The day I left San Francisco to Israel I hadn't slept. It's not for lack of trying - just that if I was going to have to wake up early to catch a flight then it would be easier to not sleep and have my devilish grin up and running at the word go. I ripped a bunch of tracks from Limewire, the strokes, interpol, french kicks, the walkmen, clipse - anything I could to get prepared. Be ready for a flight into obliivion. I was taking no chances, my passport was tapped to my waist - I would have sewed it to my arm if I would've had some string. I had my ID and Credit card ready to go at a moments notice. The only thing I didn't have was a working knowledge of Hebrew- or any knowledge for that matter. Was I too be condemned to the classless ranks of other dumb americans before me?
A slave of my hubris?
Yakked out I was afraid the trip I was about to take was a dream I would wake up from before I took off. Like crystal pepsi and summer time it would be gone before I could ever get the taste of it. A trip like this was unheard off, I'm the middle son of a middle class family, in the middle of a egocentric examination of all things debauchery. I didn't know what I expected to find, faith? God? Country? Fellowship? Other people who didn't eat bacon?
I caught a cab at 7 in the morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. With my bags in the trunk and charm in my smile and a full wallet I headed toward the Bart stations at Powell street and adventure.
I got off Bart at the Oakland Coliseum and caught the airBart bus to the Oakland Airport. Coming from the sunshine of San Francisco to Oakland is like traveling through Conrads Heart of Darkness. Every station a little more dangerous, more shifty people, more bad intent.
I got off at the Airport and grabbed my stuff. There were two Christian tourists on the airBart bus with me, confused by the Airport I helped them to there terminal and waited with them in the security line. They were spreading message of Christ to San Francisco - I covered my mouth with my hand and hoped none of it would get on me.
Since I decided to bring my only piece of luggage as carry on security decided to tear it up. They threw out my shampoo, my soap, my toothpaste, my deodorant and my dignity. All I had left was some wrinkled clothes, and a shocker flashlight. A shocker flashlight?
It's a tricked out flash light that gives you a jolt when you try to turn it on. They loved it at airport security. The guy who went through my gear gave it to all his cronies - they giggled like little girls at a tea party. After he gave it back to me and helped me pack it into my carry on I asked if I could have my other unopened sundries back, as I thought in my mind that I had proved I wasn't a terrorist. He gave me a shocked look and said no.
Asshole.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
My first interview with Christian Slater
____________________________
My first Interview with Christian Slater
This is my first interview with Christian Slater and I’m nervous.
I’m terrified.
Christian, he’s waiting for me in the other room, I’m here in the bathroom, my photographer hasn’t shown up yet. To be quite frank this is my first interview ever.
I hope he doesn’t realize that.
I don’t take pictures. I know this is a stupid thing to think of now, but I don’t.
Not a click. Never learned. Which is weird because my father is a picture frame maker.
Christian Slater clears his throat, like he’s impatient and I want to go. I have to go, leave get out and runaway. I am not qualified to do this. I lied on my interview.
I made it up.
I never wrote for my high school newspaper. I didn’t even like heathers.
.
He is sitting and he has dark hair that hangs around his pale face. It’s older now, the face more so then I remember from movies. He has wrinkles that line the edge of his mouth and a line of his forehead. Christian Slater stares at me, his eyes dead locked on mine.
Scratch that.
I loved heathers
Me:
Christian how have you been?
CS
Well I’m a little upset
Me
Why are you upset
CS
You’ve kept me here almost an hour
We stare at each other a moment. He reminds me of dreams, the kind where you wake up and think you’ll remember but just fall back asleep and realize in the morning you forgot something life changing. Earth shattering.
There is the smell of Downey drier sheets, Aqua-Velva aftershave. He is summer and that glorious time in the mall with my friends when we all tried to pretend we were so cool and not just dumb teenagers.
He crosses his legs and re-crosses them. I realize as we sit here in this dead air silence sort of thing he must be getting the feeling that I ask deep profound questions.
I realize this is true as well.
Me
Tell me about where you believe the future in Mexican textiles is heading and how that reflects on both Nafta and our current administration as a whole.
CS
Well,
Wait…what?
Me
Chris, may I call you Chris? I feel that your work has had a considerable role in changing people’s lives for the better in very pivotal but at the same kind subconscious ways.
Your opinion?
CS
Well, first I guess I’d like to start out by saying that-
Me
Did you know my ex-girlfriend used to fantasize about you when she was a teenager?
CS
No, I didn’t know that
Me
Yeah, she had a picture of you in a box, and would think about you by herself in the woods
CS
Uh well
Me
What do you say about that
CS
About what
Me
About underage teen age girls manipulating their genitalia in response to your image, in the woods?
CS
Well, I’d say that-
Me
Ha! So you admit it.
CS
Admit what?
Me
Do you have plans to sleep with my ex-girlfriend?
CS
No
Me
Liar!
CS
I don’t even know you-
There is a vibe here, a nervous energy much akin to that awkward pre-teen dating. Of my own sweaty and inexperienced first time in the woods.
Playing dirty truth or dare.
Nervous smiles, clammy hands and under inflated breasts - soft curly pubic hair.
I don’t remember the sounds. I remember the smell. It’s the humid warmth of a Jersey summer, and humidity and perspiration on the tip of the lip, looking at smuggled porn all day psyching ourselves out to do it.
I realize as I relive this Christian Slater is starring at me, looking at me.
Why is he here?
Did he follow me?
Is this my place?
Is he stalking me?
Or am I stalking him?
Me
Switching subjects tell me about your work with Patricia Arquette
CS
Huh?
I realize as we converse that he is obviously on drugs. The stark raving iris of a mad man gives it away. I must stare him down. I can’t let his gaze dominate mine.
I will beat him.
CS
Why are you staring?
Me
I’m casting my eyes deep into the heart of teen cool
CS
Well, when you put it like that
Me
A soul so immaculate, so pure and praiseworthy I must draw you.
CS
What?
Me
Here, You saw titanic.
I sense distrust. Fear. This is the first interview I’ve ever done with Christian Slater and he seems to be nervous around me. Like a lion I must not break his gaze. To retreat now would be sheer madness, suicide. But, if it’s a fight he wants – I will bring it to him.
CS
What magazine do you write for again?
Me
They have a Spanish word for you, it means both beast and crazy –
Pollo Loco
Christian mouths the words and they roll of his tongue in a linguistic waterfall.
CS
What does this mean, this Pollo Loco?
Me
I’m a journalist, not a translator. Keep it together man.
I offer him a cigarette and in the style of all famous authors and journalists we make love.
Afterwards, when we are finished, I hand him a towel and he wipes himself up.
CS
There was this time once; I was on set for this thing with Jack Nicholson and Mimi Van Doren.We had just finished filming a three-some, which for whatever reason didn’t air. Mimi retreats back to her trailer, tired likes, and Jackie and I are just hanging out reverberating in the afterglow. Happy likes, you know?
Chan, that’s our casting director walks in with two bags of thai opium and three teenage prostitues. Now at first I was a little skeeved out, and arguable so, they if anything, were only 14.
And, ugly…
We each dig in, start on the opium and pretty soon were burning through it like freedom fliers on red square. Well, pretty soon were knee deep in Thai hooker and I look over at Jacko and I say, Hey yours got a penis!
They are in some weird reverse lotus position and I can see both faces. The Thai kid, he is young and wild eyed – Jacko of course is puffing his hash and laughing manically.
He replies back to me behind loud guffaws – yours does to.
To my astonishment he did.
This is it, I realize…my moment to strike. His defenses are down. He does not expect me to attack him now. Look at him, calm, relaxed. He has no idea of the danger that awaits the trap that is about to spring.
I smile.
CS
Yeah, you could say they were good times.
Funny follow up.
Jacko gets the clap from this kid and later I find that Chan, got aids that same time around.
Now I’ve never gotten tested, but I figure when I give blood that they would let me know if something was up.
Well, with his culture being different and all he ended up being crucified on the Great wall, head removed and sent to the museum down in Shanghai.
Strange thing, cultures.
That reminds me, once in Jakarta we were taken to a bath house. It was after an all nighter ripped to shreds on triple latte’s, speedballs and a copious amount of amphetamines. Now, I’m not one for drugs. Never have been, never will. But, it was that bastard Chan again. Gets my weakness every time, domino affect and piles them one after another with the music, drinks, sex and then ultimately drugs. The odd thing was after we would screw he would always get that energy, casting fever he would call it and find out something more for us to do.
Something that would push us to some new extreme.
Something that we hadn’t tried yet, or wouldn’t live to try through.
It was a kind of suicide those days – a living with death in it’s freakish occurrences daily type thing. My publicist obviously hated Chan; hated him with a passion. She realized, and correctly so, that if I died in some kinky way that her career was over.
Kaput!
Who wants to manage the guy that had sex with the girl in Hanson?
Come to think about it, she’s the one who probably told the embassy about Chan and his T Cell count.
I strike suddenly, my hand flat out and straight into his throat.
My fingers make contact with the soft throaty flesh and I hear a crack.
He falls back gurgling up spit, kicks his feet for a few moments and lies still.
I stand over him, put my pants back on and straighten my shirt.
We are through here.
I walk over his body and out the door.
This is my first interview with Christian Slater.
I think it went well.
०२ फेब ०६
Emperor Norton I
I went home again.
The city. The bay. The people. This is home and I don't want to change it. I dream more there, I think more there - I might even dance better there. Then again, maybe not.
I'm getting old or else I'm just getting bored. Either way life always ends up like a david bowie song - pretty but with no real meaning. I've been trying to write a lot more lately but yet I find I've got nothing to write about.
I mean, technically I should be able to write volumes. Shit, we could start with Eric. Did you know he has a black pair of short shorts that he wears to the gym that have the words "Man Eater" written along the ass in hot pink? Seriously, I should be able to do something with that - but...what's the bother.
San Francisco though...what do you hold in store for me? My wallet gets a workout and my legs get tired and yet I'm smitten by you. If you could only cheat on me once or twice you'd remind me of an ex-girlfriend. Ooh....that was cheap.
Top 5 breakups of all time ( courtesy of Hi Fidelity)
1. Gould.
I don't really want to get into this story, lets just say it's hard to know that some times I was the bad guy, it's even harder to know that and keep it up. Thats how I roll, I keeps it gangsta.
2. Alena Palivoda
She was my first kiss. Polish and little mosquito bite boobies. This is in third grade and she always wanted to see my p-e-n-i-s. Little did I know that this would be a good indicator of things to come. For some reason my parents got it into my head that if a girl wanted to have sex with me then she definatley had to have AIDs.Therefore she became the first person I ever knew who had AIDs. In retrospect its really fucked up, but also I laughed when I wrote AIDs. It makes me thing of that song from Team America: World Police. We broke up after I accidentally broke her nose while playing T-Ball. I failed to mention that she is also my first girlfriend.
3) Jerri Something
She had a tattoo that drove me wild. I was 19 and at 17 she was already way cooler then me. This also would be a good indicator of things to come. It was a weird x crush and I don't think that I'd ever experienced that before. We used to do ether because I thought Hunter S. Thompson was cool...he still is. We broke up when a friend of mine who was a stripper let me in on the fact that she was sleeping around with like 4 other dudes and a traveling circus. Nice. It wasn't the fact that she went behind my back, it was that everyone knew but no one said a thing. Also, I think she stole my neighbors cat.
4) Rachel Knudsen.
We didn't really break up as much as disovle. She was my rebound in highschool. She started off as a best friend and finished off in a moan. We went to NY together and hated every second we spent...but god we were good in bed. Went to the poconos and relived my childhood in a Salvador Dali sort of way. Transitional like a junior prom.
5) Amber Kennedy
This is the first girl I ever loved. We worked together at the New Mexican writing for the teen page. God what a body (whistling sound ensues) She used to follow me home from school without me knowing. Now that would be known as stalking - but back when I was in highschool it was still hot. Sort of is now too. She promised me the world and faked tears on the phone when she broke my heart. I was sick for three days. In a good indicator of things to come I hooked up with her best friend. I never saw her again.
Dark thoughts from distant days, like Joy Division I'm being over dramatic.
Why did the blonde go to church?
Because she heard there was a man hung like this ( stretches arms out...christlike)
Real Politik
The 1st Amendment has been on my mind a lot lately, especially after those Danish cartoons of Mohamed appeared to cause riots world wide. I was proud of the European countries who stood up with the Danes and disappointed with those who didn't. The American response confused me because I can understand the thought process of the heads of the papers but not really stomach the actions. No major paper ran the cartoons; this was done in order not to offend any Muslims and inflame the situation.
While this may seem like a good decision as it respects the value of human life - it appears to me to instead strike a major blow to the 1st Amendment and bow into the pressures of a increasingly unstable religious group.
We take our freedoms for granted, but what will the cost be to defend them?
I am not a Muslim. I am not a follower of Allah nor have I read the Koran. I do not adhere to the tenets of whabism and furthermore I never intend to.
Why then do the commandments of one religion have to adhere to me? If that applies to me then it applies to the world.
The cartoons drew heat because one of them depicted a picture of Mohamed with a bomb in his turban. According to the Muslim faith, replication of the likeness of Mohamed is strictly forbidden.
Muslims were then incensed by the stereotypical portrayal of their prophet. Then, in true stereotypical fashion - they rioted. Almost right on cue.
They burned flags, they kidnapped people, stormed embassies and basically proved every stereotype true.
So whats the problem with the cartoon? In the US and abroad editorials abounded about how insensitive those cartoons were, how offensive they were to Muslims all over the world. Yet, no one mentioned how the Danes were "offended" by the destruction of their embassies or how "insensitive" it was for rioters to destroy Danish business.
In response to this violence the editors of the major European papers that printed them were fired, including the editors of the paper in Denmark. In fact, two Saudi newspaper editors who ran the cartoons were jailed and given death sentences by their government.
So then, this raises the question - what next?
Will our women have to wear veils in public?
This isn't a far fetched question. If we can fail so miserably on this first international battle of principles then what follows can only be bigger and more incredulous.
What happens next?
---------------The Cartoons In Question--------------
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/Loganbrouse/Mohammed-drawings-newspaper1.jpg
02 May 2006
I am a man, dammit.
I like boobies and I like vodka.
I swear and I like to shoot guns.
I leave the toilet seat up.
I never fold my gym clothes.
That doesn't mean I don't have a sensitive side.
Take the lyrics of Don't Stop Believing by super group Journey. What does it mean?
At first we are introduced to the seemingly mundane life of a small town girl - she's livin' in a lonely world.
What does this mean to us. Steve Perry (P.B.U.H.) lays it out for us, not with words but with rock! She's taking a midnight train - and baby, it's goin' anywhere. This is where we are introduced to the genius of Journey. You see, he's a city boy but Journey sets us right with the knowledge that his life...its just as bad. He's taking that train too.
Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere
This next verse is a personal favorite because we see how the cynical realities of the world they inhabit struggle to destroy the souls of the youth that exist within. The smokey room is merely a metaphor for the coquettish arrogance of youth and Journey is trying to tell us that like Romeo and Juliet these kids, with their youth and their spirit - they can beat it. They're not jaded by the cruel hypocrisies and banalities of this travesty called life. No - they believe in love, they want to give it a shot and for a smile they can share the night. This verse ends with hope - it gives a message of faith and ultimately...redemption. Only if it would go on and on and on and on...
A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on
The following part of the song is indicative to the story of Job. What the people lament is what makes the people who they are. Journey is telling you to take your star bucks liberalism and your harry potter ideals of justice and shove them far up your ass. These strangers that they speak of, these shadows searching in the night, well they are just as real as you and me. Its like Journey challenged us to look deep in to the abyss of our souls, to try and shine a spotlight into the truth of what makes us who we are - and then played four minutes and nine seconds of rock over the muffled cries of our inner child. Fuck Yeah!
Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night
This last part of the song I usually skip because I'm still too busy rocking to the first parts. For the sake of argument - I will say that its really a reflection of who we are as a people and the merits of the choices that we make. I feel that Steve Perry (P.B.U.H.) really lays out our options and tells us that the choices we have to make aren't always the choicest of choices. What Journey means by this is that sometimes, our options are always the best option to option. We're all payin anything to roll the dice, just one more time. Sing that without crying.
I dare you.
Working hard to get my fill,
everybody wants a thrill
Payin' anything to roll the dice,
just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Of course the chorus is a mere repetition of the basic themes of the song - one of youth and young manhood. One of beauty and loss, of the duality of man. Of the burdens of duty and desire. This is the music that the heart beats to, it what gets you up in the morning and puts a smile on your face when you sleep. This is the stuff that makes you straighten your posture and become a better man. It's like Chuck Norris sang falsetto then learned how to play a synthesizer and formed a super group with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mr. T.
It is a homage to all things awesome and a sacrificial offering to Elvis at the temple of Rock!
(chorus)
Don't stop believin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Streetlight people
08 Jun 2006
If only the stems work...
Playing trivial pursuit drinking tequila listening to the kinks and this sideways seventies smile comes out of me. The beer must be flat but it's summer time, and I've still got my youth....
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