MM: Any chance of this book being turned into a movie tie-in with the series?

JG: I have no idea. I think it would be funny if they bastardized it like in the series and turned it into “A Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. I feel like this was a deal that Showtime made with the publisher to monetize the property before they really realized that the show was going to be a big hit, and it’s become one of the flagship series for Showtime now.

MM: So they planned this book tie-in before the show proved itself to be successful?

JG: Yes.

MM: That was pretty audacious of them.

JH: Yeah and they sold the rights for a very small amount to the publisher and the publisher had the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Hank is an author’s creation, and Tom Kapinos is the author of that character, so I think that if there ever was a movie spin-off of “Californication”, it would have to spring from Tom’s head as opposed to somebody else’s. My only regret about this book is that when you go to the store you have to find it in the T.V. section. I wished it was in the fiction section to continue to play with the medium.

MM: You wrote this really cool novel, but it’s got a fake author’s name on the cover. Your name is in there, but on the inside, and much smaller. Is it bittersweet?

courtesy of Showtime

JG: Let me put it this way. This is how I got into writing, as a career. I wanted to be a writer, I got caught up in the Internet thing at the end of the 90’s, that all went away. Then at the beginning of the century I was playing poker for a living and decided I wanted to write about it. I had a friend that’s an editor at Simon & Schuster and I introduced to her the idea of doing a poker book, and when she finally got back to me she said she liked my pitch, she liked my writing, she liked the idea that I had for it, but… we don’t know if you’re not a professional poker player if you can sell a poker book. We have a deal with Phil Gordon who’s a co-host of the show “Celebrity Poker Showdown”, we don’t think he can write a book, but would you be willing to work with him on it? I said sure! There was a period where the editor asked me what did I want to name the book, what title? I went away and agonized and struggled over it, finally I came back and said, “What about The Anarchist’s Guide to Poker?” Then I got an e-mail back saying, “Interesting. It’s going to be called Poker: The Real Deal.” (laughs) So I was like, alright. And it did pretty well. Mostly because Phil had a great platform to pitch the book as his own. I still read Amazon reviews and they’re like, “Who knew Phil Gordon would have such a clear and amazing writing style?” And we went on and made a series of poker books together like that. The point is, my poker book was taken away and wasn’t really my book. I’ve done a lot of ghost writing. I’ve ghost-written seven books. Is it confusing, is it painful? A little bit. But it’s a pain I’ve gotten used to and stings a little less every time. I don’t want to seem ungrateful in any way. Simon & Schuster paid me to write a novel, which I’d never done before. And I didn’t know if I could do it, I didn’t know what kind of mistakes I was going to make, if it was going to be trite or boring or idiotic… and I was able to do it under the cover of Hank Moody. So it provided a safety-net for me.

MM: I would be very eager to read your next work of fiction, without the safety-net. Got anything in the works?

JG: The ghost writing is keeping the bills paid, but I am tooling around with something. I’m not sure if it’s a comedic send-up, or more of a thriller, but it’s about this new-age shamanistic culture we have here in L.A. It’s about this guy who considers himself a healer, a shaman, a consultant to all kinds of different people, and what happens when he comes into contact with someone that really is a shaman. That’s the basic gist of it, I want to play with those ideas and see what happens.

MM: So… does God really hate us all?

JG: For Hank, at that time in his life, and me, through most of mine, the answer would be a resounding hell yes. I tried very hard to make sure that none of the characters emerged unscathed. But I will say that with the perspective of time, specifically child-raising years, I don’t think present day me, or Hank, would feel as comfortable or authentic staking anything of value on that particular idea.