TALK TO MY ASS* - CATCHING UP WITH STEVEN SEAGAL
While you’ve been watching YouTube videos of newsroom bloopers and pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s cha-cha, Steven Seagal’s been keeping busy. Google his name and you’ll learn that he’s been recognized as the reincarnation of the Treasure Revealer Chungdrag Dorje, put out his own line of energy drinks (Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt), toured with his blues machine Thunderbox, written poetry, and taken up the study of herbology. He’s also a plantation owner, aikido master, father of six, and most recently spokesman for the Bulgarian skincare line L’Acrima.
A little background: L’Acrima is basically the skin cream for the 21st century because it’s got “catachins”--plant extracts so high in antioxidants that the inventor has compared them to an electrical charge. L’Acrima even has a creepy, Soylent Greenesque slogan: “Giving back what living takes away”. L’Acrima is so good that it's got Steven Seagal making bold statements like, “This the greatest product I have ever experienced.” They decided to share their breakthrough with the Greater Toronto Area via a press conference at the Hyatt, so I decided to hop on over for the 'fo.
Unlike most celebrity spokesmen Seagal takes a hands-on approach to the product he’s endorsing by actually growing some of the herbs used to make the cream. While I sat there listening, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being indoctrinated by some really obscure cult. At one point we were even introduced to the company’s director of education. Seriously, it was weird. There were times when I felt like I was listening to the doctor in that movie Brazil bless the modern day alchemists like Steven Seagal and Morgan Fairchild who are working on a cure against time.
Thankfully, Seagal is the kind of person who sees himself as an authority on any given topic, and can riff freely in this weird pseudo-mystical fashion on whatever you toss his way. When we were rapping about lifestyle and aging he kept dropping some heavy factoids like, “Beauty is 90 percent how you live and 10 percent what you put on your face." I was even fortunate enough to be privy to his take on that pesky sagging-pants thing that anyone over 40 still harps on: “I think that people kind of embrace a certain style and then they start to like that. Some of it I might like, and some of it I wouldn’t, like really baggy pants that are hanging off your ass. I’m hoping that that style goes away in the next 300 years.” Three hundred years? You totally know this guy has plans to be cryogenically frozen.
Anyways, here's what else the Action Lama had to say:
VICE: Who do you consider a fashion icon?
Steven Seagal: [Long pause.]
Anybody?
I don’t really have a fashion icon. I don’t pay too much attention.
Even as a musician? You know, when you’re on stage.
I mean I’ve always designed my own clothes. I wear a lot of Tibetan and Chinese.
What are you wearing right now?
This is Russian.
What are you thoughts on youth fashion today?
I mean everybody has their own taste. I think that, you know, people kind of embrace a certain style and then they start to like that. Some of it I might like, and some of it I wouldn’t, like really baggy pants that are hanging off your ass. You know, I’m hoping that that style goes away in the next 300 years.
You have kids. Do you rag on them about their clothes?
No, I don’t tell my kids how to dress. I have, in fact, one son who dresses like that, and I haven’t said a word.
What’s the first thing that comes to your head when you hear the word "vice"?
My friends in the police department who arrest people for doing things that are usually pretty natural. What do you mean by natural?
[Long pause.] You can look up the word "natural" in the dictionary.
OK
I made my mom test out the product, and she told me that it made her face dry and red. So there you go, never trust a cream being promoted by a washed-up action hero.
ALEX HUGHES
*actual song title from Steven Seagal & Thunderbox