You are from the Chicago area and have been an outspoken supporter of Obama, but are you now saying that you do not like how the administration has handled the Gulf of Mexico?
I am an Obama fan and an Obama supporter. But it actually doesn’t seem to matter who is in power. [pauses] No. Can I take that back? I can take that back. [laughs] I’ll take that back, for the most part.

What was the meaning behind putting Fenway Bergamot on the cover of the album? You rarely offer a visual representation of him.
This is the first appearance of a physical Fenway Bergamot. I wasn’t even going to put Fenway on the record. I thought maybe it’s a good idea as a sort of bridge between the two different eras, Bush and Obama, [and between] the politics and the poetry. Most of all, I wanted to do a jump-cut style and he is a good voice to do it. He [occupies] a mental zone that is less logical, less discursive, and more about getting to the way your mind thinks as opposed to what you say. A million thoughts go through your mind. Unfortunately, we don’t say a lot of that stuff.

Which is a very Proustian way of thinking about it.
Lou gave Fenway Bergamot his name. He said this filter sounds like a real person now. He said, “How about Fenway Bergamot?” And I thought, that sounded good — off the cuff. But then I [realized] this is a really good name for him. It’s not just a baseball park in Boston and bergamot is not just this thing in Earl Grey tea but also a memory trigger. Proust’s madeleine.