time The Exorcist comes around again you get to revisit it?
LB: I’ll tell you what I’m so excited about. Everybody is like, “You’re really excited about this.” I am because 37 years later, whoever talks and honors something? Usually it’s like oh yeah, we remember that film. At the Academy Awards, oh, great performance, great performance 37 years ago. Wasn’t she fabulous? When in fact with this, finally all the questions I still get asked… I do a lot of appearances and I do it for two reasons. A, because of my charity that I want to educate people and how we can make the world, planet and our country a better place. Also because it’s a nonprofit and also because it keeps me out there in the public light to understand really the heartbeat of America at least. For me they will always ask the same questions. How do you spin your head around or this or that? If they come back several times to see me, they’ll have a different question. “I asked you this last time but I want to ask this this time.” So I know all the questions they’ve asked are about to be answered. People’s wildest dreams are about to be answered. How did we spin the head around? How did the bed shake? How did the room move? How did, why did? As far as the theological side of it, that’s why it’s withstood time, because it’s a theological thriller. It’s not a monster movie. It never was. [Author] Bill Blatty had to clear that up for me, so I think people are so hung up that it’s a horror film, but it’s not. The horror is in the reality of how scary religion can be and God and the devil and the questions.
SG: Did you have a potty mouth after filming The Exorcist?
LB: Not after, no, no, no. I developed a potty mouth probably in my 20s and 30s and I’ve tried to, I think as all adults do, you need to restrain it. It’s really not very attractive. We all slip once in a while but no, I didn’t.
SG: So the dialogue of possessed little Regan didn’t affect you?
LB: No, that was all not in the original screenplay at all. [Director] Billy Friedkin wrote a lot of those fabulous lines before we would shoot. He’d give them to me the night before and say, “This is tomorrow’s dialogue.” I’m like, “Nah, I can’t say that.” He talks about this in the documentary, how much he had to make me do things because I didn’t want to. I’ve told people this for years. Everything I’ve said to people no one wanted to believe it to be the truth. Finally the guys are finally telling the truth and letting me go. I think that this version is going to change people forever and honestly they’re going to have a different respect for it. I really do. I think it’s very empowering.
SG: Blu Ray is a fantastic way to see it.
LB: No, but it’s the documentary. Then the Blu Ray.
SG: Why do you think Exorcist II gets such a bad rap. It’s obviously not the original but it’s not that bad.
LB: Well, I think that if we had done the film that we all signed and agreed to do, it was good. I’ll tell you what happened. They rewrote it five times. It wasn’t the story. You have Richard Burton. Are you kidding me? That’s incredible. You have John Boorman who had just won the Academy Award. John Boorman got scared. He brought in it Rospo Pallenberg to finish filming it. Thank you for the compliment. Some people do like it and other people don’t. That’s where the studio system and everybody starts making it not as good as maybe it could have been. That’s all I’m going to say. I had the honor of working with Burton so that’s all I care about.
SG: Repossessed is a really funny spoof of Exorcist. Why isn’t there more love for that?
LB: That was released the same time Friedkin had out The Guardian, Blatty had out Exorcist III, I had out Repossessed and it broke my heart because I think for all the people that are afraid to see it or don’t want to show their kids, it is a perfect film for them to be able to see it. I’m very proud of it. Thank you for giving it a shout out.
SG: In hindsight, how would you have navigated Hollywood after The Exorcist if you look back now?
LB: I think that it’s given me great tools to work with the press and with Linda Blair World Heart Foundation try to make a better relationship. There is no handbook. Somebody told me a long time ago there’s no book written for a young actor to know how to communicate. The technology always changes so for the press it changes and there’s no handbook for young people. Look at Lindsay Lohan and all of them. Nobody’s talking to them. They get fired. If they tell you no, you get fired. I wasn’t necessarily like that. I wasn’t like that at all but it is hard. It really is hard.

The Exorcist is now available on Blu Ray.

The new Jackass feature film is spectacularly shitty - in an awesomely gross kind of way. And because it's shot in 3D, the excrement literally comes flying right at you, giving the MTV-rooted franchise the opportunity to connect with its audience in a whole new, and yet familiarly meaningless way. more

The new Jackass feature film is spectacularly shitty - in an awesomely gross kind of way. And because it's shot in 3D, the excrement literally comes flying right at you, giving the MTV-rooted franchise the opportunity to connect with its audience in a whole new, and yet familiarly meaningless way.

I don't mean that disrespectfully - it's just that it's important not to overthink things when it comes to Jackass's intentionally lowbrow brand of entertainment. Creators Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine, and cast members Steve-O, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius and Dave England have been doing silly stunts for shits and giggles - and increasingly large amounts of cash - for a decade now, and the interplay between the beloved faces is as important as the feces and flying dildos. It's this timeless male bonding, which appears evident and genuine on screen, that's perhaps the key to Jackass's popularity, longevity and charm. As Steve-o succinctly puts it, "The chemistry definitely makes it work."

SuicideGirls spoke with professional pranksters Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O by phone this past weekend about the secrets of Jackass 3-D's undeniable allure.

Nicole Powers: I noticed that Jackass 3-D has got over 2 million followers on Facebook.

Johnny Knoxville: Oh, that's good.

NP: SuicideGirls have got just under 1 million and you guys have got 2 million, which means twice as many people want to see you guys naked.

JK: That's just filthy. That's just absolutely filthy.

NP: You should be very proud.

JK: Yeah. We're bringing male nudity back.

NP: This movie, it's kind of homoerotic. Kind of like 300 - but not.

JK: Kind of? Don't you mean a lot?

NP: Well, I think more people get hurt in this movie.

JK: Yeah, we do take our lumps.

NP: How are you currently feeling?

JK: I'm recovered pretty good from shooting. We stopped shooting back in early August, so I'm pretty much healed up.

NP: What was the worst injury that you sustained during shooting?

JK: On this one I had a concussion, whiplash, dislocated shoulder, stitches in my hand and I had my molar knocked out by a dildo bazooka.

NP: I was watching Letterman, and I saw you point to where your tooth got knocked out. It was really far back. I mean, I understand how a front tooth might get knocked out by a flying dildo, but how do you explain a tooth that far back?

JK: I'll tell you how I explain it. Spike had them load an air cannon with all these dildos and turned it up full blast and put it four feet from me.

NP: I just figured it might be some off camera dildo action that was really responsible for that.

JK: No. It was in the last bit where the bowl of dicks blew up in my face and they had some from the side come in and take me out. I was shocked at how hard they hit me. I was disappointed, but I wasn't surprised. Actually I wasn't disappointed. I think it's funny.

NP: I mean this in the nicest possibly way, but this is probably your shittiest movie yet isn't it?

JK: Not really. It's probably our movie with the least amount of disgusting stuff in it.

NP: But there's a lot of actual shit quantity wise?

JK: Well, in the two scenes where there is poo poo, there is a lot. But other than that, it's our least disgusting film.

NP: I was trying to figure out; how do you prepare for the poop volcano stunt? That was pretty impressive projectile poop.

JK: Oh, the Poocano.

NP: Yeah, the Poocano. Even with my worst case of stomach flu, I've never achieved that level of projectability.

JK: He ate a lot of awful, awful, awful stuff. Like, he knows the stuff that makes him really...He's a professional, first of all.

NP: A professional pooper.

JK: Yeah, he is a professional pooper. No one else can poop or Dave England gets mad. He ate a bunch of horrible stuff and right before we shot, [Chris] Pontius stuck an enema in him and they said, "And rolling!"

NP: How do you come up with the ideas for these stunts?

JK: I usually write my ideas in the morning. I just sit at home and think of bad stuff to do to me and my friends, and then I'll write it down. Or sometimes I'll draw really crude drawings, a stick figure drawing of something bad. Then, Jeff and I, we've shared an office for 10 years, we just go back and forth telling each other ideas, trading drawings and giggling.

NP: This is a theatrical release with an "R" rating. What restrictions did you experience when you were figuring out what you could include in the movie?

JK: We had more cock in it, but we had to take some of the cock out to get an R rating.

NP: How did you decide what cock to leave in and what cock to take out?

JK: Well, I don't like taking any cock out. But you turn in the first pass of the movie to the MPA and they're like, "No, this is NC-17." They don't tell you specifically what's wrong, they'll just mention bit titles. So you're like, "Oh, well, what didn't they like? All they gave us was, "Cut the cock back a little on this scene," and then you keep trimming down and trimming down until they say yes.

NP: Sounds painful. I guess that means there's a lot of spare material for the DVD extras.

JK: Well we shot two movies worth of material and we have too much for a DVD extra, so we're coming out with a whole new DVD in January. 3.5 will be all of the great stuff that didn't make it.

NP: What's your favorite?

JK: There's a bit called "Incredible Nut Shots." You know online they have montages of great basketball shots people make? We did the same thing but with the nuts in place of the basketball. I did one nut shot off a Ferris wheel into a trampoline back into England's nuts. That one took about 9 hours. We did one off the Fourth Street Bridge into my nuts, which took 13 hours over 3 days to get. We did 30 nut shots, so imagine all the hours we spent just trying to hit each other in the nuts.

NP: I would imagine it's not particularly fun when you have to do retakes.

JK: Well, if you get hit in the nuts, if you get the shot, then you've got it. But if it's coming from 5 or 6 stories high and it hits you in the knee or the leg - that sucks because the basketball is going super fast then.

NP: There are nut shots a plenty in this movie. What cracks me up is when you're all standing around watching the guy that's going to get nutted - the nuttee so to speak - you all kind of cover your own nuts in sympathy. You'll be in the background cracking up and all your hands are sympathetically over your crotches even though yours may not be in peril in that particular shot.

JK: No, no, no. That's not sympathetic. That is protective. Just because the guy over there rolling around just got hit, that doesn't mean that you're not going to be targeted in two seconds.

NP: Is it a reflex action in day to day life at this point?

JK: Yeah. If I'm around anyone, I always cover my nuts.

NP: Are you covering them now?

JK: I was. [laughs] But for a completely different reason. Just joking.

NP: One of the most pleasant things about the movie is watching the camaraderie between all of the Jackass crew.

JK: Yeah. We give each other complete hell but we do love each other. Cast and crew, we've been together 10 years. I know it hurts sometimes, but we love it.

NP: When you stop, are you going to miss the pain? On some level, you've got to get a kick out of it.

JK: No, I don't really care about the pain. I don't miss it or really look forward to it. It's just part of it. I'm pretty indifferent to it.

NP: Can you imagine a career beyond pain and getting nutted?

JK: Getting nutted [laughs]. That sounds so nice with your accent.

NP: Anything sounds proper when someone from England says it.

JK: I know. It sounds great.

NP: What's next for you beyond the nut shots? I understand you've got some more serious movies planned for 2010/2011.

JK: Well, we released a couple of documentaries in 2010. Dickhouse TV did one, The Birth of Big Air, the documentary on Matt Hoffman, and Tribeca Films picked that up. We did another one on a crazy hillbilly family from West Virginia called The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Tribeca picked that one up too, so we're pretty psyched on both of those documentaries. I'm looking to start doing movies again and I'm looking at scripts right now.


***


Nicole Powers: I'm told we've got 10 minutes. Since there's no time for small talk, I'm going to launch straight into the shit shake (a.k.a. the "Poo Cocktail Supreme" - Steve-O's homage to Knoxville's original "Poo Cocktail" from Season 1, Episode 1). What were you thinking?

Steve-O: I don't know. I was just thinking that everyone had great footage and it was time for me to do something awesome. I really wanted to give it my best, you know. I didn't expect it to be pleasant. I expected it to be great and I think that's kind of how it turned out.

NP: I'm just sort of going through the logistics of that in my mind. How did you collect the poo?

SO: There's some weird business that collects dog poo. It was all dog poo.

NP: Oh, right. I was thinking that if that was cast and crew poo, from people you knew, that would be really weird.

SO: Yeah. I don't know. They weren't supposed to have human poo in there, but I'm pretty sure that some cast and crew felt like integrity was more important than rules, so I understand that it was dog poo and human poo.

NP: I'm sure Knoxville sneaked one in there.

SO: Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

NP: How did you clean up after that?

SO: I jumped into a filthy lake. I showered later on that night I guess.

NP: What other stunts did you feel particularly pushed the bar for you personally?

SO: I don't know. Pushing the bar isn't really what it's all about. It's just doing stuff that's funny. If we're all laughing then that's how we know something is good. The purpose is to have a good time and laugh. We certainly did that. You've seen the movie yourself?

NP: I certainly have. Well, I saw about 90 percent of the movie. I must admit, there was about 10 percent that I couldn't watch.

SO: Right on. Everyone seems to really enjoy it.

NP: I was groaning and laughing at the same time.

SO: Yeah, that's about right...Are you from England?

NP: Yes. You grew up in England too right?

SO: I went to the American School in St. John's Wood. All four years in high school.

NP: A terribly civilized area. How did you go from St. John's Wood to shit shakes?

SO: I don't know. That's a good question. I'm not really sure.

NP: You're two years sober now - congratulations on that.

SO: Thank you.

NP: How has your outlook changed since you've been sober?

SO: I'd like to make a living being silly for as long as I can get away with it. That's got nothing to do with sobriety. I certainly didn't get sober because I had a problem of stapling my balls to my leg.

NP: Stapling your scrotum to your leg must work for you on some level beyond the paycheck.

SO: Yeah. I don't know. I always wanted to get a reaction.

NP: Well you got a reaction from the Louisiana police department. Didn't you get arrested?

SO: Yeah. I sure did. There's been a lot of celebrities that got arrested for felony obscenity and none of them got convicted.

NP: Your case was ultimately settled, wasn't it?

SO: Yeah. I felt like that one put me in the ranks with some real American heroes like Larry Flynt and Jim Morrison and Lenny Bruce.

NP: Well, congratulations on that. Talking of being in good company, I understand you're also a vegan now.

SO: That's right. I love being vegan.

NP: Why vegan as opposed to vegetarian?

SO: I don't know. It's so much healthier and just better in general for everything. As far as a compassionate lifestyle and [it being] healthy for me, for the planet and all the life on it, vegan is really the best way to go. It helps me a lot. I really believe that I'm doing something good for me and for everyone else every time I eat, you know.

NP: What else do you do to stay fit?

SO: I have two little dogs that I rescued and they keep me busy.

NP: Awe. What kind of dogs?

SO: One's a Chiweenie, a Chihuahua and Dachshund mix. And the other one is an American Eskimo mix. I'm just so in love with them. It's awesome. They definitely keep me active.

NP: I was noticing in the movie you had the disclaimer at the end that said some of the stunts were monitored by the Humane Society, and in the stunts that were monitored no animals were harmed.

SO: Yeah, you know, I'm glad you mentioned that. When we started filming the movie, I felt pretty conflicted about working with animals. I was really aware that it's sort of inconsistent with my lifestyle right now, to do stuff with animals.

I remember it was like the first week or two of filming, and we did that bit in that pen with the ram. My job was to play a trumpet and to have this ram charge with its horns into my nuts. My instincts kicked in and I kept reaching down with my hand, blocking this ram. Nothing that would hurt the ram, but reaching down...the ram was running into my hand.

That was in February. That was over 7 months ago, and my hand has still not healed. The tendons got so messed up. My hand should've probably fully recovered, but it hasn't. I feel like my hand's going to be messed up for the rest of my life.

Every time I shake someone's hand and they're some kind of a macho man dude - like they have something to prove with their strong handshake - it hurts like hell and injures my hand more. I don't think my hand is ever going to get better and I have that as a permanent reminder not to be cruel to animals. You are never going to see me mess with animals again. I don't know - I can't say never to anything. But today, it's not my intention to do anything with animals.

NP: It's funny that you mentioned that scene because that's the only scene that I felt that the animal might be in distress - just because the sound of the trumpet could have been painful.

SO: Yeah, I had permanent consequences from that - and I'm glad. Karma got me on that one. But, anyways, I've got to wrap it up...I do really appreciate you asking about being vegan, you know. That's something I really believe in. And being vegan, I can tell you, has benefited every single area of my life. It's a majorly big deal to me and I really appreciate you asking that.

The Pleasure Principle is an album that's provided its maker, Gary Numan, with both instant and delayed gratification. Three decades ago, when the now classic electro album first came out, it made a massive impact culturally and commercially. The Pleasure Principle, and the iconic single it spawned,... more

The Pleasure Principle is an album that's provided its maker, Gary Numan, with both instant and delayed gratification. Three decades ago, when the now classic electro album first came out, it made a massive impact culturally and commercially. The Pleasure Principle, and the iconic single it spawned, “Cars”, hit the number one spot simultaneously on the album and singles charts in the UK in September, 1979. The following year, the records crashed the US Billboard charts, making the painfully shy young vocalist, composer and musician a household name here too.

Numan's Kraftwerk-inspired tracks, which channeled the voice of the machine, had a raw energy and DIY aesthetic that served as the bridge between '70s punk and the early dance and hip-hop scenes of the 1980s. Indeed the bare break beats from the opening segment of "Films" (the fourth track on The Pleasure Principle) became the sample of choice for a generation of producers, thanks in part to the song's inclusion on Street Beat's tastemaker compilation series Ultimate Breaks and Beats (which served as the primary DJ and studio sample resource pre-CD).

Ironically, as the spotlight faded on Numan, the sounds he created proliferated exponentially through the fabric of pop music culture. As a new generation of producers sampled samples, the origins of these staple breaks escaped many. However those in the know - such as Basement Jaxx, Armand Van Heldon, Afrika Bambaataa and Dr. Dre - openly covered, used, credited and paid homage to Numan's body of work.

In 2002, Numan once again toped the charts in the UK with an all-girl band called the Sugababes and a song called "Freak Like Me." The track was essentially a highly produced and super slick mash-up of the top line from Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" and the riff and groove lifted directly from "Are Friends Electric," a song Numan recorded pre-Principle with his band Tubeway Army (which first hit the #1 single spot across the Atlantic in May, 1979).

More recently, Trent Reznor outed himself as a fan, inviting Numan to perform his songs with Nine Inch Nails during the band's 2009 shows in London and Los Angeles. The strong reaction Numan received following his guest spots at NIN's four final shows in LA in particular turned heads, and a coveted invite to play Coachella this year was forthcoming. Unfortunately, fallout from a volcano in Iceland, which grounded flights throughout Europe, meant that Numan, along with several other artists, was unavoidably a no-show at the festival. However fans won't be disappointed for long, since a dedicated tour honoring the 30th Anniversary of The Pleasure Principle will stop off in 15 US cities this fall.

We called Numan up at the East Sussex home he shares with his wife and three children to talk about the shows, his music - past and present - and the realities of life beyond The Pleasure Principle.


NP: Can you talk about a little of what you have planned for this tour?

GN: We actually did it a little while ago in the UK. It was the 30th anniversary of an album called The Pleasure Principal, which first came out in '79 in England, and 1980 in America. It's 30 years since it got to number one and it's not an anniversary that's likely to come again really for me. By the time it's 40, I'm going to be 60-odd and I probably won't be doing this anymore. Even though I'm not a big fan of retro, it seemed a reasonable thing to do. We did a tour in November of last year, just doing Pleasure Principal for the first half of it, and then new stuff for the second half. And because I don't really like retro things at all really, I didn't expect to enjoy it so much, but it just seemed the right thing to do. I played keyboards and everything, and it surprised me, I actually quite enjoyed it. I think because it was a mix, the first part of the show was this particular album, which I have sort of grown to be more proud of than I was when I actually released it, and then there was new stuff after that. It felt like it was almost like a documentary set of where you were and where you are, so it didn't feel entirely nostalgic and retro, which I was grateful for.

That actually went much better than I expected. It sold really well. Then, we were going to come to America in the early part of this year to do Coachella, and to do another couple of shows. The promoters that were putting on those shows were interested in doing the Pleasure Principal thing that we've done here, and I thought it'd be cool. It was just two shows, so I didn't mind so much. Then, that got blown out because of the volcano. So now we're coming back to do it properly, and the Pleasure Principal thing seems to be kind of the vibe that everybody wants for the tour. I'm okay with that. All we're really doing is that particular album and that kind of a focus on it. It's nothing special. It's not as if we've got a massively impressive light show or anything like that. It's really concentrating on the fact that that album came out 30-odd years ago now, and a number of people have talked about it being influential, and a number of people have done covers of the songs on it, or taken samples from the songs on it. So it's become - I shouldn't say "important" because it sounds like I'm blowing my own trumpet - but it's become one of the better-known albums for this genre of music anyway. So we're kind of going out and celebrating that fact. Then, when that's done, hopefully they'll be a new album and we'll come back and do more music.

NP: It almost feels to me like that volcano was sort of serendipitous for you. 'Cause instead of Coachella, we're getting a whole tour from you in more optimal circumstances.

GN: Coachella, to me, seemed like a massive opportunity. I was absolutely, just hammered when [the volcano erupted]. Of all the weirdest things you could imagine stopping a tour, a volcano wasn't one of them.

NP: It isn't something that you'd have contingency plans for.

GN: It wasn't top of my list when I woke up that morning and thought, "What's going to go wrong today?" It felt like a massive opportunity and the fact that the two shows they'd put either side of it, or with it, both sold out, for me was quite a good thing. It's not as if they were massive venues or anything, but none-the-less, for me, that was a step forward. Because the last time I was there, it wasn't that great to be honest. I began to feel that it was all over for me. It feels a lot more positive now. I did the Nine Inch Nails thing last year and got a lot of positive feedback from that.

NP: Right, you got up on stage with Nine Inch Nails and performed some of your songs while they were on tour in LA.

GN: We did it here first. Trent invited me along to the O2 in London, which is a big place, and that was just brilliant. I actually couldn't believe how kind the audience was. Because if it was me, and I was going to see Nine Inch Nails and somebody stood up and did two non-Nine Inch Nails songs, I don't know if I'd be very happy about it to be honest. I was kind of expecting that sort of a reaction really, but, it actually went really, really well and I was kind of blown away by that.

Then Trent invited me over to do the American part of it as well, doing a very similar thing, just going on and singing a couple of songs. Because the London experience was so good, I was really keen to do that. But I could only do the Los Angeles things because of other commitments. I came out and did the last four shows that they did. Again, it was just a brilliant experience, because Nine Inch Nails are my favorite band anyway. I'm a huge admirer of Trent Reznor's, so to be involved at that moment, at that sort of level, was just a real honor. I was massively flattered and in awe of the whole thing really. It was just really, really cool. But the spin on from that, the effect that that's had on me and the opportunities that have come to me since then, have been really noticeable. That's why, not only was I in awe of it at the time, I'm really grateful for it now. It's been just a brilliant experience from beginning to end.

NP: How did the Trent thing come about?

GN: A long time ago, we were doing a show in Baton Rouge, near New Orleans, and he had come to see us with Clint Mansell [of Pop Will Eat Itself].

NP: Was that during your 2006 tour?

GN: I think it might have been the one before that actually.

NP: Wow.

GN: I can't remember when it was. He was making the The Fragile anyway, so it was before that actually. He bought me a cover version that he'd done of a song of mine called "Metal," and it was just brilliant. I was blown away by that - not just the fact that it was so good, but the fact that they'd even bothered to do it. I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I got to know him a little bit then, and whenever they came here to play I would go and see them and I would meet up with him. So it's kind of, not a close relationship, but it was friendly and ongoing.

Then, when they was doing that last tour, somebody sent me an email saying that there was a link on YouTube of them doing the "Metal" song live. Because my wife is an absolutely obsessed Nine Inch Nails fan and she knows Trent obviously through me, she got in touch with Trent via the tour management and said, "are you going to be doing it in London," because I was coming, and "wouldn't it be a good idea if..." All behind my back. I had no idea she was doing it. The first thing I know, I got an email from Trent saying it was great idea. I didn't even really know what he was talking about, then it all kind of fell into place. It was just brilliant. I would've never have had the courage to ask myself, and it was such a great thing to do, and, as I say, it sort of went on to even better things. So I'm very grateful to my wife really, for being sneaky.

NP: [laughs] Ah, women, you can't trust 'em.

GN: [laughs]

NP: I guess Trent's got a little bit of time on his hands now he's knocked the Nine Inch Nails thing on the head. Are you guys going to be collaborating on your new album?

GN: I don't know about the new album. When I was with him in September, we went out for an evening and he said at the end of that we should do something together, but that we should do something that nobody expects. Not a continuation of what I've done, or a continuation of what NIN has done, but something completely different that would surprise people. But since then, obviously, he's done the [How To Destroy] Angels thing, and he's doing a film score I think with Atticus Ross at the moment. So I know NIN are quiet, [but] Trent is as work obsessed as ever. Pinning him down to actually say what days could we do it is a little tricky in itself. But hopefully when we go back there on this tour we'll be able to meet up with Trent. We've got some time in Los Angeles so maybe we can meet up and maybe get some tracks done. I hope so. I'd love to. For me it'd be a great thing to do. But I wouldn't ever want Trent to feel like I was pushing for it or using it in any way. So I'm very passive with the whole thing. I guess, I want it to happen...

NP: But you're being very British about it.

GN: [Laughs]

NP: Don't want to presume.

GN: Yeah, a bit I guess. I just wouldn't want him to think that I was using him to try to advance myself, so I'm absolutely not pushy. I just have to hope that I don't go so far in the passive way that it looks like I'm not interested.

NP: Exactly. It's so weird, Americans see being pushy as a virtue whereas English people would be horrified if they were ever considered to be such a thing.

GN: It's weird, I don't really understand the American psychology at all. I'm so British through and trough. I really struggle, and I'm quite shy anyway. I'm not bristling with confidence or ego. I'm actually quite laid back and shy about the whole thing. Like I said, I would never have gone on stage if it hadn't been for my wife being pushy behind my back. That would never have happened. I would never have thought, never dreamed of actually asking if I could come and sing one of my songs on his show. I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a needle than do that.

NP: I have to say though, I was doing some research last night and I was watching an interview with you on Graham Norton's show a couple of years ago. What really struck me was that you seemed so much more happy in your own skin now then you were when you first had success back in the late '70s, early '80s. You seemed very relaxed and comfortable, and actually at the point where you were finally able to enjoy your success.

GN: Yeah, I think that's true. I think when it first happened, well, first of all, it happened very quickly. I think that's always a bad way to have it. If you could ever choose, then I would choose a slower line to success. I went from being completely unknown to number one in about two weeks. From my first TV appearance to being number one was two weeks, and then I was massive everywhere. That's quite a lot to take in, especially when you're a solo act. It's not as if you're part of a band and you can share the burden, share the worries, and the stress, and the shock of it. It's quite a lot to take in. I was with a brand new record company that had no experience either. I didn't have a manager. I was looking after myself. I felt very much out on the deck. Almost immediately I was plunged into something that I was totally unprepared for and totally ill-equipped to deal with. Although I was 21, which seems quite old these days compared to the age of some people that have become successful, to me, it was very young. And, I was a young 21 as well. I was a very immature, childish 21.

Where I should've just been enjoying every moment of it and just having the best time of my life, I was panicking and worrying, and kind of overawed by the whole thing, and intimated for much of it. I said some stupid things, and certainly did stupid things. I've got no sensitivity. I'm Asperger's, so I don't really understand subtlety and interaction too well. There's a lot of personal communication skills that I think are very important if you do this for a living, if you want to have a relatively easy ride through it - and I have none of them. I think people found me abrasive or obnoxious or whatever - and I'm really none of those things - I just don't know how to be.

That's become better as I've gotten older. What was shocking at first isn't anymore because you've been doing it for such a long time you kind of get used it. I think that's what happened now. Now I'm comfortable, and, of course, it's at a much lower level now. It's nothing like it was in those days. So all the weirdness that goes with being that successful that young isn't there anymore. It's kind of settled down to a more pleasant, bumbling along kind of path really. It's just easier now. If I go out, people don't scream and faint and all that sort of stuff. They just shake your hand and say hello. It's a much easier way to be, 'cause I'm nowhere near as successful as I used to be. All that's kind of tailed off now.

NP: Well you say that but in England you had the number one with the Sugababes. America didn't experience that, which is a shame because I loved what they did.

GN: I love what they did. I thought it was great. When that happened and it went to number one, I was doing lots and lots of interviews at the time, and almost everybody was prodding me to say something bad about it. To ridicule the Sugababes, or to just be a shit in one way or another. I couldn't understand why people wanted that, and I didn't have any of it. I don't think I've ever said a bad word about it because I don't have a bad word to say about it. I thought they did a really good job. I thought the music sounded really good, even though it was 20, 25 years after I'd first written it. I was fine with it. I thought it was great.

I remember I went to see The Mission in London, because I know Wayne Hussey really well, and I had goth girls coming up to me in the crowd, giving me a hard time because of the Sugababes. I thought, how snobby is that? ...Because you've got pink hair and wear black clothes, doesn't mean to say that your taste in music is the only valid taste there is. I just don't like the attitude anyway. There's lots of things that I don't like. I actually have very narrow taste in music, but I don't go around slagging off the things that I don't like because there's something for everyone. I'm quite tolerant. [laughs] God, that's not the right word is it?

NP: Ah, tolerant works.

GN: I wouldn't put people down because they like things that I think are dreadful. You get what you can out of life through music or anything else. You find what you love.

NP: What can we expect from the new album? 'Cause musically, you've made a progression and your later work is very different from what people perceive as the classic Gary Numan from the Pleasure Principal era.

GN: Well the last two or three albums that I've done, I've actually been really happy with where I've gone. I like the direction of them, and I like the whole feel of it after certain music that I've been into for the last 10 years or so. All I want to do with the next one is just do it better. I want it to be darker, heavier, and more menacing. More epic, if you like, in terms of light and shade. I want to do what I've done before but better. I also want to make it much more aggressive, much more powerful, almost like a wall of noise. That's a very bad description, but it's kind of the way I feel it in my head. It's just everything that I've done, but more of it, you know, darker, heavier, and so on. I'm very bad explaining music I'm afraid - that's about as good as it gets.

NP: What's inspiring you lyrically?

GN: For a quite long time I've been having a bit of an issue with religion and so on, but I think I've done it to death.

NP: Right, 'cause you are famously an atheist.

GN: Yeah. Yeah. A few years ago, me and my wife, we couldn't have children naturally, or at least we couldn't for a while, so we did IVF. We were very lucky, in the first attempt that we had IVF, Gemma got pregnant. But then there was something that was really horribly wrong with it, and it was just horrible, and then it died. It was all heart breaking stuff, and I remember getting messages from people telling me how much god loved me. And [I'd think], "Fuck off." For that reason it just really got to me and I was on a bit of a crusade with it. But I just think I've done it a lot now. I feel like I've explored [it]. I could actually write songs about it until the day I die because it's an unending sort of inspiration, but I think, from a fan's point of view, I've probably done it enough or too much actually. So where I go next is a bit different.

With the last album, Jagged, I tried to look at some of the more bizarre people that I've met over the years, and the things that they were into and that kind of stuff. I magnified it a little bit for the sake of entertainment, but, none-the-less, you're looking back into your own past and the people that you've met through the last 20-odd years or so. 'Cause there's been some peculiar and frightening people at various times, that were into some strange and interesting things. I thought I'd write about that a bit, but I recon about a third of it was still going back into the god thing.

But the next one, I actually don't know yet to be honest. For me, the lyrics come at the very end of the album, so it's one of those things that I don't necessarily have to think about too soon. The music is well underway now, but the music is all done with working titles. Then the lyrics, they come towards the end of it, [and] the proper titles come from that.

NP: So you make the tracks, and then you do the top line melody and lyrics on top of the tracks at the end?

GN: I do the top line right at the beginning. I'll have a vocal line and the melody, sometimes quite complex multiple melodies going on, but I won't actually have any lyrics for them. I'll just sing noises. You know when you're laying out text when you're laying out magazines, it looks like weird Roman shit?

NP: Right, you just use dummy text.

GN: It's like an audio version of that. That way you get to know what type of word will fit a certain part of the song. I've never done it the way where you write lyrics first and then you make the music fit. I write the music first, get the atmosphere, the mood, get all that sorted out first. Then the lyrics will just flow because that bit of music puts you in a certain frame of mind anyway and that automatically takes you towards a certain type of lyric, word or feeling. For me, it's just a natural progression. The mood creates the lyric, rather than trying to create a mood because of a particular lyric. I actually don't know what's normal. To me, that seems quite an obvious way to do it. I know other people do lyric first.

NP: I think each to his own process. Sonically, I know that you've flipped between synth-based and guitar-based music. Where on that scale is the new music falling?

GN: I would say it's getting more and more synth-based with the new one, far more electronic. The guitar is still going to be a part of it, but the emphasis is swinging very much back to - not synth necessarily - but just noises. Noises and weirdness, and that kind of thing, rather than guitar grooves. Although the one I wrote yesterday is a guitar groove, so I'm still doing that. It's not that it's going to be all synthesizers, it's where the main focus of it switches. I think the last one, certainly the one before that and the one before that, were very much a guitar emphasis, but now it's swinging very much the other way again.

NP: Being a gear head, is there a particular piece of equipment that's exciting you right now?

GN: As far as hardware, I'm still using a thing called Access Virus, which is a brilliant, brilliant keyboard. It's too damn unreliable for taking out live, but it actually puts out some really good noises. I love that. In terms of hardware, that's the only one that I'm into for the minute; Software-wise, quite a few things really. Omnisphere, obviously, which I think everyone has now and knows about. That's just absolutely awesome. And there's a company called Native Instruments who've got a series called Kontakt. There's actually seven now, but I bought Kontakt 6, which is actually an array of different bits of software that all do certain things. That's absolutely brilliant. That and Omnisphere are the background of all the new stuff.

NP: Outside of music, you were also known for playing with some pretty spectacular toys. Are you still flying?

GN: Not too much now, no. Since the children come along there just isn't the time. Whereas before on a Saturday morning you'd wake up and if it was a nice day you'd go down the airfield with your airplane, or you go off to do a air expo in Europe or somewhere. You'd be away with the airplane for the whole weekend, doing all your loop-the-loops and all that kind of stuff, you know, really exciting. Now, you wake up on a Saturday morning and the kids want to go to the beach, or the kids want to go to the park. Your life becomes totally dominated by these little things who just get whatever they want really.

NP: What crazy things do the kids have you doing? What are they into?

GN: Honestly, it's a two-month cycle of obsession. At the moment it's horses, everything's all about horses for one of them. The other one is Thomas the Tank [Engine], so today they've been out to a park near here that's got a Thomas the Tank train that runs around.

They've been through dinosaurs. We've been up to the museums in London looking at dinosaur bones. That was a big thing for a bit. Then it was Pink. We had to go to London and watch Pink in concert, which [my daughter] got halfway through before she fell asleep. Then we had the Madonna period, we've had a Gwen Stefani period. They're quite musical, we've have lot of musical periods.

NP: You've got two daughters?

GN: Three. All young.

NP: Surrounded by girls.

GN: Yeah. Fantastic. [laughs] It is actually. It is fantastic. But, I'm surprised at how much they fight - just the amount of time - you could say almost every minute of the day. Even working is a problem. Just trying to get out to write songs, because your days are now broken up into chunks. You might have an hour here and a couple of hours there. Before I'd get up in the morning and I just had all day to do nothing but think about songs and spend time in the studio working on ideas. It's not like that now, and I'm useless when it comes to working in chunks. So my actual amount of output, if you like, the amount of work that I'm doing, is just a fraction of what it used to be. And that's a problem, 'cause I'm not the youngest thing in the world and I need to be working as hard as possible because I don't know how many years I've got to still do it, and the opposite is happening. I'm genuinely worried about it. I don't know what to do. I love them so much and I don't want to not be there and not be a part of their lives - especially at this stage when they're so young - but I've got to work to give them the life I want to give them.

NP: I guess that's why a lot of artists hole themselves away while they're recording albums, just so they can have a period of concentration.

GN: I could see that. For me, the compromise would be if I had a studio, even if it was just a mile away, but so you can go out to work in the morning. So you leave the house, and you leave all their little things. Not that I want to leave, I don't mean that, but I need to get away. I need to go somewhere. At the moment I've got a studio in the garden, and it's just pointless. You go out to the studio and two minutes later they're knocking on the door [and they're going], "Can I have some orange?" They've had to walk past their mom to come and ask me. Then they want to sit in and watch, and then they never do. They start pressing things and chatting. It's lovely, but it's so not conducive to actually writing songs.

NP: Well Virginia Woolf said it, an artist needs a room of one's own. You need a space where you can lock yourself away from distractions.

GN: Yes, absolutely true. Distractions, they will kill your career more than anything else you could ever do.

NP: I think that's often the battle artists have, because you feel selfish asking for that, but it's essential for an artist's soul just to be able to lock yourself away and create. Like you say, you want to be able to give your kids the life that you want them have, and that does require that you to allow yourself to be selfish, and I guess that's the hardest thing.

GN: Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. It's one of those things that it's easy to say, but it's much, much harder to actually do, and I still haven't got on top of it. You know, my oldest is just coming up to 7, so I don't know if I ever am going to get on top of it. The amount of songs that I'm writing now is nothing. In 1979, I think I wrote three albums in a 12-month period. I'd be lucky if I write an album within five years now. I want to. I love it just as much as I ever did, but there's all this other life stuff that gets in the way.

NP: The ironic thing is that although you might not be making any new tracks yourself, other people are making new tracks using your music. So probably in terms of where your music appears, you've probably got one of the highest outputs of any artist ever. And knowing where you come from, understanding what Essex represents, it must be so bizarre for you to have the likes of GZA from Wu-Tang Clan, Afrika Bambaataa and Dr. Dre using you as an inspiration for their music - all of these hip hop greats who couldn't come from a more opposite world.

GN: Yeah, it's great. Again, like the Nine Inch Nails thing, it's incredibly flattering and all that. I do not take it for granted. Every time I hear that someone else has sampled something or covered something, I get a huge grin on my face. I'm really, really proud of it, and I ring up my mates and tell them. I do think of it as a cool thing, and I'm still shocked that it happens. I think that my mental attitude, or self-awareness if you like, is still very much the same as it was when I was 19 or 20. I go into a studio and do my best to write the songs that I write, and I just hope that people like them. I have no expectations whatsoever.

When people like what you do, it's nice to see that. I'm genuinely surprised and pleased about that. I don't expect it. I think that's one of the reasons why I've handled the years that have not been so good, when the press have not been so kind, because I didn't really expect anyone to like what I did anyway. So if I get a bad review, I've almost been expecting it. I'm not crushed by it. You see what I mean? I think there's other people that are far more confident than I am, which I envy, but when they get a bad review, they're staggered by that, that somebody could actually not like what they did. And they're ruined people, sometimes forever, and I'm so the opposite of that.

NP: It's actually good that you expect the worst because then when the best happens, you actually enjoy it. Whereas someone that's over confident and expects the best and gets the worst, they just don't enjoy any of it.

GN: I don't do it for the praise either. I don't do it to get good reviews and for everyone to know who I am. I do it because I love doing it, first and foremost. To me, what I do for a living is a lovely big cake, and if you get a good review, or if something sells particularly well, that's just like the icing on the top. I actually love doing what I do anyway. I would choose to do this for a hobby even if I couldn't earn a living from it. I'm just happy that I get up in the morning and then, apart from having to take the kids to the park, I can pretty much do what I want. I have that kind of the freedom in life, which I don't think many people really have. I massively appreciate that, and you don't have to be the biggest thing in the world to have that, to have that kind of a life. I think very early on, I recognized that and enjoyed it.

I'm very realistic. When you're touring, for me anyway, you're in a lovely big bus. You're with your mates. My wife comes with me, so everything is cool. You're going out, you're traveling all over the world, which I love to do anyways. You're going on stage each night and playing your songs to people that like them. That's a pretty brilliant way of living. I've got no qualms with it. I never quite understand all these people who hate touring and say it's very stressful and that sort of stuff. I don't really get that. I think it's a great thing to do and I love it.


The US Pleasure Principle tour kicks off at Club Firestone in Orlando, FL on Oct 17. For full tour dates visit GaryNuman.co.uk.

David Spade once had a stand-up bit about how audiences shouldn’t have to cut a movie slack for having a low budget, since ticket prices are all the same. Monsters, a new indie sci-fi film made for $15,000 – less than Kevin Smith’s Clerks – passes the high-expectations test with flying colors. more

David Spade once had a stand-up bit about how audiences shouldn’t have to cut a movie slack for having a low budget, since ticket prices are all the same. Monsters, a new indie sci-fi film made for $15,000 – less than Kevin Smith’s Clerks – passes the high-expectations test with flying colors. Filmed on location in Central America and southern Mexico with two professional actors and a gaggle of amateurs and willing locals filling out the rest of the roles, the film follows Andrew (Scoot McNairy), an American photographer stationed in Mexico to document the ‘creatures,’ a rampaging herd of mountain-sized, Lovecraftian aliens who came to our planet (in larval form) inside a returning space capsule we had sent to collect samples from Jupiter’s Europa moon. When Andrew is unexpectedly tasked with chaperoning Samantha (Whitney Able), his boss’s daughter, back across the massively fortified U.S. border, their journey threatens to take them right into the path of the creatures. SuicideGirls recently spoke with special effects wizard turned writer/director Gareth Edwards about his impressive debut film.




Ryan Stewart: There are numerous shots of military helicopters and jets flying in the background throughout this film, and they’re very convincing, but I guess at your budget level that was all CG, right?

Gareth Edwards: Yep, they are all computer generated. All the military vehicles were as well, and also all the signs. Any signs you see that say ‘Infected Zone’ or a map or anything like that, that was all a bit of Photoshop.

RS: Is there anything even more subtle, that no one would likely notice?

GE: There is, yeah: toward the end of the film there’s a lady with a trolley who is homeless and who shouts at them, and we actually shot that in Galveston, Texas after Hurricane Ike, because it looked genuinely post-apocalyptic. The idea was to not do any CG for that at all, but what happened was when we watched it blown up on the big screen for the first time we realized that behind her, in the background, there was a freeway with a stream of traffic going down it, which obviously didn’t fit into the story at all. So I had to paint out all of those cars, a frame at a time. That’s something that no one would ever notice, of course, since we painted it all out.

RS: How is it that the CG monster effects in this film look better, more photorealistic, than those in other small-budget movies, or even TV movies, which cost way more?

GE: Well, thank you. I think the most important thing is trying not to do effects when you don’t have to, trying to film everything and not relying on CG. If you can possibly film it, do it, just film everything. And there may be one element of it you can’t film. Like, for instance, I told you that the signs were done in Photoshop, but for the most part I was filming real signs that really existed, I just changed what was on the sign. The sign is really there and the light is really hitting it and I’m not having to compose the shot in a way that gets it into the shot, so there’s something inherently real about that. I’m doing the minimum possible thing of just changing the text, and the result is that it comes across as more realistic. Barring one shot, I filmed every shot in the movie as if the missing elements were already there, and then I just filled them in. And the opposite is what happens on a lot of films – if the shot they’re doing is considered a visual effects shot, they won’t film anything, they’ll just leave it up to the CG people to create every part of it. If they have a creature that you’re going to be looking at through trees, they won’t film the trees. They’ll just CG those trees and then they look a bit fake, and also the whole shot will look a bit fake because it’s essentially being framed by someone who hasn’t really done cinematography. Also, there are all kinds of things that happen in-camera that you can never predict, like the way dirt will hit the glass or the way light will do something different than what you’d imagine it would do. Those are genuine references -- they’re telling you that this is real.

RS: Did you have to construct the entire story of Monsters around the budget limitations?

GE: To some extent we were limited with what we could do, obviously – there are certain things that you simply cannot do at that budget level -- but I liked those limits. I found them exciting. I think that when you’re limited, you make better stuff. When you’re totally unlimited – and we’ve seen lots of examples of this – you make your not-so-best stuff. Even if one day I was very lucky and I ended up with unlimited resources, I would still want to somehow impose a limit on them. What happens is this: when you can do anything you want, your brain will pick the default version of everything. It’s like, ‘Oh, we can do this shot that I have in mind, then we’ll do this one and then we’ll do that one...’ But when you can’t do those shots the way that your brain wants, it forces you to do it differently. You start thinking ‘Okay, we can’t do what we had in mind, so how on Earth can we convey this without doing the thing that was obvious?’ You end up picking something that is left field of ‘obvious.’ And when you end up with enough ingredients in the final film that are all a bit left or right of where you should be, it creates something that feels unique. A lot of films that are made with limited resources end up being the ones that feel unique and good – they had to be different because they didn’t have a choice. The arguments between me and the producer were generally me trying to get him to spend less money! I didn’t like the idea that he would give us more money if we had a problem, because then it felt like things had to be perfect. One way of saying it would be that I felt like a perfect version of this film would be one full of imperfections.

RS: I read that you went through dozens of designs for the creatures, which are these immensely large, slow-moving, amphibious jellyfish, basically. Was that the original idea?

GE: While we were filming the actors would ask us what it was, and at that time it was supposed to be just their tentacles, actually. The idea was that the creatures were so big you could never see the whole of them. You would see the end of its limbs, and its tentacles reaching for something, and that was one of the concepts, but it just felt like that would never really be very threatening, because you could always just run away, you know? So I ended up not putting just the legs in, and it was a very slow process. I did hundreds of designs – a lot of them were rubbish – but I did about a hundred that I was happy with and I couldn’t choose between them, so I did this crazy kind of beauty pageant where I put all the creatures up on the wall and then brought the producers in to judge them. But they couldn’t choose either, so in the end it just kind of evolved. You start with what you have on paper, but then when you try to model it in 3D it doesn’t look as good, so you go back and forth. It took me months, but I finally got it to a point where I was happy enough.

RS: It’s funny that the public hasn’t given a name to the creatures in the film. I think they’d acquire a nickname pretty quickly.

GE: Yeah, I actually didn’t want that, I wanted everyone to avoid even mentioning them by name. No one uses the word ‘monster’ in the film, for example, and I didn’t want them to say ‘creatures’ – you’ll notice that they mostly hesitate before they go to say it. They don’t know what the name is. Instead, they’ll just say “Are you here photographing those things?” Or they’ll say “We better go soon, because it will be dark, and, you know…” The actors also felt weird saying ‘creature’ because it feels like something from a stupid movie, but I imagine that, yeah, there probably would be a nickname for them. There’s actually a phrase that I came up with – sub-terrestrials – just meaning things that live underwater. And on one of the signs – you can probably only see this in hi-def – there’s a logo for a pretend conservation association and it’s called the Sub-Terrestrial Research Association. We even designed a little logo with a planet and a little tentacle on it, and we had bracelets made up. I wanted the actress, Whitney Able, to wear that as a fake charity bracelet. I had them printed out – there was a minimum order of a hundred – and we gave them out to the crew during the shoot. I’ve still got mine, I’ve never taken it off. It’s been on my arm for, like, two years now!

RS: If you didn’t want the creatures referred to as monsters, how did you settle on that as a title?

GE: It’s meant to be kind of a question. What is the nature of a monster? Who are the monsters? Is there such a thing as a monster? Are they really just animals? Are we the monsters? It’s like, if we had made a film that wasn’t science-fiction, like, let’s say a film about Nazi Germany and we just called it Evil. Well, a whole nation can’t be evil. What really happened there? What’s going on there? It’s the most simplified term possible to serve as a starting point for asking what a monster is, and how you define that. People have said to me “There are no real monsters in your film” and I think they’re right, these are just misunderstood aliens. I don’t really see them as monsters at all. I hope that people go in, maybe having seen the poster on the way into the cinema and thinking ‘Oh, monsters, I know what this film is about’ and then they go on a journey that is 180 degrees different, and by the time it’s over they have their own idea of what the title is about. It’s up to the viewer; it should work on a few different levels.

RS: Whitney is a real find, by the way. Does she speak Spanish for real, or were all her Spanish line readings phonetic?

GE: Yeah, that was all her. When we were first talking, she was like ‘I speak fluent Spanish.’ She actually grew up in Spain, and that was just such a bonus. It created a great dynamic, because she’s supposedly the damsel in distress and Scoot is there to help her, but he can’t help her at all – she’s the one who helps him. It equaled out the dynamic between them, which was a good thing.

RS: They have a great scene at the hotel room door, where he’s trying to get into her room for the night.

GE: Yeah, we did about three or four takes of that, and a lot of it was ad-libbed. A lot of the stuff that Scoot is coming out with is based on stuff that actually happened to us. Remember when he talks about how dolphins are mammals and all of that? A day before that we had a day off and we went swimming with dolphins and we learned all about dolphins that day. And there’s another story behind that: I had a bad back because of the camera and I went for a massage. And while it was going on I was thinking about the ending of the film, trying to decide whether it would be a happy or a sad ending, and as this was happening the massage lady leans down and whispers in my ear: “Happy ending?”

RS: You’re kidding.

GE: It’s all true! And these little stories worked their way in – it’s why when Scoot is at the door he says “Do you want a massage?” and throws in the stuff about marine biology, because these were sort of the jokes of our trip, you know? And Scoot is just a really funny guy. I said to him at the start of that scene “I challenge you to get in her knickers, you’ve got ten minutes.” Then I said to Whitney “Do not let him past this door no matter what happens, but make sure to do it as politely as possible because he’s still got your passport and ticket.” And then they just went for it. The first cut of that scene was probably like ten minutes, and I had to get it down to somewhere around two.

RS: I love the way he tries to use ‘There are rampaging monsters everywhere..’ as a line on her. It’s a great way of fusing the monster story with the love story.

GE: Also, when she then goes inside and turns on the telly there’s a natural history documentary that’s talking about the creatures’ tentacles and the [phosphorescent light they emit] and the female trying to find the male in the darkness; it’s about the creatures of course, but it’s really talking about Scoot and Whitney. And then at the end of the film there’s one of the more surreal sex scenes you’ll ever see.

RS: The press materials talk about them being a real-life couple, but I also heard her referred to as his former girlfriend – did they break up during the shoot?

GE: She’s his wife now!

RS: Oh, very cool. So, do you consider your feature directing career launched?

GE: I hope so. When this winds down, I’m going to start writing the next one. It’s going to be developed and financed by Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian filmmaker, and it’s going to be science-fiction. It’s more ambitious than Monsters, and there will be more money, obviously, but again I don’t want so much money that it restrains us from doing the kind of film I want to do. The tagline we’ve got for this one is: “An epic human story, without humanity.”





Monsters opens in select cities on October 29th.

In his first novel, Dark Origins, CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker brought us a serial killer so extreme that he was the world's first to be deemed worthy of Level 26 status. The spree of diabolical crimes perpetrated by the latex-attired - and therefore forensic-proof - Sqweegle, was ultimately halted... more

In his first novel, Dark Origins, CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker brought us a serial killer so extreme that he was the world's first to be deemed worthy of Level 26 status. The spree of diabolical crimes perpetrated by the latex-attired - and therefore forensic-proof - Sqweegle, was ultimately halted by Steve Dark, a Special Circumstances investigator with demons of his own.

On October 14, Steve Dark returns in the second Level 26 installment, Dark Prophecy. Having left Special Circs at the end of the previous book, when Dark's destiny crosses paths with that of the Tarot Card Killer, he's forced to operate under the auspices of a far greyer area of the law.

In the same way that the psychopaths Dark hunts are no ordinary killers, the Level 26 books are no ordinary thrillers. Dubbed "digi-novels" by Zuiker, the multi-platform murder mysteries combine traditional text with web-based movie and community elements. We caught up with Zuiker ahead of Dark Prophecy's release to talk about the progression of Dark, and how, with the introduction of the iPad, the digi-novel has finally come of age.

Nicole Powers: Where did the idea for the character of Steve Dark come from?

Anthony E. Zuiker: There was a friend at Arizona State. He was a really, really good looking, lady killer type guy. Kind of stood out. I always remembered him. And then I began to want to create this character that spends his entire life chasing evil. Starting from NYPD cop and ending up in the CSI realm of Special Circs, which stands for Special Circumstances. They actually chase the worst of the worst criminals.

All the psychological turmoil that I personally go through, being involved in television - 'cause it's very tough to do this job, such high stress - I wanted to put a lot of that inside of the character of Steve Dark. The real guys that do Special Circs have really terrible jobs because they're handling the cases that CSI doesn't really handle, which is all the unspeakable crimes. During the course of him doing this job for 20 years, I wanted to see his level of growth and see him become self aware of who he is. Basically he's much like a werewolf. He cannot not solve crimes. He's destined to do this for a living for the rest of his life, regardless of all the consequences.

NP: So from a character point of view, Steve's political battles with the various law enforcement agencies are metaphorical for your battles with various elements within the TV companies you work with.

AZ: I think his psychological battles in doing a very tough job mimic the psychological battles of me doing a very tough job. I believe there's a lot of me inside that character which allows me to write dark when I want to write dark, to write heartfelt when I want to write heartfelt - to have that variance of emotions. I think all of those come out ultimately in the Dark Prophecy movie, which is a one-hour feature on top of the narrative journey inside of Dark Prophecy the crime novel.

NP: Obviously Dark Prophecy is the follow up to Dark Origins. Both are digi-novels, which bring other elements to the printed page. What made you want to go beyond the traditional book?

AZ: I'm an avid reader. I love crime novels. I respect the art of imagination. As an only child in Las Vegas, the imagination is what I relied upon to entertain me for all of those formative years. Since I have such an infatuation with technology, I wanted to find a way [to] write a book, write and direct a movie, and control and own a social community all wrapped in the same experience, so I can act as my own ownership entity.

That's where it all kind of began. I had the idea for the digi-novel, which allows you to read the book cover to cover - phase 1. Phase 2, read for 25 pages, [then] log into a website, enter a code, unlock a motion picture scene which bridges you from one chapter to another. Or, phase 3, be able to be intimately involved in a social community...

To find a way to aggregate a community that's a loyal fan base, and sell primarily to that community first and foremost before we even go to the world - that was the game plan. And it's working pretty magically so far, in terms of us having a worldwide bestseller for book one. We've made plenty of mistakes on the first book. On book two we have definitely refined those mistakes. I feel we finally have got it right. But even so, the digi-novel is a very clumsy experience in the book phase. Where we're really putting a lot of efforts into the iPad version of book two.

NP: That's what I was going to say, it'll be seamless as an iPad entity.

AZ: Yeah, when the press came back last year, it was a little ahead of it's time so they didn't quite know what to make of it. That's part of trailblazing, the good and the bad. What was really great was having people review it from an Apple position that said that the digi-novel was finally a digi-novel when it was launched on the iPod Touch and the iPhone.

Now I'll go on record to say that reading a 400 page book on an iPod Touch, which is about 1500 flips of a finger, is a bit of a funky experience unless you have that kind of patience. But when the iPad came out, it sort of seamlessly linked up to the vision I have of the digi-novel, which is the ability to consume the book in three ways on the iPad. One, a la the kindle - I can barely say that in the same sentence as the iPad - where you can flip your finger and read the book straight away. Two, you're able to flip through the book and every 40 pages you're able to just press a button and watch what we call a cyber-bridge, right in front of you and then keep continuing to read without ever putting the book down and logging in. And, three, the most progressive version of digi-novel, which is reading the book, watching the bridges and also collecting evidence inside the read, pulsing words you can collect and put into an evidence bin.

NP: This book really highlights why, with a holistic approach like this, the Kindle is a bit last decade even.

AZ: Oh yeah, I have to be careful what I say here. Amazon has a big stake in Kindle. I will say that Kindle, what it did do successfully in terms of my world is really tell the consumer that's it's okay to consume an e-book on a tablet. And you can carry multiple books around without having to shove all these books in your purse. I think that's a good thing. But, the visual possibilities in terms of the apparatus are so vast for a creator like me that it inspires me to push the digi-novel into the next revolution, which is being able to consume different levels of engagement, which is really the goal from the very beginning. I just didn't want to take a book out of people's hands from the jump.

NP: You talk about how you learned from the mistakes of Dark Origins. For people that read the first book, and maybe did find the experience a little clunky, what have you been able to iron out with the second? Why should people give your digi-novel another shot?

AZ: This is a great question and I'd love to address it. When you're doing something brand new, all you can do is really rely on your instincts and go for it, whether you succeed or fail. Nothing makes you better more than failure, because you're on the road to fixing [things].

The cover of the book was black and very masculine. That might've turned some folks off. It was very untraditional. It was very graphic novel-y, so to speak. That didn't help things. The cyber-bridges, the first one was entitled "Snuff" and it had a woman in a bondage situation with our friend the killer wielding a knife. It probably turned women off - big time. The book was very sexually deviant and it was very dark. CSI fans that were used to more commercial content were sort of like, "Whoa, this really isn't for me."

I was just going on raw gut there. After the book came out, you know, it's done very well - it's not Dragon Tattoo by any stretch - but it did set a mark. But we didn't sell a hundred thousand units. So I sat back and said, okay, well what can we do to improve? People, they were reading the book from cover to cover, but not really logging in to watch the interstitials. That kind of got in the way. It got a little clunky.

So for this book, Dark Prophecy, we started completely from scratch. We have a much more commercial cover. This is much more of a psychological thriller. It's not sexually deviant. It's not overly violent. It's still very engaging. It also takes the position of launching our Steve Dark hero. Because book one was very villain centric; Book two is very hero centric. And instead of doing 20 out of context interstitial cyber-bridges, we have written a really, really great classic psychological thriller. But we also have this one-hour movie as a side storyline that doesn't interfere or conflict with the book. That's the big success that we've done.

NP: I know links to the cyber-bridges are interspersed between the chapters, but can you watch them from start to finish as a movie?

AZ: You cannot do that in the book phase unless you flip through the book and enter all the codes to watch those. It will be available on iTunes for $6 to watch the movie, top to bottom a la Joss Whedon's Sing-Along Blog. We have the same monetization model. Once you buy the iPad app and you flip through the appropriate pages and unlock all the bridges, there will be a mechanism where you watch the movie straight through. But we don't have that mechanism in the book phase because we still are trying to teach people how to consume the digi-novel properly.

NP: When I'm reading at night, my computer's in the other room, and I don't want to have to get up. So when I was reading the book, I was wanting to consume the bridges at least a few at a time the next morning.

AZ: You certainly can. As long as you are patient enough to search for the chapter codes, you can watch the whole movie. If you wrote the codes down and you sat in front of your computer, you could watch the whole movie from top to bottom.

NP: This, like your other book is very forensic-centric. You obviously have a background in forensics, but how do you keep tabs on the latest developments?

AZ: Well I am back on CSI full time this year, so I have a plethora of information at my fingertips in terms of the latest in forensic technologies. Now, we didn't overly forensicate, so to speak, this book because we were really focused on the psychological journey of Steve Dark. We do have some forensic twists and turns in the book. But in terms of the meat and potatoes of the narrative, it really comes down to the interpretation of these tarot cards. Not only is the killer leaving tarot cards at crime scenes, and connecting all of the victims to send a profound message, but when you watch the one-hour movie, the cards that are dealt out by Justine Bateman, who plays Hilda, are dealt out in the same exact order when you watch the movie as his personal journey, which thematically is emblematic of the killer's journey in the book. So hangmen, the fool, three of cups - it's all the same order for the movie, for personal, and for the narrative of the book.

NP: On the Special Circs side of things, do you have advisors in the field that you work with?

AZ: Special Circs really is as dark as you can imagine. In terms of inventing things that are dark and nasty, I pretty much have that covered in my brain. I also have access to a lot of crimes that aren't public, that are very, very scary too. But I have to stress that the Special Circs part of the dark deviance is not really a part of this book.

We definitely got away from all of that because it was just too much to digest in a crime novel. But I have access to a lot of information just because I'm on the show every day. I'm talking with real law officers and retired CSIs in the writers' room that share stories that they've heard from law enforcement. I'm probably the most paranoid man in Los Angeles at this point.

NP: I'm was talking to Janeane Garofalo. She's in a new crime series with Forest Whitaker, and she had an interesting theory as to why procedurals are one of the most popular types of drama on television. She says we like to "imagine that there is a fully functioning and honest judicial system" and it's comforting for us to think that when people do wrong they get their comeuppance.

AZ: I think a lot of that is also in other kinds if serialized TV shows too, so I'm not sure if that's specific to procedural. As we found at CBS from CSI, the simple fact is that when you write compelling characters that are trying to right the wrongs, and bring peace of mind and justice to the survivors on the worst day of their lives...that audiences all around the world respond greatly to those kinds of shows.

Especially our audience. The average mean of our audience is 52-years old. Excuse me, they just announced 51-years old so we got a year younger here at CBS. But that audience in particular likes morally righteous people, working hard, bringing down bad, doing good, and caring for each other. And having a satisfactory ending to the case is something that does very well at this network.

NP: Where does your personal love for the genre come from?

AZ: Boy, that's a tough one. I think that as a young child that was rather high functioning, incredibly misunderstood, alone in his childhood as an only child in a very adult town of Las Vegas [can be]. Me being home from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until 11 o'clock at night, every day, allowed me a lot of time to think and romance [about] movies and television, things that I liked. I feel that there's a large part of justice and satisfaction that comes from creating and writing shows like this. From being a misunderstood child that was not out chasing girls, or not out buying new cars, or not doing the normal things kids do. I was reading, or creating, or drawing, or making board games, or rolling dice, or writing speeches, or reading philosophy books - just things that normal young kids didn't really do. I was made fun of for doing that and not taken seriously, and it just gave me the ambition to put some of that frustration into being creative, and therefore a lot of these great shows are born.

NP: What shows inspired you growing up?

AZ: I loved television growing up. I would watch Adam 12, Quincy - obviously - Three's Company, Twilight Zone. I had many shows that I would watch over and over and over again and get great pleasure. I think a lot of that had to do with me being in the business. I never aspired to be in the business but I was always a writer. I always found myself wanting to write the movies that I grew up with: Kramer vs. Kramer, Jaws, The Graduate, The Godfather, Love Story. Those are the kinds of movies that I really enjoyed. I try to capture the essence of that kind of drama when I write these shows.

NP: Talking of movies, I was reading this book, and the pace and the tone, especially when it builds to a crescendo at the end, it's crying out to be a movie. Is that a thought down the line?

AZ: Honestly, that thought had not really crossed my mind for this particular book. I can see how it could be constructed as a movie, but I really think the honest answer is that we were so conscious about making sure that we wrote a great book and we got everything right this time. I mean, by no means have we licked it, but we feel like we're in the right direction and we want to make sure that the one-hour movie is engaging. We definitely have done that. The movie is really, really great. And we want to make sure that the book hits on all cylinders in terms of being a commercial thriller that felt really Zuiker. We feel we've done that.

Then reworking the website so that it feels much more navigationally friendly and much more appealing to book readers, and not so dark and deviant. We reskinned that. Now we feel like we're in a good position to win, and because I'm fortunate enough to have the pleasure of taking my villain out of book one and putting that villain, Black Sqweegel, on to CSI, starring Ann Margaret in that particular episode, and then have the story line continue in Dark Prophecy when the book and the show drops the same day, is really an excellent cross platform experiment in the best way to push the book and the best way to get fans to try CSI.

NP: When's that CSI episode air?

AZ: October 14th at 9 o'clock local time. It will feature Sqweegel in the black-legged catsuit, which is how book one ends. Then the journey will continue in Dark Prophecy, which will be in stores nationwide the very same day, October 14th.

NP: All worlds collide on October the 14th.

AZ: Yeah. I think it's the first time that a creator has created a show, created a book, taken a villain out of a book, put it on his own show, and then continued it in a book. I think that's the first time this has really ever happened on television.

NP: And people have direct access to you through Level26.com - that's fairly unique too. How much time do you spend on there?

AZ: I check it every day. I answer all the direct mail myself. We have a small staff here that launches blogs once a week. We try to go daily, but it's very, very tough based on me being on CSI full time, developing new TV shows, launching books and movies, and [having a] speaking career with three kids and a wife. It's a little tough. I try to give them as much access as I can. I will reach out to them in Facebook, sometimes Twitter. I'll respond to every message. I have a pretty close relationship with the community. It got a little rocky after a while because it was just an onslaught of everybody coming to the party, but it settled down. Now that we're relaunching and we're reskinning and our clientele is much more reader-based, I think we're in line to build a fruitful community...The great thing about websites is you can always build them brick by brick over the course of time. You're not just assuming you've got to build Saddam's castle out of the gate. So we're definitely laying a more solid foundation in terms of our site.

NP: Finally, you sent me some clues for an ancillary game. Is that something that I can share with the SuicideGirls community?

AZ: Absolutely. We sent different cards to different people, and we're hoping that there's a lot of cross figuring out that will all lead to one crescendo prize at the end. I know Dread Central got this mysterious package and promoted it. Now people are trying to figure out the clues inside of that.

NP: Do you have any tips for members of the SuicideGirls community who want to join in and follow the clues?

AZ: I think the tips are to be thinking about other sites like Dread Central and CSIFiles.com. I think reaching out to those other sites and saying, "Hey we hear you've got a tarot card." Everybody had different cards, and as we're able to communicate and try to figure that out, people will end up licking that puzzle and getting some kind of cool surprise.

NP: That sounds very intriguing.

AZ: I have my internet guru here. He's hiding from me because it's all supposed to be top secret.

NP: So we have some top secret information do we?

AZ: Yeah. We've also launched a teaser on YouTube, and we're launching one cyber-bridge a day, counting down until October 14th so people will be able to watch the movie for free once a day. And Level 26 has a lot of hidden content in there too, so that's kind of neat...The buzz has been great so far, so we're pretty happy.

by Suri Suicide (image) [Monroe] Artist / SG Member Name: Monroe a.k.a Candy Warhol Mission: “Saving the world one glittery titty at a time.” (image) Medium: “Mixed media and/or Adobe Illustrator.” Aesthetic: “Pop, through and through.” Notable Achievement: “Anytime I actually finish... more

by Suri Suicide



[Monroe]

Artist / SG Member Name: Monroe a.k.a Candy Warhol

Mission: “Saving the world one glittery titty at a time.”





Medium: “Mixed media and/or Adobe Illustrator.”

Aesthetic: “Pop, through and through.”

Notable Achievement: “Anytime I actually finish a piece is a notable achievement.”

Why We Should Care: Monroe’s pop art pin-ups are off-beat, charming and very, very sexy.

I Want Me Some: Go to Etsy, Tumblr, or Monroe’s blog.

by Blogbot On October 14th, CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker will unleash a new Level 26 serial killer. Picking up where his first digi-novel*, Dark Origins, left off, Dark Prophecy follows Special Circs investigator Steve Dark, who this time finds his destiny entwined with that of the Tarot Card Killer. more

by Blogbot

On October 14th, CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker will unleash a new Level 26 serial killer. Picking up where his first digi-novel*, Dark Origins, left off, Dark Prophecy follows Special Circs investigator Steve Dark, who this time finds his destiny entwined with that of the Tarot Card Killer.



In the run up to the book’s release, the SuicideGirls community has been invited to participate in a very special mystery. Follow the clues (pictured), and visit this link, and fate may lead you to what Zuiker promises will be “some kind of cool surprise.”





Pssst! Need a hint? Zuiker says we should be “thinking about other sites like DreadCentral and CSIFiles.com.”



***



[Dark Prophecy - Part 1 - The Reading/Hanged Man]

*Bringing the novel into the digital age, Level 26 connects the printed word with motion picture elements and an interactive web-based social community. Crime fiction fans can consume the Dark Origins and Dark Prophecy thrillers via the familiar left to right, cover to cover route, or take a less linear approach. Readers of the books are encouraged to visit Level26.com to view cinematic “cyber-bridges” and participate in the site’s social and interactive areas. In advance of Dark Prophecy’s release, the associated cyber-bridges will be available to view at a rate of one per day on Youtube. The first one is posted above. For the latest info and TCK developments follow Level_26 on Twitter, and check in next week for an exclusive Q&A with Zuiker in the interview section of SuicideGirls.com.

by Brett Warner Anyone who’s seen the film understands that its soundtrack (by Reznor and frequent collaborator Atticus Ross) is responsible for much of the film’s ominous, subtextual undertones. In the same interview, director David Fincher admitted that he “wanted to do an odd John Hughes-style... more

by Brett Warner

In a recent interview with Pitchfork, former Nine Inch Nailer Trent Reznor promoted his score to the Columbia Pictures financed, fifty million dollar film The Social Network with a typical amount of brutal honesty:

Anyone who’s seen the film understands that its soundtrack (by Reznor and frequent collaborator Atticus Ross) is responsible for much of the film’s ominous, subtextual undertones. In the same interview, director David Fincher admitted that he “wanted to do an odd John Hughes-style movie, but it needed to be a little meaner than what that would imply.” Reznor added, “I saw a rough cut of the title sequence and they had some jangly college rock temped in that immediately gave the film this John Hughes vibe. I thought, ‘Hmm, I hope he doesn’t want anything like that.’”

The very non-John Hughes final score (available online now and in physical formats October 15th) is a typically post-millennial Reznor effort, a sinister tide after tide of ambient textures, treated piano, and analogue, synthesized menace. A few of the cues are pieces adapted from the instrumental Nine Inch Nails collection Ghosts I-IV, and the soundtrack shares that album’s preference for texture over tectonics. Like Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s work on The Dark Knight, the music in The Social Network rarely draws attention to itself, but gives emotional directions to material that could have been molded and presented any number of ways. Substitute Reznor’s “Hands Covers Bruise” piece that plays over The Social Network’s opening title sequence with “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” and suddenly we’re watching a very different movie. With a feel-good collection of rock tunes, the film could easily have played more like 21, another film based on a Ben Mezrich book about collegiate anti-heroes.

It’s a solid score that holds up outside of the film, but what gives Reznor’s contribution an added layer of interest is his initial reluctance to participate and a general distaste for the subject matter. Trent Reznor flat out hates Facebook, and one can’t help but wonder how those feelings influenced his music, which, in turn, gives subliminal cues to the viewer as to how they should feel about the founders of Facebook. Substitute Reznor’s music with a soaring orchestral score, and audiences are rooting for Mark and Eduardo to succeed… but with this music, we instinctively feel like something bad is going down. Go by Aaron Sorkin’s typically expert screenplay alone, and it’s unclear where our sympathies should lie. But throw Reznor into the mix, and suddenly we understand that Mark, Saverin, Sean Parker, and the entire cast are caught in an unstoppable chain of events beyond any of their control, a cyberspace Apocalypse Now in which it only gets more dangerous the further down the DSL we go.

Had Trent Reznor, David Fincher, and Aaron Sorkin been more compassionate in telling Mark Zuckerberg’s story — or, even worse, had Facebook itself had been involved in its production — then The Social Network would not be the film that it is. Critics and fans are quick to praise the “passion project” – instances in which a filmmaker, actor, musician, or writer tackles something very close to their hearts and presents it with an energetic fervor that’s easy to recognize and praise. Oliver Stone seems to only make passion projects. But Fincher, Reznor, and (I suspect) Sorkin loathe Facebook, and though The Social Network steers clear of any judgments about the site’s social or moral implications, the product must ultimately be viewed through that biased prism of artistic intent.

Director J.J. Abrams made it very clear in promoting his Star Trek reboot that he was not a fan of the original series or the films, that he took on the project as a personal challenge to make the franchise relatable to a wider audience. So when David Fincher says that “The simple-minded always look for something – if it’s not pornography, it’s DVDs or the Internet or video games – but I don’t think there’s anything inherently evil about Facebook… Human beings are amazing at finding ways to waste their own time”, you have to wonder what his intentions were in making The Social Network.

When you venture that a notable percentage of pop culture is created by people who’d rather be doing other things, it becomes clear that reservation, reluctance, or all-out contempt can be just as (if not more) powerful than true blue enthusiasm when it comes to creating good art. How many of the classic Baroque painters were simply trying to make a buck or two – and had contemp for the subjects of their work? I suspect Trent Reznor was eager enough to collaborate with David Fincher that he soldiered up and half-embraced the “Facebook movie” as his own, something that now aligns itself in the same artistic output as Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral. “I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways,” Reznor says, “But I also see why it’s appealing– I’ve had that little high you get from posting stuff online. But then you think, ‘Did I need to say that?’ I’ve explored that enough to know to stay kind of quiet these days.”

18,871 people like this.

"I do try like hell to not be ashamed. But, sometimes I am, I have to admit," says New Jersey-born comedienne, actress and activist, Janeane Garofalo. We've been talking for close to 45 minutes - mostly about TV, politics, the media, and the toxicity of contemporary pop culture. As I switch... more

"I do try like hell to not be ashamed. But, sometimes I am, I have to admit," says New Jersey-born comedienne, actress and activist, Janeane Garofalo. We've been talking for close to 45 minutes - mostly about TV, politics, the media, and the toxicity of contemporary pop culture. As I switch the tape recorder off and the conversation winds down, we briefly discuss what Garofalo herself turns to in order to unwind, which is the source of her current state of angst.

"Sometimes I fall dreadfully short, behavior-wise, activity-wise. Sometimes I'll watch bad television, sometimes I'll read crappy magazines and I'm ashamed, because I've done it," she admits. The New York resident, who recently released a new stand up DVD entitled If You Will, is currently living outside of her comfort zone in a Los Angeles hotel while filming the Criminal Minds spin-off Suspect Behavior (which also stars Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker).

Like crack down a pipe, The Young and the Restless is coming down the cable into her hotel room, and Garofalo is unable to resist her nightly SOAPnet fix. "I discovered it when I started staying here two months ago. And I have been falling asleep to it," she reveals when asked about her "guilty pleasures" (my words not hers).

Though a daytime drama might just be a pleasant - if unsubstantial - distraction for anyone else, for the earnestly politically correct Garofalo it's a matter of personal integrity. "If I'm going to be falling asleep, I should be reading," says the Air America alum, who doesn't want to be guilty of denigrating the work of fellow actors by using my "guilty pleasure" phrase, nor of indulging in the potentially socially toxic material we've previously been discussing.

"I do feel guilt and it is my pleasure," adds Garofalo, who it seems is constantly torn between her desire to fix society and her need to participate in it - flaws and all. Holding herself to impossible standards of moral perfection may be the source of undue anxiety, but Garofalo's awareness of her own - and our culture's - shortcomings brings sharp social commentary to her humor, and makes for an illuminating conversation - which, after a little small talk, soon turns to topics that carry more gravitas than glasses.

Nicole Powers: You rock the nerd glasses like no one else I know. You look so hot in them. But on the DVD you describe yourself as "a bit of a neo-luddite" when it comes to technology. I feel so led astray. On 24, you did all this crazy geek shit and you totally looked like you could actually do it.

Janeane Garofalo: Yeah, but I am not computer savvy. I don't use a computer. But that is not the glasses' fault. They're not nerd glasses anymore, nor have they been for years. These glasses, whether they be cat eye or Clark Kent glasses, are now such a standard of the Lower East Side of New York, that the nerd issue is long gone. So you can't be angry at me.

NP: I'm just jealous. I'm a geek, but I can't work it in glasses like that.

JG: I bet you could...I think most people look better with glasses. Especially if they are in the right frames, it enhances the character of their face. I'm glad I have to wear glasses. Not only because I like them, but, as I get older, so I don't have to worry about people really recognizing all the signs of aging around my eyes. I know I shouldn't care about those things, but I have to be honest, it does bother me to witness the aging process and glasses hide that a little bit...The show that I'm on now, I don't wear glasses I wear contacts. And, it's in HD, which is the scourge of my existence. I wish so much my character could wear glasses, just so I could hide behind them.

NP: This is the new Criminal Intent?

JG: It's Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. But I can understand why you'd be confused because there's 8 million crime procedural shows, all with similar names.

NP: I have every confidence now that there are more crimes solved on TV each week then there are solved in real life by police in America.

JG: That's why we like those shows isn't it? We like to imagine there is a fully functioning and honest judicial system where things are properly adjudicated through the courts and the bad guys always get caught. That's why these shows are popular. Because we want to believe...In the same way, medical dramas are popular - 'cause you want to believe there's all those doctors out there who care, who will go the extra mile for you.

NP: What's going to make your crime procedural stand apart from the others?

JG: That's the problem with TV isn't it? Hopefully just having Forest Whittaker will set it apart in some way. But this is my dilemma with network television. As much as I love working there - because it is wonderful to have a job - ask anybody who's unemployed. I am filled with gratitude for working. What I'm not thrilled about is network television's constraints that they put on the writers...

I wish we had more freedom. But that's the nature of mainstream television. It doesn't really allow you to be too terribly different under the auspices of the crime genre. But Forest, just watching him work, he really is different. It's not like any other detective that I've seen. He just does it differently. He just has his own style. And, hopefully, I will be able to bring something different to it - at least that's my intention.

NP: So are you Forest's sidekick?

JG: I am indeed. It's a wonderful cast. It's Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, Matt Ryan and Richard Schiff from The West Wing. It's nice to work with him again. The cast is fantastic and the crew is great. It's a real joy to work there. But I am not thrilled with all this violence - especially the violence against women. It really pricks at my conscience.

NP: Right. I love Law & Order, but the SVU series...

JG: Yeah, that bothers me.

NP: It makes me feel uncomfortable.

JG: Me too.

NP: Because it does make the crimes salacious and titillating.

JG: Salacious - that's the word I use on a daily basis. On a daily basis. It actually sometimes keeps me up at night, because my conscience is bothering me about it. Believe me, I'm not alone on the show in this feeling. Hopefully we will be able to get past that, because myself and the other cast members, our consciences do feel what you're feeling, and the word salacious is a perfect way to describe it.

NP: There is this weird imbalance, especially on network TV. You can show sex as part of a crime because then it's technically not sexy, but of course we all know that they're making it that way.

JG: It's for titillation purposes.

NP: But you can't show sex in a positive way, in a purely sexual way, because that's sex.

JG: It's totally fucked. And it's not culturally helpful. I don't want to be culturally irresponsible. But luckily, everyone in the cast - Forest especially - we are all hyper aware of that. So, even though they have that stuff, believe me, we are trying to move past that. I'm hoping that we can because we don't need more of it in the culture.

It's no different than British Petroleum pumping shit out into the gulf is it? It's like a pipe pumping out toxic waste, and luckily I'm working with people who are aware that that is not what we want to be doing, and hopefully we won't. But, unfortunately, you know that bullshit phrase that people use: We give the people want they want?

NP: Right, yes.

JG: Like it's the public demanding this kind of tawdry nonsense. I don't like that kind of pass the buck attitude, but a lot of stuff [like] that happens when you take these jobs on television. They sort of say, "Yeah, look, I didn't want to do that either, but the public likes it." I don't buy that. If you give them good stuff, they love it too. I mean, look at Mad Men.

NP: Also look at Oprah. I remember when the afternoon talk show circuit had devolved into this sordid and sensational scene. Then Oprah chose to break out and take the high ground, and look where Oprah is now compared to the other hosts of that era.

JG: Of course. It's a flawed argument. Sure there's some segment of the public that likes to eat shit. Fine. That's not my problem. We don't have to feed them that - right? But if you give the public good things, they do like that too. It's not fair to presume that the whole of the public and the aggregate wants a mediocre product. Also that's a weird point of origin for a show isn't it? Luckily, we have these discussions, like the one you are having now. I don't know if other shows have these discussions - maybe they do.

NP: Is it a fairly collaborative process between you and the writers?

JG: Yes. It is in that we can have these discussions. But sometimes I, and the cast, we don't prevail. We are overridden by the powers that be...So it is collaborative in that they are quite open to us at any time coming in to the offices and saying that. They go, "Eventually, once we're on our feet and the show is airing, we're going to move away from that." Then the cast always says, "But why are we starting there?"

But they feel like to start there is the way to get people, which I disagree with. But they feel like that's how you do it. You give them something they are familiar with and then you can move and get more creative. I hope in a way, in this case, they're right and I'm wrong, because I do want people to watch it. I do want to work there. I do want to keep my job. I do want to do a good show. I don't want to be part of something that I don't think is helpful culturally, and I don't want to do anything that's tawdry, masquerading as a crime series. Does that make sense?

NP: Absolutely. It is just so weird, the relationship that television in particular has with human sexuality. The flip side of that is this whole spate of shows highlighting teen pregnancy. All they've done is open their legs and forgotten to use a condom and we reward these kids with TV shows and magazine covers.

JG: It's no different than toxic waste or mercury in fish. It's low level poisoning...All of this mainstream entertainment, if you will, and mainstream tabloid journalism and mainstream corporate media news, lots of it is no different than mercury poisoning and low-level degradation. Bit by bit, piece by piece. They say you are what you eat, but you are what you read, you are what you see, you are what you process, and you are what you do with it.

NP: Right. Young children learn by repeating what they see.

JG: It's patterning and desensitization. It's a lack of consciousness. The collective unconscious is being degraded. But, you know, this is not new. This has been happening for years.

NP: It's been happening for years, but I guess the one thing that is new with reality TV is the glorification of dysfunction.

JG: You're right. And it's so-called reality TV, because it's not is it? Because what is it? The Hawthorne Effect, meaning that nobody can behave naturally because they're aware of being watched.

NP: The very fact that you're observing changes behavior.

JG: Exactly. And the producers of these shows encourage bad behavior, and then the editors are cast with editing it to the worst way. It is this chain where the shit is rolling down hill, and everybody passes the buck. Everybody says that this is what the public wants. Everybody just wants to keep their jobs. Everybody just wants to get a paycheck because they want to put their kids in a nice school...But, especially if you have kids, you should care more about this shit. You're being emotionally, mentally and intellectually shoved and pushed and prodded until you are just a blunt object, you know, societaly...I'm getting so hepped up here I'm not even articulating myself correctly. Do you know what I mean? So we're all just dense. We just don't care. You lose your empathy for people. You lose your perspective on what is proper behavior. How to appropriately treat one another.

NP: We've become desensitized to bad behavior en masse, as a society.

JG: It's just garbage, garbage, garbage. Tabloid magazines, sub-par news, crappy television programming, these reality shows where people are fighting, and, also, just the language in general. Just the degradation of the English language. The slang and the coarseness. Then add to that the texting and the sexting, and just the snark and the culture of cruelty, all of it - it's just a sea of garbage. Hopefully though, what will happen is there will be a renaissance out of it, of people rejecting this, moving in a different direction, saying, "You know what? I can't take this anymore."

NP: I'd like to think that will be the case, but the direction we're going in, I mean, can you get lower than Jersey Shore?

JG: Well, The Hills is just as shit, isn't it? The only difference is socio-economics.

NP: I guess you're right.

JG: People seem to pick on the Jersey Shore kids because it seems worse. But what is the difference between The Hills, The Kardashians and Jersey Shore? Money.

NP: You're absolutely right.

JG: What's the difference between political crime, corporate crime and the mafia? Better suits. Money. [That's] the difference between the Cosa Nostra, the actual mafia, and say Bush, Cheney, British Petroleum and Karl Rove. What is the difference between organized and political corporate crime? Better suits and they don't use double negatives.

And what's the difference between a gang of street thugs and corporate and political criminals? Money. And how we process it. Somehow Dick Cheney is considered different than any other gang member in East LA, for no reason other than imbued money/power status. And, of course, that guys like Dick Cheney are above the law, and guys in East LA are not.

NP: Right. And guys like Dick Cheney are absolute master manipulators.

JG: Yeah. They are sociopaths. Dick Cheney is a sociopath. He has no empathy. He clearly does not feel remorse, and, he clearly has no problem lying.

NP: I know that you hate the Tea Party movement, but that's a so-called "grassroots" bunch of folks that are virtually all victims of sociopaths. They're victims of manipulators who are cynically and deliberately motivating uneducated people to act against their self-interest.

JG: Exactly. Okay, the Tea Party movement, the Tea Baggers, they are suckers right? But they also are racist. Racist. It's not a populist movement at all. It's a racist movement. The first Tea Party was scheduled for Obama's inauguration day, so clearly they were upset with the job he was doing before he even did it. Never before has anyone asked to see a president's birth certificate. The Tea Party movement is built on one thing - hatred of the color of the man's skin and fear of modern multicultural America. I've never met more apologists for racists in my life then I have from the Tea Party movement.

But yes, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey, all these cynics at the top, all these sociopaths at the top - they suffer from what [psychiatrists now] call Antisocial Personality Disorder - which, in behavioral psychology, is somebody that continuously does things that harm society, feels no remorse, guilt, [they're] not tethered to honesty.

NP: They're smart enough to know that racism is wrong, but they have no qualms about using it as a manipulation tool - to unite through a common hatred.

JG: Unite through hate. That is what the Republican Party stands for. That's what they've been standing for, more or less, since the Civil Rights era. The conservative movement and the Republican party of the last 40 years has been moving steadily to the right, and steadily to being the party of wedge issues. Because contemporary society has outgrown the Republican Party, so they have to do this. They have to keep micromanaging, and keep inspiring hate wherever they can - fear wherever they can - so that they can manipulate people into voting against their better interest. That's just a tale as old as time. What is the difference between that and any gang member, anywhere? It's the same.

NP: I think that gang behavior is more honest.

JG: Yes, it is.

NP: I think your average Tea Partier is a victim of abuse and manipulation.

JG: But they're still racist aren't they?

NP: They're blinded by hatred.

JG: And fear.

NP: But the people who are truly evil are the people that are inciting and manipulating that hatred and fear.

JG: Exactly.

NP: It's just classic mind control, and tactics of distraction. I mean the Tea Baggers aren't even talking about the tax breaks for the rich.

JG: Of course not! It's not about policy. It's about emotion. It's all limbic brain. It has nothing to do with actual policy. You can tell a right-winger - whether it be a Tea Bagger or whatever you want to call them - anything but the truth. They'll believe anything you tell them, but the truth. In fact the truth causes them to become confused and angry. They get quite reactive. They don't like facts. They don't like to think of the big picture. They don't like to be empathetic. They don't like to see things from many perspectives. They don't like nuance. It's all the limbic brain. It's neuroscience. It's emotional.

NP: The other thing that they use to manipulate is religion. It's just another manipulation tool in American politics.

JG: In all politics...It has been utilized and used as a weapon, as a divider, in every culture in every era. It's not new. One would hope we would've outgrown it by now. There's nothing inherently wrong with religion in and of itself. I don't care, especially if you're a guy like Martin Luther King. More power to you if you're going to use religion as a tool to better yourself and society. Wonderful. But that's not how most leaders use it. I also happen to like science. I'm interested in it. It answers the big questions and it comforts me. I don't know why more people who are religious don't feel comforted by scientific answers because they're fine with every other area of technology.

NP: People that reject science and believe humans walked around with dinosaurs, still watch TV and use cell phones.

JG: Exactly. They also will avail themselves of medical technology. Say they have a premature baby, they will use every area of medical technology to save their baby but they will still vote against stem cell research.

I'm getting all hepped up lady. This is crazy. I have to go soon. I have to go to work. But we have gotten into many interesting areas. I hope you don't feel that I'm being too strident with you.

NP: Not at all. SuicideGirls is all about being strident. I think there's a need to be more so. I believe that one of the greatest ills in this country is apathy. When you allow apathy to rule, that's when the people that aren't apathetic, like the Tea Baggers that are fueled with hate, can bring their minority agenda to the fore.

JG: Exactly. There's a famous phrase: Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people. I think Margaret Mead said it. She meant it in a positive way, but it also can be used the other way. Never underestimate the power of guys like Karl Rove, and how much damage they can do.

These right-wingers never ultimately win, because time marches on and it marches past them. If conservatives always won, we'd still own slaves and women would never vote. They never ultimately win - right? But they do a hell of a lot of damage in the meantime kicking and screaming towards a more evolved society.

...Don't lose faith, or heart. The news and everything focuses undo attention on these people. The majority of the country is not backward like this. It's a good titillating news story, to focus on these people as if they are legitimate. They aren't. They imbue them with legitimacy, just like they imbued in the Civil Rights era legitimacy on the people that were beating up Civil Rights marchers. But they're not legitimate.

NP: That's why I'm really enjoying the stand Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart are taking at the moment, organizing their own opposing rallies.

JG: Of course, and you know, we can all do it...Every single one of us can take a stand personally. We can all do it. And, it does make a difference. The biggest thing, and you're quite right, apathy. That's the worst place you can be in, because then life just happens to you. All this stuff just happens to you, and you're just witnessing the back slide of culture, and you're not doing anything about it.

NP: Right. We're all complaining about Jersey Shore while watching it.

JG: Right. And also, who gives a shit ultimately? Why are we complaining about Jersey Shore? The editors and the producers of the show have made them look horrible. Just like in The Hills or The Kardashians - wherever these crap-tastic shows are. These people are edited to look at their worst, but you know, there's no reason to be watching it. It's like eating junk food. Just don't do it. Just put it down. Nobody is compelling you to watch it?

...Sometimes I'll do a radio interview and they try and discuss Jersey Shore, and I'll say, "I don't know. I haven't seen that, but do you want to talk about the Tea Party? There's other ways we can go with this conversation." And most people treat you like you're an asshole.

NP: No, I'm glad that you're fighting the fight. I very much hope with your TV show that you can push back, and you and Forest and the writers can get it to a place where you're comfortable and proud, and it moves the genre in a healthier direction.

JG: Yeah, I hope so too. Like I said, the network, they've been very good about listening, talking about this, which I think is unusual...Maybe they weren't thinking about it before - 'cause they were just making a product. Hopefully the cast is making them think about it. Or, I may get fired. That's always a possibility. I may get fired. I have to accept that. If you're going to discuss these types of things, and if its possible that somebody finds it irritating, you always have to be ready - or I do - I just have to be ready for somebody to say, "Well, maybe you shouldn't be here." Even though I want to have a job, like anyone, I have to accept they might say, "Look, this is the show we're doing, make a decision." I just have to always know that that may happen. I hope it doesn't, but I'm ready for it if it does.

NP: Well, I'm hoping for the more positive of those two outcomes.

JG: I hope so too, but you know, we'll see. I guess we'll see.


Janeane Garofalo: If You Will - Live in Seattle is available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior will debut on CBS in 2011.