Excerpt from 'Empowered Women' Magazine. July, 1999, with Susan Mandel, Senior Editor.

S.M.: Dusty, how long have you been in the music business?

D.C.: Wrong! If you properly prepared for this interview you wouldn't ask me a question like that because it's all been written down many times before. What else you got on your plate sister?

S.M.: Sister?

D.C.: Relax, sweetheart. It's a figure of speech - and speaking of figures.

S.M.: Your reputation precedes you Mr. Carr. You are a very unpleasant man!

D.C.: Wrong again! I am a man, and any man worth his balls is genuinely irritated by you over-educated, over skinny, over thirty-year-old women who don't have any children and spend all their time talking about their shitty careers and hairstyles and furniture - and the only men they can ever get are these retread divorcees who wear black turtlenecks and make their own wine and think it's cool to like jazz.

S.M.: Are you finished?

D.C.: Look, I'm not saying you're that way. In fact, you might be a nice broad, and I like your curves, but it's your presentation baby. You dig, presentation is everything, that's why I've survived for so long.

S.M.: My presentation, as you call it, is just fine... What we're interested in is your current popularity. As we see it, you are a member of a disturbing trend in contemporary society, namely, the emergence of 'Grotesque Man', a man who has somehow sidestepped the last one hundred years and walks the streets today, seemingly oblivious to the rise of the liberated woman in western culture. You and your clan are indeed celebrated by other men - weak, impressionable men - as defacto role models. Are you listening to me Mr. Carr?

D.C.: As the rabbit said, I'm all ears.

S.M.: Then what are you doing with that gun?

D.C.: It's not a gun baby, it's a cigarette lighter. Got it in Reno last year. I think the flint is broken.

S.M.: Did you hear what I was saying?

D.C.: Yeah, I heard your words, but I listened to the real meaning. What you're really saying is that you're lonely and scared and looking for a man who will tell you that you're beautiful and never leave you and buy you great clothes and be nice to your mother. C'mon and say I'm right.

S.M.: I won't dignify that with a response. I think you fit the role of 'Grotesque Man' like a glove.

D.C.: I've been called worse by better people. You're not interested in my music, in any music by men. You either like the crap sung by broads with fizzy hair, wearing long gowns and strumming autoharps, or the junk these angry lesbians shout out at poetry readings. I could tell you why Cole Porter was great, or why Brian Wilson should get the Nobel Prize, but you've already carved out an answer, carved it out of the dung of your own hate and failure. Sure, I hold doors open for women and I help them get their coats on, and that makes me grotesque? Take a chill pill sister - that's called respect. Plain and simple.

S.M.: Oh please. All right then, let's talk about your so-called music.

D.C.: 'So-called'? Oh, that's cute honey, real cute.

S.M.: Can you explain your current popularity?

D.C.: People keep asking me that like it's some kind of huge goddam surprise. My bottomline is that no matter what crappy little trend there might be, real, genuine talent and showmanship always endures. Get an historical perspective. Look at Shakespeare. He's so good that you don't even have to understand the shit to know he's great. Same thing with Wayne Newton, and same thing with me. Talent is timeless.

S.M.: Recently, The Los Angeles Times referred to your "retro appeal". If I can quote further from their review of your concert, "There are currently so many permutations of pop music --from samba-based swing to gum-snapping Britney, that we are left without a focal point. Pop's epicenter has been dissipated within a self-induced vacuum. Those seeking the latest, hippest vibes have a tough job. The appeal of performers like Dusty Carr is that they fill the void with a comforting stability based on the simplicity of nostalgia." Would you call yourself a nostalgia act?

D.C.: Would you call yourself a hooker? No, I'm not nostalgia anything. That reeks of failure, like a wet, sick rat clinging to a sinking raft. Baby, I am a contemporary man, and I stay that way by hanging with young people, almost exclusively females at least half my age. They keep me young with very few side effects that cannot be masked by drugs. It's a very positive thing.

S.M.: Okay, now we're on the subject of women. I'm sure our readers, if not cultural anthropologists, will be fascinated by your opinion of women. What do you look for in a woman Dusty?

D.C.: Let's back up a step. The first thing you've got to understand is the fundamental differences between men and women.

S.M.: Which are?

D.C.: Men are macro creatures, women are micro creatures. For example, a woman will notice if you have a hair out of place, whereas a man will notice if you blow up his car. So you've got 'little picture creature' and 'big picture creature'. And this attitude translates to the way they think about life. Men can't believe they're going to die, and when they find out, they fight like bastards, they tempt death and spit in the face of death. A woman knows she's going to croak, but instead of launching a battle, she eats health food and sips tea and does aerobic exercises. - totally passive. They do little picture stuff because they don't have the right brains and courage to grasp the bigger stuff. So they live a few years longer than men, but the joke's on them because they're all trapped in wheelchairs. Congratulations ladies.

S.M.: This is incredible. Don't stop.

D.C.: So what I look for in a woman is first her appearance. You can tell a lot by a broad's appearance, like if she has any diseases, if she's fat or has greasy hair. Then you look into her eyes. Are they bloodshot with bad gin? Are they yellow because of a liver condition? Is she able to focus on a stationary object? Then I try to find out if she can form a sentence - because it's important to know more than just her name. And finally I want to know if she has a place to crash, because half the time I'm living in the back of car. That's pretty well it.

S.M.: You're the last of the hardcore romantics.

D.C.: Everybody knows that men are much more romantic than women. Think about it. Women need the champagne, the roses, the sad little gifts. All a man needs is a woman who is at least friendly. And that goes back to the fact that they're very different creatures.

S.M.: That's very perceptive.

D.C.: Thankyou - and I don't like your tone. Let me elaborate. If you want to impress someone with a micro mind, what do you do? Easy, you do micro things - like having candles at the dinner table or buying rings or chocolates and saying her clothes looks nice - you know, silly bullshit that a man would never tolerate because he knows you're trying to con him.

S.M.: Can a man be conned?

D.C.: Only if he wants to be, and even then, most likely he will require drugs and alcohol to complete the hoax. You see Susan, women take everything so seriously because their world is small, whereas a man knows it's all a game invented by guys just like him. That's why these so-called businesswomen are so eager to please. They walk around in these stupid little suits with shoulder pads, imitating the worst characteristics of men. It's supposed to be a goddam game ladies! Lighten up! You live in the forest and we live in the mountains. Plus the fact that women always feel cold. Why do they always hug themselves and ask for a sweater? What's that all about?

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