From here.
1. Has the death of a famous person (not connected to you personally) ever made you cry?
Some of these things are major blows, emotionally. When Kurt Cobain died, I was in my last year of undergrad, and I didn’t get out of bed for two weeks. But I didn’t cry .
I was at my desk in the office when I read that Neil Peart, the drummer for Rush and the greatest rock and roll drummer ever, died. I actually yelled, “Oh no!” and everyone looked at me, and I said, “My favorite drummer died!” and I realized nobody was going to care, although one coworker did say, “Oh you mean the guy from Rush?” I could feel the tears coming, but I pushed them down and focused on work. I cried several months later listening to “Limelight” on repeat in my car.
I’m not even really into hip hop, but I did cry when Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest died. I really liked him and respected what his group did. And I cried a little a few years after Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys died. He had always been my favorite Beastie, and it was a tough loss.
Last month, my favorite baseball player died. Rickey Henderson. I didn’t cry right away, but I cried that night as I thought about what he meant for the game of baseball and what he meant for me as a young fan. I can still make myself cry when I think about him even a month later.
2. Have you ever sent money as relief aid after a disaster?
I haven’t. Although I volunteered a couple of weekends to help with hurricane cleanup on Kauai, I don’t think I’ve ever sent relief aid money anywhere. I’m more likely to respond to stories of single people who’ve had trouble or illness.
3. How will the recent declaration affirming alcoholic beverages as cancer-causing affect your consumption?
It hasn’t yet affected my modest and moderate consumption except to give me something to think about. So there is a very good chance it will cause me to give it up or at least to stop drinking casually, as I have done these past few years. Ever since the breakup with Gin Blossom, I’ve gone out almost every Sunday night for a couple of drinks, some alone time, and a good book. It’s been my favorite night of the week. During NaNoWriMo, because I was working on my novel, I went instead to an open-all-night cafe (we have one left, and it took me until last year to discover it — it’s actually in a hospital) and drank coffee instead, and I have to say I enjoyed those evenings as much as my bar evenings. I could easily trade one for the other.
4. What is the most bizarre (or difficult to understand) movie you’ve seen?
I haven’t seen Pink Flamingos or Eraserhead, which are often the answers to this question, but I did see Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead with Johnny Depp, Crispin Glover, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, John Hurt, Alfred Molina, and Robert Mitchum, and I found it impossible to wrap my brain around AND impossible to care about.
My feelings are the same about Bubba Ho-Tep, with Bruce Campbell. Just couldn’t get interested and just couldn’t care.
So I think my favorite answer is David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive with Naomi Watts. Challenging as heck but not utterly inaccessible. I still don’t really know what it is, but I know I like it, and each time I see it (that is, all two times), I’ve found more to think about.
5. How willing and able are you to separate art from artist when a musician, actor, writer, or other creator is discovered to have behaved very badly?
Fandom is a strange thing, and it is very personal. And I have found that it’s close to impossible to draw a hard line and to be consistent about it. This is why I don’t judge others whose responses to people like Michael Jackson or J. K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman do not match my own. I was never a huge fan of Gaiman, ‘though I did very much like the handful of books I’ve read by him and planned to read the others. My feelings about Rowling are easier for me to sort through and deal with (The first seven books are canon; I’ve read them and adored them; I will likely continue to read and adore these first seven; I will not likely give her any more of my money). I never really liked Michael Jackson or his music to begin with, and certainly never looked up to him as artist or person, so it’s easy to just not think of him.
However, one thing this Gaiman thing makes obvious is that we could find out tomorrow that it could be someone very dear, someone I look up to as a person, where my fandom is an enormous part of the identity I’ve built myself. Bruce Cockburn. T Bone Burnett. It could be one of them tomorrow and if it is, why should I be surprised? I shouldn’t. I think I’m too old to be devastated by it, but my heart will be broken.
Less personal: it could be Stephen Colbert or Tom Hanks. No identity things for me, but BOY will I be sad and disappointed. But yeah: I will refuse to be surprised.