“Sir,” he said. “Perhaps there is something in your personal story that some of us here don’t know about that might help explain where you’re coming from.”

Michael Totten had dinner with Hitchens. Drinks followed. Don’t miss also The Village Voice interview.

Totten says about Hitchens,

He’s exactly the same in person as he is on TV. The only difference is that he has a drink in one hand and a Rothmans cigarette in the other. What you see on TV is what you get. His persona isn’t a shtick, it’s his real personality.

But, as Hitchens himself said,

“One need not object to his having things both ways, as long as one notices the trick being performed.”

He’s right, of course.