By Staff Writer, Colleen Park

            Joel Stein is desperate for attention. It even says so on his website. Taking every chance he can get for attention, he has been on shows such as E! Entertainment’s “101 Hottest Hot Hotties’ Hotness.” Surprisingly, it is one of the few things anyone knows him for. He writes, too, for the LA Times (every Tuesday) and Time Magazine. Known for his highly sarcastic opinions and with little or no apparent restraint in his writing, he is also the blogging community’s favorite topic to bash. In the end, Stein achieves his ultimate goal: to get your attention.
 

Tornado Times: Some people have different personalities in person, on screen, and on paper. Obviously, you have a similar personality in reality…
Joel Stein: …but much nicer in person, and better looking, too. Much better looking and a little smarter.
TT: How is your writing voice different from your everyday personality?
JS: I’m a little shier in real life. You can hide behind the paper, get to be more direct and obnoxious which is fun.
TT: What is the hardest or easiest part of being a journalist?
JS: The hardest part is that you always have homework. When other people go home from their jobs, they can just chill out with the T.V. [As a journalist,] there’s always something that you should or could be working on. That kind of sucks. You have homework for the rest of your life, like high school is forever.
TT: Do you have a favorite place to write?
JS: No, I can write anywhere; I have a laptop. That’s all I use and I don’t care where I am as long as I can play music when I write. I have iTunes so it’s all right there for me.
TT: Do you have a writing habit?
JS: Are you asking if I have a cocaine habit? Do I do cocaine every time I write? I say 90% of the time. No wait, what do you mean?
TT: Do you have a writing habit?
JS: Sometimes, I say sentences out loud. Then my wife walks in and laughs and laughs.
TT: Did high school help you in life?
JS: Sure! You learn 90% of what you know in high school. You learn to deal with other people, learn how to deal with authority, and all those things that you thought didn’t matter come up in life later. It’s hard to imagine that I’m that same person, but I still pretend I read Catcher in the Rye. I’m surprised at how much of what I’ve read [and] learned in high school exists in the real world. I’m kind of shocked by it.
TT: You got out of college and you got a job with Martha Stewart. How was that?
JS: Well, it was a first job and I was living in a hotel, and all first jobs are weird. I was a writer for her T.V. show for two months and I worked on her magazine for ten months.
TT: How was teaching a humor writing course at Princeton?
JS: It was awesome. I always wanted to because I’m from New Jersey, go to Princeton, but I didn’t get in.
TT: But you got into Stanford.
JS: I did, yeah. Screw Princeton!
TT: Did you have anyone who inspired you in school and helped you with your writing?
JS: No, you always hear about people who had their teachers guide them through their lives but I didn’t have one. Maybe Mr. Crosby can be that guy to me; maybe it’s not too late.
TT: You didn’t have someone who told you that you were a good writer?
JS: There was [one] professor I never had and didn’t know who got me my Newsweek [internship]. She just read my stuff in the [college] paper and got me two internships. I wrote a letter to her later, thanking her because she really made a difference, but I don’t even remember her name. For a long time I thought she was in a wheelchair and I would try to describe her to people, but they’d be like ‘no one here has a wheelchair.’ I realized that she had just hurt herself that week. She made a big difference and I don’t know anything about her.
TT: How has your experience been on television appearances such as E!, “I Love the 80’s” or “Idiot Savants”? Do you plan to extend your talents?
JS: It’s weird, being on TV. It’s not what I do or what I’m good at, but it’s what the very few people who know who I am know me for: “You’re that dude on those shows, right?” Yes, yes I am. I get paid, and it’s easy and people are nice to you when they recognize you, so I do them. And I’m way less nervous on TV than I used to be, but I don’t think I’m actively going to try to do more of it.
TT: How did you know that you wanted to become a journalist?
JS: Well, I really wanted to write and I didn’t care where. I wanted a desk job because I figured that seemed safer, something with insurance and maybe a… water cooler. [It is] probably not the right reason, not because I wanted to learn about the world or break important stories, I just wanted someone to pay me to type. I like writing and compared to being a novelist or a playwright, it seemed safer, more conservative.
TT:  People do not usually consider journalists as being conservative…
JS: …not in the political spectrum, but as a conservative choice to make for a writing career. All the other writing careers seem really scary and dangerous, like ‘I’m going to write a movie and maybe it’s going to get made, maybe I’ll get to write a second one,’ or being a poet. All that stuff seems much more out there. Journalism, of all the writing jobs, is probably the most mainstream.
TT:  How old were you when you realized how much you enjoyed writing?
JS: When I thought I could maybe do this for a living? The summer after my sophomore year in college when I interned at Newsweek.
TT:  When did you start preparing for a career in journalism?
JS: I was just working for my high school paper and it was fun, [and] working for my college paper was fun. I wasn’t really purposely preparing at that point.
TT: What sections did you write for in high school?
JS: In high school, it was Opinion and Entertainment.
TT: What attracted you to write for opinion?
JS: It just seems like the most fun thing [because you] write whatever you want [and] share your thoughts and [opinions] with other people… really pure. For someone who didn’t get into [journalism] for the reporting, it was the fun version of the writing.
TT: Since writing for opinion requires a strong and valid point, is it more difficult than reporting?
JS: No. Opinion has less reporting than a real news story. If you were going to try and break a story on Iraq, that’s really important. Making a couple of calls for your op-ed column isn’t that important. Sometimes you don’t even have to make calls like ‘I hate Elmo [because] I hate Elmo’ [referencing a past column].
TT: Who have been the best and worst subjects to interview and why?
JS: Actors are tough because what they do is either transparent (you saw it on the screen) or boring (they sat in a room and made tiny choices based on people they know personally). You basically ask them about what it’s like being famous in 100 different ways.
TT: How do you conduct successful interviews?
JS: Just be curious and listen and look for interesting follow-ups. And act very interested and surprised all the time.
TT: Are there any journalists who inspire you?
JS: People who write pretty. People who say new things. You want names don’t you? I’m bad at that.
            For more information on Joel Stein and his writing, you can visit his profile in the opinion editorial section of latimes.com, time.com, or his website at thejoelstein.com.