|
Earlier Magazine ArticlesSeoul MachineWired, May 2005 Cell phones. Memory chips. Plasma TVs. How Samsung made Korea a consumer electronics superpower. Reprinted in GQ Korea, July 2005. Building the Fun BombWired, February 2005 South Park and The Daily Show made them number one with the PlayStation generation. But seriously, how do you top Jon Stewart? Inside Comedy Central's R&D lab. The Lost BoysWired, August 2004 Online gaming all night: Cool. Hour after hour downloading MP3s and porn: No problem. Thirty seconds so you can try to sell me something? Outta here. How the 18-34 male is reinventing advertising. Hello, NingboWired, April 2004 Motorola is losing its hold on China's mobile phone market. The little local startup that has Moto's number: Ningbo Bird. The Second Coming of Philip K. Dick The inside-out story of how a hyper-paranoid, pulp-fiction hack conquered the movie world 20 years after his death. Plus: Reality Check Uma Thurman on the surreal world of Dick, karmic paybacks, and working with mind-bending auteurs. The Hollywood Treatment Why do filmmakers love Philip K. Dick? Credit his mix of head-spinning imagination and high-concept action - not to mention big fans like Tom Cruise. Of course, Dick's paycheck was a bit smaller. Here's a breakdown of PKD movies so far. Reprinted in Rolling Stone Deutschland, February 2004 The Fast-Forward, On-Demand, Network-Smashing Future of TelevisionWired, October 2003 What happens when digital video recorders give viewers control of the TV schedule, the content, and the ads? The full story after this 5-second word from our sponsors. Barry Diller Has No Vision for the Future of the InternetWired, April 2003 That's why the no-nonsense honcho of Home Shopping Network, Match.com, and Universal is poised to rule the interactive world. The Civil War Inside Sony The Fall of the Music Industry Wired, February 2003 Sony Music wants to entertain you. Sony Electronics wants to equip you. The problem is that when it comes to digital media, their interests are diametrically opposed. Issue nominated for National Magazine Award for General Excellence. Reprinted in GQ Korea, March 2003 Big Media or BustWired, March 2002 As consolidation sweeps the content and telecom industries, FCC Chairman Michael Powell has a plan: Let's roll. Pocket Monster The Liberation of Disintegration Wired, September 2001 How NTT DoCoMo's wireless Internet service went from fad to phenomenon — and turned Japan into the first post-PC nation. Issue nominated for National Magazine Award for General Excellence. TelechasmWired, May 2001 Can we get to the future from here? First we have to get telecom out of the Stone Age. Meet Your New Advisory BoardWired, April 2001 The European Commission has a mandate to shape a New Economy policy around the globe. It's called borderless bureaucracy. Vivendi's High Wireless Act CEO Jean-Marie Messier's deals with Vodafone and Seagram were a star turn on the European stage. As information becomes truly portable, will a global media company paired with continent-wide distribution prove an unbeatable combination? Reminder to Steve Case: Confiscate the Long KnivesWired, September 2000 Time Warner brings fat pipe and petabytes of content to the AOL party. Plus a little something extra: a history of amazingly expert corporate infighting, ankle-biting, and all-around backstabbing. This is gonna be fun! TV or Not TVWired, March 2000 Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB aims to capture Britain's interactive TV market with a Sun set-top strategy. But a growing Microsoft alliance has different plans. Think Globally, Script LocallyFortune, November 8, 1999 American pop culture was going to conquer the world, but now local content is becoming king. Edgar Bronfman Actually Has a Strategy—With a TwistFortune, March 1, 1999 Let others bulk up on cable. The Seagram heir is challenging Disney in theme parks and laying out billions to be No. 1 in music. Can this possibly work? There's No Business Like Show BusinessFortune, June 22, 1998 A handful of powerful CEOs are battling for the hearts, minds, and eyeballs of the world's six billion people. But the harder they fight, the more they need each other. What Ever Happened to Michael Ovitz?Fortune, July 7, 1997 Striving to make his comeback, CAA's superagent is now an unemployment statistic. Seven lessons to be learned from the fall of the image king. The End of TV as We Know ItFortune, December 23, 1996 Forget HDTV. Forget interactive television. Forget the 500-channel universe. Instead start thinking PCTV. Can Disney Tame 42nd Street?Fortune, June 24, 1996 They blew it in Paris. They got thrown out of Virginia. Now, looking for a home on Broadway, Team Disney is pouring millions into one of the most crime-ridden blocks in Manhattan. What does Michael Eisner know that you don't? Soap Gets in Their EyeEsquire, May 1996 CBS thought Darren Star's Central Park West would make the network younger and hipper. CBS was wrong. Twilight of the Last MogulThe Los Angeles Times Magazine May 21, 1995 Charming, intelligent and ruthless, Lew Wasserman has been shaking Hollywood since the '30s. When Seagram bought MCA, was he really out of the loop—or was he king of the deal-makers to the last? The Prodigal SonPremiere, October 1993 When Tony Perkins played Norman Bates, he pressed his finger firmly against America's psychosexual trigger. One year after his death from AIDS, his story can finally be told. The Case of the Ankling AgentsPremiere, August 1991 Or, how the most powerful agency in Hollywood became a mere shadow of its former self. Tim Cuts UpPremiere, January 1991 So far, Tim Burton has exercised his febrile imagination on other people's movies. Now he's done a personal project, Edward Scissorhands. Watch out! Taking Care of BusinessPremiere, November 1990 Under Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Disney became the mouse that roared. Can they keep the money rolling in? Last LaughNew York, June 25, 1990 Jay Gorney sells art that sends up collectors. "I think my artists are great," he says, "but I'm amazed the world is letting me do this." Cool John B. With a remote but highly charged style, John Baldessari played pied piper to today's biggest art stars. Now he's taking a step into the spotlight himself, and things are getting very warm. Pied Piper of the ComputerThe New York Times Magazine November 8, 1987 In 1968, Alan Kay conceived a truly personal computer—a portable device that would carry an encyclopedia inside its circuits and plug into networks containing the sum of human knowledge. The Dynabook has become his Holy Grail. As the Art World TurnsGQ, October 1986 The mix of art, big bucks and hype has turned the art world into a frothy soap opera. Which brings us to Julian Schnabel.... In the Grip of Success February 1985 In the late Sixties, idealism was the bottom line. Now, those who joined together to fight the system have joined the system to fight for success. Not everyone can win, but Silicon Valley entrepreneur T.J. Rodgers is one who won't easily lose. Mitch Kapor and the Lotus FactorEsquire, December 1984 The hypergrowth of an entrepreneur. Wired to GodVanity Fair, August 1984 Acolytes of high tech in Santa Cruz speak of computers in terms once used for drugs: expand your mind through software. A report from a land some call Oz. Walking on WaterEsquire, March 1982 There are so many surfers in southern California that they've staked out scraps of beach and chopped up the endless wave. And from the melee emerges a new order of surfer, one who rides with Jesus and waits for Armageddon. Welcome to the Modern World April 1981 Scavenging through the artifacts of the Fifties and the attitudes of the Sixties are the brave new children of today. How the Pentagon FliesEsquire, November 1980 Start with five multileveled wings, lots of brass nuts and bolts, a crew of 25,000. Fuel it with the international concerns of the American people and the personal ambitions of the entire military establishment. Then cross your fingers. Reprinted in Esquire & Derby (Italy), Nov.-Dec. 1980 Dee Dee Ramone Didn't Want To Be a Pinhead No MoreEsquire, April 1980 So the New York rocker who practically invented punk—with three chords, sheer energy, and a rotten attitude—kicked heroin, bought a dinette set, and married Vera, who was, you know...normal. Danny Fields Is a Number-One FanVillage Voice, October 24, 1977 "When I first saw the Ramones I said, 'You guys are the best band in the world!' I went up to them after the set and—'You guys are great! You guys are great!' That's all I could say." The Saga of a Not-So-Average White Band July 14, 1977 How do you mend a broken group? The Bee Gees did it with disco. Cover photo: Francesco Scavullo Four Conversations with Brian EnoThe Village Voice March 28, 1977 Art, to Eno, is not mere self-expression; getting dressed in the morning is self-expression. Art is life in microcosm. |
 Before joining Wired, I spent a couple of years as a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure. Here are a few of my pieces from that period.  Photo: photodisc We were expecting fairy-tale châteaux, rambles through the countryside, maybe a bit of history: Joan of Arc, the Renaissance court of François I. But here we were in a dense forest, standing in a grassy circle from which radiated a half-dozen arrow-straight walkways. Perfect symmetry. Classicism amid the trees. What struck me was how magical it all was—the crazy sense of rationalism run amok. Only later did I realize that in this clearing I'd stumbled across the essence of France.  Photo: Luca Trovato Santa Barbara: Where California Dreams January 1998 Ever since the 1920's, when nostalgia for the days of dolce far niente took root in earnest, Santa Barbara has been the primary locus of the California myth, the vision of California as a golden land, bountiful and enchanted. The Chumash, the Native American people who settled in this area before the Spanish, had their own word for such a myth: anacapa, mirage. To succumb to Santa Barbara is to recall an idyll that never was—but not to succumb is unthinkable. Newport: Where Summer Began April 1997 Newport is a city of charity balls and midnight carousing, of the quietly rich and the noisily young. The Old Money feels embattled, as Old Money generally does. Things haven't been the same since the Depression, or since the Newport Bridge made the town accessible to day-trippers in 1969, or since the America's Cup was lost to the Aussies in 1983. Henry James saw the Newport of his youth as a delicate thing, "like a little bare, white open hand, with slightly parted fingers." On his return four decades later he was horrified to find it, as Louis Auchincloss wrote, "crudely crammed with gold." Were the master to hit upper Thames Street on a summer weekend today, I'm afraid he'd find it smeared with fudge. The Best of Virginia February 1997 If you want tour buses and T-shirted tourists snapping photos in Historyland, you won't be hard put to find them. But that is not Virginia. Virginia is an ancient place where nothing is far from the soil. It is the impossibly broad rivers of the Tidewater, rising and falling with the moon. It is the red clay of the Piedmont, where Jefferson trod the Newtonian frontier. It is a formal garden at twilight, boxwood perfuming the air with the scent of decay. Breathe deep, and you too can taste the faded glories of cavalierdom. |
