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Various religions suggest that there's a "special" hell for certain sins (hurting children, being cruel to animals, using the word "blog" as a verb, etc). Who else needs a "special" hell?
Rick Snell: Boys who wipe from the front.
Due to poor financial planning, you've got to eat for an entire week on only US$10. What do you buy, food-wise?
Rick Snell: Big tub of yogurt, fruit, greens, rice, 1/4 lb of the Infinite Food.
What's the biggest misconception that people have about you?
Rick Snell: That my feelings are hurt when I am shedding tears. Easily moved. Wipe from
the front.
What's the worst injury you've ever suffered for your art (i.e. second degree burns from shorted-out mic, broken leg from failed stage dive)? Tell us about it.
Rick Snell: Just insults, really. Occasionally, a rose tossed stageward will not be
properly dethorned, to the delight of my suicide.
You've got unlimited funding and technical expertise to make an IMAX movie on the topic of your choice. What do you choose? Describe the obligatory vertigo-inducing camera shot that makes the entire audience clutch their stomachs.
Rick Snell: The life of a shin splint. This could work. Think about it: it's some painful
shit, and no one knows what it is. Is your leg really feeling the pain of
a tiny stress fracture? Is it just pain from the degradation resulting from
muscle failure? I would produce a panel of experts on opposing sides of the
argument, seated along a long wooden table. We'd show a tight close up of one expert's fist pounding into his palm, dissolve into kick-ass
animation of a knob-kneed jogger in those little shorts and sweat/wristband
ensemble, to redissolve into a shot that sweeps across the length of the
table, to come to rest on the hand of another doctor at table's end as he
demonstratively snaps a yellow pencil. Shot ends in horrific phantasmagoria.
People puke in their corn, file complaints, regain composure, leave theatre, go
for milk shakes and
nail jobs.
You've locked your car keys inside the tour van and don't have AAA. How do you get the door open?
Rick Snell: This is a timely question, sort of. Almost all of my gear was stolen out of my
trunk a week ago, holy no way. They didn't have a key. Who uses keys, anyway? Who cares who they're sleeping next to?
Ever find useful stuff in the garbage? Describe your best-ever dumpster find and how you used it.
Rick Snell: Just today I found a pretty nice Canon copier, but it only works in Japanese.
Oh, I found a Russian alphabet electric typewriter, with kick-ass sound effect
keys. But it had no plugger-inner, (it's) really just a conversation piece. I'm so
lonely.
In the UK, trying to kill the Queen is still technically a capital offence. If the Queen tried to commit suicide and failed, could she be sentenced to death? Explain.
Rick Snell: Death by perfumerie.
If you were a 50ft high Tyrannosaurus Rex, would you use your powers for good or evil? Who would you go after first?
Rick Snell: I often think about the ways in which all of the issues in your life would take
on strange other-worldly forms if your blood ran colder than it does. Forget
the predatory thing: human beings already have that going on, and the fangs
and the claws, though we chop off the foreskin at birth, many of us,
symbolically for the testosterone glands which lead to so much trouble. Shovel
all the obvious violence making factors aside. What if warmth were not a matter
of life and death? Would we dream more or less of mermaids and sunken
continents, write the poems of longing, draw histories, care if we had names?
You've decided to write a musical. What's it about and who's the star?
Rick Snell: Kimya Dawson portraying the founding mother of New York, Eleanor Stuyvesant.
Everyone likes at least one cheesy/crappy song that totally kills their cred. What's yours?
Rick Snell: Oh man. Can I answer this truthfully? Okay: my friends all know this anyway.
Once I was getting a pretzel at the local mall in my home town, and I found the
secretest love for Avril Lavigne. So yeah. That song.
The standard touring vehicle is always a beat-up van. What has been the worst/weirdest method of conveyance you've had to use on a tour?
Rick Snell: Once we arrived off a plane in Chicago and were picked up in a stretch SUV. Seriously. Like, full bar and everything. Then we got to where the club was putting us up for the night -- an apartment under renovation, only a couple of
beds, no furniture to even sit on, no blankets. Our drummer had to wake up
every 45 minutes to reinflate the leaking air mattress the club provided.
Sleeping in pain. So: why the effing limo, man?
What was the best meal you were supplied by a tour venue? What was the worst?
Rick Snell: If "supplied" would include meals we've stolen, then I could tell a tall but
true tale of a four foot stretch of a six foot sub I cut off for the dudes.
Man, running from the authorities with a heavy, drooping bit of mutated
sandwich. De-luxe.
Will it ever truly be possible to "rock the vote", or will apathy, indifference and laziness always triumph over activism?
Rick Snell: Many people who stake their political claim in more radical territory hold the
erroneous and defeating opinion that the clothes one wears or the surroundings
one works in (office-type, for example) determine their moral credibility.
This way of looking at things does much damage to the chances that radical
thought has of taking root. Rock musicians won't affect significant change.
Teachers will. Lawyers are essential to the political process. This process
is a dialog and a debate that involves judges, politicians, organized crime,
the influence of philosophers and investors and generals, ordinary people
informed in the workings of government. I know there is a great push to take
this discussion out of the corrupt arenas that often host its important
debates. I do understand this push, but sometimes the most useful thing that
can be done is to bring the real fight right inside those very institutions, by
whatever means one can justify.
You want to cry? I'll give you something to cry about. What would you like to cry about?
Rick Snell: Actually, I like to cry a bit too much. Blissful despair is my vice of choice.
But it is useful?
What is the coolest tattoo you've ever seen (and don't choose one of your own)?
Rick Snell: My friend Luke has a chair on his swiss wrist. My friend Jared has a Decepticon
logo, right where they wore it, on his left shoulder. Luke also has the cover
of Bitches Brew on his ankle. Esoterica.
How long after an unopened gallon of milk's "use-by" date has passed would you be willing to use it?
Rick Snell: Serbians have a dish called kebab (pronounced che-vap), which is a pile of
frank-shaped meat fragments on a pita, traditionally served with "yogurt",
which is actually milk which has soured and thickened. It's not bad if it's
supposed to be like that.
What is the most unusual item you've thrown up on/in?
Rick Snell: I've been successfully inspired to vomit by a pair of shoes.
Do you prefer the term "underwear" or "underpants"? What does that say about you?
Rick Snell: Panties for every article. Briefs -- panties. Necktie -- panties. Try it. Grand
canyon -- panties.
You've been asked to submit an anecdote or "tip" to a book called Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned On Tour With My Band. What do you tell them?
Rick Snell: Tell the soundguy you've heard of his band. Talk him up about your one friend
who got it on a mix and is "so into it".
Not to be morbid, but let's assume that (a) you've died, and (b) you filled out an organ donor card and potential recipients are lining up. Which part of your body do you think will be most sought-after? Are there any bits no-one will want?
Rick Snell: To answer this question in reverse (not to be morbidly negative), I don't think
anyone would want my colon, which bleeds when I drink too much coffee. My
lungs, similarly, would be tested and discarded, not for lack of taking good
care: no smoking and the like. My leg has a weird vein which runs its entire
length to the great pleasure of my displeasure. I don't think anyone has
figured out the leg transplant, so I guess that's not even an issue. You may
not know this, but I'm like the shortest dude anyone has ever met. Tiny
tissue. Instant weight loss.
A long-lost possession has turned up on Ebay, and you're prepared to pay much more than it's worth just to finally get it back. What is it? Why is it worth so much to you?
Rick Snell: The journal that just got stolen from my trunk (with all my gear). It had many
unsent love letters.
You've been given the resources and financial backing to create a new satellite TV network that caters specifically to your tastes and the tastes of people like you. What's it called, and what does it show?
Rick Snell: Free Jazz Central or the Daniel Clowes Channel.
There are literally hundreds of euphemisms for masturbation. What's the best one you've heard?
Rick Snell: Take a solo over these changes.
Which is worse: downloading an album and burning copies for five friends, or shoplifting one physical copy of the same CD from an overpriced national retailer? Explain your answer
Rick Snell: "Taking by force"... by nature of its higher risk, it involves a greater sense
of will to act out, and so can be seen as more of an indication of a general
sociopathology. Of course there is broad gray territory where there is dispute
over the ethics of activities whose legality is defined, and law enforcement
doesn't apply equally across the board. These things are significant in
defining what is seen as right and wrong. Shoplifting is a crime in the eyes of
the law (and has stiff penalties), whereas we haven't yet fully defined to the
letter the legality of taking songs off the internet... not enough precedent
(though powerful forces have been trying to set precedent for some time). I
know your question is a question of personal ethics... it's my belief that
music and art should be able to be enjoyed without having to pay any more than
one can afford or is willing to pay.
A few years ago, anal sex was still taboo; nowadays it's trendy. What will be the next major sexual taboo to fall?
Rick Snell: Bunch of acorns in ass.
What, in your opinion, is the best book ever written? And why?
Rick Snell: I like The Satanic Verses and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. They shook my soul.
The USA needs a universal healthcare system. So far, no President has gotten anywhere near implementing one. Why do you think they keep failing? (Bonus: Outline your own plan for universal healthcare in 100 words or less.)
Rick Snell: We all know that money buys things. Sometimes it buys your new Adidas, or a
trip to the Andes, or a mechanical bull. Sometimes (for those who have a lot of
it to throw around) it buys security against the potentially destructive
fluctuations that it flows in: its own rising and declining worth. This can
mean many many things, but to touch briefly on the mechanisms that money
supplies in the specific place where the private sector fights the tide of
socialization, it happens in the creation and distribution of what the
communists called propaganda (we in the West with out ideas of "free speech"
don't appreciate fully what this term means, namely that "free" speech is
often paid for). Say what you want about the sorry level of involvement in the
social process in America, or the general lack of information on social causes,
or the simple lack of a civic sense; in this society it is still true that the
people need to swallow something before it can be made legal. So: in the eyes
of the health care and pharmaceutical industries (who stand to lose billions in
the socialization of their services and products), that means that a strong
majority of us have to stand up for the backward (to the cause of working
people and the poor) idea that it's better to pay for health care out of
pocket, to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars a visit, than to
divert a large portion of the payroll tax from other government programs (like
military spending) to provide a basic service that every person relies on for
life and health. Again, to point to specific mechanisms: multiple millions of dollars in advertising and lobbying, slogan-spinning and
speech-writing spent by a powerful association of businesses has ensured that
the issue of socialized health care will remain out of possibility for the
foreseeable future. As an afterthought: what would happen if the President
voiced his concern over the very real and immediate crisis in health care with
the same insistence that he has furthered the idea of the questionable and
far-flung "crisis" in social security?
Right this very second, what are you most looking forward to, and why?
Rick Snell: Any minute my roommate will return and we will go out to wheatpaste posters for
our show at the Knitting Factory next week. Hee hee.
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Dufus released Ball of Design late last year. Presumably they're still promoting it and beginning work on the follow-up. We like Dufus a lot. You should buy their stuff.
-- George Zahora
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