Where are you right now, and what can you see out of your window?
I'm in Manhattan Beach, California, in the kitchen, putting Chee-tos in a little container for my 6-year-old ruffian, who's downstairs playing Impossible Creatures on the computer. I can see the ocean, and it's a beautiful day.
That must be quite a relief after living so long in frigid Chicago.
I'm a summer girl to the core. The minute I can wear shorts, a bikini, and flip-flops, I'm there. Summer's my glory. You can't make it too hot for me.
Speaking of bikinis, do you shave or wax?
It's a terrible question - it's a horrible dileema! I'm a waxer, but I can't even tell you how much it hurts to wax. If they can send a rocket to Mars, why can't they fix this?
Name a song that signifies summer to you.
I hate to say it, but "Jack And Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp. That was the summer I was in love with my older cousin. Summer shouldn't be highbrow - summer is about blasting a song out of the car to annoy the grownups.
What was your best summer job?
Working at an outdoor music venue near Chicago and fucking off in the restaurant. I was so shy and incapable of waiting on people. I got demoted to, like, garnish supervisor.
Is there a summer movie that you're most looking forward to?
The Matrix Reloaded. I love Keanu Reeves. He's such a hunk.
Isn't he a bit unclever for you?
That's my problem, really. I feel so bookish, so I tend to like guys who are opposite from me. I find myself very turned on by big and stupid.
Your new self-titled album is full of songs about sex. There's sex with a younger man. There's cheating sex. Sex that your son walks in on. And then there's the chorus that goes, "Give me your hot, white cum."
After AIDS and after the gender wars, you lose the fact that love between a man and a woman should be a gorgefest. After all, that's what our bodies are meant to do. That's my version of feminism: I want to be free and valuable and respected, and I want to gorge on another person. That song is sort of, like, Take Back the Cum.
When you wrote "Give me your hot, white cum," did the lyrics come first, or the melody?
They both came together. It was very fluid.
Fluid?
So to speak. Sorry. Bad metaphor. ROB TANNENBAUM
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GOT MILF?
WHEN YOU'RE FEMALE, sexual and 36, snobs are going to call you desperate, no matter how artfully you strut. This is especially true for pop stars, whose attempts to stay current often earn the kind of scorn directed at Botox-stuffed, ex-hotties cruising bars on Friday night. The moves that seemed sexy when a girl got carded can feel distasteful in adulthood. It's been hard to tell if overdoing it is a tic or a strategy for Liz Phair. Her 1993 debut, Exile In Guyville, was one of the great indie feats, all stuck-out chin and lifted skirt, but even then many rock fans found her more irritating than astute. Add 10 years and the desire for a radio hit to the equation, and you have an album likely to repulse the very people who once adored Phair's dirty streak. Liz Phair is described by Phair herself as a "greatest hits" culled from tracks cut with producers as diverse as Michael Penn and the Matrix (the mini-corporation behind, most notably, Avril Lavigne). Phair has pulled out the heavy styling product here, and sometimes it's a problem. But beneath the highlights, she's still a messy troublemaker whose brain is as spicy as the rest of her body. The most obvious come-ons display confidence but not depth; the ode to her man's magic fluid, "H.W.C." (chorus: "Give me your hot, white cum") amuses mostly because it sounds like a deodorant jingle, and "Favorite" is little more than a cute metaphor for well-worn love. Elsehwere, Phair explores the ambiguities of sex unsparingly, with a compassion that never gets squishy. Despite the NC-17 language, plain-spokenness, and not crudity, is the key to her insight. It isn't clear whether Phair knows that audactity as a strategy has diminishing returns; what once shocked now seems like a habit. But the best songs on Liz Phair cut through the bullshit to portray a hot young mom reflecting on lust and guilt. Let's hope people can hear the smarts behind the sheen. ANN POWERS LIZ PHAIR'S CURRENT LISTENING:
Brainy single mon seeks sex -- and a hit song
LIZ PHAIR
LIZ PHAIR ****
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