ROYAL FAMILY
FB: Like what they do in Britain to the royal family, it's like
mass hysteria, they like blow people out of proportion to the
point where they've got them on these god pedestals..they're not
allowed to be human or throw up if they have the flu, or have a
bad hair day, and they're definately not allowed to do anything
"BAD."
JC: Yep.
(Yep. I've been reduced to "yep" man. All I can do
is agree. Where was I? I think I was thinking about innocence,
and that girl I screwed over ten tears ago...and what a bad
person I am.)
AND THEN IT HAPPENED...
FB: I think, alot of times, they interview you just to
get something bad, you know. Even if you don't say it, they'll
rewrite it. Make it sound like you said it> You just have to
be honest and hope for the best really, it's crazy, lunacy, that's
lunacy.
(And then it happens, like a bad dream...Fairuza stands. I'm in
the middle of saying "yep" when she pulls out an
automatic pistol, smiles manically, levels the weapon at my head...
JC: Hey...wait...it's not me...I'm not one of them!
FB: I've been waiting to do this for a long time...journalist
scum. I want to kill all you media bas*ards. Strangle you! Kill
you stinking fu**ers! KILL your fu**ing children...your mothers...KIIIIILLL!
GIVE ME DRUGS! SODOMY! RACISM!! THE DEVIL...HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA...
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!!!
L.A. IS A NICE PLACE TO VISIT...
(Actually, we're just sitting on the couch. The rush
hour traffic roars up the canyon below and Fairuza forgets about
the irresposibility of the press, Hollywood, witches, the Royal
family. A sigh.)
FB: The sun is going to go down soon. I sit out here in the
morning and have my coffee. It's pretty, there's a view and stuff.
JC: If you sit on the couch you can't see the traffic.
FB: Yeah, you have to look over the balcony for that. But it's
perfect in the morning because it's just got that light...a smoke
and a coffee. It's cool, you know...I do try to live in L.A., and
you know, I probably could if I really wanted to. But I'd rather
just live somewhere else, that is'nt here.
(A cat saunters along the rail of the deck. He stops for a
moment. He stares at us, really at Fairuza. She doesn't notice
him. He appears to stare right into her eyes, mesmerised, as if
the kitty acid just hit. She blinks. The cat shudders, falls of
the balcony. I hear him hit the hillside below with a dull thud.)
MORE TO LIFE
FB: I haven't worked since Janurary, on purpose. I just
have to paint, just do nothing but read and write and have time
for myself. 'Cause that's one thing that you lose without knowing
it. It's like, you get so busy...you know? You're just [hand
gestures] always, always, always! You start to disintegrate
inside...it's kind of like a disease. If ya want to work you have
to keep working, you know, and you, get to the point where there's
nothing left in your life.
JC: Gotta find the balance.
FB: Totally, it's so, so true.
(A Barbara Walters moment)
JC: What sort of stuff do you paint?
(There's this sense about Fairuza. This sense of boundary.
Something you're not supposed to cross. A taboo. Something you'd
have to be a bastard freak to cross. I sense it and can't violate
it. I want to but I can't. I want to push a little but I just
smoke, "yep" and nod. She sighs.)
FB: Well I've only been painting for a few years...kind of
surreal, pretty wierd to most people. Hard to define. It's not
any one genre or anything. I just paint. I learned how to draw
through comic books.
BLOOD COMICS
JC: Which comic books?
FB: All kinds.
JC: Favourites?
FB: My favourite comic book ever...was, uh, these comics that
were only put out for two, maybe three years called 'The Blood
Comics'. They were about these wierd kind of vampire creatures.
The artwork was incredible, very surreal. A lot of it done in oil...painted
then photographed, just wild. And I also love the 'Sandman'
comics, those are cool because the stories are good. And 'Love
and Rockets' and...God, I mean I could go on and on, I used to
have a big comic collection and my place got broken into. They
stole all my comics and collection of punk records...
RAPING WOMEN AND KIDS
FB: Having done those two big commercial movies, I saw the
industry in a really different light.
JC: The ugly side?
FB: Exactly and it kind of threw me. It was kind of like, "God,
am I doing this for the right reasons?" you know? I had
always turned down the big stuff [hand gestures] always, always,
always...and things I was against like stupid-violent-blowing-up-cars-and-raping-women-and-kids.
It was like, blecch! There's enough people out there in the world
that worship that stuff. So I leave it to them.
JC: The studios spend so much money that they make stupid-violent-blowing-up-cars-and-raping-women-and-kids
movies to even the financial odds.
FB: I know, once you get past a certain mark, money wise, you
gradually lose degrees of control over the art in the movie, over
the choices you can make. How do you spend sixty million dollars?
I can't even conceive of that much money.
(Working for bikini, I have a hard time conceiving of five
hundred dollars.)
FIVE MILLION DOLLARS
FB: And the salaries. What do you do with five million dollars? I mean I'm not saying I wouldn't like to have it. But I mean, imaging making that three times a year yearly! What do you do?
(Suggestions: Imelda Marcos bought shoes, Michael Jackson got a new face, MC Hammer...who the f**k knows?)
FB: I want to make something good that I believe in that's fun that's gonna mopve people and do something to people, and people can go there for two hours and do something, get away from their lives. That's why I go to see movies. So I can just forget, get away. It's like going on a ride. That's what's so cool about it. It's like moving art, at times, if you're lucky.
(Fairuza takes a deep breath. The sun's just disappeared over the radio tower. The cat's back on the railing with paper and a pen, waiting for a break in the action. I've got something else I've got top run across town for. Fairuza sees me check my watch.)
FB: I'm babbling. I've had way too much coffee.
JC: No you're not.
FB: You're like..."SHUUT UUUP!"
(I say goodbye, get up to go. I stop, look at the cat. I push the tabby off the rail again. THUD. Fairuza needs her time, cat. Scram.)