They Shoot Slackers, Don't They?

ATOMIC TV CLASSIC
Pimlico Race Course
June 16, 2001



I was was doing some winter cleaning last night, realizing - after the Hillendale firemen came to check if I had a gas leak (not to worry! I live to sleep another night without errant carbon monoxide gas getting me) - that my House O' Hoarding represented a textbook firetrap environment. In the course of my subsequent garbage sweep, I came across a number of beloved items I hadn't seen in years, including this 2001 horse racing program from my unemployed slacker days as a railbird at Pimlico racetrack - back when my Atomic TV cohort Scott Huffines was also gainfully unemployed.



No kidding - Scott and I really were unemployable bums (see below)...


Scott and Tom, hedging their bets

...though I preferred the term "jobless reprobate" and even printed up my own cards (as shown below) to hand out to potential racetrack contacts and useful touts.



Anyway, Scott found out that not only could we waste our unemployment checks betting on nags, but we could also get a sweepstakes race named after ourselves for a minimal fee. Thus was the first (and only) Atomic TV Classic born on June 16, 2001. And, while it may not go down in track history as a race on par with the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, or Belmont Stakes, it afforded us the chance to invite our friends and family out to Old Hilltop for a grand old time, one that included getting our pictures taken with fave jockey Mario Pino in the post-race winner's circle. We were even interviewed on the radio by Michael Dempsey of Turf 'n' Sport.

A detailed story will be posted shortly to our Baltimore Or Less blog, but in the meantime, here's the Atomic TV Classic press release I found...



For those of you who are squint-challenged, here's the blown-up text:

Itinerant Media Celebrities Hoof It Up with 1st Annual ATOMIC TV CLASSIC Horserace

This Saturday, June 16 at Pimlico Racetrack, Post Time 2:21 P.M.

PIMLICO, MD - (Saturday, June 16) There are few places in life where a man can wave money, blow smoke and holler "Go, baby, go!" without risking the censure of their family and loved ones. At a strip club, such behavior aimed at two-legged hoochies would be a textbook definition of moral turpitude. But at a racetrack, wagering and hollering on four-legged prancers is an INVESTMENT every bit as sound as stock investing on The Street. Considering the recent plight of the dot.coms, even more so!

So on Saturday, June 16, why don't you invest your time wisely and shout "Go, baby, go!" as you shoot your wad o'dough in the 1st running of the soon-to-be-classic ATOMIC TV CLASSIC at historic Pimlico Racetrack. Presented by Tom Warner and Scott Huffines - local impresarios of Baltimore City's legendary "Atomic TV" cable access variety program, and now virtually unemployable compulsive gamblers - this $25,000, 5-furlough sprint for 2-year-old "maidens" has special meaning for The Gruesome Twosome of Baltimore Public Access TV. Both Warner and Huffines, mid-aged losers wallowing in a pool of unending debt who have watched the seas of fortune wash away the promise of their youth like sand castles at high tide, feel an affinity for maidens. In racing parlance, these are fillies and colts that have NEVER won a race. "These nags can't buy a race," opines Huffines, while Warner laments, "They're one step removed from a rendering factory. Just like us."

Despite the small purse and the overall lack of class and breeding in the field (again, something with which Warner and Huffines feel strong affinity), the ATOMIC TV CLASSIC has attracted some of the finest jockeys available in the clubhouse at that particular time on that particular day with nothing better to do. Many seemed aware of the race, if not overly excited.

"Of all the races on Saturday, this is certainly one of them," said Mario Verge in a prepared statement. Added apprentice jockey Jeremy "Ma Vie en" Rose, "This ATOMIC TV CLASSIC will go down in the books as the 3rd race, the one between the 2nd and the 4th. It should probably go off at 2:30 P.M. and be over by 2:31 P.M."

In addition, national tout Michael Dempsey of Turf 'n' Sport (www.turfnsport.com) will be on hand to handicap the ATOMIC TV CLASSIC, a task he has likened to "picking suspects out of a police line-up." "There are no clear-cut winners here," he said in a statement released earlier this week. "Not on the field, and certainly not in the stands."

Addendum: Please note that previous Breeder's Cup commitments precluded riders Gary Stevens, Pat Day, Jorge Chavez, Laffit Pincay Jr. and Jerry Bailey from participating. Horse of the Year nominees Albert the Great, Tiznow, Captain Steve, Include, Point Given, and Monarcos have also had to pass on this premiere racing event due to scheduling conflicts.But that still leaves a stable's worth of future Hall of Famers to choose from in this elite racing event, as described below.

Here's the probable line-up:

Note that many of the unusually named ponies (such as the coupled entry Pontiff in My Pants and Nun with Two Dicks) came from the unstable stables of legendary inbreeder Ivan Brunetti. They were all scratched and replaced by a new card; for details, stay posted for an update at Baltimore Or Less (www.baltimoreorless.com).

No Strings Attached

No Strings Attached


Discovered by Scott Huffines during his Atomic Books tape-trading days, this is easily the strangest stop-motion animation clip we've ever seen - or aired. Yes, it was originally included as an extra on Atomic TV's "1997 East Coast Video Show" episode.

Does anybody know who created this? I think I saw it years ago at one of the MicroCineFest animated shorts programs and recently saw it at a comic book convention on a compilation DVD called F**ked Up Cartoon Party.

Louis Fowler

Atomic TV's Adopted Son Visits Bawmer



East Meets West...at Golden West

OK, so maybe the timing was off - both Scott Huffines and I were suffering from colds and sinisitus, Melissa and I had to work the next day, and Scott and his wife were taking off for NYC the next morning - but when our Wayward Western pal Louis Fowler - he of the legendary Damaged magazine, Damaged 2.0 blog, Damaged Hearing radio show and Not Lame Records fame - survived a 12-hour bus trip to stop by Baltimore on April Fools Day (no foolin'), we had to suck it up and meet our greatest and coolest fan, the impressionable lad who once called Atomic TV "probably the greatest TV show I have ever seen in my life." We were Lou fans as well; after all, he's a great writer, a Rod Lott (Hitch Magazine)-mentored Oklahomie who hit the nail on the head when he brilliantly described singer Bjork as a "Chinese-looking elf with Down's Syndrome."

Damaged goods Louis was stopping in Charm City as part of his East Coast "Devastator Tour '09" (sponsored, in his words, by "by Midori Brand Liquors! All the queer, and none of the rear!"), a Greyhound bus station-to-station tour book-ended with stops in Indianapolis for the Horrorhound Weekend (March 27-29 and Cleveland for the Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia "Spring Spectacular" Expo (April 3-5).



It's shame we didn't have more time to show Louis the real Baltimore (like the Tyson and Read Street corner where Divine ate dog shit in Pink Flamingos, Al Capone's Syphillis Tree outside Union Memorial Hospital, and so on), so we settled on meeting up at the Golden West Cafe "On the Avenue" in Hampden, our Hipster Mecca.


Louis, Tom and Scott on The Avenue

Melissa and I were the first to arrive, as Scott was supposed to pick up Lou at the bus station but somehow his iPhone GPS went awry and it took him an hour to get there. While we waited, Melissa - a veteran thespian not only of Atomic TV but several John Waters movies and a recurring role on The Wire - showed me her brand new Screen Actor's Guild card:


Melissa shows off her new SAG card.
(She let me snap this photo without paying union scale!)

Louis was elated to see Melissa, who in her starring role as savvy bachelorette "Chastity Darling" on Atomic TV's "Dating Do's and Don't's" episode captured the smitten young Okie's heart. In Damaged #6 (Spring 2000), he decribed her as "one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life...Jesus, is she hot. I think I am in love."


Louis and the girl of his dreams, Melissa.

Thank goodness for Melissa putting together a last-minute Welcome Wagon while Scott and I sneezed, snorted,and post-nasally dripped. She had the foresight to put together a "Baltimore Goodies" bag for Louis that included a crab lollipop, Goetz caramels cremes, and a Mary Sue Easter Egg. I forget if a Berger's Cookie was in there.


Melissa gave Louis a Baltimore goodies bag.


Louis opens his goodies bag


Louis with a Mary Sue Easter Egg.


Louis waves his Crab lollipop.


More culinary delights lay in store for Louis the next day, when he planned to meet up with The Hungover Gourmet zine editor Dan Taylor and visit Baltimore's legendary downtown soul food emporium, The Lexington Market. Wish I had known that next week's City Paper cover story ("Gun Market," CP 4/6/2009)would be about the guy who was selling guns out of the market's Utz Potato Chip stand - I'm sure Louis and Dan would have loved to visit that stall!

When it came time to order drinks, Louis asked to try Baltimore's iconic swill Natty Boh, which he politely ordered as "that Bohemian beer."


Louis says "Yo!" to Natty Boh, the perfect crab lollipop chaser.

He really liked the taste of Boh, but grew green with envy when he saw what Scott ordered, the artery-clogging Bacon Bullet Bourbon Shooter, a drink concocted of Bullet bourbon, molasses and a stick of bacon.


The Bacon Bullet Bourbon Shot


Scott says Grace before ingesting his Bacon Bourbon Shot


"Mmmm that's good!" slurps Scott.


Aftertaste: "Hmmmm, bacon and bourbon?
What God hath joined together, let no man tear asunder!"


"Eww," looks like the missing half of John Wayne Bobbitt's willy!"
Tom observed of the drink's bacon twist.

Undeterred by my observation that the slab of bacon looked like the missing half of John Wayne Bobbitt's willy dipped in the drink, Louis ordered one himself.

He was in Heaven!

Scott ordered a second.


The Bacon Brothers: Scott and Louis bond over bourbon and pork products


"Magoo" Warner uses digital zoom to read his menu.

Finishing up, I had to ask Louis about a masturbation euphemism I had come across in one of my zines. I thought I had heard 'em all, from "shaking hands with the unemployed" to "pounding the one-eyed bishop," but "Oklahoma Karate" was a new one to my ears. Louis chuckled and said he had never heard it either, but that he liked it - "Thanks, I'm gonna use that one!" he promised.

Before we headed down the street to for nightcaps at Rocket To Venus, Scott popped the hood and trunk of his car to show us how prankster mechanic Chris Campbell (former Modern Music Mogul and current Hillbilly Drive-In Programming Director) pimped his ride to prepare it to pass inspection. As you can see below, Chris added extra "rack" to the rack-and-steering...


Some of Chris Campbell's custom detailing for the Huffmobile

...as well as additional junk in the trunk:



At Rocket To Venus we ordered more beers and talked about getting old. Scott and I mentioned that we hardly ever went out anymore and admitted changing into our pajamas the minute we got home from work.


PJs: Change we can believe in.

Louis said he could relate. When we asked him how old he was, he said "30." What a kid!

"You gotta remember, when I discovered you guys I was in high school," Louis said, "So it really blew my mind!" Wow, all those years ago. That would have been like 1997, so yeah, he must have been a teen.

As we looked at the people sitting around the bar and played a mental round of Hipster Bingo ("Hey look, there's a guy with a Fedora," "There's a chick with a bad tattoo," "Lookey, guy with Elvis Costello glasses and sideburns"), I bonded with Louis over my hatred of overly smug pop singer Jason Mraz.

"I hate all these good-looking guys who sing about their troubles getting laid," Louis said.

"I hate that stupid fucking hat he always wears," I added.


Wot a Mraz-hole!

We finished our beers and headed out the door, but not before I ran into my friend (and former co-worker and fellow soccer nut) Kevin Hall, freshly duded out in his Washington Capitals hockey jersey.


Kevin Hall returning from Caps game.

When we stepped outside, we introduced Louis to Rocket To Venus owner Jeff, who was skipping out for a smoke.


Louis, Jeff and Scott outside Rocket To Venus.


Louis with Jeff, Commander of Rocket To Venus.

Out on Chestnut Avenue, Scott ran into some friends and we stood around trying to explain the concepts of of Dundalk and Essex to Louis, including two infamous native sons from those working class Baltimore 'hoods, naughty teacher/sex offender John Merzbacher (an Essex homie whose house was nearby Scott's) and psycho crime-of-passion killer Joby Palcynski (Dundalk). We also tried to explain the Middle River's "Golden Eggs" and why Dundalk and Essex compete in the annual "Toilet Bowl" football game to see which community gets to lay claim to the Back River Waste Water Treatment Plant (aka "The Shit Plant").


The Golden Eggs

It's hard to explain in one night.

Alas, the old men had to get to bed to travel and go to work the next day...despite Louis once lauding us in an Atomic TV review with the bon mots "Tom and Scott do and see more in a collective eight hours than I have done in my 21 years of existence," we were sick deadbeats who had to get up early and work for the man and hit the road, jack. Lightweight swingers on the mend.


"Peace out!" Tom and Scott bid Lou adieu.

Louis needed a place to crash, so we drove back to La Casa Clutter in Towson where I apologized profusely as I showed Lou my "guest room," the house's official clutter dumping ground. Spying the big bed and multiple pillows, Louis replied, "Oh man, after riding a Greyhound bus for 12 hours, this is great. I feel like I'm laying down with the angels."

I must say Louis was the perfect house guest. You'd never know he was there. Didn't make a peep (though he claimed he snores!) and left the place immaculate. I just hope he wasn't weirded out by some of the odder artifacts in my far-from-spare spare room/dumping ground, like the kid's "Spinner Toy" promo display ("Stress Reliever!" "Can't Put It Down!") I salvaged when they were throwing it away at the library; I forgot that I replaced the spinner toy with a dildo so that when you activated it, the hands mechanically performed "Oklahoma Karate" (that great "stress reliever")!


A Favorite with Kids: No stress, some mess.


What must Louis have thought?

Next time, I hope he's in town for a weekend when we have more time to spend with him. And we could add to his Baltimore goodies bag with some more essentials, like (Atomic TV cameraman) Chris "The Plumber" Jensen's "Your Poop Is My Bread & Butter" and Scott's "Pirates of Essex" t-shirts.



Or maybe we can take an Atomic TV field trip to Ft. Collins, Colorado. Louis, if you're reading this, it was good meeting you finally in the flesh - and you're welcome back anytime!

(Oh, included below is my all-time fave Atomic TV review; naturally it's by Mr. Fowler.)

Damaged #6 Spring 2000
ATOMIC TV, Volumes 10-13

In the last issue of DAMAGED, I said that I have seen a revelation and that it was Atomic TV. I was wrong.

Atomic TV is probably the greatest TV show I have ever seen in my life. It has everything that a great TV show should: the crass humor of a good episode of Mama's Family, more guest stars than Love Boat and Fantasy Island combined and more T&A than five episodes of VIP. Add to the mix only the best videos that you will never find on MTV, interviews with people who will never be on Jay, and real-life adventures that even the Croc-Hunter couldn't even imagine.

In the last four episodes of Atomic TV, our hosts Tom and Scott do and see more in a collective eight hours than I have done in my 21 years of existence.

Are you a big fan of pornography? If you are the average DAMAGED reader, then that will be a big yes. Check out Volume 10, "The East Cost Video Show Porn Convention Episode." It is filled with wall-to-wall silicone enhancements and wall-to-wall Ron Jeremy. Porn starlet Rayveness show us how to work and clean her artificial vagina, ex-porn actor Jerry Butler shows us how he prepares his Thanksgiving meal in a disgusting scene that literally has to be seen to be believed. Hot as hell Rebecca Lord is interviewed and drooled over. To top it off, a long lost film with Jean Claude Van Damme as a ball-grabbing Tae Kwan Do testicle tickler.

Volume Eleven is a special episode designed to teach us backwards Oklahomans how they do arty stuff up north. In "Artscape," the boys go under the dress of a gigantic Mrs. Buttersworth, we meet the Thunderbirds Are Go! outcast Bud and see a nun do some crazy ass-kicking for the Lord. Also included are videos from the gorgeous Francoise Hardy, the incredible Air and the banned from MTV video "Smack My Bitch Up" from Prodigy. The second half is from the "Cones and Rods Art Show": people urinating, music by Garage Sale and the Put Outs and lazy hipper-than-thou twenty- somethings shun free prizes from the Atomic Bookstore!

What is this crazy J-Pop that I am always talking about? Well, use Volume Twelve as a textbook and learn for yourself. The extremely hot publisher of Cha Cha Charming, Sheila B., co-hosts with Tom as they give us a run through in the best of Japanese pop, which puts our American shit to shame. Judy and Mary, Puffy, My Little Lover, and best of all, Emmanuel "Webster" Lewis singing in Japanese! That alone is worth the price.

You want to know why I want to move to Baltimore? To be at the next Atomic TV Labor Day Cookout. In Volume Thirteen, we are invited to watch all the insanity and hilarity that ensues. So grab some big- ass hot dogs, put in the microwave and pop this episode in the VCR. Not only do we get to be part of the festivities, we also get to see videos from They Might Be Giants and The Ramones. To top that off, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life, Chastity Darling, is in attendance. Jesus, is she hot. I think I am in love. Oh yeah, and Tom sucks on some feet. It's pretty nasty to watch. But, in the next hour, we are also invited to Atomic TV's 200th Episode Parry, where more "what the hell are we doing here" fun is had. The incredible short films Worst of Public Access and High Tech Noon are also here, as well as videos by J-Poppers Puffy.

Order episodes at Atomic Books' website at or see the ad in this issue. Do it now and tell `em that Louis sent you.

--Louis Fowler

Oh, and click here to read Louis' take on his visit to Baltimore.

A Rock Star Is Reborn

I ran into Todd Stachowski (pictured left) at celebrity plumber and erstwhile Atomic TV camerman Chris Jensen's 50th Birthday Bash and the frontman of the long dormant but now revitalized Rock Stars gave me a copy of his death metal band's first ever CD: 1+1=Death. Death Metal (or Black Metal, whatever you wanna call it) is not really my cup of tea because I'm more a twee pop wuss, but I gotta admit: It's great!

Recorded at Orion Sound Studios in January 2006, it has a sound as thick and heavy as I imagine Brontosaurus poop would be, and Todd's hoarse Norse vocals have never sounded more Satanic or more in need of throat lozenges (in fact, his voice is exactly how I imagine Road Warrior's Lord Humongus - the Ayatollah of Rock 'N' Rolla - would sound if he fronted a band). Beautifully illustrated by Stachowski himself (a triple-threat artist who can write, draw and play music), 1+1=Death is equal parts humor and outrage, like Todd himself, and (again like Todd) is always entertaining. Todd wrote all ten songs and plays guitar and bass, while Tasha Levine pounds the skins and longtime collaborator (and live performance madman) Tony Himlin (pictured above right) contributes backing vocals. The resulting music has true cross-over potential, as I can see it entertaining metalheads at Dundalk's Zu as well as being put to use by the U.S. military to torture high-value detainees at post-Abu Ghraib secret holding cells in Iraq. It's that good!

But the highlights for me are the sound bites from cult movies that Todd samples in between songs. Always clever and to the point, like the Hairspray soundbite that precedes Todd's homage to big-haired East Bawmer hons, "Hair Hopper," and the Joe Pesci sample from Raging Bull - "You gotta shot. If you win you win, if you lose you still win. You just gotta get down to 155 pounds you fat bastard. Just stop eating!" - that leads into "No Way To Win."

Things start off with a real punch in "DW730W," the most commercial-sounding Rock Stars metal song ever (written about a box label!), with Todd sampling some dialog from a fight film ("You can hit him as hard as you have the God-given ability to hit...The people who make the rules intended for you to hit 'em hard!"). The song also also provides the CD's title, with its classic New Math equation:

Subtract yourself, 'till there's nothing left
Divide by nothing: 1+1=Death

Todd never did like math. I also like the romantic bickering dialog that precedes "Yer Gonna Git It," which sounds like it's from some biker flick, "Get out! If you don't drag your ass out that door I'm gonna cut you...I'm gonna cut your ass!" This is followed by such old Rock Stars' chestnuts as "Cat" (a deeply symbolic paen to female genitalia highlighted by Tasha Levine's great cowbell-driven beat), "Giant Rat" (no doubt about Todd's housemates in Armistead Gardens) and the very poppy "Hair Hopping" (this is my favorite tune, and it's the one song in which Todd drops his Lord Humongus voice - he should try to get it on the soundtrack of the new Broadway-version Hairspray movie because it would be perfect there). I love the soundbite for "Giant Rat," too: "That thing is dangerous, it took my child. Now I'm gonna see to it that I destroy it!" Newer songs, at least new to these ears, are "Leroy, Loretta & Hector," "Operation," "The Irresistable Force Meets the Immovable Object" and "Move Your Feet" (which has the great lines: "Sally was a bar stool/At least she looked the part/Born with a perfect body/She had a face like abstract art"). And people, I'm here to tell you it's all good!

Der Todesking is back! Todd the former Shock Wave music scribe is writing reviews again, Todd the cartoonist is drawing toons again (on the Internet now), and The Rock Stars are gigging again. Be sure to check out their CD. I'll post more info on how to get the album when I find out from Todd where it'll be available.

More Todd & The Rock Stars Links:

Todd Stachowski and/or The Rockstars appeared in the following Atomic TV episodes:

"Viewer Discretion Is Strongly Advised"
"Atomic TV's Cones and Rods Party"
1999 Holiday Special - "Underdog Battles Satan Claus"

And the Rock Stars now have a page on MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/therockstarsbalt

Rock Stars Review (City Paper, "No Cover" column 1996)

Following is a reprint of my review of The Rock Stars that appeared in the Baltimore City Paper's NO COVER music column circa 1996.


A Rock Star is Born:
Todd Stachowski Creates a New Shock Wave
by Tom Warner

When local music magazine Shock Wave washed up in the Spring of '95, main scribe/cartoonist Todd Stachowski didn't know what to do with himself. Doing every drug known to man and watching every Harvey Keitel movie known to his local video store just wasn't enough to stem his growing restlessness. Sure, City Paper's 1994 Best of Baltimore awards for "Best Anti-Music Critic" and "Best Politically Incorrect Cartoonist" looked nice hanging on his wall, but Todd Stachoswki the Working Class Renaissance Man (construction worker/roofer/forklift operator by day, artist/writer/rocker by night) needed a new audience to shock with his tongue-in-chic observations about Alf, child molestation, Satan worship, sexual perversion and recreational drug abuse.

"When Shock Wave went under, my megalomania was not being satiated," the 26-year-old Essex native explains. "So I was forced to find another way to make people think I'm a genius." Enter The Rock Stars, his humbly named "party metal" band that combines over-the-top songwriting (topics range from giant rats & hairspray to coprophilia & genital mutilation), outlandish glamrock costumes and between-song comedy skits to create an "extravaganza" for the audience. Since debuting at a Halloween party last Fall, the Dundalk-based Rock Stars - Stachowski on guitar & vocals, Fernando Garcia on lead guitar, fellow Shock Wave crony Joe Tricario on bass and Grace Slaymaker on drums - have played a half-dozen gigs around town at venues like Café Tattoo, Memory Lane and The Savoy, fine-tuning the metal-edged songs and comedy bits to the point where they've gotten a rep for being a fun "act," and not just another rock band. After all, what other local band performs the "Mr. Yuk" theme on request-death metal style even-or feeds the audience with chicken wings?

That distinction is fine with Stachowski, who considers himself more of an entertainer that a musician, anyway. ("I can't even barely tune my guitar," he readily admits. "The only way I can tune an electric guitar is by the wave on the distortion; when it stops buzzing, I figure it's in tune.") Though he writes all the songs and is a competent rhythm guitarist, he's much more concerned with how the band looks than with how it sounds. And make no mistake, the Rock Stars-in mascara, eyeliner and leopard-skin spandex everything-look marvelous. In fact, they looked so out of place when they opened the Erika Frazier Benefit show in January at Memory Lane-local mecca for the baseball-cap and flannel shirt-wearing Urban Hipster Set-that no one got the joke when Stachowski stepped to the mike and asked, "You all ready to hear some Poison?"

And who could blame them? These guys really do look like pretentious rock star dinosaurs from the 70s. With a painfully thin lead guitarist who dresses all frilly-frally like Jimmy Page, a mascara-caked bass player who looks like a heavily sedated Alice Cooper, and a frontman who wears KISS makeup with such engaging magic marker slogans as "Hey Baby I'm a Rock Star-Eat My Cum" scrawled across his belly, they're practically baiting the audience for a reaction of some sort. And any - laughter, heckling, rotten fruit-tossing - will do.

"People don't want to come to a show and not be entertained," explains Stachowski. "They don't want to see some guys in their work clothes just standing there playing guitars. I mean, big deal. That takes a lot of fucking thought."

By contrast, Stachowski puts a lot of fucking thought into everything the Rock Stars do on stage, especially the comedy skits (or "commercials," as he calls them) that serve as thematic lead-ins to various numbers. Stachowski credits long-time friend and actor Tony Hemlin with teaching him the importance of theatrics. In fact, Hemlin's turn as a Bible-toting evangelist who tries to save the Rock Stars (only to be converted to devil worship as the band seques into "Let's All Just Hail Satan") is one of the highlights of the show. But Stachowski's regular comic foil is childhood chum Joe Tricario, who manages to steal the occasional thunder from his bud in bits like the Stovetop commercial parody:

Todd: "Hey Jimmy, I heard your Mom's making Stovetop for dinner tonight."
Joe: "Yeah, she is. You coming over?"
Todd: "I dunno, 'cause my Mom says your Mom's Stovetop tastes like the shit she takes in the toilet."
Joe: "Yeah, well my Mom says that your Mom fucks the dog down the street 'cause your Dad don't know how to fuck and his dick is smaller than the dog's."

This warm appetizer usually leads into the crowd favorite, "Chicken Wings," in which Tricario robotically chants the song title while an attractive dominatrix named "Mistress Teresa" straps a dog collar around Stachowski's neck and drags him around on all fours while hurling barbecued chicken wings out into the crowd (a la Southern Culture on the Skids).

In another skit, Tricario takes on the demeanor of a lip-smacking redneck reminiscing about the glory days of glamrock: "Boy, that David Bowie," he drawls in a thick Deliverance accent, "He sure looked golddurn pretty in all that girly glitter."

But no Rock Stars performance is complete without the obligatory reference to Alf, who is the most important role model (after Harvey Keitel) in Stachoswki's life. "Alf was one of the best sitcoms ever made, a great show to get fucked up on drugs to," he enthuses, though he's convinced that the show also contains a disturbing undertone of child molestation. "The actor who portrays Willie is so sleazy, you know in real life he definitely molests children. He's playing this wholesome father figure and you know he loves little Brian, not in the way a father loves his son, but in a more perverse way."

So much for pop cultural obsessions. What about the Rock Stars sound? Stachowski would rather talk about the "show," but if pressed will confess that musically he leans toward the more "Satan-y" strains of death metal, especially his idols Celtic Frost (whose "Procreation of the Wicked" is a staple of the Stars' live set), and his singing likewise adheres to the low-octave, phlegmatic bellowing that's characteristic of the genre. But he credits another idol, Lou Reed, with "inspiring the intellectualism in my lyrics." This from a man who, yes, wrote something called "Cat (A Song About Pussy)," not to mention other self-explanatory songs like "Giant Rat," "Hair Hopping" (an homage to big-haired East Baltimore girls) and "Let's All Just Hail Satan." OK, so maybe the songs are cartoonish and the music a little too familiar, but the presentation is anything but. The Rock Stars are good dumb fun. Nothing illustrates this ability to make the ordinary extraordinary than "DW730W," a song about a label on a box that's easily the best thing Stachowski has ever written.

"I saw that number when I was working in a warehouse and I couldn't get it out of my head," he recalls. "It was just so hummable that I had to write a song about it. It's our math song .I hate math. All math is stupid." That frustration with numbers results in Stachowski's single funniest line, describing a headbanger's mathematical angst: "Subtract yourself, 'till there's nothing left/Divide by nothing: 1+1=Death." Now that's funny!

"Look, there's other bands around that have better songs than us," Stachowski admits, "But they ain't entertainers. When you come see us, it's not a concert. It's a party." So bring out the chicken wings and let the fun and games begin!

The Rock Stars appear at The Savoy on Saturday March 2 and at the Atomic Books Calvacade of Perversion sometime in April.

Friends In Low Places

I have them.

Nothing is worse than being at your day job, on the desk with your boss, and having a fan of your cable access TV show come in to praise your "porno episode." Except for a subsequent discussion by said fanboy into the proclivity of certain female adult stars for engaging in graphic non-procreative sex acts involving their anus. The thespian in question was Chloe Nicole(born Chloe Hoffman), shown at left, a bass-playing headbanger and former Poison groupie (she seemed to appear on VH-1 everytime they ran a segment on the L.A. glam rockers - for more on her Sunset Strip groupie days, which included doing the entire Warrant band one night, see her interview with Sleazegrinder magazine), and star (according to the Internet Movie DataBase) of some 176 porn films (if anyone's counting). Atomic TV interviewed her several times at the annual East Coast Video Show in Atlantic City, N.J., where she enthused about her work and expertise in that special area that Led Zeppelin once named an album after (In Through the Out Door).

Miss Nicole (sometimes spelled Nichole) was also famous for starring in the first film to be taken to court by the Bush Administration, Seymore Butts' Tampa Tushy Fest(1999).An IMDB user comments:

This is the video which is getting plenty of publicity due to content. It was shot in Florida in 1998 during the week of the annual Tampa Show and features a scene which is causing Seymore Butts plenty of problems: the scene with Chloe and Alysha Klass is a magician's nightmare: it includes the infamous Disappearing Hand Trick.

The disappearing hand trick is also known in the adult trade as "fisting" and it sure got Mr. Butts (real name Adam Glasser - you know, the star of Showtime's Family Business!) in trouble with the Feds, after the they raided his office in December 2000 and confiscated the master and all copies of the tape. The L.A. City Attorney later charged Glasser, his company, and his mother (his was literally a "family business"!) with one count of trafficking in obscene materials each as well as one count each of promoting the distribution of obscene materials. The case was flimsy, and in 2002 Glasser got off with a $1,000 fine after entering a "public nusiance plea" that helped the D.A. save face. If you're happy and you know it, un-ball your hands - and pay the man.

Chloe is definitely a fan of the practice. According to Violet Blue of Tiny Nibbles:

As Chloe said about fisting and the scene in Tushy Fest: "For me, it's almost a spiritual act. And in this particular scene, you can see that Alisha and I are having a very good time." Glasser commented on his motivations for including the controversial scene in the first place, saying: "I didn't do this fisting just to create a stir. I didn't do it because I wanted to create this controversy. I did it because I asked Chloe, 'What gets you off?' She said, 'I like it when somebody fists me.' It was so innocent! So I wanted to shoot it, and that was the reality of it... Something that causes somebody to have eyes-rolled-in-the-back-of-their-head orgasms, that's the kind of stuff that I want to see, and I think the people out there want to see it as well."

Anyway, I can attest to Chloe's enjoyment of the practice, hands down.
In fact, in 1999, the last year Atomic TV interviewed Chloe at ECVS, I recall her chatting with Nina Hartley about it as we were heading out. Nina had just experienced her first "fisting" and was positively gushing about it. In the course of giving Nina some pointers about technique, Chloe actually pulled me aside and commented that I would make a poor fister because I had bony little hands that would hurt a woman's inner sanctum, whereupon she grabbed our A/V tech Bob and effused about how great his chubby little mits would be because they were "meaty."

Then she went on to tell Nina how she threw her boyfriend out of bed the night before because she wanted to "make baby" and he said he was too tired and asked if she could just grab some lotion and apply the motion to his doodad. "That fucker Tom!" she railed, "I kicked his sorry ass out right then." "Hey, that's my name," I blurted unwittingly. She just scowled at me.

Oh it figgers his name was Tom! My hands, my glands, my fans. I can't win!

Addendum:
I forgot to mention that the fanboy who started this thought-provoking discourse asked for my autograph. "You've got to be kidding," I said, but he was earnest, so I scrawled my signature. And he wanted to shake my hand. Perhaps he felt that by shaking the hand of the man who had shaken the hand of the Tampa Tushy Fest fister (say that three times quickly!), he had almost touched his idol Chloe. I wonder if he'll ever wash it? Full Disclosure: I certainly washed mine!

Addendum Deux:
Chloe has played bass in bands throughout her career and has a single "Harder" that appears on the Porn To Rock CD. But she has no doubts about which of her careers has been sleazier, to wit: "Just when you think you've been fucked in every position, check out the music industry." (And Chloe should know, having probably done every position with members of Poison, Motley Crue, Faster Pussycat, Jetboy, and The Zeroes, as well as with every member of Warrant.) Despite her regrettable taste in music - her first record was Tom Warner lookalike Nick Gilder's "Hot Child In the City" and she has said that the Bee Gees' Beatles movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonelyhearts Club Band changed her life - she is a big fan of Baltimore's hard-rockin' metal meisters Kix, so you have to cut her some slack for that, although it's probably because frontman Steve Whiteman reminded her of Brett Michaels (Kix always thought Michaels stole Whiteman's moves and that Poison aped their stage act). And she has moved behind the camera recently to direct a line of films for VCA. She merges her two great influences - sex and rock - in her film Heart Strings, the saga of a band on the verge of success only to be torn asunder by internal conflicts over sexual infidelity. Sounds a little like a VH1 "Behind the Music" look at Fleetwood Mac. I guess Ian Curtis was right: Love will tear you apart. Especially backdoor love.