OK everyone, stop your searching, I have found the coolest kid in LA. His name is Cliff Weber. And he happens to be my cousin. Wow!

Why is Cliff so cool? Well, he’s not a douche. No, really! You know how most cool kids are douchey? Cliff isn’t. But mainly Cliff is cool because he wrote and published a book of his poetry and prose, “Matzo Ball Soup”, and self promoted it all under the author name of Rupert Pupkin. I would describe it as “Bret Easton Ellis-y” but according to Cliff I would be wrong about that. My bad! Cliff does his own thing and he’s very humble about it. PUT THAT SHIT ON A SHIRT! He also works in music, but again, he’s not a douche! READ ON.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: How would you describe your book?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: I enjoy Henry Miller a lot…it’s just a stream of consciousness…figuring things out by typing or saying them out loud. I steal a lot of lines from him and Bukowski. William S. Burroughs, he changed everything. He was very important to me. I’ve always liked short little snippets, because I don’t have to keep writing. I credit a lot to Burroughs and I don’t even read him that much, the guy’s a mess.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: Are you planning on writing a new book?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Yes, but no. I just write. It makes me feel better. I never had the intention of writing a book [to begin with].

HERE IS THE QUESTION: Why did you use a fake name?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: I’d rather not use my name…I put in stories about me doing illegal activities. I used to go around leaving a small collection (of poems) at Barnes and Noble inside magazines or whatever. And I created a Myspace blog and basically by the time the book had come out I was totally engulfed. But I never sat down and thought, “Oh I want to be someone else.” I just didn’t want my parents to know I took acid.
(By the way, Rupert Pupkin is the name of Robert DeNiro’s character in Martin Scorcese’s ‘The King of Comedy’, Cliff’s favorite film.)

HERE IS THE QUESTION: You work at Big Fish Digital – what do you do there?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Data entry. Music data entry. Excel work for music is I guess the easiest way to say it.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: OK let’s be honest about this shirt you’re wearing. Tell me about it.
HERE IS THE ANSWER: I like wearing t-shirts. I guess it’s the fact that I get to wear a t-shirt to work. I don’t like shopping.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: What do you think is cool?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Being honest. I would be a complete liar if I said, “Not caring” [about what other people think, because I do]…Cool to me is having respect for other people. I guess it’s not trying too hard. You cannot go out and think, I’ve got prepared cool things to say…you know? I guess if you walk around thinking you’re cool, you’re probably not. But if you quietly think you’re cool, maybe.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: Who do you think is cool?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. Fucking assholes but cool. Millions of musicians. Everyone from the Beatles and Zeppelin and…those guys are just obviously cool. Erik Kowalski is cool. He makes ambient music. (He puts some on.) He’s fucking married, he lives in Kentucky, he has Facebook pictures of his cat. That guy’s cool to me. He probably just makes music on the side.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: What makes a girl cool?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Someone who’s willing to tell me I’m wrong. Good taste in music, long legs, brown hair, good sense of humor…honesty. Punctuality. Being respectful. I never felt like I had to play any games with [my girlfriend] Erin. But yeah, honesty and long legs, that’s nice.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: What do you like to do?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Drink wine. Listen to music.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: Where do you go?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Greenblatt’s Deli. I go there about four times a week, for wine. God I wish I could say I actually went to certain places. (He thinks.) Amoeba. The Coach And Horses. It’s not loud. There are frat boys trying to catch lobsters in the corner with a claw. The Troubador is great. Wiltern.

HERE IS THE QUESTION: What are your writing habits? When you do write?
HERE IS THE ANSWER: Drunk at 1:30 in the morning. What inspires me is getting pissed off that I have to go to sleep and go to work, even though I actually enjoy going to work.

Buy Cliff’s book! I swear, he doesn’t even know I’m posting a link to it. I hope you don’t mind if people actually read this book, Cliff. You’re so humble goddamn.
Visit Cliff’s blog!

This is Cliff’s favorite thing. He just loves the awful photoshop and the way that guy is screaming for his dog!