ROLLERDERBY Interview

Atari Teenage Riot is a left-radical techno hardcore head banging, break-beating, chaotic, group consisting of: Carl Crack, who moved from South Africa to Berlin at the age of two; Hanin Elias, a sleek and noisy feminist who on this night was delivering her baby back in Germany (replaced on this tour by two women: one black and joyful, the other heavily made-up and tattooed, probably Asian, definitely evil); and Alec Empire, who is 24 and has a ton of presence. My boyfriend broke up with me later that night over the way Alec and I looked at each other, even though I didn't actually say or do anything wrong. I thought I was being so good: here's a man who has knife wounds, a penetrating gaze and arrives from distant lands, and I didn't even give him my phone number! I guess for some people thoughts are as bad as actions.

I walked in the room feeling I was going to meet an enemy, because the extreme left has given me so much shit these last few years. In the 60 seconds it took to get from the door to the center of the room where Mr. Empire was standing and for him to lean over to me to set his recorder next to mine, I changed my mind completely: it wouldn't be so bad to cross part lines after all. Still I wouldn't give up without a fight!

LISA: Oh you're recording this too. Tricky.
ALEC: Not tricky -- I want your voice on my tape to hear later.
LISA: You say "The wankers tried to pull us down, but we will smash them in." Who are the wankers?
ALEC: Everyone.
LISA: Everyone? And what are they doing to try to pull you down?
ALEC: Won't play us on the radio in Germany. Or when they do play it, just the fact that you appear on certain media can destroy you.
LISA: Really?
ALEC: I mean, what would you think if we were to be on MTV?
LISA: I think you're being a little sensitive. MTV won't hurt you. So what are you going to do to "smash them in" exactly?
ALEC: Words and physical violence.
LISA: You get in fist fights?
ALEC: Yeah, what do you think?
LISA: Yeah? Any broken bones?
ALEC: Yeah.
LISA: Whoa! Whose bones?
ALEC: The other peoples'.
LISA: Ah, which bones?
ALEC: The worst: one head with a big hole. Because of that [the Berlin police are?] looking for us. Stuff like this is in the way. You know? Stuff like this just happens; I'm not very proud of this. Is there a glass?
LISA: Coke tastes better if you drink it out of the can. It's supposed to taste tinny.
ALEC: Oh.
LISA: Do you have any scars?
ALEC: Yeah [lifts shirt to show two blistery scars on chest near underarm]
LISA: Was there a lot of blood?
ALEC: Blood spurting out, yes.
LISA: Ever been in jail?
ALEC: Me no, Carl?
CARL: Yes.
LISA: Gonna tell us about it?
CARL: No. That's history now.
LISA: You live in the now?
CARL: Yes,
LISA: What's your best slogan?
ALEC: "Riot sounds produce riots."
LISA: Well, which one of your slogans would you yell at your mom if you were 15? If you yelled, "Riot sounds produce riots!" she'd just say, "Oh, go to your room!"
CARL: "You haven't suffered the same as I have."
LISA: [incredulous] "You haven't suffered the same as I have"? And what do people reply? "Oh, I beg to differ, I have too suffered the same"?
CARL: Oh no, they haven't suffered the same.
LISA: What's the worst thing that's happened to you [pause] You're not telling.
CARL: No.
LISA: Why not?
CARL: There are so many worst things. Maybe if I write my autobiography..
LISA: Are you sure you're not French? I swear you're French. Um, OK. "Life is like a video game and there's no chance to win." That's a good slogan of yours. That's for the morose teens. Well, we haven't fought yet. Your publicist warned me that you're very political.
ALEC: I, too, have been warned. I received faxes that Rollerderby is a neo-Nazi magazine.
LISA: Really? [laughs] Do you do drugs?
ALEC: Never tried anything. Not even alcohol. You, Carl?
LISA: With him it's in the past.
ALEC: Yes.
LISA: [To Evil-Eye Girl in the corner:] So are you Alec's ladyfriend?
Evil Girl: [pause] No.
LISA: Well, why have you been shooting me evil looks then?
Evil Girl: [pause] No.
ALEC: She just looks like that.
LISA: Do you have any kids?
Evil Girl: [pause] No.
LISA: OK. So what's the greatest thing about America?
ALL GERMANS IN THE ROOM: Heh, heh.
ALEC: Rollerderby.
LISA: What's the second best thing?
ALEC:Uh... [the Germans laugh]
LISA: Why did you come to this country if you hate it so much?
ALEC: America is shit.
JOYFUL-FACED GIRL: Fat people.
LISA: That's 'cause we're hungry.
JOYFUL GIRL: And carrying weapons.
ALEC: We didn't meet the right people yet perhaps. It just feels so boring over here.
LISA: Boring!? Boring fat shit-people brandishing weapons?
ALEC: I mean, do you understand what I mean?
LISA: Oh, I'm not understanding you, sir. [singing] "God bless America! Land that I love!" There's tons of fun things to do here.
ALEC: Go-carts is fun for me.
LISA: Can you tell me some German swears?
ALEC: Fick Dich is fuck you.
LISA: Fish Dish! Fish Dish!
ALEC: Say it again.
LISA: Fick du!
ALEC: Hehe, Heh. Fick du. You just said "Darn it!" But you can't say it hard in German. "Fuck you" is harder.
LISA: What if you're really mad? How do you say, you know, motherfucking cunt-sucking son of a whore boot-licker?
ALEC: You don't say that really. You say the English. Arschloch means asshole. Votze [pronounced footsuh] is very bad, that means cunt.
LISA: The French have good swears.
ALEC: Ta guele.
LISA: That's my favorite too. "Watch your face, I'm going to slap it."
[Side A ends. Side B resumes with....]
LISA: What's your problem with the mountains?
ALEC: I just prefer the sea.
LISA: Aren't you going to take a stand? Don't just "prefer the sea."
ALEC: Yeah, I do. I prefer the sea.
LISA: I need more. C'mon. "I hate the mountains." Say that.
ALEC: No, I don't hate them. I just prefer the sea. It's not, heh heh, it's not so big of a deal. Is it?
LISA: You're Atari Teenage Riot!
ALEC: IS that about all hating?
LISA: I'm asking for some strong opinions here. Not just preferring the sea.
ALEC: I just want to know if you think it's what it's all about--hating stuff.
LISA: You're blond, aren't you? You dye your hair.
ALEC: Yes, I am blond. Are you?
LISA: No,
ALEC:Is your true color dark like this [touches the tips]?
LISA: No, my true hair color is in the past. What do you hate most. Name two.
ALEC: I hate the army and I hate... and I hate... and I hate... I hate boring situations.
LISA: Now what would you do without an army? Another army would come and enslave you. This is what happens in your anarchy. You'd be taken over!
ALEC: You think so?
LISA: You have no government to make the orders, no army to defend the borders...
ALEC: No one would know what to take over.
LISA: They'd take over your women, your houses...you'd be cryin'!
CARL: We need no defense--with anarchy, the people and the system would be totally changed. The minds would be totally different.
LISA: Maybe your mind would be totally different, but there will always be some aggressive beasts out there waiting to take over unorganized peoples.
ALEC: It won't always be like that. If you want to take away the police then everyone will say, "But there is so much crime." The question is, do you want more police; you think then there'll be less crime? If there were no prisons, no psychiatric hospitals--they are just to lock people away, they don't solve the problem.
LISA: Then the psychiatric hospitals in New York got over-crowded they let the people out, they became homeless crazy people, and froze and starved to death! that's how anarchy works!
[Carl says something I can't catch on tape because he had moved to the other end of the room in disgust. It's something like their anarchy is about utopia, and when people are allowed to grow without The System, their minds will be free.]
LISA: Ideas just don't float in a vacuum! You can't just have ideas that are based on no existing realities.
ALEC: The life we have now, no one would have imagined that 500 years ago. You will see the system implode in a few years.
LISA: Human behaviors don't change; only the words for them change. It's all the same, you know?
ALEC: I don't think so. It's up to you. You want to give up?
LISA: What are you offering instead?
ALEC: I'm not offering anything. I'm not a politician. I just don't want anyone to [give up?].
LISA: Oh, what do I know? I'm just crabby.
ALEC: Crabby?
LISA: Cantankerous.
ALEC: Cantankerous?
LISA: Devil's advocate.
ALEC: Oh, always the opposite?
LISA: Yes, so where do I send the magazine?
ALEC:Here is my address and my phone number. If I'm not at this number, I'm at this number.
LISA: I'm not calling Germany!
ALEC: No?
[Shortly after that, of course I was calling.]
LISA: Hi, how are you?
ALEC: Tired. We traveled 20 hours in the snow and slept two hours.
LISA: Aw, it's good for you. Builds character. I have one more question: What are you like to have sex with? This is still the interview, you know.
ALEC: I want it all the time. Is that what you mean?
LISA: I mean, how do you do it?
ALEC: It's always different.
LISA: I knew you'd say that.
ALEC: Why?
LISA: Because you're European. Everything is relative to the European.
ALEC: Isn't it better to be always different? It's is because I don't have a regular girlfriend; it is always a different girl.
LISA: OK, there are two main types: sexual or sensual. Sexual is more enthusiastic or brutal--you're on a mission. Sensual is romantic, it has a mood. You use candles if you're sensual.
ALEC: No, no candles ever.
LISA: How about incense.
ALEC:Incense?
LISA: Those smelly sticks.
ALEC: Heh, heh, heh. Sorry, no. OK, I like men and women, but more women. Not 50/50.
LISA: 60/40?
ALEC: Heh. More like 80/20. For a man, I don't find attractive a one who always tries to be over the top being the man. I wouldn't have sex with Carl.
LISA I wouldn't either. I think Carl hates me.
ALEC: No.
LISA: I hate Carl.
ALEC: Heh, heh, heh, heh!
LISA: So what else? I want the details.
ALEC: Tying people up I like. Violence is good too.
LISA: [silence]
ALEC: Hello?
LISA: I'm contemplating.
ALEC: I don't know this word.
LISA: Thinking. Imagining. Actually, your English is very good. I just use big words to tease you.
ALEC: I know. You are the only one to do this, out of everyone.
LISA: [silence] You really maintain eye contact don't you.
ALEC: I had to. It's because your eyes have...
LISA: A magnetic field? Are irresistible?
ALEC: When you walked into the room, I was surprised. It's why I could not answer questions so much. It's not often you see that, the eyes like that.

My telephone recorder wasn't working so that second interview was written in short-hand as we talked, and I guess I got so busy contemplating I just stopped writing. The rest of the conversation is a blur to me--somewhere in there I know I asked if he knew Germans are famous for having no sense of humor and he said there are many jokes on their CD Burn Berlin Burn!, and that it's not very intellectual. He also defended Carl vigorously.

I like to argue not because I want to win, but because people lie less when they are mad. There is nothing I appreciate more than a person that can prove me wrong. 'Cause they make you smarter, or at least less dumb, whereas the other people (the people who never win the argument) leave you exactly as they found you. Alec speaks very calmly with, "you think so?" and "no?"s (which don't carry much impact at the time (at least not with boisterous and quite confident people like me)--but they burrow into your thinking and just as you're drifting off into sleep many nights later, you wonder: "Do I think so? I thought I did! Maybe I'm wrong." And there in the dark of your bedroom the world is new and wide open, and you want to leap up and think a thousand things. And it's not that I think he's right: he just made me think I might not be.

If you're sure you're right, then there's only one path, and you're on it. But if you might be wrong there are endless paths to choose--of what to do and think and be. And I am exactly, exactly, exactly as happy and curious then as I was at age eight walking down the road barefoot listening to birds singing and myself singing some dirty Diana Ross lyrics, thinking breathlessly about falling in love and having sex someday, when life was nothing to me but endless possibilities, and even the terrible possibilities were wonderful to contemplate. (I don't know the male equivalent to this: the feeling you got climbing a tree and waiting all day for the neighbor boy to come home so you can shoot your b-b gun at him, and when he does arrive you hit him right in the butt?) Politics are interesting after all!

The CD is wicked good, by the way.

[handwritten on the side:]

Hi reader. It's easy to tell when I'm joking in real life 'cause I always laugh at my own jokes, but in print tone and intent are more slippery, so I'll state clearly that I have TOTALLY RESPECT for this (Alec) person. And the band.

As for Carl - it's easy to poke fun at someone trying to explain their feelings and dreams, especially then they're doing it in a language not their own. But I really do like to say just the opposite just to rile people. In fact you DO have to dream about what is not. "I believe in photosynthesis. I believe in the projection of things that do not yet exist," said Al Green. Alec tried to explain that "suffered" line to me later about how they write lines digitally 010101 etc. (but I didn't really get it).

As for Hanin, she has solo records too, which I want to hear. She is menacing and sultry, and I'm sorry I didn't meet her - though my boyfriend had a psychic vision that she would be beat me up if we met. How does he know I wouldn't win the fight? After all, she did just give birth! I could take a new mom easy... I think. Or at least I could run fast enough got her not to catch me.

Thanks to Lisa Carver for not getting too angry with me, and not suing me.