GW: Yes, I like to keep people on their toes.

LV: What I mean is, why us? Why do an interview with a small fanzine rather than go on TV or even to Spin Magazine?

GW: Heh heh. Well, you see, you're grassroots. I like that. I like to give support to the grassroots, 'cause the grassroots support, they hold everything up. I'm into the whole DUI thing.

LV: Don't you mean DIY?

GW: Oh, yeah, yeah...

LV: So, what made you decide to come forward? You said something about having once been friends with Ian McKaye?

GW: Well, you see it's like this. Every time I do a press conference and I got some bruises on my face, those reporters always jump the gun and start specialating about how I got them. You know?

LV: Yes, I remember Ari Fleischer on Meet the Press trying to squelch some rumors about backyard wrestling at the White House.

GW: Exactly! That kinda thing. So, it's like, reporters, don't get your panties all in a bunch, there's no wrestling at the White House. Maybe the occasional crucial barbecue (coy smile).

LV: Wait a minute, is that a Murphy's Law reference?

GW: Maybe it is. Maybe it ain't. So, anyway, I figures, it's time to bring it out in the open. Those black and blue marks you see on me are from moshing it up. You know, sometimes when I'm all alone in the Oval Office, I put on Youth of Today and I get so excited that I start finger pointing and I jump on my desk and stage dive on to the floor.

LV: Wow...

GW: Didn't expect that about me, didya?

LV: Frankly, no.

GW: Hardcore! In your face!

LV: What's your favorite dance move?

GW: The gorilla, of course.

LV: So, you like YOT. Are you into straight edge or do you just listen to them for their positive outlook? How did you get into hardcore in the first place?!

GW: Lemme start at the beginning. Back in the day, I'm old school you see, back in the early 1980s, I lived in DC, when my pop scored that new job. So, one night I'm walking around all cok... I mean, I hear these great riffs and ranging vocals coming from this whole in the wall type of club. It was a dingy, dirty club and that's where I first saw SOA.

LV: Wow. I had no idea.

GW: Yeah, so from then on, I started going to shows regularly. Until the whole straight edge thing started getting big.

LV: You didn't get into that?

GW: Not at first. I was down with Minor Threat though. And then I got into some of the classic New York bands and I fell in love with all that youth crew stuff. Chugga-chugga, great breakdowns. I never X-ed up though.

LV: Yeah...

GW: Plus that whole vegetarian thing. I never got into that. I'm from cattle country, it's like, beef, it's what for dinner, you know? But basically, the spirit of hardcore lives. All those emo, post-punk bands can kiss my ass. They don't know what it's about!

LV: Yeah, so, do you have any message to give to America?

GW: Yes. Keep hardcore alive and (breaking into song) "Your expectations are too much..."

LV: Hey...

GW: "Instead of just letting me be..."

At this point, someone puts on an X Marks the Spot record, as interviewer and interviewee are hoisted up onto the shoulders of two husky body guards. The rest of the presidential entourage starts a frenzied circle pit, with the exception of Condoleezza Rice, who moshes it up tough guy style.

"Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The Truth [is] that they are just businesses made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce." Dialectic of Enlightenment