What happens if you never reach the level of fame that will make you happy? ^ I have to because I’m incompetent a everything else and it makes me feel bad. ^ I go to a therapist to see if there is some way for me to enter to real world and be a competent worker bee in case things don’t pan out. But so far nothing. I’m like my dad. He’s a really brilliant bumbling computer scientist. Neither of us can drive very well. I can’t find my car after I park it, even in my own neighborhood. I can’t find my way around an office without people thinking I’m an idiot. I think in this capacity men get cut a lot more slack. If a man’s a bumbling professor, he’s a genius. If a girl’s a bumbling professor or filmmaker or anything, she’s indecisive and doesn’t know what she wants. ^ Hey, I just have a difficulty ‘navigating spatial relationships’. And lately my therapist has determined that I struggle with a concept that most people accept after the age of two: a lack of omnipotent power. That is, the realization that like other mortals, I have to hold a real job and join reality sooner or later, instead of trying to become a pop star.
Is fame like a drug? ^ I don’t know ’cause I’m not famous and I don’t do drugs. I’m allergic to drugs. I once tried to smoke pot but I got all weird and paranoid. I figure it’s just my luck that I’m the only person in the whole world who’s allergic to pot, and everyone else is laughing their heads off. I always wanted to be one of those cool people who stay up all night and party, but drugs either make me really paranoid or make me fall asleep. Maybe that’s why I want to be famous. To experience a different kind of high that my body does crave. ^ I admit there are some things that are lame about fame. I don’t want to have people like me for superficial reasons. I don’t want to have NO privacy whatsoever. But I DO want enough money to buy my mother a house and let her retire,. And I DO want to dance around on a major stage with backup dancers and a headset.
Tell me about your band? ^ PUSHY is non-stop, in your face, electronic, pop dance music. My co-writer/music arranger is Steven Moon. And my producer is Garth May. They’re both geniuses. I write all the lyrics and co-write and arrange the music. What can I say? Listen to the music on MP3.com. Go to the tracks by clicking on ‘the Music’ from my homepage: www.getpushy.com. I perform a decent amount in San Francisco with this really HOT backup dancer girl name Lexi, and I usually try to find some hot, Latin American boy to learn the other parts. I sing live with pre-recorded instrumental tracks on CD. I got so tired of lugging around a band, when all people really wanna look at is me. And the tracks speak for themselves. It’s more honest this way. The music is made in the studio. I don’t need to fake that that part is live. Sure, one day, when I have a fat budget, I wanna get a huge band, a bunch of great dancers, and an awesome choreographer. But until that happens, come see PUSHY if you wanna see the REAL punk rock of the twenty-first century. It’s just me and my microphone baby. Ain’t nothin’ pretentious, whiny or “I’m so punk rock because I dress punk-rock” about it.
You performed and showed a video at SXSW – tell me about the screening. ^ The screening of my music video “Suck it Up” was strange. Yet the response to PUSHY in the streets was overwhelming. That’s because people don’t know what to expect by the time they see the actual product. They’ve been so saturated with PUSHY propaganda, they think the music’s gonna be more fluffy than it really is. Men get really freaked out when they see the video. Especially, it’s hard for the industry boys to watch a really sexy chick be a hotty, then the next scene, she’s getting’ all ugly and making fun of herself. ^ I directed the music video. Like the rest of my work, If I had left it up to someone else, it might have actually been viewable…
How do the politics of the film business differ from the music business? ^ They don’t. They both suck. They’re both sexist, unimaginative, and fearful of anything truly new. This has to be the absolute worst time in history to be an artist. For a while, artists were buying into the brainwash that the internet would liberate us from the studios, give us grassroots control, and allow us to access to a broader market. Now everybody and their rabbi has a film or a band. And there’s NO money in it unless you’re one of five artists only one of whom right now is female and the other four are N’Sync. ^ You have an okay chance at getting radio airplay if you’re a whiny white boy rocker who rocks with three other whiny white boy rockers and you have really bad, predictable choruses. Otherwise, forget it. ^ In film it’s the same thing. The testosterone films about violence, car chases and special effects are considered ‘universal’ films, to be seen, financed and revered as masterpieces of cinema by everyone. (And women actually buy into that brainwash as much as men). The films with female characters or stories are ‘chick flicks’. Sadly, most of these films are sappy crappy love stories, usually with trite, politically correct female protagonists, which makes me sick anyway. The sad truth is, except for a handful of chicks including myself, most women filmmakers lack edge.
What is your connection to Lucy Liu? ^ We both wore really ridiculous looking costumes made out of sackcloth when we performed in Jesus Christ Superstar at the University of Michigan during the eighties. Only, she actually still managed to look good.
How did you run into Courtney Love? ^ I was dragged by a bunch of guys to see Courtney’s star in a movie called “Beat” at Sundance. They were all excited because they had this really pro camera package they were all set to film with. A huge expensive 3-chip camera, a tripod and lots of crazy lights. The festival wouldn’t let them take the damn camera out of the case. Meanwhile I snuck my little one-chip camera everywhere I went. I filmed inside the movie theater. Then I got bored (not because the movie was bad–I just don’t like movies usually), plus I had gas. So I left the theater and went to the bathroom. I started filming myself on the toilet. Then I left the stall and started filming myself in the bathroom mirrors. It was really fun, so I got into filming myself dancing around alone in the bathroom. ^ That’s when Courtney walked in. She was pissed that the film festival organizers wouldn’t let her smoke a cigarette in the lobby, so she came into the bathroom to smoke. She was fascinated by what I was doing so she hung around for quite a while talking to me, asking me questions about my band PUSHY and about my documentary about pushing my way to the top. We really had fun chatting on camera about all sorts of things, much of which has made it into my film. She got a little heated up when I told her my dream is to sleep with Madonna, my all-time pop idol. She said she wouldn’t sit there and listen to me talk about Madonna unless she was absolutely forced to, but she didn’t leave. Instead, she gave me some really good Madonna gossip.
Get the rest of the interview in part four of NOEMI GETS PUSHY>>>
