Fleetwood Taos

The interview Praxis - Dan Kennedy

by [deleted] [deleted] Andie Ryan

Dan Kennedy rich imagination and unconventional career provided him a wealth of material. In his brief tumultuous 2003 Loser goes first: Mon-THIRTY YEARS Something Dumb Luck and minor humiliation , he recounts his childhood fantasies of rock star, imagine his romancing "Dyan Cannon-esque" grade teacher sixth, and becomes obsessed with winning competitive fishing tournaments. After high school, he struggles to record a warehouse in rural California (his first foray into the world of music), then worked as a graphic designer, a red jumper, a barista, and a film extra, appearing alongside Sandra Bullock as "Sunglasses Purchase Guy" in the disappearance. At one point he takes a shot to fame as the late rock grunge music scene is about to explode in Seattle. It dusts off his ax, and packs his car and headed to Austin, Texas, where he misses the whole grunge thing altogether. Later, on a whim, he moved to New York for an audition as a VJ for MTV. It fails at the hearing, but in a concert Lucks $ 500 a day writing copy, which (in the interest of preserving its creative energy), it is limited to three days of work per month .

Kennedy second book Rock On: An Office Power Ballad tells her eighteen months as director of creative development at Atlantic Records, a position he acquired after impressing the president of Motown with a famous label TV promo 40, anniversary. Kennedy experience as a range of music industry insiders from the prestigious (meeting Duran Duran, hanging out with the Donnas, the direction of a commercial hip-hop artist Fat Joe) to the absurd (pow-wow with record execs who are inside the sunglasses and get paid obscene amounts of money to discuss hairstyling singer Ryan Cabrera). These days, Kennedy writes for GQ and McSweeney's   and performs regularly at popular New York spoken word, stories ringworm. He recently took time to talk with Praxis on his favorite books, his various reflections Twitter, and the journey of being "that guy in the very back of the bar" to a successful writer and performer.

AR: Can you give us some background on ringworm stories, and how you came to be involved in the project?

DK: George Dawes Green began in 1997 The Moth, in his living room, here in New York, and it grew from there to what it is today. I am involved with them in 2000. I called the office, I think I just kind of simple or naive - I had heard about it and just thought: "Hmm ... I guess ... I'll just say their lines and I want to try? " In fact, I'm just a guy who was unemployed, I stopped partying, I was trying to figure out what the hell could I do with my time, I needed to make new friends, I just wanted ... probably a bit mental. So, as some giant child I just ca.