Today is the day to email birthday greetings to Sarah Mallin.

What doesn't today's interviewee do? His current book, Wake Up Sir!, is winning rave reviews as he is currently at work creating a series for Showtime based on a book of his personal essays. He appears on David Letterman, he boxes and shows up on "The Next Big Thing" on NPR. Oh, and he also has a website.

The Jonathan Ames Interview: Under Twenty Questions

You're currently filming and acting in a pilot that you wrote. How is it going? Do you think it will get picked up, and if so, when can we see it?
We finished shooting November 19. It's now December 6th [as I write]- I spent the last two weeks involved in the editing. I have no idea if we'll get picked up . . . If we do, the pilot - as the first episode - would probably air this coming summer. The whole process was hard work, but inane hard work, not hard work like building a dam or doing something decent for one's fellow human beings. But I always try to take solace that the world needs clowns, and so that's what I was doing: filming my clownish behavior, with the hope that I might, down the road if it airs, make a few people laugh. Granted it will be middle-class people with access to cable who will be doing the laughing, but they too need relief, which is what we often hear during elections.

Have you done much acting? Is it strange to act in a pilot you wrote? When you're playing yourself, are you really being yourself, or are you being some character, or caricature of yourself?
I haven't done a lot of acting, certainly not this kind. I was in an improv film that played on the IFC channel, "Girl Beneath the Waves," but, like I said, I was improvving my lines . . . But still I had to react to other actors and that seems to be what acting is about - reacting . . . It's also trying to feel what you're supposed to be feeling, and so I used my chops as a cartoonist to help with this. When I draw a picture/cartoon I try to feel what the little person I'm drawing is feeling; I learned this from some interview I once read with Charles Schulz. So all I know about acting, which is not a lot, I learned from Charles Schulz.

What are your favorite tv shows?
I don't watch tv, since I don't have one that works. Over the years, when I did watch tv, I liked 'All in the Family,' 'Seinfeld,' and this British tv show about a department store, the title of which - in an Alzheimerish moment - is escaping me. How frustrating.

In your boxing rematch of David Leslie, how did you give him a concussion? How did it feel, doing it?
I gave him a concussion because he wasn't defending himself. But I didn't know that I had hurt him; we had practiced me hitting him two nights before -- making it look sort of real, like a Rocky fight -- and he said it had no impact, that my punches didn't hurt himt, but then during our faux rematch, I really hurt him, unwittingly, and he doesn't remember the third round. I felt/feel terrible about this.

You talk about competitive people in an interview with Identity Theory. If you're not competitive, would you consider yourself an ambitious writer? What would you like to accomplish or finish next?
I'm a little competitive - most people are. But I don't indulge it. Feeling competitive is like feeling a chip on your shoulder - it doesn't feel good. So I indulge it for a second and then I let it go. I guess I'm ambitious in that I want to keep writing books and doing things, but it doesn't feel like an all-consuming-must-succeed-ego-ambition-thing, it feels more like some sort of game I'm playing and a way to spend my time on the planet before I die. And the clown stuff I mentioned above - fulfilling my role as a clown. Also, there is some sort of desire to make things, create things, and this gives me a pleasure, makes me feel like I'm 'using' myself, so that makes me want to keep on producing.

You seem like you're able to pump out a lot of writing in a short period of time. Do you have a writing 'schedule' or are you just prolific and a fast typer?
I think there's an illusion that I've produced a lot of writing. It's just that I had a gig at the NY Press where I had to produce something every two weeks for about three years, so this created a fairly sizeable amount of writing from 1997 to 2001. And I don't have a writing schedule . . . though when I have to produce something, like for a magazine or this interview or my recent novel, I sit down with a cup of coffee and crank it out.

The word 'perversion' is brought up a lot in reference to your work. It seems like a very subjective and slippery term. What are some works or people you'd find to be 'perverted'?
I stupidly subtitled my book 'What's Not to Love?' with 'The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer.' And I've been a little stuck with that pervert label ever since. I don't know what I think of that word. It's a bit boring and a little overused . . . I once skimmed David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest' and there was a description of a gay porn film, which involved razors and penises getting cut or razors in ass-holes, something like that, and I thought that was a lot worse than anything I ever wrote about or thought about, and I wondered if anyone had read his whole book and mentioned this incredibly graphic thing he was describing. I'm not saying it was perverse but it made me feel rather queasy. I hate sharp objects.

Do you ever write with performance in mind, i.e. this would sound really good read aloud?
No, can't say that I do.

Do you have any advice for writers who are nervous when reading?
Pray, even if you're atheist and agnostic. I'm agnostic but I find that praying helps before reading. And eat a banana.

You say that you read Wodehouse in 1999 to cure yourself of depression. Are there other authors you read to evoke specific emotions, someone to make you laugh, someone to have a good cry, etc?
I re-read Bukowski to make me laugh. I can't think of anyone I read to make me cry. For that I might try to find a movie - 'Heaven Can Wait' or 'Doctor Zhivago' - but no books.

Do you find it sexy when women wear corsets or does that just stir up bad memories?
I've never seen a woman in a corset and it's not something I ever thought of as a turn-on.

In an interview with the Morning News, you say "I make a few college-educated people laugh and feel a little less lonely when they read my books." Do you think we're living in a lonely time, or are advancements in technology bringing more people together?
Hmmm, things might be more lonely now than in the past. People lived more closely at one time, even farm-families, with distant neighbors, we're at least on top of one another in their farm-houses, and couldn't hop in pick-up trucks and get away . . . But the human condition is a bit inately lonely, so I don't know that it has changed too much, but I would say that things are a bit more lonely now. But how can I really know? I'm talking out my ass.

Er, what is a mangina and what have you done with it?
That's a very complicated question. People have to read my books 'What's Not to Love?' and 'My Less Than Secret Life' to get the answer. The short answer is that the Mangina is an invention, created by my dear friend, Patrick Bucklew, known as Harry Chandler in my books. It's a prosthetic vagina that is a piece of art but is also worn. You can view it at: www.themangina.com. I've never done anything with the Mangina, except report on it. I did try to put it on once, but it didn't fit.

Who would you rather have as your manservant, Jeeves or Farnsworth Bentley?
I don't know who F. Bentley is, so I'd have to say Jeeves. Even if I did know who F. Bentley is, I'd probaby still say Jeeves.

Did David Letterman appreciate your diagram of his balding pattern?
I think so. He laughed when I handed it to him.

Would you say you get a distinctly different audience for your readings than other authors might get?
No.

How does it feel to be the 114th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Feels pretty good. I've enjoyed quickly typing up these answers.