Everyone Loves You When You're Dead. Neil Strauss
slaves.
Why do people always assume aliens are more advanced than us? Maybe they’re not.
FARRELL: I think they are. They’re way more advanced. Wouldn’t that be nice, to have your own zombie for a minute? You just go behind a curtain.
And then what?
FARRELL: And you could program your own zombie.
Is there something else you’re thinking of for Lollapalooza in the less-distant future?
FARRELL: Yeah, this year I’m trying to get like autopsies going on the third stage.
Literally?
FARRELL: I have a doctor friend of mine who wants to perform autopsies. I’m gonna try to get it for the West Coast. See if he can do it.
Lollapalooza staff confirmed that Farrell was planning to show autopsies at the festival, though, not surprisingly, the idea never came to fruition. Instead, in 2005, Farrell helped start Kidzapalooza, a rock festival for children.
Lucia Pamela may be best known as the mother of Georgia Frontiere, who inherited the Los Angeles Rams (when her sixth husband drowned) and moved them to her hometown of St. Louis. But to music aficionados, Pamela is a celebrity in her own right. Voted Miss St. Louis in 1926, Pamela started what many believe to be the first all-female orchestra, Lucia Pamela and the Musical Pirates. She also started a singing duo with Georgia, the Pamela Sisters, and was cited by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for having memorized some ten thousand songs.
But if you ask Pamela what accomplishment she’s proudest of, she’ll tell you it was building a rocket, touring the Milky Way, and beating Neil Armstrong to the moon, where she recorded her album Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela. Clearly, the line between fact and fiction doesn’t exist for Pamela, which is what eventually made the album an enduring cult classic.
Where did you record your album?
LUCIA PAMELA: It was recorded on Moontown. I was the only one from Earth there.
Is that where you saw the roosters and the blue wind you sing about?
PAMELA: All of the music is true. And most of it is from experience. I also made a coloring book about the trip.
For children?
PAMELA: It’s for people of all ages. Children aren’t the only ones that like to color books (pauses). Have you ever been to the moon?
No, but I’d like to go.
PAMELA: The moon was quite surprising. Besides the moon, we found other areas outside the earth. I can’t remember whether we named any of them or not. We went to Venus, Mars, Neptune. . . . I was quite surprised to find that there was an awful lot of Oriental people there.
What was Nutland like?21
PAMELA: Oh, it was a beautiful place, and everybody there was wonderful. But they couldn’t speak English. Most of them spoke different languages, mostly Chinese, Japanese, and French . . . and Almond.
When was the last time you visited the moon?
PAMELA: This time last year, we flew up to the moon, yes. Me and some friends of mine. I’ve got it written down who flew us there. I can teach people how to travel to the moon and Mars and Venus. I also teach music and ice-skating. It doesn’t take a long time if they really want to learn. I’ll help anybody who wants to be helped.
Do you have any predictions for the future?
PAMELA: I want everything good to happen, but I want the weather to be good. If the weather is good, then everything is good.
In 2002, Lucia Pamela died in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of ninety-eight.
After a press conference, Christina Aguilera walked into a back room, sat on the floor next to a fireplace, and zoned out again. Suddenly, she turned her face up to me and, in a girlish pout, asked . . .
CHRISTINA AGUILERA: What did that woman [reporter] say about Britney?
She said that a Baptist organization had named her role model of the year or something.
AGUILERA: But what did she say Britney did to get it?
She promised to keep her virginity until marriage.
AGUILERA: Oh? (Rolls her eyes and looks into the fire, then turns back again, perturbed.) I can’t believe that.
That bothers you?
AGUILERA (scrunches her face, disgusted ): She’s not a virgin!
Aguilera’s publicist rushes in to prevent her from saying too much in front of a reporter.
PUBLICIST: Maybe it’s Jessica Simpson. She’s like that.
The publicist whisks Aguilera away. When night falls, the interview continues in Aguilera’s Toronto hotel room as she snacks on pizza, Coke, and Chips Ahoy cookies.
AGUILERA: The secret to eating junk food is to only eat a little at a time.
I’ve heard you talk about spirituality a few times. What are your beliefs?
AGUILERA: I’m Christian, and I believe in God. I wish I could go to church more often on Sunday. I really do. That’s also a reason why it’s so important to stay grounded, because it could all be taken away tomorrow. All of this [success] isn’t something that I did. I don’t view it like that. It’s something that is totally there for a purpose. He wants me to do what I’m doing for good, do you know what I mean. But I think my personality fights with that sometimes. (She switches on all the lamps in the room.) I’m afraid of the dark. I have nightmares.
That makes sense for you.
AGUILERA: Really? I’m afraid of spirits and things. Especially with living in hotel rooms. You never know who was in there before you, or what happened exactly in this room. I hear these stories. It freaks me out.
Did you see spirits when you were a kid?
AGUILERA: I used to see my guardian angel when I was very young. My mom and I were playing hide-and-go-seek one time. I ran up the stairs and my mom was saying, “I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you.” And all of a sudden, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks. There was this guy and he was in an all-white outfit, just kinda glowing. He was looking down at me. He had a white beard.
Was he looking over you benevolently?
AGUILERA: Yeah, he was looking down at me calmly and very peacefully.22
So that should help you sleep at night, knowing someone’s watching over you.
AGUILERA: It should. But usually I can’t, so I end up just writing in my journals. I’ve been on my own, and it’s kind of lonely and crazy when so much stuff is thrown at you. Sometimes you feel like the whole world is waiting for you to mess up (pauses).