A.J. Focht Warner Bros. has walked away the victor in the legal battle with the heirs of Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster. Warner Bros. retains rights to the Man of Steel. The big news here is Warner Bros. is moving forward with the Justice League movie. They will start on it next year and plan to release... more

A.J. Focht

Warner Bros. has walked away the victor in the legal battle with the heirs of Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster. Warner Bros. retains rights to the Man of Steel. The big news here is Warner Bros. is moving forward with the Justice League movie. They will start on it next year and plan to release the Justice League movie in 2015.

Last week, it was revealed that Agent Coulson would be returning on the upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. television series. Coulson isn’t the only Agent confirmed for the show, Ming-Na Wen has been cast as Agent Melinda May in the series. These are the only confirmed cast members so far. There is no word as to whether or not Cobie Smulders will be reprising her role as Agent Maria Hill. Joss Whedon is co-writing the script with his brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.



It was a big week as the Iron Man 3 marketing campaign put their thrusters on over-drive. First, the official synopsis for the third movie was released as well as several new stills and posters. After fans finished ‘powering up Iron Man’s core’ in the Facebook campaign, a teaser trailer was released to introduce the full length trailer released on Tuesday. Iron Man 3 is set to release in theaters on April 26, 2013.

Captain America: Winter Soldier is currently in the casting phase, and it looks like Frank Grillo is taking the role of Crossbones. Crossbones is an assassin who worked for the Red Skull. Most notably, Crossbones is the man who killed Captain America after the Marvel Civil War. The film is scheduled to release on April 4th, 2014.

The Wolverine movie is coming to theaters on July 26, 2013. While the casting is long over, it looks like there is a last minute cameo appearance from one of the original X-Men. Rumor is that Famke Janssen will reprise her role as Jean Grey from the original X-Men trilogy.

There are more video game based movies on the horizon. It’s been a while since there has been news on the Mass Effect movie, but Legendary Pictures is still moving forward with it. Now Morgan Davis Foehl has been assigned with penning the script for the film. Mass Effect isn’t the only video game movie in progress. New Regency will finance and distribute the Assassin’s Creed movie with Michael Fassbender set to star in the film.



The first television spot for The Hobbit has been released. Sir Ian McKellen recently updated his blog to talk about the pros and cons of returning for The Hobbit. The run time of the film is slightly longer than was expected, coming in just under three hours long. The first Hobbit movie is completed set and ready for theaters on December 14, 2012. Also, it’s been revealed that Stephen Colbert will be making a cameo in one of the sequels.



The trailer for the Evil Dead remake is now online. The film promises not only the return of several of the best moments from the original film, but also more gore and depravity than any of the originals. Evil Dead is opening in theaters on April 13, 2013.

The third episode of the third season of Walking Dead has been widely hailed as one of the best episodes in the series. If a new episode each week isn’t enough to fill your zombiefied cravings, the new the Walking Dead Magazine is your one stop of all upcoming franchise news. The first issue recaps the comic series so far and covers what is coming up next in the television series. There are multiple interviews in the first issue, including an excellent and revealing interview with executive producer and writer Robert Kirkman. The cover story from the magazine gives readers an in depth look at the katana wielding Michonne. Kirkman describes Michonne as the ‘Boba Fett of the Walking Dead universe’ and gives more insight into the mysterious character. The Walking Dead Magazine is a must for fans looking for all the official news behind the comic book and television series.

by Nahp A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups. (image) [Mindi Suicide in Love In The Woods] This week Mindi tell us why she loves getting Crafty. Members: 1,418 / Comments: 13,131 WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: I love to do things with my hands and I'm soooo crafty. I'm always... more

by Nahp

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.


[Mindi Suicide in Love In The Woods]

This week Mindi tell us why she loves getting Crafty.

Members: 1,418 / Comments: 13,131

WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: I love to do things with my hands and I'm soooo crafty. I'm always thinking about what new stuff I could make. I make bags, and love decorating shoes and drawing stuff.

DISCUSSION TIP: It doesn't matter if you are an expert or a beginner, all you need is to love using your hands!

MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: There isn't heated thread!! This is a group full of creativity, and everyone loves that!

BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “Keep laughing darling and don't let the bastards wear you down.”

WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: Everyone who knows how to make stuff and wants to show others how to do it and everyone who wants to learn how to make stuff!


***
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A very special super spooky story written by Robert Ropars for SuicideGirls feat. Gogo, Radeo, Milloux, Spliff, Tita, Moxi, and Bradley. (image) [Gogo in The Twelth] A black sedan drove slowly down a long, gravel driveway. A group of models was being driven from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to a remote... more

A very special super spooky story written by Robert Ropars for SuicideGirls feat. Gogo, Radeo, Milloux, Spliff, Tita, Moxi, and Bradley.


[Gogo in The Twelth]

A black sedan drove slowly down a long, gravel driveway. A group of models was being driven from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to a remote farmhouse ninety minutes southwest of the city. The seven passengers were Suicide Girls: Gogo, Radeo, Milloux, Spliff, Tita, Moxi, and Bradley.

It was late October, and even though it was only dinner time, the sun was already near the horizon about to set. A long summer drought had left the various Autumn Blaze maples lining the long driveway nearly stripped bare of their foliage. A chilly wind blew some of their multicolored leaves across their view, illuminated by the limo’s headlights as they drifted past like spirits.

In the back, the Suicide Girls had now begun to gather their things. Gogo finished a cigarette and flicked it out the window while exhaling. Her breath turned into a smoky whistle as she saw the ancient farmhouse coming into view as the last trees were passed and they turned to approach the front porch.

“So that’s the Bellingham estate?” Gogo looked at Milloux and smiled. “How the hell did you find this place?”

Milloux smiled at her and replied, “I was in Chicago earlier this year and was looking up haunted places for our shoot. This one was remote enough for us, but not too far to get to.”

Radeo looked up from her phone as she finished a text message. “What happened here? You still haven’t told us.”

Milloux smiled and her eyes sparkled as she remembered what she’d read and the plan for the shoot. “No way! Let’s get in and settled first. I’ll share the story soon enough. The owners are letting us stay all night for our Halloween shoot…but they are sure we’ll never make it.”

The girls looked at each other and then the house with nervous smiles. Gogo smiled the broadest, excited at the idea of a scary photo shoot for Halloween. The others were anxious to stretch their legs after the long drive as soon as the limo parked. As the driver got their luggage to the aged porch, Tita and Moxi wandered over to a large tire swing hung from the maple closest to the house, the others ascended the creaky front porch steps.

Around the house was an outhouse, a large well, a silo that towered over them, a decrepit barn and behind all of these things a cornfield stretching to the horizon. As the sun set, it cast everything in bright oranges and reds and soon all would be in darkness. A security light on the barn had already come on illuminating a small area in front of it and two porch lights on either side of the door had also come on in the decreasing light.

As Gogo and Radeo walked over to a very old porch swing that rattled and drifted in a slight breeze, Milloux entered a code for the lock on the front door. The owner had added security after kids had broken in recently, and had set up a temporary number for their visit. The light turned green and she held the door for the driver who brought their things to the foot of a grand staircase. The house smelled dusty and moldy and Milloux pressed a light switch so everyone could see.

As the lights came on, a thunderous crash erupted from the porch. Milloux and the driver rushed out, the other girls stood and laughed at Gogo and Radeo. One end of the porch swing had come loose and they’d crashed. Moxi and Milloux shook their heads, helped them up, and one by one entered the creepy old house.

Milloux took care of the driver and confirmed that he would be back in the morning at 10 AM sharp. He smiled, said goodbye, got in the car, and started back down the long driveway. Bradley and Moxi watched from the front room windows as his tail lights faded from sight. Milloux closed the front door and they heard a loud metallic noise followed by some beeps.

“What was that?” asked Spliff.

Milloux smiled at Spliff who looked a bit jumpy already. “That was the front door locking.”

The others stared at her with a mixture of apprehension and fear. The girls looked down the main hallway to the back of the house, up the stairwell, at the faded and torn wallpaper and frowned at several creepy old portraits lining the wall that led to the second floor.

“Relax, the driver will be back in the morning and we’re shooting all night. Let’s get unpacked and meet in the main room in an hour ok? I brought stuff to eat and we can get our drink on. And I’ll tell you the terrible horror of Edward Bellingham and the ghosts some say still haunt this home. MMUUAAHH HAHA HA!”

“You are such an asshole!” Bradley punched Milloux in the arm and each girl grabbed their bags. Slowly they began to make their way up the creaky wood stairs. Reaching the top landing, they spread out and paired up in various bedrooms. Milloux insisted on being on her own and Moxi watched her carefully placing covered items on the bed. She was going to ask what they were, but knew Milloux had planned a night of fun and games.

Outside, the temperature continued to drop and the wind picked up. The creaking of the trees and the house around them sent shivers up and down most of their spines. Milloux was giddy with anticipation at the night ahead. She had planned that this would be a scarefest of a shoot they would all remember.

***



An hour later, the girls were gathered in the downstairs front room, a large crackling fire was burning, they’d finished eating and the girls were enjoying drinks, smoking, or sipping tea. Milloux stood and all eyes turned to her.

“Ok ladies, we’re going to have so much fun tonight. I’m so excited to be shooting all of you and we have this haunted house as the perfect backdrop. But before we get started, let me tell you the story of the house.”

Lifting her tablet, she began to read from notes she’d prepared for the trip.

“Edward Bellingham came to America with a wife and two girls, Emma and Eliza, in 1832. He had made a decent amount of money in London and sought a new life here in the Midwest. He had this place built and ran a successful farm for many years, but the period before the Civil War brought a new opportunity.

“Many slaves escaped and fled northward, most using the Underground Railroad. There was a hefty bounty for returning slaves to the South, and Bellingham devised a twisted plan. He got word out that his home was a stop on the path to freedom. But those who came down the long driveway to his farmhouse soon regretted the decision.”

Milloux paused dramatically letting her gaze cross the room. All eyes were on her.

“Edward had a tunnel built between the basement of this home and the barn we saw outside. He had his wife bring them food and clothes while he contacted members of the Klan to arrange his bounty. For a few years he managed to convince his wife that the men who took the former slaves away were helping smuggle them north. She discovered the truth one night when she overheard him talking to one of the smugglers and they had a bitter fight.

“As their girls held each other in terror in one of the rooms, the fight raged into the night until Edward lost control. He hit her so hard she fell down the stairs and her neck broke killing her right there.”

All the girls turned to follow Milloux’s finger pointing to the bottom of the stairs. The lights flickered briefly and everyone shifted nervously for a moment until they returned to normal.

“But that wasn’t the worst of his crimes. He kept up his smuggling business until one day a beautiful 15-year old Creole girl knocked on the front door. She had long since lost track of her family, and was trying to find a safe haven. The wealthy widower convinced her that staying as his house maid and nanny was her best option. It wasn’t a hard decision for her.”

The girls stared at Milloux dreading what was next in the story.

“Edward patiently let the girl, her name was Marie, get settled into her life as nanny to his daughters. He seemed like the perfect guardian with only one rule that she never enter his bedroom. One day he was out tending to the fall harvest and Marie was tidying up. For some reason we may never know, curiosity got the better of her and she entered his room.

“At first, nothing seemed out of place or particularly interesting. Then she saw the box on his desk. Made of wood, it had strange symbols carved on it. Opening it she backed away in terror and screamed. Inside was a skull with empty eyes that stared at her. Turning she ran into Edward who was standing behind her. Enraged, he grabbed her and said, ‘I told you never to come in here. You’ve upset my wife!’

“Edward choked her until she passed out and dragged her limp body to the basement. There it’s said he chained her to a wall standing up. She awoke and realized he was building a wall and he ignored her pleas and screams as he positioned brick after brick. When he finished, he could barely hear the sounds of her screams and chains. Even to this day, people hear the rattling of chains and the sounds of scratching if they linger too long in the basement.”

Gogo lit a cigarette and exhaling looked at Milloux with a combination of dread and anticipation. “What happened to his daughters?”

Milloux had an evil twinkle in her eye because she had saved the worst part for last.

“He began to have headaches and nightmares and stopped sleeping. He slowly fell into a pit of despair and became convinced his daughters were communicating with their mom’s and Marie’s spirits. They missed her and cried all the time. He knew they hated him and were plotting against him.”

Milloux paused and took a drink.

“And?” Spliff was on the edge of the tattered couch close to slipping off and falling on the ancient pine floor boards.

“Some say he tied them to scarecrow posts in the cornfield so crows could feast on them. Some say he locked them in the silo and filled it while they screamed for help choking on the dust. But some say there was plenty of room in the basement for two little girls. Nobody knows for sure, but it’s said their spirits still linger here.

“Edward slowly went insane alone with the sounds of the four women his only company. Finally, one night he ran screaming into the night and fell down the well outside to his death.”

Milloux put down her tablet computer and sat by Bradley on a chair and played with her hair.

“Wow…you really are full of shit!”

Milloux looked at Tita in surprise.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Tita looked at the others and then back at her.

“You made at least half of that up. Total bullshit.”

Bang! Upstairs, a door had slammed shut and the girls jumped and screamed in unison. Some looked really nervous while others laughed, though some of them nervously so.

“Girls it was just the wind. It’s an old place and full of gaps for the wind to get through.” Moxi did her best to reassure herself as much as the others. Then they heard a sound. Faint at first, it sounded like girls crying faintly on the second floor. Their eyes widened and they shivered. It stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun.

“That was the wind right?” Tita had a look of confusion and fear now doubting herself about Milloux’s story.

“Well I have a brand new app for us to try out some ghost hunting and seems like the spirits are ready to play.”

“An app? For ghosts?” Radeo eyed Milloux skeptically.

“Girls listen. Phones and tablets have cameras, compasses, gyroscopes, decibel meters, magnetometers, and all kinds of other sensors. We’ve all watched ghost hunter shows right?”

Most nodded remembered various reality series featuring people using all manner of gadgets to detect the paranormal.

“This app called ‘Ghostdar’ just pulls all of that together to measure changes in electromagnetic energy and such to sense when spirits may be near and how strong. Let’s try it out.”

Milloux lifted the tablet, launched the app and her face was illuminated in a green glow. Holding it up, she focused the rear camera on the stairwell and moved it up and down and then held it above her focused on the ceiling. The others ducked down to look and they saw the ceiling with an infrared view, a moving radar animation over it and all manner of numbers cycling around the screen.

“Seriously? That’s crap…”

Before Moxi could finish her thought, two green lights appeared above them and began to move around the upper area. Their eyes were wide and no one spoke.

“Sad.”

The app spoke a word that also appeared on the screen before fading away.

Gogo exhaled smoke and said, “What was that?”

“The app analyzes the energy of the spirits and tries to translate their attempts to communicate. Sometimes you get lucky and words come through.”

As they spoke, the lights faded away. They waited a few more minutes and nothing else appeared. Milloux brought the app down and when it was eye level she jumped and let out a gasp. Several of the others screamed, having moved behind her, they all saw the ghost at the same moment. Standing at the bottom of the stairs was a woman with her neck bent to one side. She said nothing, slowly turned and drifted down the hall passing out of sight. Her strong red radar contact however continued on behind the wall and stopped before the kitchen.

They were all shaking as they heard the sound of metal and then wood creaking. The radar contact faded to green and vanished.

“Dark.”

The app spoke aloud again. Then they heard something, faint at first, then louder the sound of chains rattling from the basement. Milloux lowered the tablet and swept the floor and in the far corner of the house a red contact appeared.

“It’s Marie! The spirits want us to find her. Maybe if we find her, she can move on. Come on girls!”

“No fucking way!” Bradley looked at the others and back at Milloux. “No fucking way I’m going down there.”

Milloux scowled at her. “That’s fine. You can stay up here by yourself and keep an eye on things.”

Bradley scowled at her.

“We’ll all be together that’s the key. I’ve got the app and it has built-in video and sound recorders. Let’s go.”

Milloux led the way to and down the hall toward the kitchen screen held in front of her. She paused when she realized that the door to the basement was opened a few inches. She continued with the girls close behind and the floor boards creaked as did the walls around them and trees outside in the chilly October night.

Milloux reached out and pulled the door fully open. The hinges were extremely rusty and it was very noisy. Seeing a light switch to her left, she flicked it on and they saw a long wooden staircase, the steps open to the space behind them leading into darkness. It appeared that another light was on further onward, but the darkness fought against the light pools making it hard to see clearly. The lights flickered and they could now more clearly hear the sound of chains and something else that sounded like scratching.

Slowly, the nervous and giggling group started down the dusty, creaky stairs. The wind that howled above and the roof that rattled began to be muffled by the basement walls. Milloux reached the bottom and turned and as they gathered behind her, the saw a large red contact in the far corner currently in darkness.

“Ok girls, let’s get…”

Bang! The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut and they screamed as they spun around. Milloux held the tablet up, but didn’t see any ghost contacts above them.

“It’s ok, stupid drafty hous…”

At that moment, before Milloux could finish her thought there was a crackling sound like static electricity and the lights flickered. The basement was a big space filled in every direction with boxes, furniture, and all manner of debris. There were walkways through the mounds leading to the far wall and two lights hung flickering along the path.

“Let’s keep going. That’s got to be Marie back there.”

“Ok I’m going to try and speak to the spirits so everyone be quiet. Marie? We mean you know harm. We are here as friends and want to do some photos here.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Moxi asked through chattering teeth. Whether the cold, the fear or both caused the rattling even she was unsure.

They were now halfway towards the back wall. The rattling and scratching sounds were louder and now they heard a woman weeping.

“Trapped.”

The girls stopped.

“It’s her?” Gogo asked as the word faded.

“It has to be. She’s trapped and we can free her. Isn’t this exciting?”

Before anyone could respond, a floor board creaked upstairs sending a small shower of dust downward.

“Oh my god, what the fuck?” Spliff adjusted her glasses as she and the others looked up at the wood boards above. Milloux held up the tablet, and now a large red contact was above them slowly moving through the house. It faded to green and disappeared quickly.

“Spirits of this house, we are here as friends. We want to help you and learn from you.”

Only silence. Milloux got them moving again and now they were nearly three quarters of the way to the back wall. The red light ahead of them faded and the sounds of weeping, scratching and rattling ceased. Milloux scanned the back area and found no more contacts.

“Wreath…”

“Why the hell did it say that?” Moxi asked.

“Sometimes the words aren’t clear to the app I think.”

“You think?” Gogo was getting angry and scared at the same time.

“Wreath…”

“Why did it say it again?” Radeo was now terrified and the repeated odd word wasn’t helping matters.

Milloux looked concerned for the first time and wasn’t sure what to do.

“Maybe we should…”

Behind and above them, the door at the top of the stairs slowly creaked open. They heard a single footstep, then another on the creaky steps. A heavy, unseen set of feet slowly descended into the basement. At the same time, the lights began to flicker and with a pop went out leaving them in darkness save for the tablet glow.

The girls stood frozen in terror, momentarily blinded as their eyes adjusted to the sudden inky blackness. Slowly, Milloux raised the tablet to the stairs. Their eyes widened as they saw a bright red contact over a man who stood staring at them in old fashioned clothes. His eyes were completely black.

“Wreath…”

“Who the fuck is that and why does it keep saying ‘Wreath?’” Radeo was shaking and her words were uneven.

“It’s Edward. And it’s not getting the word right maybe.” She paused and said, “Is that you Edward? We mean you no harm. What are you trying to tell us?”

The man’s right hand lifted and he pointed at them and disappeared. The radar beeped and a large red contact appeared behind them. Milloux and the girls spun around and as the tablet focus its infrared view they saw Edward right behind them, empty black eye sockets gaping and his hands came up quickly towards them.

“Wrath.”

As the app translated the spirit’s voice, Milloux dropped it. The tablet shattered on the cold stone floor. Darkness and panic were followed by screams and silence.

THE END



Robert Ropars is a Chicago based horror author, liberal/progressive, Doctor Who fanatic and bullying surTHRIVEor. You can get more of him on Kindle and Nook. For more, visit his Wordpress Library.

Marilyn Manson says his new record, Eat Me, Drink Me (out now), saved him from an identity crisis. The controversial singer -- recently hailed as “The Last Rock Star” by Spin magazine -- chatted with Aaron Detroit about Slayer fans, getting his mojo back by making a record while lying on the floor,... more

Marilyn Manson says his new record, Eat Me, Drink Me (out now), saved him from an identity crisis. The controversial singer -- recently hailed as “The Last Rock Star” by Spin magazine -- chatted with Aaron Detroit about Slayer fans, getting his mojo back by making a record while lying on the floor, his directorial debut Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, and the last gasps of record industry.


Aaron Detroit: Hey, how are you?

Marilyn Manson: Hey, you’re not a girl!

AD: No, I’m not.

MM: [laughs]

AD: [laughs] How have the European shows been going?

MM: We just finished eight weeks and now I’m in New York having a little break for a few moments and then we start in Florida next week.

AD: And that’s for the co-headlining tour you’re doing with Slayer?

MM: For the Slayer, yes.

AD: Slayer fans are kind of notorious for not being super kind to the bands that play with them. How are you going to handle that?

MM: Well, I think that, quite honestly, people are not so motivated to be assholes. People now appreciate working for the money to buy a concert ticket. I think the two crowds are going to come together. I think that there’s a shared sentiment in that both bands have never backed down in what we believe in or what we stand for. There’s all these bands that want to adopt the trappings or the aesthetics of things that I’ve done or [Slayer’s] done but [those bands] don’t have the visceral element to back it up and I think we really need to represent the evil in rock and roll as literal as that needs to be taken. Bringing Satan back.

AD: Do you think there are any new bands that are carrying that torch at all?

MM: Well it’s in different ways. You know, it’s so hard to say things that I’ve said in the past now because it’s so pointless. I won’t even compliment myself by taking credit for even a percentage of them but I think that the world has really finally caught up to the really obvious ironies that I have pointed out for my entire career. So there’s no point to really attack the world and that’s what led me to the point where I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make music anymore. I didn’t understand who I was supposed to be. I didn’t understand if I had anything left to say. I didn’t understand what I was doing when I made this record, but now, looking back, I can see, I had yet to turn the microscope onto myself, and I think that that’s the only way you can relate basically what I’ve always been saying, which is about believing in yourself. It’s about self-preservation, it’s about standing up for what you believe in and not caring if other people disagree with it, but at this point instead of wasting your time commenting on religion and politics the only thing people talk about is an infomercial on MTV. I think that basically I was able to, not even intentionally, make a record that said that to me because I needed to hear it the most. I didn’t, I wasn’t certain of who I was and I made this record and it made me feel strong again. I think that’s maybe the only simple way you can communicate that message with people now. I don’t think that people need to hear about the obvious that’s right here in front of them.

AD: Okay, so basically, through making a more personal record you feel like you’re commenting on things in more subtle ways?

MM: It’s hard to be objective because it’s a little bit too recent but when I try to look back at it and figure out how things came about it’s hard to say if it’s more personal because I always put so much of myself into everything I do, but I think in the past, I always, I suppose, put my feelings into a metaphor of some sort. Whether it be a persona or a character or a story or something that was a little bit more of an armor for me. I think that I really had to learn how to let my guard down. It was at a point where I didn’t know who to trust and I didn’t know if I could feel anything. I didn’t really know if I had a reason to live. I wasn’t even motivated enough to kill myself because I didn’t have that much dedication. I really was on the verge of giving up and I think that starting to make this record I ended up having the first true collaboration musically. With Tim [Skold]. Not at any point did I have to tell him, “This is how I want the guitar to go. I don’t want this sound.” He was almost scoring whatever he was seeing me go through. I don’t know, maybe he knows me that well, maybe it was obvious. I’m not sure.

AD: So you gave Tim a lot of room on the record?

MM: Well, it was different than that. I mean, that would be the old way of doing things. It would be like if there was somebody that I worked with in the past and I was letting them do what they want. Like there was some sort of gesture or some sort of act of magnanimous collaboration. This was a situation where Tim was playing these pieces of songs and it sounded like what I needed it to sound like. If nothing else it made me feel challenged, like, “I haven’t done that yet.” I thought that I was at a point where, “Why should I bother?” The first song we did was “Just A Car Crash Away” and it was, for me, it was probably the slowest, the most mellow, I suppose, on the record and it was the first one I really tried and I sang it once. I write very scattered, maybe fifteen, twenty notebooks at a time because I’ll lose one, so I’ll have to write in another one. So I’d write one thought that goes across a couple notebooks and I just lay them all out there and I sang most of the record laying on the floor on my back with a ribbon microphone, which isn’t supposed to be held in your hand, so it was technically improper, but who gives a shit? It sounded the way that it sounds and I liked it. That was the first song, I sang it once just to check my levels and then I sang it again and put it on the record. I wasn’t trying to prove a point or anything but I didn’t feel like it needed to be sung again. I played it later that night for a couple of people and one person cried. It made me feel like suddenly I could make somebody feel something and that made me feel something.

AD: What are your feelings on the current political climate and where do you see the country heading in the next few years?

MM: Well, you know, a lot of people misinterpreted my comment about Bush saying I was advocating him to be in office, which wasn’t true. I was just saying, simply, that if he was that it would be a time that maybe artists would strive for more because you’re put into boundaries. Little did I know that it was going to be as bad as it’s been, in fact I think that it’s now reached the point where there’s this absurd, sort of almost Nazi, Berlin, McCarthy-era Hollywood where people lose their jobs for saying just random stuff where, I remember when Bill Mahr, his show got canceled because he said something about 9/11 and it’s just reached like a real absurd level. But, if you turn on the real world there are people fucking each other in the ass and getting drunk - the world is really fucked up and backwards. It’s gotten to the point where I think it’s almost the same as when I started the band and why I came up with the name Marilyn Manson. I think it’s different, but in a way it’s the same. It’s really strange how things go in circles and it’s, ultimately, the people who are not artistic, who are not creative, they’re not architects, they’re not writers, they’re not speech makers, they’re not musicians, those people have historically been terrified. Take Nazi Germany, for example, and the McCarthy era, they’ve been terrified of the people who are creative and they’ll do everything they can to suppress them, although without them they wouldn’t have anything. Do we go to bed at night thinking about the politicians and religion? Most of the time you go to bed thinking about a song or a movie you saw or the room that you’re in that somebody designed. It’s never going to be cured so I’m not going to try and be the hero that tries and makes it happen. I think at least we’re all trying to catch up, but then you have to combine that with the fact that anybody can be famous now.

AD: Yeah. 15 minutes.

MM: You’ve got something that’s a little bit different than Andy Warhol’s tradition now and I think that the important thing to point out is I believe that this will create a greater era. Whatever it is, music, or writing or movies, I think that it’s going to create a situation where record companies are ready to cut their throats because they can’t make any money. Of course, that means I make negative money because they take all the money as far as record sales go, but suddenly they’re not necessary. It becomes a situation where, however the other side of it is, everybody, and including SuicideGirls’ website, it demands talent at some point, or some sort of charisma, which I think is good. I think it makes people strive for more because right now we’re in the era where people are confusing empowerment with entitlement. Just because you have the ability to say what you want doesn’t mean that you necessarily can. I think that there needs to be…well, in a dream world there would be a special SWAT team that would come down and beat people’s ass when they opened their mouths and didn’t have anything to back it up. I stopped reading stuff on the Internet five or six years ago because whether it’s good or bad -- it’s very deceptive. It’s not a genuine gauge of what is real and that’s what I like about performing live. That’s real, you see it. I think that’s a big part of it. Technology, whether it’s the cassette recorder, the television, TiVo or anything, it’s going to make people strive to create better things because there’s so much out there. The people who are supposed to be entertaining the world will rise above and entertain them. I find that as a good challenge. I think it’s great. I think it’s great that kids will sit back and say, “I can do that better.” Well, do it. That’s not going to make the world worse. I’m happy if you can do it. I think that’s a good thing.

AD: You’re directing a film entitled Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, when will that be done?

MM: Well, I was supposed to be making it when the record occurred and I think with the best of the film I was too similar to the character, which is about Lewis Carroll in a completely fractured state of mind, in a very Jekyll and Hyde sense. So the movie is going to reconvene after the tour but it is absolutely happening. It’s going to happen this winter.

AD: Is it sort of an imagined idea of Lewis Caroll or is it something that you’ve based on research?

MM: It’s a little bit figurative and a little bit fictional in the sense that I’m not able to recreate something that isn’t exactly documented. However, I created the story based entirely off of reading his diaries and reading biographies. The first thing everyone wanted to know is, “Was he a pedophile?”

AD: Do you believe he was?

MM: I don’t really address that in the story and my opinion is that he wasn’t. I don’t address this in the movie, but I believe he might have been having an affair with the real Alice’s mother. I think for the most part, it went beyond fascination for me -- I was finding a lot about it interesting because I was kind of in the same place. Alice in Wonderland is kind of about identity and, you know, she’s getting small and she’s getting big and she doesn’t know her name. I think that that’s the point of the story. What I like about the whole concept was …when you read Alice in Wonderland it never says The Mad Hatter is wearing a hat. It never says Humpty Dumpty is shaped like an egg. It never says Alice has blonde hair. I thought that was a real challenge. Of course I would love to do it visually, Alice in Wonderland – that’s part of the story but it’s more, in a sense, the nineteenth century version of me. In the way that I related a lot to how he was. The period that I picked [for [Phantasmagoria’s story] was 1869 and it is strangely a hundred years to the week when I was born. That’s when he wrote Phantasmagoria and it was right after his father died. He started having visions. It’s in his diary. But then when you read more you realize that he drank during the afternoon, never ate, and didn’t sleep. I found it very interesting and I think I’m going to make a far better movie having the distance to step away and realize how much I had in common at that moment with what I was writing about. You know, it was essentially aphasia with the splitting of the two hemispheres of your brain.

AD: Is this separate from the film that you’re working on with James Cameron?

MM: Well, that is a bit of a misnomer. What had happened was we were approached after beginning the concept for the “Heart Shaped Glasses” video. We were urged to use James Cameron’s mirror 3-D technology, which at the time I was led to believe it could be something that could be seen with a DVD player. Then later, about a week before we did it, it kind of…after me having to pull everyone’s teeth and having to hold guns to people’s heads, I realized you could only see it in a theater. I was wondering, “Well, how am I going to have that work for me?” It was an enormous burden to operate this camera properly, which, I feel like the fact that it looks normal the way you see it now, it’s a great accomplishment. With this camera, when you want to go in close you can’t simply zoom in because there’s a convergent ratio. There’s a lot of variables, there’s a lot of mathematic things that I didn’t really want to know about but I had to learn. It basically behaves best when you use it like the human eye, so if you want to go close the camera has got to be right on top of you, so let’s just say those sex scenes were very interesting.

AD: [laughs]

MM: But of course, you know, after two days of sex scenes, I think it was pretty much when the Suicide Girls’ clan showed up that the people who did not work for me -- there were two crews, there was my crew and then there was the crew that wanted to film Honey I Shrunk the Kids not Honey I Fucked the Kids. They were mad and stormed off the set and said, “I haven’t worked my whole life to create a camera and film pornography.” Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, so my response was, “Well, what did you expect? You had storyboards.” I did see it in 3-D on the set and in the tent and I could preview it and it looked amazing but I was not, even at the time, worrying most about how it looks in 3-D, because once you know it looks in 3-D it looks good. I wanted to make sure it looked good on television, and on a DVD. So, it was just a little bit of confusion and, of course, I was the bad guy. I think that one of my favorite moments was the uncomfortable silence after I was trying to give a little direction to the girls in the audience, and I said, “I don’t want it to look like a concert. I want this to look like sort of a giant artery and I want you guys to, well, basically, can you just act like you haven’t washed your pussy in two weeks.” There was dead silence.

AD: [laughs]

MM: I said, “I mean that in a good way!”

AD: [laughs]

MM: No, but the girls were great.

AD: Is there any truth to the rumor that Tim Burton is going to make a movie about you?

MM: Well, that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know where that came from unless that came from him.

AD: He’s quoted as saying that he’d like to do it.

MM: Well, I can’t wait to find out who plays me. I hope it’s Paul Reubens.

AD: [laughs] So he hasn’t contacted you at all about it?

MM: Well, I know him a little bit. I met him of course, when I did The Nightmare Before Christmas thing and I met him before with Johnny Depp when I went to Sleepy Hollow and he seems cool but I’ve never had a real conversation with him longer than five minutes, so I don’t know if that’s true.

AD: But it would be something you’d be into?

MM: I don’t have any objections to it as long as they make me have a really large penis. [laughs]

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

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

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

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

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

DRE: Oh geez.

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

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

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

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

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

AZ: I heard about that.

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

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

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

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

DRE: How did they do acting-wise?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DRE: Is that satisfying to you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DRE: What tattoos do you have?

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

DRE: Do you want to get more?

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

DRE: What city is next for CSI?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DRE: All right. I’m out then.

AZ: So am I by the way.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

by Steven Whitney (image) As if the illegal Iraq War and the botched Afghan War were not enough, it seems as if Republicans are going to war against damn near everybody but old, rich white guys. First up is their War on Facts – their avalanche of misstatements has set a new record (and a new low) in... more

by Steven Whitney



As if the illegal Iraq War and the botched Afghan War were not enough, it seems as if Republicans are going to war against damn near everybody but old, rich white guys.

First up is their War on Facts – their avalanche of misstatements has set a new record (and a new low) in both congressional and campaign practices. The GOP lies about Obama’s record and Romney assiduously avoids any concrete facts about his own plans.

There’s a closely related War on Science – it contains too many perplexing facts and, after all, faith provides all the answers we need.

There‘s a covert War on Voting Rights, particularly VWB (Voting While Black) and VWP (Voting While Poor) - and then the very visible War on GLBTs, especially those who want to hold their weddings at Chick-fil-A.

There’s an open War on Immigrants – in Arizona, and despite being sued by the Department of Justice for racial profiling, the self-aggrandizing Sheriff Joe rounds up Hispanics, detains them in dehumanizing tent city corrals, verbally taunts them, and heads them back over the border. In Missouri, Republican Steve King also views them as animals, recently doubling down on his statement last May that “comparing immigrants to dogs is a compliment.”

There’s a War on Education and the snobs who attend college. And a War on Healthcare – Romney wants to repeal Obamacare on Day One and turn Medicare into a voucher system benefitting insurance companies. (If you have a serious pre-existing condition, do you really think a voucher is going to help you get coverage?)

Then there’s the War on Labor – particularly those nefarious teachers, firemen, postal workers, and policemen who are getting obscenely rich lapping up money from the public trough.

And Romney himself apparently wants to go to war with Big Bird and Iran.

To a degree, I understand their warmongering on these issues – racism, xenophobia, selfishness, skullduggery, and outright stupidity have always found a place in our politics, although never to the extent bandied about by Republicans in this election cycle.

But what I cannot comprehend is the Republican War on Women. While the GOP denies any such crusade, a mere summary of their actions suggests otherwise.

The Republican platform calls for a Constitutional ban and criminalization of abortion without exception – not rape, not incest, not even if the mother’s life is severely endangered by her pregnancy.

It denounces contraceptive education in schools while encouraging teenagers and young adults to abstain from sex until marriage.

Virginia Republicans passed a bill requiring women to undergo invasive trans-vaginal ultrasounds at least 24 hours before having an abortion. Other state legislatures in GOP control quickly followed suit, proposing bills with identical or more severe mandates.

In Michigan, GOP representatives banned Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking “for violating the decorum of the House” after she mentioned the word “vagina” during a debate on women’s healthcare. In defending their action, Republicans characterized the word vagina as “offensive, disgusting, and vile.”

In Congress, Darrell Issa (R, CA) created an Oversight Committee panel to shape policy on Women’s Reproductive Rights without a single woman invited to contribute, either as a panelist or speaker.

For the last several years, House Republicans have vociferously attacked and attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, a non-profit that serves 1 in every 5 women sometime during their lives. The GOP also wants to repeal Title X, which provides breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and testing for all STDs to low-income women. Without Title X’s preventive care, thousands of American women will needlessly die before their time.

If their positions on healthcare weren’t enough to reveal the GOP’s stunning misogyny, consider the sexist invective they employ to put women in their rightful place.

It’s no fluke that drug felon Rush Limbaugh – considered by many to be the ex-officio head of the Republican Party – labeled a female law student a “slut” and a “prostitute” for speaking to House Democrats about the importance of requiring insurance companies to cover birth control. And it’s no surprise that Rush – who takes Viagra-fueled holidays in the Dominican Republic, famous for its teenage sex trade – encouraged her to send him video tapes of her own sexual activities. Rush, of course, originated the term “Feminazis” for women seeking equal rights and protections under the law, so is it any wonder he likes to watch?

In her book, What I Saw at the Revolution, Peggy Noonan – Reagan speech writer and chronicler/pundit of all things GOP – likened women who have abortions to Germans exterminating Jews during World War II.

Following his widely disseminated remark about “illegitimate rape,” Republican Todd Akin called Claire McCaskill – his opponent in the Missouri Senate race – “one of those dogs.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A Google search for “republican sexist comments” returns thousands of examples. Just this week GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said he came to realize that pregnancy as a result of rape was “something that God intended to happen” and a “gift from God.”

Is it any wonder that Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill mandating equal pay for equal work? Or that the GOP views women as less than equal citizens?

One has to ask: Do Republicans still blame Eve for biting into the apple? Were all their mothers Mommie Dearests? Do they feel emasculated by women? Are they threatened by empowerment?

What is it with these guys? Don’t any of them have daughters?

This isn’t political, it’s neither right nor left, it’s just a human truth – if any father seeks to deny his daughter(s) the same rights, opportunities, and benefits that boys (or men) possess, then he must relinquish his “Best Dad in the World” coffee cup for one that designates him a "Bozo Dad."

What father wants his daughter to be coerced by law to birth a child sired by a serial and violent rapist – or to be forced to carry a child at the risk of her own life?

What father wants decisions about his daughter’s medical care left in the hands of an all-male House Oversight Committee task force, or by a squeamish male legislature that can’t even say the word vagina?

What father wants his daughter to die prematurely because she couldn’t afford breast and cervical examinations that are now covered by Title X, Planned Parenthood, and Obamacare?

What father deems his daughter less capable than a man to make choices about her own life?

What father adheres to a religious group that values his daughter less than any other person. Or a political party that demeans her through legislation and verbal sexist abuse?

What father doesn’t want his daughter to be all she can be? Or to have the opportunity to achieve everything she wants while pursuing her personal goals And how can she do that without equal rights and equal protection under the law?

What kind of father envisions his daughter as a second-class citizen?

Having a daughter is the greatest gift any man can receive, for through them we finally learn the meaning of and experience a love that is completely unselfish. Wives and lovers bring us much pleasure and happiness, but they are equal partners in our lives, with the expectation of equal “give and take.” But because daughters light up our lives in countless ways, fathers want nothing back from them, except perhaps that they find their own particular brand of happiness.

Those who most severely criticize this new brand of far-right Republicans often accuse them of putting their party before the country they were elected to serve. But for me, their most repugnant betrayal is putting the GOP agenda before their own daughters.

These days our daughters are brought up to think for themselves in all things. Are they now expected to willingly turn over their rights and decisions to an out of touch Republican agenda? If anything qualifies as an “illegitimate rape” that does.

And as a father, my response is simple: I value my daughter more than anyone else on earth and I will fight to my last breath anyone who makes any kind of war on her. And I think every father, deep down, must feel the same.

This November, every father in America is faced with a clear choice. And I suggest each of them votes for the platform that will most benefit and honor his daughter(s).

It’s the least we owe our daughters for bringing both joy and true meaning to our lives…and for shining the light of unconditional love into our hearts.


Related Posts:
The Rich Get Richer
Interview: Greg Palast – Billionaires And Ballot Bandits
Non-Chemical Dependency
Political Ramblings And Random Thoughts
From Death And Despair. . . Dreams Can Soar
Modest Solutions To Voter Suppression
Character. . . And The RNC
The Do-Damage Congress: Who’s Responsible?
Worse Than A Do Nothing Congress
Forget The Barbeque On Labor Day – It’s Time To Take Care Of Business
Chicken Shits: The Slippery Slopes of Chick-fil-A
The Vagina Solution
Fighting Back Part 4: The Big Liar, Intimidation And Revenge
Fighting Back Part 3: Fighting Fire With Fire
When The Past Is Prologue
Fighting Back Part 2: Defining Rovian Politics
Fighting Back
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!

(image) by Blogbot (image) (image) (image) Artist / SG Member Name: Odio_One a.k.a. Sean Moore, Thotskee, Seantheflashguy, sSeantheflexguy, Rest, and Sink.

 Mission Statement: To purvey the beauty in life through creative expression. To visually express the dichotomy, hypocrisy, contradiction and... more

by Blogbot







Artist / SG Member Name: Odio_One a.k.a. Sean Moore, Thotskee, Seantheflashguy, sSeantheflexguy, Rest, and Sink.



Mission Statement: To purvey the beauty in life through creative expression. To visually express the dichotomy, hypocrisy, contradiction and irony of life through juxtaposition. To expose the hidden and true beauty that's shrouded by fabrication and facade. To continue doing the next right thing for the right reason. To be honest, remain open-minded and remain humble, always. To be present and mindful. To enjoy my time on this earth. I don't take shit from anyone, ever, for any reason. SuicideGirls’ purpose, meaning and delivery are an amazing source of inspiration that I have great respect for.



Medium: Acrylic, aerosol, graphite, illustration markers, Prismacolor colored pencils, traditional calligraphy tools, ink (straight up or in various pens/markers), Montana Paint markers, walls, paper, canvases, canvas boards, found objects, Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, SuicideGirls.





Aesthetic: Beauty doesn't fit into a box. No one should force feed some vision of beauty on anyone else. It should be left for the individual to seek and come to understand in their own time and along their own path. 




Notable Achievements: Being asked to submit my artwork to this website. Creating one of the first, legit graffiti and underground hip-hop websites. Getting my artwork into a gallery.





Why We Should Care: My work is current, original, controversial, refined and urban. Some of it resembles a murder scene, some of it is graffiti, some of it is calligraphy, some of it is what I call "rage art," inspired by one of my therapists. A lot of my art contains the unmatched beauty of various women on this website. All of my art is inspired by intense, deep emotions. I've lived an interesting life, to say the least. It's truly a miracle I'm still alive…I'll leave it at that.





I Want Me Some: Some of my work is in the art gallery at Blick until the end of October.You can see it there. I also just got an Etsy account set up and some of my work is available for sale on it. I've also worked as a logo, website and print designer in addition to doing illustration work. If anyone has the need for custom, urban style illustration or design work feel free to get in touch.
Endless thank you's for presenting my work on this website. It's truly an honor. Shout out to the small handful of people who've supported my artwork. It really means a lot and you all have my love and support. For more info visit: odioone.com











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

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

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

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

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

SuicideGirls caught up with her for an afternoon chat…

Erin Broadley: Hello. How are you?

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

EB: Very busy [laughs].

DH: Oh, I know!

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

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

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

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

EB: Fewer cooks in the kitchen?

DH: Yeah, yeah.

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

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

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

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

EB: [Laughs]

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

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

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

EB: Oh, man [laughs].

DH: That exemplifies it in a nutshell.

EB: Those are creepy, huh?

DH: I know it’s just weird.

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

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

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

DH: She’s so good. She’s so talented.

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

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

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

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

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

DH: [Sighs] Yeah. [Laughs]

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

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

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

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

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

DH: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

EB: [Laughs]

DH: Those songs … he writes great songs.

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

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

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

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

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

DH: Yeah, definitely.

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

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

EB: Sounds intense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

DH: Yeah, unfortunately.

EB: Why so?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DH: Oh God.

EB: [Laughs]

DH: [Laughs]

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

DH: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

DH: Oh, that was years ago.

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

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

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

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

EB: Just go all out.

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

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

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

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

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

EB: How long did you ride for?

DH: A couple hours.

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

DH: It is kind of nutty, believe me.

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

by Greg Palast (image) "I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry" ...except ship 25,000 jobs off to China. He's kidding, right? Did I just hear Mitt Romney say, "I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry" Really? REALLY? Here's the facts, ma'am: As I reported... more

by Greg Palast


"I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry"
...except ship 25,000 jobs off to China.



He's kidding, right? Did I just hear Mitt Romney say, "I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry"

Really? REALLY?

Here's the facts, ma'am:

As I reported in this week's Nation magazine cover story "Mitt Romney's Bail-out Bonanza," the Romneys are in a special partnership with the vulture fund that bought Delphi, the former GM auto parts division.

The Romney vulture fund investment syndicate shipped every single UAW production job – EVERY job – to China.

Just after The Nation broke the story, Washington newsletter The Hill received the Romneys admission of profiteering:

The truth? On June 1, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that Detroit Piston's owner Tom Gores, GM and the US Treasury would buy back Delphi. The plan called for saving 15 of 29 Delphi factories in the US.

Then the vulture funds pounced.

The Nation discovered that, in the two weeks immediately following the announcement of the Delphi jobs-saving plan, Paul Singer, Romney's partner, secretly bought up over a billion dollars of old Delphi bonds for pennies on the dollar.

Singer and partners now controlled the company...and killed the return of Delphi to GM.

These facts were revealed in a sworn deposition of Delphi's Chief Financial Officer John Sheehan, confidential, but now released on the web.

Sheehan said, under oath, that these speculators threatened to withhold key parts (steering columns), from GM. This would have brought the auto maker to its knees, immediately forcing GM's permanent closure.

The extortion worked. The government money that was supposed to go to save jobs went to Singer's hedge fund Elliott and its partners, including the Romneys.

Once Singer's crew took control of Delphi, they rapidly completed the move to China, sticking the US taxpayers with the bill for the pensions of the Delphi workers cut loose.

Dan Loeb, a million-dollar donor to the GOP, who made three-quarters of a billion dollars off the legal scam, proudly announced that, once he and Elliott took control, Delphi kept “virtually no North American unionized labor”

In all, three hedge funds run by Romney's million-dollar donors have pocketed $4.2 billion, a return on their "investment" of over 3,000%, all care of the US taxpayer. The Romneys personally earned minimum $15.3 million, though more likely $115 million – a range their campaign does not dispute.

Frankly, I'm no fan of the way Obama handled the Delphi bail-out. Allowing these speculators to crank the US taxpayers for $12.9 billion in subsidies – and losing almost all the auto parts jobs in the process.

But when I heard that Son of a ...Detroit, Mr. Romney, tell us, "I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry," I thought I'd lose my dinner. I suggest Romney repeat this directly to the Naylor family of Kokomo, Indiana.

Bruce Naylor lost his job at Delphi, then his health insurance (terminated by the Romney syndicate) - then his home to foreclosure.

Should Obama have done something about that? You bet. If I were the president, I'd have started with putting the vulture speculators out of business – including Elliott's silent, hidden partner, one Mitt Romney.

***
Want the full story of Romney's vulture-pack partners? I have several chapters on Paul "The Vulture" Singer and other million-dollar donor magnates backing Romney (and those backing Obama too) in my new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, which features an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and illustrations by Ted Rall.

***

And a question to the US media: HELLO, ANYBODY HOME?

This info on Romney's profiteering and the shipping of Delphi jobs to China by his cronies is on the COVER of The Nation magazine and in a New York Times bestseller (Billionaires & Ballot Bandits). So, where is the New York 'Paper of Record'? Or, for that matter, MSNBC?

Bill Press explained it to me when I was on his show this morning, "Sorry, Greg. There's no more investigative reporting in America. No reporters, just repeaters."

That's why I fear Jimmy Carter's statement that, "The American people deserve a president as good as they are." Now I'm afraid that's exactly what we'll get.

***

Greg Palast is the author of the recently published New York Times Top 10 Bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, which is available via Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Indie Bound. Author's proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.


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by ChrisSick The final debate, the final days, and all the horror that these things entail. You know that feeling you sometimes get, like someone is slowly pushing an ice pick into your forebrain through your temple? No? Maybe it's just me. This campaign is almost over, now, and if the signs I'm... more

by ChrisSick

The final debate, the final days, and all the horror that these things entail.

You know that feeling you sometimes get, like someone is slowly pushing an ice pick into your forebrain through your temple?

No?

Maybe it's just me.

This campaign is almost over, now, and if the signs I'm getting from my pounding head are any indication, I'm clearly ready for it to be. Luckily, tonight is the last debate I had to stay up late watching and then writing about. Judging by my Twitter feed, and the various blogs and news websites I follow to get a sense of the media narrative, I'm not the only one who seems to give a much bigger shit about that than who actually won the debate.

If you're curious, I'm pretty sure it was Obama, mainly because Fox News declared it was a tie and that's usually a pretty reliable sign that the Democrat won.

More seriously, CBS just released their first snap poll flashing across my Twitter feed, indicating that the President won their survey by a massive, thirty-point margin (53% - 33% - 24% undecided). Just judging by a quick glance around the internets, it looks like this is now the quickly congealing media narrative — Obama won this debate.

In fact, I was struck most by how listless Romney seemed in comparison to previous debate performances. It was as though Ed Gillespie told him his job tonight was not to attack, but to focus on looking presidential. So mostly, he didn't go after Obama as hard as he had previously, and just smirked a lot.

And agreed. A lot. In fact, both men agreed, with Obama praising previous policy positions Romney had staked out, only to then highlight how Romney had shifted away from them in the primary and general. Romney agreed with the President's specific policies only to pivot away to attacks on vague and airy concerns about projecting weakness instead of strength, and apologies.

And after reading that paragraph you aren't thinking of the line “and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom” just go ahead and picture it in your head. The whole thing was a lot like that.

When the dust settles, beyond the instant reaction, the bigger questions that come out of tonight will be how it affects the polls heading into the final two weeks. Given the short span of time between the last debate and tonight, and the overall volatility of the race, a clear consensus never emerged of what — if any — effect last week's debate had on the electoral race.

Just today, Real Clear Politics average of polling opened with a 0.2% lead for Obama, that became a tie, then a 0.4% lead for Romney as new polling data came in throughout the day. At no point over the last three days has any candidate lead by more than half-a-point.

Fivethirtyeight, on the other hand, is showing Obama regaining ground very slowly, but steadily, now giving him a 69% chance to win the election. That's up significantly from the immediate reaction after the debacle in Denver, but much reduced from the point when the prediction was edging towards a 90% certainty.

One of the most interesting polling results — widely touted by Republicans — from the previous debate was that, although Obama won, voters shifted towards thinking Romney was better suited to handle the economy and the Federal budget. Combined with the messiness of the polls in the wake of the Long Island debate, it’s hard to see what the President necessarily won by winning.

If the previous debates have taught us anything, it's that the media narrative following the debate is going to be more important than the actual debate. This is an important topic that'll see deeper consideration in later posts starting this week. These last two weeks will grind out, as the candidates go back to stump speeches and hold as many events as they possibly can in the final days. We might even get lucky and hear some more ridiculous stories about how badly members of Romney's family want to beat up the President.

As in any election, though, the most interesting day is the next one. The President won tonight, and if the media narrative shapes up the way it looks like it's headed right now, he may see a bounce that could sustain him all the way up to a win on Election Day. But given where his numbers were just thirty days ago compared to where they are now, I'm reminded of William Gibson talking about how he would feel now if he were to meet his younger self:

Barack Obama will probably still be your President three weeks from now, but the getting there stopped being any fun quite some time ago. Which is usually a sign that it's time to go to bed.


Meme @DellCam

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

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

Check out the official site for Perry Farrell

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

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

DRE: Do you eat sushi?

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

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

PF: Yes. Exactly.

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

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

DRE: Was it the duck vaginas?

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

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

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

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

So what made you want to start Satellite Party?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DRE: I believe your oldest kid is about five.

PF: That’s a yes.

DRE: Do they play music?

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

DRE: Over the Internet or is he with you?

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

DRE: That’s great.

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

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

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

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

by SG's Team Agony feat. Yesenia Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls. (image) [Yesenia Suicide in Vesuvian] Q. I am 29-years old and engaged to the love of my life. I lost my virginity late at 25. I've had several partners... more

by SG's Team Agony feat. Yesenia

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


[Yesenia Suicide in Vesuvian]

Q. I am 29-years old and engaged to the love of my life. I lost my virginity late at 25. I've had several partners since then once I gained confidence. I've always been complimented on my performance and technique, had several repeat sex partners and even MILFs. If something didn't work on them I changed it up until they were left gasping and overall giving the signals of satisfaction. The MILFs basically taught me I don't cum until they cum. I did oral, shocker, different positions etc., all with tons of positive feedback.

My problem with the love of my life is that I have this huge sex drive and she basically has none. She doesn't like oral – neither giving or receiving – rarely wants sex, and doesn't like to try anything new. When we do have sex its just missionary. If I initiate sex I'm rejected so I have to wait for her to initiate, and when she seems to get close to orgasm she locks up and tries to get me to stop because she feels like she has to pee.

I am pretty romantic and romance in the past has rewarded me with sex. However in recent times when we go out to the beach, movies, parks, malls, aquariums, etc., usually, when we get home after these wonderful outings, instead of rewarding me with sex, she goes to sleep. I guess I am asking what I can do to make her happy sexually and want me more. Any guidance would be appreciated.

A: This is a tough question because there could be things in her past that make her feel awkward or negative towards sex. There are also may be medical or emotional reasons why she may shy away from sex. I would talk to her to see if there are any deeper issues that are causing her low sex drive. Make her feel comfortable and make sure she knows you love her and that sex is not a deciding factor. Tell her you care and want to make sure she is okay.

Girls don't like to feel like a toy or tool, so make sure she feels like it's not about you getting off, but more about the emotional connection between the two of you. Talk to her about why you like to make love to her. Maybe it makes you feel closer to her. Explain that you enjoy sharing that intimate moment with her?

Make sure too that your breath smells good and that you are showered. Look at her like she is the only person in the world you are thinking about. Tell her a very specific compliment, and be sure to offer lots of non-sexual affection too. Give her a kiss on the forehead while stroking her hair to the side.

If things are fizzling (which is totally normal), find a new way to provoke her interest in you - like a new hobby. My roommates have a very healthy relationship (I am jealous of it). They are always trying new things together. Right now they are into karate (though both of them have broken pinky toes right now from it, haha). Working out increases sex drive, and getting hot and sweaty together could be fun. Or try swing or salsa dance classes, which might help you get out of a sedentary rut, and provide lots of opportunity to get your flirt on. Alternatively a challenge like rock climbing could be a good way to create a new level of trust. Also, it’s said that dates which include as aspect of fear are great for creating strong bonds.

I hope this advice helps.

Best of luck to ya darlin'!

Yesenia
xoxo


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

George Parker is a man who loves profanity* almost as much as he hates the corporate fucktards and douchenozzles that stifle creativity in the advertising industry (Parker’s preferred pronominal profanities, not my own). In his popular “piss and vinegar” blog AdScam and his three books –Madscam,... more

George Parker is a man who loves profanity* almost as much as he hates the corporate fucktards and douchenozzles that stifle creativity in the advertising industry (Parker’s preferred pronominal profanities, not my own). In his popular “piss and vinegar” blog AdScam and his three books –Madscam, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, and his latest, Confessions of a Mad Man – the renowned British-born adman rails against the Big Dumb Agencies (BDAs) and the shareholder-serving corporations that consolidated, own, and suck the life out of them.

Self-described as “the last surviving Mad Man,” Parker landed at Cunard’s Pier 96 in New York to pursue his Madison Avenue dreams in an era when the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic was still by steamship. Having spent five debaucherous days of “non-stop drinking and shagging” aboard the Queen Mary, he arrived armed with a degree from the Manchester School of Art, a postgraduate scholarship from London’s Royal College of Art, a masters in bullshit from the University of Life, and a few hundred bucks. In the ensuing five decades, he rose through the ranks and has worked on countless major accounts both as a freelancer and in-house for some of the most prestigious agencies in the world including Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, Chiat Day, and J. Walter Thompson.

As the recipient of Lions, CLIOs, EFFIES, and the David Ogilvy Award, and with a career that spans five decades and multiple continents, Parker has more perspective than most when it comes to what’s wrong in today’s ad world. He’s repelled by the kind of suits that use jargon like “resonate” instead of “appeal” and who “interface” instead of
“meet.” But, according to Parker, their crimes against humanity only begin with their choice of vocabulary. He hates the way many admen choose to treat the American public like it has a collective IQ somewhere south of Jessica Simpson's and their clients with the kind of contempt that should be reserved for the likes of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

Talking of which, Parker also takes issue with the kind of one percenters who think it’s OK to treat themselves to Russian MiG 15 fighters (Larry Ellison of Oracle) and Boeing 767s (Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) at their shareholders’ expense. To say Parker is moderately left wing is an understatement, since he never does anything – including Boddingtons – by halves. As such, he’s a rare beast in the advertising world, one that has lived life to the full yet has sense of decency, and a conscience.

Having been kind enough to call SuicideGirls “one of the best examples of a community based social networking site” in his excellent 2006 state-of-the-industry bible The Ubiquitous Persuaders (a book that serves as an update to Vance Packard’s 1957 classic The Hidden Persuaders), we were long overdue for a quality conversation with Parker. With the freshly minted Confessions of a Mad Man – a literary (and often times literal) romp through the industry as experienced by Parker – serving as an excuse, we called him up for a chat over drinks. In the interests of verisimilitude, ours was a glass of Sauvignon Blanc (cause we’re lightweights) and Parker’s was "a case of Pinot Noir" (because he’s not). During the course of our lengthy chinwag we discussed the decay of the American Dream, the not uncoincidental rise of political advertising, and how Occupy might best market itself and its efforts to stop the rot.

Nicole Powers: In your book you talk about how a lot of advertising is expensive and ineffective. But, ironically enough, one of the most successful areas seems to be political advertising. You include some great examples of advertising that’s worked politically, especially on the negative side, where it’s completely destroyed people’s careers.

George Parker: It’s a sad reflection on advertising in general, but political advertising in particular, that the shit that works is really shit, I mean it’s outrageously negative. The classic original negative ad of all time wasn’t the one against [Michael] Dukakis, which was about a guy that he’d pardoned that got released from jail that went out and killed again. He was a murderer, but he got time off for good behavior or some shit, and then he came out and killed 20 more people or something. It just happened when Dukakis was the Governor of Massachusetts. That was really bad, but the one that’s the classic is the one that was done when Lyndon Johnson ran for re-election. It’s the little girl pulling the pedals off a flower, and at the end there’s a nuclear explosion. Basically it was like, ‘Would you trust somebody like Goldwater to have the finger on the nuclear button.’ That was first really in your face negative ad politically, certainly on television, and that’s the one that most people remember.

NP: You cover the political action committees in The Ubiquitous Persuaders, but we didn’t have super PACs then, because that book was written pre-Citizens United. This time around there’s going to be negative advertising like we’ve never seen before, because there’s going to be a deluge of this super PAC money pouring into politics like we’ve seen before. Are you getting a sense from your friends on Madison Avenue of the shit storm that’s to come?

GP: Oh yes. Actually I’ve been writing about it on my blog AdScam, preparing people. Before the shit storm is going to happen politically, we’ve got the Olympics, which is another favorite of corporate America. There’s going to be banks and car companies and everything “going for the gold.” And Team USA, “You say jump, we say how high,” – every cliché you can possibly imagine. For months we’re going to have that, and then as soon as that’s over, in fact probably while it’s still on, the political shit is going to start happening.

The election isn’t until November, so we’re definitely going to have August, September, October and then whatever is left of November. The sheer volume of it is going to be so heavy this year, and, also it’s going to be extremely negative. You’re going to see shit certainly from the Tea Party, religious right, born again fucktards as I call them. I always find it amusing that they describe Barrack Obama as a communist. First off, I don’t if there is a communist in America as far as I know.

NP: There’s no truly left wing party in America. You and I are both British and in the UK we do have more of a left and a right wing. Here you have the extreme right and a center, but there’s no left wing party in America.

GP: The Democrats here I would consider the equivalent of the Conservatives in Britain.

NP: One of the reasons we don’t have a left wing in America is because to get elected you have to get corporations to donate oodles of campaign cash for things like television advertising. And the moment that you do that, you have to be pro-capitalism in a pro-corporate welfare, completely skewed way, so a truly left wing candidate is unelectable here. Obviously we both come from the UK where that’s not so much of an issue because we have strict campaign finance rules, and we have the party political broadcast system which assigns equal and limited television time for all of the major parties, which has to be donated by the terrestrial TV channels there.

GP: Right, and don’t forget you can only advertise the party, you can’t advertise individuals…Sometimes I despair of America. I love living here and I’ll be here until I die, but sometimes I look around and I’m stunned, the vast number of people in America who vote against their best interests, particularly working class people. Well, of course, there are no more working class people anymore. In political advertising, and in politics in general, all they talk about is the middle class. There is no working class. There isn’t now anyway because most of them are unemployed. They talk about raising taxes on rich people as class warfare. The whole thing about this mythology in America, which maybe 100 years ago was true, that you could go from paperboy to president. Well unless you’re a paperboy with 50 million dollars in the bank you can’t do it these days.

NP: That’s the American Dream, at this point it’s marketing over substance. We’re actually one of the least mobile societies in the world. You’re not going to be able to break out of your socio-economic class here in America. The statistics back up the fact that the American dream, for the most part, no longer exists.

GP: Yes, you used to be able to. It’s easier in Britain now. And Britain was very much a class-ridden society up until maybe the ‘60s. But over here they still believe in this myth that you can go from rags to riches, which isn’t true.

But back to the advertising thing, you’ll have a situation particularly by about October where virtually I would say at least 80% of the inventory on television for sure will be political advertising, particularly in key states.

I mean I live in Idaho now, which I always describe as the Fourth Reich. It’s like a Nazi paradise. It used to be the headquarters of the American Arian Nation, they got kicked out a few years ago, but it’s extremely right wing. Boise is a college town so it’s a bit more liberal, but once you get out into the sticks it’s like fucking going back 100 years. There will still be advertising here, but the Republicans are a lock-in, 80% of the state legislature are Republicans. There’s about 10 Democrats and they all come from Boise. There’s one lesbian senator whose rich, she’s my local senator and she’s great. She’s retiring this year because she said it’s like banging your head against a brick wall. So you won’t get as much advertising here, but in key states like Florida for instance, oh my God, it’s just going to be 24/7 nonstop, just all the fucking time. They’ll be billboards and the radio will be hammered to shit, and they’ll be a lot of stuff in the newspapers, but television is just going to be awful. And they will cut down on the actual broadcast time. In an hour show on television, you normally have up 12 minutes of advertising, depending on whether it’s prime time or dinnertime or whatever, but they will find ways of stretching that out into close to 20 minutes. A third of all the television you see will be primarily political advertising.

NP: I was chatting with investigative journalist Greg Palast, and he was talking about how one of the reasons that you will never see the mainstream media covering Citizens United with the gravitas that it deserves is because it’s the very piece of legislation that’s responsible for this massive bonanza of advertising income. In a climate where marketing budgets have been slashed, political advertising is like manna from heaven. So the TV companies are not going to allow their news networks to explain to the masses why Citizens United has subverted the political system in the way it has.

GP: No. I mean Citizens United, what is happening and is about to happen in spades with political advertising, this already happened with pharmaceutical and medical advertising. No other country in the world advertises prescription drugs. Actually, up until about 10 years ago New Zealand of all places did, but they pulled it because it was just so awful. If you look at particularly network news, it’s just full of pharmaceutical ads. NBC, which is owned by General Electric, if you watch the evening news with Brian Williams, there’s always a medical piece in it. They call it world news and there’s like ten seconds of world, ten minutes of America, and 20 minutes of medical shit.

There was one segment, which I think I may have written about in the book. Two or three years ago they did a piece on the Brian Williams Global World News Tonight, it was about how certain X-rays weren’t effective for certain things and you were better off having an MRI scan. Well MRI scans are very expensive, so unless you’re covered by insurance, too bad in this country. But it turns out, I checked into this, they were pushing these MRI scans and General Electric, which is a parent company of NBC, is the world’s biggest manufacturer of MRI scanners. They were pimping their own fucking product.

If they do that blatantly with pharmaceuticals and medical shit, they’re certainly going to do it with political stuff. This is like the goose that laid the golden egg for these guys, they’re going to make more money in the next three months than they will make in the rest of the year combined. That includes local people as well. It’s going be a bonanza for local stations, and particularly for radio, especially Clear Channel, which is the one that pumps out Rush Limbaugh, and people like that. They’re going to make a killing on this.

NP: I’m glad you actually brought up the pharmaceutical industry, because that comes back around to politics. They were only allowed to advertise in the first place because of lobbying money and pharmaceutical advertising remains very unregulated, again because of the industries political spending clout. One of the eye-opening things you bring up in your book is how drug companies always justify the exorbitant cost of drugs in America versus the rest of the world by claiming they need to keep prices high to fun research & development. But one of the statistics you come up with shows that these companies actually spend more on advertising and lobbying than they do on R&D. [The Ubiquitous Persuaders cites statistics from 2004, a year in which US drug companies spent 57.5 billion dollars on advertising and promotion compared to just 31.5 billion dollars on R&D.]

GP: Oh yes, yes, definitely. And what the pharmaceutical companies are very good at is having conferences for doctors. They’re always in Hawaii or Florida or somewhere exotic. The conference is half a day while they pedal whatever the newest drug is, and then three days of golf. I know doctors who say it’s a vacation, that’s all it is, but...

NP: One of the reasons I wanted to do the interview today is because tomorrow I’m heading out to Chicago to go the Occupy convergence there. Ironically for an anti-corporate movement, some of the biggest conversations within it are about messaging, because Occupy is having huge problems selling itself to the general public whose interests it’s there to promote. How would you sell it?

GP: Ah, well, you would think you would have to appeal to their intelligence, but unfortunately, if Occupy is to make a real impression, then it has to address a very broad audience. The people who show up at Occupy down on Wall Street or in Chicago or wherever it happens to be, those are already committed. The problem with most political advertising is that you are talking to people whose minds are basically made up. The percentage of people that are on the fence, it’s always less than 10%.

You can’t compete with the money, okay, because there’s no way Occupy is ever going to come up with the funds that would match the Koch brothers and people like that, so you have to come at it from another way. Are you familiar with the name Howard Gossage? He was a famous ad guy of the ‘60s. He is one of the very few ad guys that said if you got the message right, you don’t have to spend a fortune. Because most agencies, the more you spend, the more they make. It’s in their interest to get you to spend as much money as possible, whereas Gossage believed in the opposite.

A lot of the stuff that he did was public interest advertising. He sold gasoline as well, but he did a very famous campaign to save the redwoods in California, and he did another to save an island in the South Pacific that was disappearing under the waves, and things like that. [Reading about his work] will give you an inkling of how you can approach the art of persuasion without having to spend a fortune. One of the things you have to do, which is always a problem, is produce some messaging that the general press, Newsweek or whatever, will pick up and run. The odds are they won’t, because they’re in the corporate environment’s back pocket.

NP: Right. Messaging is something the right is really good at, which is why their sound bites get everywhere.

GP: Yes. Occupy has to be even better at messaging, which is tough to do. The problem is, from what I understand of Occupy, that because it’s so democratic, so many people have a say in what should go, that your messaging is just getting too beat to shit. The messaging has to be produced basically by one person or a very small group of people, no more than three or four, otherwise it just gets watered down.

NP: It’s like what you say about focus groups, once you get anything done by committee it goes to shit.

GP: Yes, the best example of that is Steve Jobs, who was a fucking genius. I worked on Apple for a number of years and I’ve met Jobs quite a few times. He was the most obnoxious guy, but he’s brilliant, well he was brilliant. He never engaged one fucking focus group or single piece of research, it was all what he thought would be right. [An example of this being the Ridley Scott directed “1984” Super Bowl commercial which launched the Macintosh and “succeeded in spite of research!”]

One of the things that I always go on about in my writing is how branding is the biggest fucking con job of all time. You can say “we increase the brand perception” and “brand reach activity” but it’s shit that you can’t measure. What Jobs did, if you look at Apple’s advertising, their advertising was and still is all about products. It wasn’t buy Apple because Apple is a great company, it was buy an iPhone because you can do this, that, and the other; buy an iPad because it does this, that and the other. It’s the same thing with messaging, I would say for Occupy, somebody has to sit down and boil down the essence of what it is you’re trying to do.

[You have to ask] Who are we talking to? What do we want to say to them? And what’s the best way to say it? That’s all. It’s just logic. Good advertising, good communication is logic. It’s very, very simple. It’s hard when you actually get down and start to do it, but that’s the basic principle of advertising.

The guy that I mentioned before, Howard Gossage – I love to quote famous dead ad guys because one day I’ll be one – he had a great line which was, “People don’t read advertising, they read what they’re interested in, and sometimes that’s advertising.” That sums it up for me.

I did an ad for cigars a few years ago – do you remember when the cigar craze was on about ten years ago? I did this ad which was a double page spread. The headline was “Everything you need to know when buying a fine cigar.” There was 3,000 words of copy, and it was all about what you should look for when you’re buying a good cigar. It was a guide to smoking cigars, and it had whatever the fuck the brand was at the end. It was hugely successful, and they had reprints in all the cigar bars…Everybody else, it was image shit, you know.

NP: Right, I’m always weary of branding over substance. For example, if you have a cigar that actually tastes great, people will smoke it. I guess a big example of that is brand loyalty when it comes to cars. Yes, people trust Ford and Chevy, but when Toyota came out with the Prius, which was the right car at the right time, people let their brand loyalty go by the wayside. I guess, coming back the political advertising, when your message is your product, it’s all the more important to get your message right.

GP: Yes, with the Occupy thing, the trick is to come up with messaging or an encapsulation of what Occupy is all about that will appeal to people other than the ones who are already interested and believe in what Occupy does. You don’t need those, you’ve got those. You’re not going to persuade the right wing freaktoids, but you need just that fringe element in the middle. It will be less than 10% of the population, it would probably be more like 2%. Through a process of logic, as I say, know who you’re talking to, what you want to say, how you want to say it, and figure out the best way to say it.

Through a process of logic, people will hopefully go, “Oh, that’s interesting. Maybe I should look into that.” Not, “I’m going to march down Wall Street,” you won’t do that. But the thing is to just get them to start thinking and maybe get more interest in it, and maybe follow up and get more information. Then, eventually, they’ll go down to Wall Street or wherever. You’re still only going to get a small fraction of people to do that, because you’re also asking about something that is contrary to the average American’s comfort. Demonstrating – you must be fucking joking. They’ll demonstrate for a pop group or a football team or some shit like that, but for politics – no.

l tell you what’s interesting though…The reason I became an American was so I could vote for Obama. He’s been a bit of a disappointment ever since, but I was telling you about Idaho…It’s to the right of fucking Genghis Kahn, it’s truly, truly conservative. Obama came here when he was running last time. He came to Boise in the middle of winter, and he spoke in the local university football stadium. He was here early in the morning, the snow was 10 feet deep, it was freezing cold, and there was people queuing for hours and hours and hours. There were so many people here they couldn’t all get in. They had screens outside. It was brilliant. Everybody went apeshit. This is in Boise, a place which any self-respecting political advisor would have said you’re wasting your time. They’re never going to vote for you there. But they did, he got the majority in Boise, but then the rest of the state voted for whatever his face, the old fart. But that’s the kind of thinking they have to do with Occupy. Maybe there’s a twist there in the messaging – it’s what I call the old light bulb effect.

NP: But I think Obama was another Prius. He was of the right product at the right time. People needed change and he promised it. Plus he was a rock star and we have a culture of celebrity. They loved his story, they loved that he came out of nowhere, he was the underdog, and he had the exact right message, people were ready for change.

GP: And he was smart. He had a fucking intellect.

NP: Well, that was a minus wasn’t it? People complained about that and called him an elitist.

GP: Don’t forget the other thing that was amazing, he was the first black president, and there’s still a lot of people in America that don’t like that. They won’t admit to it, but you know it as well as I do. It’s there. It’s under the surface, especially if you go further south obviously. I hope he gets re-elected because the alternative isn’t worth thinking about. My hope is that he gets re-elected and then he does the shit that he promised he’d do.

NP: Right, because in the second term he has nothing to lose. Since he can’t run for reelection again, he could potentially do all the shit that he couldn’t in his first term.

GP: The question for the Democratic Party will be, yes, but you’re going to fuck it up for the next Democratic candidate. Hopefully he’ll close Guantanamo and do all the other shit that he promised to do. I think anybody who runs for the presidency, and in politics in general, they must be fucking insane. It’s got to be just an awful life. There are quite a few people who go into politics with the best of intentions, but once they’re in it, they’re fucked, because, especially here, you spend so much time raising money.

NP: You literally can’t afford to have good intentions.

GP: I read somewhere, this was years ago, if you get elected the US Senate, which is a six year term – this was 10, 12 years ago – you had to raise an average of $200,000 to $300,000 a week, every week for the next six years to get reelected. God knows what it is now. So how much time do they spend doing what they were elected to do?

NP: Also how can they do what they were elected to when the people that are paying them that money are paying them to not to do what they were elected to do.

GP: I know, I know.

NP: One of the other things that you say in your book is that, unlike Occupy which actually has to change minds, since the majority of Americans don’t vote, all the Republicans and Democrats have to do is appeal to their base and motivate them. The Republicans are very good at the politics of fear. That’s what their attack ads do. They’re all about mobilizing people through fear, appealing to their innate racism, homophobia and whatever else, to get people to the polls.

GP: Like I said, the majority of people have their minds fixed. You could drive six inch nails into their skulls and you would never change their minds. You just have to wash your hands of people like that. It’s that middle fringe element that is persuadable that you have to go after if you’re a member of Occupy.

NP: That works for Occupy, but Obama has to mobilize his base, and unfortunately he has uniquely screwed himself, because his message last time around was change. That’s not going to work this time because he is the status quo. The very message that brought him into power, ironically, could be his undoing.

GP: Now that should be: “Change, but I really mean it.”

NP: Isn’t that essentially what you did for the Mayor of New York?

GP: Yes, I was just going to say that. What we did for John Lindsay…He was the Mayor of New York for four years, fucked up, not all his fault, there was garbage strikes and all kinds of shit went on, but he was clueless. The whole premise of our campaign was “I fucked up, but I’ve learned from my lessons and I won’t fuck up again.” They gave him another chance and he fucked up even worse.

NP: But he got reelected.

GP: Yes, that’s it. That’s what I’d do if I was Obama.

NP: Change, but I really mean it this time.

GP: I would also say, “You know all that shit I promised to do last time like closing Guantanamo, I’m going to fucking do it.” And then he gets elected, and he goes, “Oh, maybe not yet.” Because that’s the other thing, if you’re going to be successful in politics, you have to be a hypocrite. You have to lie through your teeth, because you’ll never get elected…

I love the way they always try and dumb everything down, the messaging is so basic and just awful. They never give anybody any credit for actually having intelligence and thinking shit through. You know Romney is actually saying things like, “You don’t want Obama because he’s a Harvard educated elitist.” Well fucking Romney went to Harvard, and then he went from Harvard to Yale.

Oooh, and you’ll love this; I got a robo call a few nights ago for Romney. I thought that’s fucking stupid, because why you would waste your money on robo calls in Idaho, because he’s going to sweep it anyway. But I wanted to listen. They wanted you to contribute money because Romney was “absolutely committed to fight against Obama’s war on women.” I thought wait a minute? Obama’s war on women? But somebody will have heard that and go, “Oh, right, fuck yeah, Obama is screwing women. We’ve got to change that.”

NP: Right. They’ve heard the buzz phrase “war on women,” they don’t know where it’s from, and now they’ve managed to blame Obama for it.

GP: Don’t forget Joseph Goebbel’s classic line: If you’re going to tell a lie, make it really big lie and tell it a lot. Keep repeating it and people will believe it. It’s fucking true.


* In order to recapture the true essence of our conversation, please imagine there’s a “fucking” before every other adjective, verb, and noun. These were deleted during the editing process, not for decencies sake (this is SG after all), but in a desperate attempt to reduce our word count, which we did by 27.6%** once these profanities were removed.

**This statistic is accurate in the Republican sense of the word. (ie. We pulled it out of our arse to illustrate a point.)


For more from George Parker read his AdScam blog and follow AdScamGeorge on Twitter.

Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example... more

Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example of how studio movies give characters silly traits.

In Lola Versus Gerwig stars as Lola, a woman whose fiancé (Joel Kinnaman) cancels their wedding sending her on a spiral of casual sex, dating, drinking and disaster. This is not one of your Kate Hudson wedding movies.

The impressive credentials of Greta Gerwig include a magna cum laude honor from Barnard College. As an actor, she starred in notable indies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and The Duplass Brothers’ Baghead. Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg got her enough notice to land big Hollywood movies like No Strings Attached and Arthur.

Curled up in a hotel chair, Gerwig remembered me, since we’d only met two months prior. We sort of continued the conversation where Damsels in Distress left off. Durning our conversation, Gerwig got us thinking about how awesome it is to be bored, which was a most exciting and unexpected twist.

SuicideGirls: Are you concerned with the images of women movies put out?

Greta Gerwig: Meaning is it something I worry about?

SG: When you’re taking movies and looking at other movies in the industry.

GG: Well, I think we’re in the middle of a really exciting time for women in film. Largely it’s women generating parts for themselves. I think we’ve gotten a lot more interesting female characters within film and television. But I think typically when you’re given a script to read, the majority of scripts I read, women are ciphers. They’re not really full characters a lot of the time. That being said, neither are a lot of the men. I mean, truth be told, there’s just a lot of bad writing out there. There’s also a lot of good writing but of course everybody’s fighting to get the good writing. I’m on a long list of people but I do think about it. I’ve been very, very fortunate with it. I feel like I’ve looked for women who seem like they’re dynamic human beings in movies, and I’ve been lucky enough to play parts like that that seem like dynamic human beings who aren’t just a stand-in for a pretty girl or something.

SG: Whit Stillman was amused that your character in Arthur gave tours of train stations. Did that seem far fetched to you?

GG: She was a tour guide, yeah. I got the best e-mail that I’ve ever gotten from anyone from Whit after he saw Arthur. He said, “All the departments executed their jobs well and the projection was very good.” I said, “Thank you, Whit, for seeing the film.” Yeah, that seems slightly far fetched but I think Arthur is a fairy tale movie. It doesn’t exist in reality. I think it’s like an archetype. It’s a fairy tale of the prince and the pauper almost.

SG: What was it about this perspective on marriage falling apart and women in relationships in Lola Versus that appealed to you?

GG: Well, she’s the gal moving the story forward. She’s the one making all these mistakes. I really liked how big she messes up. She doesn’t mess up little. She messes up in this grand way and she really screws up her friendships and relationships and is selfish and not really thinking about other people. There was something exciting about that. It was just incredibly fun to do and I knew when I was reading it “This will be really fun to act and I can really get into this.” It was, I was right.

SG: Lola is writing a dissertation on silence. Do you feel we have a fear of silence?

GG: Yes, I do. I think we have a fear of silence and a fear of boredom which is maybe the same thing.

SG: God, it shouldn’t be.

GG: Silence and boredom? I think boredom’s great. I think boredom’s so useful. Raymond Chandler wrote about writing when he said that he would give himself four hours every day and he had to sit at his desk and he didn’t have to write but he couldn’t do anything else. Eventually you get bored enough you start writing. I think boredom covers up for something else. I think boredom covers up anxiety about being alone or being quiet and not having anything to fill your brain or your hands or your eyes or your ears with. I think that creates anxiety which we interpret to be boredom but is actually anxiety.

SG: I would have thought boredom is something to be avoided but silence can be lovely.

GG: I think boredom is to be embraced. I think boredom can create really wonderful things. I think there’s a lack of boredom in the world right now. I think there’s a total lack of boredom. If you’re on the train or on the bus in New York, everybody’s on their phones or on their tablets and they’re entertaining themselves to fucking death. It’s literally like a David Foster Wallace book. And I’m part of it too. I’m not better than it. I’m a human. Of course I love a screen that talks to me. It’s the best thing in the world. You don’t have to sit with yourself anymore. But I think it’s so dangerous. Those moments of boredom on a plane or at the doctor’s office don’t exist anymore and maybe good thinking got done then. Maybe nothing got done then but maybe something got done. I don't think we can really assess the loss of that.

SG: They might be watching some of your movies on those phones and tablets.

GG: I know, they might be. I might be feeding the beast. I probably am feeding the beast. I’m part of it. I’m part of the problem.

SG: As someone who works as much as you do and develops your own projects, when do you get to be bored?

GG: I’m bored all the time. It’s a weird combination because I try to stay off the internet and the television and the media enough that I can have time and space to think and work, but at the same time, I’m involved in making content so I can’t be totally removed from it. It’s a weird balance to strike. It’s somewhere in the middle but it’s very easy to get sucked into the internet as everybody knows.

SG: That’s why I’m employed. I produce a lot of that.

GG: I know, it’s great. I mean, it’s totally beguiling but it’s weird. I have Google Chrome and you can look at your search history. For me, looking at my search history it’s like you can see the machinations of your mind going, “Oh, I wonder if he made this movie with this person. Oh, then that led me over here. Then I wonder what is arsenic anyway?” It’s really indulging all these stone skipping thoughts but I don't know. Maybe I just have this reaction because I’m secretly addicted to the internet.

SG: Well I learned something from one of your movies, also written by a woman, No Strings Attached. I learned about tea for your vag. I didn’t know that was a thing.

GG: Yeah, that line made it in. I love Liz Meriwether. She’s hilarious. I love her show too, New Girl. I think she’s really funny and great. I hope I get to make another movie with her.

SG: So tea for your vag is a thing and that helps women.

GG: Tea for your vag, yeah, totally.

SG: With all of the avenues available now in indie films, is it easier as an artist to reach an audience, via social media or these devices?

GG: I don’t really use a lot of those. I don’t tweet. I don’t do that stuff but yeah, I think it is easier. I don't know that I’m taking advantage of it though but it is easier.

SG: When you’re trying to raise financing, do these options, including VOD and downloading, help you get the money to make a movie?

GG: I actually stay far away from those kinds of decision making moments because it’s thinks I have no real aptitude to think about. The VOD stuff or the different ways you’re going to raise money, I just want to make the movie. Then however it gets to people, I let that happen however it happens.

SG: How have your educational studies of acting been important to your work?

GG: I didn’t go to conservatory. I got to take from some amazing teachers who were actually teaching at Julliard but I was at Barnard College at Columbia and I majored in English and philosophy. I was doing a lot of theater and taking a lot of acting classes and I guess I’ve always seen it as filling my toolbox. I feel like it’s all kind of haphazard because I didn’t have a full on four year conservatory training program. But I think the benefit of it is I never lost how fun it is and I’ve never lost that feeling of it’s all play. It’s never felt like work or drudgery, writing and acting. It has always felt free and exciting and it makes me happy. I think part of that has been preserved because I didn’t overwork it.

SG: Is it your type of music on the Lola Versus soundtrack?

GG: No, my type of music, I like big ‘70s rock, I like Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music type stuff. I like Patti Smith. I like David Bowie. I like rock n’ roll. Lola Versus is in theaters June 8.