Marc Spitz

full on into the interview phase. healthy, functional, fitter, happier, more productive, smarter, white stuff on (as opposed to in) m y nose. sending out requests, meeting demands, writing out questions, trying to be social. which is not easy. i’ve spent so long in doors that when a cocktail waitress asks me if i want a lime, these day, i stare back at her like i don’t really understand the question. but a first draft of a good, well structured, and unique mick jagger book looks on track for early to mid fall. if we ever get there. is it really 89 degrees again today? i hate august. i hate dog days. i love dogs. and days. usually i don’t get ideas till much later in the year. when you start to smell wood fires in the neighborhood. i need leather jackets and whiskey for ideas, not t-shirts with holes in them and vodka. or tap water. for instance, i would very much like to do a public access talk show with my friend and frequent actor in my plays tom vaughts. he is a burly man with a beard and a voice like tom waits or wolfman jack. i am lobbying for him to play marlon brando in my new play, which i just might post here. i had an idea that he should also host a talk show that takes place in the russian bath house in the EV. it’ll be called Schvitzing with Tom, kind of like Fishing With John but much, much steamier. they’re be a desk and a band, and guests and everyone will be wearing white robes, slippers and towels. how can you think of an idea like that and not see it come to fruition one day. we are a nation of dreamers and visionaries after all. last night before i passed out very drunk and almost dry heaving i thought about devoting this or maybe a sort of tandem blog to The Greatest Song Openers of all time. these used to be the kind of stories that i could pitch to Spin and get assigned. i fell asleep in the air conditioning sort of half watching Top Chef’s final re-run of the evening (deconstructed gyros) and thinking: what are the songs that just kill in the first three or four seconds. here’s what i came up with:
bust a move by young mc (where he simply says “bust it” i mean you cannot improve on that.
then there are the count offs, “i saw her standing there” probably being the most famous. or maybe “taxman” with the coughing and then the weird count in if we’re going beatles. “add it up” by the violent femmes is a good one: “day after day…” maybe “computer blue” by prince? “pass the dutchie” any others that come to mind do post a comment here and your two cents. as this type of story will never appear in a magazine again. speaking of appearing in a magazine again. i have a bunch of stuff coming out in print and online. interviewed brandon flowers for VF on his solo debut. did a large oral history of jackass for maxim’s november issue and am trying to nail down same on mr. show for december spin. and a new york mag piece.