SARASOTA, FL-

This has been what I call the Year of Ice. Colder than a shaved polar bear. Sayonara 2009. It’s been a year of pills, pills and more pills, until finally I seem to have reached some kind of treaty with bipolar disorder, which barely warrants discussion given that virtually everyone is now diagnosed as bipolar. Still, it’s important to note that when I write “ice,” I mean anxiety, yet when I write “anxiety,” I do not describe all attributes of “ice.” (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

I wasn’t expecting my invitation to be accepted, but Michael Jackson said he  preferred being interviewed by an unknown writer whose mark on the world so far consisted of White-Out fluid from years before. I was happy to oblige and got straight to the point.

“How are you feeling about your upcoming tour?”

“What tour?”

“Your big comeback tour. You must know that a lot, even everything, is riding on this series of concerts.”

Michael’s gaze lazily trailed across the floor. “Don’t let the sun go down on me.” (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

I’m sitting with Christian Slater in a well-known L.A. deli. Slater’s latest film, Dolan’s Crossing, is in wide release, in Europe, specifically Germany. I start by asking Slater the first of many delicate questions I have in mind, for I’ve been a bit beaten up during my last few interviews, and I begin this one in something of an ill temper. I think to ask his forgiveness in advance but then think twice about that and then stop thinking about it at all. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Ben Stiller is caustic without a cause, something like Napoleon had he served as a mere comedian/actor or, better put for his times, court jester. Stiller has the perfect life and exudes confidence to such an extent that one wonders whether confidence is a kind of systemic poison that serves as an irritant not to the person who swallowed the poison but to those within vicinity of that person. All of this is to say my interview started poorly.

“What do you want?” Stiller says. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

I’m with Robin Williams on the golf course, where he insists upon hitting drives with putters and putts with woods. Ostensibly, we’re going to discuss Williams’ new movie, Night at the Museum 2, but the conversation is a narcissist’s dream of a jazzy bebop drum roll. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Staring into Harrison Ford’s eyes is like watching Star Wars while mildly intoxicated: One sees stars and something scrolling, words and thoughts that have nothing to do with today. I ask him about his film legacy and he replies, “Which one?”

“How about Star Wars?”

“That was a good movie.”

“And Indiana Jones?”

“Good movies. Those were good movies.”

I struggle with a follow-up. His eyes are piercing, though what they’re piercing is uncertain. We order drinks and he begins to loosen up.

(more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

In a new book reviewed by Salon here, Terry Eagleton readies the religious backlash as if the tiny minority of American atheists somehow threatens his lukewarm beliefs. His favorite tactic is to lump Christopher Hitchens together with Richard Dawkins and refer to them as “Ditchkins.” The first is a neoconservative whose book only tried to raise profits, while the second is one of the most elegant proponents of evolution who happens to feel we arrived here without the help of God just fine…though we may exit unless we rid ourselves of ill-informed beliefs.  But that, according to Eagleton, is absurd, for Eagleton himself doesn’t believe in such fundamentalist hokum as creation “science.” Why, he’s not even sure God created man.  With religions like that, who needs atheism? (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Sean Connery is not a tough guy. That’s what he wants me to believe in this coffee bar that’s so hip no one knows it exists. “If I thought you were screwing me in this interview,” he says, “I might bite your balls off. But never mind that. I’m no longer double-07. I’m double-7. I wear a girdle in the few action scenes that don’t involve stuntmen, like sitting down. I’m still growing as an actor and a man.” (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Janeane Garofalo is almost 45 years old and wants you to know, “I don’t give a shit. I’ve mellowed.” We’re seated in one of L.A.’s most popular vegetarian restaurants, but I can’t give its location lest it becomes less popular. Nevertheless, Garofalo seems at ease with the diners trying to figure out just who she is, but she has an answer for that. “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” she says. Why? “Because I don’t believe in having pets, but beyond that, it was a slam at me, a typical role. I was the dog. And the only reason the guy fell in love with me was my personality. Yeah, right. That’s a bunch of fucking bullshit. Never happens. You see me with Brad Pitt? No, I’m eating with an unknown writer and watching people trying to remember having watched The Truth About Cats and Dogs. And to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.” (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Since nearly every interview with Sean Penn immediately notes that he lights cigarettes with the regularity of old women on prune juice, Sean Penn lit his third cigarette before our interview had begun. He spent that time gazing at me as if I were some sort of fantastic form of quartz. He is, and will always be, one of Hollywood’s foremost geologists, digging up jewels of roles, which he then polishes like a rock tumbler. He lit a cigarette before finishing the other one and smoked the two simultaneously. Soon, he was smoking fifteen cigarettes at the same time. He put on his sunglasses, took them off, and put them on again. It’s a useless actor’s ploy, and he was being ironic, I’m sure of it. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Yesterday, I received notice from the landlord: A pest controller would arrive in the morning and remove some type of animal from the attic spaces above all second floor apartments.  Today, at approximately 10:00 a.m., a man in a uniform climbed into the attic, where he remained for six minutes.  I heard what sounded like two hammer blows, followed by a high-pitched “Ouch, motherfucker!” Then, with a thud, it was over.  Before leaving, the man in the uniform stopped and said, “This never happened.” (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Now more than ever comes publishing industry’s chance to redeem itself. It might finally take chances again, though for me “again” means about the time when I was ten years old and watching Dick Cavett interviews with novelists I, even at that age, recognized as culturally dangerous. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Fashion, in the sense of a “70’s” style, is off its life support. Most people drastically switch styles during any given week, and we can thank the avatar for that. Play Dean Martin at night, the man in the gray flannel suit in the day, and call yourself an exhausted P.J. Harvey on weekend mornings. That’s the way it is and that’s way it should be. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

I’ve gone beyond anger. The land beyond anger is barren, arid. I’m in the Arizona of mental states.

Wait: We are going somewhere new. But first…

I miss George W. Bush. I miss him like oxygen because I once exhaled expletives, and now I choke on them. He was a gift box in which I wrapped my human nature. My nature, like all of nature, is violent. My anger is general. When I consider my anger specific, I lie to myself.

My anger doesn’t stop to smell the roses; it paints the town red with the petals. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

“Envy eats nothing but its own heart.”

~German proverb

I envy everyone.

I envy you my love with your wobbly leg and neurological condition. I wonder what it’s like to have a physical reason for suffering and I wonder why my infirmities teach me nothing yet you seem to learn with every fall.

I envy other writers. I won’t read your words too closely unless you’re dead. It goes that far. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

READ ALL ABOUT IT! PUBLISHERS CONSIDER SUICIDE!

Don’t do it! I know you deserve it, but there’s still hope. It’s this thingamabob called the imagination. You will learn what it is and how to use it, saving your so-called industry. I come with Good News!

(more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

In a moment, should you click “read more,” you’ll see the image that set me on the tracks to this essay. Caveat: I voted for Madonna — I mean Obama — and, I, too, wish to feel hopeful. Despite all appearances, I’ve nothing against hope; I just find it harder to maintain than most people. After all, a half-full glass of water is on its way to being empty, if only through evaporation. Pessimism, therefore, is simply good science. But wait: Here comes my train of thought, choo-choo. (more…)

SARASOTA,FL-

Though my confessions shall end in neither sainthood nor bestseller lists, I now come to my personal vampire. He survives the sun and crucifixes. I’m Hungarian and so is my Bela Lugosi. I call him OCD, but it’s the first initial by which I know him best. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

These masks
that wore me
frightened
no others,
only my

self.

Last night, those words came to me as if spoken in a play meant to enlighten me, the kind of drama I typically avoid.  The words marked the climax of the story I will tell. While I would not consider this story worthy of the higher goals of “tragedy,” it does contain the lower strains. (more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Call this Piss Americana.  Not only were we duped into believing a bank bailout was necessary, and not only must we pay the very institutions that caused this economic crisis (”Granny, can I call it a ‘depression’ now?”), but the banks have already unleashed plans to blatantly misuse the appropriated funds. I suggest we should have let them have their free market and take us all down with them, so that real change might occur…and you know what that will take: the burning, the looting, and the exposure of the police state ready to react (but perhaps not so ready as it thinks).  Yet beyond all of this, Bank of America, in particular, and major banks in general, continue engaging in an unconscionable tactic that generates billions of dollar in stolen profits every year: “Fees.” (more…)