Contents

• Mad Mel – Follow-up to my New York Times Magazine feature on Mel Gibson, in which I attempt to describe the deeply surreal experience of having Mad Max trash talk me live on Fox TV. Was it brilliant marketing, or pathological paranoia? Published in Salon.com. • Bonfire of the Ironies – Narrative feature about a group of art-pranksters called the Cacophony Society. Story started out as a modest assignment for Los Angeles magazine about a gang of L.A. oddballs and soon escalated into a mammoth 10,000-word project about life, death, and the implosion of a particular sort of hipster mindset... Story was written in 2001, got dumped and revived by various publications, and finally found a home in the smart and scrappy new magazine Arthur.