Q 13

PLAYBOY: You are synonymous with the downtown New York scene. Do you dream crossover dreams?

Eric Bogosian: At this time, I don't think I'm going to show up as some kind of box-office attraction. But you never know. I'd like to be a star. There's always the challenge, especially when you're surrounded by agents and producers, to see if you can really catch the gold ring. Can I fill Madison Square Garden? Can I go on Johnny and do a killer five minutes? I can't imagine getting on Letterman. People would watch and say they knew what I was doing: This guy plays thugs from New Jersey and subway panhandlers. They wouldn't see the irony; it would be like I'm just making cruel fun of these guys. I need an audience to be with me for a little while.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: You've acquired a lot of material from the street people of New York. Do you pay them back with spare change in lieu of royalties?

Eric Bogosian: Sometimes I toss a quarter, sometimes I don't. It really varies because of what I know about them. I'm very familiar with the streets in this area. I know who a lot of the guys are and I know their stories. There's a Vietnam vet around here who was actually a mercenary later on in Africa. He's not really homeless. He owns a couple of buildings, but he stays on the street all the time and he begs. He doesn't need money. I wouldn't give it. On the other hand, there's a guy around here who clearly should be institutionalized. He has a lot of physical and mental problems and he's very sad and he just stands there with a cup and begs.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: You've bought a house in New Jersey. Will crab grass begin to crop up in your monologs?

Eric Bogosian: It has already. I did a monolog called Normal Guy. I like gardening a lot. Gardening gets me real mellow. I grow twenty-five kinds of vegetables, and when I'm lucky, like last summer, a lot of things come up very nicely. I grow lettuce and beets and carrots and different varieties of cucumbers. I grow different varieties of corn and tomatoes and squash and pumpkins and peppers and okra and all kinds of neat stuff. And early in August, you get to a point where everything you're eating that night at dinner was grown in your own garden. That's nice. However, when you garden, you find out that in order to get your vegetables to look good, you have to kill everything within a hundred yards: animals, plants and little insects. And you realize that after you do all that, you still end up with this gnarled little carrot. Then you go to the supermarket and you get this perfect carrot and you wonder, What are they killing to make these?

Q 16

PLAYBOY: One of your characters defines being civilized as sitting on a couch with a babe, watching TV, eating clam dip on a ripple potato chip, smoking joints, snorting coke--and swilling bourbon, beer and champagne. What's your vision of the civilized life?

Eric Bogosian: In New Jersey, we have a fireplace and we're very, very civilized. I'm sitting on the couch and the fire is going and snow is falling outside and I'm reading a pulp novel by Stephen King. Being over thirty-five, there's no question that there is a vibe in me that's moving toward a Stratolounger with a bowl of potato chips and cable TV with a channel selector. I will fight that tooth and nail. It scares me. I like middle-class life. I don't think it's a sin to be middle class. I don't have to be mainstream to be comfortable. I've spent time with Frank Zappa, and he has a very normal, middle-class existence. He's a daddy and has a whole family and they have pizza for lunch and they have pets and it's a very normal life. But he's not mainstream and never will be.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: You've publicly thanked your parents, Henry and Edwina, for their encouragement and support. Were you a good little boy?

Eric Bogosian: I was probably quite spoiled. I was a bright kid and things came easily to me and I never really learned to make an effort. And I got angry when I couldn't have things my way. I wasn't real happy about the way my childhood turned out in terms of my relationships with a lot of other little kids. For some reason, I developed tremendous resentments. I have a huge amount of anger.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: Have you constructively channeled your anger into your career?

Eric Bogosian: The first few years, I thought it was really important to let everybody know I destroyed my dressing room in Edinburgh or got into a fistfight with a club owner someplace or that I used to do hard drugs. The big thing then was to be the guy all the time. Never stop. And I didn't like that. It was so far from me as a person that it was creating a strain on me. There are no artists who continue to work their whole lives who can stay in those insane places. They have to come home and take their insane hat and tie off, hang them up and relax for a while, just so they can go back out there and make it even more intense the next time around. Now I'm not afraid to tell you that I garden.

Q 19

PLAYBOY: You admit to more than a little experience with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Did you learn any lessons from your years of living dangerously?

Eric Bogosian: I partied pretty hardy in the Seventies and early Eighties. At first, it was a very energetic experience. No question. You stay up late. You get yourself in trouble. It's great. Then it becomes walking death. I really regretted the time I lost being in a permanent hangover, a stupor, looking for the next sedation. I don't believe the drugs helped me do my work better. Probably worse. I would have been making better work sooner. I probably would have been known by more people, because I wouldn't have been so difficult to deal with. I recently found out that a big movie I wanted to be involved in rejected even the notion of my auditioning, because five years ago, I insulted some producer who was working on the movie and he's never forgotten it. I didn't kiss his ass really hard enough; it's too bad that shit has to follow me around.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: How will you react when your son discovers sex, drugs, rock and roll?

Eric Bogosian: He's probably going to check that stuff out. A lot of people checked out drugs and put drugs down and moved on with their lives. My son is a lot like me and he's got a lot of energy and he's very perceptive and he's got a little aggression in him, and yet he doesn't like to fight. When Harry's fifteen, something will come up that will bother the shit out of me and that I will have no experience with. They'll all have this little button that they can attach to their wrists and have nonstop orgasms. I'll find out that he's in his bedroom all night long pushing this button hundreds of times and I'm going to be freaked by it.