Just back from the Sudan. i don't recommend you go there. got good stuff though, and a helluva lot of context for what poverty and pain and rising above means. back to my writing.

spring, finally. when a young man's thoughts turn to girls. i'm not that young, but some habits are hard to break.

thanks to all who braved the cold and came to my readings in NYC. My times review comes out tomorrow and we're very happy with it. 
Lots of radio and press this week so i'm going to hit it hard; be back soon with a recap.

stayalive.

My "Lives" piece will be in this sunday's NY Times sunday magazine. happy reading!

Lenny Bruce once said that if you walked into a room and started yelling "nigger-nigger-nigger," at every black person you saw, that the word would lose it's meaning and become powerless to hurt or offend. I don't know that I buy that, but I don't know that I don't. Maybe Michael Richards was trying out a bit of aggro-performance art, meant to exorcise the racialist demons dormant in all of us (all of us americans, at least). Los Angeles may not have been the savviest choice of venue for something so... avant garde; but maybe he felt something and went with it. Or maybe he's just a cracker motherfucker caught between his fading star and an act that only brothers in the audience could see was worth talking through, talking shit to. For the love of Kramer (how long before some hack begins to spell it "kkkramer?"--if no one does, I want credit), I hope it's the former, but my gut tells me it's the latter. If it walks like a duck...