Published this profile of writer John Scalzi in 2007. It appeared in…, ah…, let’s call it The Pop Culture Smorgasbord Magazine for Nerds (there were compensation issues, so I’ll let it go unnamed) at chain store newsstands across the continent. It has, to my dismay, disappeared since then. The magazine in question has a disappointingly meager web presence with no archive to speak of, and the piece isn’t available anywhere else. So, I thought I’d give it a home here now.

At the time I interviewed him, Scalzi was breaking big in the world of science fiction. He had already been a successful journalist, business copywriter and blogger for many years, but in 2006 his novels were beginning to receive rave reviews, prestigious awards, big readership, and he was being hailed as the “new Robert Heinlein.”

Just six weeks before our meeting — which went treble the time I was expecting, thanks to his generosity and hospitality — Scalzi made an internet sensation of himself by Scotch-taping a slice of raw bacon to the side of his cat. If you weren’t aware of this, I understand if that last sentence strikes you as lacking a certain amount of, you know, sense. You’ll have to read the profile to achieve enlightenment. I explain here because over the past 30 or so months, Scalzi has been branded “The Bacon Man” and no bacon-related internet news goes unreported by commenters on his blog. Despite his reaping what he hath sown, I feel kind of bad now for the bacon-centric approach I took to framing his story.

I also took the picture. I was nervous and flubbed the focus and lighting on many shots, but this one — taken after I lay on the ground and told him to look at me as if I was some strange bug — came out great. Yes, he actually looks like he’s about to kick me in the stomach, but that works too.

“Whatever” It Takes

John Scalzi builds the quintessential online soap box/improv theater/hitchhiker’s guide

Published April/May, 2007

In his spare time John Scalzi creates motivational posters. They aren’t for you, or for legions of undead corporate sales drones. They are for him.

Reminders of the fine points of life and success.

“Perspective,” reads one, “Awards? Success? Fame? Perhaps one day they will be yours. But the fact is, nothing you’ll ever do will be more popular than that online picture of bacon taped to a cat.”

It may be a little background is in order: Scalzi made interweb history on September 13, 2006, by taping bacon to his cat.

Okay, maybe a little more.

Over the past 16-plus years, the one-time newspaper film critic and AOL editor has become an award-winning SF novelist and, as a popular blogger, a diarist/social critic/wag. He dispenses wisdom on culture and politics daily at two sites: the Whatever (www.scalzi.com/whatever) and AOL’s By the Way (journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway) [now defunct — JH].

Scalzi is California-bred, Chicago- and DC-polished, and rural Ohio-based. After being laid-off by AOL in 1998, he became a full-time freelance corporate copywriter and started his first online journal. Today, the freewheeling Whatever sees average daily traffic of 20,000 unique visitors: science fiction fans, political armchair quarterbacks, thrill-seekers. The readership is, in fact, as varied as the multi-dimensional philosopher goofball behind it.

“To be clear,” Scalzi clarifies, “If I wrote only about politics (or technology) I’d have double or triple the people visiting my site. The reason I do what I do is inherent in the title of the site. I have a number of professional competencies I feel informed enough about to be able to discuss them at length with random strangers. The stuff I’m not competent in, I feel it is my right as an American citizen to speak about whatever the hell I want. I write about many different things because I’m interested in many different things. And if I only did one thing, I’d be bored out of my fucking skull. And I couldn’t handle that.”

It is a reflection of Scalzi’s competency in communicating, then, that the AOL journal — launched in 2003 and another animal entirely — is as engaging.

“I really enjoy doing By the Way,” he says. “(Here) I want to make sure people go out into the internet to see what’s there. I want to give them things to talk about, inspire them to share their thoughts about what they find. So many online journals are abandoned after a few weeks; I want to help people have something to do on their blogs.” He points the way with notable links, media streams, and photo assignments. Standard blog content Scalzified, if you will.

Scalzi began his first novel in 1997. Instead of fretting over its marketability and worrying he’d blow his chance at delivering “the One Story That Mattered To Me,” the project goal was to complete an acknowledged “practice novel.” No pressure. The book, Agent to the Stars, is available to read for free on the Whatever.

Throwing the horns in the face of pain and angst worked. Seven years and four novels later, Scalzi found himself nominated in 2006 for two of science fiction’s biggest prizes, the Hugo for Best Novel (Old Man’s War, which lost to Robert Charles Wilson’s epic Spin) and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author. That he won.

All of it — the brochures for financial institutions, the blog postings, the fiction — makes for an astonishing amount of words churned out month-to-month. So it was, in the spirit of catching his fans up, that one day last fall Scalzi posted a list of things he expected to accomplish that afternoon. Besides finishing his latest novel, The Last Colony (due in stores in May), and fighting crime, there was “#9: Tape bacon to the cat.” Just to be silly. You know how you do.

Readers latched on, teased and cajoled. Within a couple of hours a Scalzi pet was photographed wearing breakfast meat. The event was picked up by Fark.com and traffic went to 150+ percent of normal, the Whatever’s busiest day ever.

Wha? “I knew the cat would let me do it,” Scalzi explains, “And I did call my wife so that I could have her reaction and post that, too.” As one commenter put it, people just felt it was quality entertainment for their Internet dollar, and a jaw-droppingly stellar example of work avoidance.

Which leads back to perspective. Was Bacon Cat merely procrastination? Was she an example of the serendipitous milestones along Scalzi’s path to success? For some people all hard work is just that, a misery. For others, some hard work is the only thing they can imagine doing happily.

Scalzi works hard at working fun, readers are well-satisfied, and, sure, a cat suffers humiliation with quiet dignity. Is that so wrong? Depends on how you look at it.

[SIDEBARS]

BIBLIOGRAPHY Non-fiction: The Rough Guide to the Universe, The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies, Book of the Dumb (two volumes), You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing (Feb). Fiction: Agent to the Stars, Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, The Android’s Dream, The Last Colony (May).

HIS GEEKERY Astronomy. Scalzi’s very first words to appear on the internet — a Usenet post dated 3/20/94 to be exact — were a layman’s question regarding the nature of universal expansion. He might have pursued the path of academe, but a working astronomer needs to have a pretty firm grasp on whadya callems, numbers, and at a certain point, even though he knew it was impossible to make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs, Scalzi hit the showers. Still, his writing skillz have ultimately given him a way to stay in the game. It’s as a popularizer and evangelist for science.

“I firmly believe that 80% of all science is understandable to anyone who can walk upright — it’s just a matter of presenting the information in a way they want to read it or experience it,” Scalzi wrote in a Whatever post about his life goals. “Out of anything I do, I would consider this a calling, a thing I do out of a personal moral imperative … and also because I simply love the ideas of science and want to try to make other people love them too.”

An amateur musician, Scalzi put NASA’s Cassini mission recordings of Saturnian radio waves to music. Hear it.

ON WRITING In response to a reader’s request, Scalzi put together these “writing tips (for) those who aren’t aspiring professionals, but would like to write better.” Details are located at here, and much more will be included in Scalzi’s new book on writing, which should be available around the time you’re reading this, from Subterranean Press.

0. Speak what you write: This is rule zero because all other rules follow on this. Basically: If what you’re writing is hard to speak, what makes you think it’s going to be easy to read?

1. Punctuate, damn you.

2. With sentences, shorter is better than longer.

3. Learn to friggin’ spell.

4. Don’t use words you don’t really know.

5. Grammar matters, but not as much as anal grammar Nazis think it does.

6. Front-load your point (i.e., “get to the goddamn point, already.”)

7. Try to write well every single time you write (“It won’t kill you to write a complete sentence in IM or e-mail.”)

8. Read people who write well.

9. When in doubt, simplify.

When I began freelancing several years ago, under the name AnabelJack, a Creative Services Co, I created this as a leave-behind to showcase my ideation, writing, layout and Photoshop chops. No one ever said it earned me a shot specifically, but I got at least one project from everyone I ever gave it to. It’s meant to be something fun for that spare ring binder on the shelf, wherein you stash miscellaneous stuff. Do you have a homely binder like that? You can download a PDF of the Office Oracle behind the cut if you like, and find the explanatory text and user’s guide I wrote for the back.

The Astonishing Amalgamation
of the Art of Divination
and a First-Rate Office Supply

For your edification and counsel, Hentosz Creative Services offers The Kitty’s Konscience, our astonishing office oracle. Now you no longer have to face important daily decisions alone and adrift. No matter what the situation, Hentosz Creative Services is your friend and wants you to be confident of doing right always.

The Kitty’s Konscience is a decision maker. Mentally assign “yes/no,” “heads/tails,” “yin/yang,” whatever, to the bad and good dogs. When the Oracle is in place as a binder cover insert, you can consult it by spinning a coin on the Kitty’s nose. Whichever side of the Oracle the coin comes to rest determines your answer (Fig.1).

You can use the Oracle all by itself (sans binder). Lay it flat on a clean desk. Ask your question and spin the card sharply. When the card stops spinning, the side of the Oracle closest to you determines your answer.

The Oracle also functions as a Oui-ja board. Simply Scotch™-tape a pen, pencil or PDA stylus to your computer mouse for a neat planchette. Concentrate and let the wisdom of the cosmos inspire your hand (Fig. 2). The Kitty’s Konscience will not pass moral judgement, it will simply provide guidance in the form of fact (you will have to provide the appropriate spaces), something along the lines of “JEFFHENTOSZCANBESTIMPLEMENT-
YOURMARKETINGPLAN” perhaps.

Disclaimer: Oracle guidance is non-binding.The answer you get may not be what you really wanted to hear, in which case go with your gut. Hentosz Creative Services does not condone the use of the letter “K” in a deliberate misspelling simply for cuteness’ sake; visual alliteration may seem like a good idea at first blush, but in the long run can only lead to escalated typographic atrocities such as “IM4U” and the like.

Download The Kitty’s Konscience PDF (2.5MB)