In 1997, however, it's remarkable how pervasive this personification of the human id's influence on the mainstream culture has become. It's not only that his once nearly universally reviled (or at least ignored) albums with the Stooges hold up probably even better than similarly labeled "classic" LPs of the era, including Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. On the day that LAUNCH caught up with Iggy in a suite at West Hollywood's infamous Chateau Marmont, the L.A. Times reported that Boy George had kicked off his sold-out show at the House Of Blues with a cover of Iggy's "Funtime."

Even more telling was a benefit show at the Hollywood Palladium for Rock For Choice several nights prior to that, scenes from which can be viewed by clicking a few buttons on another screen. The Offspring were listed as the headliner, with Iggy sandwiched between them and Rancid. But everyone (including the Times and the other bands onstage) knew who the real headliner was: Iggy outrocked the other two bands as teenage punks in purple mohawks sang along to every word of "Search & Destroy," "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "Lust For Life"--the last with special guest Slash on guitar.

His acceptance in terms of the mainstream has been so complete, in fact, that Iggy Pop (who is still known as Jim Osterberg to a lot of his friends in Detroit, Berlin, L.A. and NYC) not only appears in relatively mainstream motion pictures (The Crow 2 and a cameo in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man), but in such fare as Nickelodeon's surrealistic kiddie show Pete & Pete.

Which isn't to say that the man with the bright, peroxided hair who answers the door to a Chateau Marmont room could ever be mistaken for someone who works for IBM. Only the day before, Iggy soon reports, a Los Angeles policeman had pulled a gun on him on Sunset Boulevard because he was practicing Chi-Kung--the Asian exercise that is the basis for T'ai Chi, which Iggy says accounts for his still extraordinary physique. "That looked strange! What was it?" Iggy recalls, aping the cop's response. Which all plays into his credentials as the genuine article when it comes to rock 'n' roll mayhem...and which probably accounts for the Ig stealing the show with true spontaneity at not only the cornball pay-per-view Elvis tribute concert in Memphis last year, but the recent superstar-heavy Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame concert in Cleveland as well.

And all of this recent activity has put the rock legend on a definite high, which he claims accounts for the "uplifting" spirit of his latest release, Naughty Little Doggie,. "I feel much more optimistic at this point in my life," he explains, nibbling on a room service sandwich and chips. "There have been a lot of boosts lately. And the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame show was one of them. I thought I did a decent job of it on an old blues song (Willie Dixon's 'Backdoor Man'), while sneaking one of my own songs ('I Wanna Be Your Dog') into it!"

He can't help but laugh.

"But I've put a lot of effort into the last 15 years. I wanted to pull up all my old stuff by its bootstraps and see it get to where I thought it belonged in the culture. And I think I've done it. People are covering the songs now. And a reasonable amount of people know the songs.

"I mean, there's people out there who still don't know me," he says. "I was on the air the other night, and this radio DJ says: 'The legendary Iggy Pop. I don't know why he's legendary, and I asked my friends, and they didn't know what he's famous for.'

"And I was like, 'Yeah, that's 'cause you're a DICK!' But a reasonable amount of people now know the material. Plus, I think I've grown as a musician. I can now sit and perform, just me with a guitar."

Indeed, this is how he recorded the demos for both Naughty Little Doggie and the Don Was-produced Brick By Brick. "And," he adds, "I survived the experience of American Caesar, which wasn't an album. It was a nightmare."

Iggy says he feels lucky--for the most part--that he lacks one sole song that's identified with him (and with which radio dicks can peg an entire genre) like Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side" or T. Rex's "Bang A Gong."

"Longterm, it's been a big help," he emphasizes. "I've been working through, like, seven generations in rock now, and I've seen musicians on top of the world fall off. In waves! Some of them got the money and the house--most of them didn't even end up with that--but would you want to be a member of Bread today?" He harks back to that band's heyday. "But when they were big, I heard their songs everywhere--and I was living in car parks, roaming the streets of L.A., eating chips from discarded room service trays. But I'm still here!

"So, I've had a career. But the other side is you're only as good as your last record, and if you're not careful, you can fall right off the game. I think at this point, there's always gonna be someone there to record me. I'm to the point where I have the capability to work --and it wasn't always that way. I'd end up off a label. My health would go to hell. And I literally wouldn't be able to work."

So, ultimately, does he think that the culture has finally caught up with him?

"Yes. Absolutely. And it's been very gratifying."

Indeed, the new album would seem to be targeted at those same Offspring/Rancid fans who weren't even born when the Stooges broke up; the sound would almost be an imitation if you didn't know the artist was imitating an imitation of his own imitators. But the one thing that'll strike you about Naughty Little Doggie is its sound--which, not coincidentally, was produced by Thom Wilson, responsible for the Offspring and other Epitaph bands.

"Thom's good," Iggy emphatically understates. "His rap sheet in the industry was that he was a great engineer, but he couldn't get arrested as a producer. So, he just did all these Orange County [California] bands; $500 productions. He couldn't make it doing that, so he was doing other jobs; he mixed the Joan Rivers Show. And the Offspring hunted him down. So now he can afford to turn down Aerosmith," Iggy laughs. "I guess he mixed sound for them once, and they weren't nice to him. He's just this hippie who lives in the Redwoods, but likes these noise bands and drives down to produce them. And unlike the major labels, Epitaph pays these guys!"

And true to Iggy's spirit, Naughty Little Doggie was creating controversy four months before Virgin even released the thing, thanks to a track of Iggy-esque double entendre proportions titled "Pussy Walk"...though if anyone could get away with a song called "Pussy Walk" and still remain endearing, it would be Iggy Pop.

"I thought it was cool," he says. "And I played it for people, a lot of women...and the first thing, they had big smiles on their faces, so I think it's cool. Next thing, the Virgin executives get this great idea--'Oh, it's pussy, but he doesn't really mean pussy, but he really DOES,'" he laughs. "And they think they can get a sleazy hit. They send it out to radio program directors, some of whom may play it at 2 or 3 in the morning--and then one PD complained about the reference to junior high and high school girls. 'We're getting into Michael Jackson territory here!'

"Except in the song, it says 'I say to myself' about those girls. Besides, I don't really. I like college girls and even college graduates--25 and up. When I did that verse, I reverted [in time]. I was thinking of [his first band] the Iguanas. Even the Stooges. I forgot I'm too old for that. I'm not supposed to think of that at my age!"

			"Five Foot One"
			"Lust For Life"
			"Pussy Walk"

Iggy met similar resistance when he sent out 10 chapters of his book, a work-in-progress detailing "the first 52 girls I screwed. I wanted to write a book about women. And romantic love. Or the lack of it." Still, several publishers are interested in some sort of book, he adds.

So, then, is Iggy Pop respectable enough now to play the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame, but still not respectable enough to get in as one of its inductees? After all, this is a guy who claims to be "cooler than MTV" on his new LP--and says he "can't submit [to the industry's rules]. I'd rather die."

"Well, my manager is in tight with some of those people," he says. "And they've said, 'The Stooges, never! NEVER! Iggy, maybe. If he's a good boy. And if he doesn't title albums Naughty Little Doggie!'" He laughs at the irony. "Maybe if I'd called it something like Heroic Young Executive!"

You just gotta love the guy.