Then it happened. It came hard. It came from Brooklyn. Without a hint that the show was about to begin, the J's stormed the ear drums of a crowd that was now theirs.

Bouncing across stage, as if on fire, these guys rocked.

We got together w/the J's & their quasi-manager/owner, AJ 'Stumpy' Johnson.

J. Guevara:: (laughs)
AJ 'Stumpy' Johnson:: This one.
JG:: That's it.
Special J:: What would be the most difficult question to answer?
JG:: Uhhh, wow. How about, uhhh. "What are your influences?" (puts on a reporters voice) I hate that one.
SJ:: That's a bad question.
JG:: Never ask that, if you have that on there, strike it now.
SJ:: Boxers or briefs, that's a pretty tough question.

TOR:: You want me to move on to the next question?

JG:: Day of the week! Sometimes that one's a little hard.

2 minutes into this & already I can see that these guys have a mild case of Attention Deficit Disorder. It would have to be important, thought provoking questions, form here on out.

TOR:: If you guys could get away w/anything, what would it be?

SJ:: Oh, we'd steal the Empire State Building.
JG:: (laughs) It's not completely hypothetical.
SJ:: Yeah, it's something that actually might happen.
JG:: If the Empire State Building goes missing...it wasn't us.
SJ:: See, the disappointing thing is we watched David Copperfield take away the Statue of Liberty, but then we found out it was an illusion. So, it wasn't interesting to us. 'Cause we actually want to take the thing.
JG:: We want to actually physically remove the Empire State building.

SJ:: What is 2 Skinnee J's?" Well, that actually is the hardest question to answer, so let's move on.
JG:: (laughs, again) I was told there'd be no math.
SJ:: 2 Skinnee Js are a rock and roll band.
AJ:: They are a bunch of guys that I happened upon several years ago, when I was looking for a bunch of really easily manipulable people. I chose them because: No.1 they were easily manipulated, No.2 they're not super talented. As a result, they can't ever get any ideas of breaking off from my control. And you know they also have very low self-esteem. It helps to go along w/my grip on these guys.

TOR:: So, you own these guys?

SJ:: That's actually slavery, but...

TOR:: OK. Then who makes you who you are?

SJ:: My mother.
AJ:: You know, I'm a self-made person. Ever since I've had conscious thought, which is some undetermined number of years ago, I decided that I wanted to be Master of my own destiny. And also to master many other people's destiny. I figure that I just...I've always had the talent of exerting my will, forcing it down other people's throats. I do it in such a way that it's acceptable to them. It's like the medicine that they love to take.
SJ:: It's a tasty medicine.
JG:: I think if there's one event in my life that really defined it, it was when I was a child. My family traded me to lion tamers for some food. So, you know that has pretty much colored my outlook. In ways, it probably is a lot more subtle than it is a big event. But when you're six & suddenly your entire family is lions... Lion tamers view the lions as part of the family, so suddenly my brothers & sisters were several hundred tons.
SJ:: (laughs) Several hundred tons?? That's the biggest lion on earth.
JG:: They were giant lions. They said they were lions. You know they had the big ears, tusks, trunks...And you'd play with them & suddenly they'd step on you & ...Another thing, I'm sick & tired of fuckin' peanuts.
SJ:: He doesn't mean he fucks peanuts.
JG:: No, no. I'm fuckin' sick of eating the actual peanuts.
SJ:: He's not sick of fucking peanuts.
JG:: I've never tried that, so to say I'm sick of that would be a kind of a misnomer. Also, I'm not even curious about fucking peanuts. On a sex life question, peanuts don’t even figure in. I pretty much avoid all the fruit & vegetable families.
SJ:: I think the greatest achievement out of my life was learning how to pee in a toilet.
AJ:: For me- It's pretty much that I'm an incredibly egotistical, money driven person. But I also have a great love for my fellow man & I think that the best way that I could serve them is by bringing them closer to an ideal. And I hold myself up as that ideal. The example of excellence.

With this much ego being served up, I was quickly filling on the J's rants & we hadn't even dived into the real reason I was there. The music.

TOR:: What is the 2 Skinnee J's mantra?

JG:: Well, right now it's Middle Class in '02.
SJ:: We've actually formed a non-profit corporation called Middle Class in '02.
JG:: Actually, Middle Class in '02 is the stated slogan of our movement, which is the People's Movement of Rock. It's about redistributing the wealth.

TOR:: Is Ball Point Man middle class?

JG:: Ball Point Man is about the fact that, up until I went on tour, I would jump around on my bed & pretend to be a superhero. And despite the fact that we sit here & talk about changing the world through the People's Movement of Rock, pretty much our contribution to the movement is to sit around & write a lot of lyrics.

TOR:: Going in the vein of being a super hero, if one of your powers was to be invisible, what would you do?

SJ:: Many, many things. Potentially steal the Empire State Building. If I were invisible it would be mine.

TOR:: Favorite after school activity.

SJ:: I've always liked to make frozen lollipops w/ice cube trays, w/the strings in them. Made out of Kool-Aid. They're called Stack 'Em Snacks, if you recall.

TOR:: Any prized possessions that you've accumulated along the tour?

SJ:: Clean underwear are the most prized possession that I own.
JG:: I don't accumulate things on tour. I just lose things on tour.

TOR:: If you unknow one thing, what would it be?

SJ:: Unknow one thing...
JG:: One thing that I know...
SJ:: I would unknow that Darth Vader was Luke's father.

TOR:: That's fuckin' fantastic.

SJ:: Then it would be all new again. (oh yeah!!) What?! Get out of here. Thatˆs fucked up. (reliving the scene in Empire Strikes Back)
JG:: I think I would unknow Special J sometimes.
SJ:: (laughs)
JG:: So, like I could meet him & then he would be nice to me for the first little while- like he was when I first met him.
SJ:: Before I turned into a prick.

TOR:: Which Star Wars character would you like to be?

SJ:: I don't know. You could be Lando Calrission & you'd get be Billy Dee Williams.
JG:: We'll have some Colt 45s (in his best Billy Dee voice)

TOR:: What are your thoughts on Elvis?

SJ:: We love Elvis.
AJ:: I'd like to get my hooks in Elvis, actually. I wish I could find him.
SJ:: But only fat Elvis, though. Fat Elvis is where it's at. I aspire in the new millennium to assume the new being. I plan to be Elvis.

TOR:: What's the most outrageous thing that's gone down on tour?

SJ:: Well, our guitar player got punched...
JG:: Oh yeah.
SJ:: ...from behind. He got dry gulches, if you will.
AJ:: He got sucker popped.
SJ:: Cold cocked!!
JG:: Sucker punched!
AJ:: By some guy who thought that his ex-girlfriend had asked him for a barrette. So, pretty much it was over a five cent piece of plastic, that he got glocked.
JG:: He got punched.
SJ:: Socked! We might add that that young man did spend at least five minutes in jail.
AJ:: He paid for his crime.

It would be good to point out, at this time, that I suffered a similar fate some three hours after the interview. Not known to wear barrettes, it is still a mystery as to why I was popped.

TOR:: Where's the energy come from?

SJ:: Well, obviously all the energy on stage pretty much is a mad cap attempt to please Stumpy. 'Cause when you don't please Stumpy, he yells at you & uhhh...Pretty much he's yelling the whole show anyway, but...You're hoping most of the time those dirty words are not directed at your performance. So, what we do is jump around to try & please Stumpy.

AJ:: Well, you know, yelling pretty much comes naturally for me. I've been doing that my entire life. I don't know. It can be very difficult, especially for me 'cause I'm used to things coming very easily for me. And they pretty much do all the labor. But yeah, I like to look after my figure by using a combination of strict diet & other martial arts techniques, which no one else on planet earth knows anything about- except myself.

JG:: Actually, he's lying to you for the benefit of Stumpy. The fact is that everyone in the band is an incredible egomaniac & is just trying to out perform everybody else. It's all about trying to get attention away from everybody else. Everyone has their own little tricks up their sleeves & they just try to hawk all the attention. You have six people trying to hog the spotlight all the time, just producing crazy mayhem- while everybody just stares at the crazy keyboard player because he's the handsome one.

SJ:: He's more like a hockey defenseman. He just places his big fat body where it goes. I have to use my wile & guile.

JG:: Stumpy, why can't we have a bus?
AJ:: See this is just a problem to them because they are not permitted to ask me questions. I will allow them to answer in a hypothetical world. You know, hypothetically a question they might ask. These are questions that will never be answered. What I want to know is, there's 25$ missing from yesterday's retail. I want to know what happened to that. Special J normally takes care of that, but I think he's been leaving money around.
SJ:: Hey J. Guevara. do you have the 25$ I gave you last night?
JG:: Stumpy, can I borrow 25$

TOR:: Alright guys. Seems like you need a family conference. Unless you have something else you'd like to say...

SJ:: Oh you don't wanna do that...
JG:: No, I'm ok.
SJ:: You're lucky today. We're not feeling frisky.

Maybe not feeling frisky, but definitely a bit saucy. this incredibly articulate verbiage, which to most seems as babble, leaves the 2 Skinnee J's prime for domination. Probably one of the most important bands to hit the stage; their magnitude will never be fully grasped.

TOR[magazine]