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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NP: This is the new Criminal Intent?

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

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

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

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

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

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

NP: So are you Forest's sidekick?

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

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

JG: Yeah, that bothers me.

NP: It makes me feel uncomfortable.

JG: Me too.

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

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

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

JG: It's for titillation purposes.

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

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

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

NP: Right, yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NP: I guess you're right.

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

NP: You're absolutely right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NP: I think that gang behavior is more honest.

JG: Yes, it is.

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

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

NP: They're blinded by hatred.

JG: And fear.

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

JG: Exactly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NP: What shows inspired you growing up?

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

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

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

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

NP: When's that CSI episode air?

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

NP: All worlds collide on October the 14th.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NP: That sounds very intriguing.

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

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

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

Few films in history have been as meticulously pored over as the Star Wars trilogy, which is why the best compliment owed to The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is that it feels completely fresh. An exhaustive, official biography of one of the most beloved films of the past thirty years,... more

Few films in history have been as meticulously pored over as the Star Wars trilogy, which is why the best compliment owed to The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is that it feels completely fresh. An exhaustive, official biography of one of the most beloved films of the past thirty years, Making Of runs a sprawling 350 pages, is replete with interviews and insights from George Lucas and dozens of other contributors, and contains over 1,200 rare photos, including conceptual art, storyboards, candid set photos and special effects designs. More importantly, it’s a smart and candid history that doesn’t shy away from the underlying sources of drama that fueled Empire’s production, from Lucas’s brush with financial ruin when the self-financed film went massively over budget, to on-set bickering between Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, to creative tensions between the producers and their hand-picked director, Irvin Kershner.

Honed down from a file cabinet’s worth of material compiled by Lucasfilm executive editor J.W. Rinzler and his team of archivists, Making Of charts the film’s journey from pie-in-the-sky ideas in a notebook to an inevitable reality in the post-Star Wars world to a grueling international shoot punctuated by injuries, narrow escapes, and financial and creative arguments, to a post-production headache that pushed its special effects artists to the breaking point. (“ILM veterans say it’s the hardest film they ever worked on,” Rinzler says.) Although the book allows for multiple, even conflicting views on certain events, it never loses the ring of authority, which is not surprising considering that Rinzler has previously authored books on a number of Lucas works, including The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, The Making of Star Wars, and The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Rinzler recently called up SuicideGirls to talk about how he went about the task of documenting the making of a classic.


J.W. Rinzler: Did you make it all the way through the book?

Ryan Stewart: I did! I read the whole thing in one sitting. I think the centerpiece has to be that extensive, live microphone transcript from the Carbon Freezing Chamber set.

JWR: Parts of that had been published before, in the original paperback that Alan Arnold wrote. He deserves credit not only as the author, but as the person who actually thought of putting a mic on Irvin Kershner. I don’t think that had been done before. But what happened when I was doing this book was that we got hold of the original tapes that Arnold made, and instead of going back to his edited transcripts and his manuscripts, we went back to the original tapes and had them re-transcribed. So, what you get here is a much more expanded and a more verbatim record of what went on during that day, on the set.

RS: How do you feel the actors come off? There’s a lot of “Harrison isn’t speaking to me, and I’m not speaking to him, and here’s why...” It’s like high-school.

JWR: I think that might have been a particularly hectic day. I don’t think it was always quite that crazy. Being on set that day was very difficult because of all the steam. It was also a set that had no walls, and it was an extremely complex, emotional scene. So, I don’t think it was normally that crazy, but I do think there are elements in there were constant. Kershner was always working really closely with the actors and they were always extremely engaged in figuring out what was right for their characters. They were all participating.

RS: We get little flashes of Carrie Fisher’s personality, too, and the book delves a bit into her bohemian lifestyle at the time. Was her recent revelation that she did cocaine on the set news to you?

JWR: It’s old news. Carrie’s been forthright, I think for a number of years now, about her personal life. And she’s been documenting it in her own way. So, yeah, it was definitely no surprise to me.

RS: Is there more to the story, meaning her behavior on set?

JWR: I think that’s pretty much the whole story. And also, I really didn’t go in for a lot of the ‘Who was angry at who on what day?’ kind of thing. But people did talk about it, and it was in the transcript, and so that’s just how it ended up being in the book.

RS: The transcript also gives us a window into Kershner’s atypical shooting style, which was to skip the full master and go straight to mini-masters, more closely framed shots, which can complicate things.

JWR: Yeah, I haven’t seen all of Kershner’s films, but I did watch a few of them for research purposes. I watched Raid on Entebbe, Eyes of Laura Mars, and The Return of a Man Called Horse. I watched a couple of others, too. I don’t know whether he shot those films in the same way that he shot Empire, but I know that [skipping the master shots] did cause problems in the editing room. George and Paul Hirsch liked to have more material, they liked to have the masters just like they liked to have the close-ups and medium shots, and in this case they didn’t have as much material. So, I think for certain scenes they were forced to do it pretty much the way Kershner had planned it, and other scenes not so much. But as Paul Hirsch has said, he thinks it ended up being a good compromise between the two styles and I think I would agree with that. But the thing about George is that he loves editing and Empire really feels different from the other Kershner films, so I would think that regardless of how he actually filmed, what happened in the editing room added up to a little bit of magic.

RS: Did the second unit end up taking over some of the film’s important dramatic scenes? The book talks about how overtaxed Kershner was on time alone.

JWR: I think Kershner did pretty much all the first unit. There was obviously a fair amount of second unit stuff that he couldn’t do, but those weren’t principal scenes. They were pick-ups, they were perhaps some scenes with Yoda and the mechanical units and things like that. I think he’s just such a perfectionist that even when it came to those scenes he would have preferred to have done them.

RS: One thing I expected to come across in the book, but didn’t, is Harrison Ford making a vocal argument for the noble death of Han Solo. Maybe that’s an urban legend.

JWR: I’ve heard of that, but I think it was something that happened more in connection with Return of the Jedi, as opposed to Empire. I haven’t researched Jedi yet, so we’ll have to see.

RS: That book’s due in another three years, right?

JWR: If we do it, yeah, it would be done in time for the next thirtieth anniversary. And it means that I get to work mornings and weekends again for a couple of years. [laughs] But we’re still not even sure if we’re going to be doing it. We have to wait and see what the sales are for Empire, cause it’s a big investment for the publisher.

RS: I had always assumed that maybe Harrison Ford had been offered Indiana Jones by the time he was doing Empire, so they threw the carbon freezing in as insurance.

JWR: No, the timing doesn’t really match up for that. I don’t know if you’ve got a copy of The Making of Indiana Jones, but George didn’t really decide upon Harrison Ford as a serious candidate for Indiana Jones until after Empire had already come out. I think they saw Tom Selleck and then things happened so that Tom Selleck couldn’t do it, and then what happened was [American Graffiti screenwriters] Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck went to a preview screening of Empire and afterwards they said to George “You’ve got to have Harrison Ford play Indiana Jones!” And Spielberg had been pushing for him as well, but all of that was not on his mind while he was doingEmpire. He was concentrating solely on trying to get the film finished before the money ran out.

RS: Was that surprising to you, learning of the serious financial jam George got himself into?

JWR:Yes, that was one thing I found surprising. When the bank pulled its money, I had assumed that George and everybody else still had enough money to just kind of go forward, you know? They were about two-thirds of the way through principal photography at that point, but in fact that was completely it. You have to remember that there was hardly any licensing at that point and he didn’t know how he was going to be able to pay the cast and crew. The level of desperation was a lot higher than I’d thought it had been.

RS: Was the danger that if George went crawling back to Fox to complete financing of Empire, they’d take his Star Wars licensing rights?

JWR: No, licensing wasn’t that big yet. And also, everyone thinks that George had the licensing rights for Star Wars, but he did not. Star Wars was 50/50. Fox was already doing pretty well with Star Wars, but what George had the rights for was Empire, and there wasn’t really licensing for Empire at that point. What he was actually afraid he was going to have to do was give back the Star Wars sequel rights to Fox. But instead of doing that, he basically just gave them a better deal on Jedi and he was not very happy about that.

RS: George was pretty available to you throughout this project?

JWR: Oh yes. Just as with the Star Wars book and the Indiana Jones book, I definitely needed his input, and also he wants to give his input. We have a working method now where, basically I write the rough draft – a draft that’s fairly rough but also fairly complete – and then I give it to him and he reads it in great detail and makes comments. It reminds him of all the stuff that happened back then, and then we have a long interview. One time it was like, three and a half hours, for one of those books. And we go over everything, all the pieces that are missing. There are always pieces missing, and people have conflicting versions, but George doesn’t mind if we end up with conflicting versions as long as his version is also included in there. Everyone has their own version of reality, of course. So yeah, he’s very involved and he sees the layout before it goes to print.

RS: What other kind of access was granted to you? Did you actually sit down and watch the twelve reel assembly edit of Empire?

JWR: Well, I was very fortunate to have an ally in the film archives who does a lot of pre-research for me. And we basically did go through all twelve reels, but sort of in fast-forward, and he would say “Now look at this part,” and “Look, this part is really different from what came later” and “This is different in such and such a way.” He would cue up certain things that he thought I’d be interested in, because he knows the films much better than I do, and as a result saves me probably an entire week of work, which is invaluable.

RS: Assuming you had the run of the archives, what’s the coolest thing you encountered in terms of props? Did you run across Yoda?

JWR: Yes! In fact, if you go to VanityFair.com, we have a sort of director’s cut of the making of The Making of the Empire Strikes Back, and they actually found the Yoda puppet after they went to press, so they were able to film it and get it into this video that we made about the making of the book, just as a kind of add-on. But yeah, I’ve seen pretty much everything. I’ve visited the archives many times, in fact I’ve spent entire months there.

RS: It’s a shame Frank Oz didn’t get acting accolades for his performance.

JWR: Without a doubt. That one is such a no-brainer. That Frank Oz didn’t get at least a nomination for Yoda is one of the many, many, many oversights of the Academy. But that’s the nature of awards, they’re never on the money.

RS: At one point in the book you make a passing reference to a notebook of George’s that contains his notes for Episodes VII through IX, the continuing adventures of Luke Skywalker. Are the ideas in that notebook public, or is it all under lock and key?

JWR: I really don’t know, but I think much of it is probably locked away in George’s head. I do know that he’s spoken with Mark Hamill about it, and I know he’s spoken with Jim Bloom, the Industrial Light & Magic manager, about it. And he’s talked to other people about his ideas for it. I’ve personally never seen it, so I don’t know whether he actually wrote down the stuff or not. So much of the stuff that you write down as little notes can seem like it might have been for the prequels, or maybe for the next trilogy, after the original trilogy – he moves things around a lot and things shift. If you read The Making of Star Wars you might ask “Who was the ‘half-man, half-mechanical person’ that’s mentioned?” Well, it kept changing from draft to draft. So, I doubt that a lot of that stuff is fixed anywhere, except in George’s mind.

RS: Do George and the main cast members consider Empire to be the pinnacle of Star Wars, as far as you know?

JWR: I never really asked people if Empire was their favorite. I know that all the ILM veterans, to a man, and woman, regard Empire as the hardest film they ever worked on. I don’t know if that means it’s their favorite, though. And I don’t know, for George, which one is his favorite. I do know that there are lots of people at Lucasfilm who like Empire a lot, but there are also lots of people who like Star Wars, the first one.

RS: Do you remember your first impressions of Empire?

JWR: Well, let’s see, it came out in 1980, so I would have been 17. Actually, I told George this story once and it made him laugh, but I was not there opening day. I was kind of in my own world back then. I had seen a preview of Star Wars, though, I was lucky enough to go to a preview of that one, and it was mind-blowing. But for Empire, I was just in school one day at lunch and some guy came up to me and was like “Hey, I just saw Empire and I’m not going to tell you what happens, but I will tell you two letters – OE.” And I said “Oedipus?” And a friend of mine goes “Oh, Vader must be Luke’s father.” [laughs] The guy was like “How did you know that!?” So, before I even saw it I had the movie essentially ruined for me, in a sense.

RS: Do you agree with the line from Kevin Smith’s Clerks, that people continue to respond to Empire because “life is a series of down endings?”

JWR: I don’t, no. I would disagree with that, although there may be an element of truth to it. I don’t know the reason why they do, but I think in general it just has so many things in it – it’s such a rich canvas. The characterizations are deeper than in Star Wars. People are really able to get into the minds of Han Solo and Luke, and then you have Yoda who comes in, and then there’s Boba Fett arriving, and you’ve got this incredible snow battle that starts the whole thing out, and it’s got many more effects shots than the first film, and then there’s this incredibly personal duel at the end… You’ve just got so much stuff going on at so many levels that I think it’s incredibly rich, and yet it also moves so quickly. Even today, 30 years later, the film moves as fast as a modern movie, and in some ways faster because it has more context to it. It’s just a brilliant film.





The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is in bookstores everywhere.

Though they may have joked about the trappings of fame in their 2002 breakout hit "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," brothers Benji and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte appreciate everything their success has brought. Having come from a broken home - and suffered the financial and emotional hardship... more

Though they may have joked about the trappings of fame in their 2002 breakout hit "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," brothers Benji and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte appreciate everything their success has brought. Having come from a broken home - and suffered the financial and emotional hardship that resulted from it - they also know the value of family, a theme which lies at the heart of their latest release Cardiology.

SuicideGirls caught up with Benji to talk about the new album, his thoughts on family, and his work as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador promoting UNICEF's Believe in Zero campaign, which aims to reduce preventable infant mortality, thereby ensuring that more families have a chance to enjoy the fundamental luxury of growing old together.

AL: What did you want to achieve with this album?

BM: I don't know if we ever get too deep on what we want to do. We just get in and start writing songs, then you can find where your mind is at. Once you start writing songs, you start digging around and seeing what's in there. I think on this one, we definitely wanted to put something positive out there. That was definitely something that we wanted to do. Then, other than that, I think we just wanted to do what we do. As far as Good Charlotte goes, I think we've always just done our thing and not really worried about what people thought we should sound like or thought what we should do on a record. We just let the music dictate where the record goes. On this one, it feels like there was a little bit of a return to some stuff we've done in the past. But there was also elements of a newer Good Charlotte. I guess I feel like out of five records this record is kind of a best of all the different elements that have been on every Good Charlotte record through the years.

AL: When you and your brother are writing songs together, how does it work?

BM: Usually we write all of our songs, me and Joel, with an acoustic guitar. I'll come up with chord progression that I like, and maybe hum a melody. Or I'll have a lyrical idea or Joel will have a melody and it just kind of goes from there. Joel likes for everything to happen really fast, so I have to try and keep it moving really fast and put the song together. Then, once we get the main lyrical idea, I'll go and finish the verses or finish the music and make it a little more musical. I'll figure out different ways I can play things, or just make it more interesting for the listeners who are looking for [more then a] simple three chord [progression]. I mean, when you break it down, I think all great songs are really just three chords and the truth.

AL: Talking about three chords and the truth, I loved "Harlow's Song." That's obviously for Joel's daughter, and therefore very close to his heart. What are some of the songs that are maybe the closest to yours?

BM: I really love that one too. I'm very close to his kids and my sister has a daughter. Billy's got a son, Paul's got a daughter, Dean's got a son, we've got a lot of kids around us now, and I love them all. I'm really close to all of them. Knowing how my brother feels about his kids - they're his world - when I heard that lyric, that one really it gave me chills the first time I heard it. I think anyone who has kids, or even really just someone that they love really dearly, they can relate to that song. But, for me, there's a song on the record called "1979."

AL: Right.

BM: It's a really simple melody, a simple progression. I wrote that song, it happened really fast too. I really wanted to...I guess all the Good Charlotte fans over the years have heard our stories about when we were growing up and some of the harder times. But I also wanted to take them on a little trip through when it was good. When we were little kids, and it was really happy and really fun and my parents were still in love. That's the lyric. That was a good year. Mom and dad were still in love. That one is really special to me. In the first verse I talk about my dad, and in the second verse I talk about my mom. It's just a really honest song. I used their names. I just tell the fans and the listeners a little bit about my parents in each verse, and paint the picture for them of what it was like when I was a little kid in our house.

AL: I know that when you were growing up, especially after your father left, that you did experience hardship. That was kind of reflected in the lyrics of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." Back then, when that song first broke, you were just starting out and you couldn't understand why celebrities were always complaining with all the cash they had.

BM: Yeah, it's funny, over the years that song has been misinterpreted. Everyone's like, Oh, how do you feel now? You wrote "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and now you're living it. I don't know if you really listened to the lyrics, but in the lyrics we're saying, hey, if you guys don't want it, we'll take it. Whenever anyone asks that question I know that they're not listening to lyrics, they're just kind of hearing the song at a glance.

AL: Right, but on some level, it's still a jokey dig at those people.

BM: Oh, absolutely. Look, every situation in life comes with a different set of problems. I try to do my best to never judge anyone. I also know what real problems are like, and, listen, the last time I had a real problem was 10, 12 years ago. So now, me and my brother talk about things that maybe stress us out - like the music business can be kind of shitty, that's just the way it is...You start your band and you love your band, and then you put yourself out there to be torn to shreds by people who say you aren't real, or say you aren't this or, say you aren't that.

As a kid coming out from a small town, at first it's a shock. It's like, whoa, what did I do wrong? But then, at the end of the day, me and my brother go, okay, well these are quality problems. Because, definitely, not too long ago there were some real problems. I think we're lucky to have that perspective. Because I see some people that don't have that perspective. It's not their fault, they just don't have that perspective. So, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" was, yes, always light hearted and, obviously the lyric, "They got mansions, think we should rob them" was not a serious lyric.

AL: Your band has obviously experienced the downside of fame at this point. I was reading your Twitter feed today and I noticed that you re-tweeted something your brother's wife Nicole Richie posted, the open letter that she'd written to X17.

BM: Yeah. I mean, that letter for sure, I agreed with her one hundred percent. I don't think she's complaining at all. I think she's saying, these paparazzi guys...a lot of them [have criminal records]. You've got these guys waiting outside of school where 3 to 5-year olds go. Any parent would be concerned that there's registered criminals waiting outside of school when they're not there. If my sister was diva-ish on any level, I would call her out in a second, but when they're right, they're right...

I'm psyched to be in the music industry. I love my job, and I love the scene. I love all the younger bands coming out. It's something that I'll never complain about. But, at the same time, in a lot of ways it's definitely set up for the industry not for the artist. In the sense of the fascination that our country and our world has with that entertainment based media....Those kind of guys have more rights then the people that they're chasing around.

AL: You guys are like foxes at a hunt.

BM: Yeah. I always feel like the guys, we get it easy. You know, we're in a rock band, we got dressed today - like what else do you want? And I think people get that. We didn't sign up to be anything other than guys who write songs and play in a band. It's really the girls that they're interested in, so it's really just a factor where you have to support your girl, and you gotta give them a safe place when they come home that's private. Other than that, you've got to be supportive. But, for the most part, that whole thing is revolving around the girls.

AL: I guess the upside of fame is that you have been able to leverage it for some very positive things.

BM: Yeah, we've gotten to do some really amazing things that if we weren't visible to large groups of people we wouldn't have been able to do. We've got a chance to do a lot of work with UNICEF. I've got to tell you, that stuff really makes a difference, but it feels like it makes a bigger difference in my own life...

Getting a chance to go on trips with UNICEF and meet the NGOs and meet the people who are dedicating their whole lives...These people are living in crazy conditions and dedicating their whole lives for nothing other than to help people. They're not getting paid. I mean, I've met doctors that are out in the field in Africa that went to the best medical schools in the world. They could have some practice in LA or New York, and make however much money doctors make. But these guys are living in small villages in Africa just helping people every day. It makes you think; What am I really doing to really help the world? You see those people and you want to contribute something. I've definitely seen it do more for me personally, just in my own outlook on life and perspective than really anything I could feel like I could do to help people. But I definitely want to try my best and I think, at the end of the day, most people feel that way. I think most people feel like if they could help someone, they would jump on it in a second.

AL: In what capacity do you work with UNICEF?

BM: Child survival. Once everyone started having these babies, it opens your eyes a lot...We want to do everything we can to give the kids in our family the best life possible. Then you take a look around and you see how many kids out there don't really have those chances, that to even just to survive would be a victory. The program we started working with was Believe in Zero. When we started with UNICEF the number was 26,000 children dying every day from preventable causes. Now the number has gone down by a few thousand in the last two years. Due to groups like UNICEF. They all work together and they're all such great organizations. We've been trying to raise awareness and that's been a really amazing thing to see and to be a part of, and it's something that we want to keep doing too. Actually, I got an email today about a meeting we have for the next phase of things that we're going to get involved with and try to do with UNICEF. Whenever I get those emails, it's really exciting 'cause I can't wait to go on the next trip. I can't wait to just get involved in anyway we can be. It's just really rewarding.

AL: Where have you been and what's touched you in the places that you have been?

BM: The most amazing memory I have was in the Central African Republic. We went out to a village called Sam Ouandja. It's very close to the Congo and Sudan. It's a really war torn area. We were going up there [for] a clean water effort, getting wells out there. I've got to tell you, it was just an amazing experience. It's really hard to describe, but it was just a life changing experience. We've gotten a chance to do a lot of stuff in LA too. 'Cause we love America.

AL: There's so much poverty here in our backyard. Parts of America are essentially Third World at this point.

BM: Absolutely. There's places in America where the statistics in certain cities are as bad as they are in some Third World countries. So that's definitely close to our heart too. Hopefully it's something we can really keep doing over the years...

AL: With the band, is there a goal you've yet to achieve, or something specific that you still want to do?

BM: Yeah, absolutely. I think in a lot of ways we've achieved a lot of goals that we had, just in the sense that we're still here. Our first record came out over 10 years ago - just this past month it was 10 years ago. We really looked up to bands that didn't really fit into any genre, and consistently just kept making records. Bands like The Beastie Boys or The Red Hot Chili Peppers. So I think for us, our goal is to never be pigeonholed and to always just do our own thing, for better or for worse.

There's always been a discussion of is Good Charlotte pop-punk? Or is Good Charlotte pop? Or is Good Charlotte punk? And we've always been out of that discussion because we really never saw ourselves as anything. We never saw ourselves as a punk band. We're not afraid to be anything, and I think anyone who really takes the time to listen to a Good Charlotte record, they will find that each of the five records, each one is different in it's own way. That's always been the goal. We were never really worried about credibility. Our thought was always, our credibility will come with time.

I mean, we kind of grew up in front of everyone. We started the band when we were 16, got signed when we were 20. We had 4 years to tool around and be kids in a band. We got a record deal and all of a sudden we're out in front of the world and everyone is telling us what we are, what we aren't, and what we're supposed be. The one thing that I'm probably the most proud of is that we never made our decisions based on what anyone else said. We always just did the records we wanted to do, for better or for worse, whether a certain crowd loved it or rejected it.

I think we're also one of the only bands that can say we've played with Metallica, we've played with Slipknot, we've played with System of a Down, we've played with Bad Religion, we've played with NOFX, we've played with Rancid, we've played with AFI, we've played with Justin Timberlake, we've played with Pink. I mean, we've been able to do whatever we wanted through the years.

A perfect example of where our band sits in the world is we went with our friend Pink to Europe. We were her main support for her huge stadium tour. Then we played a show with Rammstein, Mötley Crüe and Iron Maiden - and we were received just as well. So I think that's the thing I've always loved about my band, that no one can put us in a box. I think that was our real goal overall.

There's definitely still things that we'd love to do. I'd love to talk to you five years from now and be like, now we're here. The goal is the journey. There's no real destination other than to just build a really interesting catalog through the years...

We feel really lucky to have this following that we have internationally, and that's something that you have to nurture. You have to go back, and you have to spend time places and really connect with the people. You have to go to different countries and be there enough so that you really get the culture and you get the vibe.

AL: That's a huge investment time-wise, which must be increasingly hard for you guys with families and children now.

BM: Yeah, it is. At the same time everyone in the band agrees that this is our job. The one thing that I'm the most proud of with my band too, is that they are all family guys. They're all really great fathers, and they're all really great partners to their girls. So family always comes first.

AL: When do you get to be a dad?

BM: I don't know, but it's definitely something I look forward to. It's definitely in the plan, but who knows when that time will come.

AL: What's the vision down the line? The house, the white picket fence, two kids, and two dogs?

BM: That definitely sounds good to me. I wouldn't be opposed to that. At the same time, I don't know if we're that traditional - you know what I mean? I think everyone in my band has their own style of family, and each one of their own things really works because they're just fucking the best dads. They're the greatest.

You know, sometimes you meet a guy and he seems like a nice guy but you get kind of bummed when you see he's kind of shitty, the way he is to his family. With my band, they're just great dads. It makes me really proud. So that always comes before the music. I think as long as you do that it doesn't matter what the package on the outside looks like.

AL: That must particularly important for you and Joel given your childhoods, and the fact that your father abandoned you.

BM: Oh, absolutely. I definitely want to be the best dad I can be and take a shot at that. I think I will. I really have a lot of faith that I will be successful in that area of my life because I am watching my brother be the most successful at it. I've never seen him do anything in his life better than he does being a family man. That's the thing I've see him do in his life that he's the best at. Even beyond anything he's ever done with the band - he's even better at being a family man. That makes me really proud. I think if you keep those priorities straight, everything else is going to fall in place. I think that's his attitude on it; If he puts his family first and does everything right by them, everything else in his life is just going to fall in to place and be right where it's supposed to be. That's the attitude everyone has. I've got a lot of great examples around me, so I think when the time comes I've got a good understanding of what I'll need to do.


Cadiology will be released via Capitol Records on November 2.

Baba Booey. Fa-fa-fooey. Ta-ta-toothy. Ma-ma-monkey. Gary Dell’Abate goes by many names, but his job has been the same for over twenty years: he’s the guy who runs the Howard Stern Show, booking all the guests, running the show’s back office, and when necessary running interference between Howard... more

Baba Booey. Fa-fa-fooey. Ta-ta-toothy. Ma-ma-monkey. Gary Dell’Abate goes by many names, but his job has been the same for over twenty years: he’s the guy who runs the Howard Stern Show, booking all the guests, running the show’s back office, and when necessary running interference between Howard and upper management. He’s also one of the show’s most recognizable on-air personalities, thanks in no small part to his iconic nickname “Baba Booey,” a moniker which stuck to him like glue after an on-air slip-up in July 1990, in which he repeatedly mispronounced the name of his (professed to be favorite) cartoon character, Quick Draw McGraw sidekick Baba Looey. Since that day, the name has spread like a virus throughout pop culture, popping up as a punchline everywhere from comedy shows like Saturday Night Live and Late Show with David Letterman to news shows like Larry King Live and Peter Jennings’ ABC newscast, thanks to the efforts of dedicated crank callers. The title of his new memoir, which recounts some of his personal and show-related drama, says it all: They Call Me Baba Booey.

Dell’Abate was there throughout Howard Stern’s signature run at New York’s K-ROCK radio in the late 80s and early 90s, appeared briefly in the autobiographical Private Parts, and continued on long enough to see Stern finally escape his much-hated censors in FCC-controlled radio when he departed for the artistic freedom of Sirius Satellite Radio in 2005. He’s also outlasted many other show notables, including Jackie ‘The Joke Man’ Martling, ’Stuttering’ John Melendez, and blue-collar comic Artie Lange , whose run on the show began to deteriorate in 2008, due in part to the comedian’s admitted struggle with heroin addiction. A vicious on-air spat between Lange and Dell’Abate in 2009 was one of that year’s many uncomfortable Artie moments, before Lange was dismissed in December 2009, and subsequently attempted suicide. As if that weren’t enough drama, the Stern show is now barreling towards what may be its final two months on the air, with both Stern and Sirius bosses playing chicken over the terms of his potential re-signing. Gary Dell’Abate recently called up SuicideGirls to talk about his impressive run on America’s most popular radio show.



Ryan Stewart: I was a little surprised that the A.J. Benza fight story didn’t rate a mention in your book. You got punched in the head!

Gary Dell’Abate: You know, it’s just not that kind of book. The book is more about my personal life, growing up, some of my trials and tribulations and how it sort of led me to the show. And then some funny moments from the show, but it’s not really a show book. So, that’s why stuff like that wouldn’t necessarily end up in there.

RS: You didn’t feel the need to compile every great ‘Gary moment’ from the show.

GD: Yeah, I just sort of didn’t go that way. As I was writing the book what came into my head is sort of what got put in there. If you read the whole book, you can see that the show stuff is just sort of dropped in where it’s relevant, because I didn’t want to just crowbar in every single story. The story of how I met Howard is relevant, because that’s how I met Howard, you know? How I got the name Baba Booey is obviously relevant to the book, and I also thought the video tape story was relevant, quite honestly, just because I can’t believe how many people still ask me about that. And also, it’s a story about me, and I tried not to put in stuff just because it was a cool story about Howard.

RS: Is there a show-only book in your future, you think?

GD: I’ve had offers to do that for years and years, and for tons and tons of money. It’s something I don’t think Howard would want me to do, and it’s also something that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing. If I did a book with all the stories about what goes on behind the scenes, I think I’d have a difficult time in the future. I know that I wouldn’t hire a guy who wrote a book saying a bunch of mean shit about people, if he was going to then come and work for me.

RS: One of my favorite books of the last few years was the oral history of Saturday Night Live. I think that would be a great format for your show history as well.

GD: It would be an amazing format, I think you’re absolutely right. Oral histories are my favorite books. I actually read a similar one about Richard Nixon. I think the reason why those books work is the same reason why The History of Howard Stern shows on Sirius work so great, because you get five different people giving perspectives on the same story. It’s great hearing everybody’s different angles on things. I do think that would be a phenomenal format to do a history of the show, someday.

RS: You certainly take a diplomatic line in this book, except for an expected word or two about Don Imus.

GD: I did sort of settle one score, and I wonder how it’s all going to shake out, because now Howard 100 News is trying to get a hold of this person and speak to them. It’s a woman that I worked with who was a traffic reporter at NBC.

RS: Roz Frank?

GD: Yep. I think I gave it to her a little hard. It’s pretty straight-forward, but she may not recognize that that’s the way it went down. And I was joking with somebody and I said, you know, if that would have been five years later I probably wouldn’t even have written it in the book, but that was such an important time for me. I was scratching and clawing my way into the business, and I was taking all this shit, which was very reminiscent of the shit I had taken from my mother.

RS: Like you said, the origins of Baba Booey is a key story in the book, and all the subsequent goofing it led to. It’s amazing that you ended up hiring Sal Governale, who was a superfan who lived to goof on you. Howard used to let him on the air just to torture you.

GD: Here’s the deal with that: he did really well in the contest [to win the on-air sidekick spot vacated by Stuttering John in 2004], and he didn’t win, but Howard said “I really like him a lot.” And the funny thing in dealing with him for the contest and all the other stuff is that except when he was busting my balls in those particular instances, he was actually a pretty okay guy. The thing that became funny to everyone involved is that once Sal started working with us we came to realize that all the stuff Sal used to say about me was really about him. He was the one who was a pussy-whipped guy. He was the one in a marriage where his wife was breaking his balls and he couldn’t do anything about it. So, I went from not really being afraid of Sal, but being leery of Sal, to really being more sympathetic to Sal. And my wife didn’t fully understand that at first. I remember we were laying in bed one night and my wife goes “How are you going to have that guy there every day? How are you going to live with that?” and I said to her “I gotta tell you, I can hang out with him, he’s sort of a good guy.” And she goes “That’s impossible.” But I do, I like Sal, I like him a lot. He can be goofy and he can be a nutjob, but he’s also got a really big heart. I’ve gotten along with him wonderfully from the day he started working here.

RS: The stuff with his wife is radio gold.

GD: [laughs] It’s not that hard to get it out of him, which is why he’s so great.

RS: Did allowing people to goof on you in general ever threaten to undermine your authority as the show producer? Do people understand on-air/off-air?

GD: I think most people have understood that, and most of the people who didn’t…there’ve been times that I had interns who probably thought I was a douche because Howard was treating me like a douche, but they come and go, you know? And there were times that I felt I was being undermined with Stuttering John, but it wasn’t really because of that, because John would be on the back-end of that too. It was more that John sort of knew that Howard loved having him on the air, so he really didn’t have to ever listen to me in the office. He knew that I couldn’t fire him, because he was really good on the air. John was excellent on the air, and really not a great worker in the office. But I felt much more embarrassment from when Howard played the videotape of me [begging an old girlfriend to get back together]. I just felt like a tool, you know? And I felt like everyone in the office was looking at me as such.

RS: Would you have handed over that tape eventually, just for the show, without the money Howard and others put up?

GD: No. I am a complete and utter whore, and I am here to say right now that I would never have done that, if not for the money.

RS: When they played it on the air, it definitely made for a classic show. Another classic would be the 9/11 show, when Howard stayed on the air throughout the chaos. What part did you play in keeping things on track that day, keeping the show on?

GD: I played a part in the sense that I followed Howard’s lead. I knew that we were staying on the air. I knew we were going to shift gears in the way that we did the show. We were taking a lot of phone calls in the back from people, and I was trying to make sure that the right people and the right information were getting through to Howard as quickly as I could. It was almost like we suddenly went from doing a comedy show to working in a news room. Howard was the anchor and I was the guy in the back trying to feed him the right information.

RS: Did you have a sense even then that it would be maybe your most important show?

GD: I don’t know that I knew it that day, but I knew it not long after. As the show went on, the mood went from ‘Wow, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center, that’s crazy,’ to something else. I think the defining moment of the day was when I was sitting on the couch [in the studio] and Howard was sitting at his console and suddenly the second plane hit the second tower. You know, I’ve heard it said that when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald that was one of the first times that news stations had ever done an instant replay. They just reran the tape and people watching were thoroughly confused – they thought multiple people were getting shot. And I remember looking at that second tower going down and not being entirely sure that it really was the second tower, and that I wasn’t watching some sort of weird replay. And then we recognized it, and Howard looked over at me and said “We’re under attack.” That’s when it hit me. I was like, oh my God, we, this country, are under attack. Only then was it really driven home to me what was happening.

RS: Have you ever thought of putting out a sort of box set of the definitive shows?

GD: Well, I don’t think we’d ever commercially release it, but what we do have is History of Howard, and people can listen to that. And we’re actually making our way up to the 9/11 years now. I get a copy of that stuff on DVD and I put them in a drawer, and I feel like one day when my kids are older and I’m gone I can have handed those over and it’ll be like ‘This is who your father was.’

RS: And what about the Channel 9 shows? You guys have been trying to buy those back forever.

GD: You know, I’ve never really been in the loop on what that’s about, but it appears that it’s never going to be resolved, from what I can tell. I mean, if it hasn’t been resolved by now then who knows if it ever will be. And I almost wonder how those shows would hold up, although I suspect they would hold up pretty well. But you have to put those shows in perspective – they’re twenty year old shows. They would probably seem tame in comparison to some of the stuff that’s on TV now, but for what we were doing at the time, they were completely radical and innovative.

RS: Is there anything about your off-air conversations with Howard that people might find interesting or surprising?

GD: It’s funny, I was just talking to someone else about this earlier, but Howard and I communicate in a very odd way. There’s never been a time when he’s sat down with me and said to me “Hey, I think you’re a great producer.” I mean, he’ll say stuff like “You did a great job” and stuff like that, but we’ve never sat down and had, like, a heart-to-heart talk where he’s said “I think you’re a great producer” and then I said “I think you’re a great boss.” But through the way we speak about each other in interviews and on the air and through emails, we know it. I don’t need him to say that. I know how he feels about me. But we certainly don’t have these crazy heart-to-heart conversations off the air.

RS: People always ask if Howard is the real guy on the air, or if that’s an act. Do you think of yourself as having a radio persona?

GD: Well, I developed a radio persona in the sense that….I don’t think I act any differently on the air than I otherwise would, but because I am on the air I get to say shit that I wouldn’t get to say if I was a CPA. If someone comes on and I say “God, that chick is ugly, I would never have sex with her,” well, if you said that at a party you probably wouldn’t be invited back to any more parties, but it’s perfectly acceptable to say it on the air, you know? I’m not saying stuff on the radio to try and be outrageous, I just get to say things that I usually wouldn’t get to say.

RS: There was a recent on-air bit where you played an IQ game and you ended up mispronouncing the word machine as ‘mac-hine.’ When you’re doing something like that, are you thinking to yourself: if I don’t screw this up, then where’s the bit?

GD: No, no, I really didn’t know that I was walking into that one, it just sort of happened. I mean, look, I did the IQ test. And I was just talking to another person on our staff about doing one and he doesn’t want to do it. He said “It’s a losing proposition!” and I said, “Listen, brother, nobody could take that test who had more to lose than me. I’m the producer of the show. If my IQ test comes in low, I’ll never live it down. I’ll never be respected again.” So, I do think I’m a willing participant in the fun. The IQ test was proof of that.

RS: I was going to ask why your Afghanistan USO trip didn’t make the book, but it occurred to me that you made that trip with Artie, and maybe you’re laying off the Artie stories for now.

GD: No, it’s funny that you say that because I was thinking about that as well the other day. The writer and I sat down and went through it and it just didn’t fit into that part of the book, but I’m actually keeping a list for a paperback slash second book if anybody is interested. And I think just having some distance…I mean, you can go on my website and see where I have a story written up. It just didn’t end up in the book. And I think I’ve been pretty brutally honest about what happened with Artie while we were over there, and everybody else. So, it is there if anybody wants to see it.

RS: Was 2009 a tough year in general on the show? I remember that incredibly personal fight between you and Artie, which was really a no holds barred situation.

GD: I don’t know if 2009 was a tough year, but I wasn’t really hurt by the accusations that Artie was making so much as I was hurt by the fact that he knew he was purposefully saying something that he knew would hurt me. It was like Artie knew what my Achilles heel was and he just went for it. That was more difficult for me than the stuff he was actually saying. I was afraid of [not performing well at USO stand-up] before we went there, but by the time we got back I knew that I had done a decent job. Not a great job, but I knew I had done a decent job. And I knew that Artie was just going there because he knew that it would upset me.

RS: Joking that he was glad Dave Attell had less time on stage so you could perform, and so on.

GD: Yeah, and listen, Artie could have brought along another comedian who was more talented than me. The other guys who were on the bill were incredibly talented, but what I found out there was that it’s not all about the shows. I wouldn’t say the shows were a minor part of it, but they were really just one element of what it’s about, the reason that you go over there. The bigger reason is the eight or twelve hours a day that you spend walking around, talking to people, hanging around with them, that’s the real gift that’s being given, not only to the people there, but to us as well. When you hang out with those people you find that they’re just grateful that somebody is coming to visit.

RS: Speaking of comedy, are you still out hunting for new talent these days? Lots of people who’ve gotten a break on the show are doing very well.

GD: You know, I used to go to the comedy clubs once in a while, but I was never really on the ground looking for talent. Once in a while somebody would say “You’ve got to come and see this comedian” but it wasn’t the main way that we got guests. Even though in the past we have broken some new talent like Sam Kinison and people like that, it’s not really the format of our show. And the great thing is that you really don’t have to go out anymore. I don’t have to go to comedy clubs, I’ve got people saying “Here’s seven links to my client on Youtube,” you know? That’s the way that you see them. And people might say that it’s not the same thing as being in the club, but you can get a pretty good feel for somebody off of that. I find myself watching a lot of DVDs at home and watching a lot of Youtube videos and listening to a lot of CDs in my car and also listening to stuff on my iPod that people have sent me.

RS: Artie recently did some stand-up at a club, I read. He seems to be getting back in the swing of things. If he decides to tell his story on another show is that okay with you?

GD: I think I’d be a little bummed out. I mean, listen, I think telling it to us would certainly be the most interesting way to tell it. We are the other pieces of that puzzle. Artie could tell us what was going on and we could tell him what we were thinking and what we believed at that time. So, I do think it would make for the most interesting interview.

RS: But Howard is resisting it.

GD: I don’t know that Howard is resisting. I just don’t know that everybody is ready to pull it together.

RS: If the Howard Stern Show is done in eight weeks, do you feel like you guys have done what you set out to do in radio?

GD: God, yes. Howard was in the history books even before he went to satellite radio. And I think that going to satellite radio just cemented that forever. When we showed up to Sirius Satellite Radio they had four hundred thousand subscribers. Now, with the company merged, they have twenty million subscribers. It’s a very viable format that was not very viable before Howard Stern got there. If Howard had gone to XM instead of Sirius, Sirius would have probably just gone out of business. I mean, just the fact that Howard went to the company with the lesser amount of subscribers and managed to actually overtake the other company? Holy shit. In the last twenty-five years of radio, who has had a bigger impact than Howard Stern? I’ve been glad to be a part of that. And I’d love to go on. I want to keep going.




They Call Me Baba Booey is available in bookstores November 2nd..

Well, it’s official: hell has frozen over, the fat lady has sung, and Tommy Chong has quit smoking pot. Apparently after you smoke weed everyday for 50 years and then are forced to quit cold turkey when you’re thrown in prison, you lose your taste for it. Hopefully that will never happen to me. I got... more

Well, it’s official: hell has frozen over, the fat lady has sung, and Tommy Chong has quit smoking pot. Apparently after you smoke weed everyday for 50 years and then are forced to quit cold turkey when you’re thrown in prison, you lose your taste for it. Hopefully that will never happen to me. I got a chance to talk with Chong about his time in prison, his new book The I Chong which lays out his philosophies and whether or not he thinks Cheech Marin has sold out.

Buy The I Chong: Meditations from the Joint

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?

Tommy Chong: Just doing a television show, like an MTV type. Then I’m going to be doing a reading tonight.

DRE: Have you ever written a book before?

TC: I haven’t written a book. I’ve written movies and light comedy but never a book.

DRE: How do you like doing the readings?

TC: I love it. I’m a standup comedian so you get people sitting and looking at you and it is like they are waiting for me to do a line. I still do standup all the time with my wife, Shelby so it’s like that.

DRE: What made you decide to write the book?

TC: Well, I’m a writer. I write constantly, it’s like a dog chews on a bone. I’ve got that great obsession. I met a great editor, Trish, at Simon & Schuster and she asked me if I had anything written and I said no so they asked “Do you want to do a book?” and I said “Sure”. They asked “do you have anything written?” I said “I’ve got a ton written but it is no boo.” She said “send me everything” and I sent it to her and she just took out the obvious and left in the not obvious.

DRE: Do you feel like it’s really your philosophies that you got down in the book?

TC: Absolutely. It’s all mine. I never had a ghost writer. Every word was written is my words, my thoughts, my feelings. I think that’s why it’s being so well received, because it doesn’t read slick. It just reads like some stoner wrote it.

DRE: Was the I, Ching a big influence on your book?

TC: Yes. I did it just hour ago. I do it constantly. It’s a way of life basically.

DRE: When did you get into that?

TC: I got into that many years ago back in the 60’s. Then I left it alone for a long time and then when I was in jail I picked it up again because you have the time. Now I’ve been doing it ever since.

DRE: How was the time in prison?

TC: It’s crowded especially because there’re so many Republicans going in there. It’s all white-collar. I think the jail was built for Nixon’s Watergate Crew. So other than that, there’re a lot of real nice people in there, a lot of drug related people in there, people who are doing ridiculous amounts of time for growing pot.

DRE: Yeah, it’s outrageous and what they did to you was absolutely outrageous.

TC: Well it was and it wasn’t. It gave me the martyr hat to wear for a while and I loved it. I love it, still do. I’ll keep this jacket on for as long as I can. People always ask “hey, where’ve you been?” I’m like “Oh, I’ve been in jail. A bunch of people locked me up.” Even when they know I’m not talking about, I talk about it. The thing is I didn’t do anything illegal. We were licensed by the state of California to do the glass company. There’s nothing written anywhere that says you can’t make glass water pipes. The only thing that we did illegal was a technicality where we were sending them through the mail to Pennsylvania. Only two states in the Union enforce that law because it’s not only unenforceable but unconstitutional. We had some water pipes in an art show so technically we were shipping art objects across the state line. But what they said is they’d put my son and my wife in jail if I didn’t cooperate and I couldn’t even take that chance. I don’t want the US government treating my son like they treated that Chinese guy that was supposed to be a spy, but they put him in solitary confinement for a year. So I had no choice but to plead guilty. I only got was nine months so everything happens for a reason.

DRE: How did you get treated by the other prisoners?

TC: Like the famous comedian I am. I think they played a Cheech and Chong movie every month I was there. There was always people asking me for pictures and signing autographs. It was like going to jail with my fans for nine months. The warden of the main prison, met me and for him it was like meeting a movie star. He shook my hand said “You’re our famous guy. How are you doing? Are they treating you well?” We were trying to get him to release a kiln that we had at the warehouse because we were making pottery at the time and I wanted to fire it up but they wouldn’t let me fire anything up.

DRE: So it wasn’t like it was in Half Baked then?

TC: Not at all, except I became a squirrel master. I ended up having squirrels as my pets. They would just climb up your clothes for food.

DRE: Do you feel that you were specifically targeted because of your fame?

TC: Sure do, 12 million dollars, Operation Pipe Dreams. I found out today that only [Chris Hill] from Chills [Pipes] went to jail for a year but that was his second offense. But the only guy that went to jail was me and it wasn’t my company. It was my son’s company. I would have gone to trial because I wanted to challenge the charge of marijuana. When studies don’t come up with what they want, they keep saying “well we need to do more studies.” They still can’t find anything wrong with pot. It should not be illegal, it should be treated as what it is, a medicine. But because it grows wild the pharmaceutical companies can’t put their label on it. If someone could put a patent on pot it would be legal today.

DRE: Is the idea of marijuana ever being fully legal in the United States much farther off now?

TC: No, once the Democrats take control of Congress and you get a decent president in there, I’m quite sure that the medical aspect of it all will override a lot of their concerns because it’s not like it’s a non-approved thing, they approved it in San Francisco and Los Angeles, anywhere there’s compassionate medical marijuana. To tell you the truth, I don’t smoke anymore. I quit smoking. I quit more than two years ago. I was in jail and after probation I tried it and the feeling was gone.

DRE: So they cured you?

TC: No, they didn’t cure me. There was no sickness. I had more trouble quitting coffee than quitting smoking pot. I know they didn’t want me to stop smoking because the government kept offering me weed when I was in jail. They wanted to violate me so they could keep me under the iron bars for a few more years. Snitches would offer me weed and then they would drug test me almost immediately after they thought I would have been smoking it. It happened more than a few times. They drug-tested me more often than most potheads. It was a political bust. They wanted me. They wanted me to violate. I had to call the police. I was doing a play called The Marijuana-Logues and I had to quit because I was on probation. Probation is when you’re in jail but they let you out the big house. There was people smoking pot in the audience and when you’re on probation it says that if you see a crime and don’t report it, you violate your probation. I wasn’t afraid of jail, I was just afraid of the probation.

DRE: How did you like doing The Marijuana-Logues?

TC: It is great. I have my own material that I use. I use a little bit of theirs but a good 70-80% is mine. It’s hysterical and goes over really well.

DRE: Do you think you’ll do it again now that your probation is over?

TC: I sure will. I’ve just been doing generally a television pilot and some personal appearances.

DRE: What’s the pilot?

TC: This one MTV show had this one electric low rider car of mine on. I wanted to do a pilot based on that electric car and about global warming. I’m trying to form a company that will turn luxury cars into electric cars like the Volvos and Ferraris and Maseratis. They’re hobby cars and they don’t get driven everyday. When you have an expensive gas motor there’s a lot of upkeep and a lot of liquids in there. But when you have an electric motor, there’s no upkeep. There’s nothing to do but change the windshield wiper fluids.

DRE: I’m required to ask if you and Cheech are talking about doing another movie.

TC: We were as close as the script being turned down. We had a deal in place at New Line but Cheech wanted professionals. In other words, he didn’t want to work with my wife, my wife couldn’t be in the movie, I couldn’t direct the movie, I couldn’t write the movie. It had to be written by a professional so I just went ahead and wrote my version anyway.

I started working on a play and that’s what I’m working on right now. I’d like to see Cheech and Chong on Broadway but with a cast of new young blood.

DRE: Do you feel like Cheech has sold out?

TC: Beyond that. I think he’s moved beyond selling out. I think he evolved out. He went another level. He grew up. I never grew up you see. I was fully formed by the time we did Cheech and Chong. But he was a kid when he did Cheech and Chong.

DRE: Growing up isn’t necessarily a bad thing though.

TC: No, not at all. It is like The Eagles wanting to play some jazz when they go on tour or Jerry Garcia not wanting to do to do his Grateful Dead songs because he grew up. Cheech grew into another form. He’s an art expert and he goes out with a comedy group where he does, I guess it’s comedy. He does real adolescent, straight, white-bred shit and unfortunately I’m still stuck in the same Cheech and Chong mode that I’ve been in all my life.

DRE: I think that’s a good thing.

TC: I think so too. Cheech wants to be a dramatic guy. God bless him for having ambition but the way I look at it is there are a lot of good dramatic Spanish actors out there, but there’s not enough funny Cheechs. I would do anything to have Cheech be funny again. Serious shit bores me. There’s enough serious shit going on in the world but there’s not enough humor in the world.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

According to BBC News, there may be a hope in cannabis being a cancer-fighting drug. Apparently by starving the tumor of new blood to "feed" on, pot inhibits the growth of the tumor, making it easier to treat. While other research has used mice as test subjects, this study went a step farther... more

According to BBC News, there may be a hope in cannabis being a cancer-fighting drug.

Apparently by starving the tumor of new blood to "feed" on, pot inhibits the growth of the tumor, making it easier to treat. While other research has used mice as test subjects, this study went a step farther and included human subjects.

Marijuana is already used in some places to treat the symptoms of diseases or the side effects of treatments for diseases like cancer and AIDS -- loss of appetite, nausea, headaches, general discomfort -- but not much research has been done on using cannibis as a treatment for a disease itself.

Signaling a move that the Golden State is about to turn green, Debra Bowen, California's Secretary of State, has validated a proposed initiative to legalize the recreational use and sale of marijuana. The initiative will appear on the November ballot and Californian voters will be able to decide... more

Signaling a move that the Golden State is about to turn green, Debra Bowen, California's Secretary of State, has validated a proposed initiative to legalize the recreational use and sale of marijuana. The initiative will appear on the November ballot and Californian voters will be able to decide whether or not to be the first state to legalize marijuana, a currently federally restricted drug. If passed, adults 21 and older may legally possess up to one ounce and may also grow it at home if they so choose. State and local governments would be able to permit legal sales, generating badly needed tax revenues while saving time and money by removing the cost criminalization currently places on the criminal justice system.

While the ballot initiative does have it's opponents, they are unlikely to mount a successful campaign against it's passage. Recent polls in California show a 56% plurality in favor of this type of legislation, the national average for supporting legalization currently stands at 44%. If passed, this state law would further challenge the federal prohibition on its possession and use. Many states, including California, already have laws permitting the legal sale and possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes and other states are also considering the passage of similar laws. It remains to be seen what the overall impact of such a sweeping change in attitudes towards the recreational use of marijuana might be, but it would certainly take a large chunk out of the criminal cartels involved in it's illegal trade. If passed, it could be a rare first step (well, second after the med laws) to approaching sound reforms in the nations drug policies and enforcement. Let's not forget the old adage when it comes to groundbreaking political changes, as goes California, so goes the... Um... Uh... Whoa! What were we talking about again?

On November 2, Prop 19 will go to the ballot in California. The proposed law would take legalized marijuana consumption beyond the realm of medicinal use only. It would allow individuals aged 21 & over to grow and posses limited quantities of marijuana, and local governments to authorize and tax its... more

On November 2, Prop 19 will go to the ballot in California. The proposed law would take legalized marijuana consumption beyond the realm of medicinal use only. It would allow individuals aged 21 & over to grow and posses limited quantities of marijuana, and local governments to authorize and tax its sale. Supporters say the pragmatic measure would free up much needed jail space and police time, and help balance California’s budget. If you live in California, please consider voting YES on Prop 19.

SuicdeGirls called up marijuana expert and Toke Of The Town editor Steve Elliott to get some clarity on the issue, and to find out more about the history and politics surrounding marijuana prohibition in America.

SuicdeGirls: Can you tell me how long Marijuana has been illegal in America?

Steve Elliott: 73 years. [It was outlawed] in 1937, as alcohol prohibition was coming to an end. Some of these federal agents that had been like revenuers, were worried about their prospects for employment now that alcohol was going to be legal again in the United State. One of those guys, Harry Anslinger, decided that marijuana needed to be against the law.

The fact that is was used primarily by Mexicans and blacks, it seemed to him [to be] a good reason that is should be outlawed, that it should be cracked down upon. And the fact that jazz musicians and what he saw as the underclass of society was associated with it, made it easier for him to get those scare tactics going. To get those Reefer Madness stories out there in the newspapers at this time, the yellow journalism of the Hearst variety that was so prevalent then. Of course then the 1936 movie Reefer Madness was one of the biggest factors, because it scared the hell out of so many parents and these respectable Middle class Americans when they saw these kids smoking pot and going wild and, and losing their inhibitions. It basically came down to fear and misinformation, and frankly racism.

SG: And it passed fairly easily in 1937? Was there much of a fight?

SE: There was not much of a fight at all. One of the only people who testified against making marijuana illegal at those hearings in 1937 was a representative of the American Medical Association, a Doctor Woodward. He testified that cannabis has lots of medical uses. He said that if we remove it from the pharmacopeia, we're removing one of the best tools we have in fighting many diseases and conditions. But his testimony was ignored in the general rush of Reefer Madness paranoia. In fact his testimony was misrepresented and lied about. Because one Congressman told the rest of the assembled body, many of whom weren't in a position to know better, that Dr. Woodward of the AMA had in fact testified for the illegalization of marijuana, when in fact the exact opposite was the case. So that's another level of misinformation and subterfuge going on that got us this original medical marijuana prohibition in 1937.

Then in 1970, as a result of the changes that were going down at the time, the student revolts on a lot of campuses, Richard Nixon saw marijuana as an opportunity to crack down on his political enemies.

SG: Between 1937 and 1970 was the government going after people and prosecuting them?

SE: It was. The way that they were doing that was through a backdoor method, by placing a big tax on marijuana. Of course nobody paid it, and when you were caught with marijuana, you were technically being busted for tax evasion. Because you hadn't paid this sky high tax that they had placed on it. At a federal level the law they had against pot was that tax law at the time. It was unclear that they could actually ban a plant, so that's the back door that they took.

SG: So in 1937 the idea of banning a plant seemed so "out there" that
they chose instead to do it this way.

SE: It does speak [for itself] that they actually had some qualms about it, that they chose to do it through the back door through the Marijuana Tax Act, rather than just saying you can't grow this plant anymore. I think that seemed a little bit absurd to those lawmakers at the time and that's why they chose to do it the way they did with the tax.

SG: So you're saying that in the 1970s there's civil unrest in America, and the Nixon administration sees marijuana as part of that.

SE: Right. Nixon, of course, felt that marijuana was closely associated with the hippies and the student radicals that were fighting against his policies. So he thought, okay, I could get lots of bad publicity if I go after these guys simply for being against me politically. But if I use the marijuana issue as a wedge, I can drive a stake right in the heart of this student radical movement because most of them smoke pot anyway. So he decided that he was going to declare that war on drugs, which he did.He assembled a commission which he felt would be safe to give him the results that he wanted. What he did was assemble the Shafer Commission. These were some of the top drug policy experts in the country. But they surprised the president by coming back to him with a recommendation that he decriminalize marijuana, that they stop going after pot smokers in their homes for privately using it.

[Nixon] went nuts. He even made a couple of racist remarks about what are these Jews thinking? He rejected their conclusions, and he decided to go the exact opposite way of what his own experts recommended. They recommended decriminalization. He made it against the law and declared a war on drugs. Marijuana being the biggest part of that war on drugs, because it was the most widely used.

SG: Interesting. And that's where our modern drug laws come from?

SE: Yes. As far as all the mandatory minimums, the crackdowns, the disparity between, say, crack cocaine and powder cocaine. All of those came as a result of Nixon's original war on drugs. They kept piling on more penalties for several years afterward, including the Rockefeller drug laws in New York State that became so draconian, of course, that the prisons everywhere were filled up with nonviolent drug offenders. In many cases, [the number of imprisoned] marijuana offenders just started breaking the budget. [They were] locking people up and throwing away the key for what would before have been seen as minor drug cases.

SG: And then the first move in the other direction was the medical marijuana laws.

SE: That happened. But before the medical marijuana movement happened there was a movement in the '70s spearheaded largely by NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. What they started doing, and successfully did in I believe 13 states in the late '70s, just in that decade, has knocked those penalties down in those states from a felony to a misdemeanor. So where as you might have served jail time before, now if you were caught with under an ounce, the rule was in most of the states that you might get away with a fine and probation.

SG: They had some success with that.

SE: They did have some success. That kind of ran dry with the advent of the Reagan years. Jimmy Carter was the only sitting president we've ever had to advocate from the White House for the decriminalization of marijuana. He famously said, while in office, that the penalties against a drug should not be more harmful than the drug itself. He said that in reference to marijuana, and he said that in defense of his stance on the decriminalization of marijuana.

But he didn't have much success with Congress, and when Reagan came in, he reversed that. Reagan's quote on pot was, "Marijuana is the most dangerous drug in America today." He actually said that. I don't know if he believed it or not. But that was his line. All of those gains that were made in the '70s were basically rolled back, and you know, Nancy was the "Just say no!" lady.

SG: [laughs] Right.

SE: They actually were threatening retailers that sold High Times. Edwin Meese, who was Reagan's Attorney General at the time, was throwing his weight around. Of course, he got slapped down on First Amendment grounds pretty quickly. But he was, at first, being a total dick about it.

They were blustering and threatening. They didn't get too far because of the First Amendment, but what they did do was put a chilling effect into the market. What happened was a lot of retailers, without there being a rule against doing so, just became intimidated. They became scared enough so they stopped carrying High Times.

SG: Why take the risk of them closing your business for one publication.

SE: Right. That's exactly the outcome I believe the Reagan administration was looking for. For a while it became questionable if publications like High Times were going to survive. Since they couldn't just say we're shutting you down - the First Amendment was in the way of doing that - they just did the intimidation tactics, and a lot of retailers stopped carrying it.

SG: Then the next era was then the medical marijuana initiative. California led the way, as usual, in '96.

SE: Yes. In 1996 voters there approved medical marijuana. They also did that same year in Arizona, but their law was flawed because the legislature amended it to require a doctor's prescriptions. And doctors can't prescribe marijuana because of its status as a Schedule 1 drug on the federal level. What they can do, and it’s the loophole that has been used in all the medical marijuana states since then, is they can recommend marijuana.

SG: And then it has gained momentum?

SE: Right. It didn't take long for other states like Washington and Oregon - the next election here in '98 they passed it. Since then, the domino effect has come into play. Now we have 14, and others like South Dakota will be voting on a medical marijuana law for the second time in November. South Dakota is the only state where medical marijuana has ever lost at the polls that I know of. A few years ago, they voted on it, and it narrowly lost. This will be their second time.

California now is leading again with the first decriminalization initiative as well. They're calling it the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, but it is officially a legalization initiative because it would remove criminal penalties for adults 21 & over for an ounce and under or for a 25 square foot garden. So while its limited legalization, and while that bothers some activists, it is a big step towards, making cannabis legally available to adults.

SG: Similar to Reagan, hasn't the Obama administration sort of warned Californians, saying, if you pass this law, we're going to come down on marijuana in California?

SE: Attorney General Eric Holder did say that this week. He said that they would continue to "vigorously enforce the marijuana laws." Now that's the opposite tactic they've taken medically. Because they have tried to take the hands off position with medical. But apparently, this is farther than they're willing to go.

Now how much teeth does Holder have? Possibly not many because the Federal Government really doesn't have the aegis to go in and start going after individual users. What they might do is go after the retailers, in the way that the Bush and Clinton administrations continued to bust dispensaries in California and elsewhere, even though they were legal under state law. That policy has been largely abandoned by Obama. But with general legalization, I think that that may be the scenario that we return to.

SG: But doesn't it seem a little bit like they're warning all the dispensaries who are allowed to do business now in California, who are supporting this initiative, you know, “Hey, if you continue to support this and it gets passed we're gonna clamp down on what you're currently doing.”

SE: That may well be the intended effect. I wouldn't doubt it. It's hard to say what they're thinking, but I think they are going to run into some significant opposition, both legally and politically if they carry through on that threat. They also seem too understaffed to go after marijuana as vigorously as Holder seems to imply that they will.

Now, if they do choose to do that, of course there are going to be casualties. There will be people who get long federal mandatory minimum sentences. People who weren't even violating California state law, who were in fact trying to go by the letter of the law in California. That opens the ugly possibility that these people will catch some long federal sentences, which I think keeps a lot of bigger businesses out of the industry. It keeps a lot of people who have things to lose from starting a business in this space.

I think that's the affect they're going for, and I think that Holder and the Obama administration might also have been hoping to influence the vote by officially saying you can't do this. I think the practical effect though, in the real world, will be that they will increase the number of "Yes" votes by saying you can't do this. I can't imagine that Californians will bend over and let the Federal Government tell them you can't vote your conscience on marijuana.

If I still lived in California, I know that I would be very upset at the Attorney General or any other elected official in any position of power telling me that I can't change the law by voting to change the law. That seems to me to be a fundamental violation of democratic principles. It seems to me to be arrogant and dangerous for elected officials to tell voters you can't do this - even if you vote like this we're going to ignore it. And that's not just limited to federal officials like Attorney General Holder, you have LA County Sheriff Lee Baca saying, "Proposition 19 is not going to pass, even if it passes." That's a quote from late last week. Because he says he will continue to enforce marijuana laws even if the people of California vote for Prop 19.

When you have law enforcement officials like Sheriff Baca showing such a blatant disregard not only for the will of the voters and for the democratic process, but also for the law itself, what do you do? You have a law enforcement officer saying I don't like this law, so I'm going to keep enforcing the law the way it was before. That seems to me an impeachable offense.

SG: Yeah. You're making a real smart point that I've never really even thought of. You're saying, the Federal Government, this sheriff, they believe that they are above the consent of the people. That really, it does not matter what the majority of people in California want, they know better than that.

SE: That seems to be what they're saying, and the hubris of it is just amazing. I can't believe that any other issue besides marijuana could have produced this kind of disconnect between the will of the voters and what we're hearing from politicians who are supposed to express that will, to put it into action. Especially if voters approve an initiative like Prop 19. That should be respected by any person who says “I respect the law” - because at that point Prop 19 will be the law. To have a sheriff saying he will continue to enforce it, and in the fact appoint himself a federal agent by choosing to enforce the federal law - that seems pretty incredible to me.

SG: It seems like marijuana is a lot more present and acceptable in
society than it was twenty years ago. Do you think that's true?

SE: It really is. And having been involved in this subculture for as long as I have - I started smoking pot in 1977 and that's when I started paying attention to the marijuana subculture - I can tell you that things have changed enormously since then. Now when I first became involved, it was a time of optimism. That's when President Carter was in office saying that we needed to decriminalize. That's when the wave of decrim laws was still cresting across the nation and states were reducing penalties for possession.

But of course then the Reagan years were a big backslide. The Bush, the elder years continued exactly in Reagan's vein. And even Clinton continued with those repressive policies against even medical marijuana and medical marijuana dispensaries. The fact that Obama - even when he ran he said he would de-emphasize medical marijuana - the fact that he won and actually kept that promise is one big sign that the culture is changing around us as we speak. The fact that we see medical marijuana advertisements now on certain TV stations, on certain radio stations, and in practically every alternative weekly in those states where it is legalized, it shows us that medical marijuana has gradually been working its way into the mainstream. More now than ever I see the demographics of marijuana have changed to the extent that it isn't just young people, it isn't just baby boomers, it extends all the way up into senior citizens now. A lot of people that you might otherwise never suspect are using marijuana, either medically or recreationally, or both.

SG: How do you see the law changing in the next decade?

SE: I think what we're going to see in the next decade is a continuing domino effect on medical marijuana laws in individual states. I think by the year 2021 we're going to have legal medical marijuana coast to coast in the United States. Or at the very least, I think you will be able to start driving on the West Coast and drive completely across the United States to the East Coast without crossing into a state where medical marijuana is still illegal.

SG: Can we talk a bit about your personal history and how you started the Toke of The Town blog?

SE: Sure. I got a great opportunity to do Toke of the Town because, close to four years ago now, I started my personal blog, Reality Catcher. It got a few page hits. I became a user at Digg, where you can direct lots of traffic to your site if you have friends there. I made friends at Digg, and I got some attention for my Reality Catcher site, which was turned into a twice-weekly column for the San Francisco Weekly online. That of course is owned by Village Voice Media and they noticed that those columns in the SF Weekly were getting a lot of page hits. They offered me the chance to run Toke of the Town, which was their new pot blog. It started up in late November of 2009, and it has been a great year actually. It has received a lot of attention and a lot of success for which I'm very grateful. I have had the time of my life actually for the past year doing it.

I think just being relaxed around the whole marijuana culture, and not being so defensive and paranoid about it is the way to go forward with this - and really to submit our gaze into American popular culture. I think, right now, is the most exciting possible time to be a marijuana activist for a number of reasons. One of the biggest ones of all is that we're about to win. There is no way around it. Marijuana is going to be a part of American culture going forward. It's going to soon become a legal and accepted part of American culture.

The enormous amount of cultural energy and excitement that surrounds the cannabis question makes this one of the most exciting fields to work in right now. I think people feel that excitement from the cannabis culture as a whole. I think that there is a feeling of inevitability and a victory in the air around the marijuana cause. And I think that people are ready to enjoy the marijuana culture. They're ready to enjoy the fact that they are members of that culture without all of this hiding in the closet - without all of the paranoia, without all of the denials, and without all of the fear. I think that as we light that light up in one person's head at a time, where they say being afraid to speak up and being cowed down is no way to go through life. Life is too short for that and it's time to stand up and say: Yes, I smoked pot. No, I'm not a criminal. Yes, we need to change these laws.

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

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

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

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

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

SG: Are you proof that clean living works?

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

The Exorcist is now available on Blu Ray.