Doja Cat has canceled yet another performance over COVID concerns, this time her upcoming set at the 2022 BRIT Awards, where she’s nominated international artist of the year and best international song for “Kiss Me More,” featuring SZA. Doja announced the cancelation in a tweet, revealing that “numerous” members of her crew had tested positive for COVID-19.
“Unfortunately, due to cases of COVID within my crew, I will no longer be performing at the Brits,” she wrote. “My team and I have been in rehearsals for weeks and despite taking the utmost caution, numerous members of my crew (both on and offstage) have tested positive for COVID. It’s simply not safe for us to continue to rehearse together and put each other in harm’s way. I can’t wait to perform for my UK fans as soon as I can. Take care of yourselves.”
Before this, Doja Cat’s participation in the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball tour was also canceled after she tested positive herself. It was the second announced time she’d tested positive after contracting the bug in summer of 2020. Perhaps these cancelations could be a blessing in disguise, though, offering the blossoming star an opportunity for rest after expressing frustration with the pressures of her career. Hopefully, she’ll recover soon and be able to get back to doing what she loves, performing and making music.
Does Mitski really want to be here? The 31-year-old indie star has been sending mixed signals for a while now. In 2019, she announced a hiatus that many fans presumed was a retirement. She insisted at the time that she wasn’t quitting, but in recent interviews she confirmed that actually she did plan at the time to quit her music career. But she ended up not quitting. Only she has hinted that she might quit at some point in the not-so-distant future.
What should be made of all this? Having interviewed Mitski myself, I know that her interactions with the press can be cordial but distant. On stage, she is one of the most magnetic and theatrical performers in indie rock, radiating star appeal even when she was playing dingy rock clubs. In interviews, however, she’s enigmatic, prone to giving statements that seem revealing in the moment and then vague once you see them in print. And that seems entirely deliberate, and also understandable given the close readings her songs and press clippings have invited in the past. But the success and indie fame she received in the wake of 2018’s Be The Cowboy has exacerbated this reticence. In at least two of her recent magazine profiles, she declined to give the names of her cats, for fear that this information could be used to track down her personal information. (Is there a Google Cat app that I am not aware of?)
All of this has made headlines like “Mitski Had To Quit Music To Love It” not entirely convincing. She hasn’t quit music, but she also hasn’t demonstrated that she loves it. In the Rolling Stone interview, Mitski admitted that she wrote “Working For The Knife” — the first single from her new album, Laurel Hell, due Friday — at the end of 2019, around the time she was reminded of a contractual obligation with her record label to put out another album. “I just didn’t know whether I would ask the label to take it and keep me out of it,” she said, “or I would actually go out and present it.” The song itself doesn’t resolve this ambivalence. Over a mid-tempo shuffle accented with goth-y synths, Mitski croons about a spiritual malaise that one could easily apply to her own career narrative: “I used to think I’d be done by 20 / Now at 29, the road ahead appears the same.”
Apparently, Mitski has opted to go the “actually go out and present it” route. The release of Laurel Hill will be accompanied by a three-month international tour of large theaters that launches in about two weeks, and is already almost entirely sold out. After that she will join Harry Styles for a short run of stadium concerts in Europe. As for the album itself, it’s her most overt pop move yet, with another single, “The Only Heartbreaker,” co-written by Dan Wilson, a collaborator of Adele and Taylor Swift and one of the top hired guns in the business.
And yet, the question persists: Does Mitski really want to be here? Unlike the bravado she displayed on the preternaturally confident Be The Cowboy, she seems markedly less assured on the follow-up. It feels muddled, as if the author couldn’t decide on an overall vision. Mitski has said that Laurel Hell went through many iterations — including country and punk versions — before she decided that “I need to dance,” according to Rolling Stone. But the throwback 1980s sheen applied to the songs is ultimately noncommittal. The central conflict here seems to be this: Is this a full-blown bid for pop superstardom? Or is it a subversive spin on the idea of a pop record akin to Mitski’s other work? I can’t tell as a listener, and I’m not sure Mitski knows, either. She’s trying to have it both ways — simultaneously stepping up and retreating — and succeeding at neither.
On Be The Cowboy, Mitski mined the space between pop and indie music, landing in her own uniquely perverse space. Like on the album-closing ballad “Two Slow Dancers,” a climactic torch song in which she likens the familiarity of a long-term relationship to the smell of a school gymnasium. But there is no such alchemy on Laurel Hell, which oscillates between pop and perversity without ever integrating those poles.
On the perverse side are several slow, noirish ballads that telegraph an indefatigable weariness with slasher-movie synths and dreary piano chords. “Sometimes I think I am free / Until I find I’m back in line again,” she sings in “Everyone,” capturing the captive resignation that permeates much of the album. And then there’s “Stay Soft,” in which media commodification is reimagined as an S&M dynamic between audience and star and set to a queasy bump-n’-grind rhythm. Not all of these songs work — “Stay Soft” is kind of clumsy — but at least they hint at Mitski’s ability to write songs that can beguile and befuddle in equal doses, pinpointing the shared attributes of fear and desire. It’s on the more upbeat songs that the weaknesses of Laurel Hell are most acute.
Simply put, the would-be bangers here don’t bang nearly hard enough. Along with the vintage 120 Minutes-style alt-pop of “The Only Heartbreaker,” the ’80s signifiers come hot and heavy on songs like “Love Me More” and “Should’ve Been Me,” which quotes musically from Hall & Oates’ “Maneater.” But this is nothing we haven’t all heard many, many times from indie and pop artists for about a decade now; by now, the 1980s have been strip-mined for every last gated drum track and retro keyboard squiggle. It’s still possible to do this sort of thing well, however, and Laurel Hell suffers from arriving so close after The Weeknd’s Dawn FM, one of the most brilliant evocations of ’80s pop nostalgia of recent years. On Dawn FM, every song is loaded with hooks and ace production choices, a testament to the battery of songwriting and production talent at Abel Tesfaye’s disposal. Laurel Hell sounds feeble by comparison.
Ever since her second album, 2013’s self-released Retired From Sad, New Career In Business, Mitski has collaborated with the producer and musician Patrick Hyland. While the partnership has been fruitful, the music on Laurel Hell suggests that it might have run its course. Mitski is now at a career crossroads. When The Weeknd exited the world of indie prestige for genuine superstardom seven years ago on 2015’s Beauty Behind The Madness, he enlisted no less an authority than Max Martin to help with the transition. He fully accepted that his job was now to make larger-than-life pop smashes, and he dedicated himself to the role. Laurel Hell meanwhile is a tentative, frustrating record of half-measures trapped between musical worlds to which Mitski refuses to commit.
I ask again: Does Mitski really want to be here? Does she want to stay or does she want to go? If she stays, does she want to be a mainstream star who performs in stadiums with other mainstream stars, or does she want to be an enigmatic cult indie hero? Laurel Hell suffers from not resolving these issues before now. She has the talent to go either direction, but as it stands her music either needs to be a whole lot catchier or much weirder. The time has come for Mitski to finally choose.
While Knoxville has managed to escape death a good half-dozen times now, that doesn’t mean his pain level isn’t a daily reminder of his many years of jackassery. Just ahead of the premiere of Jackass Forever, the fourth—and, as of right now at least, final—installment in the Jackass movie franchise, Knoxville was a guest on Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes’ “Smartless” podcast, where he shared that “I have to live with all my past injuries. I’ve had like 16 concussions—I’m not very in touch with my body… And I figured I did this to myself, right?”
In addition to several very serious head injuries, Knoxville shared that he’s sustained a lot of damage to his back as well. “I have two blown disks in my lower back, so that’s something I have to deal with just with exercise and anti-inflammatories,” he said.
Still, Knoxville is able to look on the bright side. “I’m so lucky I’ve had some stunts that almost had forever consequences five or six times,” he said. “I’m almost dead five or six times.”
Jackass Forever arrives in theaters on Friday, February 4th.
Madison Cawthorn isn’t a subtle guy. The far-right whippersnapper recently opted to clean his gun while sitting through a hearing on toxic burn pits (and their devastating effects on veterans). He’s also (all photographic evidence to the contrary) declared that MAGA rioters were simply “normal people” who were only “kind of wandering in,” so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see Cawthorn as one of the Republican congresspeople who are reportedly linked (by Rolling Stone) to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Nor is it off base for him to give a bonkers interview to the Daily Caller’s Brianna Lyman.
One of the gems in this interview: Cawthorn raves about how Donald Trump is a “genius” and a dad figure who somehow hops on the phone with him every day:
“Trump is like a father to me, I get to talk to him every single day. He’s incredible, he’s a genius. Being 26 years old obviously I don’t have a ridiculous amount of experience with dealing with foreign policy, so if I can just call the former president of the United States and say, ‘hey, what would you do in this situation?’ and he can tell me exactly what the whole background is to it. So I love him. He’s been very good to me and he’s been so good to our country.”
Madison Cawthorn: “Trump has become like a father to me. I get to talk to him just about every single day. He’s incredible – such a genius.” pic.twitter.com/LEvpSuirTs
Uh, does Don Jr. know about this? Regardless, Cawthorn’s cult-y, possibly grifty way of speaking perked up some Twitter users.
For many, it’s a cult. For many, it’s a grift. For Cawthorn, who’s so young, ignorant, & immature, it’s probably a little bit of both. https://t.co/XVrS1TlLaI
That wasn’t all. Cawthorn also declared, “I think there are members of the federal government deeply involved in Jan 6.” Eyebrows are raising over how on-the-nose this statement might be.
.@CawthornforNC says of Jan. 6 that “I think that there were members of the federal government who were deeply involved.”
He doesn’t know how close he is to getting it.
The rhetoric of elected officials like him and Trump contributed to the insurrection.
And finally, Cawthorn made a clearly false statement about how the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests resulted in “all of our major cities burned to the ground.”
Madison Cawthorn said during the BLM protests in the summer of 2020 “we had all of our major cities burned to the ground.” pic.twitter.com/ulg46amFjE
It’s a wild set of statements to make, especially when a group of lawyers is working to prevent Madison from running for reelection this year. He’s also got a contender, Josh Remillard, waiting in the wings. Patton Oswalt tweeted support for Remillard and raised some awareness for donations to the North Carolina hopeful’s campaign.
During my time in the Army, I defended our nation abroad.
Now, I’m going to unseat Madison Cawthorn and defend our democracy at home.
Like most late night comedians, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah made a beeline for Joe Rogan’s apology video, but Noah made a surprising pivot by agreeing with the ladies of The View that Rogan’s mea culpa was “refreshing.” In a lengthy unscripted segment, Noah went to bat for Rogan’s apology, but he also repeatedly made it clear that he’s in no way defending Rogan or the misinformation he spreads on his podcast. Noah quipped that, inevitably, the internet will twist his words anyway.
“I actually thought it was pretty classy,” Noah said before joking that he just assumed Rogan would say his podcast was hacked. “But instead, he owned up to it. I thought it was pretty dope. It was refreshing.”
Despite Noah’s praise for Rogan’s apology, and his unusual sympathy for the podcaster, The Daily Show host wanted it known that is not a defense of Rogan’s actions. It’s simply an understanding that the internet pulls things out of context. Via The Daily Beast:
“I’m not trying to defend Joe Rogan,” he said. “And somebody’s maybe going to do it to me, they’re going to take a part out and go ‘Trevor defends Joe Rogan.’” But that being said, he wanted to back up Rogan’s claim that he often hosts people who disagree with him, including a viral clip of his anti-vaccine conspiracy theory getting corrected in real time during his own show.
“But because of the internet age that we live in, we shit on people based on the little that we see of them, we don’t give them the full context,” Noah continued. “So in his defense, I get that part of what he’s saying.”
Several times during the segment, Noah joked, “I can’t believe I’m saying that right now,” after going to bat for Rogan, and it’s easy to see why. Just last week, Noah was dragging Rogan for saying only people from Africa are 100% Black. So it’s easy to understand Noah’s predicament of suddenly finding himself agreeing with Joe Rogan.
Late last week, word broke that Tom Brady was reportedly retiring after 22 seasons in the NFL. His accolades speak for themselves, as a 7-time Super Bowl champion, 5-time Super Bowl MVP, and 3-time NFL MVP, who has the most career passing yards and passing touchdowns of any quarterback in league history.
However, for much of the weekend, there was pushback on the report that he was retiring, as it was clear that Brady wanted to be the one to make the announcement and tie a bow on his career. That happened, officially, on Tuesday norming, as he released a lengthy statement on Twitter that offered thanks to an awful lot of people in his circle and in Tampa where he spent the final two seasons of his career, but rather curiously made no mention of the Patriots where he spent the first 20.
Brady was not happy with how things ended in New England, but it is fairly incredible that in an eight-tweet announcement there isn’t a solitary mention of the Pats, the fans of Boston or the New England area, or anything like it. Then again, finding fuel in any perceived slight and holding onto it as long as possible is part of what made Brady who he was as a competitor and, even as he goes into retirement, that part of him hasn’t been turned off completely.
There’s no TV experience like seeing your old(ish) favorites gearing up for return seasons, and that’s happening a lot in February, which makes for a fantastic upcoming month on TV. Not only will the South Park guys make their razor-sharp comeback, but Snowfall returns to crank up the mean-streets-fueled tension, and Killing Eve brings us back to assassin-land for one final season of reverse cat-and-mousing.
Another twist for you: three tried-and-true franchises are returning with new iterations. The O.G. Law and Order show makes its way back to the airwaves with old and new blood, and Will Smith’s bringing back his Fresh Prince story in the more dramatic Bel-Air. In addition, the ever-popular Vikings is spinning off with a prequel series, all while Pam & Tommy will rock your world. That’s still only about half of the shows on this list (Julia Garner brings a real-life scandal to life in Inventing Anna, Will Arnett’s comedically taking on procedural shows in Murderville, and much more), so there’s no shortage of fresh content coming your way even though (numerically speaking) February’s a shorter month on the calendar. TV can be our valentine.
Here are the biggest shows worth noticing in February:
Pam & Tommy (Hulu limited series streaming 2/2)
The wild real-life story gets an adaptation that’s gloriously trashy and will hit you in the feels with all the guilty-pleasure notes that could make you binge it all in a few sittings. It’s a throwback to the time when the Internet barely existed, but it could be used to propagate a stolen celebrity sex tape that set tons of wheels in motion and threw a wrench into a love story, and it’s sort-of a heist story, which could have been all fun and games if it hadn’t hurt someone in such a devastating way. There are heavy issues along the way, but mostly, this selection is a blast. Sebastian Stan and Lily James are spooky good in their doomed romance with Jason Mantzoukas voicing a penis and Nick Offerman and Seth Rogen as the mulletted bad guys.
South Park: Season 25 (Comedy Central series returning 2/2)
Back in the early 1990s, it’d be hard to envision a world where the South Park dudes would be cranking out the social satire like no one’s business. Not only are they taking over Casa Bonita and inspiring an orchestra, but there’s a whole heaping helping of Paramount+ specials coming our way in addition to a full-on season of f-bombs and rightful torching of Cartman. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are still crushing the adult animation game like no other, and it’s good to have them back.
Murderville (Netflix limited series streaming 2/3)
Procedural shows have already reached parody height in some instances and been lampooned to death (in a largely enjoyable way), so how about another spin on the procedural crime-comedy drama? This show stars Will Arnett as a senior detective who’s accompanied by celebrity guest stars while investigating murders-of-the-day. However, the twist with this show is that the guest star never receives a script, so they have to think quickly and improvise the heck out of this thing while attempting to figure out the killers. In other words, Annie Murphy, Conan O’Brien, Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani, Marshawn Lynch, and Sharon Stone are your guinea pigs.
Raised By Wolves: Season 2 (HBO Max series streaming 2/3)
If you’re a fan of the brand of android-generated confusion inspired by Westworld, then you’ll want to give this Ridley Scott show a chance. Mother’s still doing everything she can to reboot humanity on an unfriendly planet, but as it turns out, her bloodletting strategy isn’t so friendly either. Don’t expect this show to make total sense, but sci-fi fans will love the questions that the show poses with sweeping, sometimes trippy visuals to go along with the intellectual ride.
Inventing Anna (Netflix limited series streaming 2/11)
As if Julia Garner didn’t already rule the small screen in Ozark, we’re getting another heaping helping of her. This time, though, the tight corkscrew curls are largely hidden while Garner portrays Anna Delvey, a real-life Instagram “legend” and fake German heiress. In reality, Delvey was a master con artist who captivated New York’s social elite and ended up dragging the hell out of the American dream in the process. This limited series follows the investigation into Anna’s misdeeds, along with how she stares down trial and keeps those lies alive, all as inspired by Jessica Presler’s New York Magazine article that will get you primed.
Reacher: Season 1 (Amazon Prime series 2/4)
Size matters (unlike with the Tom Cruise film) with this adaptation (starring the 6’2″ Alan Ritchson) of Lee Child’s bestselling novels of the veteran who transitions to civilian life as a drifter. He finds himself wandering the country and ends up in Georgia, where he’s pinned for a homicide that he didn’t commit. Cue a massive conspiracy and plenty of violence and hopefully a healthy dose of leading-man charisma. The real question here is whether Reacher genuinely eschews the cell phone, but you gotta tune in to find out.
Bel-Air: Season 1 (Peacock series streaming 2/13)
The Will Smith-produced Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot previewed a different tone than the comedic original with things promising to get a little bit gritty (because no one can resist that these days) and legitimately dark. In this version of the story, we get to see what happened in Philly that sent Will to brighter California stomping grounds with Uncle Phil bringing his nephew to California “for a better education” and (probably) some fresher threads. That’s the official story, and that appears to be where the darkness begins to ebb, and oh boy, there’s another new Aunt Viv.
Severance: Season 1 (Apple TV+ series streaming 2/18)
Ben Stiller executive produces this dramatic show starring Adam Scott, a leader at a company that’s put its employees through a surgical procedure that essentially divides their work and personal headspaces. It’s a weird take on the work-life balance question, and along the way, Scott’s character must solve a mystery that really makes him question what the hell his company’s been doing. Sounds very Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Maniac, and obviously, this show is meant to make us think.
Space Force: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming 2/18)
Yep, this is happening again. Enough people must have enjoyed a frustrated, bad-boss Steve Carell playing astronaut while John Malkovich somehow finds himself on this series as well, and Lisa Kudrow gets shipped outta there for baffling reasons, but hey, the first season of The Office wasn’t nearly as good as the rest, so maybe there’s some hope for redemption here. Positivity, y’all.
Snowfall: Season 5 (FX series returning 2/23)
The late John Singleton’s brainchild sees Franklin’s family in a ridiculously rich state and about to achieve all of their dreams. However, the cocaine-associated death of basketball star Len Bias raises plenty of heat from politicians, law enforcement, and the LAPD is essentially militarized. All of this somehow makes South Central LA even more dangerous than it already was, due to the C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) units, while the family sees the walls closing in around them.
Law & Order: Season 21 (NBC series reviving 2/24)
Following the semi-triumphant return of Elliot Stabler to the Law & Order universe, Dick Wolf and the other Powers That Be decided there was no time like the present for a revival of the franchise’s flagship series. Expect to see the return of Sam Waterston and Anthony Anderson (but surely no Chris Noth) and the addition of Hugh Dancy as the O.G. show continues to live in syndication while SVU continues to go strong. The real question here is this: will we see Ice-T make a cameo? C’mon, every show in this universe could use some Fin Tutuola.
Vikings: Valhalla (Netflix series streaming 2/25)
Six seasons of the saga weren’t enough for fans of the action-packed, shout-filled O.G. series. This sequel spinoff series follows different stories set 100 years ahead with a different generation of heroes chasing destiny. In the midst of it all, the show will introduce history-famous Vikings, including Leif Eriksson (Sam Corlett), Freydis Eriksdotter (Frida Gustavsson), and Nordic prince Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter). As expected, clashes will be bloody between the English royals and the Vikings while everyone argues into oblivion about Christian and pagan beliefs and fights for the most glory and (of course) for survival.
Killing Eve: Season 4 (BBC America series returning 2/27)
Last season ended with winners and losers aplenty. And c’mon, you didn’t think that Villanelle and Eve would be able to get along in the long term, right? Imagine what domestic life would be like for these two. A former MI6 officer and an assassin who can’t give up the life (or the luxury trappings) are as ill-equipped for reality as Westley and Buttercup in The Princess Bride. Yet there’s no reason why they’ll be able to resist each other forever, but Eve is hellbent upon revenge this season while Villanelle desperately wants to prove that she’s not a “monster.” Good luck to both of them? Meanwhile, Carolyn’s doing the real work by attempting to avenge poor Kenny’s death.
In late 2018, Lady Gaga launched a pair of Las Vegas residencies, “Enigma” and “Jazz & Piano.” As the titles suggest, they were pretty different: The former is more aligned with Gaga’s maximalist pop, while the latter is more about the jazz side of her career. Now, she has announced that she’s bringing her “Jazz & Piano” residency back to Vegas. It all goes down at Dolby Live at Park MGM for nine dates in April and May.
Lady Gaga Jazz & Piano Returning to Las Vegas this Spring at @ParkMGM’s Dolby Live! Sign up to receive the Little Monsters pre-sale code at https://t.co/jnMYUgDoRu for early ticket access tomorrow Tickets go on sale to the public Friday at 10am PT pic.twitter.com/9H247jrZHF
04/14 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/16 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/17 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/21 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/23 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/24 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/28 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
04/30 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
05/01 — Las Vegas, NV @ Dolby Live at Park MGM
Columbus is one of the most visually stunning films in recent years, and not just because it stars certified hotties John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson. It’s a lovely, reflective drama about the son of a renowned architecture who finds himself stranded in Columbus, Indiana, where he strikes up a friendship (and maybe more) with a local library worker who dreams of being an architect. Columbus was the feature-length directorial debut from Kogonada, who also wrote and edited the film. His follow-up, After Yang, has a bigger budget and a higher concept (robots are involved), but it looks just as good.
The official plot synopsis from A24 reads, “When his young daughter’s beloved companion — an android named Yang — malfunctions, Jake searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife and daughter across a distance he didn’t know was there.” Jake is played by Colin Farrell, while his wife Kyra is portrayed by Jodie Turner-Smith.
Our own Mike Ryan caught After Yang during Sundance, and praised it for being “poignant and forlorn, but also always interesting. That’s not always an easy thing to do. In the end, I can’t stop thinking about this movie.” You can watch the trailer above (and be reminded of this Simpsons clip).
After Yang opens in theaters and on Showtime on March 4.
Oftentimes I feel like if certain things in my life would’ve swung just a little differently I might be doing something like Jackass. A lot of dudes probably feel that way about Jackass (surely a key facet of its appeal), especially ones who were into punk rock in the late 90s and always dreamed of writing a subversive zine.
That’s how Jackass began, as a subversive skate magazine, called Big Brother, which lived so far on the fringes of culture that everyone involved tended to assume every issue might be their last. That’s how Chris Pontius first got involved with the Jackass crew, as a teenage skater from San Luis Obispo, California who was interviewed for one of the first issues and appeared fully nude in the accompanying photo spread. Pontius later began working for the mag, the interviewee becoming interviewer, until the day he got fired for not showing up to a tour.
He ended up working at Jamba Juice and as a temp for Charles Schwab in the interim, and it’s funny to think about how his life could’ve turned out, had things swung just a bit differently. Luckily he and the Big Brother boys — Jeff Tremaine, Spike Jonze, and Johnny Knoxville, among them — eventually reconciled, allowing Pontius to become known to the wider world as Jackass‘s go-to guy for dick-related stunts (and later as Steve-O’s costar in Wildboyz, their more wildlife-centric Jackass spinoff).
Thank God for us he did, because Jackass, America’s greatest cultural contribution of the 21st century, wouldn’t be nearly what it is without Chris Pontius, its most outwardly-lovable personality. While other members of the gang might come off crazy (Knoxville), needy (Steve-O), or obnoxious (Bam Margera), Pontius has always maintained a mischievous little brother quality, the Baby Spice of Jackass, even while rubbing his crotch on a Japanese fortune teller or chugging a glass full of horse semen. His natural cuteness is inseparable from his larger persona, probably the reason Jeff Tremaine kept one of his framed nudes (from a Jackass segment where they submitted Pontius nude pics to Playgirl) behind his desk, or why early in his career he got hired on as Charles Schwab assistant despite being vastly underqualified, after the staff told him they thought he looked like Patrick Swayze.
Not that Chris Pontius is skating by on looks alone. Whereas Johnny Knoxville is a hybrid of carnival barker and Buster Keaton, Pontius is more like a Borscht Belt comedian who’s really stoned all the time, with a penchant for the corny one-liner and an ability to boil down complex situations into a single sardonic quip. He’s Party Boy! Who doesn’t love Party Boy?
—
So I know you got involved with Jackass because you were working at Big Brother magazine. How did you get involved with the magazine? What was happening in your life at that point?
At the time, I was just a skateboarder. I got interviewed just for being a skater. My interview was pretty out of hand, and when it came out, it made a big impression on Jeff Tremaine and the other guys. My friend, Thomas Campbell, who actually was the writer that did the interview was like, “Your interview really blew them away. I think you should meet them.” And I was like, “Yeah… I should work for them, huh?”
So I called up Jeff Tremaine and introduced myself and said I should work for them. And he was like, “I think you should.” After that, I just started writing stories. then we started traveling together. It was kind of a magazine version of Jackass almost. Skateboarding was the vehicle, but it highlighted all the other dumb stuff that skaters did when they weren’t skating. How do I put it? Skateboarding was… it was when the whole early ’90s kind of gangster phase was going on, and everyone just was fitting into that mold. Big Brother just attracted all the freaks and misfits from the skateboarding world. That’s why all of us gravitated toward the magazine. It censored nothing, and so it was just awesome. It always seemed like it was going to end the next issue, but it just kept going for years.
So for that first interview, were you still in high school at that point? You were in San Luis Obispo?
Yeah. I was 18 when I did it. There was a picture of me naked from when I was 17. So yeah. There was an underaged nude photo of myself in the magazine from the very beginning.
Has that gotten big on the black market?
Oh God, I still have the issues. They’re hard to come by, but… actually, Thomas Campbell, who’s now a decently known artist and photographer, I don’t know if he’s made prints. I hope he still has negatives of the photos because it was a picture of me and this girl that me and my friends were good friends with, Shayna, naked, and she’s wearing like a dunce cap, and I’m swinging my wiener around. We were both under 18. She was my friend’s girlfriend.
Is it true that you got fired from Big Brother at one point before Jackass began?
Yeah, I got fired maybe twice, but one time I didn’t get on a plane to go on a tour. I don’t know what happened. Something happened and I decided not to go on the tour. It was in Florida, and everyone else got to Florida and I wasn’t there. So I got fired for ditching out on the tour. At that time, my only real job that I’d ever had was Big Brother, so I was like, “Whoa, God, what am I going to do with my life?” And because I’ve got no real education or job skills, I first– I lived in San Francisco at the time, and I was like, “Oh, I’ll work at Jamba Juice. I’ll drink smoothies all day and get healthy.” So then I got a job at Jamba Juice, and it ended up not being for me, so I quit on the third day. Then I signed up with a temp agency, and my first job was at Charles Schwab. At the end of the day, there were all these other temps there, and the manager came up to me and was like, “You know, we want to keep someone on permanently today, and we’d like to ask you to stay on with us.” So I got hired at Charles Schwab out of nowhere. I worked there for a while, and then I left there eventually. Then I worked for a woman’s foundation. I was the only male employee they’d ever had, which is the biggest philanthropy organization for women’s charities in the world, and that was great. But eventually, it was time to go back. I resolved things with Big Brother, and so I went back wrote an article about my life after Big Brother. There’s actually a story called “Life After Big Brother.”
So that means there are some other Charles Schwab temps out there that can say that they got beat out for a position at an investment firm by Chris Pontius?
Oh yeah. I remember I was sitting by this guy, his name is Calico, and he knew how to do the work. At the time, I barely knew how to use computers or any of the current programs, and we were sitting there doing our work, and he turned to me, and he’s like, “I heard they’re going to keep one temp at the end of the day. God, I hope it’s me.” And they kept me. It was funny, because the manager of the payroll department who hired me on, she was like, “You know, you kind remind me of Patrick Swayze.” And then this other guy from the department said the same thing. I was like, “Oh my God, I think they just kept me on permanently because I reminded them of Patrick Swayze.” It’s weird how life works that way.
I was going to ask how it became your niche, but it sounds like basically from your first interview with Big Brother, you were “the naked guy.” Have you ever regretted being the dick-stunt guy?
No, not even in times when it was painful, because when I was in high school, me and my friends would always make home movies and stuff, and we realized early on that whatever you do, if you do it naked, it automatically makes it 10 times funnier. Nudity is just funny, and it’s way underused for comedy. And I’ll tell you what… sometimes, you might not feel like getting naked, but it’s weird, once you take your clothes off it strips away all inhibitions. You’re exposing everything. It’s like almost like stripping into a superhero costume. It really is that. I haven’t really thought of it like that way too much, but it is. It’s like Superman putting on his outfit.
What are the worst dick-related injuries you’ve had?
Oh man. Okay. For Jackass 3D, they made the mistake of scheduling three dick stunts in a row. The first one, they made like a balsa wood penis to wear over my penis, and they put this woodpecker on it, and they had the woodpecker try to peck through. And it hurt really bad when the pecker would hit my pecker. The beak went into my pee hole! Oh, God, it hurt so bad. And then the next day, they had me put it in a mousetrap, which evolved into a rat trap, and then… What was the other dick one?
The snake? No, that was the second movie.
That one, oh, that was amazing because we had to find like… I mean, we knew a little something about snakes, and we’re good friends with some snake experts, but we had to find a really mean snake that we knew would go for it, and it’s got to be big, but not too big. But it’s amazing. Penises are actually really tough.
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Then they wanted to have it attacked by this cat one time, I guess this really mean cat, but they put catnip all over it, and then the cat just ended up snuggling up with it. It backfired, thank God. But this movie, my penis went through a lot. Right from the opener on. There’s some hilarious, but really scary dick stuff. With penis-based stunts, we get a lot of inspiration from cartoons and stuff.
It’s very Looney Tunes.
Yeah. And it’s a lot of like, “What would happen if you did this?” Anyway. Penises are really underused in comedy. …Until now.
Do you have a most painful injury/stunt that you ended up regretting most that weren’t dick-related?
God, what sticks out? I mean, there’s been ones where I’d hurt my knee and thought I was going to have to get surgery, and broke my ankle. But… It’s weird. A lot of those were not even on the most exciting things. Oh, God. Sorry. Wait, no the most painful thing I ever did by far was this thing called The Glove Of Ants. This was for Wildboyz, the show that we did after Jackass, and it’s a rite of passage for this tribe in the Amazon. You put these ants, called bullet ants, they weave them into this glove, and when boys come of age, you put this glove on that has hundreds of ants that have the most painful sting of any insect. You wear this glove for the duration of the shaman singing this song, which is about eight minutes or so. You get stung hundreds of times, and that was by far the worst, most painful, dreadful thing I’ve ever done in my life combined. It’s just like venom for 24 hours, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So yeah, that was the worst thing. I would never do that again.
When we’re filming Jackass stunts, there’s always some local yokel yahoo that pipes up, that’s maybe on set for some reason and goes, “Oh man, you guys are going to get fucked up!” We were always like, shut up. I mean, you don’t need to be more nervous than you already are, and someone has to pipe up and say that, who’s never done it before? But when someone from Brazil told me that I was going to get fucked up, I was like, “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure. It’s probably pretty bad, but not that bad,” but it was horrible.
So what does horse cum taste like?
Horse cum, God. It’s not the taste that gets you. It’s the consistency. It’s just like… for one thing it’s the amount. I mean immediately we just had a whole glass of horse cum. It was obvious that someone had to drink it, but it’s… the consistency. It’s just… so ropy.
Yeah. That fits. [I was trying to come up with a joke about cowboys using ropes here, but I couldn’t make it work in time. -Ed]. So there was going to be a conversation about who had to drink it, did you just grab it?
Oh, there was a conversation about it. Steve-O has a weak stomach, so we knew he’d throw up right when it touched his lips. And then Johnny Knoxville was there too, but it was a Wildboyz trip, so I knew it had to be me. But before I drank it, I brokered a deal with Jeff Tremaine. Because I showed up late for work the day before in a weird state. So this was going to get me out of trouble for what I had done before, and it was going to get me out of trouble for something bad I was going to do in the future. So we made a deal, before I drank it. So yeah, yeah, it tasted exactly the way you’d think it would taste, I guess.
What do you think is the stunt that embarrassed your parents the most?
Well, I don’t know about embarrassed my parents. I mean, the new movie is going to take it to a whole new level. I don’t know what they’re going to think of it. But in the last movie I was sitting next to my mom in the theater at the premiere, and there’s a slow-motion part of me getting a ping pong ball pitched to me, and I swing, but with my penis, and I hit it. And it was slow motion, so there’s so much screen time of the penis hitting the ball. It’s really funny, but I was a little like, “Oh man, sorry mom.”
I guess it’s different in slow motion, huh?
She’s like, “Oh Chris.” But my parents are cool. I mean, I was running around naked, doing silly stuff my whole life since I was born. Nothing would surprise them.
So I feel like there’s a sort of paradox with Jackass, where it only works because you guys are really good friends, but also a lot of it consists of you guys torturing each other. Do you have any thoughts on that? On how friendship works in the Jackass universe?
Well, it’s like… it’s kind of like in the band when we’re traveling around somewhere. We’re filming, so there’s a good chance something bad’s going to happen to you. I guess there’s no holds barred, really. We’re like this family, but also… When we’re filming, and there’s cameras going, whatever you do to each other, it’s worth it for the film. But sometimes stuff goes too far, tears get shed. There’s at least a few cries every movie. Not because something hurt, but because someone’s emotions are hurt.
What’s the longest someone’s ever been bent out of shape about one of the pranks, you think?
Well Ehren, sometimes… Danger Ehren just repeatedly… He pisses me off, because he has a habit of talking over people. And so, he just won’t shut up, so you have to try and make him shut up. I mean, Ehren’s amazing in the new movie. He almost steals the show, but I wish I would’ve cut his tongue off at the beginning of it because he doesn’t need his voice other than to scream. And he’s all, oh God, he just finds one way or another to piss us off. I mean, we love him, and he’s amazing in the movie, but… not one actual sentence that comes out of his mouth is worth hearing.
What’s the weirdest encounter that you’ve had with a celebrity, or… the person who was a fan that you were maybe at least expecting?
I didn’t realize it, but we were at this event, and this guy came up to me and was really into Wildboyz and Jackass, particularly Wildboyz, because it was animal-based. I talked to this guy for like an hour about animals, and all the crazy things we’d done, and swimming with sharks and crocodiles and alligators and all that. And then the next day, my friend’s like, “Oh, last night when you were talking to Leo…” And I was like, “That was Leonardo DiCaprio”? I had no idea it was him. He was a super cool guy, and then when we left, I did remember he was with some really modelish woman. And I was like, “Whoa, that guy’s got a gnarly model girlfriend?” I didn’t even know it was Leonardo DiCaprio.
‘Jackass Forever’ opens nationwide February 4th. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.
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Returning to Las Vegas this Spring at 
