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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Questions for Savage Cut from the Interview Interview

Posted by on Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 2:59 PM

A bunch of things from this interview with Savage for Interview magazine last week didn't make the final cut—including questions about Berlin, stale cake, coconut cake, Grindr, and Ashton Kucher. In honor of the second episode of Savage U airing tonight (MTV, 11 pm PST), here they are.

You once described bathhouses as “whorehouses staffed by volunteers.”
That's right.

What do you make of Grindr?
Grindr is the whorehouse in your pocket. And that’s not necessarily a problem. And I've gone on Grindr, to check it out. I was one of those people without a picture and no stats. I've lurked on Grindr. I have to stay informed. What I hear from my younger gay friends on Grindr is that it's just a chat-a-thon and nobody actually hooks up on Grindr. But, you know, like the Craigslist freakout back in the day—everyone's apartment is a bathhouse now. So what do I think of Grindr? In some ways, it's a good thing and a bad thing. You know, there used to be kind of a high bar. When I was in college, there was a high bar for getting some cock if you were gay. You had to out yourself a little bit, you had to walk into the gay bar near your campus, if you were the type who wanted to suck people off in bathrooms you had to go to one of those bathrooms, where you might be seen by somebody else in one of those bathrooms, who knew you. So you had to take that first step out to get dick. And now Grindr makes it possible for a lot of young guys to get dick without having to take any even baby steps out.

And you've described coming out as the single most important political act a person can make. So, is Grindr kind of a step backwards?
It is kind of a step backwards—for those guys. But you know, kids are coming out younger and younger. That’s part of what’s driving the bullying epidemic. You have kids coming out at 13 in a middle school where sex isn’t that much of an issue and it’s not quite as brutal as high school, and then walking into the buzz saw of freshman year of high school. I actually think more people are out sooner.

Are more kids dying or is there just more coverage of kids dying or…?
I don’t know. I do not know. Now we know many suicides were LGBT kids when we didn’t know that before. It was assumed to be just a suicide. Now we know, like, when a kid is gay and out and he’s bullied for being gay and he kills himself—any idiot can put that together.

Why are you so taken with morbid figures? The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, MacBeth, Helen Keller...
It’s just a perverse sense of humor. I mean, that’s not my obsession with the Second World War. I'm also obsessed with the English Revolution, and cutting off Charles the First's head. But, I dunno, I'm a joker and I'm campy. I have a camp sensibility. And my whole life is kind of just joshing around. Savage Love used to be just sorta joshing around with people about sex. Other people take me far more seriously than I have ever taken myself. That is disconcerting at times. When I have people parsing my column for inconsistencies? And challenging me on them? It’s like, well, of course it's inconsistent. I don't mean it. A lot of those things where there’s one thing in conflict with another—one of those things I probably don't mean. That's the key to that mystery. I was probably bullshitting or drunk when I wrote that.

Why do you love stale sheet cake so much?
Because my parents when I was growing up would have parties in their apartment—my parents married very young, had their first kid at 21, 22. And so they had a crowd of friends in their early mid-20s who were playing at being grownups and adults. And one of them worked in a bakery. So we would have these cocktail parties in our house as kids and everyone would always get really shitfaced drunk. But they'd always have a sheet cake, and people don’t eat sheet cakes and drink very often, so everyone would have some of the sheet cake and then it would be left there alone all night, and we would get up when our parents were hungover and and for breakfast we would just pick at the sheet cake, which had sat out all night from the party, and it would be stale in the morning, and it would be fucking delicious. And it’s this childhood sense-memory thing—cake is better stale and a little crunchy and hard around the edges.

Share your feelings about coconut cake.
I think coconut destroys cake. What is that famous quote? Oppenheimer? "I am the destroyer of worlds"? Coconut is the destroyer of cake.

And donuts?
And donuts. Put shredded coconut on anything and it fucking ruins it. And I once, at a party, didn't know that somebody at The Stranger had made this lovely cake. I thought that this was a coconut cake from a bakery or grocery store. So after everybody had had some I picked it up and threw it out the door into the street.

Share your feelings about microwave popcorn.
Microwave popcorn is really bad for you. If you have breathing problems? There’s such a thing as popcorn lung—that shit floats through the air, causes cancer I think. I’d have to Google it for the most alarming statistics. And it smells terrible. If somebody makes microwave popcorn in a microwave in a large open office, the entire place reeks of that chemical-popcorn neutron-bomb stench.

Your office-wide ban is still in place. New interns are told the only rule is no microwave popcorn.
Or dogs. You can’t microwave dogs in the office either.

You were once an Ashton Kucher afficianado. How do you feel about him these days?
Oh, this is so rich. I mentioned Ashton Kucher as an example of a sexy guy in my column. This was when he was on That ’70s Show and no one had ever heard of him. Or heard him speak. And somebody wrote in and said, “Who the hell’s Ashton Kucher?” And I wrote, “Just the sexiest man on television.” And I went off about how gorgeous he was. As Kelso, he had long shaggy hair, he had a big crazy face—you know what I like. And it was before Punk’d and before Dude, Where’s My Car? and before he exploded. And I was so into dopey, good-natured, stupid, slow Kelso Ashton. I wasn’t so into screamy, shouty, Punk’d Ashton, and my ardor for him cooled. Still objectively super-duper fucking hot. Uh, naked in Two and a Half Men? Like, that first scene? Yeah, I would still—if I could hold that down long enough to fuck it I would hold that down long enough to fuck it. I don't think I could. I don't think I'm strong enough.

Are you watching Savage U?
Yes, I have to. I have to watch the show and tweet during it. And I don't watch myself on television—I've never seen myself on Maher or Colbert. I don't watch the clips. And that shit of me on YouTube? I don't watch that stuff. It's hard to watch yourself on TV.

How well have you adapted to airport life?
I actually like airport life. I like being in airports. I don’t like being in airplanes.

But you spend more time in the airplane than you do in the airport.
No, not the way I do it. I'll go to an airport five hours before a flight and hang out. You get a lot done in airports. There's literally nothing else to do but write and sit. And there's something interesting about being in a place that everybody else is hurrying to get out of, that everyone else is rushing through. But actually, nice airports have some nice amenities. There are some nice airports out there. Detroit is great. And if you’re walking slowly, if you're the only person moving slowly through that, it can actually be kind of interesting. It’s calming to not be rushing through this place that everybody else is rushing through.

What do you miss most about Berlin, where you lived before you started writing your column?
In Berlin, the environment was so different and interesting and the challenges of getting through the day, in a place where you were poor and didn’t speak the language, made life compelling. And things were fascinating, like the grocery store was fascinating because it was all so different, particularly then. West Berlin, before the wall came down. And I love big failed cities. I love Detroit. I love Cleveland. I love Cincinnati. I love cities that have retracted, like Berlin, at least then. I like Vienna for that reason. I like decrepitude and things falling apart. Things not being tamed. I like rotting infrastructure. I like things that have been built out for a particular use and then they’re not needed for that anymore. That's what's so great about Vienna. It's an imperial capitol for an empire that doesn’t exist anymore. And that was still being built out in 1917. And it's kind of fascinating. Like, imagine if Maryland was a country and Washington, DC was its capitol. That's Austria and Vienna. And it's kind of fascinating to see this architecture that screams “WE RULE THE WORLD!” when you don't.

Is there anywhere else you’d want to live?
I want to live in New York. What Queen Elizabeth’s mother said, during the war? They were encouraging her to get out, to send Elizabeth and Margaret to Canada during the blitz? She said the girls won’t go without me, I won’t go without the king, and the king won’t go. It’s the same thing for me. I won’t go without Terry, and Terry won’t go. And Terry’s the king.

How long have you guys been together?
17 years.

What was your last fight about?
I’m not at liberty to say.

 

Comments (24) RSS

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gloomy gus 1
Thanks for this. Brief as each episode may be it's a lot more Dan than we've been used to seeing on Slog the last couple years. I wonder if that isn't the key to why some people can't help themselves digging into his every inflection - they want more, is all. Like puppies, whenever he comes into view they yip and nip at him and pee all over.
Posted by gloomy gus on April 10, 2012 at 3:24 PM
Fnarf 2
With you 100% on microwave popcorn. Worst stuff in the world. If someone makes it here I get up out of my chair and go straight home, where I lay on the bed and shake for an hour.
Posted by Fnarf http://www.facebook.com/fnarf on April 10, 2012 at 3:34 PM
seandr 3
Sorry, but I refuse to sit quietly while Dan viciously maligns coconut.

Coconut shavings are the only reason that any sane person in possession of a non-defective digestive system would ever eat cake or a (preferably chocolate) donut.

And the Dahlia Lounge's coconut cream pie is ... well ... there just aren't words.
Posted by seandr on April 10, 2012 at 3:45 PM
Hernandez 4
Hey, my boss has the same ban on microwave popcorn! I am so grateful for it, that shit is just nasty.
Posted by Hernandez http://hernandezlist.blogspot.com on April 10, 2012 at 3:46 PM
5
Wow, I never thought about airports that way, but you perfectly articulated my subconscious feelings about them - I always arrive super early so I can just chill through the check-in/security/waiting-to-board process, and wander around a bit. It's sort of a guilty pleasure - we're not supposed to enjoy airports. They offer great people-watching, too.
Posted by Christy O on April 10, 2012 at 3:47 PM
Zebes 6
Wasn't Coconut-Popcorn a Four Loko flavor?
Posted by Zebes http://www.badrap.org/rescue/index.html on April 10, 2012 at 3:47 PM
Dougsf 7
The stomach of a microwave popcorn lover must look something like the bellies of those dead wales that spent their life feeding near the Pacific garbage float.
Posted by Dougsf on April 10, 2012 at 3:58 PM
very bad homo 8
I hate flying but I also enjoy airports. I always go really early before a flight.
Posted by very bad homo on April 10, 2012 at 3:59 PM
Reverse Polarity 9
I will stake out a middle ground between Dan and seandr @3.

Cheap dried out flake coconut is, in fact, gross. Like thin, vaguely flavored shavings of cardboard. I'm convinced some of that shit has been sitting on grocery store shelves since 1965. In no way should this be considered food.

Fresh coconut, on the other hand, is so, so yummy. Lop the top off with a machete and drink the juice right out of it. So good!! And the fresh meat of a coconut is pulpy and moist and not at all like cardboard shavings. Pro tip: best consumed on some tropical island beach somewhere. If you ever have fresh coconut, you'll never touch that awful dried crap in plastic bags in grocery stores again.
Posted by Reverse Polarity on April 10, 2012 at 4:04 PM
10
Plain coconut flakes I have little time for, but on a cake donut, toasted coconut is a really superior topping. I would like one right now, please. Hurry.
Posted by Eric from Boulder on April 10, 2012 at 4:07 PM
11
I scrape the frosting off of German Chocolate Cake so I can avoid the disgusting coconut crap that infuses it. Since I have never tried the fresh stuff, I will reserve judgement on that.

The only thing worse than the smell of microwave pop corn is burnt microwave pop corn.
Posted by SeattleKim on April 10, 2012 at 4:10 PM
12
Also, what @9 said. Use a straw to drink the milk. But do leave the machete work to the professional. He'll only charge you a few rupees for the service, and if you try to do it yourself, you'll end up having the last half inch of your finger lopped off and actually floating around in the coconut milk. Gross.
Posted by Eric from Boulder on April 10, 2012 at 4:16 PM
Vince 13
You've morphed into an old lady ,Dan. Do you wear support hose and smoke Pall Malls?
Posted by Vince on April 10, 2012 at 4:21 PM
emma's bee 14
Microwave popcorn is nasty and deadly toxic in large quantities, as Dan says. However. Coconut cake done right (hi Nine Mile in Asheville!) is divine.
Posted by emma's bee on April 10, 2012 at 4:24 PM
TVDinner 15
I don't understand why people microwave popcorn when it takes maybe a minute longer to do it on the stove. Also, it still tastes like popcorn when you cook it on a stove. And it doesn't make your house smell like chemicals. Surely all those office workers can wait 'til they get home and make popcorn there, right?
Posted by TVDinner http:// on April 10, 2012 at 4:47 PM
TheMisanthrope 16
Detroit airport is great?!

Say what you will, but it is objectively not great. Even the Northwest terminal sucks.

The driving and the parking and...and...and...

I think Dan's trolling with that statement.
Posted by TheMisanthrope on April 10, 2012 at 4:56 PM
Porcupine 17
CAPITAAAAAAAAL!
Posted by Porcupine on April 10, 2012 at 5:48 PM
MarkyMark 18
Years ago, I treated myself to purchasing a long-desired and rather expensive bedspread at a fancy home furnishing store in U Village (which will not be named but the initials are R.H.). After I'd had it on the bed for a day, I noticed that the entire house was reeking of a very strange odor, which took me a while to identify as smelling like mildly-burned microwave popcorn. The item was returned the next day.

I love hanging out inside SeaTac airport, during the extremely rare times I'm there early enough. Its ironic that the new food-court area is off-limits to the general public; its better than anything else in the area.
Posted by MarkyMark on April 10, 2012 at 6:02 PM
19
@3, coconut is the devil. THE DEVIL. The great Satan in a hairy brown husk. And don't even get me started on coconut milk.
Posted by catballou on April 10, 2012 at 6:41 PM
Karl Schuck 20
As to the MTV show, Dan, the editors are working very hard to give viewers the impression of absolutely no content. Very youthful. I suppose that makes me one of those cretins that takes you more seriously than you do. But next time, get approval of editing into your contract. Please.
Posted by Karl Schuck on April 10, 2012 at 7:03 PM
seandr 21
@19: How dare you!

I once spent a week in Jamaica subsisting on little more than coconut cookies, weed, and rum, and I'll have you know my nutritional needs were well met by those delicious little snacks.

Coconut is the fruit of the gods.
Posted by seandr on April 10, 2012 at 8:20 PM
Sargon Bighorn 22
Bath house are whore houses staffed by volunteers and whore houses are whore houses staffed by paid workers. I think volunteers are nicer.
Posted by Sargon Bighorn on April 10, 2012 at 10:40 PM
crivins 23
Alton Brown has a show where he makes his own microwave popcorn - just a paper bag, a little oil, some popcorn kernels and salt. Looked fabulous and it'll work in the office without that stench.

The show is good, but very MTV - frentic editing, quick cuts, close camera work, not a lot of depth to any particular segment. If you get the chance next time Dan, you should have them go with an hour-long premiere or have more outtakes on the web. Otherwise, all of us crazy die-hards will simply go to youtube and watch your clips. They're longer and often funnier.

sweet juniper has some great pictures of what he calls "feral houses" and other destroyed Detroit stuff. He's very interesting and thoughtful.
Posted by crivins on April 11, 2012 at 6:43 AM
Baby Blue 24
@seandr: I agree wholeheartedly, coconut is the stuff of the gods. I do prefer the fresh stuff but I'll take it however I can get it for the most part. Lifewater has a new coconut flavor that is the only Lifewater I can even stand. It is pretty awesome. Give it a whirl, if you haven't already. Also, hit up La Isla in Ballard. They have tons of coconot-licious beverage options.
Posted by Baby Blue on April 11, 2012 at 3:28 PM

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