INTERVIEW - ACTOR RUSSELL SAMS

Russell Sams burst on the pop culture scene with his extremely memorable appearance in the film, The Rules of Attraction. Watch this clip:





Russell Sams: I looked at ForcesOfGood and I liked it, usually people who are into comic books have a certain intellect, I don't know what it is, but usually those readers are thinking people.

Garrett Faber: Oh definitely. Are you into comics at all?

RS: When I was growing up I really loved Vampirella, I can't help the sexual allure of female vampires.

GF: Her outfit was intense, it was just those two things covering her boobs and that was it.

RS: I'd let her suck my neck.

GF: Definitely, she's like the queen of the underworld or something.

RS: It would be hard to fight it. I also loved some of the models she was based on, and how she changed over the years. I didn't get a lot of her issues, but I picked up some here and there. I also liked Legends of The Dark Knight, Batman, and before that, when I was a kid I read G.I Joe and Ninja Turtles.

GF: I love the Turtles, I think I’m gonna get a Turtles tattoo.

RS: Oh really, would it have all their faces on it, or just one turtle?

GF: I think I'd have to go for the team, all four, however if I was gonna go for just one turtle I'd have to pick Raph. He was badass.

RS: I had this huge 6 foot tall cardboard cutout of all four of them. When the movie came out, that was it, Elias Koteas as Casey Jones, so cool.

GF: My friend and I were talking about how good the original movie was and how cartoonish the others were. When I was a kid I didn't realize how serious that movie was, like, the Foot was a gang that was recruiting kids off the street. They beat the hell out of Raph and throw his ass through a window, they're fighting in a burning building and the floor falls out from under them, they leave New York and go to the country, and it's one hell of a movie.

RS: I'm almost afraid to go back and watch certain movies now.

GF: Another good movie you should watch again would be Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It's better now than it was when I was a kid.

RS: I remember watching it and it was the first time I ever saw animated characters mixed with real life, and having them interact, I'll check that out now though, does it have a different meaning to you now though?

GF: Yeah, I never noticed that one company was trying to buy Toontown to turn it into a highway, and that Toons were treated as second class citizens with no real rights of their own. Toons were getting killed on the spot by the judge with the dip.

RS: That always bother me too, I know it was a cartoon but it was still a little gruesome. Also when the Judge's fake eyes fell out, that bothered me, I don't like to have anything close to my eyes or touching my eyes, so when his eyes popped out, that disturbed me a little.

GF: What are some of your favorite movies?

RS: One that I've seen many times, is Braveheart, I'm a big fan of the Scottish people and the British Isles, I love that time period, I'm a big history buff. I also love Platoon; I know a Vietnam vet and he said it's one of the most realistic Vietnam movies. All the young actors went on to do other great things.

GF: Johnny Depp was in it!

RS: I know man! Oliver Stone has done some great work.

GF: I had an idea for a movie that would take place during the time the Declaration of Independence was being signed, and it would have Johnny Depp playing Ben Franklin. It would show the drama and danger of what these men were doing in making America an independent country. It would have George Washington and all those cool people in it.

RS: That would be a great character piece, and Johnny could totally pull off playing Ben, he'd find a way to make to work.

GF: Did you see the Libertine?

RS: Yeah, that was one movie I went to see twice in theaters. I really liked that piece. I met this person who told me about this documentary called "Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride", I haven't seen it, but the guy who told me about it said that Johnny Depp got a call from Bill Murray where he said "Johnny, be careful, once you get close to Hunter S Thompson, he'll never leave you, he'll always be there in some way." So, in Pirates of the Caribbean, you've got a little bit of Keith Richards in Jack Sparrow, but there is also part of Hunter S Thompson that comes in there a little bit too. I haven't seen the new Pirates movie, but when I do I'll pay more attention to it.

GF: Hunter S Thompson was great, whenever I write anything I try to write in my own voice, the way Hunter had his own distinctive voice. He was crazy, but he wasn't crazy, but he was crazy.

RS: That duality, I think, is what separates the great from the ordinary, there is a fine line that people dangle on, if you go too far onto either side then you're too far up the stream, you're either socially defined as crazy or you become whatever normal is, I think the people who dance on that line become some of the greatest, most influential writers, teachers, actors, whatever in the art world.

GF: Are you a big fan of art?

RS: Oh yeah, when I get a chance, I love to go to the museums, I backpacked for three weeks through Europe with my girlfriend, and of course you want to see everything so you don't want to spend too much time in museums but there were a couple that we just had to go in because they had such amazing work. I love paintings and busts, we saw Queen Nefertiti's bust in Berlin, and you realize how much an object holds it's weight when it's in a room with a Picasso and a Matisse, and the first thing you see is the bust, you fly by everything else and go straight to the bust. You go back to the other paintings too, but that bust definitely holds its own. I like the German artists in between World War 1 and World War 2 because they had so much to say.

GF: The Dada movement?

RF: Yes, you had the soldiers coming back from World War 1 absolutely devastated and depressed about losing such a major conflict and them trying to repair themselves as a country. Which I think is another testament to honor because that was way for them to express themselves and leave a note for later on. You can look back at some of those paintings and some of that literature and realize how these people felt. That is what's great about the art world.

GF: What did you think about Andy Warhol?

RS: I saw the movie Factory Girl and that gave me a different perspective on Warhol because I didn't know much about him, it gave me some food for thought, about his work. The cool thing about art is that you can look at it and go "I don't get it" and another person can look at it and go "That is really powerful". One of the things Siena Miller says in the movie is that Warhol takes the industrial line and makes it into a statement, with the Campbell's Soup, or the movies he put out, he made them statements. I don't know what I think about Warhol sometimes, he did something that no one else was doing at the time and he made people stop and think, so that has to mean something. Guy Pierce was great as Warhol, I really like his work, he's very committed to his roles, he's a very stellar actor and brave in the roles he chooses.

GF: What are some of your favorite books?

RS: I really like The Idiot, Siddhartha and Fight Club, those are a few off the top of my head, I do enjoy reading though, there is so much to read out there, they can totally change your perspective on things, that’s why I love the Russian and German writers.

GF: Do you write at all?

RS: I do have a journal, I have almost six full journals right now, especially when I moved to California I kept a journal. I had one before I left Tennessee, especially being out here, I wrote a lot. When you first move out here that's really all you have, so you read a lot more and you write more. I have a couple of ideas I'd like to use for short film, one day I graduate into being a writer, write something to make people laugh or write something to make people think.

GF: That's the most important thing a writer can do, is inspire someone else, write something to touch peoples lives. Who were some of the people that you admire that you got to meet?

RS: You see a lot of people out here, but you don't really get to talk to them. One person I've got to talk to was Tom Petty, I got to tell him how much I appreciate his music. My manager used to do artist development for Warner Brothers; he's had a hand in helping a lot of musicians. His name is Paul Scott, he's part of Simmons and Scott, my management company, he's got some great stories that you would die to hear. So, I saw Tom Petty at this function and I’m like "I gotta tell him that I love his music!" His eyes were so kind, and so warm, for a guy who's been around and had all these business things coming at him from all angles, it was nice that he took that little moment with me and say thank you. Another person is Frances de la Tour, she is a British actress who won a Tony for History Boys, she's an older lady, but when I was having trouble out here, acting and being an actor, you go through times when you get really discouraged man and the thought of quitting sometimes sneaks into you. I was at that crossroads where I wasn't sure what I was going to do. She sat me down in her garden and she gave me a lot of her wisdom on acting on stage, film and TV. She's also in the Harry Potter movies; she's really talented and really funny. I also go to meet Marilyn Manson.

GF: Marilyn Manson! How was he?

RS: It was at the premiere of The Rules of Attraction, it was my first red carpet, you're walking down, talking to people and I bumped to him, we didn't really say much, but after the film at the premiere party, I walk past him and he goes "Dick!" I turn around and Marilyn Manson is standing there, I tried to maintain cool. He said he appreciated my performance and he said a lot of nice things and I said to him, Marilyn, I loved your biography when you said "the less people know about you, the more they think you're a genius". I think he was kind of surprised that I read his autobiography, and that’s what was great because I am such a fan of his. For me to be a fan of his music and his book, and me to meet him and get that compliment from him will always be a highlight for me. You should check out his book, the Long Road out Of Hell. I also got meet Dita.

GF: Dita Von Teese?! Whoa, what was that like?

RS: The speech kind of left me, because she's so lovely, it was pretty cool, it was a highlight.

GF: The Rules of Attraction is one of my favorite movies; I've seen it at least a hundred times.

RS: Oh, that's cool, that movie was a highlight for a lot of people, I know it didn't do too well in theaters but a lot of people picked it up and it has it's own following now, I give a lot of credit to the director Roger Avary. He allowed to people be free and try stuff, some of that stuff was great. I didn't know any of the other actors at the time it filmed, I only met them at the premiere party, and now look at what they're doing, a lot of those actors and actresses have gone on to find great success. I got the callback and I got to audition for Roger, that dinner table scene, and we did it, I couldn't get my shoe back on, so I got frustrated by it so I kicked it, and the shoe flew over and hit Roger in the shin. We just kind of stared at each other for a second and I kind of made up something and said "Okay, fuck you all very much, I'm outta here." I started to leave and he was like "Wait!" He guided me and helped me have freedom, and made it possible to do those scenes really well. With the "Faith” scene, I didn't know we were doing that until right before we did it and he says to me "Here's what I want you to do for me, I want you to get on the bed and strip, and I'm going to play a song for you to strip to." and I go, "Oh my gosh, are you serious?" He says "Yeah, it's an initiation into our club. Trust me; you'll thank me for this later on." And I go "What song?" he says "It's a George Michael song". I say "What, Faith or something?" and he says "Of course." It was in this small little hotel room in Pasadena, I felt this surge of energy come over me and we did in one take, Ian Somerhalder jumps right in on his own will and we're just there doing it. It was one take and Roger's like "Okay, you're in the club."

GF: You guys didn't plan that dance or anything?

RS: No, I didn't even know it was happening I felt my stomach churn like "I don't know what I’m gonna do, or what's gonna happen." I've never done anything like that before and then bam, there it was in the movie.

GF: A lot of people said those scenes, the dinner table and the Faith scene were their favorite parts of the movie.

RS: Thank you, that's a huge compliment, the way the movie is, in the first few minutes of it, anytime you have a girl at a party getting taken from behind and puked on, you know you're in for an interesting movie. That movie wasn't for everybody; my Mom wasn't a big fan of that one, to be honest. Rightfully so, I told her ahead of time, about it. I think that part of the movie gives everyone a chance to laugh out loud a little bit, the movie is kind of heavy in a lot of ways, it leaves you with that feeling like, "I have to go shower, or have a beer or something." That's also the writer of the book; he leaves you like that sometimes.

GF: Bret Easton Ellis is my favorite writer, whenever he writes, it seems like he's speaking to me. I think he's a genius. Have you read any of his books?

RS: I read Less Than Zero, and I didn't read Rules of Attraction, because I didn't want it to influence anything. I have a copy of the Rules, Less Than Zero and American Psycho, have you read a lot of his stuff?

GF: I've read all of them except The Informers, I think Glamorama is his absolute best work and my favorite book of all time.

RS: I think Roger wanted to do a Glamorama movie, Roger is a huge fan of Bret Easton Ellis, and he wanted to do it with Kip Pardue to be in it, I don't know what's happening with that.

GF: Are you still cool with any of the cast members?

RS: I've seen Ian a couple of times, the guy who did Wonderland with Val Kilmer, Josh Lucas, Janeane Garofalo, Christina Applegate, and Timothy Blake Nelson, damn talented cast, at the Rules of Attraction Premiere party, the director was like "I don't have a part for you in this movie, but do you wanna come and be in it? You can hang out on the set for a week and you throw you in when I can, you can improvise." I'm like "Yeah man!" If I get to be on a set with people like that and watch and learn, I’ll do it for free. I'm in it in the middle, for like a minute in this one scene with Dylan McDermott at a party. Besides that I haven't spoken to any of the cast of the Rules, that's the way it is. You do this project with people and have a good time, but then when that project is over, you move on to the next thing. You never forget them, but sometimes you lose touch with them. This town is small in a lot of way; you'll run into them again, one way or the other.

GF: Do you ever do theater?

RS: Oh yeah, I'm doing a play right now actually. It's a contemporary play set in LA, it's written by a guy Gardner McKay and it's called Toyer, it's two person piece about a guy who seduces woman, makes love to them and then lobotomizes them. He meets them, charms them, makes love to them, drugs them, and then he lobotomizes them by cutting the fibers in the back of their skulls. He leaves them wheelchair bound in a vegetable state. I'm doing it with a talented actress I met at the University of Tennessee, great stage actress Jennifer Pennington. I haven't done a play in a while, I've gotta find a way to do more plays because I love them so much. I started out onstage, but it's hard because when you move out here, you have to keep your days open for auditions, plays are usually at night and you've still got to pay rent and eat, you've got to figure out some way to do it, and it's hard.

GF: Do you like plays better than movies?

RS: I like them both man, they're both beautiful beasts, the constant thing is you get to create and you get to act. A great character is a great character no matter what medium it's in, it doesn't matter to me; I'm in it to win it. There is something about live theater that is amazing, last weekend, one of the lighting cues didn't work, it was kind of an important part in the play, you've got to somehow, decide what you're going to do and move on, because there is no "cut", no stops, or editing, it's live. I love it for that.

GF: What did you do about the light cue?

RS: We just kept going, the light was supposed to go out, but it didn't go out all the way, then the lights were supposed to go on and they didn't go on all the way. We just kept going until finally the lights worked out, sometimes that stuff happens. A funny story was about this actress who was playing Helen Keller and the scene was, this guy was going to attack her and she was going to defend herself with this knife, the thing was, the knife wasn't where it was supposed to be in her kitchen. She couldn't find it during the scene and the guy was getting ready to attack her, so she picks up the bowl of sugar, hurls it at him and says "Poison Sugar! Poison Sugar! Poison Sugar!" That shows how crazy and spontaneous it can be.

GF: What other talents do you have besides acting and writing?

RS: Not many, [laughs] theirs a lot of things about people that I love. I like people and I like the things that surround us. Not to sound too weird but, I love nature and I love the human condition. I love a lot of art forms, I sketch sometimes, I'm not good at sketching people but I love landscapes, and trees, things that tie into nature, those are the things that I love to do. A lot of the other things I don't have, I think I just haven't tapped into them yet. I love to play the harmonica.

GF: Are you on Myspace?

RS: No, I'm not, I get weird about that stuff, once I figure out everyone is doing it, then I don't want to do it. It took me a long time to get email, and a cellphone.

GF: It's a good social networking tool.

RS: I agree, I guess I'll weasel my way into it eventually, just not yet. It's good for bands.

GF: What was highschool like for you, were you acting then?

RS: No, I didn't know anything about acting until two or three years after highschool. I went to the University of Tennessee and at the time they had an awesome undergrad program, the young actors and undergrads worked so hard and we did everything from lighting to set dressing to costumes, we did our own thing man. That's when I realized how great it was, we had a great space at the Clarence Brown Theatre, it's awesome. After college I realized that acting was what I wanted to do, although I’ve never been west of the Mississippi, I packed up my car and came out here, I've been fortunate on some things. I wasn't very popular in highschool, I just tried to get good grades and worked at McDonalds to try and buy a car.

GF: What was it like working on CSI?

RS: I was nervous because it's such a big show, I had to audition for it for different parts, eleven or twelve times, finally I got this part in this episode and it was a good win for me. That's an example of good relationships; the lady who cast the show championed me and believed in me.

GF: How do you learn how to act? How can they teach that to you?

RS: I don't know, I don't know how you do that, I think there has to be a combination of different things, it's gotta be in you. Like drawing, everyone can draw, it's just that some people can draw really well and others can't, same as singing. It has to be in you a little bit, and you've got to have that passion to want to do it, and want to be better at it, and work hard at it and learn. That's what passion does, it makes you want to work and learn. You've also got to be committed to it, you can do all those things but if it's not in you, if it's not some type of gift then you probably won't get it. It's like public speaking, some people are naturally good at it, but others are always bad at it, no matter how hard they try. It can be a combination of things.

INTERVIEW - ARTIST CORINNE ALEXIS HALL

Corinne became one of my best friends after we did this interview, I'm going to start recording our 3 hour long phone conversations and have then transcribed into a book called "From C to G and Back Again."

Garrett Faber: Is there anything you would not like to discuss in this interview?

Corinne Alexis Hall: I.... don't think so? I can't think of anything...

GF: Okay, cool, I always ask that and no one can ever think of anything, I always expect someone to be like "Don't ask about Vietnam" then I'd be like "Okay, I won't?"

CAH: [Laughs] Right. I had a teacher who was like that.

GF: You couldn't ask him about the 'Nam?

CAH: Couldn't ask or mention it, and when "the bomb" became a thing to say he started having flashbacks in class. I wasn't there for that though but I heard he turned the desk over once to take cover and started throwing chalk.

GF: No way.

CAH: Way. He died of a heart attack not long after.

GF: How did you get into the clothing business?

CAH: I was working at a comic book store and getting more and more frustrated with my art, thinking horrible and damning thoughts about lack of future so I started making handbags that had paintings on them. I figured it would be much easier for me if the things I painted were useful. I sold the first one before it was finished, which was a good sign. I then made the second one for Rosario Dawson, I knew her because I was dating her uncle Gus and I was always around the building they lived in. She wore it onto Regis and Kelly during an interview for her role in "The 25th Hour", the Spike Lee Film.

GF: How long have you been doing this?

CAH: 2002 if I remember anything correctly.

GF: You do it all by hand?

CAH: A lot of it, some of it Urban Outfitters liked and we had mass-produced, and another line of mine sells at Hot Topic which is also mass-produced.

GF: Awesome, do you do the design and print stuff full time or do you have another job as well?

CAH: I do this full-time, but I sneak in painting and making armor with my boyfriend when I can. We call it "Armor Dorking".

GF: Someone once said that doing what you love and getting paid for it is the American Dream

CAH: I think it's just The Dream, American or not, I have a lot of reasons to be grateful. Except the fashion industry stinks a little.

GF: How so?

CAH: It's the one art form that you hear "can you knock this off" or "rip this off" as part of the standard language.

GF: Sounds groady to me.

CAH: Not a very friendly place for the artists in it, as they might be facing the inevitability of being screwed in some way. Sharks, man.

GF: Have you ever done any skateboards?

CAH: No but I would love to, are you kidding me?

GF: Flip and Mystery have awesome art.

CAH: I'll look them up, I haven't been leaving my cave lately.

GF: How much time do you devote to painting? Do you ever do canvas stuff for galleries?

CAH: I've been painting since my diaper exploded, and I devote a lot of time to it. I haven't shown anywhere yet, but I just started a big series and plan on getting that somewhere, hopefully. Art's a tough bizz.

GF: Andy Warhol made it look so easy

CAH: Andy Warhol's art was his calculating mind and his will to stay silent about what he'd figured out. The rest is just fairy dust and glamour. My clothing company is largely inspired by my idea of what he accomplished.

GF: What's that idea?

CAH: I think he managed to treat pop culture like a religion and to divine things from his immediate surroundings. If you're into predicting trends you eventually become a pop psychic. I'm working on starting a religion based on those ideas, the Church of Pop. I'm getting ordained next month, so if you ever need a minister...

GF: Can I be the archbishop of funk?

CAH: Hell's effing yes dude, that's exactly the kind of fun religions should be, don't you think?

GF: Score! What process do you use to silkscreen your shirts? The photo emulsion process?

CAH: Yes, photo emulsion, then thousand mistakes per screen, and then I eventually have a working screen to....work with. Have you played with silk-screening?

GF: Yeah, back in the day, I didn't know anything about Warhol or anything like that at the time, so I didn't really dwell on how far I could take it. Apparently, you took the idea and ran with it.

CAH: Well he did most of the footwork. My shirts are one-of-a-kind and cool, but they're also set up in such a way that if I mess up it doesn't matter so much.

GF: How so?

CAH: Well for Love Nico I sell tees that are supposed to be unique- so they all don't have to come out the same. So if I forget to say print a gun in the right place, no one's going to complain, so long as there isn't something horribly wrong, those little differences help add to the beauty of the product.

GF: Like the Mothholes thing

CAH: I would never be able to print really detailed text in the same place on each shirt. Impossible, because I do it all on a flat table, and speaking of mothholes, it is so much fun to stab shirts a lot.

GF: They're not moths?!?

CAH: I mean...watch my moths work diligently for me, 24/7.

GF: Oh, okay, sweet. Did you see the movie Basquiat where David Bowie played Andy Warhol?

CAH: [Laughs] Yes, I am a David Bowie fan, that's kind of an understatement.

GF: How do you choose an image to print? What inspired you to do the city stuff like watertowers?

CAH: I don't have any particular process to picking designs. Sometimes I make things on the computer and then pick out things etc. There is no way for me to uphold any kind of system. The watertowers and "psicon" line are there just because I've always loved those things. Powerlines, all that. I like NYC, and it's got a lot of interesting skyline going on. Urban things thrill the shit out of me.

GF: Me too, especially trees in the city.

CAH: Dude, trees are amazing. They remind me of nature, which I like better than urban things... but not much I can do about that whole "population" or development thing.

GF: Do you have any tattoos?

CAH: I have a few, one on my arm that I got when I was 17.

GF: What is it of?

CAH: It's an Egyptian catouche from Nefertiti's era, a scarab holding up the sun. It's got to do with a whole lot of deep things about transcendence, and because Nefertiti's era was so unique, they changed everything about the religion of the area. I got this tattoo when I was young and then it's been unfolding its meaning to me since in crazy "voice of god" synchronistic ways.

GF: Are you a spiritual or religious person?

CAH: Spiritual for sure, definitely. I worked at a witch shop too for a while. I did tarot and made incense by hand.

GF: Comic Shop, Witch Shop, what other "normal" jobs have you had?

CAH: I was the jerk that ran the cafe and was rude to people, toy-painter, camp counselor, window display at a big clothing store wrestling with mannequins. I'm sure there are a few others.

GF: Worst job ever?

CAH: Student, definitely the worst.

GF: What inspired your decision to leave school twice and go back once?

CAH: Almost everything that I was paying for was the inspiration to leave and the other students sometimes ticked me off, too. I just saw Art School Confidential. They nailed it with that movie.

GF: How was that? I haven't seen it yet, I got The Prestige and The Departed on DVD.

CAH: I think you might really love that movie, I highly recommend it. I haven't seen those other two. Do you think that the hipster is PeeWee's fault?

GF: PeeWee was all about...he was all about something,

CAH: Hipsters are all about out-cooling each other with obscurity.

GF: I hate that sort of thing, It's one thing to like something because it's good, its another to try to one up someone by knowing some random band from Texas. It's so stupid.

CAH: Well that kind of behavior will either run more rampant or less because of Myspace, it's too easy now.

GF: I think once the novelty of obscurity it wears off, really good musicians will be okay once again.

CAH: Yeah, I see it that way- I think we're going to return to actual skill and beauty again at some point soon.

GF: The sooner the better, but the mainstream culture will always find something (usually) lame to cling to, then when the trends change again, they look for something new.

CAH: As a rule now it takes from the underground. where the real action is.

GF: Yeah, but that money and fame can really corrupt a once really good musician case in point, Nelly Furtado, her popularity is higher than ever, but she totally sold out.

CAH: Yeah but you as a consumer will never have access to the millions of things she has to deal to with or without her consent, there are rules when other people get you where you are that you cannot avoid following sometimes.

GF: That's true, its the classic case of artistic merit versus mainstream appeal.

CAH: Especially if it means losing what you've earned which often means taking care of your family versus not being able to do anything for them. Mainstream appeal doesn't exist outside of the hype and excitement of liking something and the approval of peers.

GF: And record sales.

CAH: Often consumers take the little scraps of originality that they get in mainstream thinking that there's no better, but they won't know because the true grit and message is unknown without a voice or outlet.

GF: But then again, no one really buys music anymore.

CAH: Nope, and as a true testament to that, Tower Records went out of business.

GF: If only Rorschach were here, we'd ask him for help, and he'd say "No". Did you read Watchmen?

CAH: Hell yeah. I'm working on a very angry painting of Rainbow Brite. It's about how she lied to an entire generation.

GF: How so?

CAH: Well, ever notice that kids who grew up in the 80's were completely instilled with the "right to dream" and imagine and all kinds of encouraging things about imagination and art and fantasy and all that?

GF: I grew up in the '90s, but please continue.

CAH: Things that were very much not a part of the "cold hard reality" that we have to snap into all of a sudden one day without much warning or without much of a segway.

GF:In the '90s things were more cynical.

CAH:More realistic.

GF:I was watching Melrose Place when I was like 10, and I always wanted Zack and Kelly to "hook up" even know what "hook up" was.

CAH: Every generation is brought up on themes and I think that the hippies, after having their world crushed and their spirits broken, wanted to protect their kids from "reality" and conserve their innocence but in effect it's caused a great deal of dreamers and a lot of financial crisis with no balance.

GF: Where have you seen your shirts, like, Rosario Dawson, ECW?

CAH: Well I haven't seen them on Rosario Dawson, she had the handbag before the shirts were a thought but I've seen them on VH1 Classic, MTV2, Kerrang Magazine and YRB Magazine, a couple of movies, and a poopload of random TV shows. Also that Dr. Pepper commercial where the guy starts playing drums.
It's hard to keep on top of that, no one informs you, usually, when they're using something of yours.

GF: What stores sell your LoveNico stuff?

CAH: Yellow Rat Bastard, Urban Outfitters, Trash and Vaudeville, Up Against the Wall, Metropark, that's a cool one on the west coast and a bunch of other boutiques around the world. Not too many chains.

GF: Cool, what other artists do you like?

CAH: Well, I consider most people artists, so can I answer from that perspective? Art is the brilliant uniqueness of our minds and the execution of that uniqueness. I like David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Ron English, Carlos Castaneda and Robert Rauschenberg. Robert Anton Wilson is my favorite author, who just recently passed. Gordon Liu is only the best kung-fu movie actor EVER.

GF: Was he in Kill Bill?

CAH: Yup! I screamed in the theatres when his name came on the credits. You should look into armor dorking for yourself, it's great fun.

GF: What is that?

CAH: It's when you build yourself your own armor, out of anything you can find, then you test it by letting friends whack you with a stick or other things.

GF: No way! That's awesome. Where can I see that? What do you make them out of?

CAH: My boyfriend thought it up. Him and his friends grew up making crazy things. We make them out of anything we can dig up, from the garbage mostly. He actually did some stage armor for Don Omar and set design and all sorts of things. Check it out at Jayel Draco

GF: Wow, that's impressive, what new things are you coming up with now?

CAH: In general? I'm sorry, I wasn't sure if the question was related to clothing or art or armor or world domination or...

GF: Oh, sorry, LoveNico stuff

CAH: Well to be honest I'm currently at a bit of a loss in that arena. I'm not sure if what I might want to see on shirts is going to sync up with what buyers are looking for, and it's difficult for me to go for a long while just listening to buyer demands and not my own ideas. When I put inspiration into things they tend to do well in the stores, but not so well when I try to hit on some mass market demand. If I don't create something that is a sure sell, no one will take a chance on it.

GF: Oh, will people just like, give you ideas and let you run with it?

CAH: In the short 4 years I've been doing this, buyers have become more and more specific. I sometimes lately feel as though the entire point of what I'm trying to do is getting lost in a flurry of mass-market regurgitation.

GF: Has anyone had you take their picture and commission a shirt or anything like that?

CAH: Nope- too expensive and too time-consuming to silkscreen a one-of-a kind. I hand-painted a couple, but as gifts, and for fun.

GF: I like "Fuck Love shirt" with the hands all over it.

CAH: That one of course is literally hand-painted. I stick my hands in a gallon of red ink and think angry thoughts and listen to Nine Inch Nails or System of a Down.

GF: I love System, what did you think of the new albums?

CAH: I also think that a few of their videos are more creative and have more plot than most movies I've seen.

GF: Are you into filmmaking at all?

CAH: Nope. I've been itching for a video camera lately. My boyfriend and I do a lot of photo shoots together, at random, when we're off for the night. It's been getting me wanting to start documenting all of the crazy shit we do and make. We both live in a house with all of our art endeavors at full blast here.

GF: I hung my art in the gallery in January and nobody bought anything. I remember, nobody bought any of Andy Warhol's paintings from his first show Then I was talking to this art dealer, an older woman, Me and Joe were at her gallery and she totally trashed my art, like, trashed it and I walked around the gallery and I saw what she was hanging and I said "you don't like my stuff because its not your style, you're here in this place you rented selling kitchen paintings to housewives"

CAH: Nice!

GF: Joe was pissed, but I didn't care, I was just concerned with the whole artistic merit versus mass consumption thing. I wanted to make a living as a painter, whatever that means, and what I was painting wasn't what was "popular" in Lancaster PA at the time which was last month. So, I asked myself, would I be an artwhore, doing shit I hated for money or would I be Van Gogh, who considered himself a failure until the day he died. Which, is terrible.

CAH: It's hell.

GF: It doesn't matter what other people think about you, what matters is what you think about yourself. Do you have any advice for a fellow artist?

CAH: Don't take any shit, seriously. It goes all the way up the chain, the only way to make a difference is to always demand being treated like a human and eventually people will just feel that emanate off of you and you'll have a lot less of an issue with respect than most people.

GF: Yeah, Ross Halfin gave me a great bit of advice in his interview, he said PR people act like don't respect anything you do and that you have to have control over what you do.

CAH: In a lot of ways I had a really great run of the past few years, got a lot of chances, and good luck- then for some reason, this year, it's been down from there, a long way down, before I've even been given a chance to do the big stuff

GF: How so?

CAH: Originally people loved what I made, the tees were original. Then by next year everyone's shit looked just like mine and a few other people's, only mass-produced. Then after that, the buyers started asking me to copy what other people had copied from me and some of the more original people. The flame wasn't in that, so I've been fizzing out since. So Garrett, when someone tells you to compromise or sell out a little, and tells you that it's necessary, you go tell them to fuck themselves. Because it doesn't work, not for the truly original people of the world. We set the standards and others follow. The role of the creative individual is very powerful and feeds potentially whole tribes of families. Just one brilliant mind can change the lives of thousands if not millions. And we're supposed to cave in? Live by someone else's standards? You've got that spark, I can see it in your videos. Don't let it happen to you, just be yourself. If it takes years of determination, it'll work. Trust me....Okay I'm done ranting.

GF: Dude, that was really inspirational.

CAH: Cool. It came from a real place.

GF: One more question?

CAH: Of course.

GF: Do you have any parting words for everyone who will ever read this?

CAH: Parting words, hmmm...Buy my shirts so I can escape the apocalypse. Thank you. How's that? Too much?

GF: Perfect.

Corrinne!

INTERVIEW - ATIBA JEFFERSON, SKATEBOARD PHOTOGRAPHER

I discovered a lot of things while interviewing Atiba Jefferson for forcesofgood. He went to see Nirvana! That's rad! I wanted to go see Nirvana but it didn't really work out. Atiba Jefferson is a photographer, skateboarder, musician, but not much of a painter. He's really mellow and calm, he seems to have this otherworldly calmness to him, I bet if a meteor came crashing towards him, he wouldn't stand there going "Oh shit!" he'd probably just...step out of the way. He's cool like that. One thing that really surprised me is his laugh, he laughs like Dr. Hibbert from The Simpsons. Amazing! His work has been featured in magazines, like Transworld, and The Skateboard Mag. He's in the Yeah Right! video when Paul Rodriguez busts his ass jumping down those steps, the part when you hear the gun shot and it changes songs. That was him then, this is him now. Check out his website http://www.atibaphoto.com

Garrett Faber: You've been doing photography for a really long time, how do you feel about other mediums like painting or writing?

Atiba Jefferson: I gotta be honest, I was never that good. I tagged back in the day, probably when I was about 14 or 15. It's not that I was trying to be the best but when you picture something in art and you try it and it comes out not nearly close to what you want, it's discouraging. It's definitely something I wish I could do. My mom's a painter but I never was.

GF: I looked through some of your basketball photography, D Mason did a windmill dunk and you shot it with the fisheye, 9 frames per second thing. That was pretty sick.

AT: Yeah, when you're shooting skating, you look at things differently, it helps with sports photography. That's the one good thing about shooting skating you never know your environment situation. There's different spots at different times of day, you never know when you're actually gonna be able to set up and shoot a skate photo. Once you take that into everything else, you're not used to always being able have all those circumstances under control, you're fine dealing with chaos because that's how skating was all the time. That's the one thing I really like about shooting skating early on was not being able to get used to anything.

GF: Out of skateboarding and sports photography,which one's easier?

AT: They're different, different types of pressure, skateboarding's probably more relaxed because when you're dealing with basketball shoots like, for Adidas or something. There's gonna be three or four art directors there, three or four people from Adidas. When I shoot skating it's going to be me, the skater, the filmer, and like the skaters friends, in that sense the skating is definitely the easiest scenario to deal with. Different things, in the skating scenario, I have to worry about if I'm about to be caught by the police, get a ticket, am I gonna have a crazy, psycho cop who's gonna try and impound all my equipment? Versus, with basketball, theres catering, music playing, and no ones trying to kick you out. It's two different kinds of pressures. If skating was legal and all good than hands down wouldn't be the stressful one. At the same time with skating, the dude's gotta make the trick, and shooting basketball, the dudes gonna make his portrait, make his trick. When I'm shooting a lot of skating, its nice for me to go out and shoot basketball stuff and vice-versa. It's nice to go skating and just relax and hang with my friends and push around. You see how the grass is greener on each side, it's nice living in both worlds. They compliment each other.

GF: After this next photography question, all the other questions are not gonna be about photography, I figured you get like a million photography questions, every time you do an interview. Lets talk about a bunch of different random stuff that nobody knew.

AT: Okay cool.

GF: Do you ever go to concerts and shoot bands?

AT: I definitely did, growing up. If theres a band that I'm into, I'll probably go film them more than I would shoot a photo of them just because I feel like a lot of stuff I'm into isn't filmed enough. I feel like people don't film a lot of good bands enough even in this day and age with this great, convenient technology. I think of a lot of bands, the old stuff that I listen to and I can't believe they didn't have filmers with them at all times. I like shooting bands photography, I did a lot of it growing up, I used to go to shows in my home town, whenever I could I would definitely shoot the shows. Nowadays, probably not a lot, I usually just got to enjoy the show. I shot photos of a friends band playing in late December, I just filmed the band on like New Years. I like to see live music, it's one of my favorite things.

GF: I was reading this other interview you did online, you said something about fate and destiny, do you believe in that, or do you believe in making your own fate, and forging your own destiny, or do you believe that everything is preordained?

AT: It's hard to say man, I definitely believe things are meant to be. I don't know if I follow that religiously, so to speak, I do believe things happen for a reason. I believe that the way I've come along in my life, is partly because everyone is in control of their own destiny, if you're a druggie, or you have a drug problem, you can fight that problem.

GF: The choices people make, some people just choose to go with it, other people choose to fight against it.

AT: Yeah, I choose to be a photographer, I don't know if that's fate or not. I think things happen for a reason, more than whether its fate or not. I don't look into it too much.

GF: I try not to dwell on it, did you see that movie The Number 23? It just came out.

AT: No, I wanted to see it though.

GF: I saw it, it was pretty good, the first half was better than the second half. After this one point in the movie it all goes down hill like "ahhhhh". The "23" thing was really intense in how he would just look for that number everywhere and keep finding it like "oh my god the number is haunting me". But if you look for anything, you'll find it somewhere.

AT: It's my favorite number by far.

GF: Why?

AT: It's like my good luck number, I'm a big Michael Jordan fan. It's pretty funny to see Jim Carrey playing serious roles.

GF: Did you see Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind?

AT: No, I haven't.

GF: Oh dude, that movie is so good.

AT: I hear it's really good.

GF: It's a good movie to watch with a chick.

AT: The thing is, I actually have it.

GF: You have it?

AT: Yeah a friend of mine bought it, it's just really insanely hard for me to get around to watch it.

GF: Me too, I bought The Island. With Scarlet Johannsen and that one dude.

AT: Which movie is that?

GF: It's like this futuristic thing, it's got Ewan McGregor. Do you believe in ghosts?

AT: Yeah, I think it's possible, I believe in life after death stuff, so I have to believe in ghosts.

GF: Are you a really religious person? Spiritual person?

AT: I wouldn't say I'm religious, I would say I'm spiritual but I'm not religious at all.

GF: Me neither.

AT: I believe theres a lot of good in all religions. I've never chosen one way or another, there's a lot of religions and lifestyles that I believe are right ways to go. Take a little bit from all of them, and just...

GF: Live.

AT: Yeah, more than just one religion.

GF: What did you think of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, were you into them? Pretty much everyone was, it's pretty interesting to hear what people have to say about them.

AT: It's funny, I'm 30 now, I actually listened to them before they got big.

GF: Like when "Bleach" came out?

AT: Yeah, I actually saw them play, I probably liked them less when they got big because that was the punk thing to do, not be into them because they're mainstream, lame but thats the way it was "we're not gonna like these dudes anymore". I'm stoked to say that I saw them play, I actually got to see them play.

GF: Have you ever seen Prince play?

AT: I've never seen Prince play. I've definitely wanted to. I grew up listening to Prince a lot, being an '80's child, you cannot not like Prince. You can see him now in Vegas.

GF: He can definitely wail, he's so good on guitar.

AT: Oh yeah, piano too.

GF: Did you see him on the Superbowl?

AT: No, I heard he killed it.

GF: Yeah he damn sure did.

AT: It's hard for me to watch the Superbowl, because it's such a good day to go skating. Because security here is less, and they're more distracted, it's pretty much more chill on that day.

GF: What were you doing in Colorado before you moved to California shooting photos?

AT: Before I moved to California I worked in a skateshop. It really taught me a lot about the skateboarding industry and how it works.

GF: How so?

AT: It's about the consumer. Which is the big reality of the skateboarding world that I think some people kinda forget about. It's a major part of our industry, these are the people that everyone's making the product for and everyone's trying to communicate to, the kid who's coming in the shop to buy something. Without that kid, no one in skating would have a job. It all really comes from that kid and those parents.

GF: My Mom definitely encouraged me to do whatever I want. A lot of my friends have asshole parents, I can honestly say that I have the coolest parents I know.

AT: A lot of kids can't say that about their parents.

GF: Yeah, they rebel, they rebel so hardcore. I didn't have anything to rebel against, for the most part. What were your parents like?

AT: My Dad was out of the picture when I was probably two years old. My Mom raised us, me and my identical twin brother Ako. I work at "The Skateboard Mag" with him, he's the art director. My Mom was great, she was a hippie, it wasn't easy, there were three of us, there was no money at all, we grew up food stamps and government cheese. I'm not saying it as a sob story, that's just the reality of the situation. It probably made me a better person.

GF: That's how it was with my Mom and I, my Dad definitely ducked out when I was like, born. Then he reappeared when I was 16 and it was hard for me to have any feelings for him at all. Kinda like that Tupac song.

AT: It's one of those things, he's in the picture now. I know he has reasons, for doing what he did, I'm not saying they're good reasons, but shit happens. Obviously the relationship isn't as tight as it is with my Mom because she sacrificed her life for me. I don't have any grudges, it's not cool to carry that. I'm cool with him but it's not like we're BFFs or I try to kick it with him 24/7. Mom was great, she's a hippie, she raised us listening to Jazz and Reggae. It wasn't until I got to my early twenties that I realized how much good music she was instilling in us. Like Peter Tosh and Bob Marley, she would take us to the shows when we were kids. She was a big Herbie Hancock, Weather Report and all this Jazz Fusion that I really like, it's funny how great her music taste was, I didn't realize it until later in my life. She was on her way to Woodstock when they had closed the street down, she definitely got to live her life really thoroughly early on, which is really a cool thing for me to be able to say about my Mom.

GF: Did you ever see that movie Lady Sings The Blues where Diana Ross plays Billie Holiday?

AT: No I haven't.

GF: It's a damn good movie, she dies at the end. Do you ever get the ideas to film a movie yourself?

AT: I wish I had that eye, I would probably go for it if I did. To me everything is in a frozen moment, versus moving moments, that's my experience as far as filming and all that goes. Most guys kinda graduate into that field but I'm still here shooting photos, trudging along. [laughs]

GF: How does the general public view skateboarders now as opposed to how they did years ago, because now there's a lot more skateboarding on TV like Viva La Bam and Rob and Big.

AT: When I was younger it was more like me against the world being a skateboarder. No one liked it at all. You weren't cool in school, you didn't get chicks, it was a very antisocial thing. Skateboarders didn't kick it with hip-hoppers or jocks, and now that's the thing. Jocks love Viva La Bam and Jackass. Who am I to say "Jocks"? I'm a sports photographer. [laughs] I grew up in a weird little town in Colorado where jocks were just kooks, they'd start some shit and we'd fight the jocks. But now it's like, jocks and skaters are friends and it's like "yeah dude!" It's only gonna solidify skating and help skating grow into something. Of course I don't want a bunch of kooks involved in skating, but it's gonna enable skaters to live life at a level higher than bums, I don't think that's a bad thing.

GF: Me neither. What's Jamie Thomas like in person?

AT: Jamie's an intense dude, that's the best way to put. Really intense and focused, he's always in the mood, he's an insane hard worker, without a doubt. He's a great dude, he was the first person to give me a Hasselblad as a gift. I think I would of bought one at some point, but that definitely sped up me and my photography career a lot. I owe a lot to Jamie.

GF: Do you ever have that thing someones skating and the board just shoots out and hits you? That happened to me once and I actually have a sweet picture of the board flying at my face.

AT: Yeah, all the time, I still have scars from that. A pretty gnarly one was from Greg Lutzka. I remember just playing it off like "didn't even hurt", because you wouldn't wanna be that dude.

GF: The dude laying there, crying on the steps?

AT: I got home and I was like "ugh that sucks" and it bruised, it was pretty gross actually. All part of the job.

GF: How do you feel about the myspace movement? Are you into that? I added you as a friend last night by the way.

AT: Oh cool, I'll check it. I was anti-myspace, because I'm married, and it seems like a hookup thing, then I realized how good it is for music. It's a great outlet to have people hear new music. I was on Friendster, virtually the same thing, when I was single and young. I don't consider it a bad thing at all. I know some people who seriously have their lives revolving around myspace, and that's kinda funny.

GF: Can you play any instruments yourself?

AT: I play keyboard, I take Jazz Piano lessons. I have an electronic drumset that I try to learn songs on, I wouldn't really call myself a drummer, I'm not that good. I have a bass guitar, I have a lot of instruments at my house, because I like to jam a lot. That way you have stuff that everyone can jam on. If I was any good at it would probably be a musician, but the cards have been dealt to me in other ways. I play music all the time, I really like it. I regret not doing it earlier in life.

GF: Do you sing at all?

AT: No, that's the one thing I don't. I'll sing in the car by myself.

GF: Did you ever record yourself singing and then listen to it? I did that once and it was so bad.

AT: No, I know from hearing my voice talking, that it'll only sound bad if I sing.

GF: Do you dream a lot?

AT: I dream all the time, it's hard for me to remember the next day. I definitely get my dream on.

GF: Do you have a any parting words for the readers of Forces Of Good?

AT: Just have fun with whatever you do. Everyone's always like "whats the best advice you could give?" Really it's just have fun and not stress on being THAT dude. Everyone worries about being the number one dude, in such a rush to get printed and make a career out of it. I think it's more important to have fun with it. That's the best thing I could say. That applies to everything, skating, music, if you're good enough at what you do and you're in a situation where people can witness it everything will come to you.