MY AMES IS TRUE: The HBO show “Bored to Death” (pictured) is based on Ames’ life in brownstone Brooklyn… (Paul Schiraldi Photography)
…where he owns a bed that cost twice as much as his monthly rent. (
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Jonathan Ames speaks in a subdued murmur that might lead you to believe that he’s bored to death. It’s fitting, then, that that’s the name of the hit sitcom he writes and produces for HBO (a second season debuts Sept. 26).
Ames scribbles the story lines for “Bored to Death” (about a writer/wannabe private eye named Jonathan Ames, played by Jason Schwartzman) from his slightly ramshackle, pleasantly cluttered one-bedroom rental in Boerum Hill. He’s lived in the 850-square foot apartment on the third floor of a brownstone for the past 11 years, paying $1,400 per month. Before that, he made the rounds of other New York neighborhoods: the Upper East Side in the early ’90s, a sojourn on the edge of Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy, two years in the East Village.
“It’d be hard for me to imagine leaving Brooklyn. I don’t feel connected to Manhattan anymore,” says Ames, who grew up in New Jersey, but whose parents and grandparents were raised in Brooklyn.
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Ames, the author of three novels (the film adaptation of “The Extra Man,” starring Kevin Kline and Paul Dano, came out last week), also dabbles in performance art and even, occasionally, boxing. So it’s no surprise that his apartment’s décor is a bit unconventional, too.
“My decoration style is eclectic and confused, without much sense of feng shui or beauty,” he admits.
A broken Elvis clock hangs on the wall, swag from when Ames covered a Mike Tyson/Lennox Lewis fight in Memphis.
“I’m not quite a hoarder. I’m more of a bachelor,” he says, though he does have a girlfriend, singer/songwriter Fiona Apple.
Ames’ layout is similar to that of his fictional stand-in’s apartment on “Bored to Death.” A center room is lined with bookshelves (built as a favor by the show’s generous crew); before he had those, Ames — like his character — merely stacked his collection in haphazard piles. A framed black-and-white photograph of the notoriously alcoholic, womanizing poet and novelist Charles Bukowski hangs above his desk.
“That portrait was going to hang on the set of a writer’s office in ‘Bored to Death’ this year,” Ames explains. “I thought it was too spot on, but I liked it, so I took it home.”
The room gets a welcome dash of color from a large urban landscape by Patrick Bucklew, a New York artist and one of Ames’ longtime friends. Three other Bucklew pieces — depicting Tacoma, Wash.; a sunflower-dotted street near the Gowanus Canal; and a stripper — hang in the bedroom.
There’s “something a little bit disturbed about the paintings,” Ames says, “but [they’re] beautiful, to me.”
A large television — another gift from HBO — sits in the “never-never room,” between the writing den and the kitchen. (Ames didn’t have a TV before that and once famously took to Twitter to find a Brooklynite willing to invite him over for a viewing of his own show.)
Ames spends his productive hours at home but ducks out for coffee and a newspaper in the mornings at Building on Bond, a local coffee shop that’s featured on the upcoming season of “Bored to Death.”
On an average day, Ames is accompanied by Minimus, his landlord’s cat from the downstairs apartment, who has a habit of sleeping on a pile of papers in the corner. Sun filters in through a temporarily cracked skylight. On Ames’ desk, there’s a Litebook, a device that shoots light into your eyes in order to combat winter depression. (“I think it improved my mood, or at least had a good placebo effect,” he says.)
Ames cites the bed itself as one of his favorite possessions in the apartment; the bedbug-proof model was purchased from a former student who worked at the Sleepy’s mattress superstore.
“It remembers your body. It sleeps when I’m not sleeping on it,” Ames deadpans.
So, does Ames see himself staying here for a while, drumming up more scenarios for the show?
Well, ideally, he’d purchase a space in Brooklyn with a “glorious view of the water all the time” — perhaps in DUMBO, though he’s not crazy about how that neighborhood has evolved in recent years.
“I’m not into possessions,” Ames, 46, reflects — a statement that’s perhaps contradicted by the esoterica he’s held onto, like a talking bobblehead doll depicting surly standup Angry Bob.
“I’m getting pretty old, but maybe there’s still time for me to own a home someday.”
Jonathan Ames’ favorite things
* A boxing trophy he won after beating Canadian writer Craig Davidson in a fight at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn
* A novelty paddle, that reads “Board of Correction,” from his childhood
* Minimus, his landlord’s cat
* Paintings by Patrick Bucklew
* A broken Elvis clock
* His $3,000 bed from Sleepy’s
* His books, on shelves built by the crew of “Bored to Death”
* A drawing of dogs by Jen Ferguson (girlfriend of Ames’ collaborator on his graphic novel “The Alcoholic”)