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Alice Cooper

Whoever said you can't trust anyone over 50 was wrong. We told Alice Cooper about the crush we have on Nick Nolte, and he hasn't told a soul. Oh, crap! What have we done?!

It has to be weird having Alice Cooper for a father. Or for a personal trainer, a gardener, a milkman or an ESL teacher. For starters, this 55-year-old father of two wears black mascara. He travels around the world with boa constrictors to serenade audiences (loudly, mind you) with such timeless hits as "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy." And he's been doing this since before the Beatles broke up. Hell, since before GWAR, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson, Alice has been scaring squares and pleasing fans with his gender-bending, shock-rock blood- gore- and smirkfest. We approached the dark one with some questions, and, luckily, he was able to tear himself away from biting the heads off bats to answer them. (Alice Cooper is the one who does that, right?)

STUFF: Are you really a normal guy? That seems kind of boring.

ALICE: I've been married to the same woman for 28 years. I have a 10-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son. I'm active in our neighborhood. I coach Little League, for God's sake. When Wayne's World came out, you'd think I'd be this icon, but the kids on the team said, "Coach Cooper, how'd you get to be in Wayne's World?" They thought I had to audition.

So Coopers couldn't be the Osbournes? Not even with a really fat son who has poofy hair?>

The Osbournes are the new Beverly Hillbillies. A bunch of people from Birmingham, England — the equivalent of Birmingham, Alabama — moving to a place they don't belong: Beverly Hills. Except that I've known Ozzy for a long time, and I've been through the DTs, the shaking, all of that — and it's not funny. He's going through hell on TV, which is weird. Now, when he leans band in the chair and falls, it's better than Jerry Lewis. I laugh, but it's still sad. The Cooper family is more like the Flanders family. The seemingly nice, all-American neighbors, but there's something creepy about them. Something dark. Something you want to keep away from.

You are naughty. You just ended a sentence with a preposition! Is you house full of snakes?

Snakes are a pain in the neck. Slash has like, 50 of them, but they're hard ot keep. I only use mind in the show or for publicity. It's not like I've always got a snake wrapped around my neck. They're heavy and smelly and not that nice.

Please tell me that there's some violence and gore in your life.

My violence is what you get in a really horrible kung-fu movie. I think the audience is shockproof today. Me coming onstage with a snake and a guillotine isn't going to shock many people. It did in 1970. There were letters of protest and picket lines and an outraged middle class. Now, I don't think even Marilyn Manson shocks anybody.

So why the hell are you still popular?

My act is built on strong songs. How can you sing "Welcome to My Nightmare" without showing your nightmare?

You can do it if you're really lazy. When did you nightmare begin?

I was bit by a black-widow spider when I was a kid. I was playing in this old abandoned junkyard and felt a pain on my belly. It hurt like nothing you can imagine. That's why I think I've always been attracted to and repulsed by spiders. It's like Spider-Man, except I didn't gety any superpowers.

Except the gift of gab! Ah, I'm just joshin' ya, Alice. It's been fun!

Did You Know?

▶ Johnny Rotten auditioned for the Sex Pistols by singing Alice's song "I'm Eighteen." Then he got rich and famous and became an asshole.

▶ Ann Landers publicly lashed out against Cooper's song "Cold Ethyl" because it romanticized necrophilia. Uh-oh. Please don't tell Ann about our annual Necrophilia Is Awesome party. We have a hunch she might show up.

▶ Halloween at the Coopers' is a bust. Says the mascara'd one, "We buy all this candy, and no one ever comes over."

▶ Alice is the son of a preacher man. A presumably ashamed preacher man.