As you can see, I’ve changed the name of my blog. Originally I thought I would be writing about issues involving online video, intellectual property, piracy, etc. The original title, “Shake Your Windows,” came from Dylan’s “The Times They are A-Changin’,” and the general idea was that the internet is changing everything and if people in the industry don’t figure out how to take advantage of it, it’s going to run them over. (Of course it also suggested the way people in the industry use the term “windows.” I spent days writing these blog posts and threw them all out. In fact, I hated what I was writing so much that I deleted some of my early posts. There are so many people generating millions of blogs on these issues, that I didn’t see how I could offer something new and distinctive into that discussion. So I fell back on what I did with my first blog (on Zoom-In Online), and started writing about my own life. I do other stuff too, but that’s the general thread.
The inspiration for all this was years ago, when I was having lunch with Amy Gross, who was then an editor at Elle. I was telling her a lot of my stories and she said, “you’ve got to write this down!” So she gave me an assignment to write the crazy story I told her. But a week later River Phoenix died, so I asked her if I could write about him instead. So that was my first story, “Remembering River,” and it ran in Elle in their February 1994 issue.
At that point I started to think I might have a book in me. And I knew what I wanted to call it: “My Life as a Dog.” That really summed it up for me, even though other publicists got really indignant when I told them the title. But I didn’t see being a dog as a negative thing. Who doesn’t love dogs? No one. Being a dog is great. I got to be around talented and famous people, many of them my heroes. I often had the opportunity to help them, and that made me feel really good. I have always said that the most important thing a publicist can offer is love, and I gave everything I had. 
I never made any real money doing publicity. It was an unselfish love, just like the kind a good dog gives its Master. Can there be anything better than that? Or more satisfying?
If you look at the picture above long enough, you will recognize that there is a true nobility to my vocation.
I tried to be helpful with people’s careers, and in many cases, I was. I’m very proud of that, and I think I’ve had a wonderful life. Promoting movies is something I do well, and I’m very fortunate to have had the chance to do it. There are so many bonuses I can’t even list them, like when you go to industry parties, you get goodie bags, or as I like to call them--treats.
Anyway, my friends talked me out of writing the book, saying it would be career suicide. They said it was better to commit career suicide the way I was already doing it—in bite-sized chunks—rather than going whole hog at one go. So that was it for “My Life as a Dog.”
But when I realized that “Shake Your Windows” made no sense with what the blog was shaping up to be, I sent out some emails to friends to ask them what they thought about “My Life as a Dog.” The response was lackluster. And while I was doing that, I came up with “My Life as a Blog.” And that seemed right. It may not make any sense, but then again, neither does my life.
