Full Name: Anthony Joseph L.
Age: 25
Location: Gowanus/Park Slope, Brooklyn
Occupation: a network television news magazine
Hobbies: writing, records, arm-chair adventure travel, cooking, graphic design
Pets: an affectionate gray and black tabby named, Pucci

1: the heavy part
Being as you’re from the DC metro area, did you go through a hardcore/Fugazi phase?
Ears bleeding at thirteen. Well, it was loud. The first time I heard them it was in a converted church called St. Stephen’s, I think, in downtown DC. I didn’t drink or do any drugs until I was sixteen. I was straight edge, but not in the sense that I wore T-shirts and had x’s written in marker on my fists, but just because. I guess I had a number of my friends more into hardcore and emo than me, but I always liked Fugazi and saw them play a number of times. I think the best time was sometime during the early nineties. It was an afternoon free show at a park near my house, Ft. Reno, just a simple stage in the middle of the park. Well, the bands before them cancelled because of fairly mild rain and some slightly threatening lightening, but then the rain stopped. And Fugazi went on and started to play. The rain started again, this time more steady and the sky lit up. Brilliant purple with bright dangerous lightening and rolling thunder. And Fugazi hunkered down and kept playing their instruments quietly.

How/why did you end up here?
School. When college at Columbia. I thought New York would be exciting and I guess I wanted New York as antidote to everything that Washington wasn’t.

Has NYC lived up (or down) to your expectations?
It’s hard exactly now to remember what I expected. I guess, it was more than I expected. I certainly didn’t expect to be robbed or bitten, or meet such amazing people, or fall in love. But thing about New York as much as it offers, it takes in kind--maybe a psychic toll levied by crowded subways, cramped apartments, rudeness, snobbery, acts of mass murder.

Ideally, what will your life look like on New Year’s Day 2005?
I’ve never been good at planning. I didn’t plan on becoming a travel writer after college. And I didn’t plan on getting into television, though indeed I had tried before I got my job. I guess the best things just kind of happen. That said I have a strong premonition that my life will be very different. Things are brewing for me at the moment; a heady mixture of dissatisfaction and ambition. We’ll see.

Have your early-to-mid ‘20s been like you imagined? Why or why not?
Well, I’ve clearly turned a corner. I’ve kind of gone from being a crazy kid with a lifestyle disguised as a poorly paying job to being a kid with an ever-so-slightly less poorly paying job disguised as a lifestyle. Call it mid-twenties malaise.

Which was the best year, you-wise, of your life? Why?
18 was good. So was 21. For many reasons most of which I can’t state here--but the most respectable being that at 18, I traveled for ten weeks. At 21, I traveled and got paid for writing about it.

When did you first realize you were a writer?
The first symptom of the disease involved writing bad poetry in study hall of the seventh grade. So we won’t talk any more about that. But you could trace the origins even earlier than that given I didn’t have a television as a wee youth, and thus relied on books, torturing my brother and pedaling down stairs at top speed in a big wheels for entertainment. Another key point in my early education as writer was reading the entire works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler by the time I was fourteen. From there it was just a short slide into manufacturing my own ‘zine. Writing is a terminal condition, I’m afraid.

What attracted you to television?
Well, I did a show in college. A soap opera. Twin Peaks-meets-Melrose-Place kind of thing. Of course, the next logical step would be television news.

Highlight of your television career to this point?
Well, putting together a catalogue of the mia/kia/pow’s from ‘high intensity’ portion of Gulf War 2 seemed to matter. And actually became rather moving. The piece I did on the history of cocktails was pretty neat. The piece I did on Sears homes was pretty cool. I produce a piece every week so things can kind of blend together. I really should put together a reel. I guess the highest highs are the breaking news shows we’ve done--the hour and a half space shuttle Columbia show started putting together on Saturday morning to go to air on Sunday. Breaking news is always fun.

2: the not-heavy part
Describe a good night out on the town...
Quick change after work. Meet friends for a pint or two. Head to a show. Meet more friends at show. Go to party after show. Meet some more friends who couldn’t make it to show. Take long rambling walk drunk. Wake the next day like wreckage. Have large, grease-laden late-afternoon brunch.

And a good night in the apartment, describe that, too.
Have a few cocktails. Cook large meal. Curl up and watch a film.

Current favorite ethnic food and, if possible, dish.
Simple, heavy winter fare. Maybe split: Russian--Borscht. Italian: Gnocchi.

What have you been listening to?
Kelis: Tasty.
Lou Reed: Transformer.
Oscar Brown Jr.: Sin & Soul.
David Holmes: Come Get it, I Got It.
AC/DC.
Joss Stone.
Outkast: The Love Below/Speakerboxxx
The Shins.

What hast you been reading?
Monsters of God by David Quammen (promising) Playback: From Victrola to MP3, 100 years of music, machines and money by Mark Coleman (print date 2/2004) (fun)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (disappointing)
The Information by Martin Amis (interesting)

What have you been watching on TV?
The Office.
The news.
PBS.
Films when I can stay awake.

Seen any movies lately? What did you think?
Recently saw for the first time: The Cincinnati Kid. Highly recommended. The Maltese Falcon. Always excellent.

You’re getting ready to go out: Which song do you blast on the stereo?
AC/DC: "Highway to Hell".
ZZ Top: "Sharp Dressed Man" (it was at one time [wistful sigh] my theme song).
Lowell Fulsom: "Tramp" (now [wistful sigh] my theme song).
Outkast: various selections from new album (because sometimes it’s difficult to decide what your going to wear).

3: the cocktail party
So you’re having a cocktail party: list five A-list guests, other than Jesus, me and your friends...
Frankly depending on when the last time Jesus bathed, I’m not sure he could get past the tiki hut’s velvet rope… Sorry, Jesus. But I think I just heard Steve volunteering to wash your feet.

1. Ann Margaret (circa 1965)
2. Willie Bobo (circa 1963)
3. Scarlet Johansson (circa yesterday)
4. Carl Craig
5. Kevin Shields
6. Bjork

What will be on the stereo?
A cord connecting to two turntables.

Conversation topics will include...
The sunset.
How silence is golden.
How all that glitters is not gold.

How will the evening end?
The sunrise.