My interview with Denis Leary...

Hollywood's writers strike prevented Denis Leary from working on episodes of his FX series, "Rescue Me," for several months.

So what did he do?

He sat down and wrote something else: the best-selling book "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid."
"I wanted to write a book and talk about things that made me laugh," he said during our recent chat. "When I read books by comedians -- like a George Carlin book -- my goal is to laugh out loud."

You might figure that for Leary, a guy who got his start as a stand-up comedian, writing a collection of sardonic essays would be a piece of cake.

Wrong.

"On stage, I go out with five notes in my head, and that could be 45 minutes, because I'm always watching television or reading newspapers," he said. "I had to learn to put it on the page and have a theme."

Leary has had an interesting time promoting "Why We Suck" at various bookstores across the country in recent weeks.

"I was on this crazy tour for two weeks," he said. "It went all over the country. It's always surprising when you meet people out on a book tour, I know 'Rescue Me' is a 50-50 audience between men and women. With the book, I was getting all these women. One woman looked 90 and acted like she was 60 and said: 'I laughed my ass off with this book!'"

Leary also broke some of the traditional rules that seem to have taken hold at major book signings these days.

"I kept on asking, 'Why are you guys telling people they can't take pictures and get the book personalized?' My thing was, they are coming out and paying $25. I made sure to write whatever they want, and they got to take a picture."

Leary said he'd love to write another book soon, but acting is still his first love. He earned a Golden Globe Award nomination on Thursday for his performance in the HBO film "Recount" and is busy filming new episodes of "Rescue Me" that will begin airing in April on FX.

"Instead of shooting one season of 13 episodes, we are doing 24 episodes and will run them all at the same time,... with seasons five and six combined into one long season," he explained.

"I'm really biased. I think it's really the best stuff we've ever done. We come out the first week of April and (go) right into the fall. Fans will be elated."