Seattle Author Interviews Historic Dead People
by Ramon Shiloh
Michael Stusser is an author, even if his style is a bit unconventional. Where he excels is in the unique detailing that is so capable of calling out the absurdities of the human condition by poking fun at our inner-most secrets. Stusser’s been noted as a man who “brings an out-of-the-box approach to communications, activism, message and his ideas to promote world vision, achievement and fluxus collaboration.”
“Real early in my childhood, I was into visuals with stories that turned me on to writing. When I was in sixth grade, I was part of the elementary school newspaper and I felt really proud to have my name on a story I wrote. That prompted high school yearbook stuff to high school newspapers,” Stusser says. “My writing style has always been told by a first person perspective. Early on, I would always journal my thoughts as the way I was living the experience. It’s more difficult for me to write about life that isn’t happening to me. So, I write ego-driven, first-person essays.”
His insights have garnered wide acclaim through a string of publications in the Pacific Northwest and peppered around the East Coast. A columnist for mental_floss magazine, Stusser has also been published in Law and Politics, Yoga International, Seattle Magazine, Travel Magazine and the New York Times Syndicate.
In all his work, Stusser strives to find the humor, especially where the funny isn’t always obvious. “Take yoga, for instance. When you’re in a difficult pose, the first thought that comes to mind is murdering the yoga teacher,” Stusser laughs. “[When] the instructor states, ‘while stretching, thoughts may come and you’ll want them to pass,’ my humor is [saying] yeah, I want to kill you right now, but I’m going to let this pass because I don’t want to go to jail.”
“People can relate because there’s no way you’re practicing for an hour and not having some thought like, ‘Damn, I want to have a ham sandwich.’ To do a story that only depicts the keys to your monkey mind, that’s important, but, in reality, everyone’s having funny thoughts. I just want to be real about the experience. That’s where the funny comes from.”
Stusser’s work has earned him a Gold Award from the Parents’ Publication for his “Accidental Parent” column in ParentMap Magazine. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) also recognized his article “Organicize Me”, published by the Seattle Weekly, which chronicled his month-long journey ingesting only organic foods.
A native Seattleite, Stusser contends that humor in the midst of chaos makes you wonder who’s in charge of the buttons of mood swings. For example, he thinks Seattle not building the Monorail is absurd. “It infuriates me every time I see this light-rail thing get stuck in traffic, but I laugh because we could have had this great system gliding all over the place.”
The Dead Guy Interviews
One of Stusser’s most popular projects, The Dead Guy Interviews (Penguin, 2007), examines 45 of the most accomplished and notorious deceased personalities in history. The genius behind the book is Stusser’s refreshing approach to writing a biography. This modern platform utilizes a “Tonight Show” approach in getting the truth out about these historical figure heads. The present-tense, personal interviews he conducts makes the reader feel as if the historical figure it sitting right next to him.
“I loved the research part and learning about these people and bringing humor into it,” Stusser says. “The interviews are historical, hysterical and great conversational fodder. If you ever wondered what it would be like to have dinner with anyone in history, now you’ll know.”
The first dead guy interview appeared as a column for mental_floss, a bi-monthly magazine that examines the lighter side of life’s toils, throws cranial factoids in the mix and purees it with a hint of stuff you might not need to know, but will make you feel better once you do. Gaining the attention of an editor at Penguin, the book turned the freelance journalist into a bona fide author who is sought after by universities and embraced by scholars who use the book as an educative tool.
In a writer’s interview on his website, Stusser points to Honest Abe as the nicest dead person he has interviewed. “He’s an incredibly bright fellow and a great president during the roughest of times. He’s also got a helluva sense of humor. When we were talking about an opponent who called him two-faced, he said, ‘If I had two faces, do you think I’d be using this one?’”
Stusser did discard several well-known figures for the first anthology, including Jesus, for apparently being “miffed about being constantly misquoted”, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Aristotle and Elvis, but only because “he’s not dead yet,” Stusser joked in the article. He says there are still plenty of dead people to interview, so there just might be a Volume 2. “It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”Video: A hilarious interview with Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan from Michael Stusser's new book The Dead Guy Interviews.
Board Games Meet Today’s Critical Issues
Not one for marginal involvement, Stusser found a niche into our homes as the creator of four board games that have found a large fan base around the country. In 1990, he released EARTH ALERT, a provocative, entertaining game that focuses on the new millennium. With four engaging categories, Stusser’s vision was to inform while having fun and to actively involve participants in saving the planet. The innovative game was recognized with a Parents’ Choice Award.
Born and raised in Seattle, Stusser spent much of his childhood in the great outdoors. “My parents were wonderful mentors. Their inspiration for me was day hiking in the Cascades and around the Pacific Northwest. I remember there would be clear-cutting from left to right and I would say to my parents, ‘Oh, I thought Weyerhaeuser was the tree growing company.’ [That's when] I realized business clashes with the environment. My parents were very progressive, so they passed those observations onto me growing up.”
Stusser’s motivation to increase dialog about the critical issues of our times began in the environmental movement at the University of California at Berkeley. Empowering individuals to make change in struggling times, Stusser worked as a political organizer and lobbyist for the Public Interest Research Groups (CalPIRG, MASSPIRG and USPIRG), Greenpeace, Rock the Environment and was a CORO Fellow graduate in Los Angeles in 1989.
Stusser’s second board game was a team effort with Gary Trudeau. The Doonesbury Game, an entertainment equivalent of three full sets of tennis, engages participants in discussions about some of the most critical issues of our times, such as handgun control, the deficit and virginity. Despite the heavy subject matter, it won Party Game of the Year after it launched.
“I was a Doonesbury fan for a long time and knew all [Gary Trudeau's] stuff,” Stusser says. “It was a little intimidating at first when we met, but clearly, when we walked him through the process, he had a great sense of humor about it.”
Stusser also created BumperCompass in 2000, which allows players to see the annual Seattle Bumbershoot Arts Festival by participating in fun, interactive activities throughout Seattle Center. And, Hear Me Out hit Starbucks stores throughout the nation in May 2004, quickly becoming one of the top-selling games in the country. The purpose of the game is to send players away entertained, educated and armed with juicy, compromising information about fellow players.
“In these economic downturns, I’ve been reading about families at home playing games and cards. I really like the fact that we’re returning to a time where you can turn the T.V. off and get to know your family again through simple games,” says Stusser, who, at 44, finds himself at a midway point where his life as a satirical journalist, author, actor and family man is just scratching the surface.
“Getting older, I hope there’s more humor to engage in. What I find is time to still maintain my humor. When I see authors with 30-plus books out there, I think about my one book and realize, geez, I better get moving!” Stusser jokes. “At this venture in my life, I feel this is the beginning to do more work. What was amazing about The Dead Guy Interviews was that I found myself amazed on how prolific their lives were. Mozart died at 36, but, my god, by the time he was six, he put out eight symphonies. Compared to their work ethic, I’ve learned that I better keep cranking out important stuff that matters.”
© 2/23/2009
by Ramon Shiloh
Michael Stusser is an author, even if his style is a bit unconventional. Where he excels is in the unique detailing that is so capable of calling out the absurdities of the human condition by poking fun at our inner-most secrets. Stusser’s been noted as a man who “brings an out-of-the-box approach to communications, activism, message and his ideas to promote world vision, achievement and fluxus collaboration.”
“Real early in my childhood, I was into visuals with stories that turned me on to writing. When I was in sixth grade, I was part of the elementary school newspaper and I felt really proud to have my name on a story I wrote. That prompted high school yearbook stuff to high school newspapers,” Stusser says. “My writing style has always been told by a first person perspective. Early on, I would always journal my thoughts as the way I was living the experience. It’s more difficult for me to write about life that isn’t happening to me. So, I write ego-driven, first-person essays.”
His insights have garnered wide acclaim through a string of publications in the Pacific Northwest and peppered around the East Coast. A columnist for mental_floss magazine, Stusser has also been published in Law and Politics, Yoga International, Seattle Magazine, Travel Magazine and the New York Times Syndicate.
In all his work, Stusser strives to find the humor, especially where the funny isn’t always obvious. “Take yoga, for instance. When you’re in a difficult pose, the first thought that comes to mind is murdering the yoga teacher,” Stusser laughs. “[When] the instructor states, ‘while stretching, thoughts may come and you’ll want them to pass,’ my humor is [saying] yeah, I want to kill you right now, but I’m going to let this pass because I don’t want to go to jail.”
“People can relate because there’s no way you’re practicing for an hour and not having some thought like, ‘Damn, I want to have a ham sandwich.’ To do a story that only depicts the keys to your monkey mind, that’s important, but, in reality, everyone’s having funny thoughts. I just want to be real about the experience. That’s where the funny comes from.”
Stusser’s work has earned him a Gold Award from the Parents’ Publication for his “Accidental Parent” column in ParentMap Magazine. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) also recognized his article “Organicize Me”, published by the Seattle Weekly, which chronicled his month-long journey ingesting only organic foods.
A native Seattleite, Stusser contends that humor in the midst of chaos makes you wonder who’s in charge of the buttons of mood swings. For example, he thinks Seattle not building the Monorail is absurd. “It infuriates me every time I see this light-rail thing get stuck in traffic, but I laugh because we could have had this great system gliding all over the place.”
The Dead Guy Interviews
One of Stusser’s most popular projects, The Dead Guy Interviews (Penguin, 2007), examines 45 of the most accomplished and notorious deceased personalities in history. The genius behind the book is Stusser’s refreshing approach to writing a biography. This modern platform utilizes a “Tonight Show” approach in getting the truth out about these historical figure heads. The present-tense, personal interviews he conducts makes the reader feel as if the historical figure it sitting right next to him.
“I loved the research part and learning about these people and bringing humor into it,” Stusser says. “The interviews are historical, hysterical and great conversational fodder. If you ever wondered what it would be like to have dinner with anyone in history, now you’ll know.”
The first dead guy interview appeared as a column for mental_floss, a bi-monthly magazine that examines the lighter side of life’s toils, throws cranial factoids in the mix and purees it with a hint of stuff you might not need to know, but will make you feel better once you do. Gaining the attention of an editor at Penguin, the book turned the freelance journalist into a bona fide author who is sought after by universities and embraced by scholars who use the book as an educative tool.
In a writer’s interview on his website, Stusser points to Honest Abe as the nicest dead person he has interviewed. “He’s an incredibly bright fellow and a great president during the roughest of times. He’s also got a helluva sense of humor. When we were talking about an opponent who called him two-faced, he said, ‘If I had two faces, do you think I’d be using this one?’”
Stusser did discard several well-known figures for the first anthology, including Jesus, for apparently being “miffed about being constantly misquoted”, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Aristotle and Elvis, but only because “he’s not dead yet,” Stusser joked in the article. He says there are still plenty of dead people to interview, so there just might be a Volume 2. “It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”Video: A hilarious interview with Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan from Michael Stusser's new book The Dead Guy Interviews.
Board Games Meet Today’s Critical Issues
Not one for marginal involvement, Stusser found a niche into our homes as the creator of four board games that have found a large fan base around the country. In 1990, he released EARTH ALERT, a provocative, entertaining game that focuses on the new millennium. With four engaging categories, Stusser’s vision was to inform while having fun and to actively involve participants in saving the planet. The innovative game was recognized with a Parents’ Choice Award.
Born and raised in Seattle, Stusser spent much of his childhood in the great outdoors. “My parents were wonderful mentors. Their inspiration for me was day hiking in the Cascades and around the Pacific Northwest. I remember there would be clear-cutting from left to right and I would say to my parents, ‘Oh, I thought Weyerhaeuser was the tree growing company.’ [That's when] I realized business clashes with the environment. My parents were very progressive, so they passed those observations onto me growing up.”
Stusser’s motivation to increase dialog about the critical issues of our times began in the environmental movement at the University of California at Berkeley. Empowering individuals to make change in struggling times, Stusser worked as a political organizer and lobbyist for the Public Interest Research Groups (CalPIRG, MASSPIRG and USPIRG), Greenpeace, Rock the Environment and was a CORO Fellow graduate in Los Angeles in 1989.
Stusser’s second board game was a team effort with Gary Trudeau. The Doonesbury Game, an entertainment equivalent of three full sets of tennis, engages participants in discussions about some of the most critical issues of our times, such as handgun control, the deficit and virginity. Despite the heavy subject matter, it won Party Game of the Year after it launched.
“I was a Doonesbury fan for a long time and knew all [Gary Trudeau's] stuff,” Stusser says. “It was a little intimidating at first when we met, but clearly, when we walked him through the process, he had a great sense of humor about it.”
Stusser also created BumperCompass in 2000, which allows players to see the annual Seattle Bumbershoot Arts Festival by participating in fun, interactive activities throughout Seattle Center. And, Hear Me Out hit Starbucks stores throughout the nation in May 2004, quickly becoming one of the top-selling games in the country. The purpose of the game is to send players away entertained, educated and armed with juicy, compromising information about fellow players.
“In these economic downturns, I’ve been reading about families at home playing games and cards. I really like the fact that we’re returning to a time where you can turn the T.V. off and get to know your family again through simple games,” says Stusser, who, at 44, finds himself at a midway point where his life as a satirical journalist, author, actor and family man is just scratching the surface.
“Getting older, I hope there’s more humor to engage in. What I find is time to still maintain my humor. When I see authors with 30-plus books out there, I think about my one book and realize, geez, I better get moving!” Stusser jokes. “At this venture in my life, I feel this is the beginning to do more work. What was amazing about The Dead Guy Interviews was that I found myself amazed on how prolific their lives were. Mozart died at 36, but, my god, by the time he was six, he put out eight symphonies. Compared to their work ethic, I’ve learned that I better keep cranking out important stuff that matters.”
© 2/23/2009
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