Review of my Podcast Experiences

 Mike Vago: Why is This Not a Movie

My friend Mike Vago, children's book author, and A.V. Club columnist has the highly entertaining podcast "Why is This Not a Movie" where people pitch real stories that should be turned into films:
Why Is This Not a Movie?: Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen w/Orrin Konheim on Apple Podcasts

This is the description of the Podcast I was in:
"Dorothy Kilgallen was a beloved entertainment reporter, a regular on What's My Line, when she took a hard left turn into crime reporting. She covered murders and organized crime. She was the only person to interview Jack Ruby after he killed Oswald, and got to see the Warren Commission report even before LBJ. But when she started to challenge the official story on JFK's assassination, she soon died under mysterious circumstances. Was she murdered? Print journalist Orrin Konheim joins us to talk about Kilgallen succeeding in a male-domainted field, getting close to the Kennedys, and then dying in a manner suspiciously similar to Marilyn Monroe."


As an armchair caster, this is a great podcast to be a part of.

I've been in talks to do two more:

1) Since I was 10 and my dad got me the Book of Marvels for my birthday, I have long considered explorer Richard Haliburton as a role model. Few other people would do the same because he was so much more well-known from the 20s to the 50s then he has been to the last two generations.

I would have pitched this film as a child-friendly story about a Princeton-educated old money guy who was guided by Oscar Wilde's motto of Not Living an Ordinary Life. The film would be told through a few different vignettes including his swimming the Panama Canal for 25 cents, his tracing of the Seven Wonders of the World or his trip aboard the Flying Carpet.

2) My second podcast proposal comes from a book I picked up at the Amtrak train station this past September en route to New Orleans: King Leopold's Ghost.

As this 8-minute video will show you (King Leopold II & the Congo Free State), Belgian King Leopold II instituted a secret slave kingdom in the Congo from 1885-1908 against prevailing European views on slavery. Rather than tell a dismal story about all the pain and suffering inflicted on the natives of the Congo, I would want to tell a story in the mold of "Hotel Rwanda", "The Kite Runner", "Beirut", or "BlacKKKlansman" where people acted against oppression in notable ways. In this case, the biggest decision is where to focus this epic and I'd want to juxtapose the gluttony and excess of King Leopold II (a sovereign who poured money into elaborate castles while never once travelling to the African continent) against the two working class men who bought down his kingdom--Roger Casement and E.D. Morel -- through careful fact finding and a brilliantly plotted campaign.

Shmuel Levy is a friend of mine from when I lived on the Orthodox Jewish community of Richmond, Virginia.

He recently started wanting to get into pod casting as an extension of his abilities to set up audio equipment. 

His recent podcasting series is on films and I discussed the film "Last Night in Soho" with him. We also branched off to the modern blockbuster.

Last Night in Soho with guest Orrin K.mp3 - Google Drive

Elizabeth "Liz" Katheryn Gray is a friend from my research gig at the National Archives and the Head Hauntress at the Sexy Witches podcast. I have been a guest on it a few times. This past April, Liz invited me to Winchester for a weekend trip to a horror film festival. I didn't understand the genre so it was an exercise in giving something new a try. Liz had me on to discuss what it was like being exposed to the genre for the first time and we also were on to review the Oscars that weekend.

7.5: BEST OF 2020 REDUX, THE OSCARS ReCap and The GRINDSPLOITATION FILM FESTIVAL 04/28 by The Sexy Witches | Film (blogtalkradio.com)

And lastly, there's my own channel, which hasn't produced anything lately, but I did produce some stuff. I have continued podcasting with Adam Spector of the DC Film  Society but haven't put up any new stuff in a year.

It's a bit labor intensive to try this new experiment I was envisioning to enhance the visuals with just putting more than our faces.  

On the channel, I talk about movies and talk to people (sometimes at random) about movies:

Review of TV 2021: My Ten Honorable Mentions

AP Bio (Peacock) Season 4

Premise: Disgruntled Harvard exile gets stuck in his hometown teaching biology and vows never to teach his kids anything. Despite this attitude, life lessons and bonding ensues.

Pros: The show still has great momentum and a deep bench. The fan fiction episode shows just how adept the show is at playing with genre.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: A Lynette-less season can only take the show so far. That was a pairing for the ages. Another of my faves, Stephanie Duncan is a little less sassy during her pregnancy.

The Chair (Netflix) Season 1

Premise: In the world of academia, Sandra Oh can’t win as the English dlit epartment chair at an Ivy Light college. If it isn’t the new wave of political correctness, it’s the conflicting demands of the colleagues underneath her or the demands to keep up enrollment or justify soft skills to her students.

Pros: Sandra Oh kills in this (props to wardrobe too, she always looks like someone who’s too busy to shop f), despite my frustration at the students who rap about Herman Melville’s illegitimacy for being too white, the show does its best to humanize every side in the debate.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: This was my #12 before I watched the Great so it came pretty damn close. There are a lot of six-episode seasons this year, but this one suffered the most from its brevity as a lot of plot movements didn’t have room to breathe.

Cruel Summer (IFC) Season 1

Premise: Two girls at the same high school have divergent paths. One gets kidnapped and held hostage in a predator’s basement for several months while the other is accused as being aware of it and being silenced.

Pros: The editing, for one. Being able to tell a coherent story with this many time jumps, damn!  It also has impressive young actors who mirror each other quite well and handle those time jumps equally adeptly, and then there’s all the fun this show mines from the unreliable narrator trope.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: Ehh, it was a competitive year.

Ghosts (CBS) Season 1

Premise: Utkarsh Ambudkar (no, I couldn’t spell that without IMDBing it) and Rose McIver play a pair of city yuppies who inherit a New England mansion from the gilded age which they plan to turn into a bed and breakfast. However, a gaggle of ghosts (primarily eight who live in the upper floors) stretching back decades and even centuries in some cases (yes, there’s a Viking and a Native American) haunt the mansion.

Pros: It’s a lot of fun and the ghosts are a rich cacophony of characters.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: It’s more fun than a game changer. Considering that it’s such a structurally traditional sitcom (it wouldn’t miss that many beats if a laugh track were inserted), I’m frankly surprised I liked it as much as I did. It’s most definitely worth watching at this point though.

Kevin Can F*ck Himself (AMC) Season 1

Premise: Plot-wise this is a traditional sitcom. What sets it apart is how it’s shot. When Allison (Annie Murphy from “Schitt’s Creek”) is interacting with her husband, it’s a traditionaly laugh track sitcom but in scenes where her husband is not present, the sitcom takes on a much darker form. The sitcom takes on at least three or four different genres per episode.

Pros:  Sheer ambition. You have to watch it to understand it and even then it’s a good book-club-like show to deconstruct as a group.

 

What Kept it from Making the Cut: While the show is certainly watchable, there isn’t as much of a thru-thread to get me to a state of “I can’t wait to see what happens in the next episode.” As I previously said, it’s a competitive year.

Locke and Key (Netflix) Season 2

Premise: A young widow (Darby Stanchfield), with her kids in tow, moves in to a New England mansion that hold a number of mystical keys with the power to do very good and bad things. Before long, the whole extended family is sucked into a good vs. evil.

Pros: Even as I am more distanced from high school, god help me, I can’t stop getting hooked on the lives of teenagers (or at least, use them as a gateway drug to broader dramatical forms). The mythology behind the story is consistent and not more complex than the story mandates, and the stakes escalate well for a sophomore season. There were also a couple plot twists that blindsided me. 

 

What Kept it from Making the Cut: For starters, what is up with the catatonic brother who’s all of a sudden engaged to a cultured man Japan? When did he even leave his bed? The teen drama can also get a little Degrassi-ish (or One-Tree-Hill-ish if you’re from the states) before said drama starts integrating itself with the plot in ways that become deliciously Hitchcockonian. But, please, way less Tyler and Jackie drama.  Erase both their memories.

 

Maid (Netflix) Season 1

Premise: Trailer park mom Amy (Margaret Qualley) makes the sudden decision to leave her borderline abusive husband with her infant in tow. With a dead beat mom (Qualley’s real-life mom Andie MacDowell), uncooperative ex-husband and no previous savings, it’s a constant upbeat battle.

Pros: The constant tension: Amy is like a video game character on her last life. Only the stakes are very real for her and indicative of how real they are for the millions of Americans out there living pay check to pay check. 

What Kept it from Making the Cut: There was a slight dip in intensity towards the end, but it certainly would have made it in a less competitive year.

Saturday Morning All-Star Hits (Netflix) Season 1

 

Premise: If you’ve seen Kyle Mooney’s offbeat sketches based on 90s sitcoms on SNL, you’ll know what to expect here. Only instead of TGIF offshoots, Mooney focuses here on taking subtle jabs at the Saturday Morning cartoons of the late 80s and early 90s.

Pros: If you like Kyle Mooney doing his thing, this is an uncaged Kyle Mooney completely free to roam in the wild, so you should love this. It’s also a chance to see Mooney do serialized storytelling which works as a satire of the shallow nature of 90s stardom (and sibling envy, a lot to unpack there, I guess). This is a parody that prioritizes attention to detail over a high laugh-per-minute ratio and that works.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: Well, a few more laughs per minute might have been nice.

Schmigadoon (Apple TV) Season 1

Premise:  Ever seen the 1954 musical “Brigadoon”? It’s about 50% of that (present-day couple gets stranded in a magical musical town), with references to “Music Man”, “Oklahoma”, “Sound of Music”, and nearly every other musical from that era.

Pros: The series is a loving parody that is chock-ful of Easter eggs from the golden era of musicals. However, as musical theater in its own right, it works: The cast is filled with darlings of the musical theater community, the musical numbers are fun, and the town looks like a Vincente Minnelli painting. So much to love

What Kept it from Making the Cut: At six episodes, the plot changes are really abrupt. As one example, Cecily Strong’s character gets her love interest’s father killed and the next minute, the two are dancing.

Studio C (BYU TV) Seasons 13 and 14

Premise: Family-friendly sketch comedy

Pros:  Since the show did a nationwide talent search and bought in acclaimed sketch actors and comedians, there has been a very professional feel to this brand of sketch comedy and the cast was really gelling. The show has also shown a penchant for experimentation like an episode exploring (facetiously) how sketches get written, and one examining the impact of messy sketches on the show’s janitor.

What Kept it from Making the Cut: Considering I doubt this show was ever meant to be popular out of the state of Utah, I always view it as the little engine that could. I’m not sure if this could compete in a sketch-by-sketch dead heat with SNL and not even SNL is cracking my top 12 or top 22. However, if I HAD to be nitpicky, the show had a casting overhaul in season 14 and this new configuration will take a while to gel. 

And lest you think I’m being hard on these shows, this is everything else I watched this year that didn’t make my top 12 or Honorable Mention list that these shows rank above:

Abbott Elementary (ABC)^,  Animaniacs (Hulu), AP Bio (Peacock), Attack of the Movie Cliches (Netflix), B Positive (CBS)^, Call Me Kat (ABC), Call Your Mother (ABC), Cobra Kai (Netflix), The Circle (Netflix), Disenchanted (Netflix), Frank of Ireland (Amazon), Explained (Netflix),  Great North (Fox), Inside Job (Netflix), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX), Home Economics (ABC), Kevin Hart’s Olympic Show (Peacock), Kim’s Convenience (CBC), La Brea (NBC/Peacock), Lost Symbol (Peacock), Love Death and Robots (Netflix), Mr. Mercedes (Amazon), Mighty Ducks (Disney Plus), Miracle Workers: Oregon Trail (TBS), Mosquito Coast (Apple TV), McGruber (Peacock), Mr. Corman (Apple TV), Mythic Quest (Apple TV), Nora From Queens (Comedy Central), Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu), Only Murders in the Building (Hulu), The Premise (Hulu), Rebel (Amazon Plus), Reservation Dogs (Peacock), Rutherford Falls (Peacock), SNL (NBC), Solar Opposites (Hulu), Squid Game (Netflix)^, To Tell the Truth (ABC), Young Rock (NBC)^

 

^ means I watched just one or two episodes. I didn’t necessarily watch every episode of a show if it’s not marked

A non-woke take on the White Lotus finale

Very often, my enjoyment of a series is different from my annoyance at the reaction to that series by a critical class that is often highly committed to seeing the world through a lens of identity politics.

Case in point: The HBO series “White Lotus” was my favorite show of 2021 but this interpretation of the first season finale by Jen Chaney at Vulture is far off from my world view which acknowledges the problems of homophobia, sexism and racism, but cautions against treating them as defining attributes or of every socio-economic problem that is encountered in fiction or the real world.

In interviews about the show like this New York Times profile, White talks about being influenced by the colonial history of Hawaii and the performative (and what can be seen as degrading) nature of cultural tourism. At the same time, White seems to be emphasizing privilege in a general sense and power dynamics. “A lot of rich people are just used to being catered to. I don’t think they realize how overwhelming their needs are and how they’re so oppressed by their needs,” he says. 

From White's words and his own legacy ("Chuck and Buck", "Beatriz at Dinner", "Enlightened"), I’d make the case that the primary interest of the show is classist combined with a desire to balance out self-interest with altruism, whereas color and gender are secondary concerns. In "Enlightened", the “man” consisted of an Asian-American HR head who clearly wanted to exile Amy Jellicoe on her own volition and there was also little text or subtext that the show was interested in exploring the specific obstacles to the person of color on the downstairs level (Jason Matzoukas). At the same time, identity politics was hardly in the national lexicon in 2013 to the degree it is today.

[DANGER: SPOILERS AHEAD!]. In the hands of today’s critics, it’s impossible not to see the Belinda-Tanya dynamic is emblematic of one between a Black employee and a White woman. By this lens, Belinda is the victim: “Poor Belinda, who dared to believe that….,” writes Chaney in what could pass for a Shakespearean soliloquy. Firstly, why no mention of the big fat envelope that Belinda gave Tanya in cash? How do we know she couldn't start a business off that? Secondly, I agree that Tanya should not have jerked Belinda around, but it generally falls on people trying to launch their own business to convince the investors and not the other way around. Do you know how many editors or partners in other business ventures I’ve had bail on me?

Bold projection here: I wonder if the salaried writers at Vulture are themselves too privileged to write from Belinda's perspective? In order to land jobs at Vulture, they probably got liberal arts degrees which indicates a certain family security. My Persian cousins  couldn’t afford to get anything but business degrees with their state college educations.

Additionally, how is Belinda any less justified in bailing on Rachel in her moment of need (an event that sends her back into the arms of a far crueler man) than Tanya is to Belinda. Sure, we can debate about how the strain of being a woman in the service industry (and if you want to go that route, a Black woman in the service industry). But the tragedy is unmistakably how a series of bad events beget one another—a combination of screwball comedy and upstairs-downstairs melodramas like Jean Renoir’s “Rules of the Game” or “Parasite” or “Grand Hotel” or other upstairs-downstairs melodramas. These types of stories are about classist satire which don’t necessarily encompass Black-White racial dynamics (which is separate from the commentary on Native Hawaiins, intersectionality be damned).

Instead of tackling that, Chaney writes, “But like so many white women, she’s apparently decided it’s easier to buy into a system in which she’s protected and financially supported than it is to summon the courage to work against it.” The statement is problematic because it treats Rachel as an accessory to some greater racial liberation movement rather like some reverse Magic Negro rather than a woman with very serious problems of her own.

The debate over whether these characters are defined by their white privilege is dramatized in a debate by the Mossbacher family. The parents' points that their daughter is more of an armchair activist can actually be read as somewhat valid.

At the very least, that scene and the show is exemplary precisely because it invites such thought-provoking discussion. Do the book smarts that Olivia and Paula gain equip them to properly fight for their beliefs (encouraging a poorly planned theft might not be the answer)? Is there any way to vacation to Hawaii that doesn’t perpetuate a systematic racist cycle? If there isn’t, should we not take vacations to Hawaii and deprive the state (including the natives), of that income? Does being conscious of problems preclude meaningful action?

The point is that these aren’t easy answers, though I can’t help but feel Chaney predictably sees this as more definitively an indictment of racism than it is meant to be. At the end, she surmises that Quinn didn’t get on the plane. I choose to believe that Quinn was able to bridge the gap between himself and the culture he emulated, but that's ok: We see this world through different lenses.


*Interesting side note: While writing the article, I looked up Jen Chaney on Twitter and  invited her to coffee because she's way more successful than I am and apparently lives in the same city as me. No word yet on whether she would accept and the chances might decrease if she knows I'm writing an article that's critical of her take. My hope is that a friendship can be struck between people with differing views and, perhaps, Vulture might even be impressed by a well-argued rebuttal.

My annual patreon plea and my year in numbers

My Patreon Link

Friends, family, and colleagues,

Here is the link to my patreon (of which you can back out at any time) which gives you access to my unpublished articles and a limited amount of free service and consultation on writing or promotion, but there's one more important reason. Allow me to explain some numbers of mine in 2021:

$3,558.27-Amount directly paid this year for my writing including 2 humor articles, 10 radio interview write-ups, and 27 articles OR  $5,853.10 expected to be paid for 29 articles written during this calendar year within 14 different publications.  

The difference between the 2 numbers is arbitrary and while some might view it as progress, it’s important to note progress is never assured in freelance writing. In late 2018, three of  my outlets went out of business. My status at two newspapers this year dropped significantly when two editors, who valued me highly, left their positions. I also had to risk burning my bridge with one outlet when I made a stand to demand payment (fortunately, I survived).

.

Now keep in mind, the value of my work isn’t determined so much by my asking price or by the worth of my work by any industry standard. There is hardly any when one paper will pay me $350 for 500 words and another might pay me $75 for 850 words. Instead, how much I make is simply determined by whatever a newspaper can afford in an industry that continues to decline in revenue.

But how much do you think my labor is worth? Let’s say that a blog entry should be worth $100 and an article (where I either pull from historical resources, interview people, or look through public records) should be worth $200 minimum for me to have my labor be worth a reasonable standard. If every outlet could afford that much, I would have made an additional $2,963 which would have increased my take home by between 50-83%. Whenever, a news outlet uses me, they have to carve room out of their budget which (in some cases) might displace the work of a salaried writer but there are advantages a freelance writer has because a newspaper would lack freshness if they displaced a front page staff.

Let’s also keep in mind that in order to get work, I often have to pitch and occasionally, I take the risk and write up the whole article. Of the 19 articles I found in a quick search through my outbox, 9 articles were fully written and 3 articles had a pitch (with links) that were 5 paragraphs or more (fortunately, some are recycled from last year or can be recycled next year). On top of that there were 36 blog entries in addition to a number of patreon and medium posts and continued experimentations with my own YouTube channel

Which brings me to the next question: How much is the value of my work worth to you? Before I put the thought into it that led me to write this letter, I was wondering how I can ask money from others when there are such big atrocities going on in Afghanistan or Ethiopia. However, I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking you to incentivize me to do more writing if you, in fact, appreciate my journalism (or even the role local journalism can play in general).

How much value do you attach to my more serious journalism I contribute? For example, there's work on the polyamory’s battle for rights in the D.C. court system, the perils of the pandemic to D.C.’s souvenir industry, the Denver transit system’s substitution of mental health professionals for a police force (article link), leading psychiatric experts discussing how to beat the second semester slump during the pandemic, the environmental degradation of DC’s Tidal Basin and its effect on the Cherry Blossom Festival (article link), Falls Church seniors readjusting to society as newly vaccinated individuals (Article Link), or upcoming stories on the Afghan refugee resettlement in Northern Virginia or West Virginia public transit troubleshooting the opioid crisis?

Or perhaps, my human interest work such as the world-class runner who made the surprising decision to retire before the Olympics (Article Link), Alexandria City sending their first entrant to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the National Stuttering Foundation (Article Link), a puperseria run by a Salvadorean who narrowly escaped death in that country’s civil war (Article Link), an international champion a capella group commenting on the accuracy of Pitch Perfect (article link)  or National Symphony Orchestra musicians comparing their experiences as elite classical musicians between those and sitcomdom (article link) or dozens of others (full list below). My writing on the entertainment industry can be found here and my cultural writings can be found here, Additionally, I also write about my pitches and how to pitch so others can become educated on the journalism process and I offer to help patreons one-on-one and publish and promote their own work.

This, friends, is the only thing that could make a difference for me in an industry that’s adapting too slowly to market changes that would give me full value. If, for example, you left a penny for an article I get paid for on Medium or most pay-per-content sites, you’d increase the value of my work tenfold. 

This past year, my patreon increased my take-home pay by $721 or 20.1% and it was based mostly on $2, $2.50, and $5 pledges.

I’m not an artsy Bohemian who is determined to squalor to do what I love. I am always on the look out for ways to make money and interview for positions. In 2021 alone, I made some money working on a political campaign in Georgia, I worked in exchange for room and board doing hurricane relief in Louisiana, I made money through usual side gigs of Amazon and Honey-Baked Ham, I had five PR clients (of which 4 have paid), and I was able to do a little bit of archival work (Covid-19 disabled access for much of the year). I, in fact, wrote 44 articles during a different 12-month period between 2018 and 2019 but I’ve been able to be more selective as of late because of alternative methods of funding. 

The last number is undefined: In 2022, I’m those interested in community journalism or my writings determine how much I can profitably write. Whatever you decide, I appreciate you for reading if you made it this far.

Sincerely,

Orrin Konheim

My list of 2021 articles in full:

2021:

 

1 Falls Church Music Director Mary Jo West wins a Fullbright Scholarship. She’s won a Grammy just for teaching music so she’s the real deal. Article Link               

Falls Church News Press                     Published January 4^th                                                                                                         

2 The state of the souvenir industry in DC with the pandemic

DC Line                                                  Paid/not published                                             

3 The history of Harland Sanders and KFC

American History Magazine               Published/not paid                                             

4 Revival of Nancy Lisi’s bluegrass band

Alexandria Zebra Mag                         Printed/Paid                                                        

5 Review of film Midway

Smithsonian Magazine                        Printed/Paid                                                        

6. Newly Vaccinated Starting to Re-emerge in Society Article Link                                           

FCNP                                                       Printed/Paid                                                        

7. The Polyamory Community fights for rights. Article Link

The DC Line                                           Paid/not published                                             

8 Beating theSecond Semester Slump Article Link       

Wash. Family Mag                                Paid/published                                                    

9. Savannah Voice Fest Tests the Waters Article Link

Savannah Connect                               Paid/Published                                                    

10. Apollo 11- The 20^th Century’s Biggest Quarantine                                                                 

Today I Found Out dot com                Paid/not published

11. Temple Rodef Shalom’s Founding Rabbi Berkowitz Dies Article Link

FCNP                                                       Paid/published                                                    

               

12. Apartment Safety has Limited Lifestyle Benefits Article link

FCNP                                                       Paid/published                                                    

13. Falls Church Teen Trains to Become a Pilot Article Link                                       

FCNP                                                       Paid/published                                                    

14. Savannah Couple Pioneers Life-Saving Wearable Baby Monitor Article Link

Savannah Connect                               Paid/published                                                    

15. Andy Bayer Hangs Up Spikes Before Olympics Article Link

Podium Mag                                          Paid/published                                                    

16. Savannah Voice Festival Debuts New Opera

Savannah Connect                               Paid/published                                                    

17.Stuttering Foundation Celebrates 75^th Anniversary Article Link

Savannah Connect                               Paid/Published                                                    

18. Are the Olympics Marketing the Wrong Running Sports Article Link

RunBlogRun                                          Paid/Published                                                    

19. Spelling Bee Contestants Get Ready to Compete in Washington DC  

Washington Family Magazine            Paid/Not Published                                             

20. Denver Transit and other Systems Attend to Mental Health Article Link

Transit Mobility Blog                            Paid/published                                                    

21. World’s Foremost Olympic Historian Speaks about Tokyo Olympics Article Link

Run Blog Run                                        Paid/Published (with errors)                            

22. Local Security Company Named One of Georgia’s Best Midsize Firms Article Link

Savannah Connect                               Paid/Published                                                    

23. Comic Book Artist Anna Diffyil and SCAD Student’s Work Selected for Exhibition Article Link

Savannah Connect                               Paid/Published                                                    

24. Alexandria’s Metro School of Arts Opens up First Revue Article Link                Article Link                          

Zebra Magazine                                    Paid/Published                                                    

25. Savannah’s African Art Museum to Host Educational Workshops Article Link

Savannah Connect                               Paid/Published                                                    

26. Opening of Reagan’s Airport Feels Like a Tuesday to Most Article Link

Zebra Magazine                                    Paid/Published                                                    

27. One of the Bor Brothers Qualifies for the Olympics Article Link

Podium Magazine                            Published/Almost Ready to be Paid        
28. The West Virginia Transit Association’s Handling of Opioid Crisis                       

Transit Metro Mobility Blog               Paid/Not sure about publication status           

29. Afghan Translator turned Refugee Readjusts to Stability in Northern Virginia

Northern Virginia Mag                   Finalized/Slated for Feb. Publication/Unpaid      

30. Counselor to the Stars for Remote School                    

Washington Family Life                 Greenlit/Not Yet Written/Deadline 1/5               

31. YouTube Piano Playing Star

Zebra Magazine                                                Greenlit/No access as of yet

32. BYU TV Star Tori Pence is Utah Famous

Richmond Style Weekly                                Not greenlit/Access obtained

33. Local YouTube Star Malinda Kathleen Reese Launches New Channel

DC Line                                                 Greenlit/Access not obtained

34. Volunteer article written to raise money for New Orleans

Synagogue newsletter                  Published/Unpaid

UnGreenlit Articles 2021 (asterisk means evergreen as in still has future potential):

1 Interview with Oakton-Born Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey                                    

Oakton/GF Sun Gazette                               Greenlit/Access revoked on account of Mayor’s Busy Schedule

2 Pitch: Oscars in the Age of Asterisk*

Film/Conservative Publications  Rejected/No response                                  Fully Written

3. Jewish Spirituality in Arlington

Arlington Magazine                         Rejected                                                              5 paragraphs

4. Richard Halliburton: World Adventurer Who Swam Panama Canal for 25 Cents*

Atlas Obscura/TodayIFoundOut                Rejected/No response

5. University of Maryland has Three Jewish A Capella Groups: Sustaining a Crowded Art Form*

Washington Jewish Week            No verdict rendered/Leaning against it

6. Coast Guard Officer Seeks to Write Screenplay Highlighting his Branch of Service*

Researching Where to Pitch It   

7. Should Virginia Students Go Out of State to College? Why or Why Not?*

NoVa Magazine/Arlington Mag Rejected             

8. Tweaking the Olympics Sport by Sport

Humor/Running Magazines         Rejected                                              Fully Written

9. Arlington as an Ideal Aging in Place Model*

NoVa Mag/Arl Mag                         Rejected

10. The Invented Controversy of Elon Musk

Amer. Conservative/Wash Post                Rejected                                              Fully Written

11. Essay on the haphazard decision to see my great-uncle before his death*

Not pitched yet                                                Fully Written

12. Reworked #11 on my family heritage in the town of Great Neck, New York*
                                                                Not pitched yet                                                Fully Written

13. The evolution of this Jew’s relationship with Jesus (AKA Christian Evangelicals)*

                                                                Not pitched yet                                                Fully Written

14. Reflections on My First Time Being Accused of Racism*

                                                                Not pitched yet                                                Fully Written

15. Lois and Clark and What Superman Says About Journalism*
American Cons/Wash Post/Spool             Pitching more                    Fully Written

16. Dark Side of Sports*                               

                                                                Pitching more                                    9 Paragraphs

17. Aaron Sorkin Self-Assured*                

                                                                Pitching more                                    Fully Written

18. SNL’s Bloated Cast*

                                                                Rejected                                              5 Paragraphs