Only once in the past decade has my wife taken the cassette from my tape recorder as soon as I finished a phone interview, popped it into her own Walkman, and then listened to the entire conversation, laughing gleefully throughout. That was when I interviewed Samuel L. Jackson, four years ago. Jackson was exactly as […]

posted 15 March 2010 in Archives, Articles, Unpublished. no comments yet

Recently, I went to Portland, Oregon, to interview the gentlemen of Pavement for Rolling Stone. You can now read the resulting article, detailing what they’ve been doing for the past decade and how they got back together–but it’s not online, so you’ll have to pick up a copy of the new issue (featuring my old […]

posted 3 March 2010 in Articles. no comments yet

Eight years ago, right after the Salt Lake City Olympics, I interviewed short-track speed skater Apolo Ohno, providing some text to go along with a fashion spread. He was a friendly guy, showing off his medals to everyone at the Rolling Stone photo shoot–and the teeth mark from where he bit the gold medal to […]

posted 16 February 2010 in Articles. no comments yet

Gene Simmons has always been one of rock’s leading pitchmen: during the Super Bowl yesterday, he just happened to be pushing Dr. Pepper instead of a variety of Kiss-related merchandise. I was reminded of a “Rites of Passage” back-page interview I did with him for Details back in 1998, where he displayed his intelligence and […]

posted 8 February 2010 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

Snowboarder Shaun White continues to kick ass, having just won a gold medal at the X Games on superpipe, and is considered a leading contender at the Winter Olympics later this month in Vancouver. So it seemed like an opportune moment to remind you of this Rolling Stone cover story in my archives–I got the […]

posted 1 February 2010 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

Before I traversed eleven time zones to reach China, I didn’t know much about the Great Wall. I had seen it meandering over most of northern China on just about every world map ever, so I knew it was large (and Chinese, I suppose). I knew that contrary to general opinion, you can’t see it […]

posted 25 January 2010 in Archives, Articles, Unpublished. no comments yet

Ethan Hawke’s got a new vampire movie, Daybreakers, which looks like one of Hawke’s periodic stabs at doing a smarter version of an action movie. (Those efforts don’t usually pan out the way anyone involved had hoped for.) But it seemed like a good excuse for adding this article to the archives, detailing a late-night […]

posted 11 January 2010 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

Director James Cameron is the third subject in my irregular series of “Icon” interviews for Maxim–my Q&A with him is in the new issue, cover-dated January 2010, with Olivia Munn on the cover. Or you can read it online here. It’s worth a click; Cameron’s a very sharp guy and this is my favorite of […]

posted 21 December 2009 in Articles, Outside. no comments yet

Earlier this year, I promised to add this article to the archives of this site: my 1993 cover story for Details on Nirvana. I delayed for a variety of reasons–first among them that I find it a hard article to put in context. Reading the piece now, I’m acutely aware of my own youth and […]

posted 23 November 2009 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

Byline alert: I have a short article in the new Rolling Stone on My Chemical Romance making their new album. They’re in the mixing-and-polishing stage now: I watched lead singer Gerard Way do some heavy-duty multi-tracking to sweeten the song “Trans Am” with backing vocals that he described as “1.2 seconds of Queen.” Once again, […]

posted 16 November 2009 in Articles. no comments yet