Published by
Free Spirit Publishing!
One of the things that people asked for on this site site was more attention paid to
Teen Angst? Naaah.... I hope this satisfies:
1.
Teen Angst? Naaah... is my first book.
2. When it came out, I learned quickly that if I described it as "a bunch of funny, stupid stories about stuff that happened to me in high school", they got the point. For more refined people who only enjoyed art that pushed the envelope, I would say it was "a bunch of funny, stupid stories about SHIT that happened to me in high school." Those remain good descriptions.
3. The stories in the book span 1990-1999.
4. I wrote the stories between 1996 and 1999, inclusive.
5. A majority of the book originally appeared in the
New York Press, a local alternative weekly, sometimes edited differently or in a wildly divergent form. They have great archives so many of the stories as they were originally
originally written are
here.
6.
Teen Angst? Naaah... has a typical history of complete failure in the world of television. Soon after the book came out, I was contacted by a man named
John Schultz, who came to New York, took me out for a hamburger, and outlined a sweeping vision for the
TA?N movie. (The burger was good too.) I left feeling enthusiastic. Then, a few weeks later,
Jane startz Productions, who had a first-look deal with
Miramax Films (this just meant I could say "Miramax" in conjunction with my book, which got me one girl, no more), offered to option the book. My book company and I went with Jane Startz because of the Miramax connection and the option began. An option means that a company pays for the right to try and make a television show (or movie) out of your product within a certain period of time. We had 18 months. Jane Startz Productions brought in a wonderful gentleman named
Ken Lipman; he had helmed the mid-90s cable show
The Secret World of Alex Mack, which, let's look for it on the internet... ah, check out this Geocities site: Gallery of Alex Mack Pictures. Ken Lipman got to work on the show but we failed to get it picked up by any networks. Some years later (2005), Ken decided to take another shot and sell the show to
The N cable network, which, in an entirely unrelated venture, I had tried to create music for. This, too, failed. By the way, John Schultz, who we ditched for Jane Startz (Schultz vs. Startz, I know), went on to direct
Like Mike and
The Honeymooners. Who knows what would have happened if we'd gone with him? Right now the best chance of a
Teen Angst television show getting made is if you make one yourself. I'll host it, I'm serious. (Host as in, host the files.)
7. Any general questions that you have about the book, the characters, whether it's true, etc. should be in the
FAQ.
8. Many people want to know why, of all the schools I applied to in the book, I chose to go to
Hunter. The answer is that I did something horrible and screwed up my chance attend a different school (
Columbia). What I did is probably the worst and most stupid thing that I've done in my life and I'm not really ready to talk about it right now.
9. To my knowledge,
Teen Angst? Naaah... has been used in plays, forensics competitions, skits, and numerous book reports across the USA (and the Philippines). I greatly appreciate the attention that it continues to get, especially five-plus years after its publication.
10. Wormwhole lives!
