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Please explain what just happened.
Just got a text requesting an emergency band meeting tomorrow, probably concerning wardrobe coordination for the next show.
What is your earliest memory?
A red tricycle. That’s all I remember. Seeing it.
If you weren’t a musician, what other profession would you choose?
Novelist.
Please describe the current contents of your refrigerator.
Comte, fresh cremini mushrooms, creme fraische, Boursin, salsa tortillas, eggs, Greek yogurt, artisanal tofu, Dijon mustard, Japanese red bean cups, mango chutney, chili paste, olive medley Provencal.
Is there a time you wish you’d lied?
No, I’m bad at it.
What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself at age thirteen?
Too much weed will make it hard to recall your first memory.
If you could have only one album to get you through a breakup, what would it be?
Some Girls – The Rolling Stones. Check out “Far Away Eyes.”
What are three websites—other than your email—that you check on a daily basis?
The Guardian, New York Times and Gawker.
From what or whom do you derive your greatest inspiration?
My dad. As editor of a weekly newspaper, he wrote all the copy, opinion pieces, took the photos and developed them in a darkroom, and drove it to the printer every week. Inspiring because it was exactly what he wanted to do with his life, and he did it. It was a far better newspaper than it had to be.
Name a book that changed your life.
I read The Disinherited Mind by Erich Heller, a Czech intellectual who fled Germany for London in the thirties. I was 20, and had read no philosophy in high school. He was an old man and chair of the German department, still lecturing. It was like being at Cambridge in the fifties. The book collects his essays in intellectual history and continental philosophy from Copernicus to high Modernism. He knew Thomas Mann, and had interviewed Heidegger. So I guess I read and was also taught the book over three or four courses. I doubt there will ever be human beings that well-read again. The book is probably out of print now.
If you could relive one moment over and over again, what would it be?
Birth.
How are you six degrees from Kevin Bacon?
He’s our sponsor (in the program).
What makes you feel most guilty?
The guilt of awaking, and failing to recall those events for which one might otherwise feel guilty.
What would you most like to have invented?
A lead zeppelin (not the band).
What is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
Answer your phone.
What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?
Do NOT pick up that phone.
What do you consider the harshest kind of betrayal?
Betrayal is a bitter pill, one I spit out (and promptly forget who issued it).
Of all the game shows that have graced our TV screens throughout history, which one would you want to be a contestant on and why?
The Gong Show, to party with J.P. Morgan, of course.
What do you want to know?
Who wants to play 21 questions?
What would you like your last words to be?
“Bill it to my room!”
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