My song Jack of All Trades lists a bunch of stuff I’ve done to pay the bills over the years. The one gig I didn’t mention was my spot as a “stringer” (freelance writer) for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. From 1992 up to just a year or two ago, I did an occasional piece for the entertainment section. I was a TV critic for a few years (probably explains why I don’t watch much TV anymore). I then covered video releases for a few years.

For awhile I was even a real movie critic: I got to the movies for free and (I soon realized…heh) reviewed the films that no one on staff wanted to sit through: “The Waterboy” (Adam Sandler’s first big, painful hit), “Soldier” (a well-intentioned Kurt Russell vehicle that just didn’t work), and “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” (which starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, her cleaveage, and a cast of dead teenagers).

Remember back when we though the “Scream” movies would kill off the slasher genre once and for all? Didn’t happen. Actually, writing about bad movies was pretty easy. And I always got a thrill out of seeing my byline in print, no matter what the article was about.

Near the end of my time as a stringer, I wrote music articles. This was really a thinly-veiled means to interview songwriters I admired when they rolled through town. My work with the Sentinel tapered off right as I started writing songs, so the timing was perfect. Plus, I have boxes and boxes of published articles archived up in the attic. Eventually, I’ll scare up some free time, dig out text that’s stored on floppy disks (remember those?) and post some of the older stuff.

Previous Past Lives:

• I Even Wrote for Jay Leno One Time
• KPIG Radio Ads