We were really responsive. It was very personalized for the die-hards that did watch, and I thought that would be a big draw, too.

What most people find festive-a weekend at a beach shack with friends, a boat trip down a river, a crackling bonfire on a summer night-I see as a bleak nightmare to be grimly endured. I would sooner put lit cigarettes in my eyes than share a vacation house with a crowd.

I would get adult acne when it was somebody really famous I had to interview, so sometimes I would have to look straight at the camera because I couldn't look sideways or profile, because it would show.

Sometimes we were really surprised. There were major artists that would come by because they wanted to.

I'm trying to think of who was really unpleasant or just not in the mood for talking. We had on Thurston Moore and he was just not feeling it that day, so it was difficult. Your difficult interview is out there for the world.

What really takes me back is when I'm walking around the Lower East Side, because we went to so many places [there] - the bakery, a mannequin store, all these factories with mice running around. That also is very visceral and takes me back. Pool halls, tattoo parlors, all kinds of stuff like that.

[On a high school visit by Destiny's Child:] Then they appeared, golden Glamazons resplendent in hot pants the size of a dryer sheet and gold stiletto boots. The kids in the front row, clearly on funkiness overload, had the walleyed look of the Today's Catch section of the supermarket.