10 Second Interview: A Few Words With Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg

Q: Your first book Why Do Men Have Nipples" was a runaway bestseller. Was there one question that got the ball rolling for that book? What was it?
Goldberg: I collected questions for several years and the idea for the book was slowly percolating. I would have to say that "Why Does My Pee Smell When I Eat Asparagus?" was the question that really got things rolling with respect to finding the voice of the book. We have been accused of including too much potty talk and this one kind of broke the seal on that.
Leyner: The first question for me that got the ball rolling was posed by Dr. Billy Goldberg. It was: "Will you collaborate on this book with me?" Goldberg's a wonderful friend, the coolest doctor in New York City, a fantastically interesting figurative painter, and a pretty formidable tequila drinker. And I figured: what could be more fun than working with this guy and finally finding a way to parlay my perverse interest in medical and biological arcana into something people could really enjoy? It's like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp forming a band!

Q: Do people recognize you two on the street now? What is the strangest question/comment you have received from fans?
Goldberg: Mark has been recognized several times on the streets of Hoboken, but the best I have gotten was one of the security guards at the hospital saying, "Hey Doc, I saw you on TV." That, and the nurse's aides calling me Dr. Nipples.
Leyner: I went down to the lobby of a hotel recently because I'd eaten and drunk my mini-bar out of M&Ms and beer, and I needed MORE. The woman at the front desk said to me, "Hey! You're one of those Nipple Guys!!" My sky-rocketing Q-Score earned me a buttload of free Heinekin and Peanut M&Ms. Strangest questions... hmmmmm....either "What was it like being on Montel with mutant dogs and a psychic?" or "Do you two guys do medical experiments on each other?"

Q: How do you determine what questions to put in your books? Are there any questions or topics that you think are off limits?
Goldberg and Leyner: We put questions in that intrigue us, of course. And we especially love questions that make people giggle and cringe at the same time. Nothing is "off limits"... that's the sine qua non of the our whole enterprise. It's our ethos--there's NOTHING too embarrassing to ask.

10 Second Preview: An Excerpt

OBLIGATORY PRELUDE TO THE FOREWORD TO THE PROLOGUE TO THE PREFACE OF THE INTRODUCTION
OR
DOES ANYONE READ THIS CRAP?

Okay, so here we go again. . . .

It feels a bit different this time. When we were writing Why Do Men Have Nipples?, we had no idea that anyone (other than our editor, wives, moms, and dads) would read the book. Shows what we know.

Our little nipples book has sold more than a million copies internationally and spent twenty-five weeks (and counting) on the New York Times bestseller list. You have no idea how much we have loved this ride and how much we adore babbling on TV and drive-time radio, and especially in the makeup rooms where we shamelessly flirted with a succession of fantastic makeup artists at all the major networks. (By the way, Mark prefers the spray-on nozzle method, which he likens to being simonized in a car wash.)

But a funny thing happened along the way. We quickly became aware of the fact that we'd barely scratched the surface. As we talked to people who'd enjoyed our first book, we began accumulating hundreds of new questions—some funny, down-to-earth, exotic, some embarrassing, some perplexing, but always thought-provoking enough that we knew we'd have to include them in a brand-new volume.

We realized the gravity of the somber task ahead of us. We felt deputized. We knew we were now bound by honor and a fiduciary duty to you, our readers, to deliver unbiased, unadulterated, thoroughly researched, and unimpeachably factual answers to your questions. Humbled, but galvanized and inspired by the immense challenge that lay before us, we hunkered down in a windowless, antiseptic research cocoon, and made a solemn pledge to produce a new volume that would surpass the original and blaze new trails in the democratization of medical knowledge.

Oh please . . . SEQUEL!!!!!!! Here it is . . . Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?

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