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David Michaelis, "Schulz and Peanuts" author: Mr. Media Interview, Part 1
2007-11-21 05:01:00
Peanuts Treasury was the first hardcover book I remember getting as a kid, somewhere around 1968, 1969, I spent hours reading and re-reading it, losing myself in the comic misadventures of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, wishing I could be like Charles Schulz, the strip’s writer and artist. My first dog, acquired around that same time, was not coincidentally a beagle, like Snoopy, whom we named Peppy, and I loved that crazy dog. I was so fond of Peanuts Treasury that it’s one of the few prized possessions from my misspent youth that followed me through college, half a dozen adult relocations, and is now on my daughter’s bookshelf.It’s hard to find anyone who has anything bad to say about “Peanuts� or Schulz. The strip’s creator lived and thrived in the pre-Internet age where the world didn’t demand every detail of a celebrity’s life be preserved and shared. For the most part, we knew only his good works and the enduring cartoon series based on them. In his new book, Schu...
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Bill Boggs, "The Corner Table" host: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 20:21:00
Originally published August 4, 1997Bill Boggs is like the older brother many guys always wanted but never had -- boyishly handsome and witty, a fun guy to hang out with who knows everybody and who everyone likes.When I was a teen-ager in the mid-1970s, Boggs was hosting "Midday Live" on the old WNEW Ch. 5 in New York City. I watched the show religiously during summer vacations and sometimes -- don't tell Mom -- cut classes if he had a really cool guest on. Everybody who was anybody did "Midday Live" when they were in the Big Apple; Boggs was the Regis Philbin of his day. Like Reege, he did his show before a studio audience; Steve Goldin and I once took the bus in from the 'burbs to see the show on a New Year's Eve day, only to find Boggs on vacation and Marvin Hamlisch filling in. But I digress.Boggs is a TV host cut in the old Mike Douglas mode; he's not out to change the world, he's not on a crusade, he's not a stand-up comedian or a rocket scientist. He's just a fellow wit...
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"Cranky Old Dude": Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 19:53:00
Originally published July 28, 1997I hate getting old.Oh, it's not the crow's feet at the edge of the eyes or the bags under them. It's not the sagging of some parts, the inner tube effect of others or even the occasional forgetting of details, dates or names.What I hate about aging is being forced by the media, of all things, to reach opinions that reinforce a creeping conservativism in my view of the world.The latest example of this is Home Box Office. HBO once the gold standard in pay cable channels, it just keeps on sinking lower and lower. Pretty soon we won't call the bottom the "gutter," we'll refer to it as HBO.Have you experienced any of HBO's current late-night summer programming? The grisly, animated violence of "Spawn"? The jaw-dropping atrocities and language of the prison drama "Oz"? The crude, crass and over-the-line sound and video of hookers and their johns in "America Undercover: Hookers at the Point II: Going Out Again"? This isn't another rant about showin...
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Randall Lane, "P.O.V." editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 19:47:00
Originally published July 21, 1997Don't hate Randall Lane because he's arrogant. As editor in chief of P.O.V., a new men's magazine waging war in a brutally competitive marketplace, he makes a little attitude go a long way.Take P.O.V.'s all-out frontal assault on arch-rival Details, a 10-year-old magazine of choice for tattooed, body-piercing slacker punks.P.O.V., itself a rising magazine of choice for career-bent, humorless twentysomethings, sent out postcards with a picture of the Titanic on one side, labeling Details as a sinking ship following the firing of yet another Details editor and a reported switch in editorial direction from all things featherweight to service features with a pro-career bent."They were clearly adrift editorially, and that is one of our fundamental strengths," Lane says. "We have never changed our mission or our focus and to see them all of a sudden do a 180-degree switch and come right to us, struck all of us as a sinking ship. That's where the post...
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Chip Rowe, "The Playboy Advisor" writer: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 19:37:00
Originally published July 14, 1997Chip Rowe is an expert in two fields. The first is sex. Every month he spends his days researching, studying and writing about the most obscure and most obvious elements of physical intimacy for one, two or more consenting adults.Now, if you're an expert at sex, most people might wonder when you have time -- or need -- to develop any other interests. But before Rowe became the Playboy Advisor in 1994, one of his other great obsessions in life was zines.Zines are homemade, not-ready-for-newsstand magazines created for self-expression rather than profit. Rowe himself is the publisher of Chip's Closet Cleaner, a sort of "Your Zine of Zines," periodically collecting the best material in other people's zines. And now he's gone a step further, interviewing zine publishers and compiling their best pop culture and counterculture humor, essays, interviews and cartoons in a new paperback, The Book of Zines: Readings From the Fringe (Owl Books/Henry Holt)....
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Chris Matthews, "Hardball" host: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 19:19:00
Originally published June 30, 1997As a political aide to a pantheon of Democratic stars from the last 25 years, including the late Senator Edmund S. Muskie and former House Speaker Tip O'Neill -- as well as a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter -- Chris Matthews knows power when he sees it.And as Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner, he also knows bullshit when he smells it.Combine these attributes with a hard-charging, uzi-sprung delivery, a nightclub bouncer's physical presence, blonde hair, brown eyes and a zealot's demand for truth, justice and the American way and you must be watching Matthews' cable TV show, "Hardball." Seen nightly on CNBC, Matthews, 51, grabs viewers in his teeth for 30 minutes and doesn't stop shaking until he forces them to take one side or another of the day's top political issues."This is a program about the contest which is implicit in just about every big story," Matthews says, "whether it is the Republicans against the Dem...
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Barbara O'Dair, "US Magazine" editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 19:06:00
Originally published June 23, 1997 My first inkling that something was different about US magazine came as I settled into an airplane seat and reached into my briefcase for something to read. The airport newsstand was pretty thin and I had reluctantly settled for US.On the cover was Sandra Bullock, an actor who doesn't exactly get my pulse racing. But as I settled in for the two-hour flight, I began turning the pages.I'm not a big reader of celebrity gossip magazines. People magazine does nothing for me; the only advantage US had over it until recently was color inside photos. But as I read on, it dawned on me that much had changed at Rolling Stone's little sister magazine.US shocked me with the number of pages it devoted to terrific photographs of its cover subject. And the story was lively and funny, letting Bullock be herself in a way few interviews do. Even more pleasing was the sheer volume of good stuff throughout the magazine. By the time we landed in Tampa, I had read US ...
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Various Alternative Weekly Editors: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-18 18:46:00
Originally published June 9, 1997The first alternative weekly newspaper I ever read was The Aquarian. It was the mid-1970s and I was a teenager growing up in Central New Jersey.Back when alternatives were still called "underground" papers, The Aquarian was the only source of articles about the cool new punk, disco or Springsteen clone bands. It was also my first exposure to the non-conforming sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll cultural scene as it breathed its last hippie breaths from the '60s.Finding the paper meant biking to either Cheap Thrills, an independent record store near Rutgers University, or Weird Harold's, a head shop in the attic of a Milltown convenience store. It was always worth the trip; the colorful language, graphics, photos and free classified ads were mesmerizing. A decade later, when I became editor of short-lived Tampa Bay Weekly, much had changed. Underground papers were now called alternatives, "head shop" were virtually unheard of and convenience stores disp...
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Aaron Warner, "The Adventures of Aaron" cartoonist: Mr. Media Interview Cla
2007-11-18 00:18:00
Originally published in August 1997.Are you as bored by the comic strips as I am? Finding cool new strips in local newspapers is a frustrating pursuit. Change comes more slowly on this page than any other. And when the creators of "Calvin & Hobbes," "The Far Side" and "Bloom County" retired their strips, editors were hard pressed to find replacements.There are some good new ideas out there -- "Citizen Dog," "Buckles," "Ralph" and "Dave" are a few I've been exposed to and enjoyed.And then there's "The Adventures of Aaron ."Cartoonist Aaron Warner 's alter ego is the most imaginative, funniest strip you never heard of. The continuing story of a reality-challenged teen-ager who's finally out of high school but not quite anywhere else, Aaron sees and responds to the world in a way you and I can only daydream about.Girls scare the daylights out of him -- especially those who find him attractive. Instead of using deodorant, he puts auto air fresheners under his arms. His father is p...
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Roger Black, "Reader's Digest" magazine designer: Mr. Media Interview Class
2007-11-17 23:20:00
Originally published June 2, 1997"There is a reason why they don't play Montovani in elevators any more," chuckles world-renowned media designer Roger Black .He's explaining why Reader's Digest hired the man who freshened up Rolling Stone to bring its look and feel forward to the 21st century."You are more likely to hear Talking Heads than the old Muzak of the 1960s," Black says. "The baby boom is now Reader's Digest age, and that is kind of astounding. Does that mean we should have Hunter Thompson and Ralph Steadman in there? Well, maybe we should. Reader's Digest was really intended at a time when American society was much more homogenous and white and so forth, when who was reading it was much clearer. Today, it is very hard for an editor of any big publication to get a clear idea of who their typical reader is."Black is the designer behind substantial facelifts of Rolling Stone , Newsweek, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Ad Age, and Esquire . His San Francisco-based ...
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Soledad O'Brien, "The Site" MSNBC host: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-17 23:16:00
Originally published June 16, 1997 This is gonna burst a lot of geek hearts, but Soledad O'Brien, host of MSNBC's nightly cable TV show "The Site ", is not one of you. And wait, it gets worse: She's married. Happily.O'Brien, the cyber-dream date of a generation of guys living in the basement of the science building, may give the impression she's been surfing the Web for years, but the truth is that before she got the job, it was all Greek Geek to her."I sort of raised that point quite gingerly when I had my interview with NBC," she admits. "I was sort of like, 'I don't know if you read my resume, but I really am not all that familiar with technology.' " She hadn't been online at all, let alone being able to know the difference between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. "On a scale of one to 10, technology-wise," she says, "I was probably a two, maybe a three on a good day.Naturally, the show's producers said, great, that's what we are looking for. (And they wonder ...
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"Can Compuserve Be Saved?": Mr. Media Essay Classic
2007-11-17 23:12:00
Originally published May 19, 1997My first experience with the online world was back in the mid-1980s. A CompuServe disk came in the box with my first Apple computer, a IIc, and as geeky as the company's name was, I couldn't wait to try it out. The brochure promised a world of information, discussion groups and new friendships from the security of my own home.Assembling the computer and turning it on, I put in the CompuServe disk and waited for the magic.Nothing.Can't remember how I expected it to work, really -- over power lines, maybe? This was before everyone and their grandmother knew about modems. I certainly didn't, so it was back to the store for another high-tech, 2400 bps gadget.When I finally connected, I was enraptured. My new computer sent me messages from the distant land of Columbus, Ohio, prompting me for information and assigning me a CompuServe member number -- 76377,306 -- which I proudly bear to this day. Although a 2400 bps modem seems slow in this day of 56.6...
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Julie Lewit-Nirenberg and Nancy Nadler LeWinter, "Mode" editors: Mr. Media
2007-11-17 05:22:00
Originally published May 5, 1997Any woman who ever wore a size 12 or larger dress knows the frustration of seeing a shelf full of women's magazines starring nothing but size 1 models.Oh sure, those mags are about more than fashion -- there's sex, food, fad diets and celebrities, too -- but on principle alone, they give most larger gals a bad case of hives.Enter Julie Lewit-Nirenberg and Nancy Nadler LeWinter , two well-traveled veterans of the women's mags. They may just represent the salvation that fuller figured women are crying for. They call it Mode , "the real-sized woman's ally."Two things you won't find in Mode: miracle diets and quick fitness fixes. Amazon.com WidgetsLike its little sister publications, Mode is also about fashion, sex, food and celebrities. But its models are fleshy, womanly -- a different size of beautiful than usually seen in print. Not fat, not Reubenesque -- normal. And while there is the requisite Revlon cosmetics ad featuring not-size-12-plus Cin...
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Tad Low and Woody Thompson, "Pop-Up Video" producers: Mr. Media Interview C
2007-11-17 05:12:00
Originally published April 21, 1997Just when you think you've seen it all in music videos, along come Tad Low and Woody Thompson , two 30-year-old guys who stick a pin in the genre's bloated ego."I am so bored with watching music videos," Low says, deflating the helium balloon that feeds him.But he and Thompson did something about it, as viewers of VH1's wildly amusing show "Pop-Up Video " knows. The show, which runs every Saturday evening, takes videos you know, love and loathe and adds a few things the artists didn't necessarily want you to know. Like: That's not an Atlanta highway the B-52s are heading down in "Love Shack." (It's in the Catskills.) Those are not real dreadlocks on Adam Duritz' head in the Counting Crows video, "Round Here." (They're hair extensions.) George Michael is colorblind.If you've seen MTV's "Beavis and Butt-head," you already have the idea. But instead of Butt-head saying "These guys suck," the provocateurs of "Pop-Up Video" add information windo...
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David Andelman, "A Shattered Peace" author, Forbes.com executive editor: Mr
2007-11-16 04:17:00
David Andelman and I have been connected via the internet for the last few years. I frequently receive emails from people who remember me from CBS News or The New York Times, who want to reconnect via Facebook or network through LinkedIn. Unfortunately, I never worked for CBS News or The New York Times.And on his end, I suspect David Andelman receives late-night emails intended for me from overdue bill collectors and people who want him to teach them how to become sports agents, based on a story I wrote for Gallery magazine in 1994.We have both, I believe, handled the mistaken identity issue with good humor, eventually referring to each other as ?cousin.? Today, I even introduced David to my daughter as ?Uncle? David.David is a veteran foreign affairs correspondent whose assignments took him to more than fifty countries, as Paris correspondent for CBS News and as the Southeast Asia and Eastern European bureau chief for The New York Times. He also spent time at the New York Daily New...
More About: Peace , Iraq War , Saddam Hussein , Star Trek , Forbes

David Andelman, "A Shattered Peace" author, Forbes.com executive editor: Mr
2007-11-15 18:52:00
(Return to Part 1)BOB ANDELMAN/MR. MEDIA: Could a different result in Versailles have really changed the world?s make-up today for the better?DAVID ANDELMAN: I think it could have. I think definitely. There?s no question. I think it?s very unlikely that if Saddam would?ve come to power in Iraq, if things had been done differently then, I think that?MR. MEDIA: No Hitler ?D. ANDELMAN: Oh no. I think if they hadn?t tried to destroy Germany, Hitler might never have come to power. I think that?s entirely possible. There were people like John Maynard Keynes, a very young economist in those days. He had a solution that would?ve worked in terms of reparations, in terms of the kind of payments that Germany was going to have to make and so on. He wrote a book called The Economic Consequences of the Peace after he walked out in disgust from the deliberations in Paris in 1919. If his concepts and if the concepts of others like him who wanted to see a strong but free Germany in the middle of Euro...
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David Lauren, "Swing" editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-11 19:17:00
Originally published May 26, 1997If you know someone in their 20s who needs a boost in self-confidence or direction, try sending them a copy of David Lauren's Swing magazine.The 25-year-old publisher is on a mission to propel his generation to greatness."When I started the magazine," he says, "there was no magazine that spoke intelligently to people in their 20s. I could not find anything that spoke to me, that told me how to grow up, told me the stories of young entrepreneurs who were successful and how I could be successful. I didn't want to read about an 80-year-old business tycoon whose life I could never emulate. I wanted to know about somebody my age, who was 25 years old, who was already a millionaire, who had done it on their own. I wanted to know about politics but not through Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton. I wanted to know about politics through somebody who was 27 years old, who was responsible for writing a speech or a bill that got passed through Congress." Lauren wan...
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Oscar Isaac, "PU-239" actor: The Mr. Media Interview, Part 1
2007-11-08 04:13:00
Oscar Isaac , my guest today, co-stars with Paddy Considine in a riveting new HBO film, PU-239.Based upon a short story by Ken Kalfus, PU-239 tells the story of a devoted father and husband -- Paddy Considine -- in post- Soviet Russia who labors in a deteriorating nuclear plant. After being exposed to a deadly dose of radiation while trying to avert a plant disaster, he is made a scapegoat and suspended without pay.With just days to live and desperate to provide for his wife and young son, he impulsively steals a small amount of PU-239 -- weapons grade plutonium -- and heads to Moscow to attempt a quick sale.In Moscow, Considine?s character gets caught up with an inept, wannabe gangster -- played by Isaac -- to help him sell the dangerous goods on the black market.© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.DOWNLOAD THE MP3; LISTEN HERE.ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST ON iTUNES.Subscribe to Mr. Media 's RSS Feed. Amazon.com WidgetsWatch the latest videos on YouTube.com
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George Gray, "What's With That House?" HGTV host: Mr. Media Interview, Part
2007-11-08 03:40:00
George Gray is having way too much fun on his HGTV show, ?What ?s With That House ??The show, now in its second season, is kind of a goof on the proliferation of shelter TV shows, where viewers are taken into fabulous homes and mansions and led around by announcers in hushed, respectful tones. There?s no respect in Gray?s tone -- and rightfully so.If you haven?t seen the show, I absolutely insist you pause this interview and set your DVR, Tivo, or VCR to record the show. It?s on HGTV every Wednesday at 11:30 PM Eastern or Pacific. You won?t be sorry. (You could also sample it by watching this clip...)Back now? Okay.If Gray seems familiar, it means you probably saw him in ESPN?s sports fantasy reality series ?I?d Do Anything? or the syndicated version of ?The Weakest Link.?DOWNLOAD THE MP3; LISTEN HERE.ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST ON iTUNES.Subscribe to Mr. Media 's RSS Feed.ANDELMAN: George, welcome to Mr. Media.GRAY: I am so excited to be here. Actually, you were talking fitness. I?ve...
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George Gray, "What's With That House?" HGTV host: The Mr. Media Interview,
2007-11-08 03:05:00
(Return to Part 1)BOB ANDELMAN: You say that HGTV is kind of conservative. Of course, they do air the show 11:30 at night. And the humor on the show would fit in primetime on any network, but yeah, I can see that it might be a little offbeat for them.GEORGE GRAY: Let?s just say, yeah, we caused a bit of a scare when we first joined ranks with them, but they knew who I was, and they were happy to have me aboard. They said they wanted to try something a little crazier, a little more fun, not so much khaki. HGTV has been really, really great to me. There?s a woman named Beth Burke? At every network, there?s always kind of some network suit goon that oversees the show, and she?s the network goon. And she?s just been our biggest savior. She likes for us to get away with all sorts of stuff. We?ll try to slip in these jokes in editing, and she will roll her eyes and then go try to talk to the powers-that-be. But, yes, they like to run me a little more late-night cause I think they see me a...
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Bob Andelman, "Baby Media" father: Mr. Media Essay Classic
2007-11-06 01:25:00
Originally published April 28, 1997Funny how much a baby changes your life.Forget about changing diapers and crying, spitting up formula on your favorite clothes or demanding your attention when it's least convenient. That's all quite secondary to the joy seven-month-old Baby Media brings to our lives.No, what surprises me are the many ways little Rachel changes the way I think about the media.First there were the little things, like no longer leaving the latest Playboy on the coffee table or in the "library." Not that Rachel will see it at her age; we're more concerned about not leaving it around for her 12-year-old baby-sitter to discover.More important, I've been thinking about the overall images of women my daughter will get from the media. On TV, there's Roseanne, cracking wise at her own family's expense. Fran Drescher -- "The Nanny" -- who puts great import on material possessions and physical appearance. And Ellen DeGeneres makes sophisticated double-entendres about le...
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Bruno Maddox, "Spy Magazine" editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-05 04:29:00
Originally published April 14, 1997In its youth, Spy was the kind of magazine that smacked you on the nose if you looked at it the wrong way. And those were the good months: it was so full of smarmy, holier-than-thou attitude and precious New York wit that you wanted each issue to go on forever.But the party ended a few years ago with the magazine's founders and co-conspirators off to greener pastures (Graydon Carter, for one, is now editor of Vanity Fair) and the magazine went into a financial tailspin. It ceased publishing briefly, eventually brought back to life by the publisher of Psychology Today, believe it or not.Stepping into the sensible yet twisted shoes of the original editorial pranksters has proved painfully awkward for a series of editors unable to match the legacy they inherited. But a job's a job and for anyone who believes they know funny when it squirts them in the face, there's no more challenging testing ground than the Spy hot seat.Bruno Maddox is, by his cou...
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Brian Hecht, "Electronic Newsstand" CEO: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-05 04:11:00
Originally published April 7, 1997He's 26 years old. But a quick read of his bio makes it seem as though Brian Hecht worked three jobs simultaneously to get where he is today."Either that or it looks like I can't hold a job," he jokes.Hecht wears two heavy, staple-studded crowns these days, as president and CEO of The Electronic Newsstand as well as online editor of The New Republic magazine."One of the cool things about working in new media is that someone like me gets a chance to try their hand at things that I would never get a chance to do in traditional media," he says. "Two years ago, I was getting coffee for Barbara Walters at ABC News."And how does she like her coffee, anyway?"I think I'm contractually prohibited from sharing that," Hecht says.Hecht -- whose resume also includes participation in the launches of ABC's "Turning Point" news magazine and the Generation X print magazine, Swing -- is a wonderful example of a phenomenon Mr. Media recently discussed with an ele...
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George Myers Jr., "George Jr." editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-05 03:14:00
Originally published August 12, 1996 When is your name not your name? Apparently when you use it to poke fun at George magazine. For several months, Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch books editor George Myers Jr. has produced an online magazine called "George Jr.," which spoofs the work of the world's most famous junior, John Kennedy Jr. A sampling of recent stories in Kennedy's George: "Seeking the Senate on $5 a Day"; "The Newt Frontier"; and "Babe in the Woods." And from Myers' George Jr.: "We the Peephole"; "American Geisha in Tokyo"; and "National Public Rodeo." Amazon.com Widgets Myers, 43, churned out his Web site in relative obscurity until July 19 when Kennedy's lawyers sent Myers a cease and desist order. "They're concerned about me making a lot of money on the site," says Myers, laughing. "They don't know it's a home page I do at home in my underwear." Not exactly the glamourous image Kennedy's mag sells, that's for sure. At first, Myers treated the legal assa...
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Chris Gore, "Film Threat" editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-11-05 02:57:00
Originally published in 1996No more "Casting Couch" tales from would-be starlets.No more midnight prank calls to Chevy Chase about non-existent films. And instead of crashing film festivals, Chris Gore will be sponsoring them. These are just some of the changes readers will note when Film Threat magazine returns to newsstands in September.What Spy magazine was to the New York establishment in the 1980s, Film Threat was to the Hollywood film community. Gore, then a film student, started the irreverent magazine on a Xerox copier in Detroit in 1985. It fast developed a loyal, if sometimes illiterate, following. Letters to the editor ? "hate mail," Gore called them ? were published as they arrived, handwritten, packed with misspellings and bad attitude. Amazon.com WidgetsHe went Hollywood in 1989 and sold the magazine two years later to Larry Flynt's LFP Publications. Over the years, Gore developed several new magazines for Flynt, the publisher of Hustler, including Film Threat Video...
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Links for 2007-11-01 [Digg]
2007-11-02 06:00:00
Cheryl Hines, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor: Mr. Media Interview Cheryl Hines plays "Cheryl David," Larry David's wife, on the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm." In this audio interview (and transcription), she talks about the effect of his divorce on the show and her role, as well as her favorite improv moments and what it was like to play opposite Robin Williams in "RV."
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Links for 2007-11-01 [Digg]
2007-11-02 06:00:00
Cheryl Hines, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor: Mr. Media Interview Cheryl Hines plays "Cheryl David," Larry David's wife, on the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm." In this audio interview (and transcription), she talks about the effect of his divorce on the show and her role, as well as her favorite improv moments and what it was like to play opposite Robin Williams in "RV."
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Mark Brown, "Using Netscape 3" author: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-10-31 20:15:00
Originally published October 28, 1996If Mark Brown 's new book weighed any more, the publisher might consider charging by the pound. At 850-plus pages, Using Netscape 3 (Que) is easily the heaviest Internet-related book/CD-ROM combination that has yet crossed Mr. Media 's desk. "We try to be pretty comprehensive," Brown says, chuckling. Not everybody needs a book of this sort, as even the author acknowledges. Netscape is fairly intuitive; most anyone with prior Macintosh or Windows point-and-click experience can probably learn the browser's basic operations pretty quickly. "It's not too tough for the average Joe to download and run Netscape," Brown says. "But there is no documentation and there are lots of subtleties. We usually find a few tricks and tips that they neglect to mention. This is amanual for Netscape." One way his book can help, he says, is in using Netscape's email software. "It is probably not the best out there. But if you want to use it, there are some good reas...
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Heather Findlay, "Girlfriends" editor: Mr. Media Interview Classic
2007-10-31 19:57:00
Originally published December 2, 1996 Just because Girlfriends is a magazine for lesbians, don?t assume everyone who works there is on their team.?We have bisexuals in the office,? notes editor-in-chief Heather Findlay rather brightly. ?And we employed a straight over the summer! It?s not a job requirement to be a lesbian towork at Girlfriends.?Talk about an equal opportunity employer ? even the publisher is straight! Of course, she?s Findlay?s mother, Erin.?At least I think she would ID as straight,? Findlay says with a laugh.As one might imagine, this is not the typical parent/child work relationship. When Findlay and several co-workers left the infamous lesbian erotic magazine On Our Backs to launchGirlfriends two years ago, her mom became one of its major investors and accepted the title of publisher. It?s a long way from the day, 10 years ago, when 23-year-old Heather cameout to her family.?My mother was great, hilarious, actually,? Findlay says. ?When I told her, she went thro...
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Karolyn Grimes, "It's A Wonderful Life" actress: Mr. Media Interview Classi
2007-10-31 19:33:00
Originally published December 9, 1996What would your life be like if something you did at age 6 haunted you every Christmas for the next 50 years?For Karolyn Grimes, it has been a wonderful life. So wonderful, in fact, she turned it into a cottage industry. The child star who played "Zuzu Bailey" in the classic 1946 holiday film, It's a Wonderful Life , appeared in 18 movies but none of the others inspired conventions, greeting cards, a collector's plate and trivia contests. Now she's cashing in with Zuzu Bailey's It's A Wonderful Life Cookbook (Birch Lane Press), featuring "recipes and anecdotes inspired by America's favorite movie." Stretching the concept a little thin? Maybe you need another viewing to remember how these recipes fit in:? "Clarence Oddbody's Heavenly Hot Mulled Wine" ? The drink Clarence the angel ordered at Nick's Place.? "South Pacific Honeymoon Chicken" ? It makes you think of that night, Grimes says.? "Angel Second Class Pink Lemon Pie" ? Light and fluf...
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