Punk rock lost a legend last week when Mike Herrera died in his sleep at age 33. No, no, not that one. The other one. The guy from MxPx is still fine. He played bass for Goldfinger over the weekend and according to Instagram took his daughter to a pumpkin patch yesterday. You know, the kinda stuff you'd expect the writer of "Chick Magnet" to have done. 

      The Blackout Pact, the band this Herrera was most commonly known for, were in a lotof ways a lost perfect gem. Their only full-length album, "Hello Sailor" was released in 2005. Less than a year later they'd broken up; victims of their own faults and vices. 

     I can vividly remember the first time I ever became aware of the group, via the music video for "We Drink So You Don't Have To." Living in San Diego, I'd just gotten home from work and it aired probably 3/4 of the way through Steven's Untitled Rock Show, a daily music video show on FUSE that was intended to cater to eyeliner/flat ironed bangs set, but more and more often seemed to be playing the stuff that I assumed no one else but me liked, such as The Explosion, The Bronx or the buried in a drawer video for Jawbreaker's "Fireman." 

        Anyway, without introduction or explanation comes the image of a legitimatelyinebriated derelict who's ages appears to be in his mid 20's but who's health is more accurately in line with a Wino in their 50's, dressed in some sort of soiled lounge attire and a straw hat from a luau sitting in naugahyde bar booth. He then throws his hands in the air, as if to protest something off-screen and then smashes a bottle of CuttySark over his head and slumps over. This starts the song.

    "Dah-nuh," rings a single, sustained guitar chord, as we see a band who appears to be set up in the corner of an all black room with smoking filling the air as if it's the corner of a haunted house that ran out of stuff to put there. We're only one note in and I already know this song kicks ass. "What is this?" I immediately ask myself, eyes growing wider. 

       These dudes all look like scumbags; their clothes are filthy. All are unshaven. At least half the group has neck tattoos, which in 2005 was the mark of Cain regarding means of future employment. The singer is tiny with huge sideburns, resembling what Danzig could have ended up looking like if instead of working out he'd taken up drinking PBR and doing drugs. The bass player is the drunk from the opening, who we are then shown being unconsciously drug out of the bar. Despite appearing to be covered in a layer of grime that would need a coin operated pressure washer to remove, he plays a late model Ernie Ball Sting Ray bass, which is odd because he strikes as the kind of guy who'd not really give a shit about his gear at all and would use any money he'd had on inebriants. This leads me to conclude he'd either won the thing in a drawing at the Ernie Ball booth at a Warped Tour he'd snuck into, or stolen it from said booth during load out and doesn't own the case for it. 

     Over the next two and a half minutes we travel with these dudes as they drive around and "Bohemian Rhapsody" to their own song, picking up members along the way; Someone jumps out of a second story window and into the vehicle, apparently being discovered mid coitus as apparent from a girl with antlers tattooed on her clavicle draped in only a sheet pining out from the open window, and some dude in aviators waving a 2x4 on the front porch, symbolizing an angry male relative. Both actors seem to have been recruited by the sole fact that they were both hanging around when the video camera showed up. Someone else hangs out on a street corner with a bunch of guys dressed like Phil Lynott era Thin Lizzie, all playing air guitar. The band appears and he makes his own social jailbreak into the vehicle. I suspect Thin Lizzy are played the band membersthemselves.

      The song itself is incredible, combining the best parts of my favorite bands at the time. The gruffness of Hot Water Music with the humor of the Lawrence Arms mixed with the hooks of Alkaline Trio and the nihilisticdrone of the Murder City Devils. "Broken limbs (ribs?) are all I have to hold me now," laments each chorus, one I'm already singing along with by its second refrain. 

     By the time the song reaches the bridge, we're shown a single masked and cloaked individual in the middle of a black mass, palms out in honor of the dark lord. He answers his flip phone, and then in the greatest jump cut since the blowing of a match/desert sunrise in Lawrence of Arabia he's in the front seat, head banging and shouting along. "LET'S BEGIN! BEGIN AGAIN!"

     The video ends with the whole gang returning to the same bar the bass playing was kicked out of in the beginning. I'm sitting down but I feel like I've been knocked on my ass. I later find out the band is from Colorado and are being svengali'd by Thursday singer Geoff Rickley who's produced and released their album, and because it's 2005, gotten it into regular rotation on basic cable television. 

     I buy the album. It's good overall, but "We Drink..." which opens it, is by far the stand out track. While I love the other aforementionedbands dearly, The Blackout Pact seem so much more relatable, maybe because the others are already legends while these guys are just kids like me who've not so much figured out a way to replicate the formula but use it get across what they need to say. 

   Over the next year, I look forward to seeing this band, but never do. Their legend grows in the pre-Twitter early days of social media. Their bass player is profiled in an article in Alternative Press magazine on rock and roll tour injuries, but unlike others in the story who've suffered blown out vocal cords or broken collar bones, he's recounts how he destroyed his stomach lining from drinking too much and had to go to an ER in the middle of nowhere and can now only eat yogurt for the foreseeable future. The piece is accentuated with a photo of him drinking a Sam Adams in the back of a moving van. He prominentlydisplays the outline of a spade tattooed under his left eye. 

      Their Myspace page offers the occasionalpeak into the lives of these maniacs, with a live shot here and there, but mostly pictures of them doing drugs and partying their underwear. Eventually a semi professional "EPK" video emerges in their feed. It mostly contains footage of the band smoking cigarettes, talking about what scumbags they are in front of a venue they just played, recounting how Scarlet Johansen called them bums and briefly features hipster actor and star of Black Hawk Down, Josh Hartnett calling the band "Tight." This is replayed several times, in close up and in slow motion.

     During this time in my life, I find my bored and dissatisfied. I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, yet can't seem to find the type of friend's I'd like to have. Those I've gone to college with are all junior business men, getting into real estate and buying cars, and those I’ve become acquainted with at the bars in my neighborhood seem to just want to out-scene each other, with names to drop and musical taste to one up each other with. I yearn for a gang of dudes to just get drunk and have fun with. To kick in the door of a bar with, and just have a good time. I envy the dudes in the Blackout Pact. They don't care about anything except playing music and having fun with each other. 

       About a month before the band breaks up, they post a "tour journal" on their Myspace page. It consists of about 3 minutes of some band members and I assume road crew sitting in a hotel room in front of someone's Mac book and basicallyrecounting about how hard they've been partying on the Vans Warped Tour. They brandish multiple vials of Vicodin and a 1/2 gallon of Jameson (the amount of both they refer to as "hella"), to which Herrera displays his "talent" of being able to chug a large amount of it in several consecutive gulps. Someone quotes a Pepsi commercial featuring Shaquille O’Neil from the early 90's and then several members put out their genitals. Herrera and the band's drummer are the only people I recognize from the music video, making the possibility that much of the band has left and been replaced. This video is taken down a short while later. 

     Not long after, the band is on tour with (presumably) terrible group Scary Kids Scaring Kids when they announce abruptlythat they are disbanding immediately. A few days later, Punknews.org publishes an email from someone stating that they're the bands tour manager. He explains that a laptop belonging to another band member on the tour had gone missing, Blackout were suspected of the crime, it was found in the drummer's belongings and the band no longer exists. I had been planning on seeing them in San Diego that weekend with The Lawrence Arms and The Draft. I end up skipping the show, and take my girlfriend to dinner where she talks about wanting to move to Chicago to be closer to her family. 

    Blackout Pact should have been huge. They had the potential to be to Hot Water Music what Blink-182 were to Screeching Weasel. The songs were there, the swagger was there. They really didn't give a fuck, and that's what probably ended them. 

    Herrera would go on to form several other projects and several years later record an EP accredited to the Blackout Pact, of which I was unaware existed until today. I would eventually move to Chicago with said girlfriend and break up with her a year later. In the wake of this, I would find my own group of friends there. Bearded scumbags who'd I'd call my own. We'd ride bikes together, slug Jameson in filthy dive bars, cling onto each other like the brothers I'd dreamt about having in San Diego, and shout together "LET'S BEGIN! BEGIN AGAIN!" while the rest of the bar stared at us in contempt and wondered who the hell put this on the jukebox. We'd glare back, not giving a fuck.

       Before each chorus, "We Drink..." features someone in the background, faintlyshouting, "Was this everything you’d hopedfor?" 

Rest in Peace, Mike. Thanks again. 

      

Obie Perez is a LIAR!: An Official Retraction

Last week I published an article about Obie Perez. In that article, of which the main objective was to present his opinion on a movie, Obie told a story that became the center piece of that article. People asked me about it. They told me how funny it was. I was proud of the outrageous tale I had goaded out of one of Chicago's most colorful characters. 

During our talk, Obie purported to have had sexual intercourse on commercial airline flights, three separate times with three different women, claiming that one of those times was with a woman he met on the flight. At the time, I felt like I was sitting on journalistic gold. Obie was candid and frank, obliging in giving every thought, feeling and detail of the encounter, letting the reader experience such an encounter as if they were Obie himself. Honestly, I was amazed.

Several days after the interview, I approached Obie and asked him if he remembered me interviewing him at all. At first he did not, but then after reminding him of several details, he began to vaguely recall us talking. When I asked him about the Mile High Club incidencent, he responded with, "Oh yeah? You know I made that shit up, right?" I was stunned and my stomach turned. I was in complete shock. Not only was the most interesting aspect of the inteview not true, but I had told you, the reader something that wasn't true. He told me that he had, in fact had sex on a plane before, but it wasn't with a stranger and it wasn't during an aformentioned free flight from California that passed Chicago and whent to Pensylvania, and then he had to go back to Chicago. I am not happy to have to come to you and tell you that something that I presented as factual, something I was told by Obie was factual, was in fact a lie. 

To get to the bottom of why he told me something that wasn't true, I sat down with Obie a second time to discuss why he had decieved me and got to the bottom of what really happened. During this interview, Obie claimed that he was not as intoxicated as he was during the original interview, but it is my journalistic opinion that he was far more ineberated this time, which can been noted from him spilling PBR on my shoes and his much more frequent tendancy to ramble in jibberish. 

Me: All right. Obie Perez. Two week ago, you and I talked about Prometheus-

Obie: Asshole!

Me: While we were talking about Prometheus, you told me you'd had sex on a plane three times. I asked you about the one time you said you'd met someone on a plane and had sex with that person on the flight you met them on. You later told me that you made that up, that it was total bullshit. Why did you do that?

Obie: Because talking about sex on a plane is pimp-

Me: It's pimp?

Obie: Fuck yeah it's pimp-

Me: I KNOW THAT! But why are you leading me astray with false information?

Obie: No nah nah nah. No. Ah. I was-

Me: You're spilling your beer, dawg. On m'ah feet. 

Obie: No. I was severely, SEVERELY ineberated the last time we had this interview.

Me: Were you more drunk then or now?

Obie: I was definately more drunk then

Me: You're more drunk now.

Obie: ......No.

Me: And that's my professional opinion. I'm BASET certified.

Obie: ARE YOU A BARTENDER?!?!

Me: I'm BASET certified.

Obie: ARE YOU A BARTENDER?

Me: I've served drinks for money.

Obie: Are you a bar tender?

Me: Yes.

Obie: No you're not.

Me: Well, technicly-

Obie: No you're not!

Me: Well, irregardless. Why did you make that story up?

Obie: Because. Well........basicly......I WAS WASTED! I WAS WASTED!

Me: Well, tell me this-

Obie: I was wasted! And when I'm wasted, I make shit up. 

Me: But you've done things that cool, haven't you? Obie, your life is already that cool. You do that shit, son. Don't you? You roll like that, right?

a very long pause follows, accompanied by an intelligible grunt

Me: All right. Although you did not-

Obie: SO MY HAND NOW IS, I'm (jibberish follows)

Me: What?

Obie: My hand is not cooperating.

Me: Ok

Obie: That's fucked ah dibble zibble ah boop. So now I'm angry at my hand-

Me: Let me ask you this-

Obie: Angry at my hand-

Me: You're angry at you hands?

Obie: Have you ever been angry at a body part?

Me: (sigh) Yeah....'

Obie: Like, angry at the point, like, "fuck you..."

Me: Yeah, I've had my foot falls asleep

Obie: Strike. Strike. Fuck you. Cuz zimble dimble bim bap. 

Me: Let me ask you this, although, have you ever met someone and then fucked them on a plane?

Obie:.......Yeah. 

Me: Well, but you said you hadn't. I mean, like met them on the plane-nevermind. What was the shortest amount of time between meeting someone and then fucking someone? For you?

Obie: Ah, I've had sex on a plane twice. Once-

Me: No! This is bullshit. Ok, Once, you were with your girlfriend-

Obie: Once with someone I was dating, and once with a random person.

Me: A random person?

Obie: Yeah

Me: Oh that's bullshit, you totally said that before. Let me ask you this: although that story you told me was made up, could that have been true? Are you capable of meeting someone on a plane and then fucking them on a plane, on that same flight?

Obie: Yeah

Me: Hell yeah?

Obie: Fuck yeah.

Me: And isn't that all that matters? 

Obie:....No!

Me: No? Well, actually what I'm asking is, although you didn't do it, do you think you could have done it?

Obie: Yeah

Me: Hell yeah? Alright, any final thoughts?

Obie: Ah, when and whenever possible, why wouldn't you do......have sex on an airplane?

Me: Exactally. Thank you Obie.

Obie: Just sayin. 

Me: Thank you.

Obie: Just sayin. 

"I LOVE ROCKS!"- A discussion on film and life with Obie Perez

Obie Perez is a barback at the club I work at in Chicago. He is also one of my favorite people. 

He's Puerto Rican by heritage but looks black, is an avid cyclist, collector of tattoos, has a flair for style and a personality that could be described as a combination of Redd Fox, Flava Flav and Samuel L Jackson in the Shaft movie. A fixture at most social gatherings and can be often found smoking cigarettes and philosophising on life. Some of his more interesting tattoos include Jetpacks on the back of each calf and "The Gun Hand" and "The Bad Hand" on his right and left, respectively. His current hairstyle is 5 inch "fro-hawk" but in the past has rocked everything from large and small Afros, no hair, as well as intricate designs chopped into his scalp. For one entire summer, he inexplicably wore a flat brimmed ball cap, gold chain and non prescription glasses. I told him he looked like a backpack rapper who was out to get the educated bitches. He did not find this funny. During the winter he can be seen wearing a pea coat with an upturned collar and a paisley ascot. He likes to wear white jeans year round. The really tight ones. One year for Halloween, he went as Robert Downey Jr's character from Tropic Thunder. He utilized neither wigs nor makeup and was a dead ringer. When he wears a suit, he looks strikingly like President Obama. 

He has acute narcolepsy, and falls asleep among friends so frequently that a facebook page titled "RIP VanObie" was made exclusively for posting embarrassing photos of him passed out. Drinking until 6 am almost every night does not help this. Once he fell asleep in a restaurant next to me before his food came and was still out when the table was done and it was time to go. Scared because I was broke and worried that I've have to pay his bill, I spent literally 60 seconds shaking him so he'd wake up. He finally came to and responded with "All right, all right, calm the fuck down," and then went back to sleep.

A few days ago we attended a matinee of the film "Prometheus" with a large group of friends. During several key scenes he spoke out loud in a normal conversation level his opinion about what was happening on screen, namely during a scene that implied sex was to occur off screen and when two Caucasian crew members' ignorant curiosity lead them to be killed by space snakes. I decided to sit down over drinks with Obie and ask his opinion about the film. This lead to multiple revelations such as him being an avid fan of SciFi, he is an advanced member of the Mile High Club and that he's paranoid of "The Man" . What follows is are excerpts from that conversation.

Me: Obie state you're name.

Obie: Really?

Me: Yeah. I'll make this official.

Obie: Obie Perez.

Me: So Obie, you saw Prometheus. Tell me the story of Prometheus. What is Prometheus?

Obie: Prometheus is..... Prometheus is a precursor to the original Alien.....Ripley, uh, Ridley Scott movie....Just based on the end, is a precursor to the original Ridley Scott, uh, space movie. The reason there's such a huge hype is because Ridley Scott, like, deterred from that and HAS NOT done a movie in that scope, of that genre, since, uh-

Me: He hasn't done a SciFI movie since Blade Runner?

Obie: Exactly

Me: So did you like the movie?

Obie: Fuck yeah, I did. But I had some major problems with it.

Me: What didn't you like, the robot?

Obie: No, no, no. The robot....the robot was cool. My one main complaint about the movie, and I've said this from the beginning was that the storyline was was too leading.

Me: Way to what?

Obie: Leading.

Me: Lenient?

Obie: Leading. Way too leading.

Me: Oh, ok.

Obie: The Story line, if you were like, I mean, visually, the movie was amazing, but if we're not being dazzled by the storyline, visually, the storyline is exceedingly leading..

Me: Ok, ok. So talk about the Spaceship. Talk about who's on the crew?

Obie: Again! Super leading. A gruff, Irish dude with face tattoos? After the fact, after the fact, I was like "Of course! Of course! He's the first person who's going to die." Because, because-

Me: What'd you think of him before he died? He had a Mohawk AND he had face tattoos.

Obie: He was cool, but like, he was like, really it was very, it was very easy to make him a candidate for, like, among the first to die. I mean, like he was very gruff and like standoffish at first, and then he's like kinda like having a panic attack and then it's like all of a sudden, like, now ya die. 

Me: Do you think the crazy irish dude with the mohawk and the face tattoos is the new crazy black dude, like in Apocalypse Now, the guys who were freaking out and saying stuff like "Sheeeeeeet man!" and firing machine guns?

Obie: I would say yes, except for the fact that they're like, they were all scientists, and they, like you remember the part in the movie where he's all, "OBVIOUSLY!, like, I love rocks, obviously you don't give a shit about rocks, so I'm gonna leave, like, I want to go back to the ship!" And he was like screaming, "Obviously you don't give a shit about rocks! I love rocks! That's what I do. I'm a geologist, I love rocks!"

Me: Rocks is his jam.

Obie: So, "I want to go back to the ship!" And they're like, "all right, that's fine" So in that point in the movie, they were like, "All right, that's fine" so he like (unintelligible) then to the other guy, he's like "You want to go back to this ship?" and he's like "Fuck yeah, I want to go back to the ship" 

Me: And then they didn't, they got stuck on the place 

Obie: Thats why, that is a discrepancy that I have, because you fast forward uh, like 16 seconds from that conversation in that scene in the film, they all leave, and go back to the transport and they're leaving and these two guys, they still haven't found their way back. Problem with the storyline. Like, you needed to have two dudes in a scene to die and this is how you chose to do it.

Me: What did you think about the scene where they died? What did you think of the snakes?

Obie: No, no, no. Mogan. Mogan. The way they died was fine. My problem is. They was a team. My problem is how they got to the point to where they died. Like I said, there was a team.

Me: Like, they should be smart people but they act like dumbasses?

Obie: Yes! But also, they should have already been back to the vehicle. They left before everyone else. They left, running. I don't know what fucking wrong turn they took, but you should have already, like both you guys should have been driving, and been like "We're already out, you people should just jump on, because we're out!" Didn't happen. 

Me: What did you think of the white snake things?

Obie: They were awesome. They preset them, like when the group walked into the room, and like all of a sudden there were like worms coming out of the ground and like all the shit started melting and like, alright is this like biological warfare? 

Me: But, like when the guy's all "Come here, girl" and like trying to poke it, did-

Obie: No, that was like, stupid. That was stupid.

Me: Did you think those things looked like vaginas?

Obie: That was stupid. I don't think those things looked like vaginas. I that like, there's a plant , as big as me, that's like, walking out of a swamp, I'm not gonna go pet it. My actual, first response, if I was in that situation-

Me: You'd hit it with a stick?

Obie: No! Fuck you. I would get, I would have the flame thrower-

Me: No! But they didn't have the flame thrower because they stupid lady said, "No weapons! This is a scientific expedition" What'd you think of that?

Obie: You know what I disagreed with that? The whole "this is a scientific expedition"? Not only, because of the myriad of science fictions movies that I've seen, like any old or new Star Trek is, it's just always a scientific expedition, that does not mean, that-

Me: Shit's not gonna get real?

Obie: Shit's not gonna get real. Getting back to the second Alien, remember when they were like "No frag cartridges", remember.

Me: Oh yeah, they were all "What are we supposed to use, harsh language?" 

Obie: And they go back, and they had back ups.

Me: Hey, remember who died first in Aliens? The black guy. (Pvt. Frost) 

Obie: Wierzbowsk? 

Me: No, it wasn't Wierzbowski. But I do remember them yelling his name, "Wierzbowski! Wierzbowski!"

Obie: "Wierzbowski!Wierzbowski!" And like the cameraman-

(a series of Aliens quotes proceeds with the two of us shouting them at each other)

Me: What did you say when the two guys got attacked by the white vagina snakes? You said something out loud. What was it?

Obie: I started laughing. 

Me: No, you said "Fucking white people," didn't you?

Obie: Well yeah, because I was like, again, that was one of the points in that movie where, before it actually happened, I was, I'm pretty sure that was like, "Yeah, only a white dude would be like, 'Oh, she likes me! Oh, she's beautiful'" Only a white dude would like, walk up to a random, a PLANT that like, grew in the past 5 seconds and say, "Oh no, this is fine," and then die from it. 

Me: Do you think if it was the Asian co-pilot he would have that differently? 

Obie: No.

Me: He would have done the same thing? What about the captain? Stringer Bell. He wouldn't have done that.

Obie: The Captain was awesome, dude! The captain did everything right. The Captain was the fucking hero.

Me: He was a badass?

Obie: He was a hero. The Captain refused to get out of the ship, he got off the ship, went into the structure, got everybody who was in there out, and then, and then, and then, crashed their ship into the leaving ship.

Me: Would you have done that? If you were in his place and there was an alien ship was headed toward Earth to kill all of mankind, would you kill yourself to save all of humanity?

Obie: Yes.

Me: Hell yeah?

Obie: (nods)

Me: Would you straight up, like you and your two dudes-

Obie: No, I would do it just like they did. Like, "Impact eminent." Shit's like, "Hey guys, Hands up!"

Me: "Hands Up!"

Obie: "Hands Up!" We're on a ride.

Me: Would you play music while you're doing that?

Obie: Fuck yeah!

Me: What music would you play?

Obie: Queen- Another One Bites the Dust.

Me: (laughing) Wait! You would kill yourself to Queen, Another One Bites the Dust?

Obie: Fuck yeah. 

Me: Wouldn't you play, like We Are The Champions or some kind of positive anthem like We Will Rock You? 

Obie: No

Me: But you're saying that to yourself. That's like the ghost of Freddy Mercury laughing at you're funeral, and he's already dead. 

Obie: Another One Bites the Dust.

Me: That's your go out jams? What did you think of Charlize Theron? 

Obie: .....Hot, amazing.........

Me: What did you think of her character?

Obie: What did I say? 

Me: "Hot, amazing?"

Obie: What did I say?

Me: What DID you say? Talk about THAT scene. 

Obie: He said, he said, so she comes in and she goes to touch the virtual screen and it goes "UNGT!" and the Captain's playing an accordion and he says, "You know this used to belong to Stephen Stills?" and she's all "Am I supposed to know who that is?" and then he's all, "Hey......You a robot?" That's what he asks her. 

Me: No, no. Doesn't he say, "If you want to get laid, all you have to do is ask"?

Obie: Yeah, yeah. "You don't have to pretend to read the screen if you want to get laid."

Me: Have you ever said that to a girl?

Obie: No, because I've never worked on a space ship. 

Me: No, I mean have your ever said, "If you want to get laid, all you have to do is ask"?

Obie: Uh, yeah. Actually I have. 

Me: Does that work? 

Obie: Yeah, actually. 

Me: Did you feel that scene was realistic?

Obie: Yeah, that scene was awesome, dude. 

Me: Did you think shit was hot? Do you think they had hot sex?

Obie: Fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuck yes. 

Me: Hot Christmas sex? It was Christmas day.

Obie: It was Christmas morning sex.

Me: Hot as hell?

Obie: Fuck yeah! He split that shit, dude.

Me: Lit that shit?

Obie: Split that shit.

Me: Didn't you say that if you ever go to space, the first thing you're gonna do is have sex? 

Obie: Zero gravity sex.

Me: Well, I mean that's assuming that you're going into space with a hot woman. I mean, no one-

Obie: Whoah, whoah, Mogan, Mogan, C'mon. Mogan, Mogan, Mogan, c'mon. As a dude, you're in space, kinda, it doesn't really matter if the chick is like, super hot. 

Me: If she was totally busted, like somebody like Susan Boyle you'd still just-

Obie: No. C'mon, it's like a normal guy thing. I'm going to regulate this down. I mean, if they assign a female, you're going to go with who's most attractive-

Me: Ok, so you're in space and you're with the female who's most attractive, how would you go about instigating this zero gravity sex? What would you say? 

Obie: I would go the cheese route. I'd be like, "Hey. Have you been here before?"

Me: By here you mean space?

Obie: Oh yeah. 

Me: Ok, let's role play. Im a lady and you're Obie. We're in space, just floating around space. 

Obie: Have you been here before?

Me: Space?

Obie: Yeah.

Me: No.

Obie: I have. 

Me: You've been to space?

Obie; Fuck yeah,

Me: How've you been to space? When did you go to space?

Obie: I'm certified.

Me: Certified in what?

Obie: Certified flight. Certified flight coordinator. 

Me: What? You fly fucking Jet Blue or something?

Obie: Yeah, have you flown fly Jet Blue?

Me: Yes I have, it's wonderful. But we're in space.

Obie: Yeah, but they do space too. I mean, we're in space now, so that answers your own question. 

Me: Fair enough. So continue. Seal this space deal.

Obie: Mile High Club? Kinda takes it to a whole other level.

Me: And that's just, space panties off and that's it? 

Obie: I mean, c'mon. You know what Mile High Club is?

Me: Yeah, it means having sex on a plane. 

Obie: You ever done that, had sex on a plane?

Me: No

Obie: Yeah, well, so how about killing two birds with one stone. You know, having sex on a plane and also straight up having sex in outer space.

Me: And just like that? That's it?

Obie: Mogan, you'd be surprised what you can get girls to do if you like, just say it. 

Me: That's true. I would be surprised. 

Obie: I mean, I've done it and I was surprised. 

Me: What, you've had sex on a plane?

Obie: Oh yeah. 

Me: YOU HAVE!?!?!?!?!

Obie: Fuck yeah, dude.

Me: What, like multiple times?

Obie: Three times.

Me: On like a commercial flight?

at this point another person interrupted and asked if Obie was already in relationships with the women he'd had sex with on airplanes, and that if he was that it "didn't count". I personally disagree with this opinion because fucking on a plane is awesome regardless, but am never the less including this note to clarify the context of where the conversation goes next.

Obie: One girl I was in a relationship with. The other two, one girl I knew beforehand and the other one I met.

Me: On the flight!?!? 

Obie: Yeah,

Me: Ok. Tell me about the one you met on the flight.

Obie: Well, I was in the military and I was on a layover in Pennsylvania on a free flight from Cali-forni-ah, and-

Me: But you had sex on the plane in the air?

Obie: Yeah. It was a free flight-

Me: Ok, so you guys were chatting before you got on the plane.

Obie: Yeah. I was coming back home from California and because it was a free flight I had a layover in Pennsylvania so we passed Chicago and then I had to come back. She was on the flight from when I left Cali-forni-ah and was going to New York and so like was all the way over to the layover in Pennsylvania and then she kept going and I went back to Chicago. 

Me: So where did you have sex?

Obie: On the plane between California and Pennsylvania.

Me: In the bathroom?

Obie: Yeah, in the bathroom. Duh. 

Me: Wait, so how did this go- I mean how did you work this out? Did you work this out on the flight? So you guys are on the flight, sitting next to each other?

Obie: Yeah

Me: Ok, so it wasn't like, you hit the fight attendant button and that was the signal-

Obie: No no no no no

Me: So it's not like she's in A7 and you're all the way back in D28.

Obie: No no no no no. We were seated together and she was like, "I have to go to the bathroom" like, kinda like.

Me: She was like, "I have to go to the bathroom," nudge nudge,  elbow?

Obie: Yeah. And I waited, I waited, maybe, like 10 seconds and then I went to the bathroom. 

Me: Ok. Did you do like a secret knock or anything.

Obie: I just knocked on the door.

Me: And she just opened it on up.

Obie: Yeah. 

Me: Whip it out?

Obie: Yeah. 

Me: Doggystyle?

Obie: Allstyles.

Me: Airplane style?

Obie: I kept going till I ran out, so-

Other Person: I think there's like, only one fucking move you can do on an airplane. 

Obie: Uh no, actually there's not.

Me: Was it sexy as hell?

Obie. It was fucking amazing, what are you talking about?

Me: Airplane sex.

Obie: Dude! I was like, 22. 

Me: Oh, so it was like (smack smack smack smack).

Obie: It was a movie! It was a movie! For me, it was like "I'm in a movie! I'm in a movie!" It was amazing.

Me: What was that movie called?

Obie: I don't know. I kept waiting for, like, uh, uh-

Me: If they were to, if Ridley Scott was to make a movie, about Obie having sex on a plane what would it be called?

long pause

Me: Prometheus?

Obie: No, it would be called, it would be called, it would be called.....um.......Darkness Strikes. 

Me: What would it be called?

Obie: DARKNESS STRIKES!

Me: Wait, so there should be three movies. One for each time you had sex on a plane. Is the first one called Darkness Strikes?

Obie: The first one's called Darkness Strikes. 

Me: The second one, called Darkness Strikes Again?

Obie: Nah, It'd be-

Me: And the third one will be called Darkness Strikes in Africa? You know, like Shaft. Shaft in Africa. 

Obie: Horrible. Have you seen those movies? Those movies are horrible. Kunta Kinte and shit-

Me: Maybe Darkness Strikes' Big Score? Ok, so back to the movie. So when she came in to that room, was she trying to get laid. I mean, did she come into that room with an agenda? 

Obie: She was trying to get laid. Think about, think about how it was set up, and like how he immediately, he immediately went to that and she didn't like- think about it, think about it, how many times in your life-

Me: She blushed a bit, didn't she? I mean, she's a stone cold bitch, right-

Obie: She did not, she did not, she wasn't like, "Throw that back," you know. Like she was contemplating it, right? 

Me: Yeah

Obie: So that's when like, I saw, I was like, "They're gonna have sex." Like seriously, like, based on her reaction to him, that's why I was like, that's my response to that-

Me: Do you think she felt weird knowing her dad was on board while she was having sex?

Obie: No, because, because, because, no no no no no, because as far as like the rest of the movie, as far as the audience is concerned, you weren't supposed to know that he was already on board-

Me: Yeah, but I'm talking about, she's-

Obie: No no no no no no no-

Me: You know, she's like "It's Christmas, Stringer Bell's gonna lay the D"- 

Obie: You're talking about deep character assessment-

Me: Well, yeah

Obie: And also, and also-

Me: She didn't give a fuck? She's a cold ass bitch? 

Obie: No fucks were given

Me: She's a cold ass bitch?

Obie: What did I say?

Me: No fucks were given. But was she also a cold ass bitch? 

Obie: She was a cold ass bitch. 

Me: What else was I going to ask about the movie? Um, did you like the robot?

Obie: I liked the robot, because the robot reminded me of the old robot. But as soon as, as soon as, and like with the old movie, it was like really really real, like protracted, as far as, like your opinion regressing with the robot. 

Me: He was a pretty evil robot. I mean he was poisoning people-

Obie: No, like the whole movie, like the problem was it was like for me, like it was too obvious. It was too obvious. Like when he poisoned the dude, I already, I had already, I saw that coming.

Me: What did you think of the dude with fucking worms coming out of his eye and shit? If worms came out of your eye, would you-

Obie: That was the guy he poisoned. That shit, that shit. It was like- I already saw that coming. That was a problem for me. I mean like, I love movies, that was the point of me going to film school, and as soon as, as SOON as, I see something that like, remotely takes me out of the storyline, I automatically, I AUTOMATIC LY am completely out of the storyline, and like, in film school, I'm like, I know how they did this, I know this fact and I know this fact and I know, I'm just critiquing it completely, and that's not the point when watching the movie.

Me: Ok, um, any final thoughts about the movie? You liked it.

Obie: I liked it. I liked it. I liked it alot. I liked it alot. The only thing that I would say is, if you've watched previous Alien movies, don't assume, don't assume that this is a precursor or that fits into any timeline based on the other movies. Accept it and digest it, as is, based on the world that Geiger and, um, whoever the director is, have created, and then enjoy it from there. It was very well done.

Me: I also want to ask you, you have jetpacks going on on the backs of your legs.

Obie: I do.

Me: What inspired those? Is that a love of SciFi?

Obie: Is a combination of a love of SciFi and the fact that I've been a cyclist in the city of Chicago since 2000-

Me: So like, your jetpacks make you fly?

Obie: Yes. 

Me: Are those the jetpacks from The Rocketeer?

Obie: No they're not.

Me: They're not? Did you design them yourself.

Obie: No, I came up with the idea and I talked to my visual artist, and he came up with them.

Me: So one's colored and the other isn't, right?

Obie: Yeah, but that just means that one is done and the other is not. 

Me: Ok, that's cool. I don't think I have any other questions. I think that's about it. Any final thoughts?

Obie: Ugh, watch Prometheus, it's an amazing movie-

Me: Do you think they're going to make a sequel? 

Obie: They're totally going to make a sequel. 

Me: You gonna go see it.

Obie: Yeah. 

Me: You gonna go watch the shit out of it? 

Obie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the story. I've loved the story, from like the original, and I love the story now, and yes, I will definitely watch the sequel. 

Me: Right on. Well thank you Obie, for having this conversation.

Obie: Right on.

After I completed the interview, I realized there was one more subject I wanted to touch on.

Me: So you brought Jim Beam into the theater. That's pretty standard for you? Do you always bring Jim Beam into most movies?

Obie: Nah- I'm not answering that

Me: Do you just-, No?

Obie: No, I'm not answering that.

I then turned the recorder off  to avoid a "This interview is over!" moment and Obie explained to me that after all the cray shit he'd talked about, the idea of bringing whiskey into a movie theater was far too incriminating and would only result in trouble. When I asked him who from, he acted as if I should already know, like not saying "weed" over the phone. As of this writing, I have not received any notice from the MPAA or the ATF.