WHY I'M BADASS: Peter Farris

Alabama. Home of Bear Bryant and certain members of The Drive-By Truckers. The site of the battle of Mauvila where Tuscaloosa delivered an ass-whuppin' to Hernando de Soto during his quest to discover the cities of gold as described by Cabeza de Vaca. Home of the Redneck Riviera. They call Alabama the Crimson Tide, as the band named after a dildo sang. Black Betty had a child, bam-ba-lamb, the damn thang gone wild.

Normally I'd never introduce someone by talking about where they came from and I won't now because Peter Farris is from Georgia. Where the real badasses with accents come from.

This mofo went to YALE - that's right, bitches, Ivy League on your ass, and has played in the rock band CABLE. He has a advanced degree in astrophysics from MIT and he studied sword forging in Toledo - the one in mickey frickin' Spain where, in addition to the rain falling mainly on the plains, he completed his journeyman's piece, a 4 foot saber crafted of the finest steel, extinguishing the smoldering blade in the heartblood of his master, quenching the sword's sentient thirst. And he named it Mori Mundis. He was born with a caul and prophecies fortell that he shall unmake the world.

Rattle your jewelry for Mr. Farris.

JHJ: Your name sounds so benign, like a sociology professor's. Yet you are a tremendous badass. Please explain your badassery.

PF: I could brag about the tattoos and my awesome NASCAR beer koozie collection or the autographed picture of Ricou Browning on my office wall, but I think I’m a badass because I love cats. Seriously, I love my two fucking cats (Grimm and Icky) more than anything on this earth. I’d set a church on fire Christmas morning if it meant my cats would be okay.

JHJ: Hey, you know, I love pussy, too. That's what you meant, right?

PF: Cats.

JHJ: You said cats. We're talking big-ass tigers and lions and shit here, right? Maneaters? Bastards that take dumps bigger than your average tabby?

PF: Cats.

JHJ: Cougars? Jaguars? Pumas? Big motherfuckers? Of the intemperate variety?

PF: Cats.

JHJ: Tomcats? Wildcats? Hellcats?

PF: Cats.

JHJ: Right. Okay. That's pretty badass. Ahem. You know what's more badass than cats?

PF: ...

JHJ: Uh. Right. What's EQUALLY as badass as cats is staying true to your convictions about cats in the face of great adversity. Oh, yeah. And dogs. Anyway, what’s the most bad-fucking-ass thing you’ve ever done?

PF: Played CBGB’s with my band.

JHJ: Holy crap. That is probably the biggest bit of badassery in this series, yet! Speaking of furry things, I bet you banged a buncha groupies in your time. How many sexual partners have you had? Feel free to give details, provide pictures, give anecdotes.

PF: I haven’t had a lot of sexual partners…unless couch cushions count?

JHJ: Okay. Um. This interview is going horribly pear-shaped. Moving on. What’s the most badass book ever written?

PF: On Fire by Larry Brown

JHJ: What’s the most badass movie you’ve ever seen?

PF: It’s a three-way tie between Wise Blood, The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

JHJ: When you mention anything by Flannery O'Connor (a badass ALSO from Georgia) you solidify your place in the pantheon of badasses for all eternity (which is good after the cat-loving part). So, when you’re out and about driving around Georgia and looking at the badass Georgian trees and grass and shit, being a total fucking badass, what music do you listen to?

PF: Eyehategod, Outlaw Order, Soilent Green., Crowbar, Weedeater, Buzzov-en and June Carter.

JHJ: I like June Carter. I'll have to take your word on the others but I assume Soylent Green is made of PEEEEOOPLE!!!! Speaking of, you ever kill a man? Describe how you’d kill your worst enemy. Make it good.

PF: I’d kill ‘em with kindness. And if that didn’t work I’d carve them up with a miter saw.

JHJ: That's totally badass. You can do really precise work with a miter saw on molding. It's also known as a crosscut saw which happens to be a great tune by Albert King, may he rest in peace. How would you dispose of his/her body? Not Albert King's, but the guy you killed with kindness.

PF: I’d feed the pieces to a gator pond like pepper flakes floating on a bowl of broth.

JHJ: Deadly AND poetic. It's like the fog creeping in on cat feet and stuff. After you get caught and are waiting to be executed, what would you have as your last meal? What’s the most badass eats you can think of?

PF: A rack of ribs that has been slow-cooking for seven hours. The kind of ribs you drink for dinner.

JHJ: What would be your badass last words?

PF: “Every man is a mystery to himself. And then we die, unsolved.”

JHJ: It's like you're saying we can never truly know ourselves. Damn. That's deep. Deep like the night that comes in on tiny little cat feet to perch on top of my car and fuck up my fresh wax job. Or deep like the night that takes nasty feline craps in my yard that my dog then goes out to chew on like beef jerky and then come back inside with catshit breath. Deep like that. Cats. Anyway, you play music, do you? What’s your music about and how is it badass?

PF: I played in a noise rock band called CABLE (listen to this rocking shit on MySpace) for the past eight years or so. Our last album (The Failed Convict) was released by The End Records and is available in the usual places.

JHJ: Very cool. CABLE rocks. But you write, too, I gather.

PF: Yes. My first novel for Forge, Last Call for the Living, is about a bank robbery and the Aryan Brotherhood. Look for it in the Spring.

JHJ: That's sounds freakin' badass. For real. Where can we buy that bad mama-jama?

PF: An official author site, DIY book trailer, t-shirt and Crawfish boil launch party are in the pipeline. Until then follow me on twitter (@pjfarris) or stop by the blog and say hi: http://peterfarris.blogspot.com

Thanks for playing. Peter Fucking Farris, you are a multi-talented badass.