Benkharakh.com

I am now contributing to Starpulse.com and Laist, and am doing more writing in general, so I figured I'd take a stab at keeping you up-to-date on what I'm up to.

So, my first piece for LAist was with Brandon Christopher , author of Dirty Little Alter Boy. Here's an excerpt of the Q and A

One of my favorite lines in Dirty Little Alter Boy is when you described one of the two bullies in your grade as having "A smile that made you shit yourself". What sort of smile is that, exactly?
“The smile that made you shit yourself” was very similar to an Eric Estrada smile. Imagine dark Hispanic skin surrounding a deathly white smile; the eyes squint to two razors under black eyebrows, and those thin pink lips pull back tight against the face. His crooked teeth were like weathered stones on a beach, each with their own story of “kicking some geek ass.” The smile was indeed dangerous—as dangerous as they came in junior high. You just knew there was something lurking behind the teeth.

He talks about a few of the 41 jobs he's worked, his time spent writing erotica, being robbed at gun point, knife point, and how they compare, and how his own ineptness may have lead to the devise of Wings.

I've done four pieces so far for Starpulse with Trishelle Cannatella from The Real World and Dr. Steveo, The Hives , Dick Valentine , which is actually part of a much longer piece that will later appear unedited here, and with former Daily Show Correspondent Lauren Weedman about her terrific new book A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body.

Here's an excerpt from the Weedman Q and A:

Did that happen more than once, with people jumping out at you?
Like seventeen times, I swear to God. Like every bush, some masturbating man jumps out at you. What a country! No, it happened twice. The red light district is just something you deal with, and eventually I just avoided it. And I'm not anti-the industry. I like it's legalized. Just like the internet. I know it's there, I'm not that interested in seeing images that are going to fuck me up the rest of the days. The guy jumping out of the bushes, and another one was I saw a guy walking down the street-- and I'd been there two years at this point, so it freaked me out but I recovered quicker. Because I knew that that's not going to hurt me, this country's not going to destroy me. I think that when I first got there, I felt really scared and unsafe, like something bad was going to happen. It was my first time out of the country for so long. By then, I spoke the language, and you know. But this guy, it was raining out, and he was walking down the sidewalk in the rain, everybody else has umbrellas. He doesn't have an umbrella on, and he looks totally normal with jeans and a t-shirt on, he's soaking wet, and he's got his dick hanging out of his pants with a condom on it. As if that was his little umbrella. And I didn't have my glasses on, so I was staring, I was like, "What is that? Does he have a raccoon tail tied to his belt? What is that?" And then as he got closer, I was like, "Oh, for the love of God!" And that didn't make me cry-- the other one really upset me-- this one, I couldn't wait to get into the hotel where I was working to tell everybody what I'd seen. Then I realized it was hilarious, and I started laughing.

For Gothamist, there's a fun quick Q and A with Scott Adsit from 30 Rock, who revealed that the Let's Fish pilot was not picked up by Adult Swim, another with Greg Gutfeld , host of Redeye with Greg Gutfeld, and one with Marc Maron , who mentioned that he's working on HBO pilot with Jerry Stahl and weighed in on American Culture, what he thinks separates good comedy from bad comedy, and joke thievery.

Lastly, there is this terrific Q and A with Greg Giraldo that I did for Philly City Paper. He talks about the effects of 9/11 on comedy, a few pilots he's worked on, and some crackem ups and makem laughs about the economy.

So, from now on, I'll do my best to keep you posted on everything I do. EVERYTHING.