Jonathan Ames, favorite author of P.S. and writer of such novels as THE EXTRA MAN, I PASS LIKE NIGHT and WAKE UP, SIR!, plus three collections of comedic essays, has interviewed Marilyn Manson for the newest issue of Spin! There’s a preview available on Spin’s website, with the full article available only in print. A preview of the preview:

The door swings open and Manson lopes in, carrying his own goblet of absinthe. He’s wearing a black T-shirt, black leather pants, and gigantic Frankenstein boots. He’s six-foot-three and looks to be all narrow torso and legs. I’m middle-aged and completely bald and immediately assess that Manson’s black hair is beginning to thin, probably from multiple dyeings. [Patrick: This line is so Jonathan Ames.] His face is sweet, and his eyes, without his usual colored contacts, are kindly. [Patrick: As is this one.]

We start to talk, and Manson is sniffling a little. Right away, he starts to tell me about the breakup of his marriage to burlesque queen Dita Von Teese. They were together for six years and then, in their seventh year, they got married. “It’s the old cliché,” he says. “Marriage changes everything.”

The behavior he had manifested for the first six years — such as living like a vampire — became unacceptable to Von Teese, he says. But he wasn’t willing to give up his vampire’s hours. “I’m my most creative between 3 and 5 A.M.,” he says. “That’s the way I’ve always been.”

Going to sleep at dawn and rising at dusk was not the only issue of contention, though. Before they were wed, Manson and Von Teese were never separated for more than five days; after they got married, he wasn’t seeing her three out of every four weeks, due to her own hectic schedule. Manson is very needy, and with Von Teese on the road all the time, he started losing his mind. And he started believing her when she said that the way he lived was wrong.

It’s funny. Marilyn Manson is, if this article depicts him accurately, a very Amesian character. [Via Tiger Beat]