"Surfing the Middle East" finalist at Indie Book Awards

Yep. We're winning awards again. Surfing the Middle East has been recognized as a finalist in the travel category at the Indie Book Awards. Many thanks to all who have followed this project from beginning to end. Even more thanks to those who have read and written me saying how much you enjoyed the adventure. Remember, writers write for the readers (you.). Couldn't have done it without you.

My next project--Baja Smugglers (travel/news documentary)--will soon takeover as the regular subject here in the Casbah. More soon!

"Surfing the Middle East" wins at Beverly Hills Book Awards!

It is with a proud heart that I can rely this information to you: Surfing the Middle East: Deviant Journalism from the Lost Generation has won 3 categories in the Beverley Hills Book Awards! Adventure, Travel, Non-fiction Cover Design.

 

I'd like to thank everyone who has followed this blog or has been personally supportive of me and my quest to tell the story of the Middle East through surfing. Making a product out of such an experience has been one of the most grueling yet fulfilling endeavors of my life.

Many thanks to you, the reader, who has supported me since day one. From a grateful author.

Dennis Rodman in North Korea Is An Emerging Genre in the News

The Associated Press has long since carried the story and we've read the New York Times two-day analysis: Dennis Rodman has indeed been to North Korea, and strange as it may seem, he's the only American to have publicly met with its 28-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un.

VICE, who produced the trip for their new HBO series, knew that if they were going to get to one of the world's most mysterious news stories they'd have to think outside the box. They knew they'd have to create a context in which Kim Jong Un would voluntarily come to them. It worked.
(Backstory: While attending private school in Switzerland, Kim Jong Un's sports idol was Dennis Rodman, so when VICE staged an exhibition game in North Korea with a few Harlem Globetrotters, the young leader just couldn't resist.)

So be like Brian Stelter of the New York Times and dismiss this whole debacle as "daredevil journalism." Or loosen up a bit and enjoy that former NBA star Dennis Rodman -- nicknamed "The Worm" for his colorful antics and aggressive rebounding -- has better intelligence on the North Korean leader than the CIA.

In the world of brute serious journalism there is just no way to process that a drag queen like Rodman actually met with the youngest and most dangerous man alive. It's just not what they teach you at Harvard. But that's exactly why it worked. If what they taught in journalism school actually led to multiple day "hang out sessions" with the leader of the hermit kingdom then of course this story would have been done already. Nobody had figured out how to get through to the new leader of North Korea.

VICE found what I'm going to call a "linchpin" in the news. Rodman and the basketball game were the pin, that when pulled, caused Kim Jong Un to do something he's never done: socialize with Americans, requesting they ask the U.S. president to call him. This caused the media to go completely nuts, giving VICE and HBO massive press for their new series and a wild education to their viewers.

Yes, this event is more than just "stunt journalism". It is one example in an emerging genre of news. VICE's formula was to find a story with a hard news slant, figure out how to get the most interesting part of the story to come to them, and lace the actual substance of the event with jackass humor. The series hasn't even aired yet and the story has already gone viral.

So what kind of linchpin will somebody pull next? What other seemingly impossible issues are still out there? It'll have to be big; it'll have to be unconventional. And it'll have to top getting wasted with a nuclear-armed hermit named Kim Jong Un.

Originally published at the HuffPost 

20-somethings Want No Makeup With Their Journalism

It was in Starship Troopers, otherwise known to my generation as the best "B movie" of all time, where the commander said: "Figuring things out for yourself is really the only freedom anyone really has. Use that freedom. Make up your own mind."

Well, who would have thought that such wisdom would come from a gory Casper Van Dien movie, where mixed gender army units shoot up a strange planet filled with hostile arachnids?

No matter. Today's 20-somethings don't trust the heavy makeup journalism on CNN. We can sniff out the phonies of any Fox News panel, and are tired of listening to a bunch of PR-placed "experts" sitting in their overly air-conditioned newsroom, talking about what's happening outside. How do they know? To us, it's about traveling to the raw source of the story. The journey is the destination.

My generation wants a vicarious experience on the front lines. We relate to the anti-hero, and enjoy a host that never lets things get too serious. There's no time for a master's degree with the proper press credentials; we want to feel out the situation, get thrown out of a taxi in Yemen, tear-gassed on the West Bank, or trip out with some witch doctor in South America. That's the Edge. Experience. It cuts right through the corporate sponsor.

It's funny to watch the older generations try to figure out us 20-somethings. They think we're indifferent, lazy, and don't know what we want. But we do. And we're not impressed by cheesy gimmicks like Wolf Blitzer's thick hipster glasses. It'll take more than that to coolify CNN. We see right through that prescription.

Yes, it's an exciting time to be young and alive. The digital age has brought down the cost of creating books, blogs, and web-based documentaries, and through the Internet -- where we generally market and distribute our stuff -- we are inventing the future.

Our formula calls for scene-driven stories that unapologetically throw us into the immediacy of the situation. We hate long-winded writing in small print (though a woman who reads The New York Times is still the sexiest thing alive). And we'll sit through an annoying online ad to watch a YouTube documentary -- but it better capture the "here & now" of the story, and allow us to make up our own damn minds.

"The concrete" of this piece stems from the past few years of thinking about how my generation takes in the news. Dan Morrison's The Black Nile thrusts readers headfirst into his gonzo jaunt through Africa. The Daily Show and Gawker Media are hugely popular, and when it comes to online documentaries the Brooklyn-based Vice Magazine is leading the charge. In fact, they're coming to HBO.

So good on all of them, and lets stay hungry and foolish. Lets be the "figuring things out for ourselves" generation.

The generation that wants no makeup with our journalism.

Note: Originally published by The Huffington Post. 

Zack, Jesse, Sharks, and the next Pope of Vatican City

 My buddy Zack in a deep Ocean Beach barrel. San Francisco's most narly beachbreak shows no mercy. Zack also designed the insert of my book.

 This one was taken of me at an art show in Santa Barbara, California this last weekend.

 I had two old-school buddies go to Taiwan to teach English. One of his friends, on Facebook, caught this on camera. Great White Shark!!!

Tho I'm Jewish, Armenian, and only a little Irish, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring to be the next Theocrat of Vatican City. Pope J-Stat: Commander of the Faithful!