According to Joel Stein’s biography provided on the L.A. Times and not to mention his very own personal website as well, he is a man ‘desperate for attention’.
He’ll get just that from this column because this is a profile on a columnist of my choice.
He grew up in Edison, N.J. and went to Stanford where he majored in English. He then worked for Martha Stewart and was later hired as a sports editor for Time Out New York. A couple of years passed and he soon found himself working for Time Magazine, where he spent seven and half years as a staff writer and wrote a dozen cover stories.
Stein ventured out and began appearing on t.v. for networks such as HBO and Comedy Central.
In 2005 he moved to Los Angeles after having taught a class on humor writing at Princeton, and was hired as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He has also unsuccessfully tried to be a sitcom writer, and partook in pilots which have unfortunately failed.
Regardless of the mediocre track record, which he seems oddly proud of according to his website, it’s his ability to write columns with a wonderful sense of humor that made me decide this was the writer my profile should be on.
Obviously like many columnists, Stein writes about current dilemmas that our nation currently faces. However, unlike some writers he uses humor that makes light of even a terrible situation, which makes it enjoyable.
For instance, the most current addition to his column was titled Survival Tips for a Depression, which was published online at the L.A. Times on October 17. Personally, the title alone makes you aware that the story is based on our economic standing today, but the words survival tips stand out. More than likely our hard times will look like a piece of cake compared to the Great Depression.
In this story Stein uses his grandma, who actually “lived through the Great Depression.” This definitely added a personal touch. Then came this…
“She didn't think I needed to get rid of HBO yet, but her family did hold back on entertainment. ‘The movies were very, very, very spare. We didn't go unless it was an Al Jolson picture. And then you went to a matinee because it was cheaper,’ she said. It was oddly comforting to picture a 12-year-old Mama Ann giggling at Jolson's 1933 musical comedy, ‘Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!’ That's the kind of fun I'm hoping for.”
It may be my misunderstanding, but did he really say he was looking forward to the fun of being a…bum? This is exactly how he stands out. He takes what most people dread and pokes fun at it.
He then concludes with this positive outlook by his grandma, “Cutting back didn't make her childhood miserable. She has fond memories of sharing clothes with friends and of her mom baking an extra challah for worse-off neighbors. ‘Today there are people who are more into money and nice homes,’ she said. ‘But you never heard in the house anyone say that we didn't have enough. I don't think we had welfare then, and there was no unemployment insurance. But you know, if there's love in the family, you live through it.’ ”
The media usually likes to stir up the fear in people, but if more columnists can use the sort of spin that Stein does then people wouldn’t be as worked up over things they couldn’t control.
This is why Stein is my preferred choice of columnists!
For more information on Joel Stein please check out the links below:
Joel Stein's website
L.A. Times
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