A writer tries to figure out if he’s any smarter than he was at age 17: “Many times, I had to skip a question because I couldn’t figure out the answer, and then I got that paranoia that’s unique to someone taking a standardized test. I became fearful that I had failed to skip over […]
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Noel Gallagher After Oasis
I want to hear about Be Here Now. “At the time, I was taking a lot of fucking drugs, so I didn’t give a fuck,” Gallagher says. “We were taking all the cocaine we could possibly find. But it wasn’t like a seedy situation. We were at work. We weren’t passed out on the floor […]
That’s Not Funny, That’s C.K.
He talked for a while about how difficult the first year after his divorce was and how it affected his work. “For one, I couldn’t really talk about my wife anymore. Not that I was ever really talking about her, exactly, but now I couldn’t do that at all; I couldn’t talk about the woman […]
Homelessness in the Age of Bloomberg
We had four options: join Ready Willing and Able’s program, which prepared men to become street sweepers and janitors; sign up for a Bloomberg administration program which presents participants with a one-way ticket out of town, so long as the applicants could provide a contact person in the destination city who would agree to host […]
Hate Man
From the time he was young boy, Mark Hawthorne understood the power of words. His father was a reporter for the Associated Press and his mother was a school teacher. So when Hawthorne landed his dream job and became a reporter for The New York Times, everything seemed to fall into place. Except that it […]
Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? Part 10: Woodstock ’99
Promoter John Scher insisted instead that the ugliness of Woodstock 99 reflected a larger moral chasm in the souls of the attendees. “I think, in some respects, the generation was irresponsible and they gave me and themselves the finger,” Scher told Spin. He wasn’t the only one who felt that Woodstock 99 amounted to a […]
Rage Against Your Machine: Drivers vs. Cyclists in America
“As a couples therapist, I tell people that we take things so personally,” he says as we near the Whitestone Bridge, on the first dedicated bike path we’ve seen in more than two hours. It’s easy, when a car edges too close or cuts him off, to “go to that paranoid place where they’re just […]
Joan Rivers Always Knew She Was Funny
It’s the rest of the world that sometimes forgot. “Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed. This is the mantra of the pessimist and the persecuted alike, the preemptive strike of those who tend to paint the picture a little blacker than it is. And then there is Joan Rivers, the orneriest creature ever to […]
Hate Man
Hate Man From the time he was young boy, Mark Hawthorne understood the power of words. His father was a reporter for the Associated Press and his mother was a school teacher. So when Hawthorne landed his dream job and became a reporter for The New York Times, everything seemed to fall into place. Except […]
Break All the Way Down
[Fiction] A baby’s arrival stirs up difficult memories: I sat with the baby in the living room, setting her on a clean blanket. When I tired of watching her, I stretched out, resting my hand on her stomach. I fell asleep with the baby staring at me, her eyes wide open. In the morning, my […]
