Penelope Spheeris is one of the most punk rock women alive. And I have to thank her for setting me on a more righteous cultural path. You see, in the late 1980s, I was a middle school hair metal fan. Did I see Ratt play at the Worcester Centrum in 1987? And was Poison the opening band? Did I have multiple records by the semi-obscure Japanese metal band Loudness? Perhaps. The metal interregnum was brief, thanks to Spheeris’s masterful 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. If you’ve seen the film—packed with terrible bands “treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry,” to quote a film Spheeris almost directed—you’ll understand why. If you haven’t, find it online posthaste.
But first, watch this amazing conversation I had with Spheeris last month, during which we talk about the lost movie she made with a cocaine-addled Richard Pryor; how she ended up directing big Hollywood films like Wayne’s World and Black Sheep; her...errrrr...unvarnished feelings about Tina Fey, Brittney Spears and Jennifer Aniston; and how the ratbag Weinstein brothers precipitated her retreat from Hollywood. One of my favorite interviews of the year.
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Your gets are insane. I’m seriously considering paying.
If your 4th guest is Katie H I will buy the platinum package.