The fiercely individual Madonna once observed that “life is a mystery” and “everyone must stand alone.” But for some that is tragically not possible. Conjoined twins Evelyn and Evelyn Neville (a.k.a. Evelyn Evelyn) are two such people; their uninvited union – and the uniqueness of their in many... more

The fiercely individual Madonna once observed that “life is a mystery” and “everyone must stand alone.” But for some that is tragically not possible. Conjoined twins Evelyn and Evelyn Neville (a.k.a. Evelyn Evelyn) are two such people; their uninvited union – and the uniqueness of their in many ways non-individual state – being both a blessing and a curse.

To say Evelyn Evelyn have had a tough upbringing would be a gross understatement. The pair lost their mother 12 minutes after their traumatic birth, and their early life took a nosedive from there. The girls’ father fell victim to an unlikely chainsaw accident shortly after their mother’s untimely demise, and thus the orphaned twins were left with only each other to rely on as they made their way in this all too cruel world.

Extended stints trapped in a chicken coup and held hostage by a child pornography ring meant the girls were robbed of anything approaching a normal childhood –– if that was ever a possibility given their Siamese status. However, after joining a circus and meeting some similarly conjoined pachyderms, Evelyn Evelyn got an inkling that their bond –– far from being a burden –– was something truly beautiful and special.

Having experienced relentless teasing and taunts for much of their life, the Neville sisters’ world was changed radically by the advent of social media. While in a dead end job filling out sweepstakes applications on behalf of an unappreciative motel proprietor, the duo practiced the songs they once performed with the circus and set up a profile on MySpace to showcase them. Unburdened by physical limitations and prejudices online, their music caught the attention of many, including singer, songwriter, and all round entertainer extraordinaire Amanda Palmer.

Inspired by their songs and by their struggle, Amanda recruited renowned folk musician Jason Webley to help with the project. Produced by Palmer and Webley, Evelyn Evelyn released their debut EP, “Elephant Elephant,” in 2007. Their heartfelt rendition of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” –– which served as the B-side of the vinyl edition –– brought them initial success and critical acclaim. A self-titled album followed in 2010, as did numerous sold out live dates.

Having recently returned from a triumphant stint at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival –– and with respect having firmly replaced ridicule –– Evelyn Evelyn embark on the next chapter in their lives with the release of a graphic novel based on their story. Written by Palmer and Webley, and illustrated by Cynthia von Buhler, it’s naturally being released in two parts (via Dark Horse Comics Inc.). Having not only redefined beauty, but what it means to be an individual, SuicideGirls caught up with Palmer to talk about Evelyn Evelyn.

For this interview SG’s editor, Nicole Powers, recruited her own twin siblings, Brenda Day and Samantha May. Though not conjoined, Brenda and Samantha do everything together and feel as if emotionally they are. They are therefore especially excited that Palmer and Webley are unleashing the power of multiples though their production work, and are exploring what it means to be an individual when you’re also one half of a whole. The following is a transcript of their online conversation…

Brenda Day: Amanda, what inspired you to work with Evelyn Evelyn?

Amanda Palmer: Their MySpace. It was mind-blowing. I'd never heard Jesus Christ Superstar covers sound quite like that.

Samantha May: I know you have struggled to maintain your own sense of individually in a music industry that likes to produce cookie-cutter artists. How has working with Evelyn Evelyn – two individuals who are in essence at one with being one – inspired you?

AP: You know, it's humbling. When you hang around people who are so truly unique, it bends your perspective. The girls really do have their own agenda and stick to their principals. I, on the other hand, can be talked into just about anything. Not them. They're the most authentic, hard-core performers I've ever seen.

BD:In light of Evelyn Evelyn’s plight, it almost seems like an individual’s struggle by comparison to be an individual is somewhat of a luxury. Has working with the Neville twins changed or challenged your own sense of self and your concept of what it means to be an individual?

AP: Absolutely. On the other hand, there's the envy that goes along with it. Wouldn't you love to know, to be known, by An Other so deeply, so perfectly? In a sense, as human beings, we're always striving for that, alongside our race for absolute uniqueness and individuality.

SM:Evelyn Evelyn have had an unlikely and often tragic journey to adulthood. How does their struggle resonate with your own?

AP: Well, I feel it's never fair to measure tragedy, to measure pain. It's not possible and not fair. Everybody deals with their own struggles and difficulties growing up, it's the attitude and the perspective on your drama that shapes you as a person, not the outside world's "measurement" of your plight. So I look at the girls and their journey and think: there it is, another life, another path, and here they are, making art out of their experiences. I don't look at them with pity. Pity is my least favorite four-letter word. Nobody should ever be pitied.

BD:Their childhood was blighted by fate and tragedy, involving death, chicken farms and child pornography. Many might say this is tough – and perhaps even unsuitable material – for comic books. Indeed to use the word “comic” when describing their tragic life story is almost an oxymoron. What inspired and motivated you to translate their tale into this somewhat unlikely art form?

AP: The story is incredibly visually arresting when you hear them deliver it on the record. Jason and I knew that it would be the perfect medium, especially if we found the right artist, and Cynthia nailed it. And as for the suitableness...I don't know about that, I think you could easily find some darker, gorier material in a graphic novel without looking too far.

SM:Evelyn Evelyn are nervous around clowns. Do you share their coulrophobia?

AP: No, though come to think of it, I find them *moderately* unsettling. But it's not a full-on phobia. My best friend has coulrophobia, for real. He also has a weird conspiracy theory that there's a secret race of clowns, called the Culano, who breed with humans and are trying to take over the planet. If you see someone with very curly red hair, suspenders and oversized shoes working at a regular desk job, they may be of Culano descent.

BD:In real life, Evelyn Evelyn’s circus friends Bimba and Kimba a.k.a. Elephant Elephant, the conjoined twin elephants, die. I always hate it when the dog dies in a movie. When crafting the book, were you tempted at all to tweak reality to deliver a more acceptable and palatable tale?

AP: Um, no.

SM:At one point the twins are caught between to factions – F.A.S.S.T.E.N (The Foundation For Always Separating Siamese Twins Everywhere Now) and S.P.L.I.T (The Society for the Preservation of Linked Identical Twins). Are you pro or anti S.P.L.I.T?

AP: I'm not at liberty to say, as both of these factions troll the internet looking to take down celebrities.

BD:Ultimately Evelyn Evelyn’s story is one of acceptance and understanding through music. How important has music been in your own journey towards acceptance?

AP: It's been the ultimate salvation. I'd have been lost without music and the life it's given me.

SM:You recently did a run at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival with the twins. How did that go? And do they have any more immediate touring plans?

AP: They were a smash hit! The whole run was a sell-out and they garnered a handful of four-star reviews. It honestly couldn't have gone better. But now they're very tired and will probably take a few years off. They found the experience of being in the UK very...trying. They didn't like the weather or the food.

BD:Your husband Neil Gaiman, whom SuicideGirls recently spoke with, did the afterward to the book. You’re also going to be doing some live dates with him. How amazing is it to be able to work and create with your soul mate?

AP: It's amazing. I love Neil more and more every day, as we try to make sense of this strange relationship we've embarked on...the relationship itself is our biggest collaboration, and it's an ongoing work in progress. But with each passing day and attempt to understand each other we get closer. Getting married was something I never thought I'd do...it totally blindsided my sense of identity for a while. But now we're settling into an incredible routine.

SM:What can fans expect from the upcoming shows you and Neil are doing together?

AP: Oh, mostly we're just singing songs and telling stories. It's an indoor campfire, basically. With some strippers thrown in for balance. Maybe.

BD:Any more his ‘n’ her collaborations in the works?

AP: We actually have a kind of rule...no big collaborations. The short tour is fine, and doing small things for each other’s books and projects is fine, but anymore than that and we're risking our sense of sanity. We need each other to complain to about our work...and if we're complaining about each other TO each other, we'll come undone.

SM:In a sense, as you and Neil get closer and more in tune, are you becoming almost an Evelyn Evelyn in the sense that in a marriage two become one, and an individual becomes merely a half of a whole?

AP: No. We'll get closer, but my fantasy is that you find your sense of self using your partner as a mirror, not a soul-sucker. I suppose it's all semantics, isn't it.

BD:Do you finish…

SM:Each other’s sentences?

AP: Yes. And we imitate and make fun of each other MERCILESSLY.

BD:Having fought for your own sense of individuality for so long, do you know struggle or embrace the idea of relinquishing it to some extent to be part of a couple?

AP: Funny you should say that....yes. I find it very hard to give up control. Neil is one of the first men in my life that I've been able to completely collapse on, in a good way. Allowing him to take care of me has been one of the biggest growing experiences of my love life.


The Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel is available now via Dark Horse Comics Inc. For more info on the Neville twins visit EvelynEvelyn.com/.

Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman are embarking on a co-headlining West Coast tour, kicking off with a Halloween engagement at Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. For full details visit AmandaPalmer.net/

Fans of the '90s alt-rock hitmakers Garbage will have to wait a wee bit longer for the long-awaited solo album from the band's lead vixen Shirley Manson and maybe even longer for a new release from the group that brought us such hits as "Stupid Girl," "Only Happy When It Rains,"... more

Fans of the '90s alt-rock hitmakers Garbage will have to wait a wee bit longer for the long-awaited solo album from the band's lead vixen Shirley Manson and maybe even longer for a new release from the group that brought us such hits as "Stupid Girl," "Only Happy When It Rains," "#1 Crush," and "The World is Not Enough," the theme from the James Bond film of the same name.

You see, Manson's got a new gig and she is rather enjoying it. The redheaded singer-turned-actress from Edinburgh, Scotland, has a co-starring role on Fox's hit show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles where she plays the shape-shifting Terminator (à la Robert Patrick in Terminator 2) Catherine Weaver, who is sent back from the future to run the fictitious ZeiraCorp tech company, which serves as a precursor to Skynet, the company that will ultimately ensure machine's triumph over man.

Manson kicked ass onstage with Garbage, cementing her place as one of the strongest female figures in music in the '90s, and now she is kicking ass as a stone-cold fox of a Terminator for the TV version of the sci-fi thriller series. At her Los Feliz, CA, home, Manson, 40, talked music, television, women's issues, and her battles with cutting, depression, body dysmorphic disorder, and more... over a cup of tea, of course.

Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna: This is your very first acting role and it's a starring one at that. How did it come about?

Shirley Manson: I was at a baby shower with my friend Christine. Her husband Josh [Friedman] is a writer on the show and we bonded over The Black Dahlia, which he wrote. We went out to lunch and Christine said that Josh talked on and on about having me in his TV show. I didn't even know he had a TV show. When she said it was Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I laughed, because it thought it would be fucking great. A lot of roles have come my way over the years, but nothing I was in the mood for at the time. But, to be honest, I was just scared to take that leap to acting.

CBV: Where you a big fan of the Terminator movies?

SM: I was a huge Terminator freak. Terminator 2 [Judgment Day] was my favorite because of Linda Hamilton. She was badass. She was really super hard core in that role. She was so strong. And, today, there are no real strong powerful females anywhere. This role was a great opportunity for me.

CBV: Were you nervous going into that first audition?

SM: I was sooo terrified. It was horrible. It was really, really frightening. But I knew I had to take a risk. I had never been on an audition before so I didn't know what to expect and I was shocked to see other actresses there when I arrived. It really freaked me out. I was like, "Oh my God. This is like a shootout." I was green. I went in and did it. And I felt odd. I didn't think for a second I'd get it, and then they called me back and I had to do two other auditions before I got the role.

CBV: I read that the character you play, Catherine Weaver, was modeled after two unlikely people: actress Glenn Close and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Do explain.

SM: The character that Glenn Close plays in the TV show Damages [influenced] me in the same way that Margaret Thatcher did. I was thinking of whom I thought of as really dangerous women. Margaret Thatcher was someone I grew up really fearing. And Glenn Close's character in Damages (on FX) is one of the few women on TV who actually manages to be female and frightening and threatening and powerful at the same time. Women like this don't exist in the media anymore. It's so much fun to play.

CBV: Do you get any coaching for your acting or did you go au natural?

SM: I had no time to prepare for the role or see a coach. There was only time to get fitted for outfits. I get to wear some beautiful shoes on the show. I think in some ways when you front a band you have to be a bit of a Terminator in you anyway. It's not that much of a stretch. It came at the perfect time. I needed change in my life. I love music and I will always love music, but I needed to take a break from Garbage and try something different. I just felt I needed to challenge myself.

CBV: Weren't you supposed to be doing a solo record, and wouldn't that have been a challenge for you too? Where are you at with that?

SM: I had a record deal with Geffen at the time and I had taken some of my solo music into the record label. They didn't really care for the direction I was moving in and I found it really disheartening. They wanted a pop hit, which I understand in terms of making money. I get that. But what they were going to ask of me was something I wasn't prepared to deliver and I felt kind of trapped. I just stopped writing. I just stopped. It was stifling. Not fun. I just wanted to go in my natural direction and sing about what I wanted to sing about. I'm not a kid anymore and I don't want to write about the kind of things that people want to hear from women on the radio.

CBV: How do you feel about the state of the music industry today?

SM: I came up in music when women were empowered and we enjoyed a certain window in history where alternative music was popular music and now it's not. It's been pushed back into the boonies. Today, they want pretty girls singing titillating songs and if that's what people want, that's what they want. But I can't do that. There is no dissent out there at all. The women in music are mostly un-empowered. They are saying nothing and challenging nothing or nobody. I find it astounding.

CBV: Garbage fans need to know. It's it over-over or really just a hiatus?

SM: We genuinely took hiatus. You never know what will happen. I just got bored singing the same fucking songs. I couldn't stand it one more second. And I also felt embarrassed. We'd go to the U.K. and do TV shows designed for super young kids, like 12-year-olds who want the Jonas Brothers, and I'm standing there a 40-year-old woman feeling completely bogus and I just couldn't stomach it anymore. I felt ashamed of myself. I felt this is no longer my playground and I have to step out of it. I feel my role as an artist is different now and has to be different now. I don't want to be mutton dressed as lamb. I don't want to hide my age. I don't want to try to be something I'm not just to further our career. I want to be truthful and I want to be relevant to myself. I want to honor myself and my life and my age and my experience.

CBV: You've gone through a lot over the years. You've talked openly about your past problems with cutting, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, anxiety, childhood bullies, and low self-esteem. I think some of our SG readers can really benefit from hearing about those experiences and how you overcame them.

SM: I've known of Suicide Girls for a very long time and a lot of Garbage's fans consider themselves part of that movement for want of a better word... I feel a real kinship with your readership and I always have because I understand what it's like to want to bail on all the notions of what a woman should be, should do, or should look like shoved down your throat. I railed against that my entire life.

From being a young child to being in a band with three men, I had always felt I was on the periphery of society. I always felt on the periphery of being beautiful my entire life. I'm not conventionally attractive. I'm not beautiful in the sense that you would never see me on the front cover of Playboy -- flat chested, skinny, not a male pleaser. The need and expectations to be beautiful has been a real sticking point for me because there is always going to be on society a barometer of what is considered conventionally attractive. It is designed to drive women insane. I feel like the beauty expectation is a way of controlling women, and I really genuinely sincerely believe that. It's leading women to believe they are constantly falling short.

CBV: Do you still not feel beautiful?

SM: Yes. My whole life. I can barely watch myself on TV now.

CBV: I look up to you, as a role model of style, beauty and female empowerment because you are beautiful and sexy but without having to be what other think is typically beautiful and sexy. To me that is even sexier than the norm. And, you've been on the cover of music magazines. Don't you find strength in that?

SM: No. It's something I still fight. And actively fight. And I hate myself for feeling that way. But I can't deny that there's a semblance of that always operating in my head. I feel like, yeah, I was on the front cover of magazines and many. Why? Because I sold an insane amount of records. [14 million worldwide to be exact.] It had nothing to do with the way I look.

CBV: But isn't it better to be honored for your talent than your looks?

SM: Yes, that in itself was a very empowering moment for me. Yes. But let's not kid ourselves; it wasn't my physicality that got me on the cover of those magazines. And that in itself should be a lesson for anyone out there who feels that they are disenfranchised physically. When you do well at whatever you do in life that in itself is considered attractive. People see you in a very different light when they see you are fulfilled and happy then when you are unhappy and disempowered.

CBV: How long were you a cutter and how did you get past it?

SM: About two years. That was part of my teenage development. And, then I joined a band and found a way of articulating what was going on inside and found an outlet to let it out. As an adult I realized I was a very hypersensitive child and I'm still hypersensitive. And, I grew up in a family where that was seen as a negative and I've come to realize it was a great gift.

CBV: How has that gift helped you?

SM: I got the gifts of being empathetic, being creative, being sympathetic, and hyper vigilant. Those are gifts. But it's also a curse.

CBV: I know you're over the cutting, but how are you with the how you feel about yourself today? Have some of these problems been worked away?

SM: I don't want them to go away. It's helped me connect with people as an artist. It's been a gift even though it's been uncomfortable at times. There is a constant dialogue running parallel to my life. I don't think I'd want it to go away. In the end, I'm grateful for being wired that way.

CBV: How have you grown the most on an emotional and mental level and found happiness in your life?

SM: Awareness and acknowledgment of our issues is an accomplishment and it comes with age. Let's not kid ourselves -- getting older is not all bad. There are gifts that come with age. I get less frightened. I get much more open to taking risks, and, as a result, you're more likely to get what you want. You have to try to get what you want, and you might not always get it but if you try you feel less bad if you don't get it. I'm not scared anymore. I used to be really scared. I have more of a sense of self-worth because I worked really hard and then got opportunities that came my way. Those things stay with you. How pretty you are how successful you are, those don't stay with you. Those can go away. You're number one for a day and then you slide down. Success is a nebulous idea.

CBV: You've also suffered from depression and anxiety for a long time as well. What advice can you give to people going through it now and not yet seeing a way out?

SM: Find what turns you on and do it. And maybe you don't know what turns you on and it's your job to figure that out. But the point is, do something. A lot of depression isn't necessary chemical, though I do understand that some people are born with chemical imbalances, but some depression is just circumstantial. And, for that, you do have some control over it. You have to take little steps. Do something. Do anything. Join a gym. Just try to change the chi in your life. As a child, I remember thinking someone's going to come into my life and fix it for me and nobody does. Nobody will. We grow up and read fairytales and happy endings; I don't believe in that. But I do believe if you take one step, one tiny step toward whatever it is that you want, that things will slowly change. But it's hard. And it takes guts and a little effort and you don't feel like making an effort.

CBV: I think a key part of getting over certain depressed or anxious states is to know that sometimes your feelings aren't your reality. And, you can change your thinking.

SM: Right. Your feelings are your feelings. How you feel about something it's not real.

CBV: Wow, do we see the same therapist? [Laughs]

SM: [Laughs] But it's true. You can make your thoughts change. Someone once told me, "Shirley your feelings are highjacking your brain. It's holding a gun against your head and you are paralyzed by your feelings. Nobody cares about your feelings. Your feelings don't mean shit." And it took a mile for that penny to drop. And she's right. She said, "You keep running up against the wall, banging your head against the wall, turning around and you're all bloody and you're wondering why nothing has changed. You need to change your mind and you need to walk behind the wall. Just change your mind, walk around the wall. The wall won't change. You change."

If your feelings are leading you to a good place that's one thing, but if your feelings are leading you to complete inertia or depression or whatever it is then something has to change and you can change it. That's easier said than done.

CBV: You've been living in Los Angeles for two years now. What do you love about it?

SM: I learned to drive here. I learned at 40-years-old and it was a great experience because learning something you when you're older is hard. And, it brought me back to feeling young again on my bicycle -- that feeling of excitement, adventure, and opportunity. I associate being free here. It's a great musical community too where people play on each other's records. You can go jam with amazing musicians. And it's just been wonderful, because I grew up in Scotland with very little music community.

CBV: You guested on Gavin Rossdale's new album (on the track "The Trouble I'm In" from Wanderlust), which is out. But what happened with the cover of the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" that you did with Marilyn Manson?

SM: We just never put it out. But I loved him. Working with him was awesome. I really love him.

CBV: Do you totally have the acting bug now?

SM: Yeah. I've totally got he acting bug now.

CBV: What would your ideal next role be? Oooh, you could be a Bond Girl!

SM: Bond Girl! Ha-ha! Yeah! A superhero would be great too.

CBV: Wanna talk about your boyfriend (sound engineer Billy Bush)?

SM: Nooooo. I never talk about that. I wouldn't subject anyone I love to that kind of scrutiny.

CBV: Why don't you have any tattoos?

SM: Because I love tattoos on young skin. I've got a horrible memory of my uncle having a tattoo and I just remember seeing his really old flesh and not being able to identify what the tattoo was. I think they are beautiful and I love the idea. I've thought about it. I'm not 100% against it. My mom's really ill so I thought of getting her name tattooed on me because I thought if I die I would like the traces of what mattered to me on my body. I don't know. I'm still pondering. I always wanted to have one that says Contact. That would be the tattoo I'd get if I decided to get one, probably on the inside of my wrist.

CBV: What did you think of Barack Obama's win?

SM: I am thrilled. You know, I felt sorry for America during the last eight years because I have a lot of respect for this country. I love it and it's been nothing but great to me. I feel like America was done a disservice by the last administration. And, I feel its journalists let America down. I feel very grateful to someone like Billie Joe from Green Day who was one of the few people to sit up and really genuinely take this administration to task. I feel musicians and artists and journalist are the sentinels of this country, but the journalists didn't do their job because they are too afraid.

And I do think Obama is up to the task at hand. He will do the best job he can. He could end up being one of the greats. It reminds me of when Tony Blair got in government in Britain. He too came out after a longstanding conservative rule and he did amazing things for that country. And I feel Obama is similar. He has a completely fresh perspective that he is bringing to the white house. I cried at his speech, everybody cried, right?

(image) An excerpt from Greg Palast’s new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, including a comic book by Ted Rall and an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (image) In 1996, Republicans were investigating President Clinton, that is, sniffing at his... more

An excerpt from Greg Palast’s new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, including a comic book by Ted Rall and an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.



In 1996, Republicans were investigating President Clinton, that is, sniffing at his zipper and a wet cigar.

But I follow the money, not the semen. My target was an electric company, Entergy, one of Hillary Clinton’s law clients whom I’d been tracking since 1985.* The Entergy money trail took me from Little Rock, Arkansas, to China, and right into the Oval Office. This was a hell of a lot more serious than an intern under the desk.

When Bill Clinton became president, Hillary’s Little Rock client suddenly became a transglobal power-industry behemoth. Entergy bought the Indian Point nuclear plants in New York and the entire electricity system of London, England. Its big score was to team up with the Riady family of Indonesia, ethnic Chinese billionaires with big plans to run the power systems of China.

But the Riadys and Entergy needed Clinton and his Commerce Secretary Ron Brown to grease up the Chinese for them, beginning with Brown taking Entergy bosses on a deal-making trip to China.

Secretary Brown was not pleased. According to his long-time business partner and love interest, Nolanda Hill. Brown fumed, “I’m not Hillary’s motherfucking tour guide!”

The problem for the secretary was not the deed but the price. Brown, previously chairman of the Democratic Party, had enthusiastically endorsed a Hillary cash-for-access scheme: $10,000 for coffee with the president, $100,000 for a night in the Lincoln bedroom. But he resented the discount rate Hillary put on US executives joining Brown’s own lucrative trade missions. The commerce secretary pouted, “I’m worth more than $50,000 a pop!”

But Brown had nothing to fear regarding his price: the Clinton campaign chest got a lot more than fifty thousand for the “pop.”

Now follow this:

On June 22, 1994, the billionaire James Riady met with Webster Hubbell, former associate attorney general and Hillary Clinton’s former law partner.

On June 23, Riady met with Hubbell for breakfast, then went to the White House, then returned to meet again with Hubbell, then made two more treks to the White House.

On June 26, videotape shows the beginning of a meeting in the Oval Office between President Clinton and Riady before the tape goes blank.

On June 27, Riady retains Hubbell as a consultant to Entergy.

How much advising Hubbell could do from prison, it was not clear.

At the time of his meetings with Riady, when he got his check, Hubbell was under indictment for fraudulently inflating his legal bills, a felony. He pled guilty.

Now, I’ve conducted investigations of lawyer over-billing. How can one law partner fake detailed time logs without the complicity of another lawyer in the firm? Hillary’s logs were worth close inspection by authorities.

Funny thing about Hillary’s billing records: when requested for disclosure in an unrelated matter, they dis-appeared. First, her law firm’s computers went kablooey. Then the paper printouts vanished. But during the 1992 presidential campaign, just before the logs disappeared, her partner Web Hubbell secretly combed them over, line by line.

Hubbell knew his own logs were phony, and he understood the consequences of exposure: prison. Ultimately, the bloated hours on those records caused him to lose his law license, his Justice Department post, and his freedom—twenty-one months in the slammer.

What did Hubbell see and know about Hillary’s own billing logs? Hubbell won’t say, except for a cryptic remark, after seeing her bills, that “every lawyer” fabricates records. Does “every” include Hillary? Hubbell wouldn’t say.

If he ratted out Hillary, he might have bargained himself an easy plea bargain. But Hubbell was a champ: silent. Why would Hubbell choose to do time on the chain gang over testifying about Hillary? Could it be the $100,000 from the Riadys? (Altogether, Hubbell collected half a million dollars in the weeks up to his entering the slammer.)

Hillary’s billing records finally reappeared, two years later, just outside her office, right after Hubbell’s refusal to testify against her.

Maybe the Clintons knew nothing about the Riady money flowing to prison-bound Hubbell. Knowledge of the payments would suggest they were buying Hubbell’s silence. That would be a criminal offense. An impeachable offense.

In notes I’ve obtained of the FBI’s conversation with the president (who was under oath), Clinton first said he couldn’t remember if Riady mentioned the $100,000 payment. Then, Clinton slyly opened the door to the truth, telling the agents, “I wouldn’t be surprised if James told me.”

Neither would I.

In all, James, his father, and Riady reps met with Clinton some ninety-eight times.

Four years after the Hubbell-Riady-Clinton meetings and payments, on December 31, 1998, Republican Senator Thompson’s Governmental Affairs Committee shut down. They hadn’t called the key witnesses against Clinton, and had issued no subpoenas for the key documents. Why? Why did the Republicans suddenly halt their inquiry into Clinton’s fundraising just as they were closing in on the damning evidence?

It was the same day Chairman Thompson shut down the investigation of the Koch Brothers.

I could put two and two together. But just to make sure, I called the committee to confirm that two plus two made four. Sure enough, my insider, requesting anonymity, confirmed it was a secret straight-up deal between Republican and Democratic senators.

“A truce: You don’t do Triad and we don’t do Clinton [on Riady cash].”

PS: How did some unknown governor from the Podunk state rise like a rocket from Little Rock to the White House, zoom out of nowhere to become, in 1992, the nominee of the Democratic Party? But Bill Clinton didn’t exactly come from nowhere: he came from the Democratic Leadership Council. DLC Chairman Bill Clinton presided over this new caucus of conservative Democrats, and his nomination as the Democrat’s presidential candidate ended half a century of control of the party by the tough-regulation philosophy of Franklin Roosevelt. Rather than FDR, the DLC’s antigovernment rhetoric, its complaining about bureaucrats, rules, and regulations, echoed the philosophy of the Koch-funded Cato Institute.

And that’s not surprising: the DLC was funded by $100,000 from the Koch Brothers.

Did the DLC investment pay off for the Kochs?

Once in the White House, Bill Clinton issued an Executive Order to force agencies to halt or roll back regulations based on costs to industry. Public health, welfare, and safety would no longer rule. The chief of Clinton’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government, Vice President Al Gore, directed the anti-regulatory attack with gusto, announcing he was “ending the era of big government.” Gore created “regulatory partnerships,” giving official review powers to executives of regulated industries. The Clinton-Gore administration radically slowed the movement to cap greenhouse gas emissions by heavily promoting a system of indulgences, “pollution credits,” that allowed polluters to simply purchase the right to pollute. C. Boyden Gray, then head of Citizens for a Sound Economy, the lobby group founded by the Kochs, devised this “cap-and-trade” system.

In later years, the Kochs’ Citizens for a Sound Economy became FreedomWorks, the precursor of the Tea Party. The Kochs’ chairman of FreedomWorks, that same Boyden Gray, is today leading the Tea Party crusade against “cap and trade,” the pollution credit system created by . . . Boyden Gray. If you think that’s a contradiction, you’re not paying attention. The strategy of well-timed, stepwise manipulation of national policy debate evidenced here is nothing if not brilliant. The Kochs play an elaborate game of chess and we can’t even see the board.

And did I say that the Kochs funded the rise of both presidential nominees, Clinton and his opponent, Bob Dole? Sure did. Billionaire Rule Number two: Don’t bet on a horse when you can buy the whole damn racetrack.

But there was still the little matter of criminality. Riady money from Indonesia, Koch money through “Children’s Future,” fake-o foundations and political hit squads posing as think tanks, all this funny juice running through political arteries was, of course, illegal.

Illegal, that is, until 2010, until Citizens United and SpeechNow. For $200 and a post office box provided by a sketchy lawyer, the Riadys, the Zetas Gang Inc., British Petroleum, Qaeda Corp, Charles Manson LLC, and Vladimir Putin Partners can all incorporate and dump cash into US campaigns till their dark hearts are content. And so too the Christian Coalition and the Chinese politburo, giving a whole new meaning to the term “Manchurian Candidate.”

One other thing: Just who are these “Citizens” that were “United” for Citizens United? How could this teeny group hire a supreme lawyer like Ted Olson to argue before the Supreme Court? Olson, former US solicitor general, doesn’t work for peanuts. How could Olson keep body and soul together during this time-consuming litigation? Apparently he was given leave from his duties as legal counsel at . . . Koch Industries.


Read the rest in Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. For more info visit: BallotBandits.org

* I was originally asked to investigate the company in 1981 by the attorney general of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. But I was a big-shot New York investigator with no interest in working for some small-time politician from Dawg Patch. Too bad: I could have put him on the straight path.


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by Blogbot A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups. (image) This week Lacey Suicide tells us why she love SG's People with Disabilities group. Members: 187 / Comments: 1,594 WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: This is probably the most inclusive group on the most inclusive website on the... more

by Blogbot

A column which highlights Suicide Girls and their fave groups.



This week Lacey Suicide tells us why she love SG's People with Disabilities group.

Members: 187 / Comments: 1,594

WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: This is probably the most inclusive group on the most inclusive website on the internet. Any and all types of differences are embraced here. It's a safe place to gather information, share resources, and advocate – or just giggle at the absurdity of "Japanese sex dolls developed for people with physical disabilities."

DISCUSSION TIP: Always use people-first language: think "person who uses a wheelchair" versus "wheelchair-bound" or "children who have Autism" versus "Autistic kids." It might not seem like a big difference, but to many people it is. "You addressed my disability too politely!" said no one, ever.

MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: There are so many heated discussions! Who deserves to get an accessible parking permit – and who really even wants one? Is it still okay to say "special"? Just kidding, though. In reality, nothing in this group ever gets too heated. Everyone is respectful, and we mostly hold hands in a circle and sing Kumbaya. Or use sign language. And if you don't want to sit in the circle, that's okay too.

BEST RANDOM QUOTE: Favorite: "Back in high school, I got narcoleptic in driver's ed..." (there’s more to this hilarious story). Runner up: "Hwo has Dyslexia?"

WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: Everyone is welcome, whether you have a disability, know someone with a disability, or just want to share in the love of a very accepting group of friends. It’s set up as a private group to preserve the privacy of members, so if you’d like to join please send a request via SG message to the group owner. If you want to join the group because you have some type of disability fetish though, you might have better luck on Craigslist.


***
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A.J. Focht Marvel’s next new movie project will be the Guardians of the Galaxy. There have been a lot of rumors and worries in the fan community when it comes to Marvel’s space superheroes. It’s now official that James Gunn is rewriting the script as well as directing. If that doesn’t put your... more

A.J. Focht

Marvel’s next new movie project will be the Guardians of the Galaxy. There have been a lot of rumors and worries in the fan community when it comes to Marvel’s space superheroes. It’s now official that James Gunn is rewriting the script as well as directing. If that doesn’t put your mind at ease, know that Joss Whedon has full faith in Gunn being the man for the project. As for the many rumors, there is one that we can put to rest. Nathan Fillion has confirmed he is likely to be too busy with his day job (Castle) to star in the film.

Has Marvel decided to retcon the death of Agent Coulson? In the Marvel Avengers Assemble UK release, the film has been edited to exclude the blade sticking out of Coulson’s chest. This could be a censorship issue, or it could be Marvel making the change in order to keep Coulson in continuity. The Avengers releases on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on September 25 and then we’ll know if the US version was edited as well.

Captain America is now President! Oh wait that was a SPOILER for this week’s issue of Ultimate Captain America. Despite this being a major event change in Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, they felt the need to spoil it for everyone a day early. The news of the story broke a full 24-hours before the issue hit shelves and it came straight from Marvel.

Arrow, the new CW show about Green Arrow starts on October 10. There have been many rumors of what characters would appear in the show, and now eleven have been confirmed. You can expect all of the following lineup: Black Canary, Huntress, China White, Constantine Drakon, Deadshot, Deathstroke, Felicity Smoak, Merlyn, Speedy, and Walter Steele. There are still some rumored characters not confirmed, and no one knows much about John Barrowman’s character, other than he’s being called the ‘well-dressed man.’ There are also reports the Royal Flush Gang will be in the show and Kyle Schmid will play Ace.

The upcoming Star Trek film has an official name: Star Trek: Into Darkness. The J.J. Abrams sequel has finished initial shooting and will include most of the original cast, including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana. Star Trek: Into Darkness is scheduled to release in theaters on May 17, 2013.

Speaking of Star Trek, Michael Dorn, who played Worf on Next Generation, has been cast in the Castlevania movie. Dorn will be playing a werewolf in the Konami game inspired film, for which there is no current release date set.

One last bit of Star Trek related news. NASA is working on a warp drive. That’s right, a real life warp drive. Keeping the science simple, NASA wonders if we can indeed warp space and time to harness the power of warp bubbles. Essentially, the ship compresses the space ahead of it while expanding the space behind it to move forward at speeds of 10c (10x the speed of light). We are probably a long ways off from this technology, but we now know NASA is actually researching it.

This weekend at the comic store I work at, All C’s Collectibles in Aurora, Colorado, J. Scott Campbell will be doing a signing with all proceeds going to Aurora Rise. Campbell is best known for co-creating and writing Danger Girl, but he has done cover art for several comics including The Amazing Spider-Man and Witchblade. SuicideGirls was in attendance a few weeks ago when Aurora Rise had their first benefit event and silent auction, which raised $20,000 that went directly to the victims of the shootings. Campbell was unable to make the first event, but wanted to come out and support the victims of the shootings on his own time. While the second event will be smaller, it will include a silent auction with specialty items from Todd MacFarlane and much more. The signing takes place this Saturday, September 22, between noon and 3 PM MST. For more details visit the Facebook event page.

by ChrisSick In which we provide a brief update on the ongoing self-destruction of one Willard Mitt Romney. Let me take you a bit behind the curtain, dear reader. We have a bit of a turnaround time here at the ol' SG Blog, so on Sunday night I wrote: Related Posts Tactical Animal: Have You Got... more

by ChrisSick

In which we provide a brief update on the ongoing self-destruction of one Willard Mitt Romney.

Let me take you a bit behind the curtain, dear reader. We have a bit of a turnaround time here at the ol' SG Blog, so on Sunday night I wrote:

Writing Sunday for publication Tuesday means that I wrote that, went to bed and woke up Monday to read:

So the Romney campaign has a great new strategy, they're finally going to tell us how they plan to slash taxes for the wealthy, increase military spending, and somehow pay down the debt despite reduced revenues and increased spending. I don't know about you, but I'm excited to hear this. Mostly because whenever Ed Gillespie speaks, my Intrade shares for President Obama's win become that much more valuable.

It's an exciting turn for the Romney campaign, and — to the rest of us — a patently obvious attempt to change the conversation from, among other failures, a long Politico article that describes the Romney Campaign as, more or less, a complete fucking shambles:

These sort of articles — rampant with finger-pointing, blame-gaming, and the like — are, naturally, pretty common affairs. Typically, though, they wait until after the goddamn election is over before they start the mad scramble to blame one another for their collective failure to get their candidate elected.

I knew, when I wrote Sunday that we were seeing the death throes of the Romney campaign, and that things were going to start getting weird. By which, I mean, more weird than “Lemon. Wet. Good.”

But, the icing on top of the shit-cake of sadness for the Romney campaign began to break yesterday, when video surfaced via Mother Jones of Romney speaking at a private fundraiser earlier this year.

This is Mitt Romney telling you how he really feels and you can add this to what is now a long and growing list of The Moment(s) Mitt Romney Lost the Election. November is coming like a bad hangover, there's 48 days until election day as of this writing, and in 49 days we'll be severely spoilt for choice about when, exactly, Mitt Romney Lost the Election.

But this week will surely be in the top contenders, and in closing, I'll let a much more talented writer than myself, but just as much at a loss for words as I am, sum it up:

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(image) by Damon Martin (image) Season 5 of Sons of Anarchy is in full swing, with the debut episode breaking all records for ratings for any show ever airing on FX. Now as the heat turns up with the new big bad Damon Pope making all kinds of trouble for the boys in SAMCRO, more stories from previous... more

by Damon Martin



Season 5 of Sons of Anarchy is in full swing, with the debut episode breaking all records for ratings for any show ever airing on FX. Now as the heat turns up with the new big bad Damon Pope making all kinds of trouble for the boys in SAMCRO, more stories from previous seasons will rear their ugly heads.

Last season was the toughest, but most telling for Juan-Carlos 'Juice' Ortiz, as he had to suffer silently as the cops twisted him in the wind with threats of telling his club that he actually had an African-American father unless he turned informant. The race issues broke down barriers in terms of telling the inner workings of biker clubs, or any social club really, but at the center of it actor Theo Rossi shined as a tortured soul who lived with shame while trying to deal with the fact that he was ratting out his friends at the same time. Ultimately, the cops decided to let him go from his obligation after the entire operation was shut down at the season's end, but that doesn't mean you get out from under the thumb of law enforcement so easily.

"Juice is just the clown crying on the inside. He's trying to act as if. Like when he came into that chapel at the end of Season 4 and Jax said 'are you alright?' and he says 'yeah, I'm good,' and he took that picture of his father and the ATF, and realized it's all good and got rid of the files. You know, that's not the case," Rossi told SuicideGirls in an exclusive interview. "So this is a guy who's living with secrets and secrets eventually turn to shame and how that all plays out we've just got to watch and see."

Juice already felt the sting from last season in the debut episode when Sheriff Eli Roosevelt looks for a little 'good faith' help from his past informant when trying to find dirt in the new found war between the Sons of Anarchy and the Oakland street gang the One-Niners. The new president of the motorcycle club Jax Teller also knows there was something dirty going on within his group from a drug sting that only could have happened from the inside.

Will Juice's dirty little secret be revealed this season or is he destined to face the wrath of SAMCRO if they find out he was the rat that outed their drug scheme to the cops?

Sons of Anarchy Season 5 continues every Tuesday night at 10 PM on FX.

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by Laurelin (image) He looked just like he did on TV. Face, smooth and smiling, muscles pressing up against his huge T-shirt and his hat pulled down just enough so that I could still see his eyes. I had started to get up to refill my wine glass, but when I saw him I sunk back down, the air rushing from... more

by Laurelin



He looked just like he did on TV. Face, smooth and smiling, muscles pressing up against his huge T-shirt and his hat pulled down just enough so that I could still see his eyes. I had started to get up to refill my wine glass, but when I saw him I sunk back down, the air rushing from my lungs as though someone had just squeezed the life out of me. I could feel a flush traveling up my body and suddenly my face was burning, and I turned away so he wouldn’t see me.

I rarely meet celebrities. Like every other girl in the world I have dreamt what it would have been like to meet Leonardo DiCaprio, staying calm and collected so that he would shake my hand and look me in the eye. You imagine that if they could just meet you, you would be best friends, they might even fall in love with you, and everything would be right in the world. But that’s just in dreams. You will never meet Brad Pitt or Ben Affleck, and they will most certainly not fall in love with you. You are just you after all, a regular girl, who dates regular guys. You are common, and they are special.

He took his time walking around the room, signing autographs and taking pictures with everyone from old ladies to screaming teens to little kids. Still, I sat. I wonder what I’ll say when it’s my turn, would he remember me from a brief Twitter message I sent that he replied to? Will he think I’m crazy if I bring it up? He moves closer and as he approached I could finally stand and I shook my head, clearing the clouds. He is just a man after all.

I reached out my hand to find his and from somewhere in me comes a voice, and I said, “Hi, I’m Laurelin.” He smiled and inside I melted, but outside I must have seemed okay because he started asking me questions, then we laughed and he said that he did remember me from a year ago on Twitter. I made a snarky remark about his clothing and he thought I was funny. I sat back down in my seat and I watched him continue to sign autographs. I clutched the stem of my wine glass and I looked at our photo and I smiled. I’m taller than him.

When I looked up he was sitting next to me.

“Do you have a ticket for tonight?” he asked.

“Yes,” I stammered, fumbling around for it. He must want to sign it; he signed everyone else’s. I found it and he took it, smoothly scribbling something on the back and pressing it into my palm. I looked down and I see a phone number. My blood ran cold and hot at the same time, and I thought, “Say something clever…”

“Can I drunk dial you later?” I asked, smirking.

“Absolutely,” he said, and I die. The girls around me had their jaws on the floor, and as he left he smiled at me and waved. We started texting almost immediately, stopping only because the arena was growing dark and it was time for him to come out.

I think of how all summer I have had no one, nothing but an empty bed and a cat, and now, with the coming fall, the promise of something new. All of a sudden, out of the blue, the promise of something totally just… fun. I slid my phone into my pocket and headed to my seat to watch him. The place is packed, everyone screaming his name, and my phone buzzed one last time.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I would love to see you again.”

I felt sick. I went home that night alone, and I crawled in bed with someone else.

“How was tonight?” my real life non-celebrity boy asks. I buried my face in his neck and hugged as tight as I could.

“It was fine,” I said, “really fun.”

We fell asleep, and I knew I was right where I belonged.

***

Live in Boston? Want to see Laurelin naked? Then head to the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston, MA at 11:59 PM on Saturday, September 22nd for the biggest Naked Girls Reading ever. This month’s nude reading event is called “They Might Be Giants: Tall Girls Reading Short Stories.” Laurelin a.k.a. Lizzie Havoc at 6’3″ is probably taller than you.


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by M. J. Johnson (image) [Zoey in Envy] When someone is trying to prove how open minded they are about people, they will often say something along the lines of “I don’t care if they’re black, white, yellow, red, gay, straight, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or Buddhist.” This is supposed to prove... more

by M. J. Johnson


[Zoey in Envy]

When someone is trying to prove how open minded they are about people, they will often say something along the lines of “I don’t care if they’re black, white, yellow, red, gay, straight, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or Buddhist.” This is supposed to prove that all people are equal in their mind.

But what about a person’s body size?

We live in a sizeist society. Long past the time when it was acceptable to judge someone’s worth based on sex, gender, race, culture, religion, body mods, or ethnicity (though such judgments DO still occur), it is common and largely acceptable to judge someone based on their body type. Comedians commonly joke about Chris Christie’s weight, as if that has something to do with his terrible politics. Articles are written about Keira Knightley’s body type in which self-proclaimed beauty experts call her “dangerously thin” and encourage parents to keep their daughters from seeing her movies, lest the young girls think they need to look like her.

I am a fat man. I’m 6’2” tall and weigh somewhere around 335 lbs. I have a ring of fat around my middle, and climbing 6 flights of stairs makes me breath heavy. Based on that physical description, many people would write me off as an individual, not worth their time and effort. Any opinion of mine could be dismissed because it came from my body.

And I can hear the criticisms: “You’re smart, why don’t you exercise? Why don’t you eat right?” Well, it just so happens that I do. Until I moved to a different state, I was going to the gym 4-5 times per week, 1-2 hours at a time, where I did a cross between aerobic and weight training. My blood pressure is well within the normal range for my age, and my resting pulse is below 80.

But I am still fat. I don’t overeat any more often than a normal sized person; I average about 2500 calories per day, which is just enough to keep someone my size going. I rarely use salt, eat lots of fruit and little red meat, drink water almost exclusively (with an exception for a daily coffee, no sugar, no flavors). I avoid sodas like the plague, and cook almost all my own meals.

Maybe I’m atypical. Maybe I’m genetically predisposed to obesity. Maybe nothing I can do will ever result in me being thin. Or, maybe I just haven’t hit that perfect relation of exercise to food that will turn me into an Adonis.

The point is, nobody can tell that by looking at me. Nobody can tell whether I exercise or sit around playing video games all day. (I don’t. Can’t stand the things.) All anyone can see is that I’m a fat man, and far too many people will dismiss me as such.

This is far from a new idea. For over a century, obesity has been used as a symbol of greed, corruption, and downright evil. There is a reason Dashiell Hammett made the principle villain in his book The Maltese Falcon obese, known for the first half only as “The Fat Man.” This was the Great Depression; anyone with more than enough to eat must have been crooked. The film version came out in the 1940s, at a time when the only roles black actors could get were as servants. Funny how one type of prejudice is not acceptable today, but the other is.

“But people have no control over their race like they do their weight.”

That would be a valid argument, if it were anywhere close to reality. But the truth is, the reasons behind obesity, and why one person gets fat while another does not, are myriad. And, while an inactive lifestyle is, if not the main factor, often a large reason, it is not the only one. Medications, medical conditions, genetics, depression, sleeping habits, limited access to healthy foods or safe free exercise areas (parks, walking trails), even the weather can be factors to obesity.

Of course, us fat folks aren’t the only ones being attacked by sizeism; thin people are often stereotyped as bulimic or anorexic. Yes, those are terrible diseases, but they are not the only reason people are thin. Where an obese person can have an underactive thyroid, a thin person’s can be overactive. This can result in a metabolism that burns away huge amounts of food, faster than the person can eat. And before anyone gets their “Oh, I wish I had that problem” hat on, think about it: always being hungry, needing to eat huge amounts to keep from feeling ill or passing out, spending larger and larger amounts of money just on food.

Why does this happen? Why is sizeism an acceptable prejudice? Maybe it has some connection to the “Cult of the Perfect,” the subconscious worship of beauty. Angelina Jolie wrote a book a few years ago, about her work among the poor children of Third World countries. The message of this book is good, but the writing is pretty pedestrian, and it is far from the only book on the topic. But, because of her celebrity, built largely on her looks, the book was a best seller. It is great, or would be if people actually read the book. I fear many people just bought the book because it was by her than for actual social/cause awareness. Sally Struthers has been doing much the same work for decades, but the most common reaction to her is to make a fat joke.

The point of all this is, you simply cannot tell what is going on by looking at the outside. The basis for all prejudice is ignorance, and that applies to sizeism as well. Unless you are that person’s doctor, with a complete medical history in front of you, it is impossible for you to make any judgment about a person based on their body. And even if you do have that information, passing judgments about someone as a person based on their body-type is no different than passing judgment based on race, ethnicity, gender, sex, or any other physical attribute.

This isn’t about attractiveness; everyone has, and is allowed to have, their type. If someone is not your cup of tea, so be it. This is about making assumptions about a person, stereotyping them, based on their physical form.

And that is always wrong.

by Moby (video) Ok, I think I figured it out. Mitt Romney is disdainful of anyone receiving government assistance because: 1. He comes from a rich and privileged background, so he's never needed or received government assistance. And… 2. He comes from a rich and privileged background, so he's... more

by Moby



Ok, I think I figured it out.

Mitt Romney is disdainful of anyone receiving government assistance because:

1. He comes from a rich and privileged background, so he's never needed or received government assistance.

And…

2. He comes from a rich and privileged background, so he's never known anyone who's needed or received government assistance.

Almost everyone I know has received some sort of government assistance, whether it's student loans or small business loans or Medicare or Medicaid, and almost everyone I know now pays taxes and contributes to society.

I'll use myself as an example.

I was the only child of a single working mom. We struggled a lot economically, and there were times when we lived off of food stamps and social security and government assistance. And then when I went to the University of Connecticut and SUNY Purchase I received Pell Grants and student loans.

So, according to Mitt Romney, I was part of the 47% "who are dependent upon government...who pay no income tax.” [As heard in a video obtained by Mother Jones] Mitt Romney then went on to say: “My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

In the last 20 years I have either personally or professionally paid millions of dollars in income taxes to the state, local, and federal government. I have employed hundreds of people, who have in turn paid income taxes and in many cases have gone on to start their own businesses.

So I think it's safe to say that the government assistance my mother and I received was money well spent. I was able to go to decent schools and get a decent education, all thanks to 'government assistance.' My mother and I were able to eat, all thanks to 'government assistance.’ I was able to see doctors, all thanks to 'government assistance.' We were able to pay our rent at times thanks to 'government assistance.'

Not to mention the roads, clean water, streetlights, police departments, fire departments, clean air, libraries, public transit, electricity, etc., that all came from the government and enabled my mother and I to stay alive and live good, educated, safe, and healthy lives.

Mitt Romney comes from extreme wealth. He has never once needed financial assistance from the government, as his family had millions and millions of dollars. But there are millions and millions and millions of Americans like me who didn't come from extreme wealth and who needed help with education and food and healthcare and shelter, but who have gone on to start businesses and pay taxes.

We are not an 'entitled' class, we are not 'dependent upon the federal government' and we do not consider ourselves 'victims.' We are the hundreds of millions of Americans who had the misfortune of not being born to millionaire parents.

So I understand why Mitt Romney is disdainful of government assistance, as his parents paid for everything and he never needed help being fed or educated or looked after by doctors. I understand that in Mitt Romney's entire life he's never known anyone who's needed student loans. He's never known anyone who needed food stamps to keep their family fed. He's never known anyone who's had to spend hours in a health clinic just to get basic medical care. He's never known anyone who couldn't pay the rent.

I understand that Mitt Romney grew up with phenomenal wealth and privilege
but I don't understand why that leads him to contemptuously dismiss anyone (like my mother and I) who have, at times, needed government help with food and education and shelter and health care.

Mitt Romney is a product of wealth and privilege. That does not give him the right to loathe and dismiss the rest of us who are not the product of wealth and privilege.

Oh, for some reason I was thinking of 'Common People' by Pulp when I heard Romney's quotes.

- Moby, September 19, 2012

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by Lee Camp (video) Conventional thinking is getting us nowhere. Right now we've got a lot of shit to deal with in this little world of ours, and the standard solutions are part of the problem. But who can we get to help us think outside the box? I know just the guy... Related Posts: I Know Who Will... more

by Lee Camp



Conventional thinking is getting us nowhere. Right now we've got a lot of shit to deal with in this little world of ours, and the standard solutions are part of the problem. But who can we get to help us think outside the box? I know just the guy...



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by Steven Whitney When traveling throughout the world, one learns a lot about the Dream of America by talking with whomever one meets along the way – taxi drivers, shopkeepers, writers and artists, students, and ordinary men and women with or without agendas of their own...almost anyone except the country’s... more

by Steven Whitney

When traveling throughout the world, one learns a lot about the Dream of America by talking with whomever one meets along the way – taxi drivers, shopkeepers, writers and artists, students, and ordinary men and women with or without agendas of their own...almost anyone except the country’s elite and politicians.

Berlin, 1996

In the mid-80s, Berlin was a shadowed city within a divided nation, split into East and West by a concrete barricade that cut off all unauthorized passage between the two sectors. Actually two barriers about 50 yards apart, with manned guard towers overlooking what became known as “the death strip” in-between, the Berlin Wall put a punishing halt to the mass defections from the Eastern Bloc and became a global symbol of entrapment and oppression.

Standing at Checkpoint Charlie, looking from the American zone to the Soviet sector, drab residential buildings and factories filled the bleak landscape. Soviet tanks and the Stasi – arguably the most intrusive and repressive secret police of its time – prowled the streets under dark clouds spewed forth by gigantic industrial smokestacks, adding to an almost palpable sense of imprisonment.

Ten years later, with both the Wall and the USSR antiquities of a vanquished era, the united Berlin was a bustling metropolis determined to become one of the greatest and most sophisticated cities in the world. No expense was spared, no architectural or cultural plan was too extravagant. Giant cranes dotted the landscape like oil rigs on the west Texas plain. Berlin had become a modern “boom town.”

Yet several hundred miles south, the Bosnian conflict had become a sordid battleground of “ethnic cleansing.” Refugees from both sides fled north, and the Germans – a people imprisoned within their own walls for decades – took them in.

I was in Berlin to write a television film involving the journey of two families – one Christian, one Muslim – from the corpse-littered streets of Sarajevo to the German border. These were people who had left everything behind, families that had lost brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and even children to the hatred of racial and religious persecution. They arrived in Germany without money, water, and food, possessing only the clothes they wore.

For research, I spent two days at one of the largest camps. Fenced in on multiple acres of flat, dry farmland, the refugees lived in tents erected by the government and guarded by UN forces. They were provided with basic medical care, immigration assistance, language classes, and small daily rations of food, water, and wine. And each day, more and more refugees arrived – hungry, sick, and weak from their desperate flights – until the camp resembled an overcrowded ghetto.

By the time I visited, literally tens of thousands or people were cramped into this makeshift Tent City. Yet I heard few complaints. Even fewer fights broke out. Bitterness and recrimination had for the most part evaporated in this netherworld of safe harbor. They were no longer Muslims and Christians torn apart by separate and warring ideologies, but survivors entwined by the brutal migration north.

I went from tent to tent, accompanied by translators. At each, I was invited inside and offered food and drink so I could more comfortably listen to the stories they wanted the world to hear. Their last portion of meat or wine, whatever they had left, was tendered. A few families had been in residence long enough to make Bosnian moonshine...and that was offered as well.

It struck me that in the aftermath of unimaginable horror, these people offered me everything they had left in the world. I was their guest and all their hardships would not deter them from being gracious hosts. Never before nor since has anyone ever offered me everything he or she had. It speaks to the overwhelming generosity of the impoverished and their inherent goodness.

We talked about their journeys, their hopes, and their imagined futures. When I asked each of them the key to their ongoing survival in the face of such devastating loss, they all replied with the same sentiment: “You must let go of hatred and forgive your enemies.”

They had many different questions about my own homeland, but the one thing they all wanted to know was this: did we truly practice religious freedom here?

I recited to them our First Amendment and it perfectly fulfilled their dream of America – a land where people of all religions are free to practice their beliefs without fear of bloodshed and discrimination...a nation where they could worship whatever they held sacred both in peace and in harmony with others.

I did not tell them that many people wanted to officially sanction the United States as a Christian Nation, just like the warlords in Bosnia sought to make that country either a Christian or Muslim nation. Some things are better left unsaid for dreams to soar undisturbed.

South Africa, 2001

I was reminded of the Bosnian camp when I flew to a country that for most of my life had been held in the strangling grip of apartheid, a rogue nation in which the majority was brutally held under the cruel thumb of a racist minority.

When the changeover finally occurred, most people throughout the world expected rivers of blood to flow in the streets – payback for a pitiless regime of torture, murder, and almost unimaginable repression. But for the country to succeed, national and racial unity was mandatory, so outside of a few isolated incidents, calmer heads prevailed and violence never went viral.

In the new South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu led their people – black and white – to a peaceful aftermath of a startling and long overdue revolution by putting into play the transformative power of forgiveness. They even convened “Forgiveness Trials” under the newly created Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which victims and perpetrators alike bore witness to gross violations of human rights and amnesty was granted in cases of true repentance.

Was justice done?

Justice is always somewhat immeasurable. But a just country was born and sustained that otherwise would have faltered – old resentments and hatreds were put to the side and the awful cloak of “victimization” was avoided. Once again, harmony was achieved through simple and multiple acts of forgiveness.

And, too, wherever I went – from Johannesburg to Cape Town – both white and black South Africans talked openly about the benefits accrued by the national policy of forgiveness.

In times like ours, when senseless and widespread violence can be sparked at a moment’s notice over what seems to many the most trivial of slights, as happened last week, it’s important for those of all religions, cultures, and nationalities to appreciate the potential of forgiveness in bridging an oft times considerable communication gap to saner and more human understanding.

Sometimes, it is true – what is invisible to the eye is essential to the heart...and to a better life for the global community.


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Gotcha!

There's nothing half-hearted about the new album from Marilyn Manson, The High End of Low, which explores love, hate, revenge, loss and despair. Off stage, many find Manson's passion disconcerting, but the singer/songwriter considers anything that veers towards apathy to be inherently "worthless."... more

There's nothing half-hearted about the new album from Marilyn Manson, The High End of Low, which explores love, hate, revenge, loss and despair. Off stage, many find Manson's passion disconcerting, but the singer/songwriter considers anything that veers towards apathy to be inherently "worthless." It's therefore not surprising to hear that during the recording process Manson pushed himself and his band to extremes, the resulting album returning him to the kind of form he's not seen in a decade.

Very personal lyrically, and more melodic than past efforts, the album is the result of the much-anticipated reunion of Manson and Twiggy Ramirez -- the pair's last studio collaboration being the concept album Holy Wood, which came out in 2000. The lineup for the album was rounded out by longtime Manson drummer Ginger Fish and producer/drummer/keyboardist Chris Vrenna of Nine Inch Nails and Tweaker (who joined the band in 2004 when Fish was injured and moved from drums to keyboards upon his return to health).

The reunion with Twiggy wasn't the only emotionally charged ingredient in The High End of Low mix however, the period of recording, from November 2008 to January 2009, also coincided with the very public disintegration of Manson's relationship with Evan Rachel Wood, whom he dated following the failure of his marriage to Dita Von Teese. The 15 tracks on the album, which appear on the finished product in the order they were written, therefore chronicle Manson's emotional journey during this gut-wrenching time.

SuicideGirls caught up with Manson on the eve of a European tour to promote the new release. When asked about the album during our interview, it's hard for Manson to separate the music from the emotions and events that lie behind it. He also talks very candidly about the identity crisis that was sparked by this emotional turmoil, and his battle to figure out exactly who Marilyn Manson is.


NP: I've been reading in interviews that this is a more autobiographical album. Did that make it harder to write?

MM: Well, it was very difficult getting to the process of writing. Twiggy and I getting back together was probably more dramatic than we even realized... Because we were best friends, brothers, we lived together. I've never lived alone. I went from living at home to going on tour and hotels and rats and crack and Twiggy and New Orleans, and then a series of unmentionable, nefarious women people. And I think that there was an enormous void in both of our lives.

It wasn't even really a fight that we got into, it was something very silly, and one of us probably expected the other to call the next day to resolve it. But I think everything happens for a reason...We ran into each other at a hotel completely randomly and I could see in his face that he looked like I felt a year before that.

The last record, Eat Me, Drink Me, was very much about a broken person. In fact it's not that I don't like it, or it makes me sad to listen to, but it's a record that we're probably not going to play anything off of. We might play "If I Was Your Vampire" because I think it's the record that's the most confident on the album, even though it's first [on the CD], because it was written last.

The difference between that and the new album, besides all of the personal things, [on] the new album, the songs appear in the order they were written. I don't know how that compares the two because there's a lot of differences, obviously, starting with Twiggy and I [being] back together.

He did things that were great, I think. He learned to be this musician. I mean he's always been a guitar player but no one's ever seen him as a guitar player because he's always played bass [live]. No one realizes that he wrote the guitar riff for "Beautiful People' or "Dope Show."

But anyway, he was just playing this music that was eventually intimidating to me because he had become a different type of musician while away from me. As a guitar player I felt, why wasn't he always the guitar player? What were we thinking? And, for me, I think there's nobody that plays bass better than him. His bass guitar sounds like he's playing it with his dick. It's the best bass that I could ever imagine. No one else can have that sound.

He just shines as a guitar player, and it took me a long time to get to the singing part. I had a bit of a disintegration, one world ended and another sort of began. It was probably inserting Twiggy into a situation where I had built a lifestyle now that was very isolated, very dependent on another person.

It wasn't the same way that I look at relationships now. There's big difference between weakness and desire, between love and dependence...The person that I really needed in my life, and I think that it threw some kind of disastrous monkey wrench in, but if I was actually given the choice to pick, which I should never have to pick, I wouldn't know what to say -- it's an unfair thing to say. But the first and foremost thing that stood out to me that was important in my life was that I saw my friend that I hadn't seen in seven years and he needed me. It didn't matter about the music, he needed me, and I wish that I had had him when I felt that way, when my life was falling apart and I got divorced, and all that garbage happened. I was just glad to be there for him because he's like a little brother to me, and I finally got to the point of making the first song.

NP: You talk about Twiggy being like a brother. You often hurt the people closest to you. That's what families do, they argue and then they come back together.

MM: Well, you're right about that. The other part of it is, and this was advice that I got from one of my idols Alejandro Jodorowsky, a director who had great influence on me. He said to me, because he's always read my tarot, and I mistook what he said...I even quoted it a lot of times in interviews, because he read my tarot and he said, "This year you will come together with your twin." I mistook that for the wrong relationship because at the end of the year there was Twiggy. That was what he meant. He even told me that when I saw him again after that. It was my foolishness and my projection, what I wanted to see, and Twiggy is that.

But you can have both. I can be married to my art but you can love more than one thing, and there's different types of love. It takes finding the right person that is able to make you stop thinking about your work, if you want to even use that word. Because it's hard when you're an artist; When does it turn off? Who knows? But it should turn of when you're with the person that you're romantically involved with. That's the point that I'm trying to be at now in my life. And that's a different point that I've never been at.

And it took me living alone, because I'd never lived alone. From November to January 5th is when I sang and wrote the lyrics. And that signifies something that the record's actually about. It's about that experience for me. It's not about any one particular thing, but it's about loss, it's about understanding loss.

When someone doesn't appreciate the concept of...If you call someone and say, "I need you," and they say, "Well I'll be there when I can," that's someone who doesn't understand loss. Because "when you can" -- that might not happen 15 minutes later, and the only way you learn that, the way I learnt it, is when someone dies, or you lose something, you lose your money, you lose everything.

I've got nothing to lose now so in one way I have nothing to be afraid of, and that makes me feel really dangerous. And in another way that makes me value the things that I do have more than anything, and I'll fight and kill for them with no hesitation. The only thing that stops me from that is that I don't want to go to jail because it would prevent me from being what I want to be, and I don't want to be ass-raped on a daily basis. It's really that simple.

NP: You talk about how you're expressing loss, but you do it in a very angry way...

MM: You hear it as angry?

NP: I think over much of it you're raging, and raging hard.

MM: Just out of curiosity which part of the record do you find angry? The first half, or the center, or the second?

NP: Well the first half is much more angry than the second half. Does that represent the emotional journey you went on?

MM: Well that's unusual for me. Because the first half to me feels, well, I can see where you see it's angry. I feel it's bitter in a weak way. I feel like it's, you know, the easiest thing to do first is to give up in the Shakespearean sense of 'Oh, I will love you forever, the world doesn't accept us let's die.' That's cowardice to me now. That's what I was coming off of going into the record. Going into "Devour," that first song, that's me establishing the fact that I learned the lesson that I can go there, and I chose not to -- and that's a true story. That song's not about anybody but me. That song's about the fact that I'm willing to go there. If someone says "I love you 'til we die" -- OK, then let's do it. But I think that's cowardice now, so that's not the same person that sings track 15. I definitely changed, and I changed essentially over the course of the record.

I understand that you hear the first half as angry, I guess maybe I should look at it in a different way. I hear the second half of the record as threatening. The first half of the record is kind of angry, but it's bitter and it's weak and it's uncertain, which is where anger comes from, which is not where threatening comes from. There's a confidence that starts to rebuild itself, and I think that it starts right about the point of "WOW." That song sticks out to me enough that I got it tattooed on my wrist. I wanted to do a song that was everything that I had to remember represented who I am and why I started this in the first place.

It's funny to me because the first time I played the song, without any singing on it, because the music is so absurd. We just started recording it and I refused to let anybody try and do what they're supposed to do. I said, "Just hit record." I made Twiggy play keyboards, and I started playing guitar with one string on it, and I had a microphone and we got done and the first thing we said was "Wow." Well that's what it is. It's like the "Macarena" of nonsense and confusion, and it really represents something that we always strive to accomplish.

You cannot fake a record like The Idiot, which is one of my favorite records. I mean, I don't wanna go to Berlin and become a heroin addict, which is essentially the backstory that everybody knows about with The Idiot and Bowie and Iggy Pop and Brian Eno. But that record has such a feel to it that is real -- and that's what this record had to become. I had to allow it to be real. I stopped questioning or fine-tuning.

NP: You talk about the second half of the album after "WOW" being threatening, but before "WOW" you have a track called "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies." That's a song where, if you'd written the lyrics down in a note and sent it to someone, it would have earned you a restraining order.

MM: Absolutely. What's interesting about the lyrics is that I did not write them down before I sang them. I had maybe scribbles of ideas. I would go into my room and I would have this chair that I referred to as the cockpit -- not in the phallic sense although it did earn that. It was like an airplane seat. I'd lean back, I like to sing on my back, and hold the microphone -- it's not supposed to be held -- but that's like me I'm not supposed to be held.

And Chris Vrenna, who was recording everything, had headphones. He and I were the only two people listening to me recording....Chris, he was assigned the job of writing down my lyrics. I would tell them to him, and they didn't make sense to him.

That song, to be specific, "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies," I sang it twice. I sang it once in November. The original version of it, which I'd like to put somewhere, is 25 minutes long. It's uncensored, and it's unedited, and it's just what came out of my head at 3.45 AM until 25 minutes later.

It got to the point where we'd finished the record and we decided we don't want to make a double or triple record. There's not enough room on a CD for a 25-minute song but I've refused to edit it because there was a purity about what I did because it was almost channeled. It's completely right out of my head. I actually never listened to it again. I'd only listened to it the time I sang it.

We finished the record, we finished track 15 on my birthday, and later that night, still on January 5th [I asked] how many minutes do I have left on this CD that they're going to put in Wal-Mart or Target or wherever the fuck they're going to try and put it, which is a waste of time. And it was 9 minutes.

I said, "Roll it, and I'm going to sing it." And I sang it, and what appears on the record is one exact performance. I went back and I spoke on top of it. But it's the exact first thing that came out of my mouth. I never listened to the first one and they're slightly different words.

I felt like this record was something I had already sung and it was something I had already done. By no means is it off the cuff or frivolous or cavalier, like I just said whatever. These were ideas that spent a lot of time in my head, I just didn't do it in the same way I had done it in the past where it was more calculated, where this is the verse, this is the chorus, this is the part that's going to upset just about everyone. I didn't care when they said, "Well do you really want to put a 9-minute song on the record?" I said, "What are they going to do? Return it? I don't really give a shit. It doesn't matter to me. This is the song that I wanna do." It was liberating to get back to that point.

NP: It seems like such an honest album, in a way it's almost like you're listening to a diary. Obviously what you've been through has been very public so it's not like people don't know what it's referring to 'cause it's already out there. Was it cathartic for you? I mean, one of the reasons people write diaries and put their thoughts and emotions on paper is that whole better-out-than-in thing -- it helps people to move on. Did you have that experience?

MM: Not exactly. I'd never kept a diary because I always felt like I didn't know what would happen to it when I was dead. I have never been able to keep a diary. Making this record I filmed and recorded everything, every phone conversation, everything. I was like Howard Hughes but without the money.

You think the record's honest, I think the record could just as easily be looked at as a lie...because it's so focused where my head was on cinema. It's partly the fact that I almost gave up music and tried to focus all my energy on making a film. I tend to surround myself with, my friends are either actors or directors, or people involved in that, and it becomes a question, am I acting on the record? Am I directing?

And if I'm acting, it's so method acting you can't even understand which person is real -- the character or the actor? It really becomes confusing. I don't even try and question it. I think if I play the record for somebody, and, like you said, if it was on paper, printed out, there's two options; It's either you meet a girl who finds it to be terribly romantic or you get put into a mental hospital, which both seem fun. But I'm going to go with the romantic thing because I don't like the smocks that they have in mental hospitals. Your ass hangs out -- and the foods not good. I've been there before.

NP: Yeah the robes with the back slit and ties aren't very attractive. It's not a good look.

MM: Yeah. I prefer to self-medicate. I don't like doctors telling me what to do.

NP: Do you separate yourself from the character of Marilyn Manson? And when your cameras rolled, was it you or the character you created that they were filming?

MM: You know I've thought about it, I was watching this show that I got kind of attached to, it's called The United States of Tara and it was about someone with MPD, multiple personality disorder. I was amused by it. It's weird because this person has different personalities and they dress up in different outfits and they talk differently. It's so weird. And now I caught myself saying that, and I thought, "Woah, I do that."

...So I started to contemplate the idea of, yeah, maybe I am a little crazy, but whatever. You can't really have one without the other. You can't have whatever it is that people like about me, or people hate about me, without the part of me, the other side of me that is so complex that I have to fight with that to keep the other part in charge.

That's the struggle in life is to find somebody who understands that and isn't afraid of that. I think the mistake that I've made in the past is I've met people that pity that, or I've met people that are similar, and then no one's in charge. It's like the short bus, when they open the door and everyone's running wild. It's crazy.

I'm in such a different place and it was really so much about making this record. I don't really care how that comes across when it's written down in print. It sounds like the type of thing some stupid band would say about the catharsis and the importance of the art and all the bullshit, and all that. It's real simple, it's not even a challenge, if I'm going to be a rock star it's balls deep. That's the only way that it goes.

I want to respect and try and grow from all of my influences and I want to be something that makes a dent in the world. I want to be a villain. Everyone wants to say, "What's it like being a role model?" It's a lot harder to be a fucking villain. Role models are mannequins, villains make problems and problems are what changes the world. All artists are villains, and that's what I like to be.

Besides the fact that I think just normally in relationships I've found that I don't like to be an asshole to girls in relationships. But I think just the danger factor of what I am, I don't know what it is that I say such terrible things and it comes across as cute and charming. But it always amazes me because I've tried to make myself very un-likeable -- it just backfires on me.

NP: You say that you try to make yourself un-likeable. But to some extent are you trapped by your own persona? Who Marilyn Manson is is such a strong and defined personality....

MM: ...I'm trapped by my insecurities, my self-esteem, and that's the reason I had to create something...I created the name Marilyn Manson, and I created the band without even having a song. I had an idea of what I wanted to get to, and that idea was just as powerful as what it ended up getting to.

NP: But there must be a side of Marilyn Manson that does stuff that's not "in character," that loves organic gardening or I Love Lucy re-runs.

MM: Of course. I'm sitting next to my cat, Lily, and it's the one girl, and she's the only virgin I know, and she loves me. I've had her for seven years. And I like to watch movies. I'm romantic. For whatever reason girls like the things that I have to say. It amuses me and amazes me, and I feel lucky sometimes. I feel like what I do is I write. I tried to be a writer for journalism, it just didn't suit me. So somehow I ended up writing songs. And I like to paint. These are two things that I feel like I can do best to communicate with people.

But I understand the persona thing...At some point I think I lost track of who I was before I made this record, and that's a really big problem. It's not as simple as if you're just someone who has one identity, then OK, you have an identity crisis. If you're someone who has two, one is for strangers and people you don't know, and also the people you do know, and the other one is only for the people that you know personally. Then, at that point, you don't know who you are. That's almost what destroyed me because I didn't know what to be. I didn't know which one to be.

What I realized was, I'm all of it. I can't be described as one or the other. It can't be on stage or off stage, it can't be Brian Warner or Marilyn Manson, it's all of it. It's just everything. It's one big movie. There's parts of it that are stupid and boring, there's parts of it that are exciting, pornographic and violent, there are parts of it that are dramatic and heartwarming, there's all of that. It's just a movie, and that's the only way I can deal with it.

I can't try to define myself on other people's terms because it's impossible and it ends up destroying me and breaking my heart to try and be something that is really the opposite of why I created being me. I just didn't feel like I fit. And I'm not the ultimate outsider. I'm not trying to be that.

The record is ultimately about somebody who is falling from grace, and I have in so many ways. Whether it's with family, enemies, fans, personally, lovers, career, art, whatever it is. And then you want to fit back in and you feel like, maybe I should give up my wings. Maybe I should give up who I am and then I'll fit in. And then you find yourself completely unlovable. You're worthless above and below and that's where I was in the record towards the end of the record.

I realized, it, and was very angry. I almost gave up and became everything that I thought I represented the opposite of. Instead of being that person, I wanted to give up and kill myself. I can't take it anymore. I was Nero wanting to burn the city down. Instead of that it became redemption...If you want to find out who your real friends are, sink the ship. The first ones to jump aren't your friends.

NP: It's interesting that you talk about wanting to fit in because that's the antithesis of what Marilyn Manson is perceived to be about. Your extreme look, the extreme things you say, that's the trademark of someone that doesn't care what people think.

MM: Right. Maybe that's the wrong way of saying it -- fit in. I wanted to be accepted, to be liked -- and that doesn't mean by everyone. There's a difference also that I want to clarify; When people say "I don't give a shit what other people think" -- that's bullshit. I give a shit what everyone thinks. I won't be judged by other people. I care what people I don't know think. I want them to think that I fucking hate them or I want to change their opinion, but to say you don't care, that's apathetic, that's worthless. But I don't live my life in judgment by them. I didn't mean I was trying to fit into that.

I was trying to find a place to exist, I felt completely like the book Stranger In A Strange Land, or Man That Fell To Earth. I felt lost. I felt like I couldn't be like what everyone wanted me to be, and it was because I stopped being me. It's something that everyone can relate to. It's not some kind of complex metaphor, and I'm not someone so completely complicated everyone can't [understand]. I'm human. I'm normal. I'm as fucked up as anyone else. I don't have all the answers. I just try and sing about it, and for whatever reason I've managed to communicate that in a way that people identify with it. And that's something I want to hold on to. I want to deliver that. I don't want to cater to it, I want to give them what they want. They want me to be me, and this is me being me more than I've been able to in the past.

NP: We'd talked previously about multiple personalities, and you talk about how you have difficulty marrying the Manson that you are with your friends and the Manson that you are in public. One of the ways I know psychiatrists try and deal with that is they try to bring the two personalities closer together, so they slowly become one. Is that a process that you've been through?

MM: I personally feel that the world began to end at the dawn of psychiatry and the questioning of relativity. When we started to unravel and question things, when people started to have too many question marks to where they started to doubt themselves -- people already doubted themselves, that's why religion was invented. Psychiatry, technically, I think for the most part, was simply a very clever attempt at replacing religion for financial purposes, in my opinion.

I'm not talking about psychology, I'm talking about psychiatry. Because psychiatrists, I've gone to a psychiatrist before and a psychiatrist [asked] me, "Why are you here?" And I said, "Well, everyone told me I was crazy, and my mom's in a mental asylum, so I guess that's what I'm supposed to be here for." And he said, "Well, what are your problems?" And I said, "Well, I can't deal with the stress of being under the scrutiny of the public so it's hard for me to go out around people, it's hard for me to connect to people." [The psychiatrist said,] "OK, well that's always going to exist, so that's incurable. What else are your problems?" [I said,] "Well, I'm obsessive. If you put something in front of me, if you put a big bag of dicks in front of me, I will sort them out and check the foreskins. If you give me a pair of tweezers I'll pluck every hair out of my body. If you give me a big, giant bag of drugs I'll do them all. Whatever it is I'll stick to it. What I want to keep that in is art. I want to keep me creating." He said, "Well, that's incurable too. So what you need to do is you need to not go anywhere and create art." That was the summation of my psychiatry experience.

Then I went to AA after that. It was kind of a weekend of fun for me, and I got asked for my autograph and so it wasn't anonymous. I think Alcoholics Anonymous should be a ski mask and a bottle of whiskey and you get in there drunk and you're anonymous, and you're like, "I'm drunk and it's anonymous." That's what I think it should be.

NP: Yeah the name Alcoholics Anonymous is false advertising. It should be replaced with Alcoholics Unanonymous. If it's anonymous, why do you have to stand up and say your name?

MM: Correct.

NP: You talk about how it's hard to be in the public eye...

MM: Well no, I want to clarify that, because what I realized was, when people always ask me is there a difference between you as Marilyn Manson or Brian Warner. What I came to understand is that when I go on stage I'm singing my most personal feelings to strangers, and a lot of times I've written those feelings to people that I know. So there's just two worlds and I don't know how that defines me. But that's the difference between those two different worlds.

I don't think you can really shut off who you are, and there's varying levels. If someone says, "Well it's an act." I think, what isn't an act? Everything is an act, it's just a matter of if you want to direct, you want to star, you want to be an extra. What do you want to do with it? And at this point I'm just trying to live every day where it's more happy than it is sad. And I figured out the secret to life: Do drugs and drink when you're in a good mood, not in a band mood. [laughs] It's a little bit simple.

(image) by ChrisSick (image) [Image: Courtesy of TheMudFlats.net] In which we discuss hate – and the limitations of dick jokes to thoroughly explore policy in a meaningful and informative manner. This is your Republican candidate for President. This is a man who will say anything — true or not... more

by ChrisSick


[Image: Courtesy of TheMudFlats.net]

In which we discuss hate – and the limitations of dick jokes to thoroughly explore policy in a meaningful and informative manner.

It is a righteous hate, that brings me here. I'm hopeful that by now we've established the ground rules of this column. That you understand that my job, basically, is to be your amusing little political monkey. Both by the standards I established for myself and the limitations dictated by the resources available to me, my task each week is to retype the salient points of the weekly political news with the addition of strategically placed cuss words and blowjob jokes.

It isn't terribly challenging, but it has its uses, if only for entertainment. Of course, we should all pause momentarily and ruminate on the type of society that produces political entertainment, rather than deeply intelligent and informative news coverage as an essential requirement of an educated electorate, who then act in their own enlightened self-interest. This is a topic I could, and would, greatly like to explore at considerable length.

Although, at times, it can be quite enjoyable to be the Tactical Animal – to give voice to my purest inner Werewolf – it is naturally limiting. While it amuses me — and hopefully you — to write about wanting to blow Bill Clinton, it should be noted that no matter how lovingly he speaks of liberal policies, it was his deregulation, coupled with W's that helped create the conditions for the 2008 economic meltdown.

As much as I want Barack Obama to win the election and remain in the Oval Office, it's hard to cheerlead so relentlessly for a President who thinks its more important to prosecute the people who grow weed for cancer patients than it is to call to account the people on Wall Street who burned down the global economy.

And I've always assumed that, at some point, I could and would expand the horizons on this column beyond my basic remit of summarizing, weekly, the ongoing political knife fight while making snide dick jokes.

But I cannot.

Because week in and week out, Mitt Romney and his campaign just insists on being a gang of complete fucking assholes.

For the next 50 days, 17 hours and 11 minutes, Mitt Romney will find a way — sure as the sun shines — to displace whatever topic I had intended to write about and force me to comment on his utter dishonesty, his complete incompetence, and his cruel naivete.

I agree with Ms. Walsh here, in substance, though not analysis. Mitt Romney will never be President. Not because of this, or really, any particular news story. Not because of any gaffe or any poll. Not even because of any stated policy that is widely unpopular with the general electorate.

But due to all of those things, and more. Mitt Romney has now been running for President for most of the past decade. His private and public careers seem to have been designed by campaign managers to be placed into thirty-second TV spots to convince you of his worthiness and capability for high office. Indeed, everything about Mitt Romney — with the exception of the tax returns he refuses to release — seems to be designed to make him President, down to his flawless hair, which now has its own Facebook account.

His desire to be your President is so thinly veiled, so achingly transparent, that it's impossible to assume he stands for anything, other than that he, Willard Mitt Romney, should be President. And with that as his only true, core position, all others, necessarily, become subverted to it.

If you need another list of high-profile Romney position changes, my continued suggestion is that you crawl out from under your rock and pay some goddamn attention to the people who want to run the world's leading superpower. But, just so you have a point of reference, you can look at this list of fourteen position changes that McCain's op-research team came up with in 2008, or this list compiled by the editors of Rolling Stone, or WaPo's Fact-Checker blog for an in-depth look at many of the accused flip-flops.

Because, at the risk of repeating myself — there is no core, animating principle to Mitt Romney beyond the burning conviction that he should be President. Which, besides the mountainous evidence that he will take any position likely to service that end goal, leads him to make ridiculous and factually untrue statements almost constantly. Case in point:

For the curious, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has a nice explanation of why this is, basically, complete and utter horseshit regardless of the day it was released.

This is your Republican candidate for President. This is a man who will say anything — true or not — to anyone, at any time, if he thinks it will help him become President. A man who's still struggling to win over his own party. Who is trying — haltingly and with much attention paid to his attempts — to speak their language without alienating “mainstream” voters, otherwise known as those who haven't completely lost their shit at the election of a black man.

Which, by no means, should be read as an indication that Obama is perfect and scrupulously honest. And, believe it or not, I would love nothing more than to have just one motherfucking week of Republicans not being complete assholes so that I could more fully explore my many, many issues with the presidency of Barack Obama.

But that will, most likely, never happen. There will be even more outrageous acts, similar to these comments. Outrage will pile upon outrage. Outrage at outrage. Meta-outrage. And, yes, even I am outraged.

Not at Romney’s cheap opportunism, not at his deeply craven political instincts, not as his attempts to appease his openly racist base. No, I'm outraged that anyone would willingly allow this man to lead their party. I'm outraged by the banality of it.

Mitt Romney isn't offensive or shocking, really. He's just another overly-entitled rich kid who can't understand why he can't have something he wants. Given everything he could want his whole life, he seems incapable of understanding why he can't have anything he wants.

And as the Obama convention bounce has transitioned, gradually, to the Obama lead, it becomes more and more clear that Mitt Romney, as Joan Walsh said, will never, ever be your President. As this reality sinks in at the headquarters of Team Mittens, we will see ever more bizarre, surprising, and desperate moves from the campaign.



In much the way that the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate proved, in retrospect, to be a desperate move by a struggling campaign, so too will the selection of Paul Ryan prove to be the beginning of the end of the Romney campaign. Things will get worse before they get better, I assure you.

And I will be here, every week for the next 50 days, conducting the brutal autopsy of his stillborn campaign.

Instead of talking about anything that actually matters and worth a damn.

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Ted Naifeh first gained recognition as the artist and co-creator of the comic series “Gloomcookie,” but it was the release of his own creation, “Courtney Crumrin” that really made his reputation. Since the initial miniseries “Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things” was released a decade ago... more

Ted Naifeh first gained recognition as the artist and co-creator of the comic series “Gloomcookie,” but it was the release of his own creation, “Courtney Crumrin” that really made his reputation. Since the initial miniseries “Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things” was released a decade ago by Oni Press, Naifeh has returned to the character a few times in between other projects.

He illustrated “Death Jr.” comics, collaborated with Tristan Crane on “How Loathsome” and illustrated Holly Black’s “Good Neighbors” graphic novel trilogy from Scholastic. Naifeh also wrote and drew “Polly and the Pirates” and wrote a sequel which was released earlier this year.

Courtney has always remained Naifeh’s best-loved creation, and this month Oni Press debuts a new full color “Courtney Crumrin” ongoing series, which serves as both an excellent introduction to Courtney and her world for new readers and a welcome return for those who know her well. Naifeh may have joked that the ten year anniversary of Courtney is making him feel old, but Naifeh remains just as talented a creator and as nice a person as he was when we first met years ago.


ALEX DUEBEN: First of all, congratulations. It's been ten years since Courtney Crumrin first appeared. Does it feel like ten years?

TED NAIFEH: What are you trying to do, remind me how old I am? Seriously though, it feels like a lifetime, since the person I've come to think of myself as, at least in a professional capacity, was born with this book. On the other hand, In re-reading it, I still find some of it very fresh. It looks and sounds like me.

AD: Why did you decide to recolor the original Courtney Crumrin comics and what made  Warren Wucinich the person for the job?

TN: It's always a tough decision. I had some very talented people approach me wanting to color it, and even doing brilliant samples. And Oni sent me two different guys, one of whom did a very tight professional job, and the other one doing something a little weird and experimental. I chose the experimental guy. He turned out to be perfect. It's very easy to think of coloring as a craft, where the goal is to do a quality, workmanlike job with all the bells and whistles in their proper place. But what Warren does is experiment, try things, take chances. Sometimes his experiments don't quite work, but Jill Beaton and I give him feedback, and the result is simply this: every page is unexpected. And that's exactly what I wanted. It's not craft, it's art.

AD: Why a Courtney Crumrin ongoing series and why now?

TN: We changed the format for two reasons. One, the limited series just doesn't appeal to comic shops anymore. They want trades, or they want ongoing series. The second reason is that I needed an excuse to commit to Courtney. I really want to spend more time building her world. But once you're done with a mini-series, it's hard to commit to another. I regret that I didn't stick with the character and build more momentum. Even if I'd only done one mini-series a year, I could have had ten Courtney volumes instead of 4 by now. And who knows? She might have gotten a lot more followers. People like stories with a deep history. That's one reason Bone did so well. Jeff Smith committed to it.

AD: Has crafting an ongoing series changed your approach to Courtney or how you tell the stories? You've done miniseries and graphic novels, but never an ongoing like this.

TN: Yes, very much so. I'm building a longer form story, where each arc feeds directly into the next. You'll see when the first arc is done. It ends on a cliffhanger.

AD: Why did you decide to make the ongoing series in full color?

TN: Color books do better, for one thing. Everyone wanted it. And it looks great. But also, I've been experimenting with my style a bit, and my pages just seem to benefit from color. I've been using more heavy black brushwork. Warren adds a lot of depth and atmosphere to it.

AD: Does knowing that the book will appear in color mean you do anything differently from an artistic perspective?

TN: It frees me up to let the lines tell the story. I've been using less crosshatching tone to add depth. If you look at the first volume, it's riddled with crosshatching, essentially doing the job of a colorist. I don't need to do that as much. That's not to say the pages are unreadable without color. They're just not quite as atmospheric.

AD: With the ongoing, will we see one-off side stories like Portrait of a Warlock as a Young Man and tales of other characters appear as story arcs told within the series?

TN: Yes, I have stand-alone story coming up about a middle-aged Aloysius. It's funny though, I know folks like Aloysius, but they're less interested in him when he's on his own. He's like the elves in Middle Earth. They're interesting, but they need hobbits around to create contrast. Without Courtney, Aloysius isn't quite as mysterious.

As for other spin-offs, I've been thinking about it, but I need to decide which character to follow. I'm open to suggestions.

AD: That's an interesting observation about Aloysius. I guess that he's such an interesting character who has clearly lived such a colorful life, but we don't necessarily want to know the stories. Having said that, I hope we'll be learning more about Miss Crisp, and more about Butterworm. And you can always do a story about the cats. I hear people like cats.

TN: I don't know that we don't want to know, I just don't know that he should be the star. Maybe my co-star should have been a little more fleshed out. I will eventually do more tie-ins, which will be easier with an ongoing series. I definitely want to do more cat stories.

AD: Is the plan for you to write and draw every issue or will we see the occasional guest appear?

TN: For this series, for the time being, it's going to be all me. But I may have guest artists draw a spin-off series.

AD: Another series of yours that I'm a big fan of, Polly and the Pirates, had its second volume come out a few months back. How has the response been and will we see a third volume?

TN: The sales were great on Polly 2. Everyone seems to like it. I'm going to write Polly 3 as soon as I have some spare time.

AD: As far as the second volume of Polly and the Pirates, I was a little disappointed to learn that Norton isn't the actual Emperor of America as was implied in the first volume. Polly does spell out why we love Norton so, but what was the thinking behind that?

TN: I don't like to go too far in analyzing my own work, because, ya know, what am I, a psychology expert? But with Norton, it suppose it depends on how you look at it. By legal standards, Norton isn't the official emperor of America. But if you were to ask anyone in the Polly world who they thought the emperor was, they'd say Norton. Unless they're cynical bastards, of course. The idea is rule by individual consent. That's the kind of world Polly lives in, a much gentler, more optimistic world than ours.

AD: Will we ever see a new edition of How Loathsome one of these days?

TN: Yes, I don't see why not. I just haven't taken the time to go hunting up a new publisher. Tristan Crane and I have talked about self-publishing, though I'm still old-fashion enough to think of that as the last desperate refuge of an idea no one but me likes. Obviously, I'm getting old.

AD: I remember you told me years back that you had an eventual ending in mind
for Courtney. Has that ending changed?

TN: Nope. The series isn't going to last forever, and I intend a pretty grand finally. I still have other stories to tell.

AD: We've spoken professionally and informally a few times over the years and you've mentioned a few projects that have never come to fruition like Princess Ugg and Zenith. Have they been abandoned, are they on hold?

TN: Like I said, the Courtney series isn't going to go on forever. Those two series are very close to my heart, and will come eventually.

AD: Just to end this where we began, what can people expect from the ongoing series and preview a few things we'll be seeing in the coming months?

TN: I don't want to give too much away. I'm just going to say that the status quo of Courtney's world will be shattered.

by SG's Team Agony feat. Yulia Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls. (image) [Yulia in Don't Panic] A: It definitely sounds like you could both use a change of scenery! I can relate to both of you. I live in an expensive... more

by SG's Team Agony feat. Yulia

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


[Yulia in Don't Panic]

A: It definitely sounds like you could both use a change of scenery! I can relate to both of you. I live in an expensive city with ridiculous rental rates but what you're describing as the ideal is exactly what I hope for in relationships too. On that note, I wouldn't be surprised if your girlfriend felt the same way you do about wanting a richer "dating" life, but she may feel powerless and at a loss as to how to change anything. She may not want to bring up the problem without having a solution.

If "the conversation" is about where you each stand and where the relationship is going, yes, people do talk about these things. But I don't find these conversations are pre-planned or even announced most of the time; instead, they just happen. You're walking somewhere together and something you said makes her ask, "So am I your girlfriend?" or something like that, or vice versa. Obviously you two are pretty comfortable together by now, since 8 months have passed, but these future-oriented talks can still be awkward. Wait until the moment feels right, no one is stressed or rushed (at least not immediately), and do tell her how you feel and ask how she feels too. I've known more relationships to end because the couple couldn't talk to each other openly than those that ended because they could. Tell her how much you like/love her, and then tell her that because you feel this way you want a bit more.

Nothing has to change drastically, unless your girlfriend wins a lottery and can cut back on work. You could suggest simple things to change up your routine and refresh your relationship that wouldn't take much extra time, such as having lunch on a balcony or in a nearby park instead of in front of the TV. Play cards or Scrabble for entertainment. Meet at a museum or gallery instead of her apartment. Go see a matinee; it's not quite a dinner date, but if the schedule allows… If you're up for a goofier idea, suggest a throwback to middle school with Truth or Dare -- if this is appealing and you both are into it, you might be able to start that conversation quite appropriately. I don't doubt that your girlfriend is chronically exhausted from overwork, so I wouldn't recommend trying anything too exerting until she has some time off.

Good luck! You're an amazing person for wanting to get out and have fun with your lady. I'm sure deep down she appreciates it and is utterly grateful to have you in her life.

Yulia

***

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

(image) by Sandor Stern Dear Republican Friends, Regarding Healthcare: A Tale Of Two Countries... In my previous letter I outlined the facts that spurred my questioning of your stance on healthcare, I thought I might offer two stories that personalize the issue and portray a sharp contrast in style and... more

by Sandor Stern

Dear Republican Friends,

Regarding Healthcare: A Tale Of Two Countries...

In my previous letter I outlined the facts that spurred my questioning of your stance on healthcare, I thought I might offer two stories that personalize the issue and portray a sharp contrast in style and substance.

In 2008, my niece, J, living in Los Angeles was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor that was possibly malignant. She required hospitalization and surgery. At the time she was an employee at a firm that did not offer health insurance. As a single mother of a 14 years-old athletic boy subjected to sports injuries, she had purchased private insurance at what was an affordable rate for her circumstances – $275/month. The plan offered her one doctor's visit per quarter and two visits for her son per quarter. Her co-pay for those 12 visits was 20% of the bill. Any visits beyond that would be paid out of her own pocket. Her annual cap on medical bills was $30,000. Her deductable for hospitalization was $5000.

My wife took her to the hospital where she was informed she would not be admitted without paying the $5000 deductable first. After a heated argument, the hospital allowed J in for a $1000 payment on my credit card. Surgery revealed a malignant tumor that had spread to the other ovary. Both ovaries were excised. The day following surgery while in intensive care she was informed that she must pay the remaining $4000 immediately. A panic call later and J's father paid the money. Fortunately she had family to help her out and fortunately, the tumor had not metastasized to other organs and she required no radiation or chemo. She was discharged after eight days. Her hospital bill totaled $85,780.11. With the PPO reduction and the $30,000 annual cap, the final payment she personally owed was $24,557.07. Her surgeon's bill was $3600 of which she paid $1200 out of pocket. Her oncologist, as an act of kindness, waved his fee. She could not afford to pay off the hospital bill and arranged for monthly payments. Her debt was sold off by the hospital to a collection agency. She has continued to pay $50.00 a month for the past 4 years. That has barely paid the monthly interest. She presently owes $22,000. She maintains her insurance policy, fearing to seek another insurer because of her pre-existing condition. Her monthly payments are now $325.

Her son is now 18 years-old and attending college. Because of the Affordable Care Act he is allowed to remain on her insurance policy – inadequate though it remains. And because of the Affordable Care Act the arbitrary annual cap on coverage has been eliminated.

My friend, D, is an American citizen who grew up in Canada. He was educated there and worked in the entertainment industry. In 2005 he arrived in Los Angeles to seek work in a playing field much larger than that in Canada. In 2007 he began having health issues that led to a diagnosis of a brain tumor. He had no health insurance. The cost of surgery and hospitalization would be more than $275,000 with an additional $200,000 if complications occurred. His neurosurgeon gave him a list of the four best surgeons in North America for his type of tumor. One of those surgeons was in Toronto. Since D had left Canada just under two years ago, his Ontario Hospital Insurance was still valid. He flew to Toronto and met with the Canadian neurosurgeon. A team of six medical specialists contributed their expertise to his diagnosis. Within six weeks he underwent successful surgery. The total out of pocket expense was a $100 co-pay that had been newly introduced by OHIP and which the hospital apologized for having to charge him.

A few months following his recovery he returned to Toronto for a follow-up MRI. He had not been feeling well but there was no indication that any of his symptoms were a result of his brain surgery. He visited an internist who recommended a cardiac stress test. Following that, D took a train to visit his mother in Cornwall, Ontario, 300 miles east of Toronto. While on the train he received a call from his internist informing him that his stress test was troubling and he should come to the office ASAP. D explained that he was on a train to visit his mother and would be back in Toronto in a few days. The internist told him that when the train reached his destination he should immediately take a cab to the ER of the nearest hospital. D balked. The doctor was adamant. He did as told. At the ER he was examined and diagnosed with a silent coronary. He was immediately sent by ambulance to a cardiac unit in Ottawa where he underwent angioplasty. He recovered from that bout. His total out of pocket expense for all that – ER treatment, ambulance ride, angioplasty and hospital stay was zero dollars.

He returned to Los Angeles in good health and good spirits. He went back to Toronto three months later for another MRI and six months after that for gamma radiation and an MRI. For the next two years he received an MRI in Toronto every six months. There have been zero medical costs to him.

Aside from the excellent treatment at no cost, D shared with me the most significant moment in his medical odyssey. When he first visited the neurosurgeon in Toronto, he was terrified. There had been much discussion in Los Angeles and in Toronto about the invasiveness of his tumor. It was wrapped around his brain stem. In removing the tumor, how much damage would be done to the healthy tissue? Would he lose his hearing? Would he be paralyzed? Would he lose some other essential function? He related those fears to the surgeon. The man's response: "I will remove as much of the tumor as possible without damaging healthy tissue even if it means not excising all the tumor tissue. It's a slow growing tumor and perhaps in five years I will need to operate again but maybe not. There is nothing compelling us to take it all in one bite." That was a reassurance D needed. "Think about it." he told me. "I was dealing with a healthcare system in which the cost factor no longer entered the equation. Can you imagine a surgeon in the USA having the freedom to work that way? He knows he has one shot at cutting out that tumor and getting every bit of it because the system here is controlled by private-for-profit insurance companies and a second surgery would not be covered. The annual cap on insurance outlay would take care of that possibility."

As I stated previously, the Affordable Care Act has since removed the arbitrary annual cap on coverage that existed in 2007.

During the election of 2008, I told these stories to a Republican friend. He made no comment about D's story, ignoring it completely. As for my niece, his response was: "She should have gotten better insurance." Really? I was indignant at his dismissive attitude but this year I heard a similar remark from your candidate, Mitt Romney. When urging an audience of college students to become entrepreneurs he said: "Start your own business. If you can't get the money borrow it from your parents."

Really?

Your inquisitive friend,

Sandy

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Michael Robbins made a splash in the poetry world when his poem “Alien vs. Predator” was published in The New Yorker in 2009. The poem, which called Rilke a jerk and included the line “That elk is such a dick,” was atypical for the magazine. Robbins, who received a Ph.D. in English, would go onto... more

Michael Robbins made a splash in the poetry world when his poem “Alien vs. Predator” was published in The New Yorker in 2009. The poem, which called Rilke a jerk and included the line “That elk is such a dick,” was atypical for the magazine. Robbins, who received a Ph.D. in English, would go onto write poems like “Dig Dug,” which was inspired by the video for Guns N' Roses’ “November Rain” and has just had his first book published by Penguin Poets, Alien vs. Predator.

Robbins’ poetry owes as much to hip-hop and contemporary music as it does to classical poetry and it’s clear from talking with Robbins that while he is as obsessed with pop culture as the rest of the us, he’s more concerned with poetic form. His poems take place amidst chain stores and suburban wastelands with references to the Care Bears, Jeffrey Dahmer, Soylent Green and everything in between.

However, he’s interested in what has always been the focus of poetry: truth, beauty, ugliness, vulgarity and making some sense of the world in a fun way that sounds good when read aloud. In talking with SG, Robbins quoted Rimbaud and Eliot with the same ease with which he discussed Guns N' Roses. and complained about the laziness of many contemporary artists, and, as in his work, was not just fun to talk with but was thoughtful in talking about life and art.


ALEX DUEBEN: The title of your poetry collection is Alien vs. Predator. How did you decide on that title?

MICHAEL ROBBINS: It honestly just came to me when I was trying to think of a title. I never am sure whether the justifications or interpretations that I give for the title afterwards have much to do with that initial decision. I mean as soon as I thought of it, the title made sense to me. It’s a cheeky appropriation of a schlocky movie franchise. Also, they’re both major words in American culture. We’re always catching predators and legalizing aliens. It made sense to me. I mean the book is partly about my feeling of alienation and being preyed upon. (Laughs)

AD: It’s interesting that you phrase it like that. What do you feel preyed upon by?

MR: What don’t I feel preyed upon by? (Laughs)

AD: I ask because I think it’s possible to read the book as being preyed upon by pop culture, but I don’t think you mean that.

MR: No. I’m not going to bite the hand that feeds me, but I do think the pop culture angle has been getting too much attention to the exclusion of other aspects of the book that I’m interested in. I mean I understand it. You have a book of poetry that talks about black metal or something, you have a topic to talk about and it’s handy, but the attractive surfaces are meant to be sinister as well. It’s about being preyed upon by capitalism, I suppose. I meant for it to be something of a dark book. (Laughs)

AD: I think the definitely feels that way.

MR: I’m preyed upon by lots of things. Stephen Dedalus has that line in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man where he says “I fear many things: dogs, horses...” I can’t remember exactly what the list is, but that’s pretty much how I feel. I’ve spent a lot of my life dealing with anxiety and depression and spent a lot of my life kvetching about the way we’re all sort of subordinated to the logic of the market. The pop culture is there in part just because I love it, but it wouldn’t be there without the economic apparatus that supports it. It’s not a wholly negative thing. Capitalism is a dialectical thing. Marx himself celebrated capitalism as an advance over feudalism.

There’s alienation and there’s predation and there’s also the sense that I myself am the predator consuming pop culture, consuming goods. It’s that sense of conflict that the “vs.” part is supposed to get across. There’s a great deal of conflict in my own absorption in these things, but like I said, that’s an interpretation that I can impose after the fact. At the time I’m not sure that I was thinking about these things, but that’s how poems work. They don’t necessarily make themselves clear to you right away.

AD: As you pointed out your work is sometimes treated a novelty because you use pop culture, which is not often addressed in poetry.

MR: Well, it is. That’s another thing that frustrates me about the concentration on it. Again, it doesn’t frustrate me to the point that I’m not very, very pleased that the work’s getting attention, but pop culture gets addressed in poetry all the time. I’s just a lack of familiarity with contemporary poetry that leads it to it seeming to be novel in my work. I mean Paul Muldoon is often writing about pop culture. My friends Nick Demske and Anthony Madrid both have books that are immersed in pop culture. My friend Anthony Madrid has these great lines: “Maybe I’m just like my mother. / She’s never satisfied. / Maybe I’m just like my father: / Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” It’s there. Contemporary poets are writing in the culture that they live in and they respond to it. I would say that my work is sort of manic about it. (Laughs) There is perhaps a difference of degree, although Nick Demske is a terrific poet who is just dripping with pop culture.

AD: You wrote a piece for Poetry a little while back where you reviewed a few books and in talking about Ruth Stone you took issue with her heightened language.

MR: I don’t think so. I think poetry has to be heightened language distinct from ordinary English. If it’s not patterned language, then it’s not poetry. What I took issue with in Stone’s work is her treating poetry as a kind of chapel that we all go to and forget our lives as people immersed in the ordinary. Even her treatment of the ordinary seems to me to be pious. Piety in poetry annoys me. But if you’re just taking English and not doing things with the language, then I don’t know what the point is. Pound said “great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.” I do believe that language can exist in a heightened form without being pious. I think that the heightening of language is what poetry does, but it’s a question of how that heightening takes place.

AD: I think that’s very true. Rhythm and structure are clearly very important to you and it feels like you’ve internalized poetic form and structure, but you’re writing about the world you see, the world around us.

MR: I think that’s just what poetry should do.

AD: “Should” being the key phrase in that sentence.

MR: Oh definitely. I mean Rimbaud said: It is necessary to be absolutely modern. I think that poetry, if it’s not responding to contemporary life, is failing to be poetry. Poetry for me is just a way of responding to contemporary life, responding to contemporary conditions and I would never want to deny that one must be absolutely modern. I don’t know what else art is for if it’s not a way of being contemporary; if not a way of making sense of the life around us. That involves me in Best Buy and Red Lobster and popular music, but I think it’s possible to do that without eschewing the traditional means of imparting pleasure. Pleasures of sound, because sound to me is part of what makes poetry poetry. The intricate or rhythmical patterning of language. It doesn’t seem to us to be anachronistic in hip hop. There are some great poets writing in hip hop at the moment. I don’t feel like poetry should have to be composed of boring sentence fragments. (Laughs)

AD: I do remember Paul Muldoon wrote a poem about music, I think it was Sleeve Notes?

MR: Yeah, Sleeve Notes. I do think that as I’ve said elsewhere, the way I respond to popular music and the way I respond to poetry are not mutually exclusive. Certainly I make obvious distinctions between them, but music has been an extraordinarily important thing in my life. I always think people are exaggerating when they say that rock and roll or a DJ saved their lives, but it’s an understandable hyperbole. It can feel like that, especially when you’re younger. I’m old now. (Laughs)

AD: And in your poems so much is going on amidst the pop culture references; the sort of things that have always happened in poems and that have always been discussed, just in a different landscape.

MR: I hope so. I don’t think one should hesitate to be beautiful if one can. It’s again a question of the kind of beauty. There’s a striving for beauty that annoys me in poetry, a kind of processed beauty. I often think of it as kind of the James Wright epiphany. I love James Wright and I love the poem A Blessing, but the way that poem ends with him realizing that if he stepped out of his body he would break suddenly into blossoms, that sort of gesture or device where one ends a poem with a little lyric epiphany and one steps out of one’s body in some way or rises into the air or has become a cheap way of accessing beauty without earning it. I’m wary of that. I think that there’s a hell of a lot of ugliness in the world and that ugliness can be treated in a beautiful manner.

AD: That’s a prominent trend in all art forms, even among good writers.

MR: It’s like American Beauty. Who was that, Sam Mendes? That to me is my exemplar of unearned emotion, unearned pathos, unearned beauty. It has all the trappings of beauty, but it only goes through the motions. The cheap reliance on things you already know to make you feel as though you’ve experienced beauty. That of course is a very common problem in art. I would never want to suggest that I don’t fall into that trap myself sometimes, but I try to be aware of it.

AD: That is a good one. I always think of Brideshead Revisited where the ending doesn’t quite fit with what came before and feels uncomfortably shoehorned in.

MR: Well yeah, you can just have Chancy walk on the water– (Laughs)

AD: –And then it becomes something else entirely.

MR: Yeah. Instead of finding a way to actually convey the complexity of meaningful experience, you can just throw in a little gesture that is a shorthand for it. That’s what annoys me about Ruth Stone. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead. She had a hard life and made art out of it. I’m in no position to dismiss her life’s work, but that’s what annoys me about poetry like hers. It’s what annoyed me about certain of Robert Hass’ poems. It what annoys me about Mary Oliver and Billy Collins and Sharon Olds (Laughs). One could go on and on. In fact, I’m probably not supposed to. I mean I’ve already attacked all of these people in print, so I’ll try not to name anyone I haven’t already dissed so as not to impair my job prospects. (Laughs)

AD: I always come back to Larry McMurty’s book Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen and that juxtaposition of reading Benjamin at a DQ in rural Texas, which seems like it would be dissonant, but it’s not at all.

MR: And Benjamin would have been the last person to ignore Dairy Queen. I am living at the moment in Hattiesburg Mississippi so I’m experiencing a lot of that dissonance myself, but it’s not dissonance. Intellectual work should be available to us wherever we are, not just on the steps of the Met. Art should speak to people in Hattiesburg with the same pressure and the same urgency that it speaks to someone in the New York Public Library. Which is not to say that I can’t wait to get out of Hattiesburg. (Laughs)

AD: Are you teaching there this year?

MR: I have a one year visiting position as Visiting Poet at the University of Southern Mississippi. It’s been interesting, but I’m moving back to Chicago at the end of this month.

AD: When did you first become interested in poetry?

MR: The first poets that I remember reading with any attention were Yeats, Rimbaud and Dylan Thomas. I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of them. (Laughs) I was probably in junior high or high school and it was partly that that attracted me. I didn’t know what the hell Yeats, or especially Thomas, was talking about. I’m not a big fan of Dylan Thomas, but there was a poem–and I can’t even remember which one–that went on for a hundred lines and then there was a stanza break and then another hundred lines. The hundredth line rhymed with the hundred-first line and the hundred-second line rhymed with the ninety-ninth line and so on until the very last line of the poem rhymed with the first line two hundred lines before. There was no way you would notice this hearing it, but that sense that intricate patterns could be sustained in ways that connected in ways that you had work to understand was fascinating to me. I probably should go ahead and pickup Dylan Thomas. I’ve hated him long enough.

Yeats and Rimbaud continue to me a lot to me. Rimbaud’s going to mean a lot to any kid who’s growing up in a conservative city and likes punk rock, but I find his work deepens as you get older. Rimbaud says in Illuminations: “Is it possible to become ecstatic amid destruction.” That spoke to me as a teenager and it speaks to me now in a more nuanced way as someone living in late capitalism in a country that is conducting an assault on its most helpless citizens.

AD: You recently received your Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

MR: Yes, I did. I’m a doctor. I tell my students not to call me Dr. Robbins, but they keep doing it. (Laughs) It’s horrible. I think if you’re not Condoleezza Rice or Henry Kissinger, you should think it’s totally pretentious to be called doctor if you’re not a medical doctor. I mean they should too, but they’re beyond shame. (Laughs)

AD: Why did you decide to get a Ph.D.?

MR: I wanted to become an intellectual. (Laughs) I know that sounds horrible. I realized that I had a disease, the disease of autodidacticism for a long time. It’s an exhilarating thing to be an autodidact, but it’s also possible to have the wrong conversations with yourself. Not the wrong conversations, but to have conservations that don’t move you past certain assumptions in a way that the conversations at a great university like the U of C allow you to do. I just wanted to study with people smarter than me and really, really, really think about this art form that I decided to devote myself to. And to think about it hard. One thing I find is that not enough younger poets are immersed in the tradition as deeply as they should be. Reading George Herbert or reading John Donne, and in contemporary work reading outside what I thought of as my little corner of the tradition was, I don’t think I could have written this book without that experience. It broadened my idea of what poetry was, what it could be, where it comes from, and what it accomplishes in our lives. It was a very valuable experience. I was lucky. I studied with Robert Von Hallberg and Oren Izenberg. I was thirty-something when I entered the Ph.D. program and I feel like they taught me how to read poetry. I also have an MFA and a masters degree, both of which are kind of useless.

AD: Where did you get your MFA?

MR: I never tell anyone that. (Laughs) It’s a part of my life I would like to forget. There’s that I use this epigraph from Fucked Up, the hardcore band. It’s the only epigraph in the book and it introduces the fourth section and it just says “I’ve wasted a lifetime / Not proud of it” and that was just a little personal reminder. I don’t want to say I’m a late bloomer. By the Frost/Whitman/Stevens model for first book publishing, I’m doing all right but I took too long to really get serious and my MFA experience was part of that. I’m like a born again Christian in many ways. Not literally, although I am interested in Christianity. What I mean is there’s this sense that your old life is gone and you’ve cast off some kind of skin. That’s how I feel about the first, oh, thirty years of my life. (Laughs) I was very irresponsible for a very long time.

AD: I can relate a little to that.

MR: I think a lot of people can. I just gave a copy of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son to a friend of mine and she read it and we were talking about that gamble–I don’t know to what extent it’s autobiographical–of living a dissolute life in the hopes of turning it into art later. Just what long odds those are and how likely it is that you’re not going to get swallowed along the way. I feel grateful that I can put that epigraph from Fucked Up in my book. (Laughs)

AD: With so many pop culture references in your poetry, do you ever worry about the book being dated?

MR: I think everyone should worry about that. (Laughs) But sure. William Logan has some line about, I don’t know if it was Tony Hoagland or who mentions Britney Spears in a poem and how Britney Spears will be forgotten in ten years and your poem will look ridiculous. I think William Logan knows exactly nothing about Britney Spears, but sure, one worries about it but I would hope that what matters in the poems is more lasting than the cultural references. A number of [the pop culture references] aren’t too contemporary anyway. There are references to the Stones and to Berryman, but I hope that what’s lasting in the poems will outlast their topicality.

AD: I just think of a poem like Dig Dug, which I enjoy, but I also remember when the video for November Rain was released and I appreciate that you found the right rhyme for “Axl.” I wonder if it lacks something without that background and personal knowledge, but I think the poem works without it.

MR: I hope so. There are cultural markers in poems. There just are going to be. It’s not like I don’t think about it. The book’s been getting a lot of attention, but how many books have gotten a lot of attention that nobody reads in ten years and no one has heard of the person. (Laughs) You’re foolish to assume that you’re going to be immortal. I don’t care. I’m happy to be a poet that people read during my lifetime and after that, I won’t have any idea what’s going on. (Laughs) I’ve never understood the bid for immortality. You’re not going to be around to care.

It was actually my mentor and friend Oren Izenberg’s idea to write a poem about the video for November Rain. He was going to write something about it and I just ran with the idea because I loved it. Slash is upset and the helicopter is swirling around and he’s just got to play a solo in the desert. There’s no chord connecting his guitar to an amp, but he doesn’t care. It’s an important image. It’s like the moon landing for my generation. (Laughs)