James Lileks

James Lileks (born August 9, 1958 in Fargo, North Dakota) and educated at the University of Minnesota, is an American journalist, columnist, and blogger living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Career

Lileks has had a wide-ranging career as a columnist, radio personality, author, and prominent blogger.

Columnist

Lileks' writing career started as a columnist for the "Minnesota Daily" while a student at the University of Minnesota. At that time, over his column he was identified as "James r. Lileks", with his middle initial, "R" for "Ralph", in lower case.

After college, he eventually got a regular job writing for the City Pages, a Twin Cities alternative tabloid. He served as a general columnist for City Pages until 1988, when he was hired as a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which led to a columnist job with Newhouse News Service and thence to the "The Washington Post" for a period in the early nineties.

In the mid-nineties, Lileks returned to the Twin Cities for a job with the "Star Tribune", retaining his Newhouse column until late 2006.

In early 2007, Lileks' local column was discontinued, and Lileks took over the Star Tribune's regional blog "Buzz.mn".

Radio Personality

Lileks' first foray into radio came in 1987, while a writer with City Pages. He started as a regular guest on the Geoff Charles show, an afternoon talk show on KSTP-AM. When Charles left the Twin Cities, Lileks was tagged to fill the slot, and he served as an afternoon-drive host on KSTP for a time in the late eighties; his show at the time was a fairly traditional talk show, with topics, callers, and guest interviews.

In the mid-nineties - after returning from Washington DC - Lileks reappeared on KSTP with a new program, "The Diner" - a less-traditional show set in a fictional fifties-era diner. The program featured a running loop of kitchen sound effects in the background, and verbal interplay with "cook" (and producer) Jeremy "Kodiak" Kienietz, and was, in many ways, a prototype of Lileks' later, written blog ventures.

The show, unconventional by mid-nineties talk radio standards, lasted several years on weekday evenings, and then a few more as a weekend-evening program before leaving the air in the late nineties.

As of late 2006, "The Diner" has been revived in podcast form. Selected original Diner programs and new original Diners are available on Lileks' website. Lileks is also a weekly guest on the Hugh Hewitt show, and a frequent guest and guest host on the Northern Alliance Radio Network program.

Lileks has also been a monologist for the public affairs program "Almanac", carried on Minnesota PBS television stations.

Blog

His blog, the [http://www.lileks.com/bleats/ "Daily Bleat"] , began in 1997 and is one of the oldest blogs still running. The Bleat, which is still written in the older "online journal" style, covers many topics in his personal life (including his daughter Natalie ("Gnat") and his dog Jasper, after which his house ("Jasperwood") is named), to politics from a conservative viewpoint, to cultural points of interest ranging from art and architecture to movies and music (one perennial topic is the Minnesota State Fair). Known for dry humor and an engaging style of writing, Lileks grew in fame in the blogosphere especially following 9/11 and the subsequent explosion in the popularity of blogs for spreading both news and general punditry.

Lileks's Web site also hosts a vast repository of vintage advertisements and other ephemera from the 1920s to the 1970s. In the [http://lileks.com/institute/index.html Institute of Official Cheer] portion of the site, Lileks displays strange, irreverent, or just plain bizarre advertisements, photographs, pamphlets, comic strips, matchbooks, currency, postcards, cheesecake drawings, and architecture, usually accompanied with his wry, humorous analysis and commentary. His section dissecting the works of cheesecake artist Art Frahm, for instance, observes the devastating effects of celery on the gravitational pull of women's underwear. His books (see below) follow a similar form.

Star Tribune controversy and resolution

On May 7, 2007, Lileks announced that his home paper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was ending his column in the interest of budget cuts and putting him on a straight local news beat: [ [http://lileks.com/bleats/archive/07/0507/050707.html LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat ] ] :"My column will end a week from this Friday. (There’s a series of pieces I can’t wait to write.) After that, it's just-the-facts-ma'am - and I'll no longer be telecommuting, either. This means I will start burning my share of hydrocarbons like a good American. Hell, I may leave the vehicle running all day outside the building just to make up for lost time. Maybe I will put a green roof on the car to balance things out. Some turf, some switchgrass. It's murder on the paint but we all must do our part."

The move, which was forced by cuts in other parts of the Star Tribune's newsroom, drew criticism from many [ [http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon/2007/05/worlds-stupidest-newspaper-decision.html World's stupidest newspaper decision - Crunchy Con ] ] [ [http://hotair.com/archives/2007/05/07/lileks-could-use-a-hand/ Hot Air » Blog Archive » Lileks could use a hand ] ] [ [http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/05/death_wish_at_the_startribune.html American Thinker Blog: Death wish at the Star-Tribune ] ] , including Dave Barry. [ [http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2007/05/incredible.html Dave Barry's Blog: INCREDIBLE ] ] Mike Argento, president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, said in reaction to the news: [ [http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003581573 null ] ] :"It's just a reflection of the sad state of the newspaper industry. Many of the people running newspapers don't have a vision. They're concerned with dollars and cents, and the bottom line. They should look at the future, not just slash and burn."

However, on June 5, 2007, almost a month after he made his initial announcement, the Star Tribune offered him a new position as editor of [http://www.buzz.mn buzz.mn] , a localized, MySpace-esque website featuring content from Lileks and members alike. [ [http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/07/0607/060507.html LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat ] ] As a call to arms, Lileks adopted the [http://www.ihasabucket.com I HAS A BUCKET!] meme, and when told of his new job, the first line of that day's Bleat read like this::"Ladies and gentlemen, I has a bucket."The meme, featuring a large walrus, his blue bucket, and an individual trying to steal the bucket, was a running joke among buzz.mn members during the early days of Lileks's takeover of the site.

As of June 6, 2007, buzz.mn has been under Lileks's editorial control. [ [http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/07/0607/060607.html LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat ] ]

Bibliography

Fiction

*"Falling up the Stairs" (1988, ISBN 0-525-24655-X)
*"Mr. Obvious" (1995, ISBN 0-671-73705-8)

Columns

*"Notes of a Nervous Man" (1991, ISBN 0-671-73701-5)
*"Fresh Lies" (1995, ISBN 0-671-73703-1)

Humor

*"The Gallery of Regrettable Food" (2001, ISBN 0-609-60782-0)
*"Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s" (2004, ISBN 1-4000-4640-8)
*"Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice" (2005, ISBN 1-4000-8228-5)
*"Gastroanomalies: Questionable Culinary Creations from the Golden Age of American Cookery" (2007, ISBN 0-307-38307-5)
*"RiffTrax: - Spider-man 3" with Mike Nelson - special guest riffer (http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/spiderman-3)

Notes

External links

* [http://www.lileks.com Homepage]
* [http://www.lileks.com/bleats Daily Bleats]
* [http://www.startribune.com/lileks The Quirk] - Star-Tribune column
* [http://www.newhousenews.com/lileks.html Newhouse]
* [http://www.buzz.mn buzz.mn] - Local networking site where he serves as editor