Ari Gold Joins the Fight Against Prop 8? Q & A with Prince of Swine Actor Stanton Schnepp

Q: You’ve taken flack from all sides for your depiction of Barry Goldman in Prince of Swine?

Stanton: Oh God, from the right and left. There’s the right wing that just recoils in fear for their lives at any depiction, even the light comic one we did in Prince of Swine, of any sort of physical gay contact, or even the modest skin we showed in this movie, you know, we’re up on charges before the council on family values or something –

Q: But from your own home base too?

Stanton: Well, most with a sense of humor get the joke in Prince of Swine, but Mark got some flack initially, which I thought was hilarious! First of all, Mark didn’t even create the final character, that was entirely my spin. The character as originally written came off as Jewish--Barry Goldman. It’s the same way with the Farber character, who has a Jewish name, but in fact is played as a Simon Cowell taken to the dark side type Brit by a British actor. Mark wasn’t trying to make a point like that, he’d just lifted the names off an IMDB listing from the sort of show these characters do in real life. But all the actors who auditioned for Barry, immediately ran with that and were doing this strong Jewish used car salesman type schtick – which Mark didn’t want. So he came to me and pleaded, “Do something with this! Work your magic!”. I barely changed a word of dialogue, a few ad libs that’s it, the interpretation was entirely my decision as an actor -

Q: And?

Stanton: Well, I had a choice, do I offend the Jews or the Gays? I opted for the gays, ‘cause we’re so much more fun! And we get better press!!

Q: Do you find Barry Goldman offensive?

Stanton: Of course he’s offensive! Is Ari Gold offensive? He’s the biggest most pretentious double talking asshole in Hollywood that’s why he’s so fun! That’s like saying Ari Gold is a Jewish stereotype, which he is, but absolutely that does not lessen the fun of that character for me, and I know a lot of Jewish people (with a sense of humor!), it doesn’t lessen their enjoyment of that character – stereotypes become stereotypes because they’re so common in real life. What’s beyond the stereotype for me is how glibly and quickly Barry believes his own lies – at one point he’s even trying to convince judge and jury he’s straight.

Q: OK, but there’s one gay character in the movie, and that character is a complete asshole –

Stanton: There are two gay characters, the other is fired for taking a moral stand against the major swine of the movie. And honestly, I’m glad that there’s at least two gay characters in the movie! That’s better than the national average. As far as being an asshole, half the people in the movie are assholes, there would be no movie without assholes, and P.S., I’ve heard a nasty rumor that life may be 50% assholes too. So the gay community gets left out of the fun again? I mean, get real, he’s an agent. Now my agent, personally, is an angel, but good God I ran across plenty that weren’t before I found him –

Q: It’s not the same, it’s a more delicate area, Jews are understandably sensitive, but they’re not being banned from marriage right now in this country -

Stanton: Really, I think if we’re gonna win this fight, the gay community has got to develop a thicker skin, more confidence, and just own it, just, excuse me, no pun intended, get a pair of bigger balls, get out there and balls out own it, in the mainstream media, not just the gay media, take it into enemy territory and make it known where they live, not just where we live. Something like Will and Grace, you know, I enjoy that, it’s light, it’s nice, it’s about as much as we can do on broadcast TV right now, but those characters are too safe to really change things or stir things up. This is not Sex and the City 2. This is an R-rated, intentionally incendiary, provocative movie. I like Sex and the City fine, but the gay men depicted in Sex and the City are just so harmless, safe and docile. You’re not really comfortable with a person and at ease, if you only let them be a nice, non-threatening, likeable character. You’re not really friends with a person in that case, and this movie is a friend to the gay community, I know that, I worked with the writer/director very closely, and would never allow myself to become a pawn of a bigoted director like that. He bent over backwards, no pun intended, to get me into this movie. I mean, who would you rather play as an actor, some milk and cookies do-gooder or Ari Gold? It’s a form of soft bigotry that I don’t get offered Ari Gold. I live to play Ari Gold!

Q: But that attitude is exactly what’s provoking so much opposition, that we’re not content to stay in West Hollywood, we’re trying to enforce our values on Orange County –

Stanton: I don’t know what to say to that. That argument makes me so furious I can’t see straight. You’re telling me I can’t get married if I want to and I’m the one enforcing my values upon you? The family values people discouraging monogamy, making it seem like we’re not somehow morally worthy of it, during an AIDS crisis? Have I gone through the looking glass? What is not right with this picture? This is just the epitome of evil and hypocrisy in my opinion and we can’t let it go unchallenged.

That’s not just some harmless opinion of theirs off in their own dream world. That has now been passed into the law of the land and is effecting the way I live, curtailing my freedoms. It’s nothing less than institutionalized bigotry, just like, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Why the hell shouldn’t you ask and why shouldn’t I tell? There’s nothing wrong with me, there’s something wrong with you, in your mind, that’s your hatred and ignorance that’s going unexamined. That’s your issue, your hang-up and when we tolerate it and appease people like this, when we don’t confront bigotry and evil thinking like that at every turn, let alone when it’s passed into law, we ourselves enable and condone it. So my advice is, ya’ know, get out there, engage your friends and your enemies, you might find more friends and allies, in the least likely places, than you imagine. And you might bring some of your previous enemies around. But our friends can’t help us unless we lead ourselves. We have to lead this fight, and then people of good will will support us and follow.

Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com.

Mr. Big Hates You and Wants to Dance On Your Grave; Anti Feminism and Prince of Swine

I’ve been trying to get in the spirit of the occasion since Big and Carrie’s wedding but something keeps holding me back. I don’t know, I guess it’s the nagging feeling that, perhaps not in Sex and the City 2, but certainly by Sex and the City 3: Collision With Harsh Reality, Big is seeing a hooker who bears a striking resemblance to Carrie Bradshaw, and beating her senseless while screaming, “Take that you golddigging ____! You think I don’t know you’re not in love with me!”.

I believe this has been going on behind closed doors for a long time in the Sex and the City universe (the one in the world, not on screen), but all of those dark episodes never make it to the screen for fear of damage to the franchise.

But still, the evidence for them exists. How could Carrie Bradshaw be in love with Big? He’s an utterly two dimensional character, he doesn’t exist in reality. Troubled millionaires who secretly worship you from afar and are only waiting until you get on the north side of forty to propose (without a pre-nup, of course) exist only in the fantasies of desperate middle aged women who long ago stopped going to the gym in favor of staying at home and narcotizing themselves senseless with such unlikely masturbatory fantasies.

He has no more reality than the Playboy centerfolds teenage boys religiously relieve themselves to, and honestly, a lot of these women might be better off getting back to the gym and bagging a few of those kids, instead of shall we say, beating themselves to sleep each night with this sort of pathetic pipedream. God knows the pimply faced little bastards could use the release, and where the hell else can they get it in this recession, already being at the bottom of the foodchain with chump change to spend on a date every Saturday night?

And even if Big did exist, how could he love Carrie Bradshaw? Yes, ladies, at least you of the Sex and the City type, your deepest fears are true: you are in fact unlovable. Hard as it is to believe, men, rich or poor, black or white, find it impossible to so much as respect, much less adore, someone who masturbates to our credit cards each night, knocking themselves oblivious, and completely without a clue as to why we dislike them so much. Someone whose values in life don’t extend behind being a good shopper or doing brunch well and gossiping with their idiot friends.

Is there anyone naïve enough in the universe to believe Big retains his charms over Carrie even if his bank account hits zero? As real life New Yorkers know, because it’s happening every day now, women like her disappear as fast as you can say AIG, mortgage securities, or taxpayer funded bailout. The two phenomena are not unrelated and the Sex and the City craze is not as entirely frivolous and harmless as it seems either. It’s women like this, impressed by nothing but money, that encourage the same sort of male behavior – being an empty suit, willing to do anything for a cheap buck and an even cheaper fuck.

Next up: even gay men hate Sex and the City.

After that: at least 50% of women hate Sex and the City too. And God bless them, all hope is not lost for America and the human race.


Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com.

Ruck in the Muck: Gloria Allred vs. Tiger Woods, Round One; Is Gloria Allred a Good Feminist?

Q: Now your position is that someone like Gloria Allred is a mockery of a real feminist, or has become some sort of public menace now?

MT: I only know what I see on Entertainment Tonight, but generally when a lawyer even gets on Entertainment Tonight it’s not a good sign. It means they’ve become addicted to fame, power and conflict. From what I understand Gloria Allred actually did socially meaningful work at some point, defending underdogs who’d been actual victims of injustice. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, she’s become some sort of mockery of that now. On the other hand, you've got someone like Gloria Steinem, who seems to want to stay out of the spotlight for a long time now - she won't say anything even when it seems she wants to. At the start she called Madonna anti feminist, but then she sort of backed off, as if she didn't want to get in some sort of frivolous media war. Now you can't even get her to say anything bad about Sex and the City, though Sex and the City seems pretty much like the heir to Cosmopolitan - so if there's no difference between the two now, how can anyone take feminism seriously?

Q: You didn't really answer the question, how is Gloria Allred making a mockery of feminism?

MT: She's making it something frivolous, like an episode of Sex and the City or something. When you do that, or you're conspicuous in your silence, like Steinem is, you allow these women to get all the press, most men don't make any distinction between women and feminism, so it looks bad for all feminism. I mean, Allred taking on Tiger Woods’ mistresses as clients? Please. She’s not even alleging that he’s done anything illegal (and he hasn’t – cheating on your wife is not illegal. It might get you soaked in divorce court, but she’s not Woods’ wife lawyer, it’s none of her business). It’s not clear if she’s asking for money from Woods or will do so in the future, but whatever she's up to it's nothing socially useful. It's ambulance chasing, literally, that ambulance shows up at Woods' home and Gloria Allred is not far behind.

Q: All she’s asked for that I can see is a public apology to the mistresses.

MT: The entire episode and all parties are as frivolous as an episode of Sex and the City. Really, what is this about? What’s in it for her? Healing some injustice? Really, these women are as guilty as Woods.

Q: Guilty of what?

MT: Guilty of being intensely annoying and frivolous like Sex and the City, just like all feminism has become. Unfortunately, that's not illegal, and cheating with a married man, not exactly laudatory, but Woods and his mistresses deserve each other legally and morally, and it’s nobody else’s business, except Woods’ wife. So I don’t know if Allred is doing this just for publicity, or she does want money from Woods – whatever it is it’s a mockery of her old image.

Q: Can’t both images be true?

MT: Maybe. Maybe she’s someone like Johnny Cochran, who’ll defend an OJ, but then take the fame and money he got from that, the blood money, and do some decent pro bono work to make up for it.

Q: Bringing flimsy harassment suits for the money, if she’s done that, or associating with I don’t know – cast-offs from the Jerry Springer show in order to get publicity, the OctaMom, these Tiger bimbos, that’s hardly the same as defending a murderer, getting fame and money out of it -

MT: Yeah, that’s true. Honestly, I don’t know that much about Gloria Allred and I don’t want to know. I see someone like that coming and I cross to the other side of the street, she’s just bad news for any guy in the country. If that's what feminism has become, then feminism has become bad news. You get an email from her, and you don’t even have to open it to know you’re gonna have a bad day, maybe a bad year. She’s a one woman war zone and a destructive force as far as I’m concerned, promotes fear and distrust between the sexes.

Q: How is she any different from the character you play or the woman you glorify in Prince of Swine?

MT: Not even close. The Julie character considers herself a feminist, and may have been like her when she was young - she genuinely believes she's fighting injustice, and she is in this case. This is an actual case of harassment in Prince of Swine, which are very rare, usually it's about money or power, and the charges are trumped up. Here, this actress cries wolf, and no one believes her because feminism has become so discredited and is looked at with such suspicion and dislike, because everybody is always crying wolf falsely these days. But Julie will probably stop being a lawyer or change to some other form of law, now that she no longer believes in it. Julie is very much changed by the lawsuit. She wants to do something meaningful with her life and help other people. Maybe she'll become a Kathryn Bigelow type feminist, a real feminist, she's of that stock (though I have no idea if Kathryn Bigelow would even call herself a feminist). Witt is just taking the case because he's in love with her, he doesn't really believe in it, he just thinks Farber's more of a pimp than Kelly is a whore. Welcome to the modern American legal system. Hard to find innocent characters or a cause you believe in.

Q: So you just go through life not believing in anything?

MT: I hugely believe in what I call the Democracy of Aristocracy (http://princeofswine.blogspot.com/2010/03/revolution-will-be-televised.html), something that turns on the nexus of law and economics, I believe it's the only thing that can bring us safely through this economic crisis to a better tomorrow (http://princeofswine.blogspot.com/2010/03/hollywood-makes-first-contact-with-real.html). I hugely believe in reform of the law of war in this country, and the United Nations, I've committed my life to these causes. I was horrified by Iraq, every time an American soldier dies overseas I feel guilty, like it's an unnecessary tragedy I can prevent. I'll fight to my last dieing breath to change that (http://princeofswine.blogspot.com/2010/03/iraq-general-reviews-hollywood.html). These are the most important legal and revolutionary fronts in our time. They're just not something you can make any money at like Allred is doing, by sueing people or embarrassing them in public. I'll make my money and fame honestly, as an artist, and then I'll use that fame to change the law to help people, without hurting anyone, on the contrary, they'll be protected, empowered, and liberated, that's what I'm about, and that's what Prince of Swine is about.

Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets online for Prince of Swine at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com.

Prince of Swine's Real Life Femme Fatale

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, highlights of your career so far, how you got into this crazy business, and how you became involved with Prince of Swine.

Sandra Nutt: I’m an actress, producer and a lawyer who has owned and operated a licensed California production company since January 1, 1999 (http://www.riprapentertain.com/). My company has owned its own 60-seat playhouse, where we produced many reviewed stage plays and a television series that ran for 52 weeks on independent television station KVMD, reaching all of Southern California. We also produced several film shorts and one full-length motion picture. I’m also an award-winning screenwriter. My professional career started in New York City on stage with John Amos, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles Fuller, Douglas Turner Ward, Charles Weldon and on and on. I served as a consultant for sexual harassment in the entertainment industry on Prince of Swine.

Q: In your own words, what is Prince of Swine about?

SN: Well, I haven’t actually seen all of the film yet, only bits and pieces, and I read the script, but as nearly as I can tell Prince of Swine is sort of hell with the lid blown off on entertainment, law and I guess just women and feminism – i.e., on any given day in the system between men and women, this sort of lunacy is happening. I’d say Mark’s making it up, but you can’t make this sort of stuff up, nothing could be loonier than what’s actually happening in real life.

Q: Like what?

SN: Honestly, as a producer, business owner, lawyer, woman or even a feminist (if I were a feminist), I live with the reality of the eventual sexual harassment suit from a woman against one of my employees or associates. Something like that can completely destroy a business. Today’s society demands that we have harassment laws, but I think the climate, more often than not, is about revenge, power, or shaking down a company, not saving the underdog from real harm.

Q: Are you a feminist?

SN: I don’t consider myself a feminist, and that's one of the main reasons I don't consider myself a feminist. But, if I were a feminist, I’d make damn sure I was there to help all women. Not just the ones who agree with me or passed some feminist litmus test. I think real women just need men with enough balls to let them be women. Does that make me a feminist? I don’t think so. I think maybe I just flashed my hole-card. The word feminist means so many different things to so many different people, most people assume I'm a feminist when they meet me, but honestly I'm not even sure what feminist means nowadays.

Q: Is it men or women who rule Hollywood?

SN: Please. Men are merely our messengers. The smart ones don’t forget that and live to please us. Only then will they be happy.

Q: Do you believe in the battle of the sexes?

SN: Some of these guys aren’t putting up much of a fight, I gotta tell ya’. It’s sad. They’ve really been whipped.

Q: Is Prince of Swine a movie about men or about women?

SN: What I’ve seen it’s pretty evenhanded and illustrative, blowing up a lot of sacred cows, but weirdly romantic in a cracked sort of way about feminism. I think Mark Toma more wants to make a fun movie, and at least knows what the most beautiful thing to write about is. Women!

Q: How was the casting process?

SN: Well he made a movie like this without getting sued once, that means he’s either completely ethical or completely asexual. I’m sure there’s a couch in a shrink’s office somewhere with Mark’s name on it. I know mine’s out there somewhere, just waiting to be found. If you want to be in either law or show business, or deal with men and women (or both together!) that’s my advice: get help, you’ll need it.


Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com.

Hollywood Makes First Contact with Reality; Q & A with Economist John Noer

Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, highlights of your career so far, how you got into this crazy business, and how you became involved with Prince of Swine.

JN: Good God, I’m not in the movie business at all, I’m an economist. I co-wrote a book with Mark, the maker of the movie, about the potential for the modern economy, where we’d like to get to in our time and what’s possible. We’ve known each other for about 20 years and have had this running dialogue about law, art, science, and economics, ever since he was a student at the University of Chicago. A few years back our dialectic got to the point I thought we should publish.

Q: What happened with the book?

JN: We didn’t want to go the academic route. For the ideas in it to have any impact they must be understood on a wide popular mainstream level. Re publishing, it's just like the movie business from an economic standpoint: we’re in the middle of the dynamic described elsewhere – the media buys and sells fame, not so much content, just as the meta level of Wall Street, in my view, when you get to a dangerous level of investing, where it’s not really serving much social purpose and the risk is not worth the reward, is when Wall Street starts buying and selling greed, like they were doing with these derivatives, instead of substantive investments that serve a social or business purpose (the psychology is pretty well examined in the movie Prince of Swine, from what I can tell). The publishers are only interested in content secondarily, first and foremost they have to stay in business. The book will sell when either of us is famous enough that a publisher feels they can sell us, to answer your question. So I have a rooting interest in Prince of Swine's success, even though I wasn’t part of its production.

Q: Does the book in any way relate to the movie, Prince of Swine?

JN: Well I’ve only seen bits and pieces of Prince of Swine, but from what I can gather, and if I know Mark, it’s got the same cracked sense of humor and moral content – it’s sophisticated, intelligent, and probably hilarious, about law, business, money, power, and human nature from what I can tell, if it’s anything like the book –

Q: What about women?

JN: No, afraid not, none of us knows anything about women. And we’ve been studying our whole lives. I'm going to leave that whole feminist or anti feminist or new feminist versus classical feminist argument to Mark, if he's fool enough to get into it.

Q: A book on economics with a cracked sense of humor and moral content?

JN: Economics is at least half art, and anyone who really understands it, especially on the highest, revolutionary, cutting edge level we’re talking about, knows there’s nothing loonier or more hilarious on earth, though it’s difficult to see that behind the façade of science. It’s a dismal science, imprecise, but extremely creative, constantly taking crazy turns because its based in human behavior, human folly, and there’s nothing more important to understand in order to help people in my view –

Q: How do you do that in the world?

JN: I’m a post-conflict reconstruction economist, amongst other things, I’ve worked for the UN, the World Bank, USAID, the State Department – we go into devastated, war torn countries and try to rebuild them as quickly and soundly as possible, before people really begin to suffer. Some of the worst human suffering occurs not just during wars, but directly after them, when everyone is tired, the population is exhausted, the infrastructure devastated, and the world or global media turns its back. We try to stem that and turn the tide of suffering as much as we can. In the past few years I’ve been concentrated on Iraq and Afghanistan –

Q: Tell us about that?

JN: Well, it’s hard. Thankfully it’s getting better. A few years ago I really thought all was lost in Iraq. Now, it’s still hard, they’re not out of the woods by any means, but the progress and pulling back from the abyss is nothing short of miraculous. Afghanistan, I don’t know – it’s worse now than Iraq, but nowhere near as bad as Iraq was at its worst, so don’t give up hope. But it’s very hard in both places.

Q: Is it a dangerous job?

JN: It’s not as dangerous as being a soldier, though sometimes I very much envy them being armed and trained in places like these! These are war zones. There is no front. There are places of greater and lesser danger, and sometimes I have to be in both sorts of places. An American does not want to go out in either place without an escort from the soldiers, put it that way.

Q: Well, good luck to you, and we pray for you, stay safe.

JN: Good luck with the movie, if it hits it will trigger a lot of good, in ways you can’t even see yet. It can be a spark we really need.

Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com

Q & A with Prince of Swine Composer Gerhard Daum

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, highlights of your career so far, how you got into this crazy business, and how you became involved with Prince of Swine.

GD: I’m the composer for Prince of Swine. I grew up playing guitar, making music in my own bands, like a lot of kids. I grew out into composing as I went deeper into music, felt limited by rock, wanted to integrate and explore music from all genres and all cultures of the world, music is really a universal language, where we can communicate emotion and meaning below speech. I came on board with Prince of Swine when the music supervisor, Michael Rogers, had me score the intro and played it for the producer.

Q: In your own words, what is Prince of Swine about?

GD: I think it’s a savage love story, a version of Beauty and the Beast. Beauty is the love story or women, and beast is I guess men or raw sexuality or life in Hollywood or America, maybe just how mean and lonely things have gotten between the sexes in post feminist America.

Q: What was it like working on a low budget film?

GD: I want to go on record right now as saying I deserve a hell of a lot more money. That’s the state of music and show biz right now, the bottom has dropped out of the music market because of MP3s and the net, and the same is now happening to indy film. You’ve got to be a guerrilla warrior and you better have a pretty strong love of your art to keep going because it’s a brutal economy out there.

Q: Where there any interesting obstacles or/and creative quick thinking on the set?

GD: I wasn’t on set. Mark came to my studio, he would talk and I hope unwind, decompress, in a safe and beautiful, magical place, he would just relax with me after the war of production, tell me what was in his soul and what the movie meant to him, and I’d listen, much like a therapist, and translate that into music, just based on his ideas/feelings for the movie, what I saw onscreen and just how these things moved me in my own soul, my own musical landscape. There were some difficulties getting it out – if there are no difficulties why go to therapy? Music is the barbarous expression of the human soul, no? Takes time and talent to tame the beast, the beast is dangerous, sometimes it bucks, causes bumps.

Q: Did you learn anything about yourself or others from the experience?

GD: The best experience working with Mark was feeling his enthusiasm, he did a great job as a director and actor, turning his ideas into reality. He is very sensitive, is able to listen to other ideas and getting the best out of everybody working on the film.

Q: What was your favorite moment working on the film?

GD: Getting into Mark’s head and finding a musical structure and beat that works well with the movie was a lot of fun.

Q: Tell me about the English Horn?

GD: He couldn’t shut up about that damn horn after I suggested it to him! He loved that thing. It’s not an instrument used much in modern music, it’s deeper and more authentically poignant than an oboe, tragic, it evokes Julie’s sadness and pain, like the English countryside in a romance novel, sense of being lost, a lost soul, her dark night of the soul and coming through that to the morning. There was another instrument I couldn’t get him to shut up about, it’s a hybrid I invented, using an African squash, a native instrument, we pass it over a wooden keyboard, or even a modern stainless steel one or through an electric keyboard, and you end up with an atonal, sort of mischeivous, joyous sound, very typical of African music, but brought into a modern context. He couldn’t shut up or sit down whenever I used that instrument.

Q: Switching channels from the sublime and universal to the political, are you a feminist?

GD: I don’t think in such categories like feminist or anti feminist, the relationship between the partners should be balanced out.

Q: Is it men or women who rule Hollywood?

GD: Money rules Hollywood, whoever has it, rules.

Q: Is Prince of Swine a movie about men or about women?

GD: The vantage point leads in both directions. One can detect the dark side and prejudice in both sexes, but there is always hope. (visit Gerhard at http://www.gerharddaum.com/)

Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com

Did Madonna Cause the Banking Collapse? Is Anti Feminism Bad for the Market?

Q: Prince of Swine was a play before it was a movie?

MT: Yes, Off Broadway, almost off off Broadway at the Hamlet on Bank Street in the West Village.

Q: How was the play Prince of Swine different than the movie?

MT: Well, it sucked for one thing! Not a word from the play survived to make the screenplay. I guess it was a fun play, it was well reviewed, people liked it, my cast was very talented (hey Hyleri! Rafael!), but I hadn’t really hit the highest or deepest level and broken through yet as a writer. It was set against New York finance instead of Los Angeles movie biz, still a harassment suit, but the plaintiff had New York smarts and bitchiness, she was a lawyer. When we moved it to LA and made her an actress - I don’t want to say Kelly is stupid - she’s dumb like a fox. She appears to be an idiot, but if you’ll notice she always gets what she wants in the end. Amber, the actress who plays her, is extremely intelligent, and you have to be to understand what Kelly’s doing, even if the character is only doing it intuitively.

Q: Now you mentioned in an earlier blog that Prince of Swine prefigures the banking collapse?

MT: I was shocked going back and reading the play Prince of Swine how perfectly it captured the psychology that led to the banking collapse – money at any cost, this attitude of being above the law, money as an abstraction or object of worship, like the golden calf, divorced from any connection to making anything useful for people, that’s what led to the mortgage collapse, they’d created forms of securities so abstracted from any underlying value not even the experts could tell what they were worth. The con artists or monkeys who actually believed their own "greed is good" BS pitched this shit night and day, they conned even the biggest banks into bribing Congress into relaxing Glass Steagall, so they could end run the FDIC, being privately insured with AIG instead, thought they could build a glass pyramid to the sky -

Q: So the root cause of this –

MT: Well you know the answer to that –

Q: Oh fuck you, I mean really, fuck off, you cannot be serious –

MT: Hey, if the feminists don’t want to take responsibility for women's power, that’s on the feminists, if you got a bunch of women acting like prostitutes, which I’m sorry, that was New York in the eighties and nineties, basically, “If you’ve got the money, I’ll fuck you” – and this goddamn Candace Bushnell of Sex and the City fame is a perfect example of that, she seems to have changed now that she’s older, but the monster that is her art, that whole Sex and the City franchise, Sex and the City, Sex and the City 2, all things Sex and the City, God help us, we'll have Sex and the City 22 before they're done, just like Madonna, the art lives on, torturing us all, even if the artist has moved on –

Q: You’ve really lost your mind.

MT: The truth hurts baby, don’t think I don’t know it. Men will always be what women want. And don't underestimate the power of art, for good or evil, even if you can't reduce it to a formula and measure it -

Q: Women caused the banking collapse, that’s your theory?

MT: Women cause everything, women are the root of all good and evil, women are the source of everything, women are the center of the human universe, and all human doings whether you realize it or not, we're just the messengers, women are both the source and destination. Feminism collapses with the coming of Madonna, and the banks soon follow, that’s a coincidence? If the women act like that, the men will too -

Q: Honestly, I don’t see how Prince of Swine is a metaphor for the banking collapse –

MT: Admittedly, it’s not as clear as when Prince of Swine was a play in New York, but Don Simpson, one of the influences for the Jerry Farber character, he’s a perfect metaphor for the banking collapse, he destroyed himself on hookers and drugs just like the bankers, Hollywood buys and sells fame, just like Wall Street buys and sells greed, at least when they go bad this is what they do –

Q: The bankers were on drugs, that’s your theory?

MT: Gambling is a drug, money is a drug, sex is a drug, and just like Simpson, they were secretly very afraid and insecure and complete frauds inside, just like Wall Street, Simpson was on over 50 anti-anxiety medications when he died, he’s the one responsible for whoring Hollywood too, as if such a thing were possible, how big a pimp do you have to be to whore the biggest whorehouse on the planet?

Q: Don Simpson whored Hollywood? I thought Hollywood whored Don Simpson, he was a preacher’s kid -

MT: Absolutely! He’s responsible for this whole cult of High Concept, that’s just made every movie in Hollywood complete shit, even the people making it are like, “I can’t believe people are going to buy this shit! It’s just insipid drivel!”, they’re just like the bankers with the mortgage securities, selling complete crap. Simpson was so shallow he actually believed he was making good movies, but some of his directors, like Adrian Lyne, were deep enough to know Simpson's movies were crap. There’s a really good book on that by Charles Fleming, called High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess (http://www.charlesfleming.com), Simpson got up and he said, essentially, I'm paraphrasing from memory here, but something like, “We’re not responsible for making art, we make money, fuck you if you don’t like it! How much money do you have, bitch? So bend over and smile.” He treated Hollywood and the public just like one of his hookers, and you don’t even want to know what he did to them. I mean, he said some of that stuff to the hookers and some to the studio and public, but you get the point - what's the difference between Simpson, the studios, or the pimps and hookers by that point? And really, this sort of awful high concept drivel he made so popular, lowers the standards of society, lowers our standards, and makes pimps and whores of us all on some level.

Q: On that note –

MT: Oh, I had one more thing: in a case of life imitating art, and this would seem to disprove my theory, but even though I was a pennyless, starving artist in New York at the time, my lead actress for the play did sleep with me, and this was a chick dating millionaires in her early twenties, even as a teenager, before she met me. She didn’t sleep with me for the part, it was after she was cast, I totally couldn’t have canned her even if I wanted to, the closer we got to opening night, the actress has the producer over the barrel by then, she has all the power –

Q: A heartwarming tale –

MT: Well, she did drop my pennyless ass when the play closed and went and dated a gazillionaire or something. Ya’ know what that stupid bitch said to me when we were breaking up? The whole time she’s playing this idealistic feminist who utterly can’t be bought, she’s like, “Oh, this is so exactly like me, this is just exactly what it means to be a feminist, and you’re a creative genius for bringing her to life, let's make love like crazed bunnies in heat!”. Then, as soon as the play closes, she turns to me and says, “Ya’ know, I need someone who can afford to take me to the opera.” Welcome to the whacky world of actresses. And women wonder why we take feminism with a grain of salt these days.




Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com

The Revolution Will Be Televised; Feminist Themes of Prince of Swine

Q: What does Prince of Swine’s logo, “The Revolution Will Be Televised” mean?

MT (Mark Toma, writer/director of Prince of Swine): It means we’re living in revolutionary times, you’d have to be blind not to see that, we’re entering a time of global revolutionary political and social change. It means we can use the media to bring about this change, it’s the most powerful weapon on earth.

Q: And what does this have to do with your movie?

MT: Our movie contains the right spirit for it, the right attitude, as well as being prescient about the banking collapse. Prince of Swine was written well before the collapse, but the psychology that caused it, this sort of arrogant, lost, desperate and addicted male psychology (and the greedy women behind them!), is pretty well dissected in the movie, in both the hero and the villain. Plus we cast our lot with successful American revolutionaries of the past, namely, the feminists in this movie.

Q: You’re a feminist?

MT: I wouldn’t trust any guy who says he’s a feminist, he’s probably just trying to get in your pants.

Q: I don’t understand, are you mocking feminism or supporting it?

MT: Both I guess, I treasure what the feminists can and should be, I mock what they’ve become.

Q: Which is what?

MT: I don’t know, trying to have it both ways, to be both a feminist and these Sex and the City types at the same time, that whole Sex and the City 2 craze, anything Sex and the City. I guess Madonna clones and wannabees, and I don’t mean the actual person, she’s as contemptuous of her old image as I am, but once an artist creates these things they have a life of their own, I think she’d like to destroy her old image as much as I would in Prince of Swine –

Q: Why?

MT: Because it’s both powerful and poison, it puts a bad idea in women’s heads, and it says, “If you follow this bad idea, you’ll be rich and famous” and guess what? They do, her clones are breeding like flies.

Q: Like who?

MT: I don’t know, Paris, Lindsay, Brittney, that whole mindset – I’m not putting down Brittney and Lindsay, I think they’ve paid personally for getting sucked into that delusion, and they know it now, they were just kids then. But these Sex and the City types – what’s their excuse? They’re not kids. That’s just real cynical drug pushing, enabling golddigging in my view, tacity accepting and encouraging it, which is what feminism is supposed to condemn. And if the women go bad, the men soon follow. You got a nation of greedy women, you’ll have a nation of guys of the sort who caused the banking collapse, sure as night follows day, men will always be what women want -

Q: Drug pushing?

MT: That whole Mr. Big Sex and the City 2 fantasy is really an unhealthy narcotic, like porn is for a guy. And Mr. Big is the type that caused the banking collapse by the way, money at any cost because he knows it’ll impress the women -

Q: But –

MT: I don’t want to talk about those Sex and the City women any more, they disgust me, they’re not worth my time, they get too much press as it is, thank God that's not most American women whatever the media sells, however badly we're selling American women short. Prince of Swine is revolutionary on a lot of fronts, I’m starting with women, because women are the most important, they’re the center of everything, and if you can get them on your side, you can rule the world, and if they’re lost, everything is lost –

Q: What –

MT: See the movie if you want to know what I mean by that, that’s exactly what the movie is about, we can’t say it any better than we said it in the movie, we need a work of art to express the full meaning. I worship women like in the movie, and they exist in real life too. Katheryn Bigelow, she just won the Oscar, and I worship that type, warrior women like that who can't be bought, who love real men, Jane Campion, one of my favorite directors, I worship her, why don’t both these women get more acclaim than the Sex and the City types? I mean, feminism has achieved a lot of its goals, if you want the Presidency too, well, any woman who really understands Prince of Swine, she’d win in a slam dunk –

Q: Hillary –

MT: Obviously didn’t understand my movie, but I don’t want to talk about her either. I was really disappointed when Steinem supported her. The revolutionary fronts on our time are not women’s rights, they involve everybody –

Q: Like what?

MT: Well, clearly you can see, we’re living in revolutionary times in economics? When the Chairman of the Fed, not exactly a communist, stands before Congress and says, "Everything we've believed about the world for the past 30 years and made all our assumptions on, just turned out to be crap," that might be your first indicator something's up. The global economy is undergoing seismic change, it’s transitioning to something else, and if it doesn’t do it successfully – kapoof, you know what happens to the world when huge populations become economically desperate –

Q: What?

MT: Hitler, Mao, Stalin –

Q: You think we’ll descend –

MT: I actually think Americans will find a way, I have huge faith in Americans when our backs are against the wall, I hope to play a big part in this, it’s my life’s ambition, but if we don’t, that could happen, fascism, widespread poverty, unemployment, and if America goes under, we’re still the leader, you know what happens to the entire global economy if the leader goes over the cliff?

Q: Global crash?

MT: Bigtime, global Depression, and the fascism and apocalypse that then result. But it’s darkest before the dawn, I think we’re transforming to what Keynes promised, but we have to make it happen, it doesn’t happen if we don’t make it, if we're not wise and worthy –

Q: What?

MT: I’d need a book to explain that, and I’ve written that book, but here, the general idea is in this few pages by Keynes (http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf), anyone can understand them, this goal is possible in our time –

Q: You’re an economist?

MT: My co-author is a world reknowned econonmist, and I’m a lawyer too, admittedly a loony lawyer, I didn’t study anything in law school you could make money at, only stuff that fascinated me, and law and economics fascinated me, how they’re two sides of a coin. I started writing Prince of Swine during law school. We call where we can get to, where Keynes promised, the Democracy of Aristocracy.

Q: Where can we get this book?

MT: It’ll be published as soon as I’m famous, that’s what the publishers told us. They don’t give a flying F what’s in the book, they sell fame, just like the movie studios, and they won’t even try to sell you unless you’re already famous, that’s the Catch 22 of all media.

Q: This is getting away from Prince of Swine –

MT: Yeah, we just stay with women in our movie, because women are the source of everything, the source of all revolutions, women give the thumbs up or thumbs down for success, and we fight to please women, at least the good ones. Women are the source of all power and all our power comes from women, so we’re just starting with women and the rest will follow, once we get women on board, then the men will follow, in a stampede –

Q: And where will the stampede go?

MT: That would require another book, but don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. It won’t be into two freakin’ wars at the same time, when we’re already broke, I can guarantee you that much. I’m really gonna put an end to that shit if I get a chance. That shit is really pissing me off and was completely unnecessary, that’s just real bad leadership, that shit has about pissed me off enough to do something about it.

Q: What?

MT: Well, we’re out of space. But the revolution is coming. And it will be televised. All I need is fame to pull it off, put the spark to it.

Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com

Q & A with Prince of Swine Creator Mark Toma

Q: Tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, highlights of your career so far, how you got into this crazy business, and how you became involved with the movie.

MT: I was minding my own business as a humble starving artist in DC. My girlfriend kept bitching at me that she didn’t want to marry a starving artist, so why didn’t I go to law school? I took the LSATs just to shut her up and ended up acing them, getting a full scholarship to NYU Law. While there I met some crook who later invited me out to Hollywood to write the script for his wife’s movie. They ended up butchering my script and I got my ass handed to me by those damn criminals business wise, but that’s how I learned production.

Q: Tell me about your role (cast or crew) in the movie.

MT: I wrote, directed, produced and star in it, so don’t blame me if it’s crap. It’s not, by the way, it’s a lot of fun. How much fun? So much fun it rips the very fabric of space and time with the sheer overpowering force of its brilliance. So much fun, it’s proof Jesus did not die in vain. I’m stealing most of these jokes but the script is entirely original. Here, I'll give some props, I stole some of these jokes off these two guys above.

Q: In your own words, what is the film about?

MT: It’s about a 100 minutes. I never know how to answer that. A great movie, the entire universe and all eternity are reflected in its arc. Prince of Swine contains the cure for cancer, world peace, the rebirth of feminism, liberalism, and the resolution of the global economic crisis too.

Q: What was it like working on a low budget film?

MT: Much like being anally made love to by a charging rhinoceros.

Q: Where there any interesting obstacles or/and creative quick thinking on the set?

MT: Other than sweet talking the rhinoceros to let me out of bed each morning, no, nothing.

Q: Did you learn anything about yourself or others from the experience?

MT: I’ve got one tough ass. It takes a lickin’, and keeps on tickin’.

Q: What was your favorite moment working on the film?

MT: Once I fell asleep during a love scene. My lead actress was very understanding, and didn’t take it personally, I hadn’t slept in days. Plus the crew had bribed her not to wake me up, because they were tired of hearing me pontificate about art. That was about the only sleep I got that shoot so I really enjoyed it.

Q: Are you a feminist?

MT: Which answer will get me sex? I hate Sex and the City, Sex and the City 2, and all things Sex and the City, does that count as being a feminist?

Q: Is it men or women who rule Hollywood?

MT: What you all don’t understand is that we lie and cheat and steal and rip each other’s throats out, and it’s all for you baby! We do it because we love you!

Q: Do you believe in the battle of the sexes?

MT: I believe in peaceful co-existence, mutual respect and harmony between the sexes, where each gives the other unconditional love and acceptance for all eternity, without expecting anything in return, and neither sex, power, fame, nor money can ever get in the way of that or cause any sort of tension or conflict between us, ‘til death do us part. I believe such an ideal is expressed in every frame of my movie. I believe that Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big live happily ever after in the Sex and the City 2 universe, and never once does he cheat on her with someone younger nor does she leave him or even think about it if he should ever lose his money. I believe real life is just like Sex and the City and if you like Sex and the City, you'll love Prince of Swine.

Q: Is Prince of Swine a movie about men or about women?

MT: Nell, my lead actress, said it was my love letter to myself, since the young feminist idealist is sort of based on me at an earlier age. I prefer to think it’s my love letter to feminists and women in general. Totally, I worship real feminists, that's the message of this movie, a real feminist like say, Katheryn Bigelow or Jane Campion.

Q: How was the casting process?

MT: I didn’t get laid once. How the F do you cast a movie like this, thousands of the most gorgeous women in the world, all lining up to please you, and still manage not to get laid? That takes some sort of talent and incompetence. Nothing. Not even a hand job. I'm the proverbial priest at the F'in orgy, even the PA's were getting more sex than me.

Q: How did you work on the arc of your character?

MT: All the actors kept laughing at me, saying I wasn’t a real actor, I was just playing myself. They’re all a bunch of pretentious idiots – Witt is normal, I’m insane. You know how much acting talent it takes to behave normally, when you’re actually insane?

Prince of Swine opens at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip at Crescent Heights, Memorial Day Weekend, for a limited engagement, May 28th to June 3rd.

Get tickets for Prince of Swine online at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or the Prince of Swine website http://www.princeofswine.com/ (discounts available for advance and group purchasers).

Join the Prince of Swine revolution on Twitter and Facebook.

Visit Prince of Swine at http//www.princeofswine.com