Wow! Nine years. This is the longest I have ever worked in the same place.
I’m not going to say anything cliché like “there’s never a dull moment here at PGN” because we have plenty of dull moments to go around. But there are also a lot of awesome and memorable moments sprinkled throughout those nine years, and the staff at PGN is one of the greatest bunch of people one could ever work with.
I have a sea of memorable moments I’ve conjured up recently — as I waded through nine years of back issues, I found myself saying, “Oh, right. I did talk to that individual” — but then there are some articles and experiences that will always stick out in my mind. What follows are just a few.
Most memorable interviews
It’s always interesting to talk to iconic celebrities but since we’re not a massive newspaper or a widely watched media outlet, we’re not always on most celebrity go-to lists when it comes to interviews. That being said, we’ve managed to land some impressive interviews since I’ve been here.
Whenever I talk to really famous people, I always prepare myself for the worst because they are usually really busy and in the middle of doing a lot of interviews. So I just naturally expect them to diva out, or have an attitude, or be bored with this part of the endless press junket they are on that day. But most of the time that isn’t the case and instead it’s usually the people in the middle of the celebrity food chain who have been not so fun to talk to. (See the next section for a better explanation.)
I was pleasantly surprised when comedy legend Joan Rivers was so down to earth and humble about her comedy-icon status the two times I got to interview her. Being a huge fan of comedy and a comedian myself, I of course was bowing and scraping at her feet — her being a comedy legend for the better part of four decades — but she was having none of it. She didn’t want to be put on a pedestal because she worked her ass off just like any of us to do what she did. And she was a riot to talk to.
When it came to Bebe Neuwirth — a main character on two of the biggest and longest-running sitcoms of all time and a Broadway star to boot — I naturally expected her to be the ice-queen Lilith was on “Cheers” and “Frasier,” but she was one of the coolest and nicest people you would ever want to hold a conversation with.
Hands down, one of the most memorable interviews I did was with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge of Psychic TV, an influential and pioneering industrial electronic band. Psychic TV was coming to town to do a show so I interviewed Genesis about, among other things, the subject of “pandrogyny.” You see, Genesis and his partner, bandmate and muse Lady Jaye were each getting plastic surgery so they could look like each other. To drive that point home, Genesis sent us somewhat graphic post-op photos of his breast-augmentation surgery instead of band press photos. The idea was they would eventually achieve their goal of each being both genders simultaneously and they would each have both male and female genitalia (whenever science got around to making such a body modification possible).
I remember distinctly thinking to myself during this interview, Thank goodness Genesis is British. When you explain an idea, no matter how out there, with a British accent, it sounds way more plausible and legit than, say, if you were explaining it with a Southern accent.
Anyway, the story took a tragic turn when, a week later, Lady Jaye suddenly died at their home shortly before the tour was to launch. Surprisingly enough, Genesis was up for a follow-up interview a month later, and then much later when a documentary about the couple was making the festival rounds.
Even with all the tragedy and loss he was dealing with, Genesis had the most positive outlook on life and the road forward that I don’t think I would have been able to have in that situation.
I think I won an award for that article, too.
Yeah … OK, I think we’re done
So, back to the bad interviews …
In essence, my job is to interview artists, performers and the like and have enough intelligent questions prepared in order to (1) make them believe I have a respectable amount of knowledge about what it is they do and (2) make them feel comfortable enough to run their mouths about whatever it is they are promoting and any other scintillating information (and, uh … dirt) we might want to know about.
I’d say 99.9 percent of the time I hold up my end of the journalistic bargain and 99.9 percent of the time, the people I interview do the same. That being said, there is nothing more disappointing when an interview I’m really excited about and prepared for goes down the tubes hard and fast. That happened with rapper/R&B singer Kelis.
In 2010, Kelis and Robyn were doing a co-headlining tour that was coming through town. Her latest album, “Flesh Tone,” was really good and a sonic departure from previous albums. Needless to say, I was amped to do a phone interview with her and write up a huge feature article in advance of her show at the Trocadero.
So Kelis gets on the phone and quickly things go south. Like I said, my job is to give pitch questions to make someone talk about their new product or project. Kelis kept giving me the shortest, curtest, drab and sometimes condescending answers to even the most self-serving of questions (that is, when she wasn’t breaking off in the middle of questions to give orders or hand off her kid to her personal assistant). It wasn’t like I was asking invasive or personal questions about her personal life. I was just asking about her new album and the tour. But for whatever reason, the entire exchange was somewhat tense and unpleasant.
Anyway, the feature-length cover story I had in mind quickly became a very short article. I still have a great mouth of respect for Kelis’ body of work but I’m not in any hurry to have another conversation with her.
Then another time I actually canceled an interview before it even happened. In 2010, Gloria Gaynor and The Village People were teaming up for a show in the area and we landed an interview with Gaynor, an enduring diva and icon of the disco era. A few days before the interview, her publicist emailed me asking me to refrain from asking Gaynor any questions about the LGBT community or gay marriage.
Really? Really?!
My reply was something along the lines of: “This is a gay publication. If Miss Gaynor has no interest in being asked questions about the LGBT community, then we have no interest in interviewing her. Good day.”
You don’t have to be LGBT or even supportive of LGBT issues for us to want to talk to you, but if you have a significant LGBT fan base and don’t have the courage to say what you believe one way or another to your audience, I’m not about to waste my time looking like a bad journalist by not asking you the important questions.
It’s not my fault!
I’m still kicking myself for letting a chance to interview Lady Gaga slip through my fingers.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
OK, you have to understand, on any given month, different PR companies send us at least a dozen CDs by new artists. Most of them are new pop divas in training looking for exposure and (at least for the straight ones) some street cred with the LGBT audience.
So, sometime in 2008, I get an advance CD by a new artist named Lady Gaga. It had “Let’s Dance” and “Paparazzi” on it. I took a listen. I thought it was pretty good.
But at the time, Gaga was not being promoted as an out artist. She was just another pop artist. So, when offered a chance to interview her, we passed because there was no obvious LGBT angle to her story. I probably could have pushed harder but our editor at the time really wanted a tangible LGBT angle for any artists or performers in the paper. And, now here’s how stupid I was: Christina Aguilera was huge at the time and I thought there was no way an artist so similar to her style and fashion sense would make a huge impact.
Fast forward to the following year: “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” are dance hits and Gaga is coming through town for a show at the Electric Factory. We can’t get an interview or tickets, not out of spite, it’s just that the buzz around her was huge. By the time “Paparazzi” blows up, I’m thinking, Oops, I really messed that one up!
Hindsight is 20/20.
Yeah, I said it! What?
I pretty much maintain a solid line of professionalism when I do interviews, mainly because when you are talking to people in the arts and entertainment field, you want to keep them comfortable and chatting up a storm. And usually I set aside whatever feelings I have about whatever project the interviewee is promoting (super positive or negative) for the sake of impartiality.
A couple times, though, I have let opinions or statements fly that I probably should have kept to myself.
In 2012, I interviewed Adam Shankman, the director of the musical film “Rock of Ages.” I’m a huge music geek. I can talk a good game about a number of different genres of music, but when it comes to ’80s music and hair metal, I will wear your ass out talking about every nook and cranny about those genres. In preparation for the interview, I went to an advanced screening of the film.
I was fully capable of doing the interview without injecting any of my opinions of the film. But Shankman made the mistake of asking me what I thought of the movie.
“Oh, I hated it,” I said.
I’m pretty sure he was taken aback but that’s what you get when you disrespect one of my top-five favorite genres of music with a crappy musical.
So we then spent the next five minutes having a heated discussion where I pretty much told him that I thought his vision of the era, as well as the characters, didn’t feel the least bit authentic and he portrayed that era as a goof. He insisted he was around in that scene during that era and that the movie was faithful to those times.
We agreed to disagree, but I feel vindicated that the movie was a commercial disappointment.