On Wednesday night, while most of the nation was glued to their TV sets, watching the best night of baseball ever–except if you’re a Braves or a Red Sox fan, I suppose–I was in Las Vegas, basking in the presence of Elton John. (Sir Elton’s been a big favorite around Rule Forty-Two HQ lately, due […]

posted 29 September 2011 in Outside, Reviews. 2 comments

This past weekend marked the twentieth anniversary of Guns N’ Roses’ messy yet magnificent magnum opus, Use Your Illusion. Honoring that occasion, the excellent Maura Johnston, music editor at the Village Voice, made herself a single-disc edit of the sprawling two-CD album–something I did for my own entertainment five years ago (although any honoring of […]

posted 19 September 2011 in Links, Tasty Bits. 2 comments

Congratulations to the lovely and talented Melissa McCarthy for her Emmy win last night. McCarthy and I had a thoroughly enjoyable lunch together a few weeks ago, at which we ordered more fried food than we intended to. You can read a short excerpt at the Rolling Stone website, or check out the George Harrison […]

posted 19 September 2011 in Articles, Links. no comments yet

Photographed in Brooklyn in late August. I lived in New York City for almost twenty years and never saw a baby pigeon–apparently, one has to be visiting.

posted 16 September 2011 in Photos. no comments yet

A few months ago, I told you about a long interview I conducted with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer for the British magazine Huck, in which we discussed many of his tweets and his state of mind when he composed them. Unless you frequent skate shops in the UK, you probably didn’t see a copy of […]

posted 15 September 2011 in Uncategorized. no comments yet

Photographed in 2005. Eventually I was able to think of the WTC site as a construction project rather than a mass grave–but I never really got used to the immense high-security hole in the ground.

posted 9 September 2011 in Photos, Uncategorized. no comments yet

In the fall of 2001, I lived on 176 Broadway in New York City, one block away from the World Trade Center. It took me a long time to make even rudimentary sense of what happened in my back yard on September 11th, and ultimately flipping a coin and taking photographs proved the best therapy. […]

posted 8 September 2011 in Archives, Unpublished. 3 comments

Trying to understand The New York Times’ effect on man, I wrote a profile of Mr. Hugh Laurie that appeared in this past Sunday’s edition of the paper (in the Magazine section). You might still have it by the side of your couch, or you can read it here. Laurie, aside from starring in House, […]

posted 7 September 2011 in Articles, Outside. 4 comments