The Broken Chair

ROTTEN HATES EVERYTHING intellectually lazy, from the fat and stupid editors at Rolling Stone to the Hollywood liberals he encounters everyday back in his Venice Beach community. "You wouldn't believe the idiocy," he tells me on his umpteenth beer or vodka drink. "Imagine me at a parent/teacher conference trying to explain to them how to speak proper bloody English!"

How can I not admire a man who believes Americans are the most honest people in the world, and America is the greatest place to live (I am almost positive he said that, but I was drunk). He's lived here now for 30 years, and has no intention of leaving. Truly a Yank -- he prefers Steve Miller over Sting.

And he also believes, like me, that the real cause of terror is not religion, but lack of fun. These nutty extremists just need a more active social life. He wanted the Sex Pistols to play in Iraq, not just to troops, but to the people of Iraq. "I don't care if they hate us, but we have to do it. But no one would sponsor us. Not even Rolling Stone." Rotten may be the only rock legend who understands the threat of Islamofascism and is willing to go there and face it, without security and not behind a barbed wire fence. You don't hear Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen volunteering to do the same. And you never hear your basic sensitive and outspoken Hollywood celebrity -- the ones mouthing off about Bush and right-wing religious nuts -- speaking out against the way gays and women are treated in Islamic countries. Because they're cowards. Rotten isn't. He wants to change the world, despite having done a lot of that already.