By Justin Beckner

The dawn of another brutal election year is upon us and the majority of the country has developed a feeling of distain for politics all together. Still, masses of protesters have flocked to the streets to speak out against corporate greed and corrupt government practices. Never has there been a better time for a band like Anti-Flag to make new record and gear up for another world tour.

Anti-Flag frontman, Justin Sane has relentlessly spoken out against injustice since he and his friends formed the band back in 1988. Sane has long been hailed as one of the most intelligent songwriters of our generation. While musically, Anti-Flag is a direct descendent of classic punk rock bands, lyrically they ring reminiscent of a Woody Guthrie or Billy Bragg. Anti-Flag had a few minor hits with songs like “Protest Song” and “Turncoat” which could be heard being played at almost any protest demonstration during the Bush Administration. It is rather common to find Anti-Flag playing shows at protests. They recently played at an Occupy Wall Street Demonstration. Sane draws a lot of his songwriting topics from his experiences playing at and marching in these kinds of events.

Aside from his rigorous touring schedule with Anti-Flag, Sane has also put out three solo records (one full length and two EPs) and is in the process of putting together another album. In these solo records, he has found a freedom to pursue different musical directions – often this means falling back into acoustic music and dabbling in different genres. The light-hearted solo albums are a glimpse at the other side of the charismatic frontman.

In the following interview, Sane and I discuss the roots of his love of music and activism, the causes and effects of the Occupy Wall Street Protests, and the new Anti-Flag album due out this spring.

Justin Beckner: It seems to me that there are a lot of ideological similarities between traditional Irish music and punk rock music. You came from an Irish household, is that where your passion for music and social justice came from?

Justin Sane: Yeah, it really did. My dad is from Ireland and both of my mother’s parents are from Ireland so I am 110% Irish. My parents were both really involved in activism as a result of their Catholic upbringing. In Catholicism, there’s something called “Liberation Theology” and that’s the kind of theology that Jesus preached – that you should help out in your community and work with the poor and stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves or give a voice to those who don’t have a voice in the world. With the British occupation of Ireland for hundreds and hundreds of years, there’s always been that drive in the Irish people to work for their own liberation. I think that the idea of fighting for people who are oppressed was carried along with those who left Ireland. Those ideas have been well documented in Irish folk music which is something I grew up listening to and playing. My parents had nine kids because Catholics don’t use birth control. I was the youngest of the nine and we all played instruments. It was like our own version of The Pogues or Flogging Molly within our own family. I’m not Catholic myself, I’m not really religious, but I think that I was influenced by that Liberation Theology that my parents were so profoundly influenced by. They fought for civil rights and fought to make the environment clean for their kids.

JB: Were there any non-political bands that you were influenced by on a more technical level?

JS: Yeah, I mean I’ve always loved KISS. I thought they were really cool. I’m sure there were others – I listened to Jackson Browne a lot. I listened to much of the same music my older brothers and sisters listened to and a lot of it wasn’t political. The Beatles were a band that was unanimously liked by everyone in my family and they had their political songs and their non-political songs. So there was a lot of non-political music that I drew influence from.

JB: You’ve spent a fair amount of time at the Occupy Wall Street Protests. Do you think the message that is being sent by the protesters is getting through to those who need to hear it?

JS: I think it’s definitely getting through because the protesters are being addressed quite often with brutal physical force by a police force that has traditionally been used to work for the elite. I think what we have now is a police force that is propping up a corporatocracy. Let’s look at it from this perspective – if there were protests in North Korea where protesters were trying to make a statement by occupying a square in North Korea and the police came in a brutally beat people up and pepper sprayed them and hit them with non-lethal weapons, the State Department here in the US would be on Fox news decrying the authoritarian rulers of North Korea. But we have that exact same thing happening right here in a democracy where we supposedly have the right to free speech. We have peaceful protesters making a peaceful statement and they’re being beat down by police. I think that says something about the state of our nation and it says something about the concern that those in power have about a message like that being freely spoken. If they didn’t think that message was dangerous, they wouldn’t be sending the police out there to shut those people up. There’s a very clear and directed initiative to suppress that speech and I think that’s really tragic. I’m really proud of the people who are out there making that statement because it obviously needs to be made. People are waking up and realizing that the rich in this country have been taking advantage of the poor for a very long time. So, they’re waking up and making the statement that things in this country are very out of balance – in that respect I think it’s very important that statement be made.

JB: That sense of injustice and imbalance has certainly been getting much harder for people to ignore in recent years. The top 1% of Americans control 42% of the country’s wealth and assets. That’s a pretty staggering figure.

JS: Yeah it is and I think in America there’s a sense of fairness – that everybody has an opportunity to get ahead and that’s based on an assumption that there’s a level playing field that we all start out on. Now people are looking around and seeing that there isn’t a level playing field, things are vastly out of balance, and people with a lot of money are actually breaking the law in many cases and doing things that should be illegal to make more money – all this while the rest of us are just trying to scrape by. I think Americans are pretty fair minded – most people are just saying that they want a level playing field and that’s why we see a lot of protests popping up recently.

JB: Over the past couple weeks I’ve noticed major news networks belittling the protesters on Wall Street. How do you feel when you hear people say that the Occupy Protesters don’t know what they want?

JS: I think a lot of people have a hard time verbalizing it, but in their gut they know there’s something out of whack. That’s where I think the media does a really great disservice by putting out things like, “There’s these occupiers out there but they don’t know what they want.” Because the reality is that if you spent five minutes at any of the Occupy events and walked around and talked to some of the protesters, you’d very quickly find out that there are incredibly articulate people who can tell you exactly what they think the problem is, what should change, and they’d give you statistics to back it up. They’d tell you that the corporations have bought and paid for our politicians to the point that they don’t represent us anymore, they represent corporations, and we want corporate money out of politics so we can have our politicians back. Those are the messages that we don’t see on Fox or CNN. When I go to Occupy Wall Street, as I have a number of times in several different cities, I talk to people who are really articulate, and then I turn on the news and they’re interviewing some guy who can hardly talk and doesn’t seem to know why he’s there. It makes me wonder why the hell aren’t they running interviews with the people I talked to when I was there. But those people at the top of the food chain at Fox news and places like that don’t want a clear message coming out of there. They’re doing their best to make people look stupid but the amount of knowledgeable people down at these protests is unbelievable. I just wonder why we’re not hearing those voices on the news.

JB: With the dawn of another election year upon us I’ve got to ask, how do you think these protests are going to influence the elections in 2012?

JS: One thing that was really clever about the way the Occupy movement was structured was that there is no figurehead leading the movement. That’s a good thing because leaders can be coopted, they can be bought, they can be bribed, they can be stroked in different ways. The Occupy movement is a true democratic process and a true movement of the people. I think that politicians today are just too corrupt to bring this country back to some degree or normalcy. However they will do what they need to do to get reelected and in that sense the Occupy movement is a message of what the people want. It’s not a message of what the corporations want. Ultimately politicians have to bow to the will of the people, and little by little, as a result of the Occupy movement, we see that happening. So it’s a step in the right direction. I think that what the Occupy movement is going to do is change things on a broad scale and politicians in turn will be pulled in and forced to think about what the people want if they want to get elected.

It’s going to take time and it’s going to happen as a result of attitudes and ideas changing. One of those ideas that has to change is that we can have corporate money in politics – we just can’t. There are huge payoffs for these politicians. Say I get elected to the senate and I vote with a chemical company in my area even though I know it’s really bad for my constituents. I know that even if I get voted out of office the next term, I’ll still have a cushy job at that chemical company where I can use the friends I made in Washington to benefit my company. This is what happens over and over again. Our former senator or Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, who is running for president right now, is a poster child for this type of thing. Dick Cheney is another stellar example – he was with Halliburton, then in the Senate, went back to Halliburton, and then was vice president. That is how these corporations use their influence – what we have right now is not a democracy, it’s a corporatocracy and it needs to change. The Occupy movement gives me a lot of hope. I think people went to the ballot box expecting change from Barack Obama and they didn’t get it. They’re realizing that change isn’t going to come from the ballot box and they’re going to find a new way to move the country in a different direction – it’s really exciting and I feel optimistic for the first time in twelve years!

JB: Switching gears back to music, I’ve been told the new Anti-Flag album is in the mixing process right now. Do you have a title or a release date?

JS: Yeah we’re tentatively titling it The General Strike. A general strike is generally where a city or a country is shut down to make a point that progress will not move forward without the people’s labor. The UK had a massive general strike which wasn’t even mentioned in this country’s news. They shut the entire country down. The idea behind calling the new album The General Strike is that it’s a worldwide general strike and Anti-Flag is a band that is talking about unity between all people. I think there really is a group of people who have unified in this world around the idea of equality for all people – and that’s the concept that the title came from.

JB: A lot has happened in the world since your last album; is there any certain subject matter that you focused on with the writing of the new record?

JS: After going to a number of Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations and witnessing the recurring theme of police oppression and the masses of cops working as a tools for what I refer to as the corporate state, that was certainly on my mind when I was writing for the new album. Because I’ll tell you what, when you’ve had a billy club shoved in your face or been pepper sprayed or witnessed innocent people being beat down for absolutely no reason – the videos are on The Daily Show so you don’t have to look very hard to see it – it makes you angry. Especially when it happens to an old lady or people you know, and when you see this happening day after day to peaceful people who are just expressing their democratic right to free speech. So writing about police oppression was something that happened on this record as a result of that. I’ve been having a really hard time looking at police and feeling good about them. It’s really unfortunate because I have police officers in my family and when police do their job and serve their community and protect people, it’s really nice to see them. But we keep seeing over and over again police acting outside what their role is. It’s really enraging and it’s something I’ve been putting pen to paper about because that’s my way of dealing with it.

We’ve also been writing about the exciting events that have been happening around the world like the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the ousting of Moammar Gaddafi, and the changes happening in Saudi Arabia. And then we’ve got a song about skateboarding (laughs). There’s a general theme that the songs are about what’s going on in the world, but we like to have some fun too. It should be out sometime in the spring of 2012.

JB: There will be a tour ensuing the release of that album I’d imagine?

JS: Yeah, we’re looking at starting in Australia and then playing Indonesia for the first time which we’re pretty excited about. Then we’ll definitely be doing our dates in the states and the Europe. After that we’ll see what happens, were always looking forward to meeting new people, seeing new places, and experiencing new things.

JB: I also understand you’ve been writing some songs for a solo record. What do you get out of writing songs for a solo album that you don’t get from writing Anti-Flag songs?

JS: We had an idea when we started Anti-Flag that we wanted it to be a political punk rock band and when people started to follow the band that was the impression they got as well. When we stray from that formula people don’t accept it very well, some react pretty viscerally to it. On the record Bright Lights of America, which we released a few years back, we really tried to expand and go in some different directions and people either liked that about it or they hated it. [Instead of] trying to force people [to hear[ something that they don’t want from Anti-Flag, I write solo albums. With my solo albums, if I want to write about my cat or my girlfriend I can do that. With Anti-Flag I don’t feel free to write songs like that. Another thing is the ability to write different types of music. In my family we listened to so much music and it was so diverse that it almost makes more sense to come across me playing an acoustic guitar in an Irish pub than playing electric guitar in a punk rock band.

The solo albums give me a chance to do something else and that freedom is really exciting. It’s an opportunity for people to know the personal side of me. Sometimes in Anti-Flag people get to thinking that we’re just these serious political robots all the time – it’s kind of funny. Anyways, I’m hoping to get a solo album together in 2012.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

I hardly ever get star-struck when talking to all these musicians and movie stars. But when Sarah Jessica Parker walked into the room and started chatting, it seemed so unreal. I am still a big fan of Sex in the City and to hear that famous voice responding to my queries was quite exciting.

Parker’’s new role is in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch alongside Matthew McConaughey. She plays Paula, an intervention specialist whose job is to have men who live with their parents long past the due date fall in love with her so they will move out.

Read our exclusive interview with Sarah Jessica Parker on SuicideGirls.com.

By Fred Topel

Whenever Nick Frost and Simon Pegg get together, funny stuff happens. Some of their best work has been under the direction of Edgar Wright, as seen in Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Still on their own they make the magic happen, like in Paul, which they also co-wrote.

In The Adventures of Tintin, Frost and Pegg work under the tutelage of Steven Spielberg, so that’s not bad. The film is based on the Belgian comic books by Herge. They’re a big deal in Europe, but they’re perhaps best known in the US thanks to references in Spielberg’s own movies. The sprawling adventure of Raiders of the Lost Ark was compared to Tintin in reviews, sparking Spielberg’s interest in the original source from 30 years ago.

Normally it’s easy to tell Pegg and Frost apart. Pegg is blonde and Frost has dark hair – what did you think I was going to say? In Tintin they are virtually identical. They each play the Thompsons, a duo of inspectors who bumble their way through life, attempting to help Tintin (Jamie Bell). Since the film is shot with performance capture, Frost and Pegg look nothing like themselves.

Frost was in New York for the U.S. premiere of The Adventures of Tintin, which has already opened to huge box office success abroad. He got on the phone to talk about his work on the film, the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman, and his future collaborations with Pegg and Wright.

Read our exclusive interview with Nick Frost on SuicideGirls.com.

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

By Mike Marano

Todd Strauss-Schulson is a filmmaker whose journey to directing features is inextricably tied up in his journey into manhood; it all began when his grandpa bought him a video camera for his Bar Mitzvah. From those humble beginnings, Strauss-Schulson has gone on to nab Panavision’s New Filmmaker’s Prize, has traveled to Asia for an extended gig directing MTV’s Whatever Things, a reality show billed as “a more stylish version of Jackass with an all western cast.” His comedy shorts have played South By Southwest Film Festival and the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. Most recently, he directed his first feature, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, in which everyone’s favorite stoners are getting older and facing the responsibilities of career and fatherhood.

After a quick discussion about whether or not guys who are half-Jewish need to only be half-circumcised, SG caught up with Todd Strauss-Schulson in a bar in downtown Boston, down the street from his alma mater, Emerson College.

Read our exclusive interview with Todd Strauss-Schulson on SuicideGirls.com.

by Nicole Powers

The perfect presents for the #99Percenters that #Occupy a special place in your heart.

1. V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes Mask ($5.40)

Gotta start with the basics, and at this price it makes for a great stocking stuffer!

2. Israeli Civilian Gas Mask w/ Nato Filter ($20.25)
…And for the kids: Israeli Civilian Children’s Gas Mask w/ Nato Filter ($16.42)

For those situations when a Guy Fawkes mask won’t cut it. This anti-gas gear was issued to Israeli civilians to face off against Saddam Hussein and his BFF Chemical Ali, so should be up to the job if you find yourself in the vicinity of Pepper Spray Cop. They provide NBC (neuclear, biological, chemical) protection, have a water intake port (for hydration without tears), and come with one sealed filter.

3. OWS Bandana ($16.50)

A super stylish, multi-purpose, pocket-sized anonymizer / accessory that’s “perfect for protecting yourself from sudden dust storms and outbreaks of authoritarianism.”

4. Marmot Limelight 2P ($199.00)

Quick to set up and take down, this lightweight tent is ideal for those unexpected 3 AM evictions!

5. Get Out Of Jail Free Card ($0-$5,000.00+ depending on DA and/or judge)

Nothing says “I Love You” like bailing someone out of jail. Print this card out and give it to the person you’d like to take liberties with, or become a Secret Santa and donate to your local Occupy Bail Fund.

6. ReVIVE Series Solar ReStore External Battery Pack with Universal USB Charging Port ($27.99)

The only thing worse than being arrested is having your smartphone die while it’s happening. With this device, you can make sure you’re fully charged (while keeping it green), so you don’t miss capturing those special moments.

7. Parrot AR.Drone ($299.95)

Whose drone? Our drone! This quadricopter comes complete with an onboard video camera and can be controlled via iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, making it ideal for getting a bird’s eye view up on your Livestream. Though the price may be a little steep for most 99 percenters, it’s still a hell of a lot cheaper than the drone our military lost behind enemy lines recently – and at this price you won’t need to suffer the indignity of asking for it back!

8. Civil Unrest Lego Set

Occupying Lego Land is a great way for the 99% to express themselves this holiday season. Though Slate.com’s Legotti Park-inspired prototype “Civil Unrest” Lego sets haven’t quite hit stores yet, you can order the Mobile Police Unit and Earth Defense HQ as featured in their “Arab Spring” and “O.W.S. Riot Brigade” packages direct from Lego.com/.

9. Vultures’ Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates, and High-Finance Carnivores by Greg Palast ($17.79) and Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss ($11.55)

Vultures’ Picnic is an eye-opening crash course on why we #Occupy, while Emergency serves as a primer on how to keep yourself safe while doing it. And if the NDAA passes, and an unlimited stay in Guantanamo Bay or at your local FEMA camp doesn’t appeal, it also offers some great tips on how to break free from handcuffs and get out of dodge.

10. Tyranny Has a Witness by Shepard Fairey / Obey ($75.00)

Based on a photo taken by Yuri Kozyrev/ NOOR for Time Magaine, this powerful 18 x 24 inch screen print is signed and numbered (being a limited edition of 450). It’s also a gift that keeps on giving, since a portion of the proceeds will go to Human Rights Watch.

Thanks to JackalAnon, EisMC2, Colinism, OakFoSho and ZDRoberts for assisting with this list. XOX

[..]

By Nicole Powers

Screenwriter Diablo Cody’s greatest achievement with her latest project, Young Adult, is to bring her audience to a point where they sympathize and empathize with the film’s in many ways distinctly unlikable central character. Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron) is the seemingly successful author of a series of young adult novels, who on the page has everything going for her. Yet, despite being blessed in both the looks and career department, happiness eludes her.

When an invitation arrives in her inbox to the christening of the daughter of her high school sweetheart, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), Mavis decides to return to her hometown to reclaim her former glory – and her former boyfriend. Blinded by her own narcissism, Mavis chooses to ignore the fact that Buddy is now happily married as she obsessively engages in the shameless pursuit of her unavailable ex.

A chance meeting with a former classmate she barely remembers, Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), provides Mavis with a drinking buddy, and a voice of reason. However, despite forming an unlikely bond with Matt, who in the wake of a high school beating is left as physically challenged as she is mentally, Mavis is unwilling and unable to retreat from the comfort of her self-delusions to see her world as it really is.

As with Cody’s Academy Award-winning screenplay for Juno, Young Adult combines subtle storytelling with unconventional choices. An exercise in nuance and tone, which sees Cody reunited with her Juno cohort, director Jason Reitman (Up In The Air), the film features award-worthy performances from both Theron and Oswalt that – as with the script – are remarkable for their realness.

SuicideGirls sat down with Cody in New York to talk about the film.

Read our exclusive interview with Diablo Cody on SuicideGirls.com.