Some people I know - transvestites -- said they danced for you at the Queen Mary a couple of years ago?
[Confused] What's the Queen Mary?

It's a drag queen/tranny bar.
I think maybe that was wishful thinking on their part. I've never been inside a transvestite bar, that I know of, nor have I really watched anybody, any male strip.

So that was some other guy?
Maybe they wished it was me. Transvestites, what do I think about 'em? I don't. If you want to dress like a chick, go ahead! Sexual preference or lifestyle, none of that really registers with me. Gay? Great. Bi? Great. Straight? Great. It's all laundry to me. I don't care what anyone's sucking on. It's all the same to me.

I talked to Ian MacKaye [of Fugazi] a few weeks ago, when he was coming out to visit you. What do you guys do when you hang out together?
Just cruise, mostly. Put on some tunes, go drive places and talk and catch up with what each other's doing. He played me a bunch of new Fugazi tapes -- some songs they're working on -- amazing shit! We both get up early in the morning, because he's on east coast jet-lag, and I'm on the get-up-early jet-lag thing. We have a great time. He's my favorite human being. Dig that dude, man.

Where do you want to travel next?
I want to go back to Africa. Every time I come out of there, you get the feeling like you got away with something, that maybe you weren't supposed to get out of it. It's kind of…hairy. Like one time I was leaving Kenya on the anniversary of their democracy or something, and this woman cab driver was taking me to the airport, and she goes, 'It's a good thing you're leaving today.' I go 'Whaddya mean?' She goes, 'Things are gonna get pretty intense around here tonight, some things are gonna happen.' I go, 'Great.' Where am I going from there? Madagascar. Where you're warned at the border, 'Be careful! Shit happens!' So I went right into that -- more third-world intensity. I just got back from India, and that was a whole other thing -- everything is just different. I saw these dead people being burned, you know, on the funeral pyres and all that. After a few days you just kinda roll with it. But the first couple of days, the wrong gears were kickin'.

I know. I just got back from Nicaragua and felt kind of patriotic for the first time in my life. Do you feel fortunate when you come back from places like that?
Sure, we have it really good here. It doesn't make me go 'America is great, fuck you,' but it does make me go, 'Wow, we have it good so let's recycle, and just be cool, because we really do have it good here.' We should be really cool to other people who are getting fucked. When I go to some funky old neighborhood in Thailand and see the gleaming white KFC sign, I'm like 'AAAHHH!' That's when you see what the hell of America is -- a picture of a Thai girl in a Kentucky Fried Chicken outfit. I've learned a lot by traveling -- it makes me love America in a way, but it also gets me mad at it, too. We have such a great thing and yet there's still racism and all that stuff. It's like, we've got it so good, what are you fuckin' it up for? We're so lucky.

Is it ever weird having money now, after being poor?
For me, more money just means a couple more books and CDs. That's where the money goes. I wanna listen. I wanna read. But I don't collect, you know, 50 pairs of shoes. I've got three. And I've got a BMW out there.

What model?
540. I bought it used, half-price. And don't worry, I'm not trying to say 'I'm keeping it real.' I mean, there's not much reality in my life. I'm in a band, people know who I am, 'Can I have your autograph?' What's real about that? You just kinda have to field it and do the best you can.

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