by Marcus Simmons

Mondays are “reset days.” Last week is over and a new week has begun. It’s hard waking up. If you’re like many, you know the right song to get you going again. Fortunately, CM finds artists like Kristen Ford who understands that all work and no play makes work meaningless. For those who don’t know about Kristen Ford, her music is a blend of rock, folk and reggae with sexy sprinkles on top. I talk with Kristen about her debut album, Filthy Nasty, and interstate gay marriage in this week’s Musician Mondays.

CM: So, you recently came out with Filthy Nasty. Talk to me about your latest.

Kristen Ford: FN is my debut album, ten tracks and a bonus. Basically, it’s the best of what I’ve written in the past 6 years. I tried to jump genres a lot, show I like all kinds of music, like folk, country, rock, reggae, but I think the whole record retains that individuality that makes me me.

CM: The album definitely comes together well, and for those who don’t know, we can find it on iTunes, right?

KF: Yes. iTunes, CDBaby, KFo Music and Digstation, and it’ll be available at all my shows. Basically, we whore this record out.

CM: That’s great. So, tell me why your album is especially “filthy” … “nasty?”

KF: Coming up with the name was pretty hard. I didn’t want it to be “Kristen Ford Kristen Ford.” Filthy Nasty is something that I think would stick out if you were scrolling through someone’s library on iPod or whatever. Filthy is like dirty awesome…like dig in. Nasty is “ew,” you want to look, but in bed you want somebody to be nasty. Filthy, nasty, just so wicked awesome.

CM: Would you suggest this is good music to listen in the shower, then?

KF: Yes, while touching yourself, especially the nipples. Don’t put your CD player in the shower, though.

CM: Great advice. You just finished touring the Midwest and are back in Massachusetts. I can’t spell your state without Google.

KF: Ha ha. People call it mass-a-two-shits in Illinois. That’s just wrong. Do you know “Connecticut?”

CM: They have gay marriage, too. What is with the liberal debauchery of New England?

KF: Ha ha. No morals.

CM: Would you like to be gay married?

KF: Hmmm… I don’t know, but I have a girlfriend, and she is pretty. Maybe married by Thom Yorke on a beach in New Zealand, and everyone would have personal joints for the after-party, and Erykah Badu would do an acoustic set in our honeymoon suite, and there would be a champagne hot tub and lots of breakfast foods available.

CM: That doesn’t sound like a traditional gay marriage. Coffee or orange juice?

KF: Breakfast is my favorite meal. Both, but fresh squeezed. That pure shit they sell isn’t even pure; its concentrate and corn syrup.

CM: What song gets you laid the most? “Hey Girl”’s pretty sensual.

KF: Ha ha. I think they all get me laid

CM: That must be great. What music makes it to your bedroom?

KF: Erykah Badu is nice. I like Telefon Tel Aviv… the Kill Bill soundtrack. Hi-ya. I don’t listen to me; that’d be gross.

CM: Could you talk a little bit about being a musician, and how being a (sexy) lesbian has an effect?

KF: Lots of playing in bars for gross men with partial teeth. I guess that’s my choice because I like rock music. I want to play with a band; I want it to be loud. I’ll do the occasional coffee shop, but that personally was always boring—my words aren’t that important.

I have always tried to make my songs to “you.” “I love you… you are so hot.” I don’t know if it’s gay music or straight music, but I don’t get on a pedestal. I don’t say, “I’m gay, so fuck you men… you are the problem.” I can’t stand the intellectual, hoity-toity lesbian man-hater, but if somebody asks me do you munch carpet, I will say, “Yes, and what’s it to you?”

CM: There does seem to be an attraction gay females have for the guitar and for music.

KF: Yea, it’s weird.

CM: Do you think the gay gene is especially musical or that there is a gay gene?

KF: Artsy, maybe.

CM: Are the arts nature or nurture?

KF: Both. My dad is a singer, and my mom used to paint, but neither aspired to be a professional musician. It’s kind of great. No shoes to fill. If I had a kid and they turned into a lawyer or scientist, I would be like, “Dammit kid… you suck. Why aren’t you into drawing or something cool?”

CM: Art’s more fun, and life is short… Before you go, talk about your ideal type, femme or butch?

KF: My type changes a lot. More femme. Somebody different from me. In the past (ahem), I dated a chick who played guitar, smoked pot, hung out with the boys, climbed trees. It didn’t work out.

CM: Your interests, your passions, your hopes for the future?

KF: I hope to do music all the time, get really great at singing and playing and writing songs, play 100 shows in 2009 (I think I’m well on my way), get 75 people to my show at Harper’s Ferry tomorrow.

As for my hopes: world peace, jeans that don’t slip off my ass constantly and to get laid constantly.

Some other great places to find Kristen Ford’s music:
Myspace
LastFM
PureVolume

by Aharona Ament

I’m sitting in the studio at Vocalo.org waiting till 2:20 for Bob Mould to call. My producer, a huge Hüsker Dü fan is freaking out and keeps thinking that he sees the phone light up. “What if Bob Mould calls exactly at 2:20?” he keeps asking. All we are lacking is a tube of cookie dough, and we are officially waiting for a boy to call. I start to get nervous as well. I am going to interview Bob Mould, leader of Hüsker Dü, a band who had a phenomenal impact on college and indie rock. He then went on to create the band Sugar, which was my introduction to his work in the 90’s, when he also came out. Bob continues to put out solo album after solo album; his latest Life and Times is due out April 7th on Anti Records. I talked to Bob about coming out, making music and the possibility of a Bob Mould cookbook in the future.

Cul de sac Magazine: This is a year of reflection for you. You are releasing your ninth solo album after leading two hugely influential rock bands. I really liked Life and Times. It was very coming-to-terms. What were you looking back on when you were making this album?

Bob Mould: I think with all records, there is a combination of autobiographical and observational. Where the two intersect and inform each other is the premise for this record. The big looking back for me is the autobiography that I am working on right now. That’s been a little more exhaustive than the writing and recording of Life and Times was.

CM: You are working with Michael Azerrad, who wrote Our Band Could Be Your Life.

BM: Yep. Michael also wrote Come as You Are, the Nirvana book. Michael and I have been friends for years, and it was something he had been thinking was years overdue and now seems as good a time as any to tackle the project. As I get older I forget things, so it’s probably good to get them documented now.

CM: So, you wanted to work with Michael?

BM: We had talked about it in 2001 actually, and when it came back up on the table, he was available and helped with the editing process. He’s been very good at guiding me towards the right stories.

CM: He’s an amazing writer. I really liked the Hüsker Dü chapter. In Our Band Could Be Your Life, I liked how the band was profiled. How did you feel about that?

BM: He got all of my quotes right. (laughs) He’s a good writer. He’s a good guy, too.

CM: You came out in Spin Magazine in 1994. This was at the height of Sugar’s popularity. But if I recall right it was more like Spin was outing you.

BM: Well, it was (pauses) yeah. You know, I think my sexuality was an open secret in the music business. Sugar was a very popular band. Spin was looking for an approach, and they said we want to deal with your sexuality and you can either talk with us about it or we will talk about it. When you are given that sort of choice, it’s usually best to try to defend yourself or explain yourself or justify yourself and that’s how all of that came about.

CM: If you got to do it all over again now, how would you publicly come out?

BM: I think sooner. As far a differently, there is no way to rewrite that story. I think it’s something that maybe had I been persuaded to address it sooner, I should have. It always happens when it happens.

CM: Going back to that time, was there ever any angst over coming out. I know you had a loss when a friend of yours was killed because he was gay. Was that ever a factor?

BM: There are a lot of different things that go into anybody’s comfort level about coming out. Mine being a public figure, not one of any great note, but someone that is tracked publicly, I think there is always a concern about how it falls out around you, you know with people in your life and family and stuff like that. So, there is a number of different things, how it affects your career professionally. You know, 1994 and now, I think the world has progressed quite a bit. I think if there are any 34-year-old musicians out there that are contemplating whether or not they should come out or not maybe 14 years later it might be a little bit easier. But again it is such a personal thing, it’s always a confluence of reasons as to why you do it and why you wait to do it.

CM: You had said that you wrote “Argos” from your new album for your “theoretical gay punk rock band.”

BM: Yeah, that’s what Andy the publicist says.

CM: Venti Chihuahua, is that the name of this band?

BM: Wow. Andy gave you all the good notes. This is a good interview.

CM: (Laughs) That sounds like a really great concept. I just really want a T-shirt that says Venti Chihuahua. Is this something that can happen? Will this become an actual band?

BM: No, ‘cause everyone is really slack and have real jobs. (laughs) It was sort of a running joke with me and a handful of friends that we were going to do this thing. It also looked really great on paper, and nobody ever really did too much to make it actually happen. So, I thought I would write a song hoping that if you do something and you put it in the universe that sometimes it happens. Eh, it didn’t happen, so I ended up with a good song, and I put it on this record.

CM: It is a really good song, and I’m really glad it’s out there.

BM: Yeah, it’s funny. It’s a cute little song.

CM: There is a YouTube video of Hüsker Dü on The Joan Rivers Show. That seemed like it was awkward for everyone. How did that happen? Was Joan Rivers a Hüsker Dü fan?

BM: I think the people that booked the talent on the show were big fans. Joan Rivers seemed a little nervous about whole thing. You know, there have been great moments throughout the history of pop music. I can remember when John Lydon was on with Tom Snyder and it got very ugly and John Lydon got very confrontational or very stand-offish or a weird combination of emotions towards the host. They treated us well, but people have commented that it looks very awkward when they watch it. I guess that’s why so many people watch it.

CM: It was very interesting to watch. You mentioned that you are writing your autobiography and that you wanted to take down notes as you are getting older. One of the songs that really struck me off your new album was “I’m Sorry Baby, But You Can’t Stand in my Light Anymore” and to me this is an amazing song because it is about taking care of yourself first which is something that as a culture we don’t do successfully. Is taking care of yourself a priority as you are getting older?

BM: The song to me sorta fell out of me in a 15-minute blur. Once I realized what the twist was, I thought it was a pretty clever piece of writing. As far taking care of one’s self, I think it is something we all should do and be careful. I think people go into relationships sometimes, they don’t go in unconditionally, but they go in with the idea that “Oh look there is somebody that needs my help,” and I think not just the LGBT community, but I think people tend to do that more often than not. And I think it is a cautionary word to sort of be aware of yourself and be aware of what you really want to involve yourself in before you get into it.

CM: A lot of your songs—not only with Hüsker Dü and Sugar, but also your solo stuff—have been very dark, actually. “Bad Blood Better” from your new album was very reminiscent to me of “Black Sheet of Rain,” and when I think of Bob Mould, I think dark. I think depressed songs. I want to know what issues are going on in your life that has helped you produced such dark music.

BM: It’s funny because I generally think I’m a pretty sunny guy. I’m sort of a serious guy. I tend to take things seriously when people say them, maybe to a fault. I think I have a good sense of humor, so I’m not really sure. I think the dark story is a device that I’m pretty good with, I’m pretty well equipped to use it as my means of communication. Again, I would warn people not to read completely into the songs and try to project on to me that thinking that’s the way Bob really is.

CM: That’s actually really good advice. Now I’m going to have to go back and relisten to a lot of your stuff and look at it from a new perspective.

BM: Yeah, the singer is not always the song.

CM: On that note, within the indie rock/pop music communities, there’s this undeclared feud between you and Stephin Merritt as the most depressed man in pop music.

BM: (Laughs) I’ve heard that before

CM: Who’s winning that?

BM: Stephin would win it, I think. Not by a lot. Stephin’s a really nice guy. He’s really funny and engaging, too! I’ve spent time with Stephin, and he’s not as depressed as you think.

CM: Back to your autobiography, I hear that you make a killer blue-cheese meatloaf. Is this going to be in the book, or is there going to be a Bob Mould Cookbook? Cooking with Bob Mould?

BM: I’m going to hold on to those for a separate cookbook. I’m going to use that as a bargaining chip to get more book deals (laughs). I’m an okay cook. I can cook healthy, and I can cook meatloaf.

CM: A local queer DJ told me that Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons is the most important queer artist of our time. Who do you see as a leading voice in LGBT music, either in our past or what is going on currently?

BM: If you back go to someone like KD Lang, which is the initial era, she was one of the first really hugely out musicians. I would answer and say she is clearly the most gifted of our time. I think as far as the most important, do you go back to Tom Robinson? Do you go back to someone like Jimmy Summerville? And I guess I’m going back further because I think it was more of an issue then. I think it was a much bigger struggle. Now to be an out musician, we’re assimilated more and more as time goes on. You also want to look back. There were a lot bigger struggles. Those were some the pioneers of being out, you know, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Now, you look around and me and Stephin and Rufus, I mean we do music. It’s different now.

by Kevin Sparrow

The Midwest Teen Sex Show is a monthly web series that features a host and actors tackling subjects about sex ranging from masturbation to anatomy to STIs. As host, Nikol Hasler spends her time wrangling tough information, honestly answering teens’ questions about sex and helping make America’s parents uncomfortable one episode at a time. She chats with Cul de sac Magazine about how the show came to be, dangerous dildos and the queer side of sex education.

CM: How was the Midwest Teen Sex Show originally conceived?

NH: [Director] Guy Clark is someone I went to high school with, and we reconnected many years later. He had the idea for the show because all of the podcasts that we really enjoy watching are educational, but they also involve humor. He knew that there was nothing like this regarding sexual education, and he kind of knows my sense of humor already and thought it would work out. We got together, we ended up writing three episodes, put an ad on Craigslist for [actress] Britney [Barber], and that was that.

CM: Can you explain your role on the show and history in teaching teens about sexuality?

NH: My whole adult life has been about trying to take care of my kids and get by. I was working a lot of jobs, below minimum wage jobs, to try to put food on the table. I had my first son right after I graduated from high school, and then I had two other children. For me, this is something to do to get me out of the house. Then, I realized given my own history—my background was in the foster care system and in sexuality—how useful it can be to use my own experience and talk to teens. I ended up finding the way that I talk to people is a way that they really respond to because they don’t feel like I’m talking down to them, and it just makes them more comfortable.

CM: Because the Midwest Teen Sex Show has a very irreverent and sometimes racy sense of humor, how do you respond to criticism of the show?

NH: Oh, you know, I do a lot of cutting, and then I have those people killed.

[laughter]

It varies. Sometimes, I deal with it better than others, and that depends on what it is they’re attacking specifically. I take in the criticism, I listen to what they have to say, and if it’s something I feel we need to change on the show, we all talk about it. We decide what we can do to make it better. Even people who watch the show on a regular basis have criticisms for us. If we think that they’re valid, we take it and we learn from it. A lot of it is about being diplomatic, going directly to the source of the person who’s criticizing the show and saying, “Let’s talk about this.” And then, bombing them… delivering dead kittens to their doorstep.

[laughter]

CM: How are the writing duties of the show divvied up between you and the other writers?

NH: Usually the way it works is I write down an outline for the areas of the topic that I feel need to be addressed. That involves a lot of research, going to other websites, seeing what it is teenagers are talking about and have questions about, even asking people who I’m in regular contact with through Twitter and Facebook what they had questions about when they were teens. I write that out; I write a loose script out for myself. The sketches are a combination of everyone involved with the project. Britney is really excellent at taking a character and improvising. As far as the editing goes, that is completely Guy Clark.

CM: Can you tell us a little about the decision to have the live show? How does that impact the show’s mission?

NH: We heard from so many people saying we only have this one episode coming out a month. We started noticing for people coming back to the website, the numbers started declining because why would they come if there’s not going to be new content? When we were deciding the different functions we want for our site, we thought it would be really cool to further become a part of the community we are creating the show for. If you can start pumping up it’s live and everybody is able to get together and start talking to each other, then it creates more of a family feeling. It makes them feel like they’re more a part of what’s going on. The live shows have been hard, I’m not going to lie. Every time there’s a live show, my stomach just cramps up, and I’m worried all day about what I’m going to say and how I’m going to look. It’s really hard to do a live show.

CM: Speaking of keeping people feeling a part of the show, in the Halloween episode on HPV, I noticed Britney is wearing the exact same pair of green argyle socks I have. I kept looking at these socks the whole time.

NH: She stole those from you. I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but she totally took your socks.

[laughter]

CM: How do you make costuming and other technical decisions?

NH: We do all of our shows on no production budget whatsoever. Once we determine what the sketches and what the characters are going to be, it’s all a matter of calling each other and saying, “Do you happen to have this outfit?” We have a big bag of costumes and wigs that we rifle through and decide what will look best. Everything is up to location. Sometimes we don’t even know the location we’ll shoot at until the day of because we’re relying on other people to donate their space. We had to borrow someone’s car for the HPV episode. And then we had the dream sequence things on that show where I show up holding ridiculous items; those are things that I just had laying around the house

CM: Kind of like Dogma 95 style.

NH: Yeah. “What do we have? Do we have a tomato? Can we work with a tomato?”

Every once in a while we have to run out and shop. In that same episode you see Larrisa get stabbed in the eye with a vibrator. We went out to the store to find the appropriate eye-stabbing vibrator.

CM: It’s got to have the right heft to it.

NH: Yeah, it really does. This is serious business.

CM: More mainstream sex education shies away from the topic of homosexuality, but I’ve noticed your show is always very conscious of explaining sex to heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual teens. How has that developed, and is there an emphasis in each episode to maintain this balance?

NH: It’s interesting when this question comes up because we don’t notice it as much as other people do. It’s just so much a part of the way we think and process things. We don’t have a big sit-down discussion and say have we fairly represented everyone in this. It’s just an understanding that within the realm of sexuality there are so many different people. It’s such a non-issue. It comes naturally to us.

CM: Will there be any episodes featuring gender expression as a topic?

NH: I just had a three-hour conversation with a friend of mine about gender expression because I’ve noticed such a wonderful trend in the younger people who contact me of leaning toward androgyny, and it’s okay to make [their] own decision. Adults tend to say if it’s gender expression in one way or another, it makes you gay or straight. I love the way today’s teens are taking hold of that and saying, “I get to choose the things that I enjoy.” It redefines masculine. It redefines feminine. It just blurs the lines. It’s really fun to watch that going on; and so, of course I would love to do a show about this, but I would also love if we could do an entire documentary on that.

I wanted to touch on the reason [gender identity] came to the forefront of my mind. Yes, I’ve been hearing from all of these teens who are talking about it, but it also became a big part of my life. [With] my son, who is about to be 11 and is very effeminate, we’d have these sit-down talks where I’d say, “Are you gay?” because of this misconception I had that all these things that he enjoyed doing—the lavender baths, taking the San Pellegrino to school in his lunch bag, and the list goes on and on—I thought, “He seems like he’s gay to me.” He said to me, “I don’t know if I’m gay yet. I don’t know if I like guys, and I don’t if I like girls. It just seems I enjoy doing all these different things.” He’s very comfortable with it. It made me think about my own misconceptions surrounding gender identity.

CM: What are some other upcoming topics?

NH: We just did an episode on condoms that should be out next. We’re going to be doing prom in April. We also want to do a sex workers episode. We still need to do Homosexuality, Part 2. And we want to do an entire show on rape. Those are just some of the ideas that are kicking around. We have such a huge list of show suggestions from people. Everything from the basic stuff like kissing all the way to fisting.

I was speaking to a group of college students the other day. They ended up showing the Fetishes episode. All of these questions came after that, with all these college students saying, “Explain this part of fetish to me.” This one girl ended up asking me, “Do teenagers really have questions about this? Because I don’t remember being interested in fetishes when I was a teenager.” I asked her if she’s interested in them now. She said no. Well, maybe you’re just not interested in fetishes, but we have plenty of teenagers writing in and saying, “Am I completely weird for liking this one thing?”

CM: Can you tell us a little about the new program, Real American Family?

NH: It’s a separate project to the Midwest Teen Sex Show. We have a few other separate projects. We did one called “Don’t Be an Idiot Online” for ECrush, and that’s just teaching kids how to deal with online safety. But Real American Family is something I’m really excited about because there’s a non-profit, One Economy, and they started this Public Internet Channel. Their goal is to take technology and introduce it into low-income neighborhoods, rewire all the tenements so that everybody has access to the internet, and then, creating content that will help teach them to use technology to better their lives. It sounds like this magical, beautiful, utopian idea. We were thrilled when they came to us and said, “You make people laugh, but you still get information out there. Could you do a show for us?” And that’s what we’ve been doing. We did one on single parenting. We shot the second one on healthy eating. We have another one on trying to find a job and losing your job in a rough economy.

by Aharona Ament

Tony Breed is always in a good mood; at least, every time that I have seen him. He is always smiling, and  today is no exception despite the biting cold. I’ve known Tony for a while. I was a fan of his radio show on WLUW, and we are both volunteers with the Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP). I met Tony at a local coffee shop near his home in Chicago to talk about his web comic “Finn and Charlie Are Hitched,” gay marriage, and why every gay man must own a Madonna album.

Cul de sac Magazine: One aspect I really liked about “Hitched” is that you show scenes of domestic bliss between Finn and Charlie. You show them being affectionate a lot. A lot of heads on laps.

Tony Breed: Well, I’m trying to convey what to me just normal life is, which is a gay couple that’s affectionate and in love and just sort of the things that you do when you are in love with someone, which is that you sit around together and cuddle.

CM: “Hitched” is a catchy name for a comic.

TB: The reason I call it “Hitched” is because I wanted it to be about marriage, and Hitched says marriage. I was trying to find a way to say marriage without saying marriage. I wanted it to be short, one name, and I ended up not being happy with that so I started using the longer name which is “Finn and Charlie Are Hitched.”

CM: Because it is a web comic about (gay) marriage.

TB: Right, exactly. And I wanted it to say these people are not “just friends,” not just in a relationship; they are hitched.

CM: They’re not “roommates,” they’re not–

TB: Friends with benefits, fuck buddies.

CM: Right. They are married and committed to each other.

TB: And yet they are not married because it is not legal, but they are hitched.

CM: How long have Finn and Charlie known each other?

TB: I think I put it at 17 years once.

CM: Wow, that’s a long time!

TB: That is a long time. I’ve been in my relationship for, well, I guess it has been 17 years now. Since I was 20. I really don’t want the characters to be stand-ins for me and my husband. I don’t really want them to be us. I sort of consciously tried to have them have their own personalities, but at the same time the relationship is a parallel to my own.

CM: So, who wanted to wear the macaroni jewelry? That was one of your first comics.

TB: The macaroni jewelry story never really happened. There are things in there that really did happen. Sometimes there is an element of autobiographical-ness to it. But I was trying to take some personality traits that I have being sort of the goofball and my husband being the misanthrope, but in most cases it ends up being both me, my misanthropic side and my goofy side. The macaroni jewelry was building on an idea. I do make my own jewelry, but they are not made of macaroni.

CM: You had a wedding. Seeing as how gay marriage is not yet legal in the US, do you consider yourself married, or “married”?

TB: We had considered ourselves married since 1997 when we had a wedding! It is confusing at times because I would say to people that I am married, but I would still have to put that I am single on my tax forms. A lot of people are not following the issue because it doesn’t matter to them, and they will say, “Oh yeah! You can do that somewhere right?” And I would say, “Well, you can do it in Sweden, but you have to be Swedish.” I can’t even remember what the state of the world was in 1997, but you couldn’t do it here.

CM: What about Vermont?

TB- Vermont you can have a civil union. In New Jersey, you can have a civil union. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, you could get married, and up until recently, you could do it in California, too. But it was Canada that said you can come in from anywhere and get gay-married. We were in Canada and met this older man in his 50’s saying that h[e] and his boyfriend were thinking about getting married and asked if we were getting married.  I had to tell him that we, meaning me and my partner, can’t get married because we’re Americans, and we don’t have the same rights in our country that you have in yours, which is a weird feeling because you usually don’t experience going to another country and realizing that they have freedoms that you don’t have. As an American, we are not supposed to have that experience. This is the land of the free. The upshot of it all is when it became legal in California and we were planning a trip to California, and I said, “Hey, while we are here let’s get married again.” So now we have a piece of paper which may or may not be annulled by the government, and it is all a mess with what is going to happen with Proposition 8, but we have a copy of it, and I have that piece of paper and I can say now that I have legal marriages that are not recognized in my home state or in my country, but it is recognized somewhere.

CM: Wow, that sounds frustrating.

TB: The thing about getting married is that you can only do it once, unless you get divorced. You can’t get married after going to Vermont to get a civil union, you can’t get a marriage after a civil union. You have to dissolve the civil union and then get married, and it is supposed to be the same thing, so you don’t get  a second chance at it.

CM: In the very first “Hitched,” Finn asks Charlie if he ever wonders if our culture—and I am assuming he means queer culture—is heading towards collapse. I have heard gay people oppose gay marriage because they feel that the progress might mainstream the culture so much that our ideals and history will disappear along with the progress. It was a sponge that a female coworker refused to touch after she spilled some coffee that brought this question on. What was the significance in the sponge, and is our culture on the verge of collapse?

TB: That is an interesting question, partly because I had not read the comic that way. The “our culture” was meant to be American culture and the idea that we live in a culture where a person is not willing to clean up after themselves because they don’t like to touch sponges or whatever reason. If they are letting their manias get in the way of them being a good citizen, then are we on the verge of collapse? That’s sort of a joke there, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, meaning sometimes the joke is a lot simpler than you think.

And you bring up a really good point because the moment I began to admit to myself that I was gay, I was in college and I was like, “Okay, I have to admit that this thing that has been bugging me for years is that I’m gay.” That this is how I am, and I had to admit it because I had a date with a guy the night before. But bringing it back to the actual question, we don’t have to define ourselves by our “otherness.” I think that drag queens and leather daddies and open relationships are all fabulous, and everyone should do what they want, but I don’t feel like I should be pressured to be that if I don’t want to. So, no, I don’t think we (gay culture) are on the verge of collapse. In a way, I guess its like an integrating, and there is always an element that you feel like you are losing a special outsider identity if you integrate too much, but it doesn’t bother me.

CM: You have been writing “Hitched” for almost three years.

TB: Wow.

CM: Right?  What progress has the strip made since you have been writing it?

TB: Progress is a complicated word. I would say that there have been changes. If you keep things exactly the same, it doesn’t make for a good comic. On the other hand, it is only three panels once a week, so things could move slowly and no one would know. There have been changes recently. I started to bring in more outside characters and to try to really create these characters because I felt that I am reflecting a little bit of my own life.

CM: How do you do that?

TB: I went to the Windy City Comic Con last year and I thought that maybe I could be broadening the comic a bit and making it not just about gay marriage, but having that be a component, and like Joe Solmonese, the President of the Human Rights Campaign, said, “You show your relationships to people and so it becomes more and more normal to them,” and I thought that maybe I should shift the strip and make it more public interest and I am not sure if I really should  do that, I’m thinking now that maybe the people who read it, what they really like about it is the sweet depiction of a gay marriage, so maybe I should keep it that way. But anyway, what I am writing now is that Charlie is going to start volunteering at a radio station, bringing a little more of my own life in to it. And meanwhile, Finn just got fired and that is what is going on in my office right now, and that is what is going on with some of my friends. I was debating on whether or not to do it, and I thought I can’t ignore this giant issue in the world.

CM: There are so many issues to be explored. Do you feel that you can express everything you want to in a three-panel strip?

TB: No, and that’s what makes it interesting. I could properly express more of what I wanted to in a three-panel strip if I were writing more often.

CM: Do you think you’ll expand the length?

TB: I think about it. Right now, working in three panels is a limitation, and it’s like writing a sonnet or a haiku. More like a haiku, except a funny haiku because your are constraining yourself to a format, and you have to work within that format, and you [need] to remind yourself that if someone comes in and reads the joke and they don’t know the background, is it still funny? Did you put in enough to make it clear that there is some kind of background there?  You have to cut out so much text. I’m writing smaller now so I can fit more in, but still you really have to edit down. You have to be  concise there are a lot of little verbal text and stuff like that that I have to pull out unless I think it is absolutely vital to the pacing of the joke or the characterizations.

CM: So, you have to be your own editor.

TB: And I do find that interesting. If I had more time in my life, I would produce more comics in a week. I have an immense amount of respect for the web cartoonists who do even three comics a week because it’s a lot of time. You have to write it and then you have to draw it, and both of those are difficult processes.

CM: A lot of cartoonists talk about how time consuming the process is…

TB: I would like to do a graphic novel someday. It wouldn’t be a Finn and Charlie graphic novel properly, but who knows?

CM: What cartoons, web comics, graphic novels do you like?

TB: I have a fondness for obscure and intelligent humor. I like Goats, which has long, epic stories. It’s obscure, it’s bizarre. There’s like a homicidal chicken who worships the devil. I just discovered a web comic called Nedroid. I’m a big fan of Cat and Girl, which is an intelligent comic. I could go on for hours about what I like, but I have to say that the best graphic novel that I have read in a long time was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.

CM: Totally. That is one of my favorite graphic novels to date. Are there any gay-specific web comics that you like?

TB: I haven’t found any gay web comics that really speak to me.

CM: Do you identify as a gay comic creator or a comic creator who is also gay?

TB: I identify first as a cartoonist. Someone asked me about creating gay comics and asked if I wanted to ghettoize myself. I said no, but that is exactly what I did. Finn and Charlie were created because of a friend of mine, Justin Hall, who is a gay cartoonist. He was trying to put together a book that got me going. He said “Hey have you thought about getting back into making comics?” And I said, “Yes! Okay! I’ll do it!” Then I had to try and come up with something, and of course it seemed like it should be a gay topic, and I felt like I had to address that. I put together all these weird ideas of a morbid comic that was going to be called Gay Bunny and the Walrus, which is a really awesome name, and I enjoyed drawing the walrus, but it just didn’t work and I was like write what you know. On that principle, I came up with [Hitched]. But the problem with writing what you know is that people always ask or people don’t even ask, they just assume that it is autobiographical. My roommate in college wrote a short story that was made into a book that was made into a movie

CM: What was that?

TB: Boy Culture. And the main character in Boy Culture in the original version, not the movie, was a student at the University of Chicago and put himself through by being a prostitute, and people always ask him, “So, were you really a prostitute?” And it’s like, “NO! I’m just a guy who wrote a story!” So, I am constantly aware that when I write this comic that if I put anything too weird in it that my parents are going to be like “Did this really happen?”

I got involved in the Windy City Comic Con last year, and I wasn’t thinking, “Hey, I want to do a gay cartoonists panel. I want to do a web comics panel.” It wasn’t like I want to be with my people, the gay cartoonists. It was like I want to be with  my people…the web comics!

CM: What about the gay web comics panel?

TB: You know, there are millions of web comics out there. I keep finding new stuff. But if you try to find big names in gay web comics, you wouldn’t get very far, so I don’t think anyone is a big name yet except for Alison Bechdel, in the sense that you can read her online.

CM: She started in print and then moved her strip Dykes to Watch Out For online. She also shows her characters going to real life events like pride or the Dyke march or whatever is going on that she sees relevant. Do you think Finn and Charlie will go to a DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) protest in the near future?

TB: When the whole Prop 8 thing was going on, I did send Finn and Charlie to California to get married and also because I had done it in September. And then I had Finn and Charlie do it in October as soon as we got back. I couldn’t wait until after the election because what if it went the wrong way, which it did. So I wanted to write it because I knew it was going to be a weird story, because Justin Hall performed our ceremony in front of City Hall in San Francisco dressed as the Green Lantern. It was awesome, and if you’d ask me if I would do a goofy wedding, well I don’t think I would ‘cause you know you only get to do it once. But hey, I got to do it twice! I had the church wedding, pastor, family, the exchanging of rings, lighting the unity candle.

CM: Unity candle? What religion are you?

TB- I don’t have one, so we can do anything we want. Oh, but the politics of it all! I have been to a DOMA protest, but I am not going to send Finn and Charlie to the DOMA protest. It’s not that there isn’t a political angle because the personal is political when you show people living a normal life, which i[n] gay married life is political enough in itself.

CM: You are also involved in the local music scene. What kind of music do Finn and Charlie like? If you made a Finn and Charlie mix, what would that sound like?

TB: Oh god, I should totally do that! Man! I did make a mix! I used Finn and Charlie as a fundraiser for CHIRP (The Chicago Independent Radio Project) on my website. I did commission drawings of Finn and Charlie with a mix for CHIRP. I kind of think they would like what I like, but I did think that I should have relationship songs. If I could be incredibly sappy for a moment, the song by The Magnetic Fields—“Sweet Lovin’ Man!” It’s about how great it is to be in the arms of your sweet loving man! Other than that, just songs about relationships and more stuff that I like…The indie rock, the show tunes, the vocal jazz…

CM: Anything that your husband would like?

TB: Oh, we like the same stuff!

CM: Awwwww!

TB: It’s useful because you don’t have to fight about what to put on. I think that Finn and Charlie have a few Madonna albums.

CM: Isn’t that like a gay male ordinance?

TB: It is kind of like an ordinance!

CM: Any advice you would give to other comic artists gay, straight or other?

TB: I would say just do it. It’s a discipline, and if you are putting it out there on the web, you will get a small audience eventually, even if you don’t publicize. I told myself that I needed to draw more with a sketch book, and I never did that. But when I told myself that I needed to do a comic once a week, I did that and now I am sketching more often, and I’m thinking I have to draw this next week and what are the people going to look like and I have to start thinking about what a squirrel holding a fork would look like.

CM: Like The Sea and Cake t-shirts with the squirrel holding the bottle opener?

TB: Oh, I should be so lucky to do a T-shirt for The Sea and Cake.

CM: I’d buy a Finn and Charlie Sea and Cake T-shirt!

You can keep up with Tony Breed and “Finn and Charlie are Hitched” at http://hitched.tonybreed.com/comic/

by Kevin Sparrow

Due to increasing advancements in technology and the popularity of the internet, we live our lives in the open more than we used to. OMG/HaHaHa ties together vlogging, digital video and personal stories to create an emotionally revelatory work about today’s youth and the meaning of family. Director Morgan Jon Fox discusses his vision with Cul de sac Magazine in a recent interview:

CM: The actors come across as very natural; in fact, the film has a documentary feel. What was the workshop process like in order to present character in the way the film does?

MJF: The way I look at creating films at this level, with not much money involved, stripped down and bare, is that I really want to maximize what resources I do have. To me, since I’m making films that aren’t trying to emulate what processes that usually cost lots of money, i.e. special effects over load, big production design, etc…. what matters most to me before all things is that the acting must, absolutely MUST be authentic and come across as naturalistic as possible. I was heavily inspired by the Dogme95 filmmakers Lars Von Trier (Dancer In The Dark, The Idiots) and Thomas Vinterberg (Celebration). [T]hey were previously more traditional or even studio-centric filmmakers who made a pact to create films that were centered more around the actor and strong, organic performances. The way we created OMG was this way from the start.

CM: What was the development process in the script stage of OMG/HaHaHa?

MJF: [M]e and my assistant director, John Tom Roemer, wrote scene ideas back and forth via email. He was a freshman in film school in NYC at the School of Visual Arts. Being from Memphis, he would come back and forth for his breaks and we’d work more on the script and we’d have auditions. We eventually developed a 40-page outline that was mostly a blue print. There were some scenes that had dialogue scripted, but mostly, it was detailed descriptions of scenes. From there, we created even more detailed descriptions for each character…this is a process I value highly…In some cases, a character who may even only be in one scene may have had a 5 page character description that was given to the actor who was cast for the role. Once we assembled the entire cast, we decided that everyone who was cast would have to agree to not know what the story was about, or whom was cast in any particular role, unless they were supposed to have had a history with this person. So, if two characters were supposed to know each other, then of course we’d introduce them, and we’d hold several workshop sessions with improv and basic character building techniques often guided by the Meisner Technique. That’s an acting technique a long-time collaborator, and in the case of this film, actress, Amber O’Daniels introduced me to. Amber played Autumn, the girl who was pregnant. She taught me everything I know about Meisner…. it’s a technique that’s very simple and practical, yet intense and rooted in finding one’s emotional core. So, we’d workshop with everyone separately, and make sure any characters who were supposed to have relationships would have ample time to dig into their character, so that when the time came, basically whatever they did on screen would be from the place of an understanding their character possessed. For characters who weren’t supposed to know each other, we’d make sure they weren’t introduced to each other until the very moment, on screen, that they were supposed to meet. This also applied to the entire outline of the story. No one was allowed to see what the fate of their character would be, or what they were going to face. This was a part of our plan to keep things real and not have the actors get too caught up in pre-determining their outcome, unless this also was a trait of the character’s personality.

Usually, we’d show up for each shoot day with the actors and then explain to them what was going to go down… of course, we’d give them the info that was pertinent, such as, if they were supposed to be working in a clinic, we made sure they had their costumes, etc, and they knew what their job was and all that, but they wouldn’t know who was showing up to their clinic that day, or what was going on in their life… So, questions that would be asked, or info[rmation] that would be revealed would come across for the first time. After we’d do the first take, we’d give direction and end up shooting each scene anywhere from 3 to 5 times…never more than that…I’m big on that…I refuse to wear down an actor; it’s my opinion that if it’s not working after 5 takes, then you move forward and come back to that moment with different plans. It’s super important for me to make sure everyone is comfortable, and in a space where they feel safe, and at ease when we’re working. All the preparation is important for me, because when we get to the set, I want to be able to let the actors shine, and in that sense, we kind of are just there to then document what they’re doing. I don’t think I’ve ever given an actor staging cues…The last thing I want an actor worrying about while they’re performing is where to stand, or where they cannot walk or something as futile as that.

CM: The film utilizes current phenomena, such as MySpace and vlogging, to create an interesting visual palette. Is that specific to this film, or does this DIY style seem to be increasing in popularity in the film world?

MJF: I see more and more references to MySpace and YouTube in film, but not necessarily utilizing the actual formats such as webcams to tell the stories. This isn’t that original, of course; it’s more just a modern day adaptation of what films like Reality Bites did when they started using video cameras that were turned on actors by the characters as a part of their narrative. For me, it wasn’t really a creative choice, or a ploy, so much as it just made sense. This character lives through a different world view…he made it through j[unio]r high and high school by connecting and making friends and getting popular via his MySpace page and LiveJournal posts. So, it didn’t even cross my mind to film him filming himself while he was making his vlogs… people are so used to watching poor-quality video on YouTube anyways, so I figured it just made sense.

CM: Did you have other filmic influences in making OMG/HaHaHa?

MJF: [In addition to the Dogme95 films there are] many others: Harmony Korine’s Gummo and Julien Donkey Boy, as well as Gus Van Sant (Elephant, Last Days), and a newer filmmaker whose work I’m completely in awe of, Cam Archer, who made one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen, titled Wild Tigers I Have Known.

CM: Can you describe some of the benefits of working in the Memphis film scene?

MJF: I was born and raised in Memphis. It’s my home and I love it. The community of artists, and just people in general here that I’ve come to know, they’re my family by all means. There’s not a big queer community here, which to me is rather nice because instead of being separated into a specific community, I’m simply a part of a larger more diverse community of people that I work with in every way…and the whole being a homo thing has never been an issue. I feel very very fortunate to know all the incredibly talented and sincere people I work with here. It’s also very helpful that the city is extremely accessible, in that it’s very easy to shoot here without the hassle of worrying about permits and all that. There’s a lot of locally owned businesses here who are more than willing to help and allow us to use their facilities to shoot.

CM: How is the film being distributed after the festival circuit?

MJF: We are fortunate enough to have gotten a distribution deal through Water Bearer Films. They will be distributing the film sometime next year.

CM: What are some future projects you are working on?

I’m finishing up a documentary I’ve [been] working on for two years that follows a story that unfolded in Memphis in 2005 where a 16-year-old teenager was forced into an Evangelical Christian program that pledges to turn gay people straight. It should be completed in February.

The extended trailer for Fox’s upcoming documentary is below.

by Kevin Sparrow

Xiu Xiu

The range of queer artists in music has been burgeoning long since the days of Elton John and Michael Stipe coming out, but the turn of the century has brought a current wave of music with overt queer ideas. An influential part of this movement has been the band Xiu Xiu, formed in 2000 by Jamie Stewart and Ches Smith. Jamie Stewart sat down with us for an interview during their current tour, following the release of Xiu Xiu’s sixth full-length album Women As Lovers.

Cul de sac Magazine: First of all, since you’re in Chicago, what’s the music scene like… for you?

Jamie Stewart: It’s nice. It tends to go well. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of history of hard rock in this town, so people have been really supportive, which is nice.

CM: What are you currently listening to—other bands, other music?

JS: Let’s see… The Swans, Birthday Party, Health, Crystal Castles, Prurient—this band we’re on tour with right now—and a lot of Korean folk music.

CM: I was noticing throughout your songs, there’s a lot of physicality. There’s a lot about touching rather than talking about people’s words. Do you find that what you’re exploring is how it’s hard to express things in words versus communicating through physical [actions]?

JS: I’d never really thought about it that way. I mean, I’m not denying that that seems to be an overriding theme. When I said that I hadn’t thought about it that way, I’m not saying that I don’t think that’s an astute observation. I think I make every attempt not to be analytical about what we’re trying to do. I think it can occasionally run into second-guessing yourself, which I do already. [Laughs]

CM: In that same vein, I was reading a Pitchfork interview; I was wondering, you said something to the effect of there’s nothing fictional in your music. Because currently there’s a wave of people writing from another person’s perspective, [do you think] you’re writing from your own perspective?

JS: Well, I’m coming from my own perspective, and then occasionally, from other people’s perspectives, but it’s never a fictionalized perspective. It’s always describing events that have occurred, either to myself or to someone else, but occasionally, I will sing about it from their position. Not in a fictionalized way.

CM: This was in the same interview. It was about “grown-up music,” so do you think people miss out on the playfulness of your music, or do you think a lot of people get it?

JS: Oh, I think some people get it. Well, I can only presume, but people bring it up on occasion, so I think so.

CM: How much influence do you have over your videos? I was just watching “Master of the Bump” today, so I didn’t know how much you have influence over your videos or if that’s out there?

JS: It depends on the video. That one, the people who did it made completely of their own accord. And some of them I’ve been really involved in. I kind of like on occasion being completely surprised by it in the end. The people who made it, one of them is an old friend of mine, so I knew he would do a good job on it. He would be coming from an interesting place with it, so it was easy to completely surrender control.

CM: Do you feel you make statements in your music to a queer community, or do you feel that queer people respond to the personal statements that you’re making?

JS: Maybe both. We’re just trying to be a band that is about a certain set of actual people’s lives, and some of those people are queer. I think in a both direct and indirect way it addresses the queer community, insofar as being completely open about it directly, but indirectly, the stories are just about particular lives that happen to be queer. We’re not overtly trying to be a queer band but because it’s about actual people, we’re not trying to avoid that… either.

CM: Have you been able to be more open or less open lyrically as your music [output] has increased?

JS: Interestingly, it’s gotten to be a little more complicated to be more open as we’ve gotten to be slightly better known. I didn’t think anybody I knew was paying any attention, so I could write specific people’s names. Now, I have to be a little bit more careful about it.

CM: How has gender influenced your music? There seem to be a lot of themes of sexual identity or gender identity throughout.

JS: Gender identity is something that I’ve really struggled with most of my adult life, so it certainly comes up in a lot of the songs. The idea of gender fluidity is really interesting to me, along with a lot of people who end up as topics in the songs. It influences things—in some instances I would say—fundamentally.

CM: Finally, do you think there’s a range of queer ideas explored in your music?

JS: [Laughs] No. I mean, only because it’s not really about queer identity in a theoretical or general way. It’s about particular queer identities of specific people. The songs are probably about five or six different queer people, not really the entire breadth of the queer community, so I guess it’s not really broad. [Laughs]. I’m not trying to be broad… we’re pointedly trying to be specific about who we write about. It’s about their experiences and some of my own.