interviews Archives - Author JD Lasica

Lincoln Center Stage on ms Oosterdam

When Holland America Line president Orlando Ashford announced the cruise line’s partnershp with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts back in March 2015 at Seatrade, I was among those in the roomful of travel writers who were excited about the new venture, partly because I grew up in North Jersey and was able to take in the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center over the years. So I was jazzed last month to see Lincoln Center Stage as one of the prominent acts on my cruise to Alaska on ms Oosterdam.

An interview with Jonathan Coulton

Alt-rocker headlines ‘floating nerd convention’ on Holland America ship Earlier this month I spent a week on JoCo Cruise, the annual gathering of superfans of indie musician/singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, along with diehard fans of board games, alt rock, comedy, knitting, magicians and other odds and ends. Over the past seven years the JoCo Cruise has grown from about 350 people to nearly 1,700, enough for the backers to charter the entire ship — Holland America’s erstwhle Westerdam — this time around. Our weeklong sailing took us from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas and Loreto, Mexico, scene of the first land-based JoCo Cruise music & food festival, fancifully dubbed JoCoachella.

Highlights of Pleasanton and the Tri-Valley

Here’s a short chat I had with Amy Blaschka, President and CEO of the Tri-Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, about the Tri-Valley region (where I live), located in the San Francisco East Bay. The Tri-Valley consists of Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville, San Ramon and Dublin, and it’s best known for the Livermore wine region, golf, an amazing array of parks and sports fields, and the historic downtowns of some of the cities, especially Pleasanton.

How Mother Jones is embracing social media

If you know Mother Jones, you probably think of them as primarily a print magazine. “That’s not really true anymore,” says Steve Katz in this 10-minute interview. Katz talks about Mothers Jones’ embrace of Facebook and Twitter and use of those social media platforms to extend their reach and generate new stories.

United Breaks Guitars: The Dave Carroll interview

Musician Dave Carroll saw his guitar being mishandled by the baggage carriers at United Airlines. Nine months later he was denied compensation. So he wrote a three-part musical trilogy, “United Breaks Guitars.” The original video has been seen 8.8 million times and is the 12th most-watched video in the history of YouTube. Dave talks about the experience in this 9-minute video interview.

An author’s advice on life balance

Imet Andrea Syrtash — author, advice columnist and life coach — at last year’s 140 Characters conference in New York, so when she swung into San Francisco as part of her book tour for “He’s Just Not Your Type,” I caught up with her after her talk at Book Passage along the Embarcadero. “He’s Just Not” isn’t the typical fear-based dating advice book (You’re not getting any younger! Settle!). Mostly, it’s about discovering things about yourself, including unsuccessful dating patterns. “If you keep dating the same kind of person and it’s not working, you might want to mix it up,” she said.

Interview with the CEO/founder of Foursquare

During the Where 2.0 conference on March 31, 2010, I grabbed Dennis Crowley, CEO and co-founder of Foursquare, after his eye-opening keynote talk. If you haven’t heard of Foursquare, you will — they’re on track to hit a million registered users around May 1. People in their 20s and 30s obsess over checking in at various locations to win digital badges.

Girls in Tech: Bringing women into tech world

For years I’ve bemoaned the lack of women on stage at the scores of tech conferences and events I attend. Girls in Tech is out to change that. I caught up with founder Adriana Gascoigne and executive managing director Robyn Cohen at Web 2.0 Expo earlier this month.

The story behind Invisible Children

Laren Poole, a filmmaker who co-founded Invisible Children, talks about the groundbreaking human rights organization, which is trying to free children forced into armed conflict.

Cali Lewis on what makes a successful podcast

Cali Lewis (real name Luria Petrucci), the Web show pioneer who is the host and co-producer of GeekBrief.TV, gives a 10-minute interview about her highly successful video podcast (that’s Internet TV to all you laypeople). She talks about the show’s genesis, what podcasting has to offer, how to generate audience participation, her use of Twitter (today she has about 50,000 followers), and her advice to those just starting out in podcasting.