July 19, 2002

Today is the day toget spotted at Trader Vic's...but only when your hair is perfect.

Attention! You have only until Sunday to email Nichole, by which I mean, email Nichole and send it to me. I promise big plans for this project, and at the very least, publication here on Monday. I up your Google quotient.

Today I introduce to you one of today's hardest working young men in the literary realm. David Mogolov is a model to young writers everywhere, but don't feel you have to do as much as he does. In fact, he should do less. He's making us look bad.

The David Mogolov Interview: Slightly Less Than 20 Questions

You admit to spending altogether too much money on books. What are some of your favorite volumes, not so much for their contents, but just because they're nice books?
Even if you think he's a boring, awful (and now unfortunately deceased) man, W.G. Sebald's books are worth owning just to flip through and look at the photographs he includes. They're ghostly, and while looking at them, I get nostalgic, despite their rarely reminding me of anything concrete in my own life. And if you think he's a boring, awful man, I don't know what to say to you. Except that maybe you're a cretin.

Others: the books published by Toby Press are really nice books, as is the single-volume collection of the Narnia books, House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is fun to look at and brilliant, and the entire Vintage paperback collection is so attractive and simply designed, plus most of their books fit in the back pocket of a pair of easy-fit jeans.

You're performing a play, soon to be profiled in Boston Magazine. What is it about and what inspired it?
The play is a one-man show called One Night at T.F. Green, and it is the 85%-true account of a night I spent at the airport in Warwick, Rhode Island last November. During the show, I'll present the characters I met during the night: an idiotic engaged couple with whom I travelled the parking garage in search of a car that didn't exist, a hooker/drug dealer who worked an Amoco/Dunkin' Donuts, a couple of thirty-something life-long best friends who nearly ran me over before inviting me to a breakfast at which one asked me to go home with her, a drunken pianist who resembled Slash bred with Bob Seger, a local cop who was unexpectedly placed in charge of securing an airport from terrorists, and a team of janitors who gave me the privilege of riding their Zamboni-style floor cleaner. The show is just me, with some help from the audience, and music written by my friend Ryan Walsh, of the soon-to-be-world-famous rock'n'roll combo The Stairs.

I'm performing every Wednesday night in September at Improv Boston in Cambridge, MA. The Boston Magazine article should come out just in advance of the show, and I'm very excited about it. They're running a photo and everything. The show is at 8:00 on September 4, 11, 18, and 25. Also performing is an improv troupe called TBD. That is their name, not a promise to book somebody, eventually.

By the way: Did you notice that Slash's site is a dot-org? What, for every bottle you smash on your head, Slash will donate an acne-remedy kit to a charity of his choosing?

What are some of the pleasures and pitfalls of performing?
Pleasures: Just being onstage. I can't imagine not wanting to be the center of attention. While I really like being told "great show" (if it's true), and of course, being mobbed by adoring fans, nothing compares to the pleasure of the performance itself. God, does that sound corny.

Pitfalls: The scariest thing about performing isn't bombing, or embarrassing yourself. It's the fear that your mistake or carelessness might cause somebody else to bomb or be embarrassed. It's easy to forgive yourself your own mistakes; it's much harder when those mistakes made another person look bad. Which I suppose is true all the time, not just onstage.

You also take improv acting classes. Have you learned any lessons that you can pass on? And are you just another one of those actors who says, "…but what I really want to do is direct."?
What I really want to do is direct. You know what? I don't know what's so thrilling about directing. I'd never want to do it. Unless I was David Mamet for a day. But I'm not. I'm David Mogolov, so directing is out.

I'm new to improv but one thing they stress is really listening to what's going on around you before you speak or act, because you can't anticipate what anybody will say or do, no matter how good a plan you have in advance. I think that's good advice for day-to-day living.

You're also working on a novel. Do you have any advice for writing a long piece such a novel that we haven't already read in "Writer's Digest" or from Stephen King or by Anne Lamott?
Well, the advice of Anne Lamott and Stephen King has the merit of coming from mouths attached to people who've sold novels. If my mouth joins that club, then you can refer back to this: My advice is to stop looking for advice. Just read a lot. Read books that you wouldn't ordinarily. Be critical of your own writing. Don't get hung up on producing a certain amount of work per day or week. If you have an idea that doesn't seem "right," work with it anyway. You're never, ever wrong. You're writing the damn thing. Just make sure it's written well.

You are a Midwesterner transplanted to the East. What are some major differences that you've noticed between the two areas?
These days there aren't too many differences. Cities and the people in them are pretty homogenous nationwide, when taken as groups (individuals are always wonderfully bizarre). I think part of it is the weird right-wing uptightness that seized the country in the last ten years or so, even in solid old lefty, pinko Massachusetts.

Does your last name lend to a lot of humorous misspellings and mispronunciations? Trust us, we Zulkeys can sympathize.
I get lots of great pronunciations, but most people don't try to fake their way through the spelling. I love the name. I love saying it. Mo-go-lov. Mow-go-Lawv. O-o-o. I think having three O's in my last name is wonderful. Everybody should. You, for example, could be Claire Zolokoley. But "Zulkey"'s pretty rad. I wouldn't change it. When you get married, make your husband take your name. Unless his name is Buzz. His first and last would run together creating too comical a name to ever get through a job interview:

"Hi, I'm Buzzulkey, and I want to be your new Director of Finance."
"Could you tell me your name again?"
"Buzz."
"Buzz what?"
"Buzzulkey."
"That's great, Buzz. We'll let you know."

Tell us about Knowumsayin. What were some of the big ideas you had/have for it?
Knowumsayin' was a truly original, ground-breaking, revolutionary idea when it was launched in early 2001: a comedy Web site. Soon after I met Ken Gordon, Fletcher Moore, and Katy Demcak, Ken pulled me aside and showed me a collection of three static Web pages. With great solemnity, he said, "This is the future of the World Wide Web. Comedy." I cried in the face of such genius.

Fact is, Knowumsayin' really took off when we learned we were all being laid off from our shared workplace. We spent a couple weeks in the office using their equipment to convert those three old pages to the site roughly as it is now. Getting Claire Zulkey to write the Angry Girl column was our most intelligent decision. Unfortunately, it couldn't prevent the collapse But keep an eye out! Knowumsayin' is gearing up for a return, in a new format, with all kinds of column-based hilarity.

Another defunct zine that you worked on was 1099…how was it different from Knowumsayin, and what was the significance behind its name?
1099 was a business magazine for the self-employed. It was more interesting than that sounds. Really. The name is that of a tax form, which in the post-Tina Brown magazine world, we unfortunately all know is not "sexy." The controversy surrounding its demise will surely be the basis for a TV Movie of the Week, but for now, I am under a court order not to discuss it. What I can say is that were it not for Ye Olde Business Magazine, I would not have met Ken, Fletcher, and Katy, would not have been involved in Knowumsayin', would not be as well-read, as consistent or committed a writer, or as willing to mock my employers publicly.

As a young man who suffers from arthritis, do you feel that the majority of advertisements for arthritis relief don't speak to you, the consumer?
I'm trying to call to mind an arthritis ad. I'd have to guess, not being able to think of one, that they're full of elderly people rubbing aching knees and saying, "Sorry, I'll have to sit this one out. I can't swing like I used to." Then, after a dose of Arthro-Cure®, Gram is throwing her date in a spiral, and dancing like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. In which case, it doesn't speak to me, the consumer, because I don't resemble Uma Thurman. At all.

As a young, prolific writer, you must get a lot of praise for the quality you produce at such a young age. Do you feel any pressure to actively improve with age to show that you're not just a whiz kid?
Given my habit of using pseudonyms-no less than (or more than) four to date-I'd be surprised if anybody had read enough to comment. [Interviewee's note: "A discerning reader of Zulkey.com could determine two of the pseudonyms simply by reading this interview and following the links to do some detective work."] My other habit, re-writing everything eternally, rather than sending it out, more or less ensures that any praise would have to deal with quality rather than quantity.

I've got no problem with being a whiz kid, if that's the case (though I think I'm gonna peak in my 30s). At least people will remember me as having hair and being more or less in shape.

Describe David Mogolov's perfect bar. The décor? Where is it? What about the drinks? The music? What kind of crowd frequents it?
I'm becoming sort of a curmudgeon. My perfect bar would be quiet enough to have a conversation, have a large beer selection (sometimes you want a Guinness, sometimes you want a PBR), a few dartboards, and an amazing jukebox. I love jukeboxes. I don't like a bar where you can't control the music with a fistful of quarters, unless the DJ is reliable (such as DJ Vin at Common Ground in Allston, MA, every Wednesday night). The best jukebox in the free world, so far as I know, is at a place called The Library in NYC, near the corner of Houston and Avenue A. I can't speak for the jukeboxes of the un-free world, or those within the "Axis of Evil," but I would expect that none of them allow you to play Built to Spill, Elvis Costello, Guided By Voices, Gomez, and the Clash on a single dollar bill. If you're looking for something in this country worth fighting for, that's as good as any.

You spend a lot of time in New York city. How would you compare the general attitude of people in Boston to New York? No need to mention baseball rivalries.
Not mention baseball rivalries? Not mention baseball rivalries? You, Claire Zulkey, are asking quite a bit. I, a bad interview subject, am going to briefly disobey, but I do so in service of the answer to the larger question:

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Though I love the Boston Red Sox, and cheer for any and every team that plays against the New York Yankees, I must speak up and say that Red Sox fans are obnoxious and delusional. Fact: we have a great team. Indisputably one of the greatest in baseball history. But we do play in the same division as the Yankees, and despite my wish for the Yankees to lose-to lose embarrassingly and consistently-we all must recognize the fact that the Yankees are the most frequent champions in baseball history because they are an amazing team. Boston fans wear T-shirts that say: "Yankees Suck." If there's one thing the Yankees don't do, it's suck. They win. They win a lot, and they do it well. They're fun to watch, though I wish them ill. I think the Red Sox are good enough to beat them, and I will never, ever cheer for the Yankees, but I'm not delusional. The New York Yankees are, until the Red Sox prove differently by winning at least one pennant, the best team in baseball.

Why this is relevant: only the people in Boston take the Boston/New York rivalry seriously, and that's because Boston has an inferiority complex. People from Boston act as if their city, like their baseball team, is unjustly considered second tier to New York. You know what? By almost every conceivable measure, it IS second tier. But that doesn't mean it's worse. There are a lot of great things about Boston that aren't true of New York. It's easier and usually more pleasant to live in Boston. But a lot of people in Boston are uptight and nasty, whereas in New York, most people aren't. I don't know how Boston has a reputation for being charming and New York a reputation for being harsh and horrible.

One might say you're accident prone. Tell us about some of your most interesting injuries.
Oh my. Well, I've fallen from the hood of a moving car, run my self over with my own bike, fallen off a roof into thorn bushes while sleeping, run into the corner of a table while playing Duck Duck Goose (I was four, and the only person in world history to be hospitalized for a Duck Duck Goose accident-stitches above my eye), fallen from a scooter while drunk, run my bike into the side of a car while evading a dog, fallen from a tree while dodging a roman candle, and run my bike into gravel while avoiding a sprinkler system. All of these led to a combination of bleeding, broken bones, extensive bruising, dislocation of joints, stitches, slings, liquid bandages, dog bites, and burns. That's a decent sample, right?

You're obviously a talented overachiever, taking on many projects at once and succeeding. Anything else that you'd like to try or work on in the near future, in the literary/arts realm?
I want to write a screenplay, and make a short film. I also want to make a mock reality TV show called "Nightmare Scenario," in which everyday events like waiting for the bus go horribly awry. I'd like to learn more about visual art, because I'm more or less ignorant of anything that might be useful to know when in a museum.

Do you have any secret non-literary/arts-related talents that not many people know about?
I cook often, and pretty well, I think. I get positive reviews from my girlfriend Lisa, but she might just be lying because she appreciates the free meals. She did encourage the habit by buying me a wok, so I think she's telling the truth.

What is the cheapest, culturally integrated, possibly unsafest way to travel from Boston to New York?
The Chinatown bus! Dude. Dude! That's all I have to say.

Wait. No. That's not all I have to say. To get from Chinatown NYC to Chinatown Boston faster than legally permissible for less money than you might spend on gas driving yourself, there's no alternative. Several companies: Travel Pak, Happy Tours, Sunshine Travel, a couple others, I think.

Basically, all the companies do the same thing. They pick you up in Chinatown on one end, and then drive as fast as they can to drop you off at the other end. Sometimes they've got a van, sometimes a mini-bus, sometimes a full-sized interstate bus. I've heard that a bakery van was once used. No matter the vehicle, though, it's FAST. Those drivers know the feel of a pedal on the floor. And they stop at a rest stop in Connecticut where you get ten minutes to use the bathroom or grab food from the McDonald's, and that's it. Next thing you know, you're in another city.

Are you a three-namer, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an initial wielder, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, or a liar, like George Eliot? And, what are the ramifications of each?
Ack! I've been Googled! Two can play that game Ms. Zulkey. Tell me about spending the night at Mama Rosa's!

FYI: I'm leaning towards "initial wielder." Unfortunately, the survey sort of crapped out. Perhaps the readers of Zulkey.com can make the call? Nah...

How does it feel to be the 15th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
It feels like the first time. It feels like the very first time. (I don't think Zulkey.com has had a single Foreigner reference yet. It's really time you jumped that hurdle. )