People

Golden Years

This photo was taken in 1999, the year I interviewed this man for Spin, when he was a few years older than I am now, and many decades wiser. On why he steered away from electronica for his album, hours…, originally written for a video game: “The future is not only going to be about hard-edged people with metal faces. There will be broken hearts in the future.” Yes, there will. God bless you, David Bowie. (1947-2016).

Willem It Was Really Nothing

Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh, in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate. Hemispheres, 2018.

Mystery Kate

Kate McKinnon: Your weapons are useless against her. American Way, 2017.

Sonata For Comeback Kid

Joao Carlos Martins (photo: Marcio De Assis). Bach, tragedy, and resurrection: the miraculous saga of a world-famous concert pianist. New York magazine, 1996.

Ninetysomething

Children and fools speak true (Endymion, 1588.) So does American TV giant Norman Lear. With me. By phone. Hemispheres, 2016

The Heavy

Is Michael Shannon (above) the greatest American actor of his generation? (A rhetorical question.) Rhapsody, 2016

Blind Ambition

Erik Weihenmayer (above, below) has climbed Mount Everest, raced on the Moroccan desert, and is about to kayak the Grand Canyon’s deadliest rapids—all without being able to see. August, 2014.

Postscript: The Blind Leading the Visually Impaired

The author (left) and Erik Weihenmayer (right) for Mens Journal, 2014. Click image for full(er) story.

Pinsky And the Brain

The first reporter allowed behind scenes at “Celebrity Rehab” observes Dr. Drew Pinsky, Recovery Counselor Bob Forrest, and an occupying army of videographers giving semi-famous subjects a Cure that may or may not be part of the Disease. 2010.