Media
Below you will find the latest mentions, plugs, reviews and links to a variety of media related projects that I am currently involved in from most-recent to so-old that it’s probably not even worth mentioning.
Recent Media Clips
The January issue of Wired Magazine brings me back into the fold, and gives me the opportunity to contribute yet again to their back page “Found: Artifacts From the Future” feature. In this month’s edition, I postulate what the crayons of the future might be like, including such colors as “Brown Sky” and “iPod White.” (Article scan.)
The September issue of Wired Magazine is on stands now, and includes my Fall TV Preview entitled Prime Time For Geeks. I highlight some of the great new shows and a few of the stinkers. (We won’t talk about Dance Dance Revolution now, will we?) Yes, I’m becoming a regular Roger Ebert. Or something. (Article scan.)
The June 16th “bloggers on stage” show Subject Line Here was a success! And now, you can view yours truly on stage performing If I Were A Hot Shot Rock Climber and If My Left Hand Was A Wet Piece of Steak and My Right Hand Was A Tuba in glorious Quicktime. (#1, #2.)
The June edition of Wired Magazine features an article I wrote on the upcoming Pixar flick Cars. In addition to giving the 411 on the film’s director and Pixar guru John Lasseter, I reveal some of the really cool hidden inside-jokes that are plastered all over the film’s major car/star Lightning McQueen. (Article scan.)
The May 19th edition of MSNBC’s The Most with Alison Stewart had me on to talk about The Lost Blogs, specifically discussing the blogs of Marilyn Monroe, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Jesus. (Media clip, requires Quicktime.)
The May 15th edition of ESPN’s morning program Cold Pizza has me on their show to discuss my new book The Lost Blogs. Host Dana Jacobson delves into the world of sports and the other historical figures that can be found in the book. (Media clip, requires Quicktime.)
The May 5th edition of the San Antonio Express-News writes about the sports figures involved in The Lost Blogs and reprints excerpts from the Babe Ruth and Abner Doubleday entries. They also say that the book “takes things to a whole new level.” (Link to online version of print article.)
Detroit’s WXYT tech radio show The G-3 Show interviews yours truly about The Lost Blogs. I discuss a slew of examples from the book and talk a little bit about the astounding world of blogging, just why Walt Disney likes sticking his head in the freezer and garage door openers. (Audio clip.)
The May 1st issue of Sports Illustrated highlights the sports figures included in The Lost Blogs, paying particular attention to the thousands of women “picked-up” by Wilt Chamberlain and how the creator of baseball, Abner Doubleday, really couldn’t stand the game of baseball at all. (Article scan.)
The April 27th edition of the Chicago Sun-Times publishes an article called “Legendary Sports Figures Go Fiction” and re-prints excerpts from The Lost Blogs like the blogs of Vince Lombardi and James Naismith. (Article scan.)
The May issue of Wired Magazine includes yet another edition of Found: Artifacts From the Future by yours truly. This month I come up with a vision of what the classic Hasbro game of Operation might look like in the near to distant future. Be careful — that iPOD implant is a tough one. (Article link.)
The March/April issue of YRB Magazine (Young, Rich & Beautiful) takes time out to give The Lost Blogs an early review. And while they don’t mention me as young, rich or beautiful — they still make the book seem like the most “street” blog book to come out since, well, forever. (Article scan.)
The Mar/April edition of mental_floss magazine features a 10 page article by me entitled Scatterbrained: Colors. In it I wax on about everything from the history of executed crayons, yellow journalism, white noise and maroon-ed (movies about desert islands). It’s a hoot. And no, I can’t believe I just said that. (Article scan.)
Wondering whatever happened to the old horror flick The Hills Have Eyes? Well, wonder no more, now that Wes Craven has Produced a truly horrific remake of the mediocre film. Check out my review in the March issue of Wired Magazine and then ask me how close I came to vomiting while watching it. (Article link.)
The February 20th issue of In Touch Magazine jumps on the Mr. Six bandwagon, confirming my recent outing of Danny Teeson as the Six Flags character Mr. Six and devoting a whole half page in the magazine to it… It is further confirmation that a guy in a rubber mask can actually freak the country out enough to make it into the mainstream press. (Article scan.)
After receiving an anonymous tip as to the identity of Six Flags’ Mr. Six, yours truly dug deeper and revealed the true identity of Mr. Six as Queer Eye’s Danny Teeson. On February 6th, The New York Post confirmed WFME’s findings and printed their own article, giving this site the credit for Peace on Earth. (Article link.)
Media Bistro’s MB Tool Box features an article by yours truly (who else) about the process of writing The Lost Blogs. Since there were over 200 entries to write and under 100 days to do it in — the process required a lot of dedication, a ton of scheduling, and a whole heaping spoonful of motivational excess. (Article link.)
Fans of Bravo’s Project Greenlight have been wondering for almost a year what’s happened to the John Gulager Directed gore-fest Feast only to come up with zilch. Yours truly puts on the investigative hat and digs deeper into the bloody truth in the February issue of Wired Magazine — finding out that what the studios want you to think and what’s really happening are two totally different monsters. (Article link.)
Words For My Enjoyment ends up getting highlighted in the new book Blogosphere: Best of Blogs by Peter Kuhns Adrienne Crew. The book, which is an exclusive to Borders for the month of November shows you what blogs are, how to create one, and then lists the best of the best in each category from politics to gossip to (our favorite) humor. You can find the specific mention for WFME on page 225 as one of only twelve blogs considered funny enough to make you laugh. (Product link.)
Not So-Recent Media Clips
Gamers everywhere will either finally be stoked or extremely depressed upon seeing the release of the new Universal Pictures edition of Doom: The Movie, coming out October 2005. In the same month’d edition of Wired Magazine, my article “How Doomed Is It?” examines the differences between the granddaddy of all first-person shooters and the upcoming flick — tossing up side-by-side comparisons of the environments, monsters and first-person melees. (Article link.)
The new book Putting Your Passion Into Print is now in bookstores (August ‘05) and is a perfect how-to book for aspiring writers who need to know how to go about selling their ideas and getting published. Yours truly is interviewed in the book about my experience with Consumer Joe and how I went from the germ of an idea, to getting an agent and selling the product to Random House. The book is available in paperback and hardcover and is definitely worth a read. (Product link.)
Media Bistro’s Rachel Kramer Bussel interviews Warner Books editor Jason Pinter about what it takes to sell a book proposal in this day and age. He talks about a selection of the books he’s currently working on, including what it was that made The Lost Blogs such a unique find. The piece also gives some great insight into how Internet writing can actually net you some notoriety in this day and age. (Article link.)
Hitting the airwaves on July 10th at 8:30/7:30c is none other than The Princes of Malibu (FOX). The show, which I was Supervising Producer on, concerns uber music producer David Foster (who has produced everyone from Josh Groban to Whitney Houston), his wife Linda Thompson and their two sons Brody & Brandon — intent on using David’s wealth to make life in Malibu the ultimate paradise.
Small seems to be a good thing in the July/August edition of mental_floss. My 10-page piece is entitled Scatterbrained: It’s a Small World and involves articles that deal with everything from the size of animal’s teeny brains and ingenious nanotechnology to superhero hometowns (i.e. Smallville) and wacky baby toys. (Article link not available.)
My article, Island of Lost Souls hits the July edition of Wired Magazine (pg. 54), which wonders just how much of Michael Bay’s new film The Island is actually original and how much has actually been cloned from older sci-fi fare. The interview with Michael Bay was awesome. The film, well, only time will tell. (Article link.)
Comedian Craig Shoemaker talks about Consumer Joe and reads various letters from the book on his weekly radio show, including those to Friskies, Southwest Airlines (no more honey roasted peanuts), Star-Kist, Cedar Point Amusement Park and Scrabble (adding electrical shocks to the game). (Audio link.)
In mental_floss‘ 4th Annual “10 Issue”, yours truly takes on the subject of the 10 Most Underappreciated Spectator Sports, peeling back the so-called cover on sports like juggling, Scrabble, jai alai, competitive fishing, badminton, synchronized swimming and many more that hardly ever cross your mind. (Article link not available.)
With The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy having such a loyal following, fans everywhere were panicked about the feature film version standing up to Douglas Adams’ vision. In the May edition of Wired Magazine I talk to the film’s director Garth Jennings about whether or not fans should “panic.” (Article link.)
Rock n’ roll gets a whole new make-over in my ten-page piece in the March/April edition of mental_floss. Titled Scatterbrained: Rock n’ Roll, the article jams along with pieces on the craziest drummers in rock history, groupies, video games starring rock legends, the business of rock, and my personal favorite: a rebus puzzle challenging you to figure out which lead singers got axed and who replaced them. (Article link not available.)
The March edition of Wired Magazine includes a graphic piece I thought up for their unique “Artifacts From the Future” section called “Found.” Here, the concept of air travel insurance and transporters is combined (not unlike Brundle-fly) and thanks to the wonderful magic of graphic designers comes alive in this one-page image from the future. (Article link.)
Haven’t you ever needed someone to talk to and all you had at your fingertips was the computer keyboard? That’s what makes Smarterchild, your instant-messenger automated buddy, so great. In the February issue of Wired Magazine I have a deep and thoughtful (and sort of random) conversation with the robot behind the circuits, and the results are somewhat hilarious! (Article link.)
The January/February 2005 edition of mental_floss, once again, features a 10-page piece by yours truly entitled Scatterbrained: Figures of Speech. The piece features small pages that cover famous figures of speech from “Blind as a Bat” (baseball, bats, celebrities who play blind characters) to “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater” (disposable items). It’s a great play on words and a lot of fun to play along. (Article link not available.)
The November/December 2004 edition of mental_floss features my piece Mad Scientist of the Month: Pythagoras, which tells the story of the guy you probably know for inventing that annoying Pythagoran Theory (a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared). But, in reality, the ancient Greek philosopher/math whiz was also a religious yogi, a cult leader, and a man with an extremely unrealistic fear of beans. (Article link not available.)
Sick and tired of big companies licensing rock n’ roll songs for their commercial products (can you say Nick Drake and VW?), I took my opinion about the “death of the Jingle” to NPR’s airwaves, and recorded “Whither the Jingle” for All Things Considered back in November 2003. (Audio link.)
In the promoting of my book Consumer Joe: Harassing Corporate America, One Letter at a Time, I swung by the studios of CNNfn to discuss the art of letter writing, a particular set of letters (Coca Cola, Southwest Airlines, Circle K and more) and answer questions from those calling in to the studio. (Media clip requires Quicktime 7.)
