Episode 466 - Marc Spitz
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, folks, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What the fuckaristas?
Marc:What the fuckastannies?
Marc:What the fuckanucks?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fuckalberry thins?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:I'm glad you're here.
Marc:Alright, here we go.
Marc:I just wanted to add to that, too.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:See how that does.
Marc:See where that takes me.
Marc:I'm fully clothed today.
Marc:I am in my garage here at the Cat Ranch getting ready to go and direct the last day of actual shooting on Marin Season 2, the IFC show that I'm involved with by name and appearance.
Marc:I'm feeling a little melancholy because it was a long haul, you know, and we did 13 shows at a sort of a breakneck pace.
Marc:And you get very attached to everybody you're working with.
Marc:It's like a carnival.
Marc:When you do a shoot, it's like working at the carnival.
Marc:You know, you have a season, everybody's there, all the clowns and the people that put things up and the people that work behind the scenes and the people that make it all happen.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, one day, it's like, see you later.
Marc:It's one of those things I believe I was a pleasant person to work with, but I don't know.
Marc:I think I was.
Marc:I'm certainly not that much of a diva.
Marc:I had my moments.
Marc:I had my moments.
Marc:By the way, Mark Spitz, the writer whose book Poser has been out a bit.
Marc:He was a writer for Spin Magazine, is my guest on the show today.
Marc:And it's interesting because...
Marc:When I interviewed him the first time, I got very into his book, Poser, primarily because he was living in New York at the same time I was in the mid-90s.
Marc:At the same time that alt-comedy was sort of happening, he was doing the rock thing, going to Dunn Hills and partying on that side of the arts as I was toiling away at Luna Lounge on the Lower East Side.
Marc:But we had a lot of the same friends and we lived close to each other.
Marc:We probably walked past each other in our neighborhood.
Marc:He was strung out on what he was strung out on.
Marc:I was strung out on what I was strung out on.
Marc:But we just sort of missed each other.
Marc:We even had the woman who directed and dramaturge of my first show, Jerusalem Syndrome, off-Broadway, was his manager.
Marc:But maybe we met once.
Marc:You know, he came to my show.
Marc:He told me that.
Marc:But it was just interesting to talk about New York at that time.
Marc:You know, I lived in New York, 89 through 91, then 92 through 93.
Marc:I lived in San Francisco and I was sort of commuting to New York.
Marc:But in 94, I moved back full on.
Marc:And that's when he sort of took off.
Marc:And that's when everything sort of changed comedically with the sort of arrival of what was the original alt comedy rooms.
Marc:But it was an interesting time.
Marc:Lower East Side, my friends.
Marc:That's where it started.
Marc:That's where I ran away from.
Marc:The weird thing about New York City and the Lower East Side at that time, it was sort of the crashing of the wave, man.
Marc:In 89, I mean, all that heroin chic, you know, the not only the disco era, but the performance art era, the punk rock era, everything that had happened in the 70s took a while to die.
Marc:And then a lot of people were just sort of.
Marc:crawling around like you know maggots in its corpse you know wearing the same outfits and trying to do the same things but it wasn't quite the same I don't think as the 70s and early 80s by 1989 it was really sort of done and there was a whole new crew of people that were living the dream that had been there before them and and then it got twice removed by the time the mid-90s came around but in 89 the
Marc:The big transition, I think, for me was, I remember on the Lower East Side, I lived on second between A and B, and I was right next to a doorway that seemed to be a 24-hour, around-the-clock heroin supermarket that I didn't know about.
Marc:I was sober at the time.
Marc:I didn't stay sober at that time.
Marc:And...
Marc:It was just crazy.
Marc:It was menacing.
Marc:It was dangerous.
Marc:I didn't know what was going on on the block.
Marc:There were people on each end of the street, you know, keeping lookout.
Marc:There was something going on that doorway and I just avoided it.
Marc:I wasn't really that recovered, but I remember seeing junkies coming and going at all hours and thinking, like, do they know how fucked up they look?
Marc:Do they know how fucked up they are?
Marc:And then there was that one guy that I would see every day and I think, well, that guy looks like he's managing OK.
Marc:He seems to be OK.
Marc:Just needs to be.
Marc:It's like cigarettes.
Marc:It's like coffee.
Marc:That guy just needs his thing in the morning to get started.
Marc:It just happens to be a dime bag or two of dope.
Marc:And then I don't really know how his day went.
Marc:I can't imagine he was being, you know, that productive.
Marc:uh but you know there was that there was that period 89 to 91 and then of course i eventually made my way into that doorway uh at the end of that period of sobriety i said i gotta try this out see what's going on in that doorway got a couple of dime bags snorted one my face started itching i sweated i threw up and i thought well this isn't for me thank god but i gotta go so i packed up all my shit and i got in my car and i drove to san francisco to try to get back a girl and get back started again all i remember is it was me and
Marc:Todd Berry and Jeff Ross and and Louie and Sarah Silverman.
Marc:And that was I feel like that was sort of the David Tell.
Marc:That was sort of the core group of people that were hanging out the Kiev at three in the morning, you know, eating ice cream and and and doing, you know, just be in comics.
Marc:And I remember a lot of walking around the Lower East Side with Todd Berry, wondering why we couldn't get work.
Marc:The marker of the end of the Lower East Side was really a Tompkins Square Park.
Marc:I can't remember when the shit really went down, but it was almost like a tent city.
Marc:The band show was still there.
Marc:And at some point there were protests because they wanted to get all the squatters out of the Lower East Side, out of the buildings, out of the Tompkins Square.
Marc:And there was a whole movement down there and protest to let people live like that and to let people sort of take the liberties of squatting and keeping the park for the people.
Marc:And then at some point, Giuliani's army just plowed the bandshell down and moved the entire tent city God knows where and just leveled the whole goddamn thing.
Marc:And now I'm not being nostalgic.
Marc:I go back there and the heroin supermarket's gone.
Marc:It's now a fancy restaurant where you can sit outside.
Marc:I didn't want to spend time walking down that street too much.
Marc:It was menacing, man.
Marc:You never knew what kind of shit you were getting into.
Marc:And yeah, Luna's gone.
Marc:It's now leveled.
Marc:I don't even know if they built anything there.
Marc:Now there's fancy restaurants.
Marc:It's almost like they just bulldozed the history of rock and roll and performance art in New York.
Marc:Just plowed it under.
Marc:There's no vitality to it anymore.
Marc:I mean, it seems to be economically productive and there seems to be some good food around.
Marc:And maybe those people that that were once performance artists or or people that live that life have now grown up and it's behind them and they're walking around with with baby carriages and whatnot.
Marc:I don't know, but it seems like a lot of those people just disappeared that that whole time in New York.
Marc:of whatever that wave crashing from the late 70s on through the 80s just sort of disappeared, that whole tone of New York, the whole grit of it.
Marc:By the time the mid-90s came around, when I got back and Mark Spitz was running around becoming a writer for Spin Magazine and doing his drug thing,
Marc:There was still a lot of rock and roll, but at that time there was like second or third generation of whatever that ghost was, of whatever Manhattan was, you know, back in the 70s.
Marc:And it was an engaging conversation.
Marc:We had to do it in two chunks because when I first interviewed Mark Spitz out here, I'd only gotten through half his book and I felt bad about it.
Marc:So we did that half, and then I finished his book, and I met him in New York at a hotel, and we did the other half.
Marc:So it's sort of a two-parter, but not quite.
Marc:We're going back, man.
Marc:We're going back to New York, the Lower East Side, or New York in general.
Marc:Late 80s, mid 90s and talk to Mark Spitz.
Marc:I enjoyed his book a lot.
Marc:It's very specific, but it was very relatable to me.
Marc:His trials and tribulations with his father, with drugs and with New York City.
Marc:It all resonated with me and we kept missing.
Marc:I swear to fucking God, he must have been right around the corner.
Marc:Probably went to the same bodega.
Marc:And also, I want to thank here everybody who was involved in Marin, the show on IFC season two.
Marc:I believe we premiere in June.
Marc:No, May.
Marc:May-ish.
Marc:May.
Marc:And I think we did 13 great episodes.
Marc:And I really had a good time this time.
Marc:And everybody I worked with was amazing.
Marc:And I think I'm exhausted.
Marc:I'm not sure.
Marc:I got to go to work here in a few minutes and finish it up and try not to get too emotional.
Marc:But there's some amazing guest stars this year.
Marc:A lot of people that I love came out and either played themselves or played parts on the show.
Marc:And I'm excited.
Marc:And I'm also very excited, if you didn't know, that Marin Season 1 is on Netflix and available to stream all 10 episodes.
Marc:And why is my cat shitting on my rug?
Marc:Can anyone tell me that?
Marc:Why is my cat just taking dumps on my new rug?
Marc:Does anyone have the answer to that question?
Marc:I know you're thinking maybe the litter box doesn't.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:No, I think he just thinks it's a yard, thinks it's grass.
Marc:I guess that's what you get for being retro and cool and buying a shag rug is that your cat will think it's a yard and he will poop on it.
Marc:Okay, let's talk to Mark Spitz.
Mark Spitz.
Marc:How do you receive, what do you do when you see a good review?
Guest:Immediately dismiss it and ignore it.
Guest:Sure, right.
Marc:But as soon as you see a bad one, they're like, oh, they're right.
Guest:But I used to get drunk and I used to contact the person and I used to tell them that I would find them and fuck them up.
Marc:But you never went the other way where you're like, why don't you like me?
Marc:Isn't that what it's about?
Marc:I mean, the whole first episode of my TV show is about me tracking down a troll.
Marc:And it sort of happened in real life.
Marc:But if I really analyze what I was looking for, it was like, let's try to negotiate something.
Guest:Yes, immediately a certain type of artist or a certain type of man will go to that.
Guest:You.
Guest:Yes, me.
Guest:I am one of those people.
Guest:Maybe you're one of those people as well where it's like, no, you have to get it.
Guest:You have to get it.
Guest:Or I'm nothing.
Marc:Why are we nothing, Mark?
Marc:The thing is, I saw this book and I'd seen your name around.
Marc:I think I have your Jagger book that I didn't get to yet.
Marc:But I heard good things about it.
Marc:And then this book comes out, Poser, which is by you, a memoir of downtown New York City in the 90s.
Marc:And I was in New York City in the late 80s and on and off throughout till 2000.
Marc:So I'm like, all right, so we got to have the same terrain here or something.
Marc:And I just gravitated towards you with your sunglasses on and your ED shirt.
Marc:And I hadn't even read the book.
Marc:But I'm like, I need to talk to this guy.
Marc:Because I felt like there's got to be something I can identify with.
Marc:And then I start reading the fucking thing.
Marc:And I'm about halfway done.
Marc:And we're very similar in the engine region.
Guest:I don't disagree with you.
Guest:I absolutely agree with you.
Guest:And I felt like I'm a fan of this show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I listen to it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was one of the... A book publicist has to kind of have their own agenda.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to let them do their thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You don't want to be like, I want to be on this and this and this and this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This was one of the...
Guest:One of the places I was like, well, I think he might like it because we kind of covered a similar path through downtown Manhattan.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If we can get him to maybe open the book or look at the cover.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But no, but then I like, you know, three days ago, like I've been sort of like I'm so busy and I'm like, I got to figure out where am I going to go with this guy?
Marc:And then I couldn't put the book down, but not so much about downtown Manhattan.
Marc:It was just about, you know, the sort of you're very candid about what a clown you were.
Marc:But it was like in the sense it was in retrospect that the way you frame yourself as a younger person wanting to be an artist, you have a certain point of reference now where it's sort of like, well, that was ridiculous.
Marc:That was infantile.
Marc:That was, you're analyzing and overanalyzing your younger self to the point where I started to feel kind of bad for him.
Marc:But the thing that resonated more with me than New York was this idea that we both grew up middle-class Jews.
Marc:Our fathers have problems.
Marc:Yours is different than mine.
Marc:But it was this fundamental lack of identity and need to somehow finish building our self, our sense of self.
Guest:And you see it in other people in the city.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Or you see it in dead artists.
Sure.
Marc:But that's a public identity that we romanticize.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they become your friends and they become your almost like your teachers.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's like, but you know.
Guest:Charlie Parker or people like, you know, I remember seeing the Forrest Whitaker as Charlie Parker.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I thought, oh, well, I didn't feel any of the pain.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:You know, I was just like, I want that.
Guest:I want to be like that.
Guest:I want to be a great artist where I walk in the room and someone's like, oh, birds in the room, birds in the house or whatever.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you're basing that like just by saying that about Charlie, about about Forrest Whitaker, you know, not unlike me, you're basing it on almost exclusively image.
Marc:That, you know, it's like, you know, you read about this guy, you read about his life, and then there's this public mythology built around the guy.
Marc:So you're connecting, like, Bukowski was one of your guys.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You know, Burroughs was one of your guys.
Marc:Burroughs was one of my guys.
Marc:Keith Richards was one of my guys.
Marc:You know, there are these people.
Marc:And then later in the book, you know, David Thewlis from- Naked.
Marc:From Naked, which I resonated too.
Marc:Like, you know, it's like, I'm going to buy that shirt.
Marc:You know, I'm going to buy that jacket.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, Johnny from Naked.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I did that.
Marc:I mean, with anybody that, you know, I've got to put this thing together.
Guest:But the irony, Mark, is that and I'm assuming this is the same for you, too.
Guest:It's all about me this interview.
Guest:For some people, that's all there is.
Guest:But I had that affliction or that liability.
Guest:But I also was a really hard worker.
Guest:So it's like I didn't even need it because I was already doing the work.
Marc:But there was an insecurity there.
Guest:Already trying to get much better as a writer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And already given whatever modicum of talent I was given, if you have it, you know, if you have it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So it was like completely – so that's maybe why I was looking at it like what an idiot I was in an affectionate way because like – No, it was definitely affectionate.
Guest:Utterly unnecessary because I was still –
Guest:reading books and learning how to write and taking my classes really seriously and got to New York.
Guest:Got to New York not just to walk in the footsteps of Allen Ginsberg and Patti Smith and Jim Carroll and
Marc:um but got to new york to be a better writer to to be exposed to the things people say on the street and be exposed to but also to live the life i mean publishing world right you know and and but the way you frame it to live the life yes in the book that you know the really most of you know in terms of what you see yourself in retrospective who you see that kid was was a kid that was hung up on living the life necessary to be a great writer
Marc:Put myself in the Chelsea Hotel, and that's like half the battle.
Marc:But that was hilarious.
Marc:All right, so the reason I really like this book is that it's very specific, but to me, because I relate to it so much, I'm like, all right, so this life, these musicians, this idea of pursuing a life as an artist is a common one.
Marc:And not only is it common, but you and I have a lot of similar kind of experiences around certain writers.
Marc:And it seemed all kind of...
Marc:When you were growing up, you grew up on Long Island.
Marc:Five towns.
Marc:My cousin's from Hewitt.
Marc:I have some familiarity.
Marc:My Jewish upbringing was in New Mexico.
Marc:They got away from that.
Marc:But I mean, in that world, what were you fighting against at that time?
Guest:Just the fact that you could recognize someone by the car they drive.
Guest:It was like this sort of middle class, maybe upper middle class kind of suburbia, but it was really a small town with the sort of patina of upper middle class suburbia.
Guest:It was really like...
Guest:there's cheryl in her seville beep beep hi cheryl like it was just felt so small cheryl sarah rachel and and none of the jill right and none of them would fuck me yeah like none of them would you know they wouldn't get there it was a jock culture but you also identify yourself as a jewish american prince which i don't feel like you essentially fall into yeah i was rebelling against that as well big time right i wanted to to know what it was like to to be uh
Guest:cooking a can of soup on a radiator in the Chelsea, you know, do you remember the first experience you had in identifying with that lifestyle?
Marc:Yeah, it was, we were replicating it up at Bennington.
Marc:No, but I mean, before early on, because, you know, when you were a preteen or probably a junior high, you know, when was, what was the moment where you're like, you know, that's where I'm going to go.
Guest:Being with my dad and going from racetrack to racetrack and seeing the beat down people, you know, I mean, it fucked me up.
Guest:And I kind of I'm on the fence in terms of I wish it didn't happen.
Guest:But at the same time, it was definitely like a good window.
Marc:So your relationship with your father, your parents.
Guest:It was the first time I ever saw anyone who didn't have all the money they needed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Who didn't have like a guarantee that they were going to like...
Marc:fill the tank up right so your dad lived like that he lived he was a still is rambling gambling really fuck yes so so when how old were you before your mother stopped putting up with that shit she she i was like 10 when when she keep on it she finally kicked him out and do you know that the have you talked to her about the reasoning there i mean what was the the straw that broke the camel's back
Guest:uh yeah my dad used to he used to smoke a lot of yeah i feel weird saying this in a public way but i'm just gonna you know it's in the book but he used to get high you're gonna have to yeah you're gonna have to accept that he might not like your book i wrote a novel called how soon is never like 10 years ago that fictionalized him yeah and he didn't talk to me for a year yes my own father yeah for a year of our lives like what do you think he's gonna say you think he's read the book
Guest:uh i didn't i didn't send it to him i sent it to my mom so back to the question let's go to the specifics or how what how did he fuck you up i mean what do you write he would so he would say your mother's a cunt and your mother fooled around on me i'm 12 years old i just want you know i want my like zits to clear up yeah they should wait till you're at least 20 before they start dumping that shit on you a cunt your mother's a cunt yeah yeah
Guest:Oh, really, Daddy?
Guest:Is she a cunt?
Guest:What is a cunt exactly?
Guest:Why can't we go back to the baseball?
Guest:Why can't we go see the Yankees again?
Guest:Is my mom a cunt?
Marc:Yeah, none of that.
Marc:None of that.
Marc:So you were in the middle of something.
Guest:There's really no having a healthy relationship with a woman ever again.
Guest:I mean, there's no... No.
Guest:Did you ask your mother about it?
Guest:No, I was terrified of even bringing it up.
Marc:I shut it.
Marc:So was he a guy that drove a shitty car, he smoked cigarettes, he's getting high.
Guest:King Kings, yeah.
Marc:And he's a gambler, a compulsive gambler.
Guest:But also that thing, and I don't know if you, a really, really good heart, like really funny.
Guest:Sure, we're all very sensitive.
Guest:Very charismatic.
Guest:Women loved him.
Marc:I don't know, like after a certain point, there's a number of rationalizations those good-hearted people make where the good heart idea kind of fades a bit.
Marc:Where you're like, yeah, he's got a good heart, but at some point he's got to take responsibility for this horrendous need that he has, right?
Guest:Or he could just have taken the... You could be a gambler.
Guest:You can enjoy going to the racetrack.
Guest:You can enjoy taking drugs.
Guest:But you still have to... And I only know this now that I'm in my 40s.
Guest:You still have to be kind to people.
Guest:You can't go out of your way to be selfish and hurt people.
Guest:And it seems like he was at the age that I am now.
Guest:And he was going out of his way to in a very selfish way, like, fuck with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it worked.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how did it work?
Marc:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, because, you know, trust issues and then seeing things that like I shouldn't.
Guest:I shouldn't see, but then seeing things that once I discovered Charles Bukowski reminded me of things I'd read in Bukowski.
Guest:So then I went and did the 180 and thought, oh, well, my dad's pretty cool.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's showing me this world and now I want to be a writer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And this world is much more interesting than fucking Lawrence, Hewlett, Cedarhurst, you know, and everyone wearing Benetton jerseys and driving BMWs and wanting to get their little W letters on their...
Marc:So initially, what's interesting, I think, about that is that, you know, you were able to to sort of frame your your particular witnessing of this element and not until later fall victim to your own compulsions that, you know, I didn't become him.
Guest:I probably became worse than him in a way.
Guest:Well, yeah, I did worse.
Guest:I think I went to heroin.
Guest:Just to outdo the old man.
Guest:Yeah, you gotta win.
Guest:I was like, he's a pussy.
Guest:He only did coke.
Guest:I'm going to do heroin.
Guest:I don't know if there's any winning.
Guest:And New York City, I think, comes into it, too, because I started to, as a teenager, and this is starting to get into the late 80s, so you've got bands like Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore, and you've got... New York is just starting to get... I started to see that his New York was sort of becoming cheesy.
Guest:And you grew up in his New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was the first person to ever take me to Greenwich Village.
Marc:And what was his thing?
Guest:But he would show me like 8th Street.
Guest:He'd show me the poster mat.
Guest:The poster mat was important.
Guest:And he'd show me... No, but I'm saying he'd show me Washington Square Park.
Guest:And we'd go to Ray's Pizza.
Guest:And we'd like traipse around... And he saw Charlie Barnett.
Guest:Charlie Barnett.
Guest:Dude, Charlie Barnett.
Guest:I know Charlie Barnett.
Guest:Yeah, Charlie... I was like, Charlie Barnett is bigger than my dad.
Guest:And this is a New York... This is someone who's...
Guest:Bigger than anyone I've ever seen before.
Guest:And how old were you when you first saw Charlie?
Guest:12, 13, maybe?
Marc:See, that's a big moment, and people don't realize this, that Charlie Barnett was a stand-up comedian who primarily played Washington Square Park.
Marc:In the fountain.
Guest:In the fountain, yeah.
Marc:There was a couple guys that could do it.
Marc:Him and Rick Aviles were the guys that could do it.
Marc:And Aviles made a break earlier than Charlie.
Marc:And Charlie would just, you know, he'd build an audience and he'd just push it to the wall.
Marc:And you were among the people that, and he was a crackhead and a disaster.
Marc:But, you know, he could hold an audience, like sometimes 300 or 400 people would gather around Charlie Barnett to see him do his shtick.
Marc:And you saw that as a 13-year-old.
Marc:Many times.
Guest:But just to look at Charlie, too, the intensity and the- And he would stalk, like back and forth, kind of like Chris Rock.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Maybe Chris Rock picked up some of that or something.
Marc:A lot of people picked up something from Charlie, yeah.
Marc:And how did that affect you?
Guest:I thought, like, I can't go back to Long Island.
Guest:I can't go back to where the people- Yeah.
Guest:Where this man- Yeah.
Guest:doesn't exist won't play yeah yeah yeah like i want this yeah i didn't realize that like he was just bound for like literally literally the the very short probably very painful and you know well he did the one movie did dc cab i met him again he almost the the legend is that he almost got snl yeah yeah that i think that legend holds but i when i first came to la in the late 80s you know he was here
Marc:Briefly.
Marc:And, you know, trying to make a break.
Marc:And I remember talking to him then, and then he died.
Marc:And, you know, he had a profound effect on Chappelle and, you know, some other people.
Marc:You know, he used to do clubs here and there, but, you know, he was just erratic and had a bad drug problem.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I know what you're saying.
Marc:There was a grit to it all.
Marc:So you need to get out of Long Island.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:and in what you know when but the poster mat that you know these like the landmarks that you talk about were like that when I used to go visit my grandmother in New Jersey and take the bus into New York I'd go to those places colony music in Times Square was another yeah colony yeah that I used to do but the poster places were fucking and I don't mean to the poster was great it was exciting yeah and and it was like um and and flip was right across the street and there was like right on lower Broadway right like desperately seeking Susan time in the city
Marc:I think that's why I love the book is I don't think people really understand, let's say experience, the sort of hold that New York can have, you know, this particularly at this point in time where things sort of were changing, you know, on your psyche.
Marc:It was like really the last sort of gasp of New York as being, you know, gritty and inspiring and everything else.
Marc:And the junkies were just by the time you got down there to live, that was almost coming to an end.
Guest:Almost.
Guest:I've been really lucky in my life getting in on the very tail end of things.
Guest:Whether it's that New York, that New York that's not that far removed from Max's Kansas City and Basquiat and even CBGBs.
Guest:I'm 43.
Guest:I didn't get to see The Clash at Bonds, but I got to see other things that were in that
Guest:Right.
Guest:The equally as important.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe Gigi Allen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or maybe you've got the tail end of that.
Guest:I got the shitty end of that deal.
Guest:Literally.
Guest:Literally.
Guest:And the same thing later on in the book with the music industry.
Guest:You know, I got in in 97.
Guest:There's still a shit ton of money there.
Guest:There were parties.
Guest:They would fly you to foreign countries.
Guest:None of that happens now.
Marc:Well, let's talk about Bennington a bit and then we'll get up to speed because like you really lean, like there's something about the mythology and what Bennington, the college represented to you that, that you still, you revere it at least throughout the entire half of the book that I just read, that there was something about the idea of Bennington that defined you and that, and, and that, you know, you held onto what was it?
Guest:Well, for, for, for two reasons, primarily one is that it was my way out as you know, it was my way off the Island and I never really went back except to like show up on
Guest:parents doorstep what is Bennington what what was it at the time it was like it's it was the most quote-unquote most expensive college in the country was like it's like sort of like that's what was known for but it's really just a really good liberal arts college in southern Vermont and it was like
Guest:uh, Jill Eisenstadt and Brett Easton Ellis and Donna Tartt had all just come out of there and were publishing these big books.
Guest:So that was kind of where, I mean, I got into Sarah Lawrence.
Guest:I got into Bard.
Guest:I got into Hampshire.
Guest:I was, I did the rant and the whole gamut.
Marc:You only apply to girls schools.
Marc:What the fuck?
Guest:I wanted to meet girl.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:It had a real reputation at the time.
Guest:Largely because of Brett Ellis.
Guest:Rules of Attraction had just come out.
Guest:He calls it Camden, but it's really Bennington.
Guest:And Less Than Zero had come out before that.
Marc:I like that book.
Guest:And American Psycho came out while I was at Bennington.
Guest:So he was like, that was like- That was the model for you.
Marc:You had your heroes in place.
Guest:And you had teachers there who were published and you had their sort of winking, like, you come here and maybe you can get an agent and you can get published.
Guest:And it was like four people who wanted that.
Guest:And I already wanted that.
Guest:I wanted to see a book.
Guest:With my name on it.
Guest:That was my goal.
Guest:You're surrounded by these mountains.
Guest:You've got like, I think 600 students.
Guest:You're a virgin.
Guest:Half of the guys are gay.
Guest:So you're going to get laid like every... You're going to form... You're going to turn into basically this monster that you've always wanted to be.
Guest:Thank God for college.
Guest:And then you get...
Marc:the the whispers it starts with a whisper but it's like oh someone's got heroin heroin's coming it's coming you know like someone's but what led up to that i mean i mean they were like when i was in college i mean you know uh ecstasy just came on the scene towards the end but you had pot you had you know coke yeah and you sort of go through it that but but you have to be specific in in when i'm talking to you in that you aspire to be a drug addict
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, when I wrote the book, I didn't want to to hide behind like some like, oh, it's hereditary or oh, you know, it might be.
Guest:But still, I'm sure it is.
Marc:All I wanted to do when I was 10 was smoke cigarettes.
Guest:Yeah, no, I wanted to be I want to be.
Guest:Yeah, I went for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, there was this weird line when someone first tied you off that, you know, you were like, you still had an aversion to needles, at least early on.
Marc:And the Coke was so good in New York.
Marc:And I remember that shit.
Marc:They sold it next to where I live.
Marc:When you got to New York, I was living next to where you were scoring.
Marc:I lived on second between A and B, you know, right next to that fucking doorway, you know, just up from B. And, you know, there was, you know, those Mexican dudes.
Marc:Yeah, sometimes they're like, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because it's hot out.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Because the cops are out.
Guest:Right, that guy.
Guest:And then they're sometimes like, what do you need to do?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And they sold coke and heroin in the same spot.
Marc:Oh, I know that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:See, I thought I'd known that.
Marc:But I went there, I was sober for the first time, and I ended up starting to snort heroin.
Guest:Yeah, I heard you say that on one of your shows.
Guest:I heard you say that, and I thought I made the connection.
Guest:Yeah, but that was where it was.
Guest:I was like, oh, maybe that's the same spot.
Guest:Yeah, but it was a very popular spot.
Guest:But didn't it seem like literally someone sounded an alarm and everyone was doing it?
Guest:Everyone was on it and everyone was winking at each other.
Marc:I think it was primarily because of the shift in the quality of heroin.
Marc:I think once they realized that they could put out a high quality product that young middle class kids could snort and the stigma of the needle was gone.
Marc:Once guys like you figured out this shit is so good
Marc:that you don't have to shoot it.
Marc:It was like, there's a whole new market.
Marc:Like everybody can do this.
Guest:I guess it's that Annie Hall line where he's like, it makes a white woman feel more like Billie Holiday.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:She wants to smoke pot.
Guest:Like it is kind of that, like it is a cliche and you're probably right.
Guest:It comes down to marketing at the end of it.
Guest:And I was a victim of, I was a target, targeted market.
Guest:Right, you were a kid.
Guest:I take it seriously.
Guest:I thought it was like this personal, painful trip.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But really, I was just marketed to.
Marc:In a way- And it was a zeitgeist.
Marc:It was a quality thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the reason why heroin made it to Bennington is because you didn't need needles anymore.
Marc:I mean, the difference between the brown tar shit out here and the fact that you actually processed that shit or knew how to process it so you wouldn't have to fucking shoot it was baffling to me.
Marc:That you could smoke it or you could break it down.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:And here, when I was doing it here, because there's a whole chapter in the book about-
Guest:And you'd cook it up on a frying pan and then chop it up and snort it.
Guest:I didn't want to get AIDS.
Guest:That was the thing about the needles.
Marc:I was just terrified of getting... But you weren't afraid of the... You already accepted that being strung out is being strung out.
Marc:I mean, my fear of needles was more around the idea that I know very few people that come back from that in any full-on way.
Marc:That once a needle relationship begins, it's very hard to fucking come back from that.
Guest:I think I mean, it's hard to admit this, like even like in therapy, much less like in something that people are going to hear.
Guest:But like, I think that I just wanted to say that I shot up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, sure.
Guest:And it's and and also.
Guest:And I don't want to say this in a way that's going to encourage anybody, but it's a killer, killer.
Guest:It feels so fucking good when you shoot up.
Guest:I mean, it just does.
Guest:You know the difference.
Guest:It's that train spotting thing where he just falls through the floor and the floor disappears.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, that's real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, in the Villa Carlotta.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, over in Franklin Village.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I fell through before I had that feeling.
Guest:Yeah, and that was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not so much at Bennington the first time, because I think I was just scared, and the adrenaline...
Marc:Well, I think that's what balances your character and probably why you're still alive is that, you know, there was a self-awareness to the whole process.
Marc:I think that the fact that, you know, a lot of the reason you were doing this was just to live the life that you thought was necessary in order to be the artist you wanted to be.
Marc:That kept you in check somehow.
Guest:That and luck.
Guest:I think luck.
Guest:Sometimes, you know, some people just die and they're not okay.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And they're just dead.
Guest:And they were doing the same thing that I was doing.
Marc:Yeah, just a bad mistake.
Marc:First timers.
Guest:We would wake up in the morning and we would hear, we would read in the post, New York Post, the same shit that we were, the same, you know, they used to stamp them with little brands.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So we would know what it was that killed the dude.
Guest:Tango and Cash.
Guest:Yeah, or Bad Lieutenant.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's like, yeah, we would know.
Guest:Oh, we did that.
Guest:And then we would feel real cool.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Fuck that guy, he died.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We did it.
Guest:Yeah, we did it.
Marc:Well, that was the fucking thing.
Marc:Art takes are bigger than that guy's takes.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, that was a bit I used to do is that like for everyone, whenever that news story came out that that shit was killing people, there were a bunch of junkies on the Lower East Side going, where are they selling it?
Marc:That's got to be good.
Marc:That's got to be clean.
Marc:I was that dickhead.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But let's talk about the art of it, though, because when you're at Bennington, you said you worked hard, but I mean, you were building this identity for yourself and doing everything you could.
Marc:So you're at Bennington, you're writing poetry.
Marc:uh i started writing poetry i had an agent when i was like 20. i mean i i was in new york no yeah but i was still a student at bennington i had a novel that was i my plan was for it to come out and i would never have to work a day job and it would be that was the amazing thing about writing about your confidence around this like your your your reaction to your insecurity and how inflated you got gave you a confidence that i never had i never ever assumed that this would be the ticket out of anything i
Marc:I appreciate that about you, that you had this fucking first novel based on your amplified pain and identity, and you thought, like, this is it.
Guest:Yeah, and I had a great thesis tutor, Philip Lopate, who really respected writer and editor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought I would be next.
Guest:I thought it was like Brett Ellis, July's is not Donna Tartt, and I thought I would be next.
Guest:I'm still not next.
Guest:I'm still waiting to be next.
Guest:But I thought, yeah, man, this is going to happen, and this is the reward for being 19 and moving into the Chelsea Hotel.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Let's talk about that because, again, this is you, 19, what?
Marc:1989.
Marc:1989.
Marc:So the mythology of the Chelsea is Dylan Thomas, Sid and Nancy, Dylan.
Marc:Leonard Cohen.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But that's sort of done and all you got left is Herbert Hunk and Didi Ramon.
Guest:Didi Ramon is still there.
Guest:Herbert Hunk is still alive.
Guest:It's still a shithole.
Guest:But you had to live there.
Guest:i had that was where yeah that was where i had that was where you go yeah you know and so every poem i wrote at the time i could say well i wrote that in the chelsea hotel even if it was a piece of shit poem which i'm sure it was and nobody stopped me nobody sat me down and said man what the fuck are you telling me tell me about the whole process they paid for it my grandparents paid for it i got because i had an internship at the kitchen do you remember the kitchen sure yeah was that the one that was like upstairs it felt like a living room or was that actually a place called the living room
Guest:No, the kitchen was like a big industrial space.
Marc:Okay, do you know what I'm talking about?
Marc:Some woman ran a performance space that was at a loft.
Guest:Yeah, I think that was in Soho.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They started in Soho, but at the time they'd moved to where the High Line is now.
Marc:So your first venture into New York was that you'd written some poems, you'd written your novel, and you're on an internship at the kitchen, and you decide you've got to live at the Chelsea.
Guest:For the winter of 89 into, or for the winter of 88 into 89.
Marc:And you talk your practical Jewish grandparents into paying.
Guest:Who just paid, I don't know, probably at the time, like 25 grand for Bennington.
Guest:And then they're like, wait, you're not at Bennington?
Guest:I'm like, oh, it's a non-residential semester.
Guest:What?
Guest:They're like, what?
Guest:What did you say?
Guest:We go out and we learn how to be artists.
Guest:And they're like, wait, we just signed up.
Guest:We just sent them a check.
Guest:It's a tough sell.
Guest:I'm like, no, I'm not there.
Marc:And I got to fill like three months in the middle of the winter.
Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you go to the Chelsea.
Marc:Tell me about this.
Marc:Walk me through that.
Guest:I'm terrified.
Guest:You're 19?
Guest:I'm terrified.
Guest:I think someone's going to jump me in.
Guest:No, but you're 19.
Marc:I'm 19 years old.
Marc:And you go in and you'd heard.
Guest:Oh, I heard that Stanley Bard gave discounts to people.
Guest:He would trade a room for like a painting if you were a painter.
Guest:Or if he liked your art, he was a very, he was a, what do you call it?
Guest:Like a patron.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:He was the manager.
Guest:He was the manager at the time.
Guest:And so I had a meeting with him and I sat down with him and he's like, so what do you do?
Guest:And I'm like, I'm a writer.
Guest:And he's like, what do you write?
Guest:And I'm like, oh, poetry.
Guest:He's like, I'd like to read some of your poems.
Guest:I'm like, really?
Guest:And the whole time I'm there, I'm trying to like, I'm waiting for him to like, just basically say...
Guest:uh you know welcome you know like you're you've made it you know what i mean like whatever it is i'm gonna i don't even know what i wouldn't even know i wouldn't even know what success is yeah i'm gonna give you leonard cohen's old room that's how much i like right and one day you're gonna have a plaque outside and when you're the next you're the next you know just of course yeah
Guest:And, of course, he said none of that, but he did end up giving me a little bit of a break on the room.
Guest:And, you know, my grandparents, if I told them that I got like $20 off, of course, that was success and they paid for it.
Guest:You know, it was a bargain.
Guest:How was your first night there?
Guest:I...
Guest:I slept in my clothes because I was afraid someone was going to break the door down and rape me or fucking kill me.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:I was just like, if I make it through the night and I see the sun come up and I spend one night in the Chelsea Hotel, then the second night in the Chelsea Hotel can't be as hard because there's a context.
Guest:And then by the end of the week, I'm going to be...
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I'm going to be a Chelsea girl.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And that's exactly what happened.
Guest:By the end of the... I was taking cabs with friends just so I could be like, oh yeah, Chelsea Hotel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they dropped me off and they'd wave me because they used to lock the door at night.
Guest:They'd have to buzz you in.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:And there was something, you know, I mean, I write about it in a way that, like you said, I make myself like sort of the butt of the joke, but there was also something beautiful about it.
Guest:I mean, it was this gorgeous old building where so much art was made and now they've like fucking gutted it.
Guest:I don't know if you've seen it, but they're turning it into like shitty condos or whatever they're turning it into.
Guest:I've been there.
Guest:I'm not assuming they're going to be shitty, but it's not going to be...
Guest:It's not going to be what it was.
Guest:There were things that were there for people like me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people like you.
Guest:To hold on to.
Guest:That I think are, I'm not even sure they're even available.
Guest:If you come to New York now and you wanted to do what you wanted to do and I wanted to do what I wanted to do, where would we even go?
Marc:No, I think arguably- They go to Ludlow Street, that's for sure.
Marc:No, no, you can't go anywhere.
Marc:I mean, I think arguably what, you know, all of that stuff, you know, that you were there at the tail end of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fucking over, dude.
Guest:And that's why- It's all gone.
Guest:It's all American and paralyzed now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and it's all restaurants and it's all- And it's safe.
Guest:And it's fucking safe.
Guest:Completely safe.
Guest:All the people that used to be- There's no risk.
Marc:Well, there's no- People who work in the city can't even afford to live in the city.
Guest:Tulsa, Oklahoma is New York now.
Guest:Anywhere is New York now.
Guest:The internet is New York now.
Guest:You don't have to go to New York to be in New York now.
Marc:I guess what I'm trying to get at in talking to you is that feeling of wanting to hold on to that.
Marc:of wanting to live that way against the momentum of where culture was going.
Marc:Even when you talk about your roommate with the hypertext business, I kind of remember that bullshit too.
Guest:He was really into DJ Spooky.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that wasn't what resonated with us.
Marc:So when did you, you started taking the hits.
Marc:I mean, you had this big dream and you moved to New York with your novel.
Marc:You know, at some point, when did you realize you were just, you know, turning into a strung out person who was holding on to a dream, you know, versus, you know, on the brink of something?
Guest:I got, like, dropped by my agent.
Guest:That's what I was after.
Guest:It didn't happen.
Guest:And I found myself in Hollywood, and that didn't happen either.
Guest:Like, that didn't happen in a so much more humiliating way because, you know, there's so much more at stake, you know, going to...
Guest:uh, meetings at studios and, and things like, you know, like trying to, trying to, to, we followed a chick out here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I followed, I followed my, my girlfriend at the time, uh, Zoe out here and, and you lucked out.
Guest:Cause I figured I would be, you know, her father was like a famous composer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, right.
Uh,
Guest:And he did the score for like Robocop and the Blue Lagoon and they had a big house out in Encino.
Guest:And she was in a band and we were all just sort of trying to make it in Hollywood.
Guest:And I just like so many things that sort of got close to happening and didn't end up happening.
Guest:And I was doing theater on the Lower East Side.
Guest:And I realized...
Guest:There was nothing there.
Guest:I had nothing but that.
Guest:I was an empty person, and I was strung out most of the time.
Guest:And when that didn't happen, and that's all that I wanted to have happen, was to be a great writer, I was basically like this cipher of a person pushing 30.
Guest:And then I just got lucky.
Guest:I got hired at Spin, and I got lucky.
Guest:I just got...
Guest:i just got lucky you know you i went from working in a bookstore and selling other people's books working at shakespeare and company on lower broadway so you went back after la yeah i went back and i knew i went into rehab i got humbled i guess i got um was that the last of it no not even close yeah but uh yeah so so it was but it was it was um
Guest:It was around the time that Giuliani was elected and cleaning up.
Guest:And for some reason, I got to be friendly with this actress, Adrienne Shelley.
Guest:I don't know if you knew her.
Guest:I went to college with her.
Guest:That horrible fucking story, that is.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I still go sit sometimes with... When I'm feeling sorry for myself, I go... There's a little park in Abington Square...
Guest:across from where she was killed, and there's a little plaque, and I go sit.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:Yeah, she was a sweetheart.
Guest:There are some things that helped me start to figure it out.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And she was one of those people.
Marc:When you went to rehab, so you're out in L.A., and how bad did that get?
Marc:I mean, were you shooting that tar or what?
Guest:It wasn't... Yeah, I was shooting it, but it was also like...
Guest:I was wandering around, walking, getting into cars with strange people because I thought they had drugs.
Guest:I was doing things that you end up on the side of the road doing.
Guest:Things that you shouldn't be.
Marc:LA can be the loneliest fucking place in the world, especially when you're out there just walking.
Marc:It's not New York.
Marc:New York's like a big friend.
Marc:I thought being an ex-junkie was cool.
Guest:In 1992, the first time I gave up heroin, I listened to, there was a song about it that Fishbone did called Pray to the Junkie Maker or something like that.
Guest:And I thought, oh man, yeah, man, all that shit's behind me.
Guest:I was a person who developed this pathological attachment to identities that weren't really mine.
Guest:No, I get it.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:And one of them was being clean also.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:I rose above it.
Marc:I got a story to tell.
Marc:Or I just do marijuana maintenance or just have a couple of coffee.
Marc:And I'm just trying to be myself.
Marc:Because I think what you did here, for me anyways, as a guy who's reading your book, was that you gave a voice to something that I thought was very specific and almost unique to the point where I didn't want to talk about it.
Marc:And you talked about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:which is that there's an ongoing heartbreak of the feeling of never being able to accept yourself or fit in.
Marc:And sort of like moving through identities like a fucking hermit crab moves through shells.
Guest:Even at Spin, which was literally the first time I saw my name in print, literally the first time someone gave me money to write, literally the first time I was writing things that got the attention of other agents, and I started writing books.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i wasn't myself i became my byline i became what i thought nick kent or lester bangs would be yeah you know uh so you still couldn't you you you were in almost famous like that was like i took i took my cue from like from that right you know for like i wanted to uh most of the people there would like go to subway for lunch and sit in the conference room yeah and and talk about old neil young records whereas i would go out and do like speed balls with rock stars yeah
Guest:you know because i want to be that guy i want to be that guy the one guy on staff who is like gonzo yeah living it yeah sure sure like i got a story you know you just went to the concert and and no fucking rock star is more badass than me and i'm gonna i'm gonna drink you under the table and i did drink them all under the fucking table what a prize that is and she
Guest:So that's the second half of the book.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:And then the end of it, the resolution is to just finally, finally, finally try and just let... And it's the scariest thing in the world.
Guest:It's the fucking scariest thing in the world.
Guest:To not know at almost 40...
Guest:Who you are.
Guest:Who you are.
Guest:What kind of man you are.
Guest:And knowing that, and you start to feel, you know, you're, you're, you're half, halfway done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I was on a plane coming back from Austin and, you know, turbulence can't bring a plane down.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it feels like it can bring a plane.
Marc:Dude, every, I travel constantly.
Marc:And during takeoff, when the noise changes, I'm like, well, this is it.
Marc:This is, this is how I'm going to go.
Guest:So there was one and I was, I was like, I, I, this is it.
Guest:This is how I'm going to die.
Guest:It's going to be plane crash.
Guest:And I thought, I don't know who's dying.
Guest:I don't know who's being lost here.
Guest:And that was the moment where I knew that I needed to change.
Guest:It's fucked up.
Guest:It's fucked up to feel like you're going to die and not even know who are they going to bury.
Guest:Who is that person?
Guest:Do not know yourself at all.
Marc:You do know one thing, right, is that there's some part of you that is so afraid
Marc:of everything that you didn't, you know, let that guy live, right?
Marc:Like a lot of guys who do fucking smack and a lot of guys that push the envelope.
Marc:Like for me, and I don't know if you had this, when I started doing drugs and living that life and aspiring to being an alcoholic or a drug addict, I always thought like, well, if I ever lose my mind, then I gotta pull back.
Marc:Like there's this line and then one day you're like, I crossed the line.
Marc:I'm in a hotel room with pirates and someone stole my shit.
Marc:And how am I different than these fucking people that I thought I had one... I'm not an artist anymore.
Marc:I'm a drug addict.
Marc:But somehow or another, you've met guys that have killed that part, that have killed themselves without dying.
Guest:I started to realize how much I was fucking up my career, too.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:I mean, some of the plays that I wrote, I did a play called Shyness is Nice that got to Aspen.
Guest:HBO flew us out to that workspace they had on Melrose for a while.
Guest:We did the dance for them a couple of times.
Guest:And I wouldn't take my fucking sunglasses off in the room.
Guest:And I got drunk the night before.
Guest:And I did all these things that were just like...
Guest:Things that that guy would do.
Guest:Do you know why?
Marc:I mean, do you know why you made that decision?
Marc:I mean, was it still a romanticization of your heroes?
Guest:Now I think that I did it so that I could become... I think if they gave me a TV show and all this money...
Guest:10 years ago I would be absolutely I would be dead I would use it to blow my fucking brains out somehow yeah like I just would right because that's what I wanted to do right like that's what I wanted it for did you really want it though I mean were you really I mean you know I didn't you know that's the other thing too is deep down and I look back at it now and I don't know if you have things that that that you that are similar in terms of what you created at the time but maybe I deep down thought it was good it was good it was probably better than most other people out there but it wasn't
Guest:But you still beat yourself up about it.
Guest:Because I could do better.
Guest:Because it wasn't good enough.
Guest:And clearly it wasn't good enough because they didn't buy it.
Marc:Right, but you thought that just by your behavior, you're somehow protecting yourself against disappointment by being a douchebag.
Guest:Yeah, I will give them an out for not buying it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that no one has to point out the fact that it wasn't good enough.
Guest:We could blame it on the sunglasses I wore or the fact that I was hungover.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I regret it.
Guest:I regret it.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I regret it because I would have a lot of money right now.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Maybe it'd be all gone.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:And I regret it just because I, you know, because I have a lot of regret.
Guest:I mean, that's kind of what I, you know.
Marc:So what, now, outside of this memoir, I mean, you wrote a book on Bowie, you wrote a book on Jagger, you've written plays, you've written these shows, you know, you do all right for yourself, right?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, this is my, like, seventh book.
Guest:I'm working on another one.
Guest:I've got a bunch of other stuff, you know, that I'm working on.
Guest:There's a novel that I wrote called How Soon Is Never that,
Guest:is about these two people who try and reunite the Smiths.
Guest:There's shit going on.
Guest:Not as much as you got going on.
Marc:Dude, I'm just hanging on.
Marc:It's like I'm in the middle of this thing, and the only thing that I'm happy about is I do have a certain amount of sobriety, and I do have a... Somewhere in the last few years, I landed in myself.
Marc:I think what I was going to tell you, just in terms of encouragement, is that
Marc:You know, age and a certain amount of exhaustion, you know, forced me to eventually, you know, about 80% accept myself.
Marc:You know, I think sobriety helped, but I mean, you know, I didn't anticipate it ever happening, but I no longer...
Marc:you know like okay so i bought red wing boots and you know i felt like i was the first to do that but apparently they're around you know i i still fall victim to this idea like i finally got an authentic pair of pants uh that no one else has and i'm gonna but but for the most part i don't have the energy that i once did to to put myself through that yeah age age will age will do it but what do you get from your parents is your mom still around too or no
Guest:Yeah, my mother is around.
Guest:She thinks the book's hysterical.
Guest:She's like, it was hard for me to read the drug parts.
Marc:Yeah, I just got that too.
Marc:I had my mother's like, well, there's some things as a mother I didn't like, but as a person who read the book, I love it.
Guest:I like the ending.
Guest:The ending was good.
Guest:They had too many references I didn't get, so it's not going to sell.
Guest:That's what she said to me.
Guest:You got to throw that in.
Guest:As far as the albums that I mentioned.
Guest:Yeah, she's been supportive.
Guest:And the father...
Guest:I interviewed him for it.
Guest:I did that David Carr thing where I went back to people and said, you mind if I talk to you for 20 minutes about this period?
Guest:Because I did a little reporting, because I'm still a journalist.
Guest:Not so much that it overshadowed it, but the old man I interviewed, and he didn't really get a sense of what I was doing with the stuff.
Guest:He thought maybe it was for another piece.
Guest:He would call me and say, well, is it out yet?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you just hope they forget, but they never do.
Marc:There's a weird bit of memory that dads have where you're like, he can't remember that.
Marc:They remember shit that's just fucking, and it's always the most worst, vulnerable, hateful shit.
Guest:Yeah, and they're, I mean, he's still there.
Guest:I haven't been able to shake him off.
Guest:He's still there.
Marc:But aside from that, regrets.
Marc:I mean, do you have them?
Guest:Yeah, my ex-girlfriend Lizzie says that I'm addicted to regret.
Guest:She says that I do things so that I can regret them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like, I don't know that that's, you know, that might just be something you say to your ex-boyfriend.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Well, do you ever say, if I had done this or if I should have done that?
Guest:The 40s are weird.
Guest:The 40s are the time when you start maybe.
Marc:Well, that's going to be your key into fucking the last piece, buddy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You may not be able to shake your resentment, but if you can forgive yourself and not regret, then you kind of, that's a ticket into it.
Guest:You have to start thinking about shit like that at my age, and I've just started, yeah, regret.
Guest:Because it's...
Marc:Because the party's over.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's useless.
Marc:Regret is useless.
Marc:It serves no purpose.
Guest:And I don't have religion, so I don't have that out.
Marc:Well, you got the Jew thing.
Guest:But that's just cultural.
Marc:No, I get it.
Marc:That's just Lenny Bruce.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And, you know.
Marc:Sure, man.
Marc:That's not.
Marc:Or our idea of Lenny Bruce coming to him 30 years after he died.
Marc:Sure, I get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No, that's not.
Marc:The picture of Lenny Bruce.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The mythology of Lenny Bruce.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that would make things easier, I think, if it was there.
Guest:Even yoga, don't have it.
Guest:Buddha, anything.
Marc:It's not going to do it.
Marc:No, I think what it really comes down to, and it's so fucking simple, and it's just very flat, and it's incredibly simple.
Marc:It's just self-acceptance.
Marc:And it's so fucking retarded to think like, yeah, well, that's easy to say.
Marc:Yeah, but oddly, you know, the switch is just sort of like, well, that was the life I lived and I made some mistakes.
Marc:You know, I apologize where necessary.
Marc:You know, I probably hurt myself a bit, but, you know, nothing's going to fucking change that.
Marc:And on some level, you know, it got me to where I am now and I, you know, I'm still alive and I'm doing okay.
Guest:I'm going to take your word for it.
Guest:I believe you.
Guest:The energy in here is very good.
Guest:I'm serious, man.
Guest:And I've been in places where the energy has been not so good, so I can tell the difference.
Marc:The hardest thing is that forgiveness element.
Marc:I mean, do you forgive your father?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, not yet, but I would like to.
Guest:It's hard, right?
Guest:I would like to.
Guest:Sometimes I think it would be easier if he was just dead.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:They just keep going, the narcissists.
Guest:I plan going to the funeral.
Guest:I could forgive him if he would die.
Guest:Let's talk about, okay, so you wrote the book on the L.A.
Guest:punk scene.
Guest:Yeah, we got the neutron bomb, was with Brendan Mullen, who passed away.
Guest:That was an oral history.
Guest:That was like the West Coast version of Please Kill Me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You wrote these two big biographies of Bowie and Jagger.
Marc:Were those contract deals, or was that your interest?
Guest:Yeah, it was a little bit of both.
Guest:I mean, Bowie, obviously, huge...
Guest:And it was great to just meet, you know, these people and hear these stories from the kind of Warhol people who hung around with him in the early days to like, just people who made music with him, you know, Carlos Alomar and people like that.
Guest:But those books were, you know, those books were- Did you talk to Bowie?
Guest:Part paycheck books.
Guest:No, they were write-arounds.
Guest:They were like, I didn't talk to Mick Jagger.
Marc:I didn't talk to David Bowie.
Marc:In the research, what did you find out that really resonated with you as a guy who worshipped the guy?
Guest:Well, that was the thing.
Guest:You get to see them as...
Guest:You get to see them a little bit more because you live with them.
Guest:If you're writing a biography of someone, you kind of live with them.
Guest:You get to see them a little bit more as just people.
Guest:And then Bowie was like out of the public eye while I was writing the Bowie book.
Guest:And he'd been sick.
Guest:So I got to sort of see a little bit of when I would hear stories about people who interacted with him and how he wanted to quit smoking, but he couldn't quit smoking.
Guest:I got to see like a man.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As opposed to this fucking Deedee, you know, who was basically one of the best and probably the most interesting rock stars who ever lived.
Guest:The Jagger thing was that was more of like me being, again, that was like, we're going to pay you this amount of dollars.
Marc:You got a little flack for that.
Marc:Did you?
Marc:You got some flack for it, right?
Guest:For the Jagger?
Guest:Yeah, because...
Guest:People thought it was like an answer book to the Keith Richards book, which it totally fucking wasn't.
Guest:I mean, I love that Keith Richards book and I love Keith Richards.
Guest:And I wasn't like, but I thought, okay, if they're going to pay me money to do this book on Mick Jagger, I don't want it to be like, you know, these cats who wrote like four different books on John Lennon and three books on Mick Jagger.
Guest:And, you know, now they're writing a book on George Harrison.
Guest:I want it to have like a little bit of a point of view.
Guest:And my point of view is that Mick was like cooler than we think he is.
Guest:But, you know, just between you and me and everyone who's listening, like I wasn't, you know, like I was kind of, I was writing this like kind of moonlighting writing this at the same time, you know, because I was like, who gives a shit really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But people can tell.
Guest:People know when you're writing a book and you're thinking who gives a shit really and they don't buy it.
Guest:Didn't sell that well?
Guest:Not that well, no.
Guest:Sometimes you have to write a book, especially the way that the- No, but you worked hard on it.
Marc:Whether your heart was in it or not, you did your work and there's part of you that feels like you- Here's another word of advice.
Marc:You want some more advice?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:When you have the thought to go... Write all this down for you before I go.
Marc:When your impulse is to go like, yeah, I didn't really want it, just don't say anything.
Marc:Oh, you mean like I should... Yeah, because no one gives a fuck.
Guest:It's true.
Marc:That cuts both ways.
Marc:All they want to hear you say is like, yeah, no, I had a really good time.
Marc:And it's really not that hard to do.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:No, but the weird thing is you're compelled to be honest.
Marc:So I have that same compulsion, but there's a time and a place for that kind of honesty.
Marc:And if you're just honestly going to sit there and beat the shit out of yourself in front of people that ask you mundane questions... I know.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It's perverse.
Marc:Here's a great example.
Marc:This is my father.
Marc:I'm with my father.
Marc:I'm with my father at a coffee shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I grew up.
Marc:And I don't see him that often, but we go out.
Marc:We're going to go out.
Marc:Albuquerque is cool.
Marc:I've been to Albuquerque.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, I grew up there.
Marc:It's a great place.
Marc:But we go to this coffee shop.
Marc:Some dude comes up to my father.
Marc:He goes, literally, he says, Barry, Marin, I can't believe it.
Marc:I haven't seen you in, what, 15, 20 years?
Marc:How you doing?
Marc:And my father goes, well, the money's running out, and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself.
Guest:as opposed to just fine yeah right right it's good to see you how's the thing that might be some of the best advice i've ever received you know you're right you're absolutely right and in this business absolutely it's even it's probably even more important it's just it's hard to do it because you just want to i don't even know what the point you like i can't help it i can't help it it's hard dude i mean either you want to take a shot at them or you want to trivialize what they do so many fucking bridges so many
Marc:Well, we have that same magic.
Marc:There's certain people that can say one thing that people will never forget, and it'll fuck them forever.
Marc:And then another person could say, and they're like, oh, that's just him being him.
Guest:I'm not that guy.
Guest:When I got fired from Spin in 2006, I was waiting for the calls to come in.
Guest:Because I was pretty flashy.
Guest:I got a lot of attention.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't get a call from Blender.
Guest:I didn't get a call from Rolling Stone.
Guest:And then I started realizing, oh, right, I was at Pianos and I told the editor of Blender that it was a piece of shit magazine.
Marc:You were just being honest, right, Mark?
Marc:Look, we both know.
Marc:I know it's your job and everything, but you know it's garbage, right?
Guest:You just got to shut the fuck up.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:Well, you're doing the work.
Guest:You're doing it.
Guest:You're doing it Mark Spitz style.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Guest:I mean, like I said, I'm a fan of that.
Guest:Actually, I got mugged like- Finally.
Guest:Last year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Ironically, I was 42 years old.
Guest:I made it through.
Guest:In the booking.
Guest:You're like, it's going to happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got 42 years old.
Guest:I was with Gina, the writer Sloan Crosley.
Guest:She's like, I was walking down the street with her on fucking 11th street in front of the quad.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like, like literally like the most gentrified.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:Right there?
Guest:I got mugged.
Guest:We both got mugged.
Marc:At gunpoint or knife point?
Guest:They said they had a gun.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And we're shaken up.
Guest:But obviously we just gave them the money and they left.
Guest:And it was like the best scenario if you're going to get mugged in Manhattan.
Guest:I didn't even see the flash.
Guest:It was a good mugging.
Guest:It was a polite mugging.
Guest:They even called her ma'am.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Thank you, ma'am.
Guest:Now move on.
Guest:And so, but then it started to, you start, it just naturally, the adrenaline, you start shaking.
Guest:And so I walked her home and she lived a little north of me on the west side.
Guest:And I didn't know what to do.
Guest:So I was walking home to my apartment and now the city was just like...
Guest:evil yeah everyone was like fucking gonna kill me yeah you know and so I put I put your podcast on and it was like that like you know like like I don't know you like I know your voice right and it was like that like sort of thing yeah that I'm actually grateful to you like it brought me brought me back into like a like less primal place because you were talking to some comedian about you know like good so I'm here to help man yeah I always thought if I ever got to like meet you again I would I would tell you that because that was like
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm glad I was there for you.
Guest:42 years old, walking with another published writer down 11th Street.
Guest:Yeah, in this day and age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, see?
Guest:There's a little of the old New York you miss.
Guest:I took my eye off the ball.
Guest:I wasn't street smart, I guess.
Guest:Or maybe I'm not anymore, but...
Guest:what were you gonna do cross the street i should have yeah i mean i i could have i don't know yeah they they i she says it was because i was carrying an umbrella i had like a plaid umbrella and they just they just they're like they focus right in the plaid the plaid one get them not a three dollar one the five dollar umbrella no it was a london fog yeah he's committed he's a guy that doesn't leave umbrella places yeah
Marc:All right, so that was part one, and then part two, because I wanted to make sure to be thorough with this guy, because I hadn't finished his book, and I loved the book, so I wanted to finish up this interview.
Marc:So this part takes place in a hotel room in New York City, in the second part of our conversation, the second conversation.
Marc:You know, when I last talked to you, I'd only gotten through, I think, most of your college years and the beginning of the heroin addiction and floundering in Hollywood.
Marc:You didn't get the professional junkie.
Marc:Right, professional junkie part.
Marc:But I think there's something interesting because there's something, you know, that I don't understand, which is, you know, I came to music crit really late.
Marc:Like, it didn't play a part in my life.
Marc:And I don't know why.
Marc:It just wasn't on my radar or something relevant, but it's obviously a portal into a broader cultural crit that is important.
Guest:It was starting to become that by the time I got into it.
Guest:How did you get the opportunity to spin?
Guest:I didn't want to be a rock journalist.
Guest:I wanted to be a rock journalist for Spin.
Guest:Because along with the rest of the theme of the book, you were seeking identity.
Guest:Because their writers...
Guest:sounded the way that i thought and not the way that the people around me sounded all right so now that's the thing you know now that the romantic element of it you know is in place and you're managing drug addicts so right so so i'm back in shakespeare and company i'm not getting published anytime soon i'm checking bags i'm doing dope um um um you know
Guest:I'm sure I'm about to be fired.
Guest:Even my girl, we split up.
Guest:So I was just like couch surfing.
Guest:And, um, I got, there was this like, I think it's called like sessions at West 57th street or something like that, where it's like Fiona Apple and Beck and all these people would sort of do these live shows for a bunch of connected industry motherfuckers, you know, and like, I think PBS broadcasted or something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Kind of remember.
Guest:So I, I got into that and then I saw my friend Ron Richardson who was, um,
Guest:who is a buyer at shakespeare and company and he said hey i said hey man what's going on because i've been fired at this point yeah and he's like i'm at spin now yeah and i'm like cool man you're writing for spin he goes no no no i'm i'm working on the website i'm like what's a website the fuck is a website yeah he's like i'm doing content you know it's like we really need content are you are you doing any writing i'm like yeah i'm doing writing
Guest:I don't know what's content, you know, I don't know what, you know, so he gets me an interview and, and like literally, literally I clean up overnight, like no dope, uh, uh, you know, go down to Astor place, get a haircut, you know, just do the whole, like, like this is your last chance.
Guest:You're 28 years old.
Guest:you've been reading spin since 1985.
Guest:It's your favorite magazine.
Guest:There's an opening.
Guest:I don't know what the web is.
Marc:It's new, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, it's still like the green cursor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is like even pre matrix, you know, there's chat rooms, I think.
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's got like Sonic Youth blogging from their, or whatever they called it at the time.
Guest:It wasn't called blogging, but their electronic tour diary.
Guest:Filing their electronic tour diary.
Guest:And it's this ground floor as it gets.
Guest:I think the Pitchfork had just started maybe a year before.
Guest:This is like early 97.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I get there and I get in the door and I look around and then I realize that like we are as low on the totem pole as we're like the people in the basement on Enlightened.
Marc:Yeah, you're an experiment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like no one says hello to you.
Guest:You know, the big writers there, they're like the stars.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're shit.
Guest:And they're upstairs.
Guest:Literally upstairs.
Guest:And no one's putting money into it.
Guest:And I'm literally like...
Guest:being paid off the books.
Guest:That's how shit it is.
Marc:So this is sparking everything, the spite and the fucking... But I imagine at that time, because you were in, you had to have... You had to reach into some relatively real competitive spirit and try to figure out how the fuck you were gonna climb.
Guest:Well, I had two things going for me.
Guest:One is that like I've been reading the magazine forever.
Guest:And the other is that I didn't give a fuck because I was just glad to be off the street.
Guest:And if I had to go back to the street or worse back to Long Island.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like the folks like like I could do that.
Guest:I had the safety net and I had the junk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so I like the two things that were like, I don't give a fuck.
Guest:I'm going to do what I want to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kind of things in place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I also wanted to help Spin succeed because I loved it so much.
Guest:I just loved that thing that it was and that it went up against Rolling Stone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I remember that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was wrestling with being a soldier and also being so, so disgusted by that feeling that you're in high school again.
Guest:And not only that, but you're the uncool kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:what do you have to do to get and this is it's so ironic now it really is because print doesn't count for shit anymore and everything is the web but the time it was completely reversed it was up as down black as white you know and like but it's interesting because because the reason you like spin was that it was an it was a shift in the paradigm of how you know music was understood and and and culture yeah writing about like fella and riles davis and and steve earl and right and now you know here you are in what seemed to be flag and yeah
Marc:But you were in what seemed to be the weird, temporary... And there were.
Guest:There were people in Minutemen t-shirts, and Charles Aaron was there, and he just interviewed Bob Stinson, and Sia Michael was there, and she just interviewed Biggie, and he just died.
Guest:And there were people who were like...
Guest:in that world legendary already.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, but they were upstairs.
Guest:They were upstairs.
Guest:We weren't even on the same floor.
Guest:We didn't, we didn't, we weren't, we didn't eat lunch together.
Guest:We didn't drink together after work.
Guest:Um, so I was like, how do I get up there?
Guest:What do I got to do to get up there?
Guest:And ironically, the way that I finally got up there is that this editor, Dave Moody was writing a piece about ex junkie chic and he was looking for a junkie to do some reporting.
Guest:And he goes, he summons me up there and he goes, don't freak out, but I heard that you do heroin.
Guest:And I'm like, no, man, I don't do heroin.
Guest:I just want this job, man.
Guest:I need a good job, man.
Guest:Don't fire me, man.
Guest:Am I getting fired, man?
Guest:And he's like, I need someone who knows about that scene to do some reporting.
Guest:I'm like, oh, yeah, I know about the scene.
Guest:I'm down.
Guest:I'm on it right now.
Marc:I'm nodding right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, that's, I guess that's a really beautiful irony because that was my in.
Guest:And once they, once like, like, you know that cause you, you're still around, man.
Guest:It's like once they open the door, man, you go, you, all they gotta do is open the door a little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the, and the good ones, that's all you need.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know,
Guest:And by 1999, I was writing, like literally a year and a half later, I was writing cover stories.
Guest:I was just like, and like Zev Barrow and these people, I was just like, I'm blowing your doors off, man.
Marc:What was your approach to it?
Marc:How did you do it differently?
Guest:My approach to it was that I wanted to be...
Guest:This was at a time when... It's hard to explain, I guess.
Guest:It was at a time when VH1 had a huge cultural impact where they were starting to recycle the myths of rock and roll via behind the music and things like that.
Guest:It was filling a void because people had gotten so academic in terms of music criticism.
Guest:It had gotten too classy almost.
Guest:There wasn't that...
Guest:Gonzo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, you know what?
Guest:If I, even if it's not me, it's a character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Hunter Thompson is a character.
Guest:Lester Bang is a character.
Guest:Those aren't real people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, George Plimpton is a character.
Guest:I just saw that movie.
Guest:Many characters.
Right.
Guest:Those are the people that get attention.
Guest:And sometimes in this business, it's like all you need is... I'm not talking about like, you know, I don't want to be this... I don't want to suffer.
Guest:I don't have to answer to this guy forever.
Guest:But for now, I feel like it could work.
Guest:So I invented this person.
Guest:And this person...
Guest:made the addiction that I already had useful because this person could party harder than the actual rock stars and was more of a rocker than the actual rock stars and sort of was a little angry at the rock stars because they would make more money off a shitty single than I would ever make in like my life as a rock writer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I was just like, I had that fuck you.
Guest:Your singles better be good.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And sometimes you get lucky with the zeitgeist or whatever.
Guest:I hate that fucking word.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:Where just around the time that this is going on, you get Jack White and you get Julian Casablancas and you get Karen O and all these really...
Guest:really exciting, fully embracing everything that's rock, sweaty, beer-spitting, loud bands.
Guest:The kind of bands that remind you of The Clash or Zeppelin or all the people that Lester Banks and Cameron Crowe and Nick Kent got in their time.
Guest:I thought that would not happen for me.
Guest:And when that happened for me and my character was already in place,
Guest:then I got sent to tour with all of them and drink with all of them and do coke with all of them.
Guest:And it was the right bullshit guy with the right real good bands at the right time.
Guest:And it was like also that thing, Lester Bang said that Exile on Main Street was about partying in the face of tragedy.
Guest:And there was a lot of post 9-11 partying in the face of tragedy.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:In both hip hop and Iraq.
Marc:But their tragedy was Brian Jones or what was their tragedy?
Marc:What was he saying?
Marc:And Vietnam, the end of Vietnam.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And being chased out of England by the tax man.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Just, you know, fuck it.
Guest:We're in the south of France and we're going to like, it's like life is shit.
Guest:We owe hundreds of millions of pounds.
Guest:We don't even own Mother's Little Helper anymore.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Or satisfaction.
Marc:But the 9-11 thing was like much more sort of cultural tragedy for everyone.
Guest:So everyone was in a PTSD.
Guest:It was a literal tragedy.
Guest:It wasn't it wasn't a figurative tragedy, but it was also a cultural.
Guest:I don't know what the word is.
Guest:And I don't want to like.
Marc:And you were here that day.
Guest:I was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, what's the word?
Guest:It was, it was, uh, uh, almost like a defiant.
Guest:It fueled our defiance culturally in the city.
Guest:It was almost like a, there was, there was, there were no short of like the Wu Tang clan.
Guest:I don't know how you feel about John Spencer blues explosion, but there was, there's not a lot of like really great bands here.
Uh,
Guest:And then it seemed like there were dozens and dozens of them in the fall of 2001 and people were paying attention to them.
Guest:And we were like, and I'm not, I'm not just talking about the strokes, you know, I'm talking about like the who playing at that show, the garden that October, I'm talking about like rock and roll helping rebuild the city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and in a way this country, and I felt like I was a tiny, minuscule component in that because I was writing at a rock magazine and because I believed in the power, that power.
Guest:All you have to do now, I mean, you still watch that Who shit on YouTube, you still get chills.
Guest:Or Bowie doing...
Guest:America by Simon and Garfunkel opening the show anyway.
Guest:So after that, like literally after that, like I, I almost became, I subsumed into that character that I invented cause it was easier to be numb.
Guest:It was easier to somebody else.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was, um, it was easy to party in the face of tragedy all the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So like I was eating Valium like Tic Tacs.
Guest:I was doing Coke when I woke up in the morning.
Guest:I was, I would drink a, a, um,
Guest:half a pint of Jim Beam before I even left to go to a bar.
Guest:And I told Sia, my boss, I said, send me anywhere.
Guest:I don't give a shit.
Guest:Just keep me working.
Guest:Keep me on the road.
Guest:I went to Australia.
Guest:I went to Sweden.
Guest:I went to Paris.
Guest:I went to Orlando.
Guest:I would go fucking anywhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I didn't want, I just.
Guest:With bands following bands?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I didn't, I didn't want to, I didn't want to be downtown.
Guest:I couldn't.
Marc:So that's what defines your style and your approach.
Marc:And it was like a sad, synchronistic moment.
Guest:It locked me into this, to this, to this guy that I never fully intended to be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It locked me into the guy I was pretending to be so I could get ahead at spin.
Guest:So you crossed the line.
Guest:And the only thing that unlocked me was Elizabeth.
Guest:My girlfriend at the time.
Guest:How long did it take?
Guest:About a year.
Guest:Before you hit the wall?
Guest:She was persistent, yeah.
Guest:I was getting into fights and bars.
Marc:But you were doing big stories.
Guest:I was still writing well.
Guest:What was the best story you ever wrote during that time?
Guest:What is the moment?
Guest:I've been told that it's a profile in Spin about Ryan Adams.
Guest:I've been told by people who've read my stuff in Spin.
Guest:And the irony is that Ryan was doing all the same things that I was.
Guest:I think why it was good is because it was written in a way.
Guest:There are two.
Guest:Two stories that I am very proud of.
Guest:because they were written in a way that I imagined Lester and Cameron and Nick Kent wrote stories, and in a way that increasingly was not the way that the business was encouraging people to write stories anymore.
Guest:Now you listened to albums in conference rooms and record companies because people were stealing music.
Guest:Right.
Guest:and you didn't get you got an hour with a band you didn't get to go on tour with a band right and you didn't get to hang out with a band in various cities yeah over months right and the ryan adams story i was in the studio with him in new orleans i was in his apartment in new york we were drinking in seven seven uh no two b yeah that bar yeah the cop spot like right up the street
Guest:Um, we were speedballing together, you know, but it made for a great story and it made for a notable story because nobody, nobody at fucking Rolling Stone, David Frick wasn't writing stories like that.
Guest:But that model, that whole model was gone.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You didn't go on the bus anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I went on the fucking bus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went out with guided by voices.
Guest:You know, I drank with guided by voices.
Yeah.
Guest:who could survive that i went out with the strokes you know i stayed up all night with the strokes that was another story it was like six cities um that was my that was my almost famous story you know they were they were still water but now okay so let's let's talk about this in retrospect because now you're how old
Marc:I'm 43.
Marc:I'm 49.
Marc:And I feel the same way you do.
Marc:But I mean, I didn't take the risks that you did, you know, in order to service this spirit.
Marc:You know, I don't want to call it an ideology, but this passion, you know, to chase this dragon.
Marc:So now as an older guy, now you've seen the arc of it and you've seen, you know, that people have died for it.
Marc:And even the people that didn't die for it when they should have, you know, eventually died of it.
Marc:You know, what do you feel now?
Marc:Alone.
Guest:I feel like... Remember that HBO documentary on supermodels who get older and they don't get invited to as many parties anymore because they're not beautiful anymore in the same way?
Guest:They didn't do the smart thing and become a trophy wife.
Guest:I feel like when I get to the shows...
Guest:Or when I get the work, I feel comfortable because I'm able to do it now and just enjoy the music and the spirit.
Guest:I don't need the handicaps anymore.
Guest:But the irony is that I don't get to the shows as much as I need to because there are no...
Guest:there's no spin sending me to the shows.
Guest:There's no, I do a couple of pieces for the New York times a year, but like, there's really no infrastructure anymore.
Guest:The irony is that once I figured out how to do this without, you know, living it, the monkeys and the feather boas and the bells and whistles, they're one shit to do.
Guest:You know, they're like, Oh great.
Guest:Good for you.
Guest:You're not dead, but like, we ain't got to work for you.
Guest:You know, is it still out there though?
Guest:Is the spirit still out there?
Guest:What do you think about these kids?
Guest:What do you mean, like the Brooklyn kids?
Marc:Whatever they are.
Guest:What do you think about them?
Guest:What do you think about the 20-year-old comics who are like... Well, you have to take the hit mark.
Guest:i take it every morning man i mean that's because you know because there's no other way to there's no other way to frame whatever you feel about those kids other than like kids today okay okay it's easier for me than it is for you because i'm the fucking marlboro man yeah i'm like the the uh the the john gaudy yeah i'm the thing that doesn't exist anymore
Guest:But I'm just going to be young rock writers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I'm just saying no place for them to write except in their bedroom.
Guest:I'm just sort of the cool professor.
Guest:You know, I could see myself easing into that if I could, if I could.
Guest:But the network, I'm not good at networking.
Marc:The one feeling I have, see, this is the weird thing is that what you grow to learn, whether there is rock writing or not, or whether the spirit still exists is that, you know, either these kids are going to survive it.
Marc:They're going to take their hits.
Marc:They're going to go up and down.
Marc:Some of them are going to become huge.
Marc:Others are going to get opportunities.
Marc:They're going to think they're huge.
Marc:You just see these cycles of success and failure.
Marc:And the only thing that matters in the long run is this tragic persistence of not being able to do anything else.
Marc:And at some point, you have to say, like, that's OK.
Marc:I'm tired.
Marc:I wish you the best of luck.
Guest:Did you ever think about getting a job job?
Guest:No, after a certain point, there's no plan B. Right, because I would be fired by... Yeah, you're not prepared to do anything other than teach, maybe.
Guest:What, are you going to work at a restaurant?
Guest:I think I'm going to teach.
Guest:I'm going to try and sock some money away.
Guest:Hopefully, the movie of my novel will get made.
Guest:I'll get, you know, another book deal.
Guest:I'll be smarter because I'm not fucked up.
Guest:And that's like, I don't have a plan.
Guest:I'm kind of fucked because what I invested in, what I invested in, the whole culture and the medium is over.
Guest:But is the spirit of rock and roll still alive?
Guest:On a good day.
Marc:Not in you.
Marc:But I mean, can you look out and say, like, I still have hope for what, you know, what made me feel alive is still out there.
Marc:And it's still can you be sort of empathetic enough to say, like, you know, maybe maybe another band will will lead these kids down this path.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think I'm damaged.
Guest:You know, like there's this band called Savages, right?
Guest:And they're on Matador and they're supposed to be the shit.
Guest:And they were the shit in England last year and now they're the shit this year.
Guest:And I listen to them and all I hear is Susie and the Banshees.
Guest:You know, like I'm one of those guys now.
Marc:Yeah, it's been done.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm fucked.
Marc:Seen it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're not fucked.
Guest:Look how grouchy Morrissey is.
Guest:All Morrissey is now is a grouch.
Guest:You know, whereas he was Jesus to me.
Guest:And now he's just like this.
Guest:They get old.
Guest:He's the old lady complaining about the humidity.
Marc:I know.
Marc:So that happens.
Marc:But I think what you're realizing and what I realized a while ago is like after a certain point, it's just sort of like I'd like to not die broke and I'd like to have health insurance.
Guest:I would like to have all that.
Guest:I would like to have – I don't want millions of dollars, but I would like to have like a little bit of like not fuck you money, but like please leave me alone money.
Marc:Yeah, like I don't have to work right now.
Guest:And I would like to have some semblance of respect from other people and self-respect.
Guest:And I think I want – I think part of the reason why I wrote the book –
Guest:is because I'm not cool anymore, and if I have a child and he ever acts up and thinks I'm a pussy, I want to shove it in his face and be like, read this motherfucker.
Marc:Yeah, he'll be like, you're old.
Guest:Yeah, and when I thought that I was going to marry Elizabeth, I thought like, God, our kids are going to be so... Either they're going to be so cool or they're going to be so...
Guest:pissed off because we can be like, oh yeah, well we met Nick Cave, so fuck you.
Guest:Go to your room.
Marc:The sad thing is none of those names are going to matter to your kids.
Guest:No, I don't think REM matters to kids anymore.
Guest:Or U2 in the same way.
Guest:It's impossible to wrap your head around that because growing up in the 80s, that was... Yeah, but this is really just sort of generational, dude.
Marc:You can frame it however you want, that it's all over.
Marc:But when it comes right down to it, it's a generational thing.
Guest:I would see these guys, these old punks, these 70s punks, at Don Hills in the 90s when I was there to get laid and dance.
Guest:And they seemed to be treated with respect.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You didn't say...
Guest:who is this tall guy blocking my way at the bar?
Guest:Oh, it's Joey Ramone.
Guest:Fuck Joey Ramone.
Guest:They were like, oh my God, it's Joey Ramone.
Marc:Some people said that.
Guest:I would like to be one of those guys.
Marc:The guys who were more like you when you were younger said that about Joey Ramone in Dunhills.
Marc:Believe me.
Marc:There was a couple of kids saying, fuck that guy.
Marc:Fuck the Ramones.
Guest:Wear an Exeter t-shirt.
Guest:When Richard Hell's memoir came out a couple of weeks after mine, I was like, fuck that guy.
Guest:That dinosaur.
Guest:That 70s cocksucker.
Marc:They've been in the way all along.
Marc:When do they get out of the way?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The blank generation.
Marc:Blow me.
Guest:You know, so yeah, I guess I just want, I want to, to fit in somewhere and it's, it's, I'm genuine.
Guest:I'm joking about it and laughing about it with you, but I'm genuinely sort of sad about it.
Guest:You know, like I, I want a place.
Guest:Everyone wants, everyone wants a place and it's remains to be seen where my place is, but I am grateful that I, I, I didn't manage to snuff myself because I, I had a lot of friends who, who, who aren't here, you know,
Guest:So maybe it'll happen.
Guest:I hope so.
Guest:And it was good talking to you.
Guest:Yeah, you too.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:Okay, that's our show, folks.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed going back to New York, going back into drugs, going back into rock and roll.
Marc:Mark Spitz is a complicated but good man.
Marc:And I'm glad we had that conversation.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Leave a comment.
Marc:Try not to be a dick, but I know it's very difficult for some of you, Smitty.
Marc:And what else?
Marc:What else have I got for you?
Marc:A little deep cuts commentary on the premium.
Marc:And we're going to be giving you more premium content as the year goes on.
Marc:And thanks you.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Thanks you.
Marc:Thanks you all.
Marc:Thanks you all for listening.
Marc:Hope you enjoyed that chia pudding.
Marc:Hope some of you took me up on that.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!