If you're wondering what we mean by Hollywood Interrupted being a public service as opposed to just great reading, you have to put a few things in perspective.

Like it or not, we emulate celebrities we admire, consciously or unconsciously.  Most of us outgrow this phase, but for teens and children it's almost a rite of passage. Even so, the power of celebrity when it comes to influencing masses is most readily apparent in the practice of celebrity endorsements: people buy shit they don't need if they know it's endorsed by a celebrity. Advertising companies know our weakness for subconscious celebrity emulation with such certainty they exploit it every chance they get. they can tie in a celebrity endorsement with a product completely unrelated to the celebrity's field and still get away with it. (I mean, a Michael Jordon cologne? I love the guy, but c'mon, he's a basketball player. What's his cologne gonna smell like? ball sweat and cheerleader?)

Hollywood Interrupted just reminds us, in a very entertaining way, that celebrities are human too. In fact, it does it to the point it makes one seriously question the advantages of life in a fishbowl...

So it is rather ironic that upon reporting the folly of celebrities, author Mark Ebner, who had already made a name for himself for his work on exposing the cult of Scientology, and HI co-author Andrew Breitbart are now tasting their own celebrity with a New York Times best seller.

ID: How has the success of HI changed your life thus far?

That New York Times bestseller drove me into a near-second bankruptcy. By the end of our hardcover PR run I was living in my 1969 VW bus with my dogs.

"Truth is, I always wanted to write. As a kid, my hero was Clark Kent -- not the pansy in tights he would morph into..."

ID: Incredible! how could that be?

Bestseller status does not guarantee riches. Consider the breakdown: Modest book advance split two ways with my co-author, a year to research and write the thing, and the better part of another year to get the hardcover out and promote the fucker. The math is depressing.

ID: As you approach celebrity with the success of your book, do you fear becoming what you hate most?

I've already become the person I used to love to hate. But I will never become the person I used to love to mock like, say, Spy magazine founder-turned-celebrity suck-up Graydon Carter.

ID: can you elaborate?  I mean, about Graydon and how you have changed, personally

Well, my interest lies in the karmic fruits of helping other writer/journos. Before I had achieved any success as a writer I was totally selfish, and that was my bar against breaking in professionally. I used to hate the helpful. Not any more. Graydon Carter is emblematic of people who sell their souls for access into the ridiculous cult of celebrity assuming that will make them happy. He must be miserable.

ID: What has been the most gratifying project in your journalistic career?

There have been a few...

ID: Do tell.

This story... "Pit Bullies": "Pit Bullies" was an undercover investigation into the criminal world of dog fighting... That story helped get the laws against the brutal "sport" changed from misdemeanor to felony status in Los Angeles. Then, of course, there is this one... as a result of that story my avocation is pit bull rescue. I've raised two awesome rescue pits -- the late Poorboy, and the thriving Roxie...Then, of course, there is this story...

(Here Mark shows me an article on Scientology, on the web here:  "Do You Want to Buy a Bridge")

"Do You Want To Buy a Bridge" - my undercover expose on $cientology basically put me on the map professionally.

ID: It's an incredible work, must have hit hard to get those Hubbard larvae after you. Do they still bother you?

Right, but the incredible cult survivors-turned-critics that I met while researching the story prepped me for the cult attacks. As you can see, I basically spilled the dirt on myself in the first paragraph on the story, and challenged the cult to find and disseminate more. They were stymied.

ID: What else motivates and inspires you?

Their attacks on me over the years - getting me fired from gigs, etc. - make me laugh at their stupidity...

ID: Oh shit. how so?

What bothers me is how the so-called Scientology stars are coddled in Hollywood to the point where they're allowed to promote the cult on movie set and PR junkets. The media really hasn't done their job in terms of checks and balances on that. Tom Cruise's $cientology tent on the set of War of The Worlds! What a tool! But then, that movie is directed by Steven Spielberg - the guy who made the feel-good movie about the Holocaust. Hollywood, Scientollywood -- What's the difference?

Before Scientology After Scientology Lisa McPherson, after Scientologists in Florida killed her with quack medicine and unlicensed doctors For more on Scientology, see Ebner's "Do You want to Buy a Bridge?"

ID: Clearly none

Exactly. Stupid cults beget stupid cults.

ID: Has the press been reluctant to report on your stories regarding Scientology?  I mean, has it been harder to push than other stories

Well, I'm not so ego-driven that I'd expect the media to hype my Scientology reporting...Mind you, I had predecessors: The Time magazine expose, an excellent 7-part series in the LA Times... Dude, it's harder to push ANY stories these days. The outlets for the old 10,000 word think-piece are few and slender.

ID: Yeah, but I suspect that the success of HI comes from your mirroring...  feelings most of us have. You just did such a great job of illustrating, exposing it

Well yes, but mind you that Hollywood, Interrupted became the book that the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times did not want you to read. Neither oracle reviewed it, and it was on BOTH their bestseller lists.

ID: Really? that makes it even more remarkable.

Really. Our whole publicity tour was based on a scheduled appearance on the Today Show. NBC predictably dumped us at the last minute. Thank God for the Fox network coming to the rescue!

ID: Do you work on fiction as well?

I don't work on fiction, only because - pardon the cliché - the truth that I discover is always better than fiction.

ID: Ah yes. Truth is stranger than fiction.  Are you still blacklisted?

I wouldn't say that I'm blacklisted. "Conveniently ignored" is more to the point.

ID: It won't be convenient for long. When did you start writing?

Truth is, I always wanted to write. As a kid, my hero was Clark Kent -- not the pansy in tights he would morph into...

ID: Now that is something you seldom hear.

I always wanted to be a reporter. But drugs and wanderlust waylaid those plans until I was well into my 20s. When I finally cleaned up, a dear friend who was editing at Spin in '85 gave me my first paid assignment. I got 25 cents a word for a back page story on actors and actresses in Hollywood who made a living having their characters killed in movies. The piece was called "Dying To Make a Living" -- about those scream queens who'd get cast on the quality of their screams.

ID: Ha! To have that back issue! what was your demon?

I was my demon, heroin and cocaine were the vehicles.

ID: What got you clean? pure force of will?

Oh, coming-to on a gurney with track marks up and down both arms, a hardened and enlarged liver from alcohol abuse, a heart murmur from shooting cocaine and being jaundiced with hepatitis from sharing needles with everybody and their gay, Haitian brother's African monkey may have had something to do with me getting clean. I dunno... Just guessing.

ID: Fuck man. that's wild. you're lucky to be alive

Lucky? I consider myself blessed.

ID: You are. But in which ways do you consider yourself most blessed?

Well, as a result of getting clean, I was blessed with a new life. Square-one - a chance to start over. I was lucky that happened at 25, but anyone plagued with drug and alcohol addiction has the same opportunity. Imagine this: An new life. An entirely clean slate on which to draw up your wildest fantasies and actually get to live them. Pretty amazing.  (I feel like I'm treading precariously towards the Dr. Phil couch here)

ID: Ha!

Yes, switch topic now - PLEASE! Lest I become the person I love to mock.

ID: What I noticed about your writing is that you incorporate humor and journalism with an incredibly engaging  style. Tell us the person you, and likely we, love to mock.

Oh, I dunno... Open to any chapter of the book...

I opened the page to a chapter on Courtney Love...

ID: Ah, here we go!

"Love Means Never Having To Say You're Courtney"

ID: Courtney Love. ha! you read my mind

That Hollywood Insider guys is pretty ripe these days... What's his name? C'MON... THAT GUY... The taped obscene phone calls to some chick... "You're so fucking hot... Let's get some coke and hookers..." Pat O'Brien. What a goofball. When that guy inevitable gets fucked up again, imagine the disservice he and Dr. Phil did to anyone who hung on their words for their own recovery.

ID: No doubt man, no doubt. Has anyone did a good piece on Dr. Phil?

Not yet... It's coming, I'm sure.

ID: have you had any feedback from the celebrities in covered in the book? car bombs? death threats? movie tickets?

Nah. Heidi Fleiss called me at 2 in the morning screaming in my ear about how she was siccing her lawyers on me for publishing the wiretap transcripts from her Hollywood brothel...

ID: She didn't follow through did she?

Courtney Love's former manager/lover Jim Barber tried to spook me with threats... Of course not. Neither of them followed through.

ID:  What kind of threats did Barber issue?

The administration and many current students and faculty from the Crossroads School have organized boycott campaigns against the book.  (Which tells you how that hippy-dippy bastion of higher learning deals with 1st Amendment issues. For the latest, go here: http://www.hollywoodinterrupted.com

ID: Has Crossroads garnered any sympathy?

Look -- The irony is, were I a kid again, I would love to go to Crossroads. I have sympathy, but the story is what it is. Because it's the "Hollywood School," they actually believe that they're above scrutiny. That's just not the case. With me anyway...

ID: Most kids would, no?  to hobnob with celebrity kids. Kids are all about social status and appearance.

But, answer me this: Why, when we posted the news of a convicted sex offender working around kids at Crossroads did the LA Times not pick up on it? Instead, the LA Times ran a boring academic feature about the school... I'll tell you why: The leading left columnist at the LA Times (Bob Scheer) has his offspring at Crossroads...

ID: That explains it all

 The former ombudswoman at the LA Times is a crossroads parent, and another LA Times executive is also a Crossroads alumni parent

ID: Have other papers took up the story?

This is indicative how how tough it is working in a "company town." Vanity Fair soft-balled a piece recently. That's about it.

ID: Yes, but the fact is you pulled it off

Right. I've pulled it off, but I've also had my last half-dozen book proposals rejected.

ID: Certainly not as a consequence?

Who knows? My agent says I'm "too dark."

ID : What were the proposals about? if you don't mind my asking

Lemme see...There was an expose on reality television...

ID : That's too dark??????

There was a thing called "Bunny Tales" with one of Hugh Hefner's live-ins...A few others that I can't discuss.. .I'm thinking that all that's left for me in book publishing is my memoir. I'm a chapter into that. Title: "Time Too Grow Old" (stolen from one of my favorites: Waiting For Godot," Sam Beckett

ID: Yes, which reminds me. Tell about the writers that have influenced you most, and why

Dude... Do you think I'm complaining about my current situation? Do you know that I've recently taken a gig with the tabloids?

ID:  Which one?

I'm 46 years old and I have my first job with benefits!

ID: Dude, you look great for 46

I work for American Media Inc.: Home of The National Enquirer, Globe and Star -- not to mention the Batboy Monthly! Thank you, and I'm still single!

ID: Never married? if not, why?

I was engaged once to a beautiful screenwriter named Kate Lanier. She wrote the hit, What's Love Got To Do With It?" -- leaving me asking the very same question. I am intrigued by the traditional idea of marriage...I mean, what greater commitment is there than the commitment to love? I find marriage to be a very brave move. I guess I'm not that courageous yet.  I've failed miserably in the romance arena and all my children have wound up in dumpsters behind Planned Parenthood. There are no visiting hours there I'm afraid.

ID: Tell me about it . All I can do is write about it.

The trap of "the confessional" has a strong pull. I  loved Augusten Burroughs' "Running With Scissors" I love junkie memoirist Jerry Stahl's stuff

ID: Any poets too?

I'm currently reading Prep by this chick Curtis Sittenfeld. She's amazing..

ID: What's your taste in literature run to?

Poets: The beats baby!

ID: Jack Kerouac, etc?

Michael Lally always comes to mind. Little known, widely published. Kerouac, sure! Loved Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr -- God rest their tortured souls.

ID: What about the classics? any faves there?

I have "classics guilt"

ID: How so?

Never read them, assuming you're talking about Joyce, etc.

ID: I'm talking older than Joyce

I was cursed with a pop culture mentality before the term was coined. Shakespeare, AYE!

ID: Ha!! Shakespeare will do ;-)

Yah - Macbeth and other tragedies. Othello is my fave

ID: Do you have a favorite investigative journalist?

Othello was one fucked up character for sure. Investigative journos...

ID: Yeah

We're living in the age of few true investigative journalists I'm afraid...: There's a Vegas guy named John L. Smith that I admire.

ID: Why?

He's not afraid of taking on Steve Wynn in Vegas, the town in which he reports. I also admire my counterpart, John Connolly - a former NYC cop-turned-journo. There's a guy named Gil Reavill from Penthouse who just did a semi-anti porn book I'm dying to read. Connolly covers everything fearlessly. I like his style. He operates like a cop as a reporter. I've learned a lot from him.. and I am seriously championing the efforts of a guy named Richard Gooding who is rising up from the tabloid trash heap to do some excellent work for the glossies these days.

ID: Certainly names to look for

Yes, the first time I met Connolly, I took him up to an illegal brothel in Beverly Hills -- the one covered in the Hollywood, Interrupted chapter, "There's a Brothel In Your Neighborhood"

ID: What were the most important lessons you learned in working with him?

We, um, "bonded" over that experience. It wasn't so much working with him as it was listening to him and observing. For instance, people have a problem with tabloids paying for stories, right? Where's the problem? How do people think the CIA gets their info? They paper their sources with cash!

ID: Yes, exactly

If mainstream journalists had company checkbooks, I think the collective output would be quite impressive. Can you tell I never went to journalism school?

ID: What could they teach you? it's a gift you either have or don't have.  I would think you teach journalism, rather than study it

Well they probably could have taught me some fundamentals I'm severely lacking to this day -- how to write a good lead, etc. Honestly, I am a nightmare on editors.

ID: I read your piece on Scientology, that seemed to me textbook investigative journo

A good editor is an unsung hero in my trade. I have editors to thank for framing my messes into award winning stories for sure. Well, I have a guy named Jim Mauro to thank in large part for the $cientology Spy story. I don't manage. I am the most fucked up Virgo you will ever meet. I have the latest technology at my fingertips and yet my life is managed on post-it notes.

ID: What are your thoughts on the Jackson case thus far?

The Jackson case... my thoughts... no matter what the outcome, that baby-dangling, child-sleepover addict, gay porn producer employer freak will get his due. Child molesters, like murderers (Hi OJ!) never really get away with it, if you know what I'm saying... The problem is... the biggest, most horrific criminals don't just roll over and die. They seem to live forever in their own private hells on earth.

ID: Karmic retribution escapes no one. What do you do to relax?

I'd like to say that I play poker to relax, but that would be a lie. I get totally amped on the felt...I guess I relax on the road. I love long road-trips with my dog.

ID: Do you have a favorite drink?

My favorite drink would have to be this new pomegranate drink - the brand escapes me. For others I suggest hot piping semen sipped sparingly from a sake cup.