In various lives I've been a newspaper crime reporter, a freelance writer for magazines ranging from GQ and the Los Angeles Times Magazine to Mother Jones, a nonfiction author for HarperCollins, and a web content creator and blogger for brand-name media sites such as the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel and SecondAct.com. But that doesn't quite convey the essence of what I've done and what I know how to do.
Q: Let's try this again. What is it that you do?
Basically, I make my living by being interested in strange stuff--the offbeat and the misunderstood and the frequently unlikely, surprising explanations for what happens around us. I like to get deep into things. I mean really deep. I'm an autodidact and a compulsive researcher, a curator of obscure details and contractions, I love complexity and ambiguity and layers of meaning. I'm the sort of person who came out the theater after seeing David Lynch's movie Mulholland Drive, thinking that the plot made perfect sense.
I have a real Love Jones for digressions and cryptic symbols and backstories. I couldn't agree more with the script of Sherlock Holmes, in which the fictional detective played by Robert Downey, Jr. assures Watson's fiance that "in fact, the little details are by far, the most important." So go ahead and throw a drink in my face.
Q: What are some of the subjects you've written about in your career?
I started out freelancing because I wanted to be an investigative reporter / literary journalist, writing lengthy, serendipitious explorations of strange and troubling subjects. Thus, over the years, I dug into the enigmatic disappearance of a Chigago candy heiress, and the hardscrabble lothario and the chauffeur alternatively suspected of doing her in. I poked around in the close-lipped world of electronic countersurveillance experts, hung out with members of the homophobic GOP's gay underground, and wrangled an interview with a secretive grain billionaire who was the confidant of dictators and presidents. I sniffed out dotcom penny-stock scam artists, and pieced together the strange last days of Bohemian sci-fi seer Philip K.Dick. I explored a woman's peculiar quest to convince the world that her long-dead father was the infamous Black Dahlia killer. I also researched and co-wrote, with my old friend Marty Smith, two books on American popular culture, Poplorica and Oops. I've also gotten heavily into the quick-hit immediacy of blogging and web journalism, which is most of what I do today.
Q: Which was weirder, interviewing the chief swami of the Hare Krishna cult or the retired stewardess who once dated Lee Harvey Oswald?
It was kind of a toss-up, really.
Q: Have you ever won any awards for your work?
Oh, like I need the validation? Just bite my shiny metal ass, as Bender from Futurama says. BTW, hat's my favorite TV show, along with Breaking Bad. But if you must know, yes. I got second place in the "best writing" category of the California Newspaper Publishers Association awards in 1987, and was runner-up in the "writer of the year" category of the City and Regional Magazine Association awards in 1997. In 2004, one of my articles for the Los Angeles Times Magazine was selected on the list of best articles of the year by Rockcritics.com, whatever that is. I also made the all-star team in the McKeesport area parochial school league in 1971. I had a really good left-handed sky hook in those days.
