My Will Oldham profile

Here’s my Will Oldham profile.  (Here’s the New Yorker‘s).

Will Oldham opened the door of his Louisville ranch house, which would have been the perfect size for an upwardly-mobile young family had it not been filled with overflowing boxes of pink tank tops and multi-colored Crocs.

He punched me quickly in the face, muttering ambiguously, “I don’t like press… but I did really love that Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 Ken Auletta profile of Ted Turner, which is the only reason I’m talking to you today.”

Chewing thoughtfully on marijuana-infused bubble gum, Oldham explained to me that he just wants to be recognized as a hip-hop superstar like his peers Li’l Wayne, R. Kelly and L’il Mama.  “I don’t understand why some listeners consider me to be contrived or affectedly backwoods,” he commented while absent-mindedly pulling old Gypsy good-luck charms, horse-shoe nails, baby mice, and fragments of burlap sacks from his bristling beard. He explained that his name changes every week according to a passphrase system “in order to keep the focus on the music.”  During our interview, his name changed to L’il Viceroy Archduke; when I accidentally addressed him as Mr. Oldham, he punched me in the face again, shouting furiously, “it’s all about the music, man!”

The brash hip-hop superstar, stripping down to nothing but a plaid flannel shirt,  a new pair of 4-color Cayman Crocs, and a pink Boston Red Sox cap, stepped into the shower. Morosely warbling the Mariah Carey smash “Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise),” he seemed to be having fun.