Q 6

PLAYBOY: Aspiring performers often seek fame and fortune in New York. But we suspect that you didn't spend a whole lot of time auditioning for Broadway plays.

Eric Bogosian: For me, New York is not the museums and theaters and all those things that are nice and cultural. I love New York because the streets are entertainment. I roamed the streets all day. The library was where I took my pee and I hung anywhere I could see people. I got on the subways. I was up all night long. I saw lots of crazy shit. Nothing could be better than hitting a night club at midnight, closing that club, hitting another club at four in the morning, getting out of the club at eight, going over to Alex' on the Bowery and sitting around with a bunch of pimps and prostitutes. It's a blast. I used to live in an attic on Forty-third Street and Ninth Avenue. The fun thing about Forty-third and Ninth in those days was that it was a big haunt for transvestite prostitutes. They used to fight with the regular prostitutes. I'll never forget one regular prostitute screaming to a transvestite, "Three holes are better than two, baby!"

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Are the citizens of Woburn, Massachusetts, relieved and delighted that Eric Bogosian moved to New York?

Eric Bogosian: I shouldn't say bad things about Woburn. Woburn is a wonderful place. But in Woburn, I'm smaller than most guys. In New York, I'm average size. In Woburn, I'm a wimp. In New York, I'm stronger than most guys I run into. And in New York, women like sensitive guys. In Woburn, sensitive guys are followed by cars slowly down the street. You've got to be into sports and smashing into other guys and getting into fist-fights in bars just for the hell of it. "Let's get each other in headlocks and punch each other." I've never been one of those guys. I'm not gay, but I'm not a guy guy.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Does every Armenian name end in I-A-N?

Eric Bogosian: Unless it's been changed. Mike Connors' doesn't. It's an Armenian thing. One thing that's great for me about New York is that New Yorkers look more like me than people anywhere else in the country. There's a huge number of Jews in this city and I have the same kind of markings. There is the huge Latino population, so in New York, to be brown and curly-haired is not some kind of sin like it is in some other parts of the country.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts helped you develop your work. Did the taxpayers get their money's worth?

Eric Bogosian: Grants are good. If all grants worked the way they worked for me, I couldn't imagine a better system. What basically happens with the National Endowment for the Arts is that when you reach a certain level of quality, and everybody in the community knows you, then it's time to get a grant. For about two or three years, it was very hard for me to get one. My wife and I were very poor. It was a frustrating time in my career and the grant was a pat on the head, saying, "Good work." There are some artists who can't exist on the commercial scene and they need to continue to get support. You can't be overly idealistic about the arts.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Would you care to discuss over lunch with Senator Jesse Helms the redeeming social value of your Shit, Fuck, Piss monolog?

Eric Bogosian: Sure. Can you arrange it? I would try to persuade him to drink a glass of Clorox mixed with some Coca-Cola and see if he liked the taste. He's a pinhead, but what can I do about that? He's seized on something he can get a lot of attention with, with very little backlash. He displays a kind of courage, because he knows there's an unpopularity in what he says. The problem is not Jesse Helms, it's the people who run scared when he opens his mouth.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Is attendance at an Eric Bogosian performance an uplifting experience?

Eric Bogosian: The tradition for what I do is as old as the hills. I'm like a shaman. I get in front of the audience and I conjure up their worst fears and deflate that anxiety by showing that it's not as horrible as it might be if they just left it in the back of their brains and let it fester and grow. I walk down the street and I see two young black guys walking toward me and my brain trips off into being mugged or some kind of race war breaking out in New York City. Courage is really a central concern of mine. I wasn't very courageous when I was little. My life has been affected by fear of lack of money, lack of recognition, lack of housing. Lack of food. Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor both dealt with their personal fears in their work. I remember their bits better than routines about dieting or what's on TV and why it's so shitty. Who cares about those topics? I'd rather watch somebody bang his head against the wall and talk about what scares me. That makes me laugh hard.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: The film Talk Radio, which you co-wrote and in which you star, headed to the video stores soon after its release. Were you disappointed in its box-office performance?

Eric Bogosian: Talk Radio has had a tremendous afterlife. The movie has come back with a vengeance. It's a big video hit. I'm very aware of a lot of people knowing me and seeing me because of the movie. I walked into a strip joint in Tampa and the stripper stopped stripping and jumped off stage to tell some of the other girls that I was in the audience. She came up to me later, topless, and said, "I know who you are. You're that Talk Radio guy." Now, what was I doing in a strip joint in Tampa? I was promoting the record of Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and since the days of cocaine and payola are over, sexy experiences are now the stock in trade of record promoters. This one promoter promised he'd show me a funny place. It was so funny I lasted there about fifteen minutes.