10) A good woman, a good book, or a good bottle of wine?
How good? You can rule out the bottle of wine.

11) Contemporary whom you most admire? Envy? Despise?
I really like driven people, people who can't help themselves, who've got to do what they're doing. Then I like people who try to figure out the right thing to do and then do it. Not too much envy. I hate people who think they're smart.

12) In hindsight, was the CB's punk scene overrated or underrated?
Odor.

13) Where would you live if not in New York?
Paris or by a river in the country somewhere.

14) Five reasons why NYC is the greatest city on earth?
I don't think it's the greatest city on earth. I haven't been to enough of the cities. I like it cuz it has fine examples of everything.

15) Greatest scam you've ever pulled off?
I'm more scammed than scammer. Sometimes I think all of America is just mouths, like suckers for the corps, slaves raised to be used by business.

16) Define "charisma."
Justified self-confidence.

17) What the hell is a "voidoid"?
It's a little piece of nothing. "Voidoids" as the name of a group was always bad, God damn it. I like the concept, but people not only can't pronounce or spell it, it has no implications, no information for them, it doesn't describe or even suggest anything to most people. Hell also is limited. It'd be good to have a different name for every time.

18) Best line you've ever written?
I always really like the lyrics to "You Gotta Lose." Like, "I know it's hard for you to face the fact Max Factor failed your face," and "I hope I don't seem immodest when I tell you that my, my / Mother was a pinhead and my father was a fly / That's why I love you darlin' with a love that's so unique / Your glistening wings they complement your head's exquisite peak," and "Not too long ago I knew a guy who thought he can't be beat / But he got rabies on his rubies, now he can't unlace his feet." Hm, I don't know…

19) Who would (Voidoids guitarist and ex-Lou Reed sideman) Robert Quine say is tougher to work with, you or Lou Reed?
Depends on when you catch him.

20) Richard Hell's secret for rock and roll survival?
I don't like the words "rock and roll." Or "survival," when you use it like that, either. I haven't "survived." Who wants to "survive?" That's like an insult. It makes me think of a Bill Knott poem:

So what if you lived only
One second longer
Than we
Did; to us
You will always be known as the Survivor.

There's no merit in surviving.