Crack reporting

I don't really have any interest in reading his book — and if I did, it would have to wait until I wade through the piles of unread stuff laying around my apartment — but this is a pretty interesting article on New York Times columnist David Carr.

Carr, a former crack user and lots of other things apparently, wrote an autobiographical drug addict memoir soon to be released. I never heard of or read the guy up to this point (that I can remember), but what I found most interesting about the article was writer Jennifer Senior's descriptions of the man and journalist working today.

In one bit of insight, that doesn't sound like it necessitated a whole lot of insight, Senior describes Carr as having "a crackhead's approach to news," substituting new job-related addictions for old ones.

He’s just had three big stories run in the space of 24 hours, totaling 6,300 words. “There’s something to the theory of mania replacing mania,” he says. And compulsion replacing compulsion, he might have added: When he recently wrote a media column slamming Fox News, he got 450 e-mails, and he answered each and every one. “And why would I do that?” he asks. “There’s a weirdness to it. Like if I don’t, flying monkeys will attack.”

I've seen several drug addict movies and liked many, so if it goes to the big screen I'll probably see it eventually. Reading the book may take one of my more up-to-date reader friends to tell me to read it, though. I'm still working on stuff I got for Christmas, after all.

Oh, enjoy the bonus Woody Harrelson.