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in places like the South Bronx, or in small cities and towns. My background has given me a genuine—
unsentimental—respect for working people.
What is your thought process when considering a project?
I tend to have an intuitive response to a set of circumstances or people, a desire to be around a
person or place all the time, to read about it or related ideas. The hunch becomes a filter and I use it
to edge into a point of view.
For example, an idea I’m considering came from an interview with a comedian that appeared in a
magazine my brother mailed to me. I read it and went to see his show. He was riveting. I put the clip
in a file and had well over ten files before I even introduced myself to him. But it was a moment of
his performance that stayed with me— particularly his physical enormity onstage, and the
diminishment from this larger-than-life onstage persona to the insecure guy I saw in the postshow
receiving line. I was struck by the resilience I imagine such work requires. What does it mean to have
to constantly prove yourself? What toll does it take? [“On the Bark: Learning to Be a Comedian in
Times Square,” The New Yorker, April 19–26, 2004.]
Comedy is a natural extension of my interests because, like street life, a lot of comedy comes from
being smack-up against adversity. And both comedy and street life can foster a kind of freshness and
frivolity and recklessness. I’m interested in the question of how a performer gives enough of himself
to entertain, and yet protects himself enough to survive.
I’m interested in people who challenge me, who provoke me to seriously reconsider things. I can
see that reporting on this comedian is going to be exhausting. But that is exciting to me.
What kinds of people do you least and most like writing about?
I hate writing about anyone who is familiar with the press or has a “story.” I like to write about
people who don’t necessarily see what their story is, or what my interest might be. I like subjects who
really know how to enjoy life or are immersed in whatever they are doing fully. For example, in
Random Family, even though Boy George and Jessica end up in jail, they both lived their lives to the
maximum. Jessica had hard, depressing times in her life, but when she went out to have fun, she really
had fun. Perhaps I’m interested in them because in some ways they are so different from me. Not that
I’m incapable of enjoying myself, but I tend toward the melancholy. I’m quite serious and often ill at
ease. I am hesitant.
How much do you identify with your characters? I often detect a “there, but for the grace of
God, go I” theme in your work.
I think that sentiment is true, but that posture is less helpful than understanding the mechanics of it
all. I am constantly struck by the element of chance that separates their lives from mine.
Do you think of your work as variations on a theme? As a series of distinct pieces?