Tupac Look-a-like Story is Popular

Surprisingly, one of the most popular stories I've ever written (in terms of Web traffic generated) is this piece about a guy who's known as "the Pathmark Tupac" that I wrote for The Hudson Reporter newspaper group. It's not going to be in the print edition till this Sunday--and I'm not even sure if it's going to be in the The Hoboken Reporter or The Jersey City Reporter--but it was published online two days ago.

The basic gist is that this guy looks exactly like the late Tupac Shakur and is trying to get movie director Antoine Fuqua to cast him in a biopic about Shakur. It's kind of interesting--I actually spoke with Tupac's dad for the story and an exec from Morgan Creek, the company producing the movie.

It's weird, though: 75 percent of the interview I did with this guy was completely inappropriate for a newspaper story and, therefore, unusable, but it was also completely interesting and amusing. I should probably look into doing another story about him for another publication.

Interesting Stuff for Summer in Various Pubs

I've had a few interesting stories in the works and published of late. All are worth checking out, so give them a read if you have a minute.

First, I have a cover story (see left) in the summer edition of Palisade magazine, which you can read on pages 23-25 of the online version. It's a Q&A with Jason Cameron, the affable host of DIY Network's Man Caves. Jason is a great guy--this is actually the second story I've done with him--and his show is pretty good, too. Hopefully, he'll build me a Man Cave someday in return for all the good press I'm giving him.

Also, in the latest edition of Palisade's sister mag, Jersey City, I had a story about Anthony Amoroso, a local chef who ended up defeating renowned sushi chef Masaharu Morimoto on Food Network's Iron Chef America. You can read that story on pages 28-29 of the online version.

I also wrote for a story for The Jersey Journal about Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino making an appearance to promote a new tanning salon in Hoboken. He said he was "too tired" to answer my interview questions (which were great, I promise) that night, but I may catch up with him again at some point. Anyway, see below for a picture I shot of "Sitch" amusing (I guess) perhaps one of his eldest fans. Click here to see the rest of the pics from that night.

Continuing with the tanning theme, I wrote and photographed a story for Patch about the thriving tanning culture in Hoboken, NJ.

Prior to that I had two interesting pieces published about The Pit, a 2010 indie documentary film about the end of a time-honored practice known as open outcry trading that was used for over 100 years at NYBOT. The film made its east coast debut at the Hoboken Film Festival earlier this month.

The first piece was a Q&A with Johanna Lee, the film's director and it was published on New York magazine's "Daily Intel" blog. The piece comes complete with a cool trailer of the movie, so check it out.

Then, for Patch I wrote a feature about Jon Horowitz (or "Newbie"), one of the guys depicted in the film who lived in Hoboken and worked at Willie McBrides, a Hoboken bar, while also trying to make it big trading coffee futures on the NYBOT floor.

Q&A with Lou Dobbs in NJ Monthly

Does Lou Dobbs prefer Jersey rock god Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi? And why does he seem to be softening on amnesty for illegal immigrants?

Find out in the May issue of New Jersey Monthly. At long last, my interview with the one and only Mr. Independent is available on the Web site of New Jersey Monthly and in the May issue, which should be on newsstands very soon.

I hung out in Dobbs's radio studio a couple of months ago and watched him do his syndicated show and then interviewed him for an hour afterward. No matter what you think of his politics, there's no denying he's a smart guy and a great broadcaster.

He was also a very nice guy--in fact, I made him bristle with a couple of my questions that didn't make the cut, including one about the John Deere hat he was wearing that day, but he took it all in stride and remained the consummate pro. Also not making the cut due to a lack of space was this question I posed to Dobbs:

Before leaving office, former Gov. Jon Corzine made N.J. the 14th state to legalize marijuana for medical use. Where do you stand on the issue?

I’ve got no problem at all with prescribing marijuana for a medical purpose to alleviate the pain of any patient. For personal, recreational use—we’ve got millions of lives being devastated in this country by addiction. We should come up with a solution to the current addictions that afflict society and then I’d be delighted to entertain legalizing whatever drug you want to discuss.

Hopefully I'll get to interview him again as he makes decisions on his political future. Also, I took the picture accompanying the piece.

Article on NY Mag about Facebook/IKEA Scam

Yesterday, I had a story on New York's "Daily Intel" blog about a scam being run through Facebook that offers a phony $1,000 gift card if you become a Facebook fan of IKEA and invite all your friends to do so.

Read it here and don't be lured by the $1,000 gift card.

Also, in the May issue of New Jersey Monthly, an interview I did with Lou Dobbs should be published. It's pretty interesting and I'll definitely post a link to it here when it's online.

Work on HuffPost, Patch & NJ.com

In an exercise of obligatory soul-selling, I covered the meeting of a pair of reality TV stars.  Snooki, an MTV reality star from Jersey Shore, paid a visit to Carlo's City Hall Bake Shop this week to shoot a scene for the hit TLC reality series Cake Boss. I know--reality cross-over madness! But, I managed to keep my poise and get some pics of the meeting and sold a story about it to The Huffington Post, which you can read here. For more pics of Snooki with the Cake Boss, click here.

Also, in addition to writing for Hoboken Progress, lately, I've contributed a few stories to Patch, a recently launched news site in Hoboken. For a story about a union using the universal symbol of labor grievance to battle drug store giant Walgreens, click here. 

For a story about a man in a cow costume delivering lunch to the Cake Boss, click here. And for a story about Barnes & Noble ending its 15-year run in the Mile Square, click here.


And last but not least, I contributed a couple of stories to The Jersey Journal, which you can read here and here.

Intrigue. Celebrity. Deception. It's All In NYP's Flavor of the Week Column...

...the latest edition of which was written by yours truly. This is a good little story from back in my NBC days--one that fellow former Pages will likely appreciate--of an encounter I had with an apparent Oscar nominee at Underbar in Union Square. Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote an edition of the New York Press's  weekly "8 Million Stories" column, titled "Bus Justice," which you can read here. 

Click here to read the full story in this week's New York Press.

A few more stories for various publications

I've had a few more stories published recently in a couple of regional New Jersey publications. First, there is this interview with photographer Ben Fernandez, which I did for Palisade magazine, that turned out to be pretty interesting.


Then, a story about Hoboken, NJ getting its first 7-Eleven in December of 2008 for The Jersey Journal. Also for The Jersey Journal, a story about U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez being honored by a local nonprofit and a piece about A&E wanting to bring its reality series Parking Wars to Hoboken.


I have some more interesting stuff coming up in the next few weeks, so check back soon.