poetry is no place for a heart that's a whore

Early in my journalism career I decided I did not want to be a news reporter, because I didn't like the idea of calling people at work and asking them questions they didn't want to answer. Instead, I chose the path of arts and entertainment writing. It's more critical, often more personal and — best of all — usually doesn't involve phone interviews.
Or so I thought.
Approximately 800 phone interviews later, you would think I would be good at them by now. I've chatted up actors, artists, authors, choreographers, DJs, drag queens, celebrities and wannabes.
And I'm here to tell you, it's still hard. I still get a little freaked out in the hours leading up to the phone call. I usually double my caffeine intake the morning of the interview, which probably doesn't help matters.

Once the person is on the phone, I try to take the approach I learned from one of my old Loaf buddies and just shoot the shit with the subject, not necessarily sticking to a prescribed set of questions. But that rarely works. I always end up going way off topic and having to double back around to some ridiculous soft-ball question from my notes. Which then makes me feel like an even bigger idiot and more of a fraud.
One thing that's not taught in journalism school is the fact that those in the entertainment industry largely hate giving interviews. And they should, because they get asked the same lame ass questions over and over again. That's why most celebrity interviews suck. "I'm so excited to be back on the road blah blah blah can someone please just fucking shoot me now?"
Therefore, I try to mix it up in my interviews and come at it from a different angle.
Which is fine, until it backfires.

Today I had the chance to interview Martha Wainwright, who Lucas has been gushing over lately. After hearing her debut CD this week, I could see why. It's amazing.
The song "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" might be my favorite track of the year so far, and it definitely wins the award for most in-your-face song title of 2005.
So, like Lucas, I was also gushing when I finally got Martha on the phone. I say "finally" because my cell phone is a Bloody Mother Fucking joke these days, and never seems to work when I most need it to.
Martha's voice in the interview was coarse, as on the album, and I had the sense that she really didn't have time to talk to me. Things started off fine and then, as always, I freaked out, just a little. I asked her about a song, "Lolita," which actually doesn't appear on this album. I didn't realize that I had downloaded it a while back and imported it into my iTunes, which is why I thought it was on the new release. She freaked, just a little, and made me read her the song list to make sure I had been listening to the right album. Let's just say the interview after that was barely shy of a disaster. Who's the Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole now?

Earlier this week I interviewed Junior Vasquez, who was distant at first (as I'd been warned he would be) but warmed up by the end of our conversation. I left that phone call feeling like maybe I had improved after all these years.
But days like today make me realize that maybe I should just stick to giving advice on dating or, better yet, drawing my funny pictures and leaving the interviews to fledgling writers who are still too green to realize what a sham the whole business is.