Chew On This Magazine - July 2004 by Chew On This Magazine

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sticky rice www.stickyricerestaurant.com 2232 W. Main St. Richmond, VA 23220

CONTENTS ART

12 14 16 18

Psychoportraiture Waferbaby The Artist Factory William Thidemann

MUSIC

22 Strike Anywhere 24 Jerico RVA EDITORIAL

28 American Dream 30 Animal Psychics 32 Orbs FILM

34 Jon Favreau FASHION

38 Idle Hands 44 80’s Mix 50 Car Wash PHOTOGRAPHIC

60 Property of City of Richmond 66 South of the Border DESIGN

74 House of Heavy SEX

82 God’s Last Laugh 84 What’s Your Fetish 86 Chewicide Girl

Need Supply Co. 3010 W Cary St. Richmond, VA 23220 804-355-5880 www.needsupply.com

CHEW ON THIS MAGAZINE Issue Twelve | Plastics | July 2004

PUBLISHER LOCAL MARKET, LLC local@alocalmarket.com MANAGING EDITOR LANDER SALZBERG lander@alocalmarket.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR JONATHAN MARTIN jon@alocalmarket.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR CHRISTIAN DETRES christian@alocalmarket.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER JUSTIN VAUGHAN justin@alocalmarket.com DISTRIBUTION MANAGER LANDER SALZBERG distribution@alocalmarket.com ADVERTISING DIRECTOR JONATHAN MARTIN jon@alocalmarket.com - (804) 405-5001 ADVERTISING SALES CHRISTIAN DETRES christian@alocalmarket.com - (804) 349-7901

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Cameron Ayers, Ivey Blunt, Daniel Robert Epstein, Kirsten Lewis, Alison Miller, Nick Tharpe, Rebekah Trachtenburg CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS E. Bauer, Daniel Bogan, Jim Callahan, Lissa Hahn, Bonnie Humphries, Igor, Scott Mayo, Shane McCauley, Monty Montgomery, Phil Noe, Frank Thompson SPECIAL THANKS Todd Askins, Jean Broaddus, Happy the Artist, Lissa Hahn, Matt Heindl, Craig Oliver, Amy Robison, Anna Salzberg, Adrienne Thurston, Ami Vital COVER Photograph by Ami Vital CONTACT Local Market, LLC 2130 West Main Street Richmond, VA 23220 info@alocalmarket.com www.chewonthismag.com LEGAL The advertising and articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinions and attitudes of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or editors. Reproduction in whole or part without prior written permission from the publishers is strictly prohibited. Chew On This Magazine is published monthly and is free of charge. All material is ÂŠ 2004. Chew On This Magazine is a registered trademark of Local Market, LLC. See you in hell fat boy.

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PSYCHOPORTRAITURE WITH MONTY MONTGOMERY CHRISTIAN DETRES | MONTY MONTGOMERY

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Monty Montgomery is the owner of Charlottesville, VA’s CODG Gallery and Cilli Designs. He let Chew On This in on his background as an artist, the methods of his craft and the philosophy that drives his particular brand of expression. He tells vivid stories with his artwork. He layers character minutiae to his pieces that come together to perfectly describe his subject in their emotional state, their struggles and their hopes. His paintings, to their subjects, are part painted ego, part psychotherapy.

afterglow. The waves are the sensation of pulsing desire fulfilled; the lines and speeding car on the bottom of the piece representing the kinetic energy involved in fulfilling that desire. The figure, vulnerable and sated, is the most obvious depiction of the theme, cemented by the printed word “YUM” – almost playful in its tone to invite a “second helping.”

I find the most interesting part of his work to be the commissioned pieces that he does with startling insight into his subjects’ characters. Mind you, none of these He credits the clean lines and crisp borders in his art are direct portraits. They’re psychological profiles to his father’s fastidiousness and his use of bright, using abstract imagery. He starts by sitting down with vivid and contrasting colors to his mothers’ influence the subject and thoroughly interviews them on their as a kindergarten teacher. life, desires, backgrounds, “There were always bright pains, and loves. “I’ll even colors around,” he says of piss them off if I have to, to his mother bringing projects get to their real feelings. It’s and crafts home from class. interesting to see how closely Through grade school on to people guard their fears and Chowan College he developed insecurities, but even more his toolbox with the help of so to see them react to them dedicated Art teachers and the objectified. That’s always encouragement of a supportive been a positive experience for family. He transferred to the people I’ve worked with. Longwood College and made There’s a relief in seeing their the decision to stick with art inner monsters on canvas. over his other athletic pursuits. They cease to be hidden Finally set on his career as an things of unmentionable artist he started Cilli Designs weight and become an issue as a t-shirt company, and that can be seen in clear moved to Virginia Beach. He daylight, a singularity that can moved to Charlottesville, VA a be overcome.” He draws them couple years later to create logo out, peeling back inhibitions designs for the Dave Matthews until he gets to the real core of Band and to develop his gallery the personality and then uses space on the Charlottesville depictions of objects, random Downtown Mall. words, patterns and shapes to construct the personal story He found his artistic voice by of that person in that time. way of design school and it He’ll often add a theme to shows. Though working mainly the painting that encourages in oils and acrylics his pieces that person to grow past their are strongly reminiscent of current trials. “I’ll customize popular advertising and graphic design. He breaks their piece so they can look on their wall and never everything down to its’ component shapes, questions forget who they are and who they can become”. the proper colors of objects and applies his own reality to their forms. Monty Montgomery captures a Mona Lisa smile with the simplicity of a few well-placed lines, circles Take the painting “Again…Please” for example. and silhouettes. The inner demon, embarrassment, While not being the careful character study of most or pride that stalks each of his subjects is expertly of his commissioned pieces, it tells of a vibrant yet personified in color and abstraction. Visit the seldom described emotion. Exploring open, unveiled Cilli Original Designs Gallery at 112 East Main sexuality he portrays the silhouette of a prone woman Street, Charlottesville, VA 22901 located under on a field of horizontal lines shuttering an emanation the historic Jefferson Theatre or visit his website at of pink and yellow waves in the far background. He www.cillidesigns.com. describes the work as a visual representation of sexual

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WaferBabY LANDER SALZBERG | DANIEL BOGAN

Daniel Bogan is a 27 year old web geek and designer living in Sydney, Australia. He’s also the visionary behind Waferbaby.com, one of the web’s most beloved community websites with over 3500 members. D emailed with us about his art, his website, and the future of the whole damn Internet. How long have you been drawing? For as long as I can remember, no blank piece of paper has been safe from my wrath! Back in high school (and on the days when I actually _went_), I spent more time drawing in my books than paying any attention in class (which would explain the shitty grades, but hey!). My history teacher, Mr. Hannon, used to come over at the beginning of every period to see what new stuff I’d doodled, that was cool. What other types of work do you like to do? Mostly black and white drawing, and primarily cartoons at that; I’ve never been happy with my work in colour, although I’d like to play with that further down the track. I had a brief stint in painting during school, but that never went anywhere. Mostly because I suck at it. Also, animation is another field that I truly love; Chuck Jones and John Kricfalusi are huge heroes of mine. Currently I’m keen on graffiti artwork (I’ve been taking photos of the walls around town), and would like to get involved in that to some degree. But cartooning is really my first love. Waferbaby.com...How did it begin? It’s allllllllll about the toons; as a kid I’d been wanting to put together my own comic label, and I randomly thought up the name “waferbaby.” Time went on, I finished school, started working, and discovered this whole Internet thing, and decided to try my hand at launching a site. I started out by selling some Mac software that I’d written, and after a while I was also running a small cartoon series called “wacky” (which I eventually pulled due to my artistic insecurities), and then somehow, lord only knows how, it’s evolved into the site as you see it today. I’d love to say it was all well planned in advance, but that’d be a big fat lie. What has it become? A crazy little community. I love it! It’s put me in touch with these amazing people all around the world that I’d

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never have encountered otherwise. Some of them have become close friends now. And now I can’t stop toying with it, and adding shit to it all the time and learning all this crazy stuff as I go. What are some of the technologies involved with with the site? I recently spent a good four months recoding the whole site from scratch (please, please, please, never let me do that ever, ever, again, plsthx). And it’s all written in PHP. The site is now less of an actual site and more of an XML application that just happens to have an XHTML interface (via XSLT stylesheets). Lots of acronyms, eh? Basically, all that shit means that I won’t need to recode the site again, because its native format is now XML, and I can spit that out in any format I need to. And that’s a very good thing. Trust me. What are your plans for the future of Waferbaby? Short term, I’ve got a new comic in the pipelines, and I’ve got a bunch of additions I’m going to start rolling in over the next few weeks. And further along, I’d like to start making a line of vinyl toys and t-shirts, comic books, stuff like that. I did a trial run of limited edition shirts recently, which went well (at least, they sold really well, but I ended up losing money. Which is ok - I just really wanted my own t-shirt). Thoughts on the Internet in its current form? Hard to say - I try not to think about it too much. I’m very glad that web standards have finally started to catch on in a big way. It’s good for everyone! These days I’m hardly using a web browser at all. I tend to keep up to date on news and my friends via their RSS feeds in NetNewsWire. It’s a little clinical at times, but it stops me from reloading hundreds of websites every ten minutes. Thoughts on the future of the Web? At best guess, it’ll stay quite similar to how it is now, only larger, faster, and more accessible (and thus, more advertising, more spam, and faster porn). I think the ways that we access it will change. Everything is converging, everything is becoming net-enabled. These days a mobile phone can be a camera and a web browser and an email client and a games console and an organiser and a GPS tracker. So who knows?

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The Artist Factory CAMERON AYERS

How many people actually talk to the artist when they go to a gallery opening? How many people are more worried about how they look than how the art looks? And if they see something they like, how many people know how to get in touch with the artist? How many artists want to quit their restaurant jobs but don’t see any alternative? These are some questions addressed by The Artist Factory, the brainchild of recent Dixie transplant, Thomas Staats. Faced with the unappetizing challenge of getting work shown in many local galleries, Thomas saw one way to succeed. Quit making art. Since that was apparently not an option he chose to open his own space instead. He emptied his savings, but there was no waiting in line to show. From there a plan has formed, a philosophy that is hard to come by sometimes. Build a group of devoted artists and patrons that work to

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break the barriers between the art and the viewer. Create an atmosphere that is welcoming to everyone who yearns to discuss art, as opposed to one that leaves you with no lasting impression. Or one that leaves you with the impression you weren’t welcome in the first place. Aren’t you tired of forgetting that piece as soon as you leave because there was no meaningful dialogue? Walking through a crowded gallery and straight out the exit gets old after the third time in a night. Multiply those nights by each other and it becomes down right depressing. The Artist Factory sets out with a tentative core group of seven hoping to add more artists and supporters as they

grow. One way to kill continuity is to change artists every month. The Artist Factory hopes to build a following by having an ever-expanding group of regulars that people look forward to seeing. Artists will create new work for each exhibition. The audience will hopefully fall in love with what the Factory produces and want to be a part of it. Part of that involvement is financial, as Thomas is quick to point out. He has a business license for a reason. The work is there to be sold as well as enjoyed, with the ultimate goal of liberating artists from their day (or night) jobs. Also any artist wishing to be involved should be ready to part with their work. There is no giving it to Mom for Christmas. It is also understood that everyone has real, paying-the-rent jobs, but that a minimum amount of time and effort must be applied to the art in order to be successful. Any factory needs to keep up its productivity to continue, this one included. Whatever the outcome of this endeavor, it is being done for the right reasons. Enriching the masses and making fucking money. Visit The Artist Factory at 00 Broad Street, Richmond, VA.

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William Thidemann LANDER SALZBERG

William Thidemann is a painter, designer, musician, and tattoo artist out of Denver, Colorado. He took a minute to email with Chew about tattooing, Four Walls Falling, and Journey. For more information about Bill’s artwork or tattoos, you can visit thidemann.com and thinktanktattoo.com What type of work do you do? The majority of what I do is tattoo related, working on custom designs for whoever wants me. I am also working on paintings for either commissions or art shows, and lately I have been working on more design and illustration work. Right now, specifically, I just finished an album cover for a band in Portland, I am working on a collaborative set of flash with my friend, Todd “ Noble” Holloway, and I’m working on a new series of paintings. Oh yeah, and I have a limited edition lithograph of one of my paintings coming out with fineartcloning.com. Have you noticed any new trends in tattooing? Overall I see tattooing getting better all the time. The major problem is the lack of original concepts. People seem to go through phases of wanting the same thing that they see on someone else. As far as tattoo artists go, there are a lot of great artists, but sadly the majority of them don’t do their homework either. They either take the look of someone else’s work directly or they simply don’t do the homework that they should. Buying one Hokusai book does not make you a Japanese expert. Artists need to buy more books and not directly take or steal anything, and the customers should support the artists who are working hard by voting with their $$$. Are you still playing music? Definitely. Right now I am working in a band that I’m playing guitar and doing some vocals for. We have 7-8 songs but I haven’t settled on a name yet. I will never stop with the music thing, I do what I can with the time that I have.

What are some of the bands you’ve played with? I played with Four Walls Falling for 3 years or so, and then we started Joyburner. In Colorado I have worked on a few projects including one with the members of Bloodlet. I am glad to have the band I do now because it is hard to find the right people. Everyone I know in Richmond plays something; out here the pickings are slimmer (musically). What was it like touring with Four Walls? That was one of the best periods of my life. I was friends with Taylor and Bo since the Pledge Allegiance days and it took awhile before I agreed to be in the band. But when I joined, it was awesome. So much energy, so much conviction, people were excited politically. I got to tour and see Europe with them. I met so many people that I still care about to this day. I think it laid the groundwork for what I wanted to do with much of my life…to travel and meet the people that I was interested in. How has the scene changed from when you used to play shows? The hardcore scene goes in cycles, some good, some bad. I heard the term fashioncore the other day, and it made me sick. I hate fashioncore, I hate pointless music about pointless things, and I hate the frat-boy version of the punk kid that I see everywhere. I’m happy about bands like Strike Anywhere for keeping heart. Richmond is lucky to have all the great bands it has, and I am lucky for getting to grow up around it. What do you think about the band Journey? Everybody loves Journey, at least everyone I know. My favorite song is “Ask The Lonely.” What are your plans for the future? To try and keep this tattoo/art/music thing going as long as I can. I plan to keep traveling and meeting people and to move somewhere closer to an ocean where I can work and relax.

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CHRISTIAN DETRES | SHANE MCCAULEY

| MUSIC

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Is this the last show on your tour? This whole weekend is the event that ends the tour. We play Richmond tonight and DC tomorrow. Richmond is like our mom and DC is like our dad. Richmond gave birth to us. Richmond is very kind and nurturing and lets us get away with making mistakes and DC’s like “you better show me something! It better be good!” Tell me about the tour as a whole. This is the Jade Tree United tour sponsored by Punkvoter.com and Jade Tree with From Ashes Rise and Paint It Black from Philadelphia and Challenger from Chicago, IL all on Jade Tree Records. We played a really cool show in York, PA and even one in West Virginia, a first for us. I’ve noticed your fan base getting a lot younger. I see these sixteen year olds with Strike Anywhere t-shirts and it makes me wanna go grab a cane and grow a beard. How do you still connect with them while on the dawn of your 30’s? Thanks for reminding me how old I am. I think it all comes down to the songs we sing. We’re addressing ideas that first sprout up in minds of people that age. Young people are so connected with feeling dispossessed and uncensored even. They can get away with expressing views that as you get older you’re scorned for even mentioning. All the factors that want to keep us in line and try to make us make rich people richer have no power greater than the angst that sprouts in a sixteen year old’s breast. It’s holding on to that dynamo of energy until you’ve been legally empowered as an adult...that’s the hard part. You seem to make the simple rumblings that, like you said, are commonplace with just about every disenfranchised teenager and make it seem huge, an anthem of their collective consciousness. But I’m curious though, how much of what you do is, “shoot, I wanna make a great punk album” and how much is “I really want to make this statement about such and such?” Case in point, yesterday we played an acoustic show to benefit Richmond Coalition for a Living Wage and we were able to make it so this excellent group of people working for a great cause could pay their office rent for the next four months and continue their struggle to provide decent workplace conditions and compensation for people all over this city. That is clearly more important than our making a buck or making great music but hell, we got to play a decent show and saw a lot of old friends and played some of their favorite songs. People were happy and that feels great too. I don’t think one would be nearly as fun without the other but as far as what’s important goes, I don’t think there’s any real comparison. What do you see as the biggest problems facing us today on a societal scale? There’s so much isolation, separation and competition in American life. There’s so much more joy to be found in connecting with people and there’s so many ills to this world that need to be cured. We back, like I mentioned, Richmond Coalition for a Living Wage, Grass Roots Voter Registration, AntiRacist Action, and Alternative Media, to name a few causes. I’ll tell you though, we’re just punk rock guys – we’re not social workers here. Our place is very important I think to mobilizing and congregating people of like minds but the people at our shows are the ones who will actually start making the differences. We’ve been honored and lucky enough to have them shouting back at us from the pit and I hope when they leave our shows, sweaty and exhilarated, that they take a little question with them about “what can they do?”

| MUSIC

You ever get called out on it? Nick and I used to work at this record store, The Warehouse; which was also Newbury Comics. Nick was up there visiting people from work. This girl comes in and Nick’s boss is all like “Hey, you ever heard of this band called Jericho?” without telling her that we were it and she’s all “Yeah, they’re poseurs. They moved to Virginia and changed their name to RVA just to fit in.” We cracked up after she left and you

I gotta ask though. You’re from Boston – all of you. Yet when you had to change the name of the band to something other than simply Jericho, you opted to name check Richmond, with the RVA. I love it, but is there a reason you went with that? Yeah, we were getting sued by this other band Jericho that wanted our money and stuff. Our record label wouldn’t put out our last album unless we added something to it. As to why we added RVA and not BOS, we feel more comfortable here. Richmond’s our home now. We go back to Boston a lot to visit and for tours and it definitely feels weird going back there.

Jericho RVA, not to be confused with Christian “rockers”, Jericho, have been together for seven years. They’re four guys who look like they’re in a band, and in fact, are. They carpet bagged their way down to the fair city on the James from Boston, MA to take advantage of cheap rent and a convenient staging area for logistically smart touring. Ha, that sounds like the opening narration to the Odd Couple.

CHRISTIAN DETRES

I’ve gotta let people know that haven’t heard you before – you’ve got a very underused musical palette you work with. The acoustic punk genre, I think, is amazing and fresh. Between you guys, Robbie Huddleston of Ann Beretta, and Against Me!, you’ve opened a new door to a whole new brand of expression within the punk rock medium. Of course you have your standard drum kit, bass, electric guitar songs too, but the acoustic ones really capture my ear. I’m always reminded of the political-themed folk songs of the hippie sixties being sung around a campfire on the beach smoking weed, but in your version it’s more like shouting songs around a burning, hollowed out car on blocks passing around a bottle of Jack. Folk Punk, I guess. Ken: We’ve incorporated a lot of ups and downs and

What are you doing now? Our label just went belly up so we’re talking to new ones. Iodine Records – gone. We’re in the studio recording now too; it’s a break from the road which is nice.

Well, you owe Boston a reason for leaving right? I guess. I mean, it wasn’t Boston that made us want to leave, we just couldn’t afford to live there anymore. We couldn’t tour with all of the bills we had to pay. So we went somewhere where we could be on the road most of the time and still have homes when we returned to them. We’ve been on the road pretty steadily for the last two years since we got here.

know, we don’t care. People who understand do, and those that don’t, don’t. That’s it.

Jericho RVA

Journey? Do you like ‘em? I think they’re pretty tight, haha. I think it’s kind of lame that Steve Perry had a separate tour bus from the rest of the band with his lady. I learned a lot about them on Behind The Music. They’re a great psycheout. I celebrate their entire catalogue.

Just one more thing, and this is important. What do you have to say about Journey? What?

Do you mind being lumped into that category? If you’re in a band you’re going to get compared to other bands consistently and the great thing for us is that we really love the bands critics are putting us in categories with. Most of the time it’s a great compliment. I do get a little miffed at the reviews where they’re like “this brand new band Jericho (RVA) rocks!” – I mean we have been around for awhile. That’s just a pet peeve though. Critics have been very good to us. Sometimes the comparisons don’t make sense to me but I usually like the band so it’s alright by me.

movement in our music I think. We are very much of the school of Avail and Hot Water Music. We don’t focus a whole lot on just the acoustic stuff, though I’m glad you like it.

CILLI ORIGINAL

DESIGNS

��

112 East Main Street Charlottesville VA 22902

www.cillidesigns.com 434-242-4212

| EDITORIAL

NICK THARPE

How many American Indians do you know? Being a descendent of an American Indian, I became aware of a lot of people saying they have Indian in their blood. This is great and all, basically it means at one point in time, my great grandfathers were getting some ass and it still shows. My point is, how many full-blooded Indians do you see walking around? One or two, right? Well, this is fucking weird to me. We have a “melting pot” going on here, and the first ingredient is nowhere to be found. Why in the hell isn’t this cataclysm on the news? If George Bush lost his fucking shoe, that shit would be on CNN, so how did we lose a whole race of people and no one’s talking about it, did I miss a memo about the mass genocide or what? Ok, so the government has set extremely small areas around North America and Alaska up as reservations. Maybe that’s where the majority of the American Indians are, but don’t you think there’s something odd about that? They were here first, no doubt about that, and this is what they get, a fucking alcohol rate that surpasses the Irish (no offence to the Irish, I’ve got a little Irish in me so I can say that), a suicide rate that obviously needs real attention, an unemployment rate that beats all the lazy-ass fucks I know, and a record of broken treaties. There are approximately 275 Indian land areas in the United States administered as Indian reservations. The largest, the Navajo Reservation, spans 16 million acres across three states, and the smallest is less than 100 acres. On each reservation, the local governing authority is the tribal government. On some reservations, a high percentage of the land is owned and occupied by non-Indians. With a little research I found that unemployment on Indian reservations averages about 37% overall and 75% in certain areas. The suicide rate for school-aged Indian children and youth is three times higher than that of their white counterparts. On some reservations, the suicide rate has increased by close to 200% over the past two decades. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Indian adolescents. Only 16% of Indian students who enter universities complete their undergraduate degrees, compared to 34% for their white counterparts. No fucking wonder we don’t see them. So in the words of one of our famous Red Brothers...”The White Man has made us many promises and has broken but one. He promised to take our land, and he took it.” - Bill O’Neill P.S. Free Leonard Peltier

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| EDITORIAL

Animal Psychics IVEY BLUNT

“I want to provide you with the truth.” According to animal communicator Terri Chenault, this is her number one goal and mission. In the past Terri has been coined as Richmond’s own pet psychic. However, recently I had the pleasure of having her and her husband John come to my house to do a reading on my pets. I soon found out there is a lot more to Terri than just her ability to communicate with animals. Terri and John are an animal and human communicating, energy seeking, ghost busting, and guardian finding dynamic duo. Terri specializes in animal communication, which is her personal favorite part of the job, while the two of them together engage in acts of seeking out the malevolent or benevolent energy in one’s house. This includes letting you know where your guardians are and where any good or bad energy may be harboring. Terri and John explained to me that everyone is psychic. However, they also explained that because of our socialization and desensitization to paranormal sensory perceptions we don’t even realize our own abilities, and that when we shrug things off as just coincidence or weird, we are probably feeling some kind of metaphysical energy or sensation. And after my night with the Cheaunalts, I must ask that you disregard any stereotypes you have when it comes to physic experiences. We all have images burned into our heads of a lady sitting in a tent looking into a crystal ball or some scary exorcist type of event. My experience was nothing like that.

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| EDITORIAL

orbs KIRSTEN LEWIS

The space is dark and still. You can feel the pressure of your heart beating against your shirt. Although there is no one else around, you do not feel alone. There is a raw smell pulling through the walls. As you silently examine the chipping paint, a strong, cold, angry air surrounds your skin. You reach for your camera hoping to document the uncomfortable energy filling the empty pockets of the room. Although capturing paranormal activity is rare, ghost hunters can be found in every town in every state in every country across the world. Orbs are considered by “Afterlife Historians” to be evidence of existing ghosts caught between this world and the spirit world. Others dispute that orbs are nothing more than an imperfection in photographic processing. So what exactly are orbs? They are circular balls of light most commonly white in appearance, although several colors have been captured including red and green. Orbs are known to appear above or around a human’s aura called the halo effect, as well as hovering in one spot in a paranormal area for a short amount of time. Many have claimed observing orbs and successfully photographing them not only with standard 35mm cameras, but with Polaroid, digital, and video as well.

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Some people believe that the reason orbs are the most frequently documented forms of ghostly paranormal activity is because they require only a small amount of energy to illuminate as opposed to a figure or apparition. Others believe that ghosts can form orbs by generating energy off their living counterparts. There are even writings to suggest that orbs have a season, being March through September, when it is warmer out. There is much more static electricity in the atmosphere in the winter thus ghosts find it easier to take on shapes rather than orbs. Opposing the idea that orbs are generated by the presence of a ghost or spirit is the theory that the orb is energy being transferred from another source, such as power lines, batteries, or heat. Orbs in photographs could be caused by crystals left in the developing fluid, refraction of the light in a camera lens, or simply the reflection of light off dust particles. Regardless of the pessimist’s point of view, millions of people hold their own ghost encounter stories very close to their heart and a great percentage of them include the mysterious floating orbs. Perhaps you have captured an orb in one of your photographs and you didn’t even realize it or maybe you’ve always been fascinated by the idea of paranormal phenomenon. So, if you’ve ever wanted to go on a ghost hunt of your own, there is no better time than now.

| FILM

Jon Favreau

DANIEL ROBERT EPSTEIN

I first met Jon Favreau back in 1997 in a pizza parlor in Los Angeles. Swingers had recently come out but I wasn’t interviewing him or anything. We were both just grabbing a slice at the same time. I told him that I loved Swingers but my father didn’t really seem to get it. He looked a little hurt by that. Cut to 2004 and Favreau is now one of the hottest directors in Hollywood due to the fact that Elf was a surprise hit that grossed nearly $200 million and turned Will Ferrell into the new Jim Carrey. Dinner for Five is an amazing show created and hosted by Favreau. Each episode takes place in restaurant with four film actors or directors sitting down eating, making jokes and talking about making movies. Former guests have included Vince Vaughn, Kevin Smith, Cheri Oteri, Christian Slater and many more. The third season which is airing now has some amazing people on it such as Gina Gershon, Bob Odenkirk, Kevin Pollack and Stephen Root. Daniel Robert Epstein: How hard is it to edit your show? Jon Favreau: Sometimes we have three hours of tape. The second show we shot [Garry] Shandling wanted to get out of there after 45 minutes so we were lucky the show was funny. But now most of the shows go about two hours so we have plenty to pick from. Plus now that the show has been on for a while the guests sort of know what the format is so they’re not as scared or confused by it. We’re literally rolling as soon as they come in and there is no crew around because we use long lenses. Now that the guests know they can ask each other questions there is a lot more usable footage. DRE: Has there ever been a case where there is so much funny stuff you wanted to make more than one show out of it? JF: Yeah we just did that with Burt Reynolds, Tony Shaloub, Kevin James and Richard Lewis. Burt Reynolds used to host The Tonight Show so when you get him going he’s a real storyteller. His stories aren’t “I was working in a coffee shop and I got discovered.” They’re more like; he was in the studio system and got fired along with Clint Eastwood. We made that into two episodes. Then we had him back and we said he could bring whoever he wanted to bring. He brought Dom DeLuise, Charles Durning and Charles Nelson Reilly. For that one I just sat back and watched. It was like watching Match Game.

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DRE: How do you keep a balance when too many people are talking at once? JF: Editing! We made a decision early on for it not to be like a talk show. The whole show came from me seeing what I liked and didn’t like about doing publicity. On the late night talk shows you’re in the middle of this three ring circus, it’s really about the audience and what the people at home are seeing. Going on Charlie Rose was a great experience because no one was yelling cut or action; there were no crew members around because the cameras are run robotically. You’re with him in a room and that’s it. After five or ten minutes you lose sight of the fact you’re on television. We wanted it be like you’re in a restaurant and that’s it. Also what I learned from doing movies is that you have a lot of control in the editing room. If you could get something spontaneous then you could cut together something interesting. People love reality television for that reason because they want to see real events. What people aren’t as concerned with now is production values and seeing beautiful sets because they’ve seen it all. They want to see something real. So by giving them moments, editing them into something interesting and clever it gives effective entertainment for a very specific audience and it’s what I want to see. DRE: Who have been your most intriguing guests so far? JF: What I find intriguing is the older guests. It’s not necessarily the people who would sell the most tickets or drive the biggest ratings. That’s who the major networks want but often those people don’t have the most experience. I’d rather have the people who half the audience doesn’t remember, but I love them. Like Dom DeLuise, you probably couldn’t book him on Jay Leno but for my money he is amazingly clever. Also people like Mary Steenburgen and Tony Shaloub, those people who have paid their dues and have insight. With newer actors it’s all about “I can’t believe how lucky I am.” They’re very conscious of what they are putting out there and very protective because their publicists are telling them to watch their mouths. But then again Colin Farrell and Kevin Smith are great because they don’t care. I look for a candid environment where it doesn’t feel like they are being interviewed on 60 Minutes. DRE: Many comedians who are funny in the movies aren’t as funny when they’re being interviewed. Does that happen? JF: A lot of the times there is the cliché that a lot comedians are not that funny when they’re not on. But they tend to close up when they feel like their persona

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is on. But if you hung out with those same people at home they are probably very funny. Will Ferrell is a good example. He’s hilarious when the camera is rolling but his reputation is that he’s not that funny when the cameras aren’t rolling. But if you hung out with Will he has a very dry and quick sense of humor. Its not like you turn off the camera and their sense of humor goes away. They just don’t want to perform but if they are in a social setting among peers they fall into a different pattern and different routine. Also some of the people you wouldn’t think are funny are the funniest like James Caan, he’s a cutup. Sometimes the comedians are just the best laughers. DRE: Are there people you have to prod to get good conversation out of them? JF: The more people want to do the show the better guests they are. So the more enthusiastic the guest is the more fun they are. A lot of times the best guests are people who aren’t asked to be guests on other shows. John Landis is a great guest because he’s been there and he holds court. Actors like David Alan Grier will sit quietly listening to John Landis tell his stories because those are the entertaining people in the industry. DRE: Is food ever an issue on the show? JF: Sometimes we just don’t know. We brought Sarah Silverman to the Saddle Peak Lodge and it was a taster’s menu of wild game like elk, buffalo and quail. Then we found out she was a vegetarian. That was just poor communication. But we will usually just adjust to whatever the guest needs. I’ve been on the Atkins diet for a while and the chefs claim to be using Atkins friendly products but I don’t really know. DRE: Has anything ever gotten ugly? JF: We’ve had ugly moments. But mostly its moments where people say things they wish they hadn’t. They start ragging on a movie that someone important is involved with so they might be up for a part in their next movie. But it’s rarely something that would have made the show anyway. You don’t want to attack people who people have collaborated with because Hollywood is a small town and you don’t want to be unfair to people. But if somebody has an opinion and they’re happy to share it then it’s nice. danielrobertepstein@hotmail.com

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God’s Last Laugh REBEKAH TRACHTENBURG | JIM CALLAHAN

Apparently God has this fabulous sense of humor. He decided to create the most incredible and indescribable act for procreation called sex. The original recipe was simple. Two people will feel an attraction to one another. After some heavy kissing and touching they will grind their naked bodies on top of one another. The man will find her hole, he’ll stick this rock hard appendage inside of her and together they will experience euphoria. “This is the perfect incentive to generate more people,” God thought to himself as he added the new ingredients into the genetic gene pool. He paused for a moment, thought about the new flavor in his human concoction, and began to giggle to himself. “I can’t make it that easy,” he proclaimed reaching for a pinch of irony. “I’m going to give women all the orgasms they can pump out, while men can only have one. However, once a man orgasms the sex will be over. His penis will be so sensitive he’ll have to pull out and will quickly go flaccid.” God smiled at the alteration to the original plan. Right before the pot went in the oven, God grabbed a dash of furthermore. “This will be fun,” he thought. “Men will want to have sex all the time between the ages of 16 and 20. I’ll call it his sexual peak, if you may. He’ll be able to have sex for 2 and 3 hours at a time, cum, rest for an hour, and then want to do it again. I’ll bless women with this same sexual desire, however the twist will be she won’t peak until she’s nearing her late twenties to early thirties.” Proud of his unfair and totally illogical plan, he quickly stuck the pot in the oven and after a few days Adam and Eve were cooked to perfection. A whole human existence suffers through sexual frustration and infidelity due to just a dash of bad timing. Thus explains my frustrations and the frustrations of people all over the world. For me, the proverbial clock has been deafening. I’ve always considered myself to have a strong sex drive, but more recently I have found myself either grabbing for my vibrating blue dolphin, dousing myself with cold water, or going for speed

walks through my neighborhood several times a day. Even though my personal status is NOT MARRIED, but NOT SINGLE either, I’m peaking and my partner graduated from his peak about 16 years ago. This can cause just a bit of stress in the bedroom, or anywhere else for that matter. I have been speaking to my best girlfriends about this issue rather candidly and realized, thankfully, that I’m not the only one experiencing sexual insomnia. One friend reminded me that when you’re doing it all the time, sex makes up for 10% of the relationship, but when your only thinking about it all the time sex makes up for 90% of the relationship. So what do you do? How do you find comfort in the fact that it’s nature’s fault? How have I gone from being a 27-year-old woman to a 17-year-old boy? I’ve decided to embrace the teenage boy within. I think about sex all the time, but that’s normal. I masturbate a lot more frequently, but I’m no different than any other boy on the block. Most importantly I’m a lot more aggressive by initiating the sex more eagerly, but hey that is the only way 17-year-old boys get laid. I’ve taken the matter in my own hands and have realized that most times your male partner can relate better to a confused and frustrated 17 year old boy, than a sensitive and insecure 27 year old woman. Life is a matter of adapting to your environment. It’s also a matter of how you choose to interpret a given situation as well as accepting the unfair. Remember, aside from sexual incompatibility, God also decided to make the women experience what is described as the most unbearable pain called childbirth. But then again, it was also Eve’s fault the world lives in sinful chaos. But what do you expect? A man wrote the story. I’m sure if it was written by a woman it would have been Adam who initially fucked up and partook of the forbidden fruit. The only difference would have been Adam would have persuaded Eve to take the second bite against her better judgment and then somehow convince her to admit to God it was all her fault.

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What’s Your Fetish? ALISON MILLER | SCOTT MAYO

You gotta have one—everyone else does. For example, there are 3,710 Yahoo clubs devoted to BDSM (bondage & discipline, dominance & submission, sadomasochism & masochism). There are 741 feet clubs on Yahoo and 249 devoted to WAM (wet and messy.) Then you’ve got the 246 smoking clubs, the 42 armpit clubs, the 12 amputee clubs, and of course, 11 clubs for sneezing. If you take those statistics and apply them worldwide, you come up with this: about 5.6% of people are into BDSM, 1.1% have foot fetishes, .3% have smoking fetishes, and .02 get turned on by people with colds—that’s about one million. So where did all these people come from? Nature, or nurture, or both—I didn’t feel like reading enough psychological crap to find out. I can, however, tell you where the term came from. “Fetish” comes from the Portuguese word “fetico,” which means “obsessive fascination.” It was coined by a French psychologist named Alfred Binet in 1888. He felt that everyone had some fetish to some degree. Since then fetishists have been diagnosed as everything from “perverse lunatics” to “broad-minded.” Here are the criteria we go by today: first, fetishism involves non-living objects. Second, the fetishist involves the object in masturbation or sexual encounters, usually either by wearing the item, holding it, or smelling it. One fetish even has its own fraternity. The Foot Fraternity was started in 1985 and now has more that 4,000 “brothers.” Annual dues of $45 a year get you access to people like “Atlanta, age 33; ht: 5’9”; wt: 175, ft: 11. Enjoys looking at close-up photos of bare feet. Looking for a special someone who wears penny loafers with no socks.” To avoid excluding their heterosexual counterparts, the fraternity’s founding fathers created FFF, the Foot Fetishists and Fantasies Society, in 2002. Over 50,000 of the estimated one and a half million foot fetishists have already requested information. It doesn’t stop with the foot fetishists. The WAM fetish draws quite a crowd as well, many being just as, if not more, particular than the penny loafer loving frat

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brother. One says “I like to have banana cream pies smashed in my face by a woman in tight pants, 6 to 8 pies. As the woman is pieing me I’d like her to talk shit as I’m masturbating between the pies.” Another fetishist can’t see a car stuck in the mud without becoming aroused. He says, “Although I would prefer a woman to be involved it really doesn’t matter as long as somebody gets stuck. The sight of their wheels spinning in the mud, the rocking and pushing in the attempt to get out of the mud are just the sexiest things on earth to me.” Another’s fantasy: “I’d like to find a large, deep, thick, gray, soupy, mud lake adjacent to clear lake or stream where I could spend long hours covering myself from head to toe...I would run, jump, dive, hold my breath, come up for air all without ear or nose plugs (you see I’ve done this before in my back yard). I love mud. I would take a change of clothes with me so that I could get totally covered all over again...I really love mud.” Smoking fetishists are generally disapproved of. While many ignore the harmful aspects of smoking, some fetishists’ excitement stems from it. The so called “dark side of the smoking fetish” is full of people, mostly heterosexual men, who become excited thinking about the lung damage itself. The smoking fetish is also often linked with pedophilia as a large percentage of smoking fans particularly enjoy watching a straightlaced teenager turn into a hopeless addict. Antismoking campaigns themselves are sometimes blamed for the fetish because they label smoking as taboo. Whatever your fetish is, you can find acceptance, and often a great deal of stimulation, on the internet these days. The next time you find yourself getting excited while watching a furry orange muppet on “Sesame Street” or by accidentally spilling soda on your favorite chair, just log on! There’s a Yahoo group waiting for you. Taboo is located at 6021 W. Broad St. Richmond, VA and on the web at taboolicious.com.

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