Keywords:
Legs McNeil, High Times, masculinity, punk rock, interview, American culture
Abstract
A reprint of Legs McNeil’s interview with Mailer, first published in the September 1979 issue of High Times. Introduced by McNeil’s account of meeting Mailer in the New York punk scene, the conversation ranges across masculinity, the women’s movement, literary ambition, television and American culture, drugs, violence, rock ’n’ roll, war, and Mailer’s 1969 mayoral campaign.
Author Biography
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Legs McNeil
Legs McNeil is an American music journalist and a founder of the influential, late-1970s Punk, a magazine celebrating the stripped-down, buzzsaw bands playing at CBGB, Max’s Kansas City, and Mudd Club, venues in New York City of that era. McNeil later edited the mass-circulation music magazines Spin and Nerve and is co-author, with poet Gillian McCain, of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (1996). McNeil’s approach toward documenting disruptive social and artistic movements through interviews continued with The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry (2006), a collaboration with Jennifer Osborne and Peter Pavia. According to a review in Publisher’s Weekly, “This compulsively readable book perfectly captures the pop culture zeitgeist. It doesn’t hurt that the history of American pornography is inextricably intertwined with all the subjects that captivate us: sex, drugs, beauty, fame, money, the Mafia, law enforcement and violence.” McNeil has appeared on many TV documentaries, from the History Channel to VH1, and has produced and hosted a three-hour TV special on Court TV over three nights on the porn industry, the highest-rated original programming in that network’s history. Mc-Neil currently documents “music, art, culture, fashion, poetry and movies from the 60s through today” on his website at pleasekillme.com.
