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Back in the heyday of metal, there was a rumor that Axl Rose had a job where he was paid to smoke cigarettes. Almost as cool, writer Alex Abramovich was recently paid to get drunk with a group of pals. He did, though, have to go on to write something up for Slate about it. (We bet Axl never put up with such indignities.) After the jump, Alex dishes about early-Internet magazine FEED, his penchant for a.m. radio, and the correct songs to, well, get drunk to. Brother has a one-track mind.

Age: 31
Occupation: Writer
Location: Astoria, Queens

1. You were an editor at the excellent, influential FEED, a magazine of culture, politics, and technology, that came and went early in the Internet days. How did it feel to be aboard the Internet rocket ship so soon off the launch pad? Why did it burn out quicker than a spliff at a Phish concert?

I didn t have much to do with the politics slash technology side of things, but I can tell you that, for a small vessel, the good ship FEED was bursting with talent. I was immensely lucky to end up there, and aside from a short, ill-advised stint as a sort of managing editor, it felt great.

I started at a print magazine; by the time I got to FEED, in 1998 or so, it had already been around for a while. It had been founded in May of 1995, which made it the first internet magazine of any kind, anywhere, and a lot of the best stuff had already been published by the time I arrived. I wasn t there for the very end, either, so you d have to get in touch with FEED s founders, Steven Johnson & Stephanie Syman, to find out exactly where the iceberg hit. But I seem to remember that, at some point, we hired a bunch of high-powered media professionals to act as corporate officers. I definitely remember that well-dressed strangers started dropping by the office, and that one of them told me to "jump on the brand-wagon." As magazines go, it wasn t a bad run there was nothing quite like it, before or since, and Steven and Stephanie have a lot to be proud of.

2. You got paid to drink on the job while you were test-driving Vodkas for Slate. Any drunk interoffice mailing go on after this or was it all strictly above the board? Oh wait! The real question: Any cases of free vodka yet?

It s true: I got paid to invite a bunch of friends over and conduct rigorous, scientific-type testing on some of the worlds best vodkas. I had a friend drive me out to Brighton Beach that morning to load up on Russian foodstuffs, so we didn t get as drunk as we might have, but we didn t get sober, either. And, thankfully, this took place on a Saturday night, so I had a day to recover before emailing my editor. As far as drunken emailing goes, I learned my lesson girlfriends and girlfriends ago.

Alas, I m not allowed to take payola.

3. For myself, I find John Stewart and Yahoo! Most Emailed Content suffice pretty nicely as my only news sources. Are you an Internet-only newshound, a staid newspaper cat, or are you all up in the grille of this 24-hour TV news cycle?

I don t have cable, so that knocks out John Stewart & the 24-hour news cycle. I get my weather and traffic updates from 1010 WINS (once a rock and roll station the one Lou Reed sings about in Rock and Roll ) I used to get the Times delivered, but Astoria neighbors tend towards thievery, and I don t get it anymore. I read Arts & Leisure, The Economist, and The New Yorker. I watch Nightline, and read The New York Times, the British papers, and a few other things online. I subscribe to the New York Review of Books, and occasionally read it. I sat next to Charlie Rose at the movies once.

As you know, the news is not good.

4. You wrote in the Village Voice [Literary Supplement] that in David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men "There is such hatred in this book that midway through it seems that Wallace's confidence as a writer masks a collapse in the man . . . " That sounds dangerous, for him an us. Is this what happens when writers don't know when to stop footnoting?

Did I? Does it? Does the Voice still review books? I heard they were devoting less space to literature, more to electoral campaigns and electro-clash compilations.

5. As a seasoned journalist/writer, I hope you can give us me some guidance: I think a story on dune buggies and the low-flying helicopters that chase them would go over huge. Where would you start your research for this story?
 With the last few pages of any given Frank O Hara bio.


Alex Abramovich s Five Good Drinking Songs:

"A Pair of Brown Eyes," by The Pogues
"Me and My Gin," by Bessie Smith
"The Have-Nots," by X
"Take Me Down to the Hospital," by The Replacements
"Piano Man," by Billy Joel, for luck.

—Andrew Krucoff and Chris Gage conduct a daily interview series for Gawker.