In the past, it was surprisingly customary for budding novelists and later, "new journalists" to take jobs in--or at a minimum, spend considerable amounts of time researching and observing--fields they wanted to write about. George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London was based on his experiences as a dishwasher in a seedy Parisian hotel. George Plimpton built a whole second career for himself as an amateur sportsman who wasn't afraid to play quarterback for the Detroit Lions, box with Archie Moore, or compete against Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. In virtually all of his sporting endeavors, Plimpton had his clock cleaned, but his willingness to actual get in the ring or on the gridiron provided him a very different experience than writing from the sidelines. Likewise, Tom Wolfe researched the highs and lows of New York for The Bonefire of the Vanities by spending considerable amounts of time with both bond traders on Wall Street and observing firsthand the legal system in Brooklyn.

Today, there may be a new trend developing: because getting something published (at least self-published) is much easier than it was in the past, its possible for more and more people to write books, online diaries, and Weblogs about their firsthand experiences. And often times these "non-professional" writers beat the pros at their own game.

On the Internet, there are numerous examples: "Sgt. Stryker" is an Air Force jet aircraft mechanic who oversees his own extremely popular Weblog, which he regular writes for, along with others in various arms of the service. Numerous actors have their own Weblogs, including Star Trek stars William Shatner, and Will Wheaton. And while Howard Cosell seethed in the 1970s and '80s about "the jockocracy" of athletes turned journalists, today, lots of professional athletes have online diaries or Weblogs.

Meet "Mixerman"

In the same spirit, "Mixerman" is a Los Angeles-based recording engineer who began his own online diary in 2002 of a recording project he was assigned to. It was a young band, recently signed for $2,000,000, but as Mixerman writes, it's amazing how quickly a rock group can blow through a seven-figure deal:

Willy ["Willy Show" is Mixerman's nom de rock for the band's superstar record company producer] called me at the crack of dawn. We would not be working on the album today, since he was going to have a long meeting with the band to try and deal with the rift that had formed. Willy then provided me with some history. Apparently, this was not the first rift during Willy's short tenure with the band. During the rehearsals, the band had another similar blow-up. The band members hate each other. No surprise there. What I didn't know is that the money is almost gone.

page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4