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ON THE ROAD AGAIN?
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Young Pioneers: What cities or countries are you looking at, specifically?
Michael Lane: I'm totally keen on Berlin. I lived there three years ago and loved it. And Jim would even like to go into Scandinavia. But we really need to explore the resources and see how viable it would be to publish out of Europe. Just taking the Monk concept, getting ourselves in a vehicle, and driving around Europe for five years.
YP: James and I also talked a bit about the PBS show you were going to do that fell through, and also about the broadband thing that never happened. Do you feel like your lives would have turned out signifigantly different if those things had happened?
 ML: I do think so with the TV show. We were just starting to make a success with Monk, in '92, and this PBS affiliate approached us in Seattle, and we were just completely unprepared for another medium other than print. It was suddenly like this whole other world that they were proposing. And at the time we were just getting the hang of the print world, and the magazine was really taking off, so that's the opportunity I feel we really blew. If we'd been really savvy we would have jumped on it, because as it turns out, they ushered in several very winning series that later became national. The thing about the broadband deal is that we did get thoroughly involved. It was just launched at the very end of the dot-com boom, so it never really took off. But that would have totally changed our lives, because that was going to take us around the world in a motorhome, through very dangerous areas.
YP: They wanted to send you to the Kyber Pass or something?
ML: Yeah, they wanted to send us through, like, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. It was insane!
YP: If that was done now, it would be a reality show.
ML: And thing is, if we had jumped on that PBS affiliate back in '92, we would have been one of the first reality shows. As it were, we had a few small things with MTV and CBS that were very reality-based. There was a cable show in New York that we did for a summer, and then we were shooting a documentary for six months on the west coast many years ago. So there's been excursions into these other forms, but I think by and large, print is our favorite form. We just can't get away from it.
YP: Now that you're going to be publishing Monk in Europe, would you ever consider pitching a show again?
ML: Yeah, both of us would. In fact, we did a pitch a year ago, here in L.A. It's a hard business, pitching a show. I think we have a great vision, and the style is really unique, yet when you go to a pitch, you're one of dozens who have probably pitched the same idea.
YP: Do you feel like the decade or so you spent doing Monk was the best time of your life?
ML: Well... no. My life has been amazing. I've been on the road most of my life. I grew up with an itinerant miner of a dad, who moved us around in a trailer throughout the south as a kid. So the travel bug is in my genes. I ran away from home when I was 17. I lived in the generation of counter-culture in the ë60s, and just moved around all the time. I was very involved as an anti-war activist, got in a heap of trouble, had to leave the country, and spent a long time living as an expatriate in Europe and Africa. And I got into a lot of messes. But when Monk happened, it was the first time that my work had any penetration into the mainstream. And that's what makes it amazing. I've always been a fringe artist, and Monk really went places that none of my other work had gone. It was really successful, and the adventure of twelve years with Jim was amazing. Sometimes there are days that I want to get back on the road, and I want to create the whole feeling again. So in some ways it was the most amazing part of my life for what it was: living on the road. You couldn't beat it because we were building a career out of it. And I feel very nostalgic for that. But then again, I'm still doing that in different ways. I often tell people that I may have stopped traveling the road so much, but the road still comes to me. There's no shortage of adventures I have right here in L.A.
YP: Years ago, you did an interview where you were asked what advice you would give to someone who wanted to create an unconventional career. You said, contrary to the popular advice, that you have to put all your eggs in one basket, and pick one thing, and stick with it no matter what. Do you still feel the same way?
ML: Well, I think it's age-specific. I think I would qualify the response to: Are you under 40? Absolutely fucking yes. Put all your eggs in one basket, and just go for it. Go to the point of desperation and starvation, where you're just driven to make this sucker work. That's my advice. But I'm seeing, now that I'm over 40 - in fact, I'm 53 - that there's a totally different attitude going on, which is this very intense awareness of the end-game. It really recasts everything you do in a different light. So unfortunately, I would have to temper that response if it was to someone my age: You want to go into it wisely, knowing how it effects your bottom line, because there's nothing worse than going bankrupt in your late-fifties.
YP: You wouldn't have the chance to start over!
ML: And that's why Jim and I aren't just - on a whim - relaunching Monk. We want to put a little caution into it. We've learned a hell of a lot from our mistakes, and we don't want to repeat them. We don't want to end up with any sort of project that's going to sink our ship. And right now our ship is floating very well. We still get to write and we're highly creative, and to re-launch Monk, for us, would be a very grounded decision, and not just something like, Oh, let's just pull up roots, sell everything and go to Europe. It would be much more grounded than that. So that's how I would answer the question these days. It's weird the things you'll say when you're younger. You look back and go, My god, what did I know?
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ISSUE 01 / SPRING 04
News
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