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JD: So the "Exorcist" was-

S: (Angry) Oh! Don't even get me started on the Exorcist! What in hell do you people take me for? First off, that whole zit and green teeth thing? What's that all about? Would I reject servitude under God's tyranny to become some kind of pea-soup vomiting, crucifix diddling, head-spinning freak? Please. I was God's favorite Angel. I had class. And beyond that, the whole notion of possession runs contrary to what I'm all about.

JD: Which is?

S: Free will. I'm all about giving people choices. Admittedly, evil choices, but in all ways allowing them the "opt out," as you internet people say. I come along and offer a path…. A path that eventually leads to damnation, sure, but I'm only offering. Presenting one possible alternative for them. The concept of possession is akin to forcing someone down a path at gunpoint. It's rape-y. Yuck.

JD: So you are saying…

S: I'm saying Flip Wilson was an asshole. The devil never made anybody do anything. I have offered up some crazy choices of utter evil that people have taken me up on…

JD: Name a few of your favorites.

S: Whoo.. That's a long list. I mean, I can't tell you how many potential world leaders of peace and love that I've tempted away from their posts, but all that stuff gets JDled under a sort of "What If" folder. You want to know a few of my more famous ones? Ones I don't even get credit for?

JD: Sure.

S:I guess my favorite had to be the "Greedo Blaster Scene" in the re-mastered Star Wars release. I never thought in my wildest dreams Lucas would take me up on that. I offered it as a joke, really.

JD: Wow! That explains so much! So are you the secret author of the Jar Jar Binks fiasco as well?

S: That would be convenient, wouldn't it? Everybody would love to lay the blame at my feet for that. I'm evil, my friend, but I'm not crazy. If you locked me alone in a pit of burning sulfur for all eternity, and surrounded me with the screams of a billions tortured souls, I could never have come up with putting that lamp-eyed, fish skinned, ridiculous travesty in the center-stage of the most awaited media event in twenty years.

JD: I'm noticing a theme here in our conversation. You in the media. The perception of you versus the reality. What are your thoughts about some of the depictions of you in popular culture. Start off with the ones you like.

S: I liked Pacino in "Devil's Advocate." But he's good in anything, really. Although, when I saw that, when the camera got all into his mouth when he's railing on about God being an absentee land-lord, an odd thought hit me. I got the feeling that maybe Pacino had bad breath. And if he did, nobody told him, because: Hey! It's Al Pacino. Which made me wonder if I have bad breath, and no one says anything because I'm the King of Hell. (cups his hand and breathes out, trying to fan it to his nose.) They say you can't smell your own breath.
Who else? You ever see the movie "Crossroads?"

JD: Don't think so.

S: Ralph Maccio, a young Jamie Gertz… Its all about this old blues man who sells his soul to "Old Scratch"-

JD: A.k.a : You.

S: Precisely- anyway, it turns out I'm a black pimp form the 20s who runs an evil, otherworldly guitar competition and Steve Vai is my protégé.

JD: SO you like that movie?

S: No, but it had this great line: "The blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad, thinking about the woman he once was with." I like that.

JD: Oh…

S: Moving onto the larger category of "Stuff I don't like." Like I said before, most people have that Tarot Card conception of me as the greek god Pan after a night of drunken debauch. That's so old hat that it doesn't even bother me anymore. I mean the whole horned and red-skinned thing irks me on a conceptual level, still. I guess I can see some sort of regal majesty in how they dolled up Tim Curry in "Legend.," but where I draw the line is Hot Stuff.

JD: Huh?

S: There was a character in the Richie Rich comics called "Hot Stuff- the Little Devil." He was red, and carried a pitchfork that shot fire, and he had this little devil girlfriend… All of which is insulting enough, but….They drew him WITH A DIAPER. How freakin' nuts is that? He's obviously at least old enough to like girls. Why is he wearing a diaper? That's just bizarre to me.

JD: Was he friends with Richie Rich?

S: No, no, nothing like that. His stories were happening kind of independently. Like there'd be two Richie Rich stories, and one Hot Stuff. Sometimes, instead of Hot Stuff, there'd be Little Lotta. I think she was, like, a fat girl, or something. Anyway, I can tell you that there is, quite literally, a special place in Hell for the creators of Hot Stuff, and choice real estate for the whole Harvey Comics crew, on general principle.

JD: Do you feel you've been given a bum rap by humanity in general?

S: Well, I do understand how I have come to have a negative image. I mean, I'm Evil. And I don't mean that as an adjective. I mean it as a noun. I am EVIL. That's not going to win me any popularity contests. But I do think its unfair to use the fact that I'm Evil to pawn off your own sins and transgressions on me. So, really, I'm okay with being reviled…It's just the silly stuff that gets to me.

JD: Like being accused of putting in "backwards lyrics" in rock albums.

S:(Blushing) Funny that you mention that. That's actually true.

JD: Get out of town!

S: I thought it would be clever. But I meant no harm by it. Just a sort of "easter egg" like programmers of video games will sometimes do; putting their initials into games, or having secret codes to unlock crazy functions.

JD: So you wrote "Stairway to Heaven."

S: I was a consultant.

JD: Fair enough. So, excluding the lyrics thing, what else do you get scapegoated for?

S: Voo Doo. Radical Christians kind of lump all of the crazier religions like Voo Doo and such, all under the general header of "Satan Worship." To me that's tantamount to coming across an apple, a fish, and a lump of kryponite, and saying: This fish and this piece of a dead planet are obviously not apples. Therefore, they are the same thing.

JD: Okay…

S: Look, maybe there's a better analogy, but you get my point. Just because B does not equal A, and C does not equal A, it's just illogical to assume that B must equal C. All you've proved is that neither one of them is A. It all boils down to the fact that I never invented voo-doo.

JD: Now-

S: (interrupting) Also, just as a sort of sub note to the lyrics thing, I want to be clear on something: I just did "Stairway." I am in no way affiliated, nor do I claim responsibility for any of that 80s hair-band stuff that went on.

JD:What about the "Church of Satan" in L.A.? I s that an official project of yours?

S:(gives a pained look) Let me put it to you this way. Anton Sandor LaVey, the bald and charismatic, darkly brooding leader of the so-called "Satannic Religion"…. He used to be nebbishy Andy Levy, a nice little Jewish boy. Just another example of some nerd using my name to get chicks.

JD:Does that happen a lot?

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