ALWAYS ON CALL
Wherever I am I have to have a passport: in my office, in my apartment.
I'm not running an international identity scam — you can have a second
passport. I'm a pretty low-maintenance traveler. I bring a little
home-video camera, and I've got some MREs [meals ready to eat]. I could
probably live off the stuff in my office for a good week.
HAVING A LIFE
I don't really have a good excuse when friends call and say, ''I haven't
seen you in six months.'' After a while, ''I'm working'' wears thin. I
can't have dinner with friends. I got out of work early one night
because we had a show that was on tape. I was driving home at 11 o'clock
on a Friday and there were people in outdoor cafés. I was like, ''Oh
yeah, I remember this. This is what people do.''
HURRICANE KATRINA
I think about it all the time even though a lot of people seem to have
moved on. It's shocking that there are still bodies buried beneath the
rubble in the Lower Ninth Ward that have not been found, and that they
only have three cadaver dogs searching the wreckage, which is nothing.
MOTIVATION FOR A MEMOIR
I tried to run from my past for many years. Finding myself in New
Orleans and Mississippi in the wake of Katrina, in places I'd visited as
a kid with my [late] dad, sort of brought the past into the present. And
it made me realize how that is still very much behind what I do. I think
that's the way it is with grief. After someone has died, you carry this
with you, and things in your daily life take you back to it.
GUILTY PLEASURES
I TiVo a lot of shows on MTV—stuff like My Super Sweet 16 that's
jaw-dropping and mind-numbing—and I'll watch it on weekends. Now I like
Tiara Girls. Oh, my God. On the second season of Super Sweet 16, all the
really horrible girls had seen the first season and were trying to top
them in horribleness. On Tiara Girls, there's a fresh level of horror.
THE NEW GIG
60 Minutes is the only show that I rush home to watch in real time. A
lot of times I'm stuck in traffic and I end up listening to it on the
radio. It's always been a dream of mine to be on it, so I hope I don't
screw it up.
