Famous People I've Interviewed Update

I've always preached that one of the keys to writing success is to obsessively compare yourself to Kenny Herzog and think about your shortcomings in comparison to his. Kenny Herzog is a guy who's been published everywhere and occasionally talks to me on twitter. He has a list of famous people he's interviewed, so let me give you my list which is much shorter than his is. I'm also including people who might not fall under the definition of famous but they're all "famous" to me.

Category One: Famous People I've Interviewed

1. Jamie Escalante-The inspiration behind Stand and Deliver for the JMU Breeze

2. Kris Humphries AKA Mr. Kim Khardashian. I was attending a summer session at the University of Minnesota when I heard from this guy I was hitching a ride to class that he had been invited to some party Kris Humphries was throwing with friends and family. Without any prior experience writing for the Minnesota school newspaper or so much as a conversation with the editors (it was 6 pm at the time), I immediately bolted to that restaraunt after class and snagged Mr. Humphries up for an interview approximately a half hour after he was selected Number 14 in the NBA draft. One of the big highlights of my career. I also was incredibly lucky that he became even more famous afterwards. More on the story is here

4. Connaitre Miller-Director of Afro-Blue, a group that rocked it out on the reality TV show The Sing Off, for the a capella blog. 

5. Oren Brimer-Filmmaker for Front Page Films, Field director for the Daily Show-I was bored one day and started browsing College Humor's web pages and wanted to know who the heck all these people were that were making these comedy videos that were flooding the internet. I spent a good 45 minutes talking with Oren on the phone as an exercise in quenching my thirst for curiosity about internet filmmakers. Fortunately it wasn't a complete waste of Oren's time, because I did have some luck finding a newspaper to publish it pretty soon thereafter. Oren has since become a producer for the Pete Holmes show. 

7. Jazz Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis-It was a brief interview for the NBC DC Scene blog (or "Blahg"). I interviewed him at the same time as one other reporter who had all these pointed political questions to ask him, so that was kind of squeamish.  I can't remember the degree of publication at this point but there was at least a preview of it on the DC Scene Blahg

8. Ari Lewis of The Maccabeats-The Maccabeats are the biggest thing to rock the Jewish world since Matisyahu and the guy from the Beastie Boys who just died. They are an Orthodox Jewish a capella group that's been invited to the White House and the Parliament to sing. I spent a lot of time in a close-knit Orthodox Jewish commuity in Richmond where one the Maccabeats was raised. I knew his parents and siblings and seeking to write an article about the Maccabeats, I decided to go with Ari Lewis.

9. Frank Calliendo-Formerly of Mad TV and The Frank Show on TBS-This was a big deal for me at the time. I 
set up the interview through his agent and first spoke to his brother on the phone. I happen to know 
something interesting that was never printed because he said "off the record" so I'll have to keep that secret

10. Pullitzer Prize winning writer Dave Barry-He's here in Washington every year for a treasure hunt I participate in. I've interviewed him twice. The first interview was hastily dumped on NBC's blog 4 months after I interviewed him and the interview got aggregated by Washington City Paper in a most amusing way. The second time, he was used as a secondary source on an article for Connection newspapers on the scavenger hunt's winning team. I also bumped into him at an airport and said "Hey, you're Dave Barry, I've interviewed you twice" and he still didn't recognize me 

11. American record holder and 1976 Olympic participant Matt Centrowicz Sr. and World Championships bronze medalist Matt Centrowicz Jr. (and 4th place finisher in the 2012 Olympics)-Centrowicz Junior would have been an Olympics bronze medalist if the Olympics were held in '11 instead of '12. A great article on the father-son tandem while I was on my way out the door of the Connection Newspapers, but hesitated because I didn't think it would become localized enough. I later found a place for the article at Arlingtoncounty.com. The article is currently published at Pacers New Balance

12. Seseame Street's Abby Cadaby and Gordon (Roscoe Orman) for AOL Patch in Fort Meyer-Abby Cadaby is a puppet, by the way. And she's really cute. 

13. Greg Garcia, creator of My Name is Earl and Raising Hope-I'm reediting this list because I just landed an interview with Greg Garcia tomorrow for Northern Virginia Magazine. He comes from my hometown so there was a lot of impetus among the newspapers in the area I write for to get a Greg Garcia interview.
[Update: Greg Garcia was a really cool guy. I even met him at the Memorial Day Parade (it's also thanks to Garcia, that I know there's a such thing as a memorial day parade) for a photo shoot and I needed to use a phone on the fly so I could locate him in the parade. My phone went dead, so a waitress at a nearby bar (named Shani) allowed me to use the map feature on her phone and when I told her it was to locate Greg Garcia, she was really excited so I asked Greg to autograph something for her. He also told me how his show "My Name is Earl" would have ended. I'm one of the few people on the planet who knows that]

14. Sam Reich, director-in-chief of CollegeHumor and Elaine Carroll, actress-A while ago, I interviewed Oren Brimer in an effort to get to the white whale that was College Humor. I once discovered that one of his actresses and his wife was a Richmond native so I randomly e-mailed her and was put in touch relatively quickly with CollegeHumor's publicist who was superpsyched to get Elaine in her hometown newspaper. I honestly didn't think an actress like that would care but they pushed pretty hard for me to get published and I got to talk to both Reich and Carroll. Reich, the actor, I was more familiar with, was a humongous amount of fun to talk to, and he even listened to my crazy screenplay idea. I asked him how come so many different actors appear in his videos. Is his circle of friends that wide? and he said "I have a lot of sleepovers." I published the Elaine Carroll interview in the Times Dispatch of Richmond but I'm still looking for a home for the Sam Reich interview. Any takers?

15. World-Class miler David Torrence-This interview is currently in process. He's a friend of a friend and I chatted with him on Facebook a couple times. He's definitely an interesting guy and finished 5th or 6th in the last 3 World Championship/Olympic trials. He's also a national record holder in the 1000 meter run. 

16. Congressman Jim Moran-Got some quotes from him for Arlington Connection when Senator Webb spoke at an Arlington Chamber of Commerce lunch and got a picture with him. I have seen him multiple times. 

17. Christine O'Donnell's campaign manager-Got a secondary source from him at a Newt Gingrich rally for AOL Patch last December. I think I might have also interviewed Gingrich's campaign manager or his Virginia campaign manager. I sat at a bar with him and talked to him about what it was like to have her parodied on SNL and such too.

18. Jamey Turner, world-renowned glass harp-This person was on the Tonight Show four times and plays the saw as well as the glass harp. I can't take credit for the initial story, however. At a newsroom meeting at the Connection, one of the interns suggested writing a story on a guy at the end of King Street who played a glass harp. We didn't know much about him and we walked all the way down King Street (our office was on the other end of Old Town) and the two interns decided to break for either lunch or another story, so I asked if they still wanted to explore the story about this guy and they shrugged it off. I got a fantastic story out of it 

19. Patrick Burn, location scout for films and TV shows such as House of Cards, JFK, Nixon, the Firm, J. Edgar, Bourne Identity, and National Treasure-I found Burn in a circuitous way. I was on a media list for DC and they were shooting a film that I was thinking of attending but it was last minute, so they told me to call the location manager about where they were filming that day. When I started talking to Burn, I realized he was worthy of a story. 

Famous people I've interviewed that are currently looking for an outlet:
20. David Wallechinsky, world's foremost Olympic historian-In my Olympics articles, I've always referenced this guy's books and everyone else references his work. I tracked him down and he agreed to an interview. We had a highly fascinating chat and a former editor advised me that this was a national story. I went everywhere with it: The LA Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and no one bit in time. A couple people said they were interested but the news cycle was no longer timely. I started several weeks early. It was a shame, but next Olympic cycle, this guy's in.
21. Ben Relles, founder of Barely Political-When I was writing for Reel SEO (an e-magazine that writes about YouTube trends, I e-mailed their site seeking some clarification and then wound up speaking to Ben himself. I then scored an interview. Relles was the person who created the Obama girl character from the 2008 presidential election and has one of the most viewed comedy channels on YouTube including the Key of Awesome. He's currently the head of YouTube's Next Lab. The initial publication I interviewed the person for changed their mind about the demographic.

Famous people I've sort of interviewed
22. Nick Clooney-George Clooney's dad but more than that, he's a television game show host, broadcast journalist, and film historian. We had a lengthy 70-minute conversation but there's little reason to brag here because the article did not get published through my own fault. 

23. Olympic gold medalist and world record holder (as of last week: congratulations Aries!) in the 110 meter Hurdles Aries Merritt. I asked him two questions on a media teleconference call that I never used for a blog but possibly other people used who were in on the call.

24. Chris Gethard-A fascinating Kaufmenesque comedian who I tracked down on twitter the morning a big piece was written about him on Cracked.com and talked to him for a good 45 minutes. I planned to write the results of the interview on the blog if he'd tweet it out, but I lost the file upon which the interview took place and this is my first time admitting it out loud. Yes, I lost the file. Chris is getting bigger now and gets a lot of coverage on Splitsider over his new book, so this would have been good. Sorry Chris.  I interviewed him around the time I made the first version of the list, and I asked him how he compared himself to the other famous people I interviewed and he was very humble and said at the very bottom, I think he even put himself below country board members but I hope he seems himself higher now. 

25. Chris Pratt, Parks and Recreation-I covered him when he shot here and took pictures. I asked him approximately 1 and 1/2 questions, none of which went into the article, but the pics and the story was the most important part and I got a picture in.

26. American mile record holder Alan Webb-Webb is a semi-famous person I sort of know through other people (he's a good friend of a good friend of mine) and always wanted to interview him. I used him as a tertiary source on a track meet he attended but his quote got cut from the final article. Wonder if that still counts. I later asked to interview him in 2007 when he was ranked #1. He said "sure" to an email interview but I sent him the questions too close to the world championships and he lost the championships, so he was probably not in the mood to participate

People who've rejected me for an interview (no hard feelings):
Tennis player Johnny Isner (nice guy, though. I caught him on his way out), Jake Hurwitz of College Humor (also a great guy. Just had a busy schedule), Who's Line is it Anyway's Greg Proops (a colleague of mine at DC Scene interviewed him first), Author Joel Garreau (as far as I know), the prince of Bhutan (this was at the D.C. folk life festival and I garnered interest from a local paper. I was a number of people who requested an interview with him and got turned down because he doesn't do interviews. For some inexplicable reason, NPR got to interview him, which made the whole incident kind of wierd), SNL cast member Jay Pharoah

CollegeHumor's Coffee Town Underwhelms

Coffee Town is kind of a dud and somewhat of a baffling move for the CollegeHumor team for their first movie. CH's comedy is ordinarily a go-for-broke approach which makes sense since they don't have network heads to appease. Theoretically, CollegeHumor "produced" the film while Arrested Development staff director Brad Copeland wrote and directed it so you would think that CH would have let him run with his idea or why bother attaching your name to the film?

I'm only speculating but Coffee Town felt safe. It feels as unambitious as a network sitcom's off-episode. The concept itself -- a man who telecommutes from a coffee shop deciding to save his precious workspace through robbery -- is so low-stakes, it's almost charming.
 
But a low stakes film like Coffee Town needs to be about something -- off the top of my head, maybe how our present-day societal dilemna of determining how to reconstruct value in place when we can professionally thrive in placenessness* -- or it's just a paper-thin plot about a guy sitting at a coffee shop. The film doesn't succeed on this level as any attempts to infuse this sitcomy plot with meaning feels corny and forced. When Dennis Reynolds (or whatever the guy's name is) is explaining to his love interest that he likes to go to the coffee shop to be part of the world, there's a sense of the films initial intentions to being diluted. That leaves a film overly reliant on a plot that's paper-thin. They're supposed to be robbing a coffee shop but this isn't Ocean's 11 where much of the screen time is centered on an elaborate heist.


Glenn Howerton proves he's got enough of a leading man quality to transition into film as a comedic straight man a la Jason Bateman or Jason Sudeikis. The problem is he's not helped out by his supporting cast.


Ben Schwartz is very talented in sketch comedy and in recurring guest roles (Parks and Recreation comes to mind) but he starts to wear thin playing the same character for 90 minutes (in case you think I discriminate, I have the same complaint about House of Lies). His character traits walk a thin line between being a well-developed comedic character and being a "Who's Line is it Anyway" player picking party quirks out of a bag. Steve Little is equally forgettable as friend #2 and the leading lady (Adrianne Palicki) has no chemistry with Howerton. Her conversations with Howerton's character and her general appearance/demeanor (for one, she's dressed like a slob who just got out of bed) seem so mundane, it's hard to believe that he could possibly get that worked up about her, let alone believe that two different guys would want to put that much effort in pursuing her.  There are a number of actresses (including Aubrey Plaza who got her start in internet videos) who have appeared in CollegeHumor's video shorts which have magnetic and charismatic personas that would have been better choices for the lead.

Josh Groban (a wonderfully odd choice) isn't bad in his role but the problem is that by not being that bad of a guy, he inadvertently makes the good guys less likable. He's slightly disgruntled at a lack of tips and has dreams of playing in a rock band, but the Little-Schwartz-Howerton gang treats him as an arch villain and gets a little abusive of him. Insulting his band while going to his show is a little low. In fact, for someone who "likes being part of the world" Howerton's character doesn't seem to really appreciate the camaraderie of his follow coffee shop goers and mostly wants to avoid them.

Then again, the film is wonderfully relatable in this sense: Sometimes coffee shop barristas or restaurant managers who insist you constantly pay are annoying as Hell. And the film has its moments (especially on the comedic front: some of the jokes hit) or even a worthwhile movie to watch in the right circumstances. This isn't a definitive thumbs down. It just felt underwhelming in relation to its potential.


I should also add that I personally have gotten to know CollegeHumor in the last calendar year through the PR department and it's truly been wonderful being let in.

For that matter, I do feel conflicted because I'm now raining on the parade of my new friends with this negative review. I should add that a movie made by CollegeHumor is a big step for them but not representative of their comedic output. Its one of some 2,433 creative endeavours they've undertaken so if it's not one of their best works, it matters slightly less. It's pretty amazing that a group of twenty-somethings working on the top story of a sky scraper in New York could come up with that many videos in the first place.





*I was a geography major. I can spit out place construct terminology until the cows come home
 

Ten Best Websites of 2010

Here's a blast from the past article I wrote for Helium back in the day in a year-end review of 2010

1. Twitter-Sure, Mark Zuckerberg is the man of the year for Time Magazine but Facebook has largely been the same over the past few years. To the unfamiliar, twitter seems like a trimmed-down version of facebook with just status messages. However, twitter is in some ways a greater tool for the user to connect with other people. Facebook’s interactions are largely limited to people you know in real life. An exception is the newly added fan feature which allows you to hear news from famous people. Twitter, on the other hand, is far more efficient on this count: Information is streamlined better and it allows you to be a fan of anyone. What’s more, it allows other people to be a fan of you. Twitter is the place for important figures and celebrities to connect with people and for people to connect with each other. It’s also a terrific tool for gaining and receiving real-time.

The rest of the top ten in no particular order:

2. Tumbler.com-It could potentially be characterized as a forward evolution from Blogger.com and WordPress.com. It fuses the advantages and rewards of blogging with social media. People can do the equivalent of retweeting content and blogs that they like. As an added benefit, tumbler’s system provides a solution to intellectual property issues that arise when one blog wants to quote the content of another, since reposting someone else’s blog directs the traffic to the original source in a way that is entirely beneficial.

3. Foursquare-Foursquare has been a most welcome remedy to one of the main problems of the internet. The internet has constrained us all indoors and taken away the importance of place to some degree. Foursquare has once again reminded us of the benefits of leaving the house and circulating to different spaces to our own personal health, the economy, and society in general. With foursquare, visits to mundane places like the pet store or Starbuck’s now have value in and of themselves because Foursquare has turned circulation and movement into competition. 

4. Collegehumor.com’s Video Section-The website is devoted to content that’s humorous and skewed towards college students. Some parts of their site are stronger than others. The humor writing isn’t as strong as other brands (cracked.com, theonion.com, etc.) and it can be unrelatable if you’re not currently undergoing college yourself (recurring topics for articles include hook-ups, distance boyfriends, video games, RA’s, dorm life, and beer). The original video department, however is at the forefront of internet comedy. This group of twenty-somethings with very few TV or film credits on imdb.com (except the short-lived College Humor show that MTV pullled after six episodes) produces comic videos and sketches that are more prolific and often more inventive than Saturday Night Live. The folks at college humor have been marketed very well, are user-friendly and have created a distinct brand of several different series: There’s a web series satirical of office politics called Hardly Working and a very popular odd couple series called “Jake and Amir,” in addition to parodies of the internet (look up “Internet Commenter Funeral” “Web Site Story” or “Professor Wikipedia” on youtube).

5. The AV Club.com-The release of at least three popular books this year, “AV Club’s Inventory” “My Year of Flops” and “The Big Rewind,” two of  which are based on features from this website, solidifies the AV Club as one of the best sources for informative and witty writing about movies, tv, books and pop culture in general. The AV Club began some 20 years ago as a companion piece to the print edition of the onion and it has taken a brand of its own, particularly online. One of my favorite features is “Random Roles” where an actor is asked to riff on a random selection of items in his filmography. Since actors are usually on the press circuit to plus their current projects, it can be a very interesting look. The website reviews TV shows episode-by-episode within hours of the show’s release and sparks lively discussions. The site averages 75,000 comments per year.

6. Daily Beast-An online newspaper of sorts that aggregates some of the best writers in print and on the internet.  Notable political names such as Condolezza Rice, Tony Blair and Meghan McCain have also written for the site. The models created by the Daily Beast and Huffington Post have been copied many times over by other content-based sites on the internet (Both aol.com’s fanhouse and aol.com’s TV squad use this model) and has even influenced newspapers in their online presence. The website pays top quality writers and because the writing is consistently good and informative, it pays to visit the website frequently when looking for content. The site merged with Newsweek Magazine this past year

7. Deadspin-Sports reporting has long been a stale institution. Quotes from athletes are usually cliché and uninformative and beat writers are usually stuck with stale conventions. Deadspin has been very successful at unearthing the darker and edgier stuff in the world of sports. They are often the first to break and cover scandals and devote time to negative publicity about athletes stories that are often too small and insignificant for larger papers to cover (i.e. a Chicago Bull being rude to some waiters in a restaurant).  They had a contest recently in which they wanted whatever evidence they could get that NCAA football and basketball players were highly unintelligent and wasting dollars of tuition money.

8. Linkedin.com-If jobs are all about networking, than linkedin.com is the place to go for that. It allows you to post your resume and make connections with people you’ve worked with. A few employers use the linkedin page to aide with the job application process and I hope to see this trend consider substantially in the future.

9. Flowingdata.com-According to the website’s own description: “FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better – mainly through data visualization.” In other words, the web site is a display of how information can be presented creatively. It rarely disappoints at being uninteresting and spans a wide variety of tidbits on geography, consumer spending, internet trends and more.

10. Walkjogrun.net-Is it me or has recreational running exploded among adults as of recently? I think it’s because our jobs are more automated and, by and large, we are getting a lot less exercise at work. Running stores and running magazines have become very profitable and so has this site which calculates running routes and connects you to other runners who are running along that same route. Another excellent site about the running community (we can call this 10b) is www.flotrack.com which has interviews and videos of world-class races.