While it lasted, Inside was a journalist's
dream. I was hired by Kurt Andersen, Michael Hirschorn
and Michael Cieply as a contributing editor for the
short-lived magazine, working alongside a group of
funny, cynical and blazingly talented writers to
generate magazine pieces while occasionally contributing
a breaking story for the web site. When it all went
kaput, the brief illusion that journalism could be fun
AND pay off died with it.
Oh Harry, You Naughty Boy -- News feature for
Inside.com on the emergence of Harry Potter porn, a
variety of slash fiction that took off just before the
release of Warner Brother's blockbuster. Copyright
attorneys were summoned from summer vacations in
Provence and Aspen to comment on hot boy-on-broomstick
action... priceless. Story subsequently ran in the San
Francisco Chronicle and the South China Post.
Yuen and What Army? -- Cover story on new
media mogul Henry Yuen, who was at the time a business
world demi-god. My story told of a darker side,
outlining predatory legal maneuvers and a loopy
obsession with electronic books. Then there was the
sticky matter of the case of Yuen vs. Yuen, a divorce
that ranks as one of the nastiest I've witnessed... Said
Boston Globe media columnist Michael Prager: "My first
reaction was 'Henry who?' I'd heard of his first
invention, VCR Plus, but of himself I knew nothing,
which writer Christopher Noxon says would have been
Yuen's preference..."
In From the Cool -- Front-of-the-book feature
in premiere issue about famed trendspotters DeeDee
Gordon and Sharon Lee, and a system they developed to
help corporations calculate and generate the ineffable
quality of cool.
Fan Fare -- Feature from the last, unpublished
issue of Inside Magazine about amateur films based on
existing Hollywood properties. I watched a ton of
terrible home movies with light sabers, but also some
surprisingly good knockoffs that suggested the arrival
of a whole new genre.
