It's time to usher in some new sources for cool media.
You're on notice, Viacom. I mean Parmount. I mean Westinghouse.
Beginning in 2003, I went into Los Angeles and New York looking for internships. It was rough treading.
Firstly, most internships were awarded to grad students or undergrads. My college phase was over by then. I was broke(n) financially, and felt splat creatively, a humpty-dumpty falling off his pedestal. Even WizKid management turned me down.
(Lesson for all you kids out there: don't get advice on education from uneducated people, and if you have "equivalent experience" no need to get a degree, especially if that degree isn't really related to your "equivalent experience")
Secondly, I had absolutely no family/relatives/bffs in either locale. Kinda makes sense since I'm the first to be born in America, let alone to have a career in Entertainment & Media & the Liberal Arts. Even when I first moved out of my dad's in Dupage County in January 1999, three weeks after turning 21, the lone help I got was from freelance journalist and professor Rob Kemp. So thanks, Rob, you were right all along: I should never stop doing what I am doing; never stop breathing.
With no homebase a lot of time was spent in planes, trains, and automobiles. Driving a rental car -- the new Mazda3 when I could sweet-talk the agent -- I trekked up the Jersey Turnpike to swoop into Manhattan.
Somewhat intimidated by the daunting task of going about it by myself, I u-turned and exited off Exit 5 and landed in a small, gritty ethnic suburb off Exit 5 named Harrison, where there was a tiny convenient express train into the city. I learned later this was the hometown of two of my favorite cultural icons growing up: MTV Latino's Daisy Fuentes and Andranik Eskandarian. Two awesome World Citizens born in the "axis of evil" making good Ellis Island-style. Who said there ain't no fun being an illegal alien?A cozy Friday night back in the day would be to watch something like this and later catch MTV's Top 20 Countdown that Daisy hosted. These days, VJs and Countdown shows are nearly extinct. Yet there are more consumers with more diverse tastes. Yet less media gatekeepers, curators, and content producers.
It's time to figure out how to change that scenario. (Low End Theory was the first compact disc I ever purchased.)
Oh, and that photo featuring Daisy with Jenny McCarthy was taken at the Beach House in Malibu in '96.....right around the time I interviewed McCarthy's big-(fore)headed younger sis in Chicago.
