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The Official VJ 1980s Lyrics Quiz

Today is August 1st, which means that it’s 38 years since MTV went on the air, playing music videos 24/7, interspersed with visits with the original five VJs: Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson, and Martha Quinn. Celebrate! Since today is the MTVaversary, and the book I wrote with the aforementioned VJs—VJ: The […]

posted 1 August 2019 in Buy My Stuff, Excerpts. 1 comment

Westlake on Graffiti

One pleasant aspect of being a fan of the late great novelist Donald Westlake is that he was so prolific—both under his own name and the hardboiled pseudonym Richard Stark—is that it feels like I’ll never run out of his books. Yesterday I grabbed a random paperback off the shelf: 1972’s Cops and Robbers, about […]

posted 11 January 2017 in Excerpts. no comments yet

Two More Excerpts

If you’d like to read some more samples of Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind, two sites have excerpts today, which happen to bookend each other: Refinery 29 has a taste of the introduction, while Slate has a chunk relating to Dark Blood and the final weeks […]

posted 31 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff, Excerpts. no comments yet

Last Night at the Viper Room: Now in Russian

The website for the Russian edition of Rolling Stone has put up an excerpt from Last Night at the Viper Room (the chapter about the making of Stand by Me). I can’t speak to the quality of the translation, so I’m just going to  assume that it’s excellent. It’s cool and surreal to see my […]

posted 29 October 2013 in Excerpts, Outside. 3 comments

Many Rivers to Cross

My new book, Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind, is out tomorrow. It is easy to obtain from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s–or mere hours from now, you can walk into your local bookseller, give them some money, and leave with the book under your arm. […]

posted 21 October 2013 in Buy My Stuff, Excerpts. no comments yet

Space Monkey

Another excerpt from the Andy Warhol Diaries.  Monday, May 29, 1978 We walked over to have lunch at One Fifth, and on the way we saw Patti Smith in a bowler hat buying food for her cat. I invited her thinking she’d say no, but she said, “Great.” When we walked in, there was […]

posted 16 February 2011 in Excerpts. no comments yet

Requiescat in Pace

Two excerpts from The Andy Warhol Diaries: one about Elaine Kaufman, who died a few days ago, and one about John Lennon, who died thirty years ago. Sunday, April 10, 1977 Andrea [Portago] said she was out with Dennis Hopper and they went up to Elaine’s and she started playing backgammon with Elaine and she […]

posted 8 December 2010 in Excerpts. no comments yet

Ten Years After

Another excerpt from the Andy Warhol Diaries.  Friday, June 2, 1978 Robert Kennedy, Jr. was on TV for the tenth anniversary of when his father was shot, so it’s ten years since I was shot, too–he was the day after me.

posted 1 December 2010 in Excerpts. no comments yet

Andy Warhol, Pusherman

Time for another excerpt from The Andy Warhol Diaries. Jade is the daughter of Bianca and Mick Jagger. Sunday, January 8, 1978 I read The New York Times at Halston’s, he was at the office. Someone called Bianca and she was on the phone for an hour talking about her problems… she was talking about […]

posted 26 July 2010 in Excerpts. 2 comments

Andy Take a Little Snooze

Just a note to say that I’m currently juggling five different projects (all of which I will let you know about as they come to fruition, of course), so posting here will be less frequent for the next month or so; my apologies. A quick pair of excerpts from The Andy Warhol Diaries: Thursday, February […]

posted 3 April 2010 in Excerpts. no comments yet