I've been hard on Neil Strauss, and those of you who have been reading me a while know that I have been hard on Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone. ( Above: The subject in repose, clearly sporting an outfit inspired by "Bolivian Marching Powder." ) That having been said, the April 29, 2004 issue is fantastic. Let's leave aside Uma Thurman, who, in an interview, defends Ethan Hawke's infidelity with a Buddhist assessment of his "intentions", and everybody's favorite possum eating hillbilly celebrity Billy Bob Thornton saying, a propos of nothing, as hillbillies are wont to do, " I like waitresses. I met one at a waffle house in Nashville that I don't know if the devil could have charmed her ..." Thanks for sharing, Billy Bob!
But, No, none of that piffle crosses our radar, the real nuclear explosion comes from a Chris Rock interview by none other than our boy Neil Strauss. A unusually bold observation about "the rock" turns Chris "Rock" very, very reflective ... a very special Corsair (soft piano music):
Strauss: So did you ever try crack?
Rock: The closest thing I ever got to doing crack was selling crack. Me and a friend of mine, we took these jobs at a camp just to make money. We were going to get paid a thousand or two thousand at the end of the summer and take that and buy some crack to sell. But of course he got hooked on crack before we could go out and do it. And then, right after that, God braught comedy into my life.
Strauss: I wonder what would have happened if you had started selling it?
Rock: Who knows what would have happened. I would have been dumb enough to have done it. I'm not saying, 'If I wasn't for comedy, I'd be selling crack.' But I rememeber sitting with my friends, cutting up the coke like it was yesterday: cocaine, lactose, vitamin B12. Cook it up -- crack. I am so lucky I never tried crack. The most I did was put some coke on my tongue."
Bravo to Neil Strauss for asking the hard questions and Rolling Stone to briefly getting back to hard hitting stories. And good for Rock, who dodged a bullet that ravaged the inner city in the 80s. But, Chris, hey -- lactose in the inner city?
