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We love free newspapers. They're just right for wrapping dead fish and delicate glassware. Just perfect for cleaning those grubby windows. They provide ample amounts of deviant sexual hotline numbers for when you're lonely. But it's doubtful that's what Russ Smith had in mind for his beloved New York Press, where he still pens the hell-bent weekly Mugger column, despite having sold the paper and moved to Maryland (we don't actually know where or what that is, but Russ seems to like it). After the jump, allow Russ to scare the hell out of you and your silly politics.

1. At different times and for different reasons, you've spanked the bejesus out of Esquire and Salon.com. I'm sure there are big, bloated, glossy general-interest magazines you consider good. What's a winning formula to you?

I can't think of a "big, bloated" glossy that I like. The Atlantic was great under Mike Kelly, but has fallen into liberal irrelevance since his tragic death. I do like The New Yorker, despite Hendrik Hertzberg channelling Eric Alterman nearly every week. Vanity Fair's gone stale, as opposed to just a couple of years ago. Interesting thing is Michael Wolff, once the toast of the incestuous NYC media world, has fallen off the map since switching from New York to VF. The decreased frequency of his column, plus leadtime has neutered him. New York mag could get interesting. It's already improved with Moss as editor, although the previous editorial regime was so inept that's not much of an accomplishment.

2. Is the alternative newspaper game dead? Can the bile, anger, and excitement that was the cornerstone of the Boston Phoenix, the Village Voice, et al. last forever? Or do they eventually choke on their own self-importance?

Weekly newspapers are at a crossroads right now. I don't think they're choking on "self-importance" — the economy keeps them humble — but not enough of them are coping with the brain drain of talented youngsters who, 20 years ago, would be the fresh blood, but are now involved with Internet projects. The weeklies have to adapt to a changing communications world, which means posting daily stories, even if they're short. The "bile" and "anger" of papers like the Phoenix and Voice disappeared, oh, in about 1980. That's hard to recapture. What these papers could do, if they had imaginative editors, would be to focus on the quality of writing, rather than knee-jerk politics and Quentin Tarantino hagiography.

3. I'm afraid to ask, but what do you think of Gawker? Is it even on your radar?

I read Gawker every day. Enjoy it. Though I think you missed the boat a while back on the disgruntled NYPress staff complaining about a lack of parties. The parties at the Puck Bldg. were getting old, after holding them there for about 100 years.

4. What happened in New York that made you choose to move to Baltimore? After the sale of NY Press, was it just not fun anymore? Or had you ticked off enough of this town it was time to move on?

I sold NYPress because I wanted to write full-time after almost 25 years of owning newspapers. Sept. 11 hastened the process, however. I hadn't planned on selling till about 2005, rather than 2002. But after that day, living in Tribeca and seeing the whole thing unfold from my roof, I decided I wanted my family in a different environment. I love New York, lived in the city 16 years, grew up on the Island and made weekly trips to the Village in the 60s and 70s and might some day move back. Right now, with two boys 10 and 12, both born in NYC, it seemed sensible for them to have a backyard, be able to walk to school, have birds in the backyard, have room for my wife to garden. I miss the convenience of the city, miss going to my local bodega at 5 a.m., getting the papers and coffee, seeing the late-night people stagger home, the early-morning people just getting up. Miss living just a few blocks from the Hudson.

5. The election is drawing near. It's a tense and addled country. Families are being fractured over it (see the Baldwin brothers) and friendships torn asunder. What are you seeing as the outcome: four more years, a changing of the guard, or it doesn't matter they're both elite, overeducated millionaires who wouldn't recognize 100,000 of the commoners if they threw a rally on Eighth Avenue?

I don't think the country's electorate at large is "tense and addled," at least not as much as the phony-baloneys in the media, most of whom don't really care who wins since their lifestyle won't change. I love the CBS difficulties, although I've always preferred Rather to Peter Jennings, and would prefer to see ABC, with its ratings edge, be discredited than the free-falling CBS. I think it's likely Bush will win, but as I've written, I ain't putting money on the table until mid-October. There's a lot talk that if Bush wins, the youth will ignite a 60s-like sensibility. I doubt it, unless there's a draft. The left's problem is that 60s veterans are still calling the shots, and smart, articulate kids in their 20s haven't emerged to take the place of old hippies like Hayden, Gitlin, the entire staff of The Nation. The Democrats, had they nominated a bland, faceless, humble candidate like Gephardt would be leading now. Kerry's the personification of what most the country hates. The election was always going to be about Bush, but Kerry, amazingly, was so vain he got in the way of that strategy. Gephardt, most likely, would've stayed in the background and let national and world events take over. Bush could fuck up in the debates, Kerry might learn how to speak in one-sentence phrases, and U.S. casualties in Iraq could start to number 30 a day. And then Kerry would win. Right now, that doesn't seem likely.

Top 5
 1. Best pop record ever: Blonde on Blonde.
2. Best book: Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution
3. Favorite diversion: Playing baseball with my kids
4. Most interesting (and media-screwed) politician of my life: Jerry Brown
5. Event of my life: Meeting my wife in Tribeca's now-departed Riverrun.

If you care to go head-to-head with Russ, he can be reached at MUG1988@aol.com

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