Director Politics: Hard To Peg

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Where the left gets to claim support from Oprah Winfrey, Ben Stiller, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt—basically anyone spoofed in Team America: World Police as a liberal member of the “Film Actors Guild”—the right has to make do with straight-to-streaming stars like Kevin Sorbo and Antonio Sabato Jr., past-their-prime conservative converts like James Woods and Jon Voight, and off-their-meds outliers like Roseanne and Kanye West.

Directors, however, especially the ones who’ve been navigating the Hollywood system for decades, often have a funny way of defying easy categorization. All kinds of big-time filmmakers who have probably never voted for a GOP candidate in their life have — sometimes accidentally — made movies with messages that Republicans adore. (Ron Howard, for instance, may be a self-proclaimed Democrat, but he’s also the guy who adapted not one but three Dan Brown novels for the big screen.)

Here are four other prime examples of directors who have managed to straddle both sides of the culture wars.

Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, Steven Spielbergn

CLINT EASTWOOD

Eastwood is undeniably one of the right’s biggest pop-culture icons. “Go ahead…make my day”—a garbled version of a line Eastwood spoke in 1983’s Sudden Impact—has been adopted by supporters of “stand your ground” statutes, and even President Reagan quoted it as a way of underlining his plans to veto any and all Congressional attempts to increase taxes. The 88-year-old director denounced Barack Obama from the stage at the 2012 Republic National Convention and favored John McCain during his 2008 presidential bid.

But Eastwood’s on-screen politics are harder to pin down. Critic Pauline Kael famously denounced the Dirty Harry series as fascist. On the other hand, his biographer Richard Schickel claims the film Eastwood felt the greatest personal attachment to was his 1980 flop Bronco Billy, in which he plays the manager of a traveling circus troupe that serves as a shelter for ex-convicts, hippies, army deserters, and other conservative undesirables. He’s made movies that prop up the myth of the Old West gunslinger (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), but many others, like Unforgiven, ruthlessly tear that myth down.

He’ll make Flags of Our Fathers, which honors the patriotic men of the U.S. Marine Corps, then just three months later, he’ll turn around and release Letters From Iwo Jima, which compassionately presents the perspective of the Japanese enemy on the same events.

It’s not surprising that one of the best critical takes on Eastwood’s work is titled Persistence of Double Vision.

STEVEN SPIELBERG

Spielberg is one of Hollywood’s most high-powered Democrat fund-raisers and has taken on a long string of film projects that promote solid liberal values. Few fiction films portray the horrors of fascism and anti-Semitism more vividly than Schindler’s List, while Amistad and Lincoln document two of the nation’s most significant early civil-rights battles and The Post celebrates the press’s role in helping expose the lies of the Nixon administration. Even the less overtly political Minority Report smuggles in a warning about the dangers of government surveillance run amok.

At the same time, it’s no accident that Spielberg enjoyed his greatest commercial success during the 1980s. Between the childlike affection he shows for middle-class suburbia (E.T.) and his politically uncomplicated nostalgia for the 1940s (Raiders of the Lost Ark)—not to mention his immense commercial success—he was the perfect Reagan-era filmmaker. Saving Private Ryan did more to cement the notion of “the greatest generation” than any other work of art. When Trump promises to “make America great again,” this is the image he’s evoking.

OLIVER STONE

Part East Coast preppie, part Purple Heart-awarded Vietnam vet, and part drugged-up 1970s dropout freak, Oliver Stone assembled one of the more singular filmographies of the eighties and nineties, churning out bold and ambitious “epic visions of America” at an insane clip of more than a film per year. He was here to tell moviegoers, often at lengths of three-plus hours, that the Vietnam war was a tragedy (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July), that the government is lying to you (JFK, Nixon), that corporate greed is undermining the nation (Wall Street), and that, yes, Jim Morrison is one of the great poets of the twentieth century (The Doors).

Lately, though, Stone’s stances on world events have softened. People expecting World Trade Center to be another stew of conspiracy theories and hallucinatory imagery instead got a surprisingly low-key tribute to the bravery of the 9/11 first responders. People hoping W. would give George W. Bush one last kick in the pants before he left office instead got a sympathetic take on a simple man bullied around by a stern father and a heartless vice president. Nowadays, Stone seems content jetting around the world conducting equally credulous interviews with Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin.

BRAD BIRD

Was Walt Disney a Nazi? Maybe not technically, although he certainly seemed to harbor plenty of Nazi sympathies. Similarly, Pixar auteur Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) might not technically be an Objectivist, but he does have an odd way of using colorful stories about superhero families and talking rats to express ideas straight out of the Ayn Rand playbook.

In Bird’s world, society consists of people with extraordinary talent, and people who need to get out of those people’s way (or assist them, even if that means putting up with your city being regularly reduced to rubble or allowing a rat to live under your chef’s hat and control you like a marionette). His live-action 2015 film Tomorrowland, in which the world’s most imaginative scientists and dreamers secretly attempt to build an ideal society in an alternate dimension, is a whimsical riff on Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. That said, if we absolutely have to place our trust in some superhuman entity, Bird has created candidates even a liberal could warm to, from the giant robot in The Iron Giant to Tom Cruise’s even more indestructible government superagent in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

Hot List: The New Puritans of America

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Since Donald Trump floated down his golden escalator screaming about Mexican rapists, the left and right have prioritized a public pillaging of people’s histories and reputations, often with scant concern for little things like evidence, due process, truth, and reality. The left and right may not agree on any given policy, but they both have concluded that public shaming is the way to get things done.

The phrase “New Puritans” has made a few select appearances in the past 40-plus years, with its meaning and application varying. Texas senator Barbara Jordan used it while keynoting the 1976 Democratic National Convention. British trends forecaster Jim Murphy used it a decade ago to describe a shift in British young people away from hyper-consumerism and indulgence. Over at the right-wing conspiracy site Infowars, the phrase has been used to tar progressives as free-speech-hating, censorious inquisitors. Continue reading “Hot List: The New Puritans of America”

Mike Cernovich

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Right-wing internet celebrity Mike Cernovich was soaking in the hot tub at his Orange County, California, home. One of his hired hands—Cernovich calls them “weaponized autistics”—had dug up director James Gunn’s racist tweets. In a few months, Cernovich was planning to premiere the documentary Hoaxed, his cinematic debut, which predictably covers “fake news,” and he worried mainstream reporters would comb through his own old tweets.

To combat potential attacks, Cernovich says he had put out a $10,000 bounty targeting tweets more offensive than his, written by someone more famous than him. He had already bushwhacked several high-profile men—among them, MSNBC pundit Sam Seder, fired then rehired after Cernovich misrepresented Seder’s old tweets about pedophilia, and longtime Michigan congressman John Conyers, who resigned in November 2017 after Cernovich fed BuzzFeed documents alleging Conyers sexually harassed his employees—but Cernovich needed someone huge. Gunn could fit the bill.

But the racial stuff won’t go anywhere, Cernovich recalls thinking. In his hot tub, he ran Twitter searches for “James Gunn” alongside words like “pedo,” “pedophile,” and “baby.” Bingo. Among a bunch of old, politically incorrect tweets, Gunn had tweeted, “For the record I’m against rape and baby eating in real life (unless you’re really, really hungry).” Gunn had also tweeted, “I’m doing a big Hollywood adaptation of The Giving Tree with a happy ending—the tree grows back and gives the kid a blowjob.” And there was this, too: “Three men and a baby they have sex with.” Gunn had typed the tweets when he worked for the edgy media company Troma Entertainment, but if Cernovich took them out of context, these tweets would sound worse than Cernovich’s old tweets denying the existence of date rape. He’d found his winning strategy.

Later that evening, Cernovich shared his plan with his wife Shauna.

“But this guy is a big deal,” Shauna replied, according to the couple’s recollections. “Please lay the fuck off. This is a high-target scalp. I don’t want to deal with this guy!”

“He’s just a blue checkmark,” Cernovich countered.

“Marvel fans are insane!”

Shauna pointed out that Gunn had spearheaded the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, which had grossed over $1.5 billion—news to Cernovich. He deliberated, then smirked.

“Nope,” Cernovich said. “I’m all-in.”

Disney owned Marvel, and in May the company’s television network, ABC, had fired conservative comedian Roseanne Barr from her eponymous sitcom for tweeting, “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes has a baby=VJ.” Barr was referencing former president Obama’s African-American advisor Valerie Jarrett. Cernovich reasoned the company would can Gunn, or else face boycotts from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh—serious repercussions for a corporation with a family-friendly brand, and whose theme parks partially rely on Midwestern tourists. On July 19, Cernovich circulated Gunn’s old tweets. The next day, Disney fired the director. A $152 billion company had caved to a right-wing, vest-wearing Orange County dad who built his celebrity, such as it was, via the internet.

The Gunn story was covered by everyone from the New York Times to Fox News (which, by the way, had banned Cernovich for his offensive tweets), but the scandal turned out to suck for the Cernovichs. Mike claims he was doxxed, his home address and other information revealed, by comic book nerds. When we get together at a coffee joint near their home this past Columbus Day, the couple still appears shaken.

“I’m now more sympathetic to feminists who get rape threats,” Cernovich says, balancing his one-year-old daughter on his lap. “There are crazy people on the internet, and it’s not fun when they go after you.”

As his daughter watches cartoons on an iPhone, Cernovich hops to his laptop. Shauna, several months pregnant, dressed in a maternity onesie, sits across from them, eating an egg croissant sandwich.

“My daughter’s a daddy’s girl,” Shauna remarks.

Cernovich gestures at his child, then says, “I don’t bully people on the internet anymore!”

That would depend on your definition of bullying. Although he once tweeted statements like, “I went from libertarian to alt-right after realizing tolerance only went one way and diversity is code for genocide,” Cernovich asserts he has avoided getting banned from Twitter, unlike Alex Jones, because he recently has refrained from targeting women or people of color. He says he made an exception for MSNBC anchor Joy Reid because, years ago, she had written homophobic blog posts. (Reid denied writing the articles, at one point suggesting time-travelers had hacked her website.) For Shauna’s part, out of concern for her family and life with Cernovich, she prays her husband will one day fuck up online.

“I hope Mike gets banned from every social media platform,” Shauna says.

“[In action movies] the hitman is retiring,” Cernovich replies, “and then he’s given one more mission, and he’s sucked in. That’s where I am.”

Mike Cernovich Political Activist

After he releases Hoaxed, Cernovich promises to quit. This documentary, between its rapid editing and dramatic music, resembles predictable right-wing fare, like Dinesh D’Souza’s cinematic propaganda and the flop Democrats by African-American Trump supporters Diamond and Silk. While Hoaxed features appearances from conservative media regulars, like “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, it also includes feminists. Toward the end of the film, Cernovich hints that he himself has propagated fake news, before pivoting away from a full-blown confession. It’s his swan song to internet fame. Or maybe, Cernovich says, he may produce one more movie. “My job is to help people,” he adds.

It’s impossible to trust anything Cernovich says. In the age of Trump, he has epitomized the concept of “bad faith actors”—media personalities who sully others’ reputations while expressing false outrage. During our conversation, Cernovich admits he has lied to reporters about receiving $50,000 a month in alimony from his ex-wife. Then he tells me he received $1.5 million in a divorce settlement. The only thing he stays consistent about is the source of his methods—a fact that he likely promotes to aggravate his opponents.

“[Reporters ask], ‘Dude, what’s your trick?’” Cernovich says. “I learned it from reporters. I learned it from them!” He points to the liberal nonprofit Media Matters, which exists to find dirt on conservative media organizations, and Andrew Kaczynski, aka “KFile,” formerly of BuzzFeed and now with CNN. Kaczynski helped  build his career doxxing Democrat Anthony Weiner’s sexting partner, Sydney Leathers, and recirculating controversial statements made by Rand Paul and Mitt Romney.

Since Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the online liberal activism group Sleeping Giants has taken this to the next level, successfully targeting companies that have paid to advertise on conservative media outlets.

“The left wrote the rules,” Cernovich says. “I’m just holding them to their own rules. I would be happy to call a truce, but they never would.” Cernovich points to liberals who still have jobs after scandals, like MSNBC’s Reid, NBC’s Brian Williams, who lied about events he saw as a war reporter, and ESPN’s perennial naughty tweeter Keith Olbermann.

“Mike Cernovich’s greatest accomplishment is that he’s turned everyone on Twitter into Mike Cernovich,” says Jon Levine, media critic for The Wrap. “Everything is weaponized, context is dead, apologies are not taken at face value but used as a scalp to encourage more trolling. This behavior is prevalent on all corners of English-language Twitter. Those who rightly criticize his bad faith are often guilty of the same behavior.”

Cernovich didn’t always care about politics. After attending Pepperdine law school, the 40-year-old Kewanee, Illinois, native wrote a legal blog in the mid-2000s. He wanted to earn a living as a writer, but who reads legal blogs? He rebranded himself as a pickup-artist guru after his 2011 divorce, dispensing advice on a website called Danger and Play. It spawned a self-published book and meetups with fans, where Cernovich taught men dating techniques. During 2015’s lead-up to the presidential election, Cernovich pivoted to Trumpism because he thought, The guy’s gonna win.

“Then people started arguing with me,” Cernovich says. “I got sucked into it and here I am.”

“Do you regret it?” I ask.

“Absolutely. My life was great. If I could go back to a blog that 30,000 people read, I would go back to it. It was a great life. [What’s happened since] has raised my profile, but not in a way that’s fun for me.”

As we speak, Cernovich is tweeting about how Christopher Columbus was a “Stalin-like murderer.” Shauna, of Persian descent, says her husband wanted to alienate the racists who had gravitated toward him. Cernovich may just be manipulating the media and segments of the public again to reposition himself. The right-wing online ecosystem where Cernovich blossomed has shifted since Trump took office. Alex Jones has been booted from all social media platforms. Breitbart’s traffic has cratered. And although her previous stunts went viral, Laura Loomer, after melting down during Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s September 2018 appearance before a Congressional committee, failed to break through the Trump-dominated news cycle.

Cernovich’s enterprise nearly collapsed in the wake of “Pizzagate.” Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, he helped promote a wild conspiracy theory alleging that Hillary Clinton and other liberals operated a child-sex ring beneath Washington, D.C.’s Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. After a random Pizzagate believer drove to the nation’s capital from North Carolina and shot up the restaurant with an assault rifle in December 2016, Cernovich claimed his boosting of the nutty conspiracy was just “hashtag surfing”—tweeting with the Pizzagate hashtag to promote himself.

Nobody believed this. The machine he’d built was foundering. And then Cernovich changed the narrative surrounding himself in November 2017 by leaking to BuzzFeed documents alleging Conyers had sexually harassed employees. After verifying the information, BuzzFeed published an explosive, widely circulated story. John Conyers resigned. The media went into a tizzy, wondering how the Pizzagate conspiracy blogger had received information so powerful it helped end the 52-year career of a Democratic congressional lion.

“That’s story arc!” Cernovich says. “It became a different storyline—‘Oh shit people talk to him.’ Everyone’s in a movie of their own creation. You have to be in the mindset of, ‘What’s my storyline?’ You’re a character in a Tom Wolfe novel. What would this character in a Tom Wolfe novel do? He’d be a journalist.”

Referencing a 2017 book on the Trump-Steve Bannon partnership, Cernovich continues, “The reason I leaked it to BuzzFeed was because I read Devil’s Bargain, and Bannon said he would leak to the New York Times. I think [BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief] Ben Smith is the only person in media I respect. He understands media—or new media anyway.”

Says The Wrap’s Jon Levine, “Things like James Gunn or [Cernovich’s] involvement with the John Conyers story showed that he could still move the needle on national news in ways most of the others around him can’t.”

Mike Cernovich Head Shot

After my breakfast with the Cernovich family, we drive to Disneyland for a visual reminder of the scale pertaining to one of his top takedowns. Shauna, who holds a Disneyland annual pass, jokes, “I’m Orange County, ride or die!” Around 6 P.M., her husband stops outside California Adventure and gazes at the hulking orange and silver tower housing the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.

“Crazy that a dad from Orange County took down a franchise that big,” I say.

“It looks like a cool ride!”

Earlier, waiting in line outside the park, Cernovich revealed he had experienced a revelation. To promote Hoaxed, he planned to apologize for Pizzagate. He’s thinking of saying something like, “I never really thought it through.” He would issue the apology around the time of the film’s release.

“Is that a genuine apology?” I ask.

“Nothing is genuine in this world.”

Mike Cernovich with More Fire

Mike Cernovich’s Most Notorious Hoaxes

Like a cheesy pop star, Mike Cernovich has reinvented his media persona multiple times. Whenever the role has grown too controversial, he has distanced himself, hoaxing his audience into believing he was never involved in his previous hoax. Here’s a timeline of his most notorious roles and disavowals.

Pickup Artist or Men’s Rights Activist?

Cernovich first came to prominence teaching dweebs how to get laid on a blog called Danger and Play. Whereas books like The Game and other pickup-artist guides recommended negging, Cernovich posted advice that read like Men’s Rights activist Reddit threads. “Choking works because it’s a show of dominance,” he wrote. “Women only want to have consensual sex with men they know could rape them.” His current stance? He was writing a satiric Fifty Shades of Grey for straight men and only deleted his blog because he knew liberals would take his words out of context.

 Proud Boy or Fellow Traveler?

Cernovich told me associating with white nationalists is “really retarded,” but at his Night for Freedom Party (aka “Mike Cernovich’s Deploraball”) in January 2017, Proud Boys and Vice Media founder Gavin McInnes gave a speech, saying, “If going outside tonight and beating the shit out of radicals means I’m a radical, then I’m a revolutionary.”

Pizzagate Conspiracist or “Hashtag Surfer”?

Near the end of the 2016 election, right-wing Twitter celebrities began promoting a theory that Hillary Clinton operated a child-sex ring beneath Washington, D.C.’s Comet Ping Pong pizza joint. “Pizzagate is not going away, this story will be huge!” Cernovich tweeted. A few months later, a conspiracy believer shot up the restaurant. At which point, Cernovich denied ever promoting the theory, claiming he was just hashtag surfing. “Hashtag surfing,” he explains, “is where if there’s a big trending hashtag, you just post what you want. Just like when it’s International Men’s Day, and women tweet with the hashtag, they’re not supporting International Men’s Day—they’re promoting their message.”

BuzzFeed Source or Media Hoaxer?

After the Comet Ping Pong shooting, Pizzagate conspiracy theorists were forced underground. But in November 2017, Cernovich fed BuzzFeed legitimate documents alleging longtime Democratic congressman John Conyers had sexually harassed female employees. By providing legit material to a news outlet, Cernovich says he was hoping to manipulate journalists into thinking, “Oh shit, what happens if the Pizzagate guy has actual stories?” Cernovich was right that BuzzFeed couldn’t resist the bait, and he’s flourished ever since.

Moral Crusader or Opportunist?

Cernovich sees pedophiles everywhere. After his BuzzFeed rebound, Cernovich published Disney director James Gunn’s old jokes about pedophilia. A few months earlier, Disney had canned conservative comedian Roseanne Barr for an offensive tweet. The corporation caved after Cernovich’s maneuver, firing Gunn from the third segment of the billion-dollar Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. “I was bringing awareness to the international pedophile crisis,” says the man who once gave tips on choking women. Or, as he later says, he was just holding the left to their rules. If the left would stop dragging up conservatives’ past, Cernovich claims he would call a truce. Who knows if that’s true?

Penthouse Travel Tips: Up and Away

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Instead of taking the obvious vacation to Florida or Hawaii this year, how about traveling to the land of Picasso and Penélope Cruz? Spain has more to offer than most places you could visit, and whether you’re after somewhere to park your ass with a stack of books or see a place in its entirety from behind the wheel of a rental car, here are some of the finest hotels you can stay if you’re heading anywhere between Gijón and Gibraltar.

El Palauet, Barcelona

The Catalonian capital is one of the most famous cities in the world, and prompts eye-rolling in just about anyone with a friend who visits when they return home claiming their new favorite city is “Bah-theh-low-nah.” But just ignore this and treat yourself to a few days of R&R at El Palauet.

Housed within an art nouveau building constructed in 1906, El Palauet features a rooftop spa that overlooks the vast city, and each suite is assigned its own personal assistant, so that you can take the brainwork out of your trip and hand the reins over to a local who knows the mean streets and can happily set you on your way, no matter what you’re after.

Rooms start at around $600 per night. elpaulet.com

Belmond La Residencia, Mallorca

For the ultimate middle finger to the outside world, turn your cell phone off and travel to an island. There are several to choose from, but Mallorca is undisputedly one of the lushest spots to let your winter woes melt away.

It’s reported that the nightstands at Belmond La Residencia don’t have adjacent power outlets, so you can’t charge your phone next to your bed (in other words, let the damn thing go dead and get some sleep). If this is the kind of vibe you’re seeking, then look no further. This place is more like a small village than a hotel, with just about every amenity you can imagine (including daily treats delivered to your room, which you may not be inclined to leave). Get one of the staff to give you a tour when you arrive, because it’s that kind of place.

Rooms start at around $500 per night. belmond.com

Hotel Londres Y De Inglaterra, San Sebastian

A visit to Basque Country will blow you away with its beauty any time of the year. While the weather can be temperamental, one look at the spectacular coastline backed by mountains and it’s easy to forgive an afternoon shower. Plus, you can always hit a café and drink large amounts of wine like Jake in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

Hotel Londres puts its best foot forward not trying to be anything more than old-school luxury in one of the most stunning settings imaginable, smack-dab on San Sebastian beach, where Europeans go to escape the more popular vacation destinations. Eschew fancy spa treatments, kick off your shoes, and enjoy the laid-back atmosphere, matched only by the unparalleled service.

Rooms start at around $160 per night. hlondres.com

Burt Reynolds

Posted on by Team Penthouse

The death of Burt Reynolds on September 6 marked the end of an era, not only in American film but American masculinity. Since then, countless tributes have commemorated the actor’s legacy, but we decided to go back — way back — to the interview Reynolds did for this magazine in 1972, conducted by radio personality Fred Robbins, a close friend of the actor. At the time, Reynolds was appearing in the play The Rainmaker, and Deliverance had just hit theaters (though here there’s hardly mention of the film, which became a huge hit, and is still considered one of the best action movies of all time). Reynolds had also been guest hosting The Tonight Show for Johnny Carson, and, most notably, Cosmopolitan just published the now infamous photo of the actor lying naked on a bear skin rug.

Penthouse’s nine-page exposé painted a portrait of Reynolds, then 36, that people may no longer recognize — candid, virile, and full of confidence and excitement for a career that was about to explode. Here are our favorite naughty bits.

If the enthusiasm of the audience during your current tour of The Rainmaker is anything to go by, you seem to have experienced a new surge of popularity following your nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan.

Helen Gurley Brown is certainly the best businesswoman in the world. She printed 400,000 extra copies. Hell, if she’d known what was going to happen, she’d have printed two million extra copies. The reason it sold is that women have a lot better sense of humor than men give them credit for, and they’re tired of coming home and looking at Penthouse and Playboy pictures with all that cleavage and having the husband say, “Why the hell don’t you look like that, Martha?” — after they’ve had eight babies, you know. So it was a chance to take something and stick it in the husbands’ ears. Jesus, to be a part of that was a terrific fun thing. But it could have been a disaster. I could be playing to empty theaters right now.

A lot of women were disappointed that they didn’t see the whole thing.

Yeah. I got a lot of that, too. But I judged it by the way I judge photographs of women — to me, the sexiest thing is something that leaves a little to the imagination. Plus the fact that I wanted to be funny. And I’ve never found anything funny about a man’s cock.

Were you asked in the beginning to do it completely nude?

We tried both ways. They took a million pictures, and I’m sure, right now, in the underground in New York, there’s a lot of pictures circulating of me with everything hanging out. It was a cold day. I’m sorry they got those.

One female reaction was that the picture wasn’t exciting because it’s a soft picture — no athletic motion, with muscles stretched taut.

You and I both know that what turns you on may not turn me on, etc. I’m sure that’s just as true with women.

A lot of women are turned on by fat chubby little guys. A lot of women are turned on by jocks. Very few are turned on by the Charles Atlas muscle-bound egg-shaped guy — mostly because most of them are so busy working on their bods, they never have time to work on their personalities. I think it’s sexier if it’s a face you recognize because then you fantasize all kinds of things. Open a magazine, and there’s Ursula Andress or Raquel Welch or somebody in her underwear — you think, “Gee, that’s terrific. Never saw her in her underwear before.” And then you can conjure up all kinds of things. Probably the most stimulating thing to guys is to see somebody who doesn’t do that kind of thing ordinarily, I would think. If I see Raquel, I’m really not that turned-on, but if I open up a magazine and see Carol Burnett — that would turn me on. If a woman thinks she’s sexy, she is.

Were you surprised by the wild letters you got?

I didn’t expect to get thousands… I also got thousands saying it was fun and terrific, and “I’m glad you did it and my whole family loves you, and my grandmother loves you and my husband loves you” — you know I even got one from a chick who’s on a roller derby team and has it in her locker. The freaks’ letters were what you would imagine some guy with a raincoat beating off would write to some chick — downright sex letters: “I want to fuck your brains out,” etc. Where do you go from there?… A lot of them sent Polaroids of themselves in the nude. One girl from Canada sent me pubic hair wrapped in wax paper.

Wasn’t there one who papered her wall with the centerfold?

Yeah, she called up from Chicago and asked for, I guess, 500 magazines. It ended up costing her $700. She papered her entire bedroom with them… I had a funny experience a few years ago with two girls named Franny and Zoey, still very good friends of mine, whom I ended up in the sack with after a telethon… I mentioned this sort of casually on the Tonight Show and I had a lot of letters signed “Franny and Zoey,” with photographs, too.

How many letters contained pubic hair?

Just the one. If it was ever mentioned on the air, I’m sure there’d be lots of bald broads.

You’ve been called the No. 1 sex symbol — Super Stud. Have you tried to analyze why you appeal to women?

First of all, I don’t think it’s true that I’m Super Stud. But I thank you. If I had to analyze why I think [women] are attracted to me, I would have to say it’s because most of them say to me, “I really don’t want to go to bed with that Cosmopolitan thing, I want to go to bed with you. You look sexy with your clothes on. I love your crazy personality.” I think it’s a related kind of attitude that women are attracted to.

The Playboy image of what a man should be I send up constantly. I mean, having a bunny decal on his glass says to me he ain’t gonna make out at all. If you have to go around saying “I am a stud,” then you ain’t.

I think women are attracted to a guy who doesn’t wear big belt buckles and talks with a deep voice and smoke Marlboros and say, “I’m tough.” They want a guy who is going to treat them like a lady and is going to respect them, and who likes women.

If it wasn’t you right now, which other guy would you say would fill the [sex symbol] image?

There are a lot of guys who would qualify, but who happen to be married, which makes it very difficult for them to go on a show and say the things that I say. Not that being married can stop you from being a sex symbol, because Paul Newman is married and he certainly is a sex symbol. Clint Eastwood, I think, probably could be because he has a tremendous sense of humor, as very few people know, mostly because Clint is a kind of recluse and prefers it that way. He’s a great-looking guy, a very physical guy — but he also happens to be very happily married and has just had a second baby.

Does it ever worry you that you might meet a chick who has seen the Cosmo thing and has fantasized all kinds of expectations that you’re now expected to live up to?

I’ve never worried about something like that. It’s probably one of the plusses for going out with starlets. They’re hoping for a three-star rating, so they [screw] your brains out. Knowing Hollywood, the way it is — everybody thinks everybody knows what everybody else is doing, so God knows you don’t want to be called a bad lay. If some chick had fantasized something about me, I think she would be terrific in the sack, just by the mere fact that she had fantasized about it.

How do you react toward the nudism trend in general?

I am not turned-on, quite honestly, by the nude look. To me, there is still nothing sexier than a great-looking broad in underwear. Also, I like to see a chick fully dressed but in one of those blouses where you can just see the nipples. That’s very sexy, but not if she’s got size 48s and the nipple is right around her bellybutton…

As far as society is concerned — society is going to go as far as we let it go. You can get some very nice, polite people in a room… and all of a sudden these people turn into animals. I don’t want to be involved in a situation where every night you go to somebody’s house and jump everybody’s bones. That’s not my idea of a lot of fun. I enjoy the hunt.

Are we in the U.S. catching up with other countries in permissiveness?

No, we’re not anywhere near Denmark in terms of pornography — nor Amsterdam, which is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but has a great red-light district. If we had a great red-light district in New York it would make it possible to walk down Sixth Avenue without getting tripped every other store. I think we’ve got to be able to have pornography in one specified section of town. A lot of freaks run over there and get those magazines, run home and jack off, and then they don’t attack anybody. It seems to me that that would release a little pressure.

There has been pornography around ever since I can remember — playing cards and those funny little Dick Tracy magazines. The problem is that it’s done in such bad taste. I think you can just about do anything if you do it with taste. If you walk down a street with your kid and there’s some broad holding her tits in a guy’s mouth, that’s not too cool.

Your kid’s nine years old and he says: “What is she feeding him, Daddy?” Why not have a store where it just says what it is on the outside and that’s all, and all the goods are hidden inside?

Similar to the shops in Hamburg, Germany — which are like markets, and you can go in and buy whatever you want with no sweat?

And the women don’t give you that funny look when you buy them, either. “What would you like, sir? 19-inch vibrator? Wonderful.”

What’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever done?

Probably the sexiest moment I’ve ever had was when I met a lady I’ve never seen since. I was on a ship, on a cruise, to Ensenada — and no one was paying any attention to her, probably because she had the biggest breasts I’ve ever seen in my life. They were so big that they intimidated everyone. Also, she had a belligerent attitude to everyone. She was about six feet tall — incredible-looking broad… She was reading something like Milton’s Paradise Lost, sitting on this sun deck, and I happened to look over at her, and she dropped her leg, and she had no underwear on. She was reading this very heady book but looking over the top of the book at me… So I walked over and sat down and said: “Any woman that looks like you and has a body like yours has heard every line that’s ever been said, so I’m just going to say it straight out… I want to fuck your brains out.”

She said: “What took you so long?” And she closed the book and we left and we never came out of that room for 48 hours. I never saw her again but that is one of the things in my life that I’ll remember always. She was a teacher at a college, but she wouldn’t tell me which one. In the room, she said: “Look, I don’t want to know your name. I don’t want you to know mine. This is strictly physical.” And of course, it ended up not being, because we talked about so many things, got into so many areas. I’ve often wondered if she ever sees me on television.

You’re a Penthouse subscriber, aren’t you? What do you like about it?

It’s much more honest than Playboy. It is a magazine totally devoted to studs, and it doesn’t try to be anything else. It has a fun kind of crazy, English sense of humor about it — which I think is the best sense of humor in the world. They were the first ones to have pubic hair, and it was so ridiculous not to before. I personally don’t think it’s as sexy as seeing pubic hair behind a pair of pants, but that is my own fetish. I just found the magazine to be… pardon the pun, beautifully laid out. Penthouse girls just look like they think their bodies are so beautiful… I don’t know whether the photographer happens to be a freak like me, or just happens to get the right girls, but that’s the right idea.

Needles and Trains: An Interview with Irvine Welsh

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Irvine Welsh broke through big-time with the publication of Trainspotting in 1993. The book shocked readers with its raw depiction of young, working-class Scottish friends shooting heroin and searching for kicks in an oppressive, Thatcher-era U.K. When the 1996 movie came out, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole accused it of glorifying drug use and celebrating moral depravity. Twenty-five years, 15 books, and five movie adaptions later, the Edinburgh-raised Welsh is still doing his thing. His new novel, Dead Men’s Trousers, which revisits the Trainspotting crew as middle-aged men, is as power-packed as his debut.

Penthouse talked to Welsh about his literary career, his punk bands, and his new book.

You began as a musician, right?

It wasn’t much, really. Just a lot of fucking around. With the punk scene in London, everybody wanted to be in a band. It was just kids playing instruments and writing songs and making noise. I got involved because I was interested in music, but there wasn’t a lot going on in Edinburgh. Not a lot of people interested in making music. A bunch of people who were pretty much the same as me. We were on the scene. We used to congregate around these bars. Scotland was just like any other place.

I started off playing guitar and kind of sang, but I wasn’t a good guitarist and I wasn’t a good singer. I switched to bass and I wasn’t a good bass player. If we had a good drummer, I could never keep time with him. It’s like if you play soccer. I’m the kind of guy that wants to play in the World Cup. I don’t want to play in the pub league. As a musician, I wanted to play in the Hollywood Bowl.

I came to the conclusion that if you wanted to make an impact, you have to be good at it. I always wanted to do something artistic and make that impact. The music was for pure enjoyment, but it wasn’t reaching anybody. In a way, it was just about trying to imitate the music that I liked. Eventually, I switched to writing, and here we are. The creativity was there — I was just trying to find the right vehicle for me.

What made you leave Edinburgh in 1978?

We heard about the punk scene in London and I finally went down there. Meeting people, going to gigs, doing stuff together. I was in a couple of punk bands with a couple of friends. I was always fucked up and got kicked out of a lot of bands. It was because of that that I never really played music professionally. I could never quite get it to come out how I wanted it to.

I was lucky because my auntie was down there. She doted on me. It was like a second home for me. I was spoiled in a way. It wasn’t like I was living on the mean streets of London, squatting and the like. It gave me a way to go out and get involved with the bands. It was always a collaboration, and I was always the person that people wanted to collaborate with. I had a lot of ideas. I wasn’t very capable musically, but my ideas were strong. I used to write ballads. It was stories set to music. That was how I became a writer. Writing ballads and eventually getting rid of the music.

What did music mean to you back then?

When you grow up in Scotland, it’s a very political culture. Music is such an emotional thing. It made me want to express myself. That’s why I started playing in bands in the first place and eventually started writing. Music is about beautiful songs and these amazing principles. It goes through this whole range of human emotions. It reflects on the cultural ideas and beauty of the people who are making it. That is very important, from my point of view.

It’s interesting because technology now takes away a lot of these things, and that kind of takes the barriers down. You can have concepts and ideas and make them a reality. It’s so much easier to realize your ideas and get them out there than it was back when I wanted to do it. If I was a kid now, I probably would be involved in something like that because of the technology.

Do you have a favorite artist?

David Bowie is obviously the main influence for my generation. What he did is make a road map of what’s cool. It wasn’t just entertainment and good music — he really kind of liberated us all. He got me into the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop. He got me into soul and more. He shared his enthusiasm. By sharing his life experiences in his music, he defined what my generation and culture has become. He influenced punk rock and performance rock — even Lady Gaga and Madonna and all that. He’s a huge influence on me and who I am.

Can you talk about the role of music in your books?

I try to replicate how music sounds in my writing — with the characters and how they interact with others. The characters kind of come alive through the music. I have playlists for certain characters. In my writing, I always wanted to have the impact music had on me. Particularly in the early days. The characters make all kinds of references to music in these books. I would make playlists and play these songs as I wrote, and it really helped to bring it all together.

What’s it been like to branch out into musicals and plays?

I did a musical called Blackpool with Vic Godard of the band Subway Sect, and also Creatives with [composer] Laurence Mark Wythe in Chicago. It’s just fantastic to condense the ideas that you have into a musical. Nobody can be an expert in every art, but the idea is kind of independent of form. When you realize the idea can take shape and flourish as a film, a novel, a play, or even a musical, it’s amazing. If you can find someone to collaborate with that can help you to bring that idea to life, it’s great.

The nature of your books has made you a literary rock star. Ever feel pressure to live up to the hype?

Everybody wants to get fucked up with me. They give me drugs and drinks all the time. When I go out to the clubs, everybody always wants to party with me. When I was younger it was awesome, but then I got a bit fed up with it. It’s always nice to be asked to party and the like, but sometimes you don’t feel up to it.

What are you most proud of in your career?

I think when I look back, it’s about meeting people. When you’re under a lot of pressure, you don’t always come across as good as you can. It’s very rare that I’ve acted like a total asshole. That’s the thing I’m most proud of. It’s quite easy to be standoffish or whatever, but I’ve always tried to make time for people. And in my position, it’s not always easy to do that. I didn’t always deal with that so well, but I’ve gotten a lot better. These are the things that stick with you, and these are the things that define who you are.

Any regrets in life or professionally?

Not really, no. I don’t regret the things I’ve done, but sometimes it’s the things that I haven’t done. There are places I haven’t traveled to and stuff of that nature. Certain things that I would have liked to get involved in. But other than that, I don’t really have any regrets. I’m not the kind of guy that’s big on that. You can only be the way you are. I don’t consciously try to get attention with comments and whatnot. I just fire things out, and that’s the way it comes out.

What music are you listening to today?

I started DJing again. I listen to a lot of techno and house. It’s a weird thing — most of the guys into DJing house music are older. All these old-school house parties, it’s kind of crazy. It’s nice to do that again. I’m usually one of those guys at the club listening to the music all night.

Who’s your favorite Trainspotting character?

I think maybe Spud or Tommy because they’re basically good guys. Renton is probably okay, a decent guy. Sick Boy is very self-centered, egotistical, and manipulative. Begbie in his own way is as well.

How do you keep all the story and character timelines straight with your overlapping books?

I’ve had the same editor for a long time. He knows a lot of my stuff very well and he’ll tell me, “Well, this guy actually died.” It becomes like the Marvel Universe. You see characters basically as tools to do their job. You think, Oh, I want to write this around this theme, and I’ve got my toolbox that can help me do this. Sometimes you forge new tools and then you have to bring the other ones back, but you do create a universe and you have to be aware of what’s going on in it.

As soon as I finish a book, I’ve forgotten it in a month. I’m not really thinking about anything I’ve done previously, so sometimes I may get a little memory jog: Well, this guy’s been in this book. I’ll probably go back to the book and find out what happened to him. It’s just trying to remember and trying to sort of patch up where you’ve seen this character before, who their associates are, and relying on that as well to have some knowledge of it.

How did it feel to make the Trainspotting guys middle-aged?

I think you will see these guys changed. If Trainspotting was about friendship and betrayal, then Dead Men’s Trousers is kind of a redemption thing. They’re looking back on their lives, not necessarily with regret, but looking back at the mistakes they made and trying to get some kind of resolution, some kind of redemption. They’re still very optimistic in a certain way, but it doesn’t quite work out the way they really want it to. The book has matured in a lot of ways — I’m much more mature and responsible now — but these guys aren’t quite that way. If people are mature, it gets a bit boring. They’re more persons of their own vanities and vices.

Dancing Mania Vol. 1

Posted on by Team Penthouse

The first one I remember seeing in person was the Macarena, which showed up out of nowhere and conquered my elementary-school dances swiftly and without mercy. My classmates and I were powerless against it. Even if you hated it, you had no choice but to join in. Today, things are basically the same: If you have kids, odds are one of them has done the Dab or the Floss since you started reading this.

But none of our modern moves are anything compared to the original dance mania — a literal compulsion that swept Europe, off and on, throughout the Middle Ages. For reasons nobody has ever been able to fully explain, large groups of people were suddenly taken with the desire to start dancing, and nothing could compel them to stop. People danced for so long their feet bled. Their ribs broke. Many died from their injuries. All the while screaming in pain and begging for someone, anyone, to figure out what was going on.

The earliest recorded instance of what became known as “the dancing plague” dates back to eleventh-century Germany, when a priest grew angry at a group of people partying outside his church during mass and cursed them to dance without stopping for an entire year as punishment. (They did.) A couple of centuries later, a group of some 200 revelers in the Dutch city of Maastricht started compulsively dancing across a bridge, until said bridge collapsed and drowned them all. Similar spontaneous episodes were recorded in France, Switzerland, and across the Holy Roman Empire.

The most well-known — and best-documented — case of dancing mania, however, took place in the city of Strasbourg (today part of France) in 1518. On a summer’s day, one Frau Troffea stepped out into the middle of the street and, apropos of nothing, started cutting a rug. She kept going and going like that for several days in a row, and it wasn’t long before others joined in. Within a week, there were nearly three dozen people added to the fray, and within a month, roughly 400 people were out dancing in the streets. Local authorities were understandably confused and decided that the only cure was to let the dancing work itself out naturally. They shuffled the dancers into empty guild halls and even hired bands of pipers and drummers to give the event some semblance of normalcy. It didn’t work. Over time, the dancers wore themselves out, and dozens died as a result of strokes, heart attacks, and all-around exhaustion.

It bears repeating that this isn’t an urban legend. Dancing mania has been documented by many reputable sources, and the Strasbourg epidemic, in particular, is supported by local sermons, doctors’ notes, and even contemporaneous writing from its city council. “These outbreaks,” agreed historian John Waller, “represent a real and fascinating enigma.” There were common threads, too. Nearly all of the outbreaks, for instance, took place near one of two rivers: the Rhine and the Moselle. And the dancing plague had all but disappeared by the seventeenth century. So what the hell was going on?

People danced for so long their feet bled. Their ribs broke. Many died. All the while screaming in pain and begging for someone, anyone, to figure out what was going on.

Different theories have circulated over the years. One held that the victims had eaten a particular kind of mold known to grow on rye stalks, which can induce spasms and hallucinations in whoever eats it. Another suspected that the dancers were members of a cult. Another still came out of Italy, where those afflicted were thought to have been bitten by the same species of poisonous wolf spider, causing them to dance in an effort to prevent the venom from fatally mixing with their blood.

These days, historians like Waller believe the dancing plague was actually the result of a trance state, which is known to occur in people exposed to extreme stress, as was certainly the case for the poor, starving, and chronically ill citizens of Strasbourg. At the same time, these populations believed in supernatural forces that could possess their bodies and, say, force them to dance uncontrollably. Put those two factors together and you’ve got a recipe for trouble. It wasn’t until the Reformation came along and challenged Catholicism that the dancing plague suddenly died out, “because the supernaturalist beliefs that fed it gradually disappeared.”

The Macarena doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?

Building Character

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Fallout 76 (Bethesda Softworks, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

If there’s any series that can put a silver lining on the mushroom cloud of a nuclear apocalypse, it’s the Fallout role-playing games, which mix zany anything-goes gameplay with 1950s atom-bomb hysteria in an open world crawling with mutant nightmares. This sequel is the largest and zaniest yet, offering a new option for postapocalyptic survival: multiplayer cooperative gameplay.

You are a survivor of Vault 76, a subterranean prepper community, tasked with scouring the surface realm for supplies 25 years after the mushroom clouds have cleared. Although lone-wolf types can still trek solo, you’ll find the game easier with a little help from your non-mutated friends. Squad up online with three fellow vault dwellers to undertake missions for the survival of your colony.

While previous entries let you explore irradiated versions of New England and Las Vegas, Fallout 76 unleashes players in a region that’s wild even by today’s pre-nuked standards: West Virginia. The state’s mountains, towns, and landmarks have been faithfully reproduced in post-nuked form and split into six regions. Each landscape crawls with nuclear horrors: cannibalistic humans, radioactive bears, dragon-size bats, and beasts inspired by backwoods folklore. A new combat system lets you confront foes in real-time as in a typical first-person shooter while using the tactical elements of the slower-paced past installments. In other words, you can play tactically or just shoot shit.

The game packs a broad payload of guns and ammo, from muzzle-loading pistols to flesh-broiling laser cannons. Hard-core role-playing fans can tweak hundreds of character-development perks. You’ll build a unique survivor and assemble settlements that you can manage with an iron fist. Eventually, you and your squad will find nuclear codes that unleash atomic hellfire on enemy settlements, perpetuating the cycle of mutually assured destruction and spawning more powerful mutants in the contaminated hellscape of West Virginia.

Hitman 2 (Warner Bros., PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Peer through the heightened senses of Agent 47, the genetically-bred assassin, in this sequel that accurately portrays the trials and triumphs of the world’s second-oldest profession. You’ll need to sniff out betrayals, pack the right tools, and choose the path of least resistance as you track down six high-profile targets around the world while trying to avoid early retirement yourself.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition (Warner Bros., PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Set between events depicted in those Hobbit movies and Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On,” Shadow of War gives you free rein to stymie the evil Sauron’s APB for the One Ring. Spared foes hold grudges and use your own tactics against you, so don’t be afraid to use scorched-Middle Earth tactics. This deluxe edition includes four massive expansions and a trove of bonus loot.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (Ubisoft, PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey transplants its scowling antihero from the recent past to ancient history. You’re once again tasked with taking out historical figures as efficiently as possible, except now the character-building aspects of the series are ramped up to match the Hellenistic hyperbole of Greek mythology. Forge relationships and build a myriad of abilities both real and mythical.

Underworld Ascendant (505 Games, PC)

The spiritual sequel to Ultima Underworld, one of the most celebrated role-playing games of all time, Ascendant takes the tropes of ye olde dungeon-crawling adventures and adds the play-it-your-way style of modern sandbox games. Your mission is simple: sojourn to the darkest depths of a dungeon and slay a great evil with any combination of swords, sorcery, and/or sneakiness.

The Gospel According to Social Distortion

Posted on by Team Penthouse

The first was when I heard rumors of lead singer Mike Ness sending signed photos of himself sucking his own dick to girls he’d slept with, and I, like a worshipper of a golden calf, spread those rumors farther, regardless of their validity, blinded by their garish allure.

The second time I denied Social Distortion was when I went all in on being a Murder City Devils fan, reveling in the small differences as I pretended that a tattoo of the number 13 surrounded by flames was less corny than flaming dice, and that pomade as a tool for dishevelment was superior to using God’s cream to shape a beautiful pompadour — as though chaos was somehow better than carpentry. Looking back, I hate myself.

The third denial was, on the surface, the most benign. But if we subscribe to the ecclesiastical notion that indifference to God, not rebellion, is the worst sin, denial No. 3 was arguably the most insidious: I simply forgot about Social Distortion. Life got in the way, and I actually went a stretch without once thinking about America’s premier purveyors of hard-luck hairdo rock. For that, like Peter upon hearing the rooster crow after the Last Supper, I repent like a motherfucker.

Social Distortion — formed in 1978 in Orange County as a better-than-average punk band made distinctive by Ness’s strung-out, bummed-out vocal fry — is an easy band to hate and love in equal measure. An earnest cliché factory that made a personality out of cigarettes, without ever getting that sweet Tom Waits cachet, Social D makes tough-guy music for car nerds (except actual tough guys tend to prefer hardcore or, like, freestyle).

The band mainly appealed to the sort of guys who wanted to date girls who looked like Bettie Page but settled for girls with Bettie Page tattoos, and girls who wanted to date Ness but would leave with the drummer, any drummer. Most of the Social Distortion fans I grew up with just settled on racism and, eventually, death. I’m not better than any of these people; Social Distortion just made me want to be a badass, and I’m lucky enough to have moved to a town that rewarded posers.

Besides writing songs as catchy as anything by the Ramones, Social Distortion’s glory lies in the way it exists entirely outside of time. With their deep attachment to a historical period that never existed, they can’t help but be an eternal anachronism. Despite all the gestures to James Dean and Sun Studios, no prior band ever sounded like Social Distortion. They’re like time-traveling aliens trying to blend into 1950s society, but in 1994. Their closest counterpart in this devotion to an America that never was is Lana Del Rey. Or the Republican party.

Like the face of God and grilled cheese, Social Distortion never changed once they found their true voice on Prison Bound, a 1988 album of sexy junkie regret. If there was any evolution, it was just to become a more perfect, truer, and streamlined version of what they were before. They wear cowboy shirts over wifebeaters and play three-chord blues and countrified punk rock. That’s all they do, and if EDM or rap ever happened, they certainly weren’t made aware.

It’s a purity of vision that might lead some people, including some of their fans, to believe that Social Distortion is conservative. They are not. While their choice of Rolling Stones covers (“Back Street Girl,” “Under My Thumb”) probably won’t get Ness invited to any campus women’s studies groups, the man does love to punch Nazis.

When Ness was recently in the news for roughing up a MAGA-type show attendee (not necessarily a proponent of National Socialism but, for the purposes of this discussion, close enough) who took issue with the insufficiently racist stage patter, I was delighted. But those whose love of Social Distortion has never wavered poo-pooed the whole kerfuffle by saying, “Mike Ness has always punched Nazis.”

When your fans can be blasé about your penchant for knocking out cretins, you’re doing something right.

Not one to ignore portents, especially when delivered by rockabilly cherubs, I have turned my heart back unto the light of Social Distortion. I started talking about them to my friends (Mike Berdan from pig-fuck noise-rockers Uniform is a longtime fan, which… surprised me). I played all seven of their albums, in chronological order, in the bar I work at. The place filled up nicely for a Sunday night and even the Europeans tipped, a rare miracle I lay directly at the feet of our grease-stained troubadours. I even played Ness’s solo albums, which should suck, but instead rule.

I felt wild and free, a bad enough man with a heart of gold, whose hair was slicked if not growing back. I didn’t feel like I did the first time I heard Social Distortion — thank God — as I now know what I didn’t then: that I will, eventually, have sex. But there was a shadow of that electricity of desire and possibility just offscreen, like I was some sort of hero in some sort of movie while that music was playing.

And if the truth is that, like Saint Peter, I’m more a character actor in someone else’s noir, well, shit, at least some bad trouble and hard loving was going down for someone’s rockin’ daddy. I don’t know if the cock crowing three times at the end of JC’s final rave-up is analogous to last call at a dive bar on MacDougal Street, but it felt like a real cool time to be redeemed all the same.

Has Consent Culture Become A War on Sexuality?

Posted on by Team Penthouse

But as we watch innocent, clumsy, unwanted sexual advances get lumped into the same category as rape, where women weaponize a movement — an important and much-needed movement — to garner sympathy and claim victimhood, I think about the real victims of sexual assault, not those claiming they were traumatized by a coworker trying to kiss them. Their stories are getting lost in the mayhem as the angry mob storms on, looking for the next high-profile target they’ll mark for eternal punishment.

Third-wave feminism has gained immense power, and where there is power, there is corruption. Women now have the power to ruin any man’s life with one accusation. It doesn’t have to be substantiated or proven. Due process no longer exists because we have trial by Twitter. Lately, it doesn’t matter what the “crime” is, there’s a demand for lifelong consequences. No questions are asked, and if you do dare to question, you are deemed an apologist and misogynist.

People, companies, brands are all operating on fear rather than reason. Women are believed automatically. I don’t think anyone should have that type of power based on their gender; just because we’re women does not mean we won’t abuse it. We have already seen examples of women using this movement for personal gain and revenge. Those despicable women are hurting all of us by doing this. They are damaging a much-needed awareness concerning a very real threat that women face every day.

Along with the excesses and overreaching — and the co-opting for selfish reasons — we’ve seen as the #MeToo movement expands and morphs, there’s also a viewpoint on human sexuality at work that I find naive and unrealistic. It’s a perspective that oversimplifies sexuality, rationalizing it, demanding it be neat and tidy.

Last month, the New York Times published an essay written by 30-year-old Courtney Sender for their Modern Love section. In the piece, Sender tells a story of a 24-year-old man she met on Tinder, a guy she invited over in the middle of a snowstorm and they ended up having sex. Her Tinder date complied with all the rules of modern politically correct culture, asking for consent before every touch or kiss, a self-policing that began to frustrate Sender and suggested to her that her date, though just six years younger, had learned some different rules when it came to hooking up. But she liked him. And thought things were going well, especially when, during their second hookup, he told her he’d cook her dinner the next time he saw her. That never happened. He stopped contacting her.

Though initially almost irked by her Tinder date’s consent questions, by the way it seemed to imply she wasn’t able to simply say no herself if she didn’t want to do something, she came around to his solicitous style, and viewed it as thoughtful. However — and this is the thrust of her essay — she had a big problem with being ghosted after two hookups.

“I was left thinking that our culture’s current approach to consent is too narrow,” Sender writes. “A culture of consent should be a culture of care for the other person, of seeing and honoring another’s humanity and finding ways to engage in sex while keeping our humanity intact. It should be a culture of making each other feel good, not bad.”

According to Sender (who should really be refraining from any sexual relationships due to her lack of maturity), she now thinks she is entitled to be cared about by whomever she chooses to have sex with. It’s like Gilead, except men are prisoners held captive by needy women. But wait a second. Haven’t women desired the freedom to hook up like men with no emotional strings attached? Haven’t we been partaking in Slut Walks and fighting for sexual liberation? Isn’t this what we wanted?

As Camille Paglia once wrote, “With freedom comes risk and responsibility.” This overbearing consent culture, with its excessive intervention into sexual relations between men and women (powered by a feminism calling not just for equity, for societal and legal fairness for women, but for women to be viewed as fragile victims-in-waiting, incapable of agency), begs the following question: Can casual hookup culture coexist with #MeToo and the new gospel of consent?

Toward the end of her piece, Sender writes: “I wish we could view consent as something that’s less about caution and more about care for the other person, the entire person, both during an encounter and after, when we’re often at our most vulnerable.”

Consent culture is not preventing rape, it’s not promoting healthy sexual relationships, and it’s not stopping sexual harassment in the workplace. In many ways, it’s ruining sex and confusing people. Rape is real, as is sexual abuse. Those things need to be addressed. But this oppressive, politically correct regime is like a religion, monitoring the way we express ourselves in all walks of life, but especially in the bedroom. The irony is that these so-called rules are coming from individuals who claim to be “progressives.”

An outlook on sexuality this stifling, rigid, and regressive is the furthest thing from enlightened and liberated. It is totally authoritarian. It’s a complete regression from the sexual freedom I enjoyed as a teenager and young adult in the late nineties and early aughts — the freedom that was fought for by second-wave feminists who were attempting to free themselves of the parental supervision and restrictive fifties culture that treated women as perpetual victims. How have feminists come full circle?

Sexuality is a part of every human’s life, and it’s vast, complex, and layered. Sometimes it’s gross, and sometimes it’s painful — emotionally and/or physically. Sometimes it’s like wading into a mosquito-infested swamp in the pitch-black darkness, and sometimes it’s like being catapulted into the fourth dimension with your soul connecting to your lover. We use sexuality to connect with people, to control people, to escape. Even to hurt. Some sex is illegal and completely immoral. Sexuality is an animal instinct. And it’s not always easy to navigate.

In our current puritanical climate, there’s an obsession with the articulation of boundaries during sexual interaction. There’s a call for defining every sexual nuance, but that’s impossible. Sexuality cannot be put into a perfectly wrapped box with a bow on top. It’s far too complicated for that.

Musical Jocks

Posted on by Team Penthouse

One afternoon in July 1995, pitcher Jack McDowell gave the finger to his own fans at Yankee Stadium. McDowell was a great hurler — the 1993 American League Cy Young Award winner and a three-time All-Star — but he just didn’t have it on this day and got rocked for nine runs and 13 hits in four and 2/3 innings. As he left the mound after getting pulled, Black Jack — nicknamed for his gunslinger stare, the black look he gave hitters — got lustily booed. Feisty as ever, the tall, goateed McDowell raised his pitching arm and gave the crowd a one-finger salute. Then he twirled his hand around for good measure.

JACK ASS shouted the Daily News. THE YANKEE FLIPPER blared the New York Post. Later we learned music had something to do with McDowell’s poor performance. He’d been drinking into the wee hours with two music buddies, Mike Mills and Scott McCaughey of R.E.M.

A musician himself, Black Jack was friends with a number of rockers, including guys in the Smithereens and Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. In fact, two years earlier he’d been partying with Vedder in New Orleans and got knocked out by a bouncer during an altercation. Vedder was arrested for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. Black Jack walked away with a black eye.

I’ll always associate those 1995 Yankees with music. I had just moved to New York City and it seemed like every other day there was a print, radio, or TV story about the chops of both McDowell and center fielder Bernie Williams, a classically trained guitarist.

By this point, Black Jack had toured with the Smithereens and had a new band, stickfigure, whose first album, Just A Thought, compiled memorable songs in a jangly, alternative-rock vein, written and sung by Black Jack. The band would go on to release three more solid albums, with bass from Mike Mesaros of the Smithereens and drums from Frank Funaro and later Josh Freese. (Funaro left to drum for Cracker; Freese had earlier drummed for Paul Westerberg of the Replacements.) As for Williams, who led the Yanks in hits, runs, and total bases that year, and batted .429 in the playoffs, he wasn’t trying to put out records at the time, but it was clear he kept up his skills. I watched him strum a couple Latin-inflected tunes during a local-news segment and thought, Damn, Bernie can play.

One of the greatest Yankees to ever don pinstripes, owner of four World Series rings, his No. 51 officially retired, Williams went at music hard as the new century began. Playing and composing songs in different styles (jazz, Latin, classical, pop), he released a pair of major-label albums, both of them cracking the U.S. jazz charts top-five. These records included collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Rubén Blades, banjo wizard Béla Fleck, and other greats. After leaving professional baseball in 2006, Williams studied guitar and composition at a state university, and just a couple of years ago received a bachelor’s degree from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music.

Black Jack and Bernie — two of the most legit music-making sports stars we’ve ever seen. But who’s their competition? Who else has excelled as a professional athlete while also achieving musical excellence, as opposed to mere novelty-act notoriety?

I did some digging. I did some downloading. I listened to champion boxers Manny Pacquiao and Grammy nominee Oscar De La Hoya sing. I listened to tennis legend John McEnroe shred. I listened to Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza play drums and contribute “death growls,” as the liner notes put it, to a metal album by Black Label Society. I watched clips from Woodjock, a charity event organized by pitcher Jake Peavy where ballplayers get on a stage during spring training in Arizona and play music before Cactus League fans.

I watched Peavy do a fine cover of the Amos Lee song “Learned A Lot.” I discovered that former All-Pro offensive lineman Kyle Turley moved to Nashville and put out an album of “power country” songs. He shows off his pipes on a tune called “Another Whiskey.” I was impressed with the singing of retired All-Star shortstops Omar Vizquel and Ozzie Smith. Vizquel covers a Goo Goo Dolls song and Smith pulls off a goosebump-inducing (seriously) rendition of a Sam Cooke R&B classic, “Cupid,” on a record featuring warbling ballplayers titled Oh Say Can You Sing?

And then there’s retired pitcher Barry Zito. Last year he became the first former Cy Young Award winner to hit the Billboard charts when his self-released EP No Secrets briefly appeared on the Country and Americana/Folk top-40 lists. Zito’s been singing and playing guitar since 1999 and hopes to do more charting in the future.

But he doesn’t chart on my own totally subjective, no doubt faulty top-5 list!

Along with Bernie and Black Jack, these former ballers bring it, musically.

Mike Reid, a Pro Bowl defensive lineman for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1970s, went on to forge a big-time music career, writing more than 30 top-ten country and pop hits, including two Grammy-winning songs for Ronnie Milsap, and Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” “Walk On Faith,” a single from his own 1990 debut album, climbed to No.1 on the Billboard Hot Country chart. Reid’s the only human in history to be inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Wayman Tisdale, the late, great power forward from Oklahoma, a 1984 Olympian, retired in 1997 after a sterling NBA career to focus on music, his first love. A gifted soft-jazz bassist, Tisdale would put out eight albums before his death in 2009, with his 2001 album Face to Face climbing to the top of the Billboard contemporary jazz chart.

Tim Flannery, a San Diego Padres infielder for a decade (his best season at the plate was 1985, when he hit .281), spent seven years as third-base coach for the San Francisco Giants, and has World Series rings from 2010, 2012, and 2014. Okay, so he wasn’t an MLB superstar, but he’s a great singer-songwriter, and a fine guitarist. A bluegrass ace, he’s put out a dozen albums and played with Jackson Browne.

Alexi Lalas, the flame-haired Olympic and pro-soccer player turned commentator also points to music as his first love. In the late nineties, he sang and played guitar in a band, Gypsies, that toured Europe with Hootie and the Blowfish. Since then, the always-vocal Lalas has released three solo albums of tuneful rock ’n’ roll, the last in 2014.

Shaquille O’Neal and his rapping might seem to fit the description of a novelty act, but I vote legit. The Big Aristotle — league MVP in 2000, four-time world champion, 15x All-Star — has a way with words, as we know. And as an MC his low-voiced, mid-tempo flow makes for enjoyable listening. Check out his work with Phife Dawg on “Where Ya At?” Wait, you’re not buying it? Okay, how about this? He’s a better rapper than point guard Tony Parker.

Moreover, you can’t take this away from Shaq: His 1993 debut album, Shaq Diesel, went platinum. Boom.

Heather Benjamin

Posted on by Team Penthouse

Early on, the New Jersey native used old copies of Penthouse and Playboy, as well as vintage nude photos culled from flea markets and thrift shops, as raw material for her illustrations. The erotica helped power the many art zines she released. In “Sad Sex,” put out in 2008 when she was a student at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, nearly all the images were informed by her mighty collection of print porn. But while many of the women depicted posed with the alluring swagger of pinup models, their facial expressions or actions were anything but centerfold-friendly.

One work featured a woman spreading her pussy lips with one hand, the other reaching toward the viewer in agony. Her eyes are scratched-out, her mouth is agape in horror, but she sits beside the words “YOU MAKE ME FEEL SPECIAL,” the capital letters dripping blood.

From the start, Benjamin’s work has included images of women mutilating their nipples, threatening their labia with scissors, or flexing in ecstasy as insects swarm their limbs. Imagine the deviant, DGAF attitude of an R. Crumb comic, fused with Leonor Fini’s surrealist explorations of femininity, and you’re getting somewhere close to a Benjamin artwork.

Yet despite the carnal carnage she regularly depicts, a sensuality and agency emanates from her characters, especially because they usually appear alone. This tension is not unlike the ambivalence most of us feel about our own bodies — that vacillation between love and loathing of our flesh. It’s a duality that fuels Benjamin’s practice, and she’s able to translate this abstract, almost ineffable experience into something both visceral and vivid.

“Looking back, I feel like ‘Sad Sex’ was a metaphor for my extreme confusion and self-hate and depression at that time, which was manifesting in a very teenage way because I was a teenager. In order to express it, I was resorting to extremes [in my work] because I felt so extreme,” Benjamin says. She’s quick to point out that she still has a “dichotomous relationship with my body and other people’s bodies — this really extreme fluctuation between perceiving beauty and experiencing lust, and then alternatively experiencing disgust and repulsion.”

Since “Sad Sex,” Benjamin has self-released numerous other zines (most of which sold out), participated in dozens of art exhibitions, and become something of a cult figure within the East Coast punk scene, with her illustrations adorning countless DIY gig posters.

In 2011, the Vancouver band White Lung (fronted by Penthouse editor Mish Barber-Way) posted flyers featuring Benjamin’s ink drawing of a woman pulling out her hair, veins bulging on her hands. Scrawled in the corner of the illustration are the woman’s stream-of-consciousness thoughts, including the line, “My God… I cause my own suffering through my desire to think of myself as a being of value and permanence.”

In other words, Benjamin’s work continues to explore many of her early themes. “I’ll probably be wrestling with them for the rest of my life,” the artist says.

But since her student work, Benjamin has honed her voice and technical skills, and expanded her visual language to the degree. This development is captured in the new book Cavegirl Monologue, which she describes as an anthology of work from the past five-plus years. “I really tried to organize it in a way so it wasn’t perceived as a retrospective, but rather a collection of my work from a specific period,” she says.

Released by the Brooklyn record label and art-book publisher Sacred Bones (they’ve issued music by David Lynch, Pharmakon, and Zola Jesus, and books by illustrator Alexander Heir), Cavegirl Monologue compiles 150 pages of Benjamin’s drawings and paintings in full color. The hardcover showcase — and the cachet of the publisher — means Benjamin’s art, by turns arousing and grotesque, titillating and disturbing, will find even more fans.

Yet even as this book is being published, its creator speaks of transitioning into a new season of her practice and life. With a breakup in her recent past, and having made a decision to return to New York City after several years in Providence, Rhode Island, she’s feeling reinvigorated, and says this energy is apparent in the text’s newest images. As Benjamin puts it, this work expresses “growth and exploration and sensuality, because that has so much to do with my experience of reconnecting with myself.”

Since sending Monologue to the printer, Benjamin has been attending artist residencies, curating group exhibitions, and focusing more on larger-scale paintings. She describes her latest work as “looser,” less “cerebral.” That said, she’s not done drawing clitorises and bodily fluid in her signature, Janus-faced style — erotic, disquieting, and incendiary, all at once.

Asked how she hopes her work will be received, Benjamin says she’d like it to resonate with anyone who can “identify with aspects of my own experience of womanhood and sexuality, especially the darker stuff.” The boundary-pushing artist continues: “I’m trying to create something beautiful and stimulating out of pain and trauma — that’s my ultimate catharsis. When it works, and people can relate to it, that’s the biggest high for me.”

Photo of Heather Benjamin by Justin Cole Smith 

High Voltage: Matt Pike

Posted on by Team Penthouse

The musician Matt Pike shouldn’t require an introduction. The world is a little fucked up, though — as he’ll be the first to tell you — and the virtuosos who walk among us usually don’t get their due until it’s too late and they’re already six feet under. Pike deserves better, and anyone who knows the difference between a blast-beat and break-beat would agree that the metal maestro should be a household name by now.

But for those who have never carved an anarchy symbol into a desk, Pike is essentially your favorite headbanger’s favorite headbanger, a guitar guru if there ever was one. As a founding member of both Sleep and High on Fire, the 46-year-old has spent the last quarter-century eviscerating eardrums and unleashing riffs that have shaped the contours of contemporary metal. Without him, “stoner metal” wouldn’t have a Wikipedia page, and thrash might never have had a twenty-first century renaissance.

Both Bay-area bands, despite their stark differences, have cultish followings, and the legacy surrounding their music has been passed from dorm room to dorm room, record shop to record shop, over the years, making Pike something like the Alejandro Jodorowsky of the fretboard. After all, taking a cue from the title of Jodorowsky’s trippiest film, Sleep named its second album Holy Mountain (1992), and the creation story of Dopesmoker — the trio’s infamous hour-long song/album about a cosmic caravan of “Weedians” sludging through a “riff-filled land” on the way to Nazareth — has developed the type of feverish mythology usually reserved for midnight movies or conversations about Elvis’s current whereabouts.

Pike’s most recent trip around the sun might elevate his status outside the metal underground, though. 2018 has seen Sleep awaken from a mighty hibernation with the release of The Sciences, the group’s critically acclaimed fourth full-length and its first since Dopesmoker. (Naturally, the album dropped on 4/20, courtesy of Jack White’s Third Man Records.) And this month, High on Fire will release Electric Messiah, the band’s eighth LP and its best in years. Packed with the types of speed anthems that should soundtrack a bank robbery or coup, Pike believes the record has the potential to swell the group’s audience to its rightful size. “This album’s definitely got the material to do it,” he told Penthouse over two long and epic interviews as he was wrapping a set of High on Fire shows in Las Vegas this past summer.

Sleep might be compared to Black Sabbath (if drowned in cough syrup), and, as frontman of High on Fire, Pike is regularly described as the American Lemmy Kilmister. But, in reality, the metal lord has carved his own path and sounds like nothing other than Matt Pike. If the guy doesn’t receive some sort of monument during his lifetime, then maybe he’s right that humanity is truly on a “spiritual downward spiral.”

At the very least, we promise to make our children listen to Dopesmoker. This generation might not recognize him as a living guitar god, but the next will.

Hey Matt, how’s Las Vegas treating ya?

I’m the mayor of fucking crazytown, so I’m busy as fuck.

Keeping up with your mayoral responsibilities. Are you partying?

Maybe just a little. It’s more that I’m trying to schedule and manage everything… but I like to gamble, play games, and stuff like that. Plus, I’m with my girlfriend Alyssa Maucere, who I haven’t seen in quite a while. We’ve been together for two and a half years, and live together [in Oregon]. She’s kind of my life partner. She’s amazing. She’s not only a tattoo artist, a poster artist, and a musician, but her band Eight Bells is playing here on Sunday, so I’m staying in Vegas until the end of the weekend.

You must be touring at least ten months a year, right? And if Alyssa is also in a band, how often are you able to get together with her?

I’ve been making sure that I make time. We’ve been scheduling our relationship like we schedule our bands. If something great comes up for one of my bands, and I’m into it, yeah I’ll take it. But I’m usually the first one to go, “No, I don’t want to do that.” These days, I try to allot time for my personal life because probably for the past ten years, I haven’t allowed any of that time, and quite frankly that destroys my brain and it makes me hate everybody I’m around. It makes me hate music, it makes me hate everything. So I’ve got to take some time for myself. You have to learn how to say no. That’s hard. I’m a pretty sweet person, so I have a hard time saying no to anyone. There needs to be boundaries, though, and don’t forget I’m in two different, full-time fucking bands.

You just finished touring with Sleep, and now you’re on the road with High on Fire. What’s that kind of transitioning like?

It’s like juggling. It’s hard to explain. I put ’ludes in Stove Top stuffing, and then I can play Dopesmoker after touring with High on Fire. Or you go from Sleep to High on Fire, and you pretty much put meth on spaghetti and meatballs [laughs]. I wish it were that easy! No, it takes a lot of like meditation and it takes a lot of focus, as well as knowing the material very thoroughly. I have rituals for both.

Tell me about them.

I have to breathe, I have to think about all the lyrics, or I have to think about all my parts and my solos. I just have to review everything. This is where I really do keep a sober mind, and I take it very seriously — my playing and how I perform with my brothers. I don’t like to let people down, so I don’t let people down!

Some rituals, though: I do pranas and I electrocute myself with these little electrodes, and I squeeze a hand thing. Pranas are the breathing and stretching exercises you do before yoga, but no one really practices those ’cause Westerners are too impatient to take any time. I also do some stretching, some push-ups, sit-ups, and like I said, I meditate and I think about the task at hand. For this part of my life, for the things when I have to perform and when I have to be at my best, I just try to be present — mentally aware of my consciousness and how I’m feeling about the amount of serotonin and dopamine in my brain. I practice a couple different types of meditation. I do a walking meditation, where I count my breaths. I have a breath meditation, too. Sometimes I’ll listen to some frequencies, and then other times I’ll just listen to Dogman Encounters and I get off on the terror that other people have, which sounds draconian, and perhaps it is, but at least I understand the dark side of what I want to call my “spirituality.” Why not explore what might be considered dark?

You’ve had a busy year, with lots of touring. I’m curious what tour life is like for you today, compared to when you first started out.

Well, the rider has gotten better. Some of the travel’s gotten better. And some of it’s not better. I wish the guarantees were better, and I wish we could do more with the stage show. I wish we could do a lot. But we worked hard on this upcoming album, so High on Fire will be working on getting some traction and moving in a forward direction.

Sleep is doing way better than anybody ever thought it would [laughs]. For me, Al [Cisneros], and Jason [Roeder], we just go and jam, and then we think of even more fucked things to do as that band. It’s been pretty good. It’s been a good ride. We did all the blueprinting early on, and no one listened to Sleep. We were on tour with bands like Cannibal Corpse, Cathedral, and Hawkwind, and some weird bands [in the beginning]. It’s like we were planting seeds, and now that seed has spread and it’s become gigantic. That’s a great thing. We’re trying to strike while the iron is hot and the three of us continue getting together to write. It’s a real band.

What are your writing sessions like today, compared to the 90s when the band was known to practice 12 hours a day while passing the smoking “chalice” nonstop?

I think me and Al just smoke some weed and work on ideas. And when it’s me and Al and Jay, we work on drumbeats. I mean the whole concept of Sleep — what the music actually is — it’s all about the drummer. It’s just me and Al sprinkling things here and there when the drummer’s playing and hitting notes at certain times. The whole playing technique to Sleep is to be listening to the drummer and hit on the right spot. Like, one note, then he plays 30 beats, then you hit another note. It’s not always like that, but musically, the concept behind the band is rhythmic.

Sometimes, I throw shit at Al. But my job in High on Fire is definitely that I’m in charge of the themes and the lyrics. In Sleep, that’s kind of Al’s job. His singing and what we sing about are definitely mostly his concepts. I will throw ideas at his head now and then, but that’s not my role in the band. My role is to make a rhythm section sound like it has a guitar player — and that he doesn’t suck [laughs].

When you’re coming up with the crazy conceptual ideas that inform High on Fire’s music, what’s that process like? Are you sitting down with a pad and paper at a bar? Are you hanging out at home and smoking a joint?

Well, it all depends. While I’m traveling, I might be in my bunk, just like trying to ignore the rest of the world. Sometimes I still do hallucinogens. I’ll take mushrooms or acid, and really just think about things. I do a lot of research on conspiracies and esoteric stuff — things that interest me, often historical things. I believe that history is fucking bullshit. Everything I’ve been taught since kindergarten is a lie and I believe that thoroughly.

I really don’t share my mind all the way with everybody until I know that you’re a person who might be open-minded enough. If I put all my ideas and interests out in public, they’d just put a tinfoil hat on me. CNN or FOX, or whatever news channel, or whoever puts the fucking tinfoil hat on whoever’s head, doesn’t realize they’ve been separated and that we are weaker when we’re separated.

That’s what the media is there to do, and I’m not that dumb. I don’t share my thoughts or opinions anymore because I don’t want to be mocked when I’m right. I don’t give a fuck what anybody says, I am who I am, but I’ll keep that shit to myself unless you’re smart enough to read my lyrics and understand the metaphoric things I present within them. If you’re smart enough to do that, you’re probably of like mind. And if not, like I hope you enjoy the music anyway because it’s just a metal record, dude.

Sleep

That’s one of the things I like most about your music. I can appreciate it on an aesthetic, head-banging level, or I can dig into it, learn about the esoteric shit, and appreciate the ideas you explore that a lot of people might call “fringe.”

Most of them don’t talk about this stuff because most of them don’t believe it. They are all watching TV on their cell phones, and that’s all they do. They don’t fucking read anymore, unless it’s on their fucking cell phone. They don’t pay attention to anything unless it’s Hillary Clinton or Trump. They don’t fucking think. And if they do think, they’re thinking about the next lollipop they can get with the next buck that they make. Mankind is on a spiritual downward spiral that has been going on for the last 40 or so years. I think about the 1970s to now, and it’s gotten just dramatically intensified. Is humanity going to exist and coexist in this universe, or are we just gonna let ourselves keep burning on fire like we’re doing?

I don’t mean to be like that… because we have a choice.

People are taught to be complacent or think the woes of society don’t matter because they don’t directly affect them. We’re sort of conditioned to live in a delusion and accept it.

Yeah, that’s what they taught you in school. Or the American Dream, whichever one you want to buy, whatever bullshit thing you’re buying. There are a few things in the world that I fucking do love though, dude. I love fucking guitar. I’m sorry, but this is Penthouse — I really like butts [laughs]. I like yoga pants and bikinis. I like weed! I love my car, which is swampy because I haven’t been home in months. It’s a beautiful car, but it needs to be fucking cleaned. It’s a ’78 El Camino, but it’s got a 383 Stroker and is 500-plus horsepower. It’s fucking badass. It’s not the year I would have chosen, but it had the motor in it, which is worth more than that fucking car. The car is beautiful, too. It has a perfect interior, great paint job. It took me a long time to earn. I bought myself something nice, after enduring all the times I’ve eaten shit for this job. But I love what I do.

“Mankind is on a spiritual downward spiral that has been going on for the last 40 or so years. I think about the 1970s to now, and it’s gotten just dramatically intensified. Is humanity going to exist and coexist in this universe, or are we just gonna let ourselves keep burning on fire like we’re doing?”

I also like freedom of speech. What do Penthouse and Slayer have in common? The First Amendment. You can’t fucking call hate speech on someone because they have an opinion! Fuck you if I don’t like you and I want to say “fuck you.” If I don’t hurt you physically and I’m not a threat, you don’t have the fucking right to tell me what to fucking say. That’s what this whole new fucking fight is about. We have freedom of speech so people can talk their fucking bullshit. But it’s like the vegan wearing leather. Don’t talk your shit if you’re not going to walk your walk. And I know why that generation is pissed off: It’s because your parents were fucking yuppies and they suck. They’re the reason that it’s too expensive to afford a house. I’m not on the side of Trump, either. He’s a distraction — that’s what I believe.

So you’re frustrated with both the left and the right. What about some modern political groups, like the Democratic Socialists of America?

I don’t support socialism, but I agree with socialism sometimes. I mean, I love Scandinavia. Socialism is great there because if you’re in a band, you get paid or even funded. I’d love to have something like that, or universal health care that doesn’t fuck you. American health care fucked me.

I’m fucking pissed about that because I worked really hard to be who I am and do what I did.

On top of digging ditches or driving a fucking tow truck, I went to band practice after work, and I slept like one day a week — for years! I’m not against a left person or a right person, I am against the fact that no one will take responsibility for themselves and they blame it on their personal fucking pocket Jesus… which is your cell phone or computer. Social media is the worst thing that ever happened to man, aside from the fact that once in a while someone tells the truth on it. But even then, it leads to them getting attacked and shut down.

To me, the best part of social media is that new audiences can get introduced to culture they might otherwise be unable to find. Like, there’s a new generation of Sleep fans who probably found out about the band through the internet and social media. But yes, the vast amount of American culture’s relationship with social media is fucking sinister.

I agree with that. I would like this interview to strike something in the hearts of all the left and all the right, and all the people who don’t even want anything to do with all this shit. I’m telling you this is the point: They are separating us and it’s the fucking TV, and this social media bullshit. Turn your fucking TV off and throw it in the hall. Turn your cell phone off and fucking make a friend without knowing if they support the left or right. Then there is no narrative. You’re on neutral fucking ground. There’s no fucking anarchy flags, no American flag, there’s no flag they’re flying anywhere. And when you get a grip on all that, then we’re going to get somewhere. Then, shit, maybe Matt Pike for president?

Hell yeah. President Pike.

Yeah, well, I don’t know if I’d ever want that job. The minute you get it, whether you did anything or not, they shut you down in one way or another. They point a finger at you out of a narrative… if one side likes you or the other, CNN or FOX will inevitably attack you. If I were president, I would just make everybody fucking meditate. I’m not a narcissist or egotist, this is just a hypothetical [laughs]. I do think if everyone shut off their electronics, they might know what north and south are. It’s like fuck, dude…

What’s your connection to Albert Pike? I know he was an infamous Freemason, but you told me to look him up.

It’s horrifying, but yeah, as far as I’ve done research, I’m very much related to that guy.

Are you a Freemason?

Nope. I actually have been approached, and it’s nothing against the Freemasons or anybody else. I’m a one-man gang, or my gang consists of my crew and my bands. So I really don’t need any sort of narrative. I don’t need any sort of higher-up.

I’m an anarchist that enjoys his gun rights, and that’s who I am.

When you’re digging through arcane history and looking up esoteric stuff, how do you find it? Are you looking online? Are you taking out books?

Sometimes it’s from books. There are certain lectures I like, including ones from people like Michael Tsarion, even though I don’t agree with everything he says. He’s really well-read. David Icke turned me on to the Reptilians and all that kind of stuff. I think he turned a lot of people on to that. There’s David Wilcock and Ancient Aliens. I’ve been to Peru, so I fucking know for a fact that mankind — some guy with a fucking knife made out of stone — didn’t make the shit that’s there. There were giants walking around, and I know that for a fact. And the same thing with the Sphinx. How come you can measure around the pyramid [in meters], and up and down it, and it is exactly the speed of light, 186,000 miles-per-second? Why is that? What is that sacred mathematics there?

If mankind is egotistical enough to think that we are the only ones who’ve ever been here, you’re fucking fooling yourself. At the end of the day, really, we all should just be hunter-gatherers and go back to the fucking Dark Ages because we’re being separated [laughs].

I’m not trying to get all conspiracy theorist, I just know that the world is full of fucking shit. I’m not saying this place is all bad. After all, I’m in Penthouse, and it’s full of a lot of fun, a lot of good music, a lot of hot girls, a lot of cool people. You know, I love my fast car, I love my guns, I love my dog, I love my girlfriend. I love a lot of things about the world. If we try hard, it might not fucking fall apart. But it’s not looking good because people just get dumber instead of smarter — and that’s by design. That’s what I’m saying. Fucking shoot your TV. I know cell phones are necessary, but… They gave cell phones to everybody knowing humanity would become that much more stupid. It’s by design, dude. If they turn off the electricity, now they have all the power. If they turn off the fucking electricity, I want to see how many fucking DIY people that want to be politically correct know which direction to walk to find fucking water. What will you do to start a fire, dude? I want to know what you’re going to do when they take that all away from you.

Society feels bleak right now. At the same time, you and I haven’t jumped off a bridge yet. What could we do to change things? Are there any solutions to this bullshit?

Unfortunately, the only thing that teaches people who have fucking ego problems a lesson is consequences… and it’s going to be too late. Finding things in spirituality like forgiveness, kindness, goodness can help. Instead of having an attack on someone’s self-esteem, you build them up, and you try to make them see your point of view by being intelligent and by making choices that help humanity. Or you can be a selfish little prick and just go with a bunch of other selfish little pricks that really don’t care if anybody’s hurt or anybody feels any bit different about anything.

We’ve been taught to be a complacent, sad species. We are fucking sad. We are not the apex predator we were. Dude, I could take a hundred kids out of school and not one of them would know how to hunt or kill their own food. They will eat at fucking Burger King or McDonald’s all day, but not one of them would know how to survive ten minutes. Me, personally, I’ll be eating all your fucking legs and asses. I’m telling you, cannibalism is the way to the future [laughs]. That was a hypothetical, but the people who are going to survive are going to be cannibals. The people who are going to survive are going to be gangsters with all the guns that have pirate rules. But the New World Order is not the way to do this.

High On Fire

I know you’re a gun enthusiast and always have been. I remember reading an old interview where you detailed your mighty collection at the time. Has it grown since?

Oh yeah. I just got a CZ Scorpion with the new laser sight. It’s a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, but kind of like an Uzi or submachine gun. I can make smiley faces on targets from like 60 yards. CZ is a great company. I have another Sub-2000 which is a Kel-Tec. I’m going to keep kind of quiet about the rest of my gun collection because if they come for ’em they’re not going to know what to look for. I’ll have a stash, somewhere.

So I have a Sleep question. From the beginning, the band had a big relationship with weed. Do you still smoke pot?

Actually, now that I live in Oregon and recreational marijuana is available, I’ll smoke weed once in a while. Like, I did bong hits with Al while we were writing during the last little session working on The Sciences. I hadn’t done a bong hit in like five years. We were in Albuquerque, and it’s not like there’s traffic, but I had a hard time getting from his house to my hotel right up the street. I was so high. Oh God, dude.

Now, I buy gummies. I guess I consume edibles more than I actually smoke. Every once in a while, we’ll be in Europe or something, and my guitar tech and sound man, Chad Hartgrave, will get me to smoke so I go to bed and don’t go out and fuck up and party and do all that stuff. He’ll make me smoke a joint with him, even if it’s just hash and tobacco. It knocks me out and makes me go to bed.

What are Sleep fans like today?

Multiplied [laughs]. I see a lot of younger people at our shows, and I think their parents were probably into us. I’m kind of an old dude. I’m 46 — not even close to a millennial.

I’m obsessed with all the mythology around Sleep and the recording of Dopesmoker. I know you’ve said the rumor about the band spending its entire advance from London Records on weed is exaggerated. At the same time, the album was recorded in Mendocino, California, and you must have had access to great pot.

Dude, it’s so different today. There used to be weed that had seeds in it. They don’t do that anymore. Anyway, yes, we were in Northern California, which was definitely a great place to find some good fucking weed. That’s where most of it was coming from. Hippies with guns were scary back then, though.

How much weed you were smoking during those recording sessions?

I don’t know exactly, but we each had at least a pillowcase’s worth at all times. We even made a fucking chalice out of the sink. We turned it into the biggest bong ever, using duct tape, some surgical tubes, and a kludgy mouthpiece we fired. We’d fill the sink with water and tape it off, so it was kind of like a gravity bong, but way fucking bigger. I think Al was the only one that actually got the thing to hit. I don’t think anyone else had the lung power, but Al’s got special DNA for shit like that.

Over the entire recording of Dopesmoker, how much pot do you think you consumed?

It was something like three to six ounces a day for two months. Yeah, it got to the point where I got so sick of just smoking it that instead I would just grind it up in a coffeemaker and throw it in spaghetti and make everybody eat that. Then we’d be, like, drooling, and you’d forget your name and address. It was a lot of weed [laughs].

Sleep released its long-awaited fourth album this year. Now that The Sciences is finally out, are you and Al still digging through the riff vault? What’s the current status of the band?

Well, we’re just treating Sleep how we treat Sleep. We’re just trying to get together and write and have some fun with it and do some shows. We don’t like to be too agenda-filled. We’re pretty casual about it until we’re done with something or have an album’s worth of music ready.

I’ve always appreciated that you’re in two very different bands, but both are so fucking good.

I appreciate it, too. It’s apples and oranges. I’m glad I have both apples and oranges because I have two kinds of juice. And now High on Fire has a new album called Electric Messiah. We just released the eponymous single. The record is like an anarchy-Sumerian rock opera. I had a dream about Lemmy Kilmister after he died. People have told me I’m the American Lemmy, even before he passed, and it always bugged me. I can’t touch that man. I used to tell people, “Dude, I am not fucking nowhere near Lemmy. I might have a raspy voice, and I might play similar music, and Motörhead is an influence on us, but I’m not fucking Lemmy Kilmister — no one is.”

“I love my fast car, I love my guns, I love my dog, I love my girlfriend. I love a lot of things about the world. If we try hard, it might not fucking fall apart. But it’s not looking good because people just get dumber instead of smarter… They gave cell phones to everybody knowing humanity would become that much more stupid. it’s by design, dude.”

And I guess that’s what the dream was essentially about: Lemmy got hella mad at me. Dude was pissed. In the dream, I felt guilty or that he would scold me or something. I had been writing a tune with Des [Kensel, drummer], and I started singing about the weird fucking dream. I ended up writing a bunch of lyrics that I thought Lemmy would sing, while approaching it like an homage to Lemmy. I got to go on tour with him, I got to interview him. I knew him a little. He was one of the biggest deals to rock and one of the last of his kind. So the single “Electric Messiah” is our ode because Jeff [Matz, bassist] and Des love him just as much as I did. I wasn’t trying to jump all over a poser bandwagon or something. It’s just a tribute to Lemmy, but it’s a great album title as well, so we stuck with it.

At one point, I wanted to call it Insect Workout With Lemmy [laughs], but Des convinced me to go with Electric Messiah, and we think it’s badass.

Can you tell me about the album art for Electric Messiah?

Oh yes, Skinner did it! I’ve been friends with Skinner for a long time. We all have. He’s an amazing dude. I met him quite a few years ago, at one of his art shows, and I was just blown away. For the album art, I talked to Skinner on the phone for a while, and told him what I was thinking about — the legend of the Nephilim and the Anunnaki giants waking up after they’ve been cryogenically frozen under earth. The Nephilim are half-Anunnaki, and were supposedly the people who first created our civilizations.

Are they the ones who built Machu Picchu?

I believe so. They were spread out all over the Earth. So were the Pleiadians. If I go into that fucking thing, I’ll be on the phone with you for another six hours. Anyway, the cover relates to the Nephilim giants, who used to be the kings of Earth, waking up from their underground tombs and usurping their thrones and slaying mankind. A lot of people have this hypothesis that that’s going to happen.

Basically, I took all Sumerian cuneiform tablet stories and put themes from them into the first block of the new album, as if it were my own weird little book report. I’m very versed in this stuff. I study and research a lot of crazy shit like that.

So you’re saying the album’s lyrics reflect ideas related to this mythology, too?

Yeah, most of it. There are other [songs] about cryptids, and witches, and “God of the Godless” is about artificial intelligence. “Freebooters” is about Sir John Dee and England’s colonization conspiracy with the pirates. The album is full of all the weird tales that I know.

But I’m not fucking telling you this is or this isn’t. It’s just shit I think about. What’s more metal than half-fantasy, half-mythology? It all came from somewhere true. I sing about the Reptilians on occasion. I listen to a lot of people who they call “conspiracists,” but dude, they have the best metal lyrics [inspiration-wise]. My personal beliefs, you can take or leave. I believe a lot of crazy shit. You know what’s cool about this album? It’s a fun album. It’s not as doom-y [laughs].

Any other thoughts you want to add for Penthouse readers?

Yeah. Stop listening to the media and go to more fucking shows. Fucking seriously. Doomsday’s coming too fast to not enjoy what you’ve got.