David Cross.

Before his conversation with Michael Cera began last Wednesday night, comedian David Cross could be spotted chatting with a comely blonde in one of the aisles of 92Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall. He was gawked at, but not accosted, by a crowd clearly composed of die-hard fans. Nearly every seat was taken, and the audience hung on Mr. Cross’s every word: absorbing tales of his misfit childhood, cracking up at his quips—and sometimes at nothing at all.

“I truly don’t understand why that was funny,” said Mr. Cross at one point, visibly perplexed by the crowd’s paroxysms of laughter over a half-sentence he hadn’t meant as a joke.

Messrs. Cross and Cera, both dressed casually in sneakers with bright red laces, bantered easily. After all, the two know each other well from their days on Arrested Development, which will return with over a dozen new episodes in May. Though many attendees probably knew Mr. Cross best as Tobias Fünke, most of the conversation was devoted to the days before—and after—Arrested.

“What kind of a boy were you?” asked Mr. Cera.

“Like, was I desirable to priests?” wondered Mr. Cross. (Answer: he was not.)

Conversation soon turned to Mr. Cross’s two forthcoming films: Kill Your Darlings, in which he plays Louis Ginsberg (father of Allen), and It’s a Disaster, which he recently viewed and said he can personally vouch for. “One can’t say that about all the work that you do. We were in Year One together,” he said with a nod to Mr. Cera, referring to the regrettable caveman quest-cum-biblical odyssey, which also starred Jack Black.

“I assume everyone had too much respect to see it,” said Mr. Cera.

The actors then reminisced about the Year One shoot (a “great time”) and its location (Shreveport, Louisiana): “honestly one of the worst places in the United States.” The actors recalled one night down South when they went to see There Will Be Blood in a local theater and Mr. Cross had an altercation with two fellow moviegoers who were speaking too loudly.

Messrs. Cross and Cera launched into an imitation of the scene: “What’s he doing? He’s getting oil?” Mr. Cross intoned in his best redneck drawl.

“I’ll do you,” said Mr. Cera, twisting around in his seat to sharply rebuke the offending parties: “Hey guys, shut up?” Like most of his characters, Mr. Cera is not built for confrontation. “I was expecting to be punched in the back of the head,” he confessed. Even more so, perhaps, when Mr. Cross asked the gentlemen, “Are you fucking retarded?”

In addition to movie talkers, Mr. Cross informed the room that he doesn’t like the Barenaked Ladies—“They’re like corporate picnic fun”—or Larry the Cable Guy.

“The Barenaked Ladies of comedy?” suggested Mr. Cera.

“That’s not fair to the Bare Naked Ladies,” said Mr. Cross.

Oh, or Jim Belushi. Especially not Mr. Belushi.

Now that we had already heard all of Mr. Cross’s dislikes, the night almost started to feel like a personal ad when he launched into his description of a perfect date (it involved a velvet skateboard), which quickly veered into a riff on Seamless.com’s subway ads.

“One of their slogans is, and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘Seamless.com—Getting to third base just got a lot faster.’ And we all know what third base is,” said Mr. Cross. “So their advertisement to you is: ‘Use our app, and you will [here, Mr. Cross named a sexual act involving one’s finger] your date quicker than you would if you didn’t use Seamless.’”

The jury is still out as to whether the talk amped up Mr. Cross’s love life (he’s married to Amber Tamblyn), but it was excellent advertising of at least one sort: Mr. Cross is planning a comedy tour for mid-fall.

Amber Tamblyn and David Cross.

– Lindsay Lohan and her mom got into a limo fight on Long Island that was so bad the cops needed to be called. Which means it must have been really bad, because limo fights on Long Island is like traffic on the FDR: pretty routine on the weekdays.

– Amber Tamblyn and David Cross got married, and if that thought doesn't creep you out, you should check out their adorable Instagrammed wedding photos from the upstate ceremony.

– Samantha Geimer, the woman who at 13 was at the center of Polanski rape scandal, is now writing a tell-all book. That will not be making Lena Dunham money, even.

– Did you ever want to know what sex with Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis was like? Okay, it's like having sex with Kenyan marathon runners. How delightful!

– Monica Lewinsky is just out and about these days, eating cake in the rain.

David Cross (Getty Images)

It would be hypocritical for us to wag a finger at David Cross for divulging to Playboy that he had snorted "a granule" of cocaine during the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2009, because who hasn't just fallen face-first into mind-altering substances during a celebrity-filled function before? It happens!

However, we do take issue with how self-righteous Mr. Cross--last seen slamming a producer for being the human embodiment of a negative Jewish stereotype--gets whenever talking about politics or narcotics. Combine the two, and it's almost like listening to the Bizarro Glenn Beck.

From a Fox News excerpt of the piece:

"It was a tiny granule of coke that I put on my wrist and said, 'Watch this. I need a witness.' And then I ducked under the table and did it," Cross said. "It wasn't like I got high. The jolt was similar to licking an empty espresso cup."

There has been speculation for years that Mr. Cross did cocaine at the event, but the Playboy interview was the first time he gave details.

"It was just about being able to say that I did it, that I did cocaine in the same room as the president. I'm not proud of it, nor am I ashamed by it."

So what was the point? Bragging rights? Yes, it's very cool that an actor with a history of substance abuse snorted a tiny amount of drugs just so he'd be able to say that he did cocaine 65 feet away from the P.O.T.U.S. (Even that number has changed: he originally said it was only 40 feet away.)

Mission accomplished, we guess.

David Cross in deep chip

And then there was the matter of the one of the film's producers, whom he claimed was "the personification of what people think about when they think negatively about Jews."

Yikes.

What's so strange about this tirade is that Mr. Cross had clearly thought it out. He didn't say the producer WAS a negative Jewish stereotype. He said she was "what people think" when they, like Annie Hall's grandmother, imagine a Hasid with stylish payot trying to collect all their money and bagels. Thus taking the blame off himself--"I don't have any negative associations about Jews, other people do!"--Mr. Cross reveals himself to be unaware of the biggest irony of it all: as someone who was raised Jewish, a self-hating Jew is one of the biggest personifications of the negative connotations people have about the religion.

From Avenue B to Fifth Avenue.

Gothamist has a wide-ranging interview with David Cross about the new season of his IFC show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, eating molecular food with Patton Oswalt and his lovely fiancée Amber Tamblyn. Then he drops the bombshell: He's moving across the East River.

I've read in a previous interview that you read the blog EV Grieve. What sort of NIMBY, gentrification issue going on in the East Village get your blood boiling? Or does it all get your blood boiling? All of it, really. I have very strong feelings about what's going on in the East Village. I'm moving at the end of next week, I'm moving to Brooklyn. I've been fed up with what's going on for about five years. There are so many examples but let me just sum up. On Houston—I think between Second Avenue and Bowery, or maybe it's Allen and Chrystie—there's a big, huge 7-11 with big, beautiful 7-11 signs. [Ed: We think he's referring to the one on Bowery.] There's an IHOP on 14th Street, Subway sandwiches all over the place. The thing is, I left Atlanta a long time ago and I'm spending way too much money to live in Atlanta again, you know? I mean it really is...it's just...

Homogenized. It's mildly heartbreaking. It's just becoming more and more like a mall. I might as well be in St. Louis. It's very, very quickly, rapidly losing a lot of its character.

And Brooklyn's less of a mall? Yeah much less. Phenomenally less. Much, much, much, much, much, much, much less.

Well good luck to you in Brooklyn. I'm not quite sick of Manhattan yet. We'll see. A few more years. Where in Manhattan are you?

I'm on the Lower East Side around Ridge Street. Oh well it's making its way down there.

Yeah, it's pretty much there already. I've been in the East Village for ten and a half years now and for five years I've been like, "Enough is enough."

The Observer is pretty sure that the arrival of David Cross only portends the end of Brooklyn, as well, plus, we can't quite see him gibing with the borough's tweeness. Still, exciting news. He'll rank somewhere between Steve Buschemi and Gyllengaard on the Brooklyn Power Matrix.

(Full-disclosure: The Observer once bought Mr. Cross an Appletini while he was D.J.ing at B-Bar in his once-beloved East Village. By bought we mean like in the movies, from across the bar, by D.J.ing we mean he was fiddling around on his MacBook. Mr. Cross did not accept the drink, but should he happen by Beer Table or Enids while we are there, the first drink is on up.)

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Daniel Radcliffe vs James Franco in a Ginsberg-off? Its possible. (Via Harry Potter and Howl)

James Franco (and David Cross, John Turturro, et al) have reason to be worried: Harry Potter is about to smash your portrayal of New York beat poet Allen Ginsberg into dust. Daniel Radcliffe, fresh from filming the Victorian horror flick The Woman In Black has reportedly joined the cast of Kill Your Darlings (not to be confused with the 2006 flick with the same name) as the famous (and infamous) part of Jack Kerouac/Ginsberg/Lucien Carr trio.
Also up for the role was Jesse Eisenberg, and Chris Evans as Jack Kerouac has apparently fallen through. Kill is slated for 2012 and will be directed by relative newcomer John Krokidas. So how will Mr. Radcliffe stack up to various other actors who have played the enigmatic man who helped define a generation of confused sexual young men? Let's take a look:
James Franco in Howl:

John Turturro in Source:

David Cross, I'm Not There:

Ron Livingston, Beat:

Today is the official start date of  New York's annual Comic Con, the sad stepbrother of San Diego's way more famous nerd convention. Still, New York has its fair share of amazing graphic novel writers and artists (which was what Comic Con is all about, right?), and DC and Marvel have spent a good chunk of cash flying out some big name celebrities for panels as well.

There's also the indie comedy factor: IFC and Adult Swim have their hipster lineup of comedians, including David Cross, Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, Patton Oswalt, Kristen Schaal, etc.

Since Comic Con can be a little overwhelming, we made a list of some of the more famous names coming to the Javits Center this weekend, and where you can presume to find them.

Cross is slated to play what's described as a "radical enviromentalist" something which seems right in his wheelhouse. The part was played by actor Andrew Daly (Eastbound and Down) in the original pilot, but apparently his presence was no match for Hurwitz's loyalty to Arrested Development. At this point, don't be surprised if Keri Russell (the female lead) winds up being replaced by Portia De Rossi.

Of course therein lies the problem: Hurwitz is undoubtedly talented, but he hasn't gotten anything off the ground since Arrested Development was canceled. And really, does trying to capture that lightning in a bottle again seem like the best course of action -- especially since, from a ratings standpoint, it didn't work in the first place? Yes, the cult of Arrested Development has grown exponetially since the show has gone off the air -- if only all the people who say they love Arrested Development had actually watched the show, it would still be on the air -- but that doesn't mean fans will automatically embrace Arnett and Cross on Running Wilde. Some of the best AD moments came when Arnett's Gob Bluth was paired with Cross' Tobias Funke. If their pairing doesn't live up to those lofty expectations -- and, Inception-style, even loftier memories -- how long will it take fans to revolt? If Hurwitz wants to do more Arrested Development, he should do more Arrested Development. Otherwise, maybe he should have left well enough alone.

"People genuinely don't like me," Mr. Cross told The Observer. "They find me arrogant and abrasive." Well, not everyone, it seems.

In this month's issue of The Believer (you know, the monthly magazine of book criticism and interviews put out by McSweeneys, of which Times 'Style' section profile subject Keith Gessen griped, "its overt criterion for inclusion is not expertise, but enthusiasm") has figured out a novel way to interview the divisive Mr. Cross: Two interviews—one by someone who 'loves' him, one by someone who 'hates' him.

Opening question from Adam Bulger, aka, "the hater":

Opening question from Eric Spitznagel, aka, "the lover":

Can you believe The Believer ran such a puff piece and/or such a hatchet job? In any case, do be kind to Mr. Cross in the comments: He may still have his Google Alerts enabled.

Ollie, like a lot of dogs that live in the city (she resides with her master in a modest but comfortable apartment full of tennis balls and squeak toys in the East Village), sometimes likes to get out for a little fresh air, run around in the country, maybe dip her paws in a fresh-water stream.

For that reason, and because her human companion likes to get away sometimes, too, Mr. Cross recently bought himself and Ollie a small cottage in Sullivan County. To make this purchase—and because everything else in the world from squeak toys to HDTVs requires money, lots and lots of money—Mr. Cross took a minor role in Alvin and the Chipmunks, a film you probably didn't see unless you play with Webkinz after school and still occasionally have accidents in your OshKosh B'goshes.

A few weeks’ work on a kiddy flick in exchange for the down payment on a house with a stream seemed logical enough to the 43-year-old Mr. Cross, but to a certain Internet-empowered subset of his fans, this was nothing short of a betrayal.

You could be forgiven for not knowing about this during a news cycle that included the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Obama victory in Iowa, the continued war in Iraq, and the emotional collapse of Britney Spears, but to the sort of pop culture obsessives who spent their high-school years memorizing the 'Dead Parrot' routine from Monty Python's Flying Circus, own the Donnie Darko director's-cut DVD, and whose female ideal (since the Cross agonistes seem to be exclusively straight males) runs towards, say, Natalie Portman and the Asian girl in Rushmore, Mr. Cross has done something entirely unforgivable. Think: Dylan going electric, plus Nirvana's "Breed" in a commercial for XBoX's Major League Baseball 2K7, times a thousand. For his Alvin role as Ian, the Chipmunks' agent, plus other recent career choices like a one-off role on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Mr. Cross has been pilloried by commenters on The Onion AV Club's blog, where they called him a hypocrite, a "smug, condescending asshole," and "a huge prick." (Some of those observations came from commenters who professed to like him.)

After reading things like, "Cross is creating his own style comedy: Double-Standard Standup," as well as a mocking MySpace post by his friend (and onetime Mr. Show guest star) Patton Oswalt, Mr. Cross decided to respond to his critics with an open letter on his Web site, bobanddavid.com. In the searching post, which begins "Enuff Znuff" and is signed "Yours until the next piece of shit I'm in," Mr. Cross clarifies—perhaps a little too defensively—that his decision to appear opposite those adorable CGI chipmunks was born out of needing (and enjoying) work and being unable to buy his country place with his "artistic integrity."

The tone of the post—"I have no regrets at all" he says about his various endeavors—calls to mind Richard Nixon's famous "Checkers" speech with Ollie (or maybe the cottage? or was it Alvin?—it gets confusing) in the role of the irresistible inducement against his integrity.

Speaking directly to one’s critics might not be the best idea for any celebrity—especially one with a cultish online following—but, as he wrote in his open letter, Mr. Cross "wasn't prepared for the level, or amount I should say, of vitriol that's been flung about like so much monkey poo."

He offered four and half "mitigating factors" for his role and assumed he'd settled the Chipmunks contretemps once and for all.

He was wrong. Displaying the sort of reasoned commentary one has come to expect from unmoderated blog comments, a reader of Defamer called the letter "the shittiest fucking defense since the Nuremberg trials." A commenter on a follow up Onion AV Club post wrote in, "He's digging his own grave, professionally." On Stereogum, one reader simply stated that he or she "wouldn't mind if he dies."

Alllviiiiiin!!

Speaking with the Observer a week after he posted his open letter and dozens of blogs and message boards answered with an outpouring of hostility, Mr. Cross seemed, well, cross. He also seemed genuinely hurt by the criticism he was being subjected to online.

"There's no small part of people wanting to call you on your shit. And I think some of it’s deserved on my part, but I also think a lot of it isn't. I think a lot of it is lazy and not really thoughtful, " he said, sitting on a leather sofa beneath a painting of Ronald and Nancy Reagan with Michael Jackson in his apartment.

"Look, do I really think that Lobsterboy103 thinks that I'm 'evil'? Of course not ... But it's just the Internet, you know. It's tippity-tappity-tippity-tap ... [here he mimics simian typing] ... Done. Hit send."

Mr. Cross thinks that much of the criticism—particularly anonymous recollections of unfriendly encounters with him at bars or events—has created an false impression of who he is.

"I've gotten 'bitter' a lot. I don't think that's applicable," he said. "People genuinely don't like me. They find me arrogant and abrasive."

Then again, he adds, "There are plenty of people who think I'm the nicest, sweetest guy in the world." (His dog certainly seems to like him.)

But going out night-after-night and having people point at him and murmur, "There he is" or seeing his every public move recounted on blogs can wear even the nicest, sweetest guy in the world down after a while. Mr. Cross admits, though, that even before he started being well-known he was a bit of jerk, something many readers picked up and amplified in his Alvin posting.

Since publishing his message, Mr. Cross has heard from actor and comedy friends and they support with him in his parry against his critics but worry about him as well. "As Bob [Odenkirk] said, 'I thought it was great, but, man, it's a no-win situation.'"

So why allow himself to be embroiled in a no-winner?

"It wasn't simply that I read somebody said I was a 'douchebag' for doing this. I read hundreds—literally hundreds [of comments] ... Just a lot of it, enough so that when I read Patton's thing it was the breaking point. That coupled with the fact that, and this goes to what the guy in the Onion< wrote, which was really shit, that I 'wrote this 1,700-word blah-blah-blah,' as if I pored over it through the night with a candle at my side and sent it in to an editor ... I wrote a thing and it took me 20 minutes. It had grammar [mistakes] and misspellings ... . It's exactly what they do: I saw something, I wrote it, sent it out."

The integrity issue—regular work within the mainstream versus smaller projects that may
be closer to his heart—has been a concern for Mr. Cross his entire life. In the book Mr. Show—What Happened, which recounts the creation and brief on-air life of his HBO series, a high-school friend of Mr. Cross' recalls, "David always lived by the seat of his pants. He couldn't earn what he needed, was always borrowing, then trying hard to pay it back—and still he was uncompromising. I always thought, 'Why does he get to live like that? I have to compromise. I work a shitty job.' But David wouldn't bend."

After making a name for himself in Boston's late-80's/early-90's alternative comedy scene with performers like Janeane Garofalo and Louis CK, Mr. Cross agonized over whether or not to take his first real comedy writing job.

"When I was 28, I think, I moved to L.A. and I really struggled with whether I should take a job writing for The Ben Stiller Show, which was my big break. And that's where I met all these people and [without it] there'd be no Mr. Show or any of that stuff—or me here."

It was hardly the cushy Hollywood gig one might imagine: The FOX sketch comedy program was dogged by poor ratings and moved around by programmers like the queen of spades in a game of Three Card Monty. Yet even with such low stakes Mr. Cross was torn. "I didn't wanna write for TV ... It's insane, but I was that person."

"That person" still weighs in on his decision-making process. "I don't really think about it at length, but I definitely think about how will this [choice of role] be perceived. I don't really give it too much thought, but it does go through my mind. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't. I think I would be probably a happier person if I did get over it or just resigned myself to not caring. But it's just in my nature, I can't help it."

Now, with the internet empowering people who agree with "that person" more than ever—comment threads overflow with people quick to call their favorite artists sell-outs for taking this job or that—Mr. Cross' internal per-project gut check has been externalized and turned back on him.

"I can't tell you how many times somebody would say to me in earnest, not saying it like, you're an asshole for this, but really wanted to know how I could reconcile the fact that I was on Arrested Development, doing the show for FOX."

"That's absurd," he said. Another absurdity lies in the fact that the very thing his fans fetishize him for, the groundbreaking sketch comedy show he created with Bob Odenkirk, was not some indie production distributed through a classified ad in a 'zine: It was on HBO. While satirizing a mega-corporation that "owns 29 percent of the globe" in a bit about "Globo-Chem" (slogan: "We Own Everything So You Don't Have To!"), Mr. Show was being piped into viewers' homes directly by Time Warner, which more or less does own 29 percent of the globe.

Cries of sellout also jangle since Mr. Cross often appears at small venues, keeps his ticket prices affordable, does benefits, and takes roles in smaller, prestige projects without talking chipmunks. Just a few weeks before Alvin unspooled at multiplexes across America, Mr. Cross appeared in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There in a cameo as Allen Ginsberg. Ironically, in that film he's counseling Cate Blanchett's Dylan stand-in after an electric set is met with cries of "Judas." Asked whether he thought the singer "sold out," Mr. Cross' Ginsberg shrugs and says in his best Lower East Side Beat Oracle accent, "I [don't] know. Perhaps you sold out to god? ... If your mission was to see whether you could do great art on a jukebox, well, then we all benefited."

By appearing in Alvin and the Chipmunks (no one's idea of art on a jukebox, but so what?), has David Cross sold out either to god or his dog and her frolicking in Sullivan County? "I don't think anyone gives a shit; I don't think anyone really, truly cares," he said finally. Does he wish he'd never posted his message (or the second one he put up called An Open Letter to Me from Future Me)? "Well, I dunno. The last couple days have been way less boring than they would've been."

He'd like to just let the whole thing go, but then, why did he allow a journalist into his apartment on a Saturday afternoon to discuss it at all?

"The biggest joke of all is that the fact that when this article comes out, it will only make things worse," Mr. Cross said, laughing. "That's the ultimate punchline ... You can give me this opportunity and this context ... but it's gonna go on and then people will talk about this fucking thing." (Especially since the Observer's website has comments.) Mr. Cross even has a suggestion for the accompanying art: "Please make it an illustration of [me with] a big head, just tears, 'boo-hoo!' and a stack of money."

Participating in his own ongoing evisceration aside, Mr. Cross knows this tempest in a comment section will die down eventually and he can get back to work and, when he has time, spend some weekends in the House That Alvin Bought.

As he described the place in his now infamous posting, it's "Nothing fancy, a small cottage on at least a couple of acres near some water where I could get out of here, get some fresh air, buy a smoker, make some b-b-q and hang out with my dog on the porch ... best of all it's in the middle of nowhere. No town, no nothing. Two hours outside the city and only about a ten minute drive from the Delaware River. Perfect."

Reading that description and knowing that his fans' online attacks are pinged directly to him in almost-real time via Google Alerts sent to his wireless device ("that's really being a glutton for punishment," Mr. Cross conceded, calling the alerts "pure vanity"), the Observer wondered whether Mr. Cross ever felt, well, lonely. (It was the Barbara Walters moment: Time for the funnyman to cry on cue.) "Definitely," he said. "That's why I've got Ollie. And Zoloft."

So now you know: If an you're an actor and comic who does the occasional Hollywood work and you need a friend, get yourself a dog.