An Interview with John Lydon

I get a call at 7:45 a.m. a few weeks ago that I only got up for to scream at whoever dare call at that hour.

Missing the call, I check the voice message and it says -

"Hey John it's Mike Ragogna from KRUU & HuffPost - we have a phone interview scheduled if you can please call the studio line - it'll be real easy, just a few questions about the new release and PiL."

I had an interview scheduled with this same guy at noon so he'd obviously put the wrong phone number to the wrong guest - and although I don't know shit about music I did catch the John and the PiL together and realized he was calling for John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten.

So I dialed the number he'd called me from, got voicemail and left a message saying who I was and that he'd called the wrong guest.

Ten minutes later I'm woken up again to the phone ringing and now I fucking furious.

"Hey John it's Mike Ragogna from KRUU & HuffPost - we have a phone interview scheduled if you can please call the studio line..."

This time I said fuck it, wrote down the studio number, put on the best British accent I could muster (which is absolutely fucking awful) and called in to do the interview as best as I could, being still half asleep and not knowing shit about who I am pretending to be.

We assumed that there was no way it would ever air... certainly someone would realize or fact check - I mean, I left him a voicemail message on his cell phone that he was calling the wrong number.

But they put it up today and at this moment still have no idea. I bet they pull it all down shortly after this goes up but we now have the recording and screen shots as back-up. 

Find the KRUU.com audio version HERE (starts around 12:30) and the transcript of the interview on Huffington Post HERE.

UPDATE: Sometime this morning on 10/26/12 KRUU.com and the Huffington Post took down the interview. You can still find our backup below.

Opting Off

 

As an openly gay man as well as a traveling comedian, I have found myself captivated by and flirting with the widespread yet ever-so-secretive niche fetish world of "Opting-Off."

Anyone who's been through an airport more than once in the last few years knows that if you decide not to be sent through a highly invasive and likely dangerous full-body scan - to "opt out" - you settle for an even more demeaning physical pat down that will drift up into your groin.

To many people this has been looked upon as a great invasion of privacy and a breach of Constitutional rights. But to many of us it is also an incredible aphrodisiac. 

Shortly after the body-scanner debacle began, many gay men like myself found an unprecedented sexual rush and thus the fetish of "Opting-Off" was born.

"Opting-Off" as it is now described in the Gay Underground Dictionary is the process of purposely opting out of body scanners so that a TSA agent is forced to massage your delicate parts as a precursor to masturbation or anonymous gay sex in airport toilets.

You see now how this has remained in the underground. It wasn't until Idaho Sen Larry Craig was arrested for soliciting men's room sex that the general public was even aware of homosexual airport sex. The act of Opting-Off would happily remain even more hidden and I am certain that I will take some flak for bringing it into the light.

The internet is crawling with sites devoted to Opting-Off if you know where to look. They share pictures of the hottest TSA men that they've found in their travels and tips for heightening the experience. Some men put lumps of putty near their own anuses in order to bait an even deeper touch or tie their genitals as low on their leg as their skin will allow to get in order to get more direct if accidental contact. A lot of TSA agents themselves have admitted to only applying for the job in order to grope random men which makes sense when you look at how many pedophiles seek out employment working with children. Many straight men claim in chat rooms to have been teased by the TSA into activities they may have otherwise never enjoyed.

I personally know of a gay colleague who changed the motif of his BDSM dungeon to a simple corral of ropes leading to a conveyor belt for disrobing, a secondary screening area and finally to a dirty commode flecked with santorum and errant hairs.

TSA uniforms are now the preferred "French Maid" costume on the gay role-playing catwalk. 

I am not claiming innocence. When I opted out for the first time, it was purely out of the spirit of liberty. A small spit-take in the face of a rising police state. But when a rugged man in uniform rolled his eyes at me and roughly grabbed and jerked at all parts of my body, treating my like a human piece of shit, it made my penis rise and thicken with an intensity that even poppers in a steam room could never produce. This was back when I was too timid to actually engage in semi-public sex in an airport. I'd just jack off in a US Airways Club, as they were usually empty and under construction.

Now the only thing hold me back from a full on cock-n-ass battle in B gate toilet is the question - Is this right?

Is it right that so many TSA agents are now being duped into unwittingly participating in an arguably deviant homosexual craze just by simply doing their job? Some people opt out because they believe that it is abusing their rights as a citizen. But far more are now doing it for the carnal, homoerotic thrill of being man-handled by an authority figure. So much so that most gay men who fly wear the beard of "it's for our own safety" hoping to ensure that the regulation stays in place.

Is this some form of de facto rape and what are the long-term consequences to real air safety? I mean, if word of this fetish were to spread - if Opting-Off websites and message boards were to spring up like killer termites - and the decent men of Homeland Security were to become all too aware that they are mere fluffers to queer passion rather than guardians of civil defense - would they still be so keen in shoving their hands deeply into the private recesses of a strange man's ticklish parts?

If the Opting-Off trend rises to the point where TSA agents themselves fight against these intrusive (and otherwise wholly ineffectual) exercises, the internal pressure alone might put an end to pat-downs altogether. 

What would we jack off to then, gentlemen? 

What would we jack off to then?