Neil deMause: The Website

I’m very pleased to announced that, effective immediately, I am taking on the role of Contributing Editor for Safety Net and Workforce Development issues for the newly redesigned and expanded City Limits. I’m actually one of four new contributing editors that City Limits has brought on — that’s right, a journalism outlet actually expanding! in 2010! — with Helen Zelon (education/child development), Eileen Markey (housing/homelessness), and Jake Mooney (labor/immigration) my new colleagues.

What this means for you, the reader, is lots more articles like these, running on City Limits’ now-daily-updated website. (Did I mention the new website?) I’ll still be writing for the Voice and elsewhere, and will still be posting links here and via Twitter, for those of you who prefer your news to come to you, rather than having to hunt it down and kill it.

I’ll be assigning out some articles as well, so if you’re a journalist with a great story about the lives of (and city services for) low-income New Yorkers, drop me a line.

For those of you in New York City and environs, I’m going to be returning from my long hiatus from live music the week after next, performing songs from my never-to-be-released CD “More Songs About Buildings and Gentrification.” I’ll be opening for my friend Scott MX Turner (aka Rebelmart) at two shows, at Freddy’s in Prospect Heights on Tuesday 1/19, and at Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook on Friday 1/22. Both shows start at 8 pm, and I go on first, then stick around to accompany Scott on his set. There Will Be Melodicas!

This has to be a new record of some kind: Quote given at 3:45 pm EST; quote appears on web at 3:58 pm EST.

I’m quoted in the Tacoma News Tribune and the Kansas City Pitch today, talking about stadiums. The upshot of the former article: I’m not going to be getting out of this line of work anytime soon.

The new edition of Baseball Prospectus is out, with my essay on the last year in baseball stadium developments, and I’ll be hitting the road - okay, the keyboard and the subway - to help promote it. This Thursday, I’ll be at baseballprospectus.com doing a live online chat (feel free to submit questions ahead of time).

Then on Thursday, March 12, at 6 pm, I’ll be appearing on a BP panel discussion, along with Kevin Goldstein, Steven Goldman, Jay Jaffe, and Cliff Corcoran, at the original Barnes & Noble store on 18th St. and Fifth Ave. in Manhattan. C’mon out and say hi.

If you tried to tune me on on ESPN radio, you didn’t hear me, as I was pre-empted - something about some baseball player taking steroids six years ago. I’ll post here if and when it’s rescheduled.

Like the headline says, I’m scheduled to be on ESPN Radio’s Brian Kenny Show on Monday, starting at about 8:27 pm Eastern time. The topic: “how the economy is affecting sports,” including naming rights deals and player salaries. If you don’t know how to use a radio, just click on the web stream here.

Ever since news broke that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich allegedly tried to trade Wrigley Field stadium subsidies for getting Chicago Tribune editorial board writers fired, I’ve been getting lots of calls from radio stations on the topic. So far the list includes:

• Culture Shocks with Barry Lynn (listen to archive here) yesterday.
• Seattle’s KOMO last night.
• WCCO in Minneapolis today at 12:40 pm Central time.

I’ll also be on New York’s WBAI tomorrow morning at 6:45 am Eastern, discussing the latest in the Mets and Yanks stadium deals. If my voice hasn’t given out by then.

(UPDATE: I also just found the archive of my appearance yesterday on The Roth Show, which was, um, interesting…)

I may have been cut from “E:60,” but my yammerings about the Yankees stadium controversy turned up this morning on ESPN’s other newsmagazine show, “Outside the Lines,” in a segment on Friday’s Congressional hearings on the subject. You can catch repeats every day this week at 3 pm Eastern (2:30 pm on Monday for some reason), or watch streaming video on the Outside the Lines website, where the choppy video makes my squinting into the camera lights look especially doofy.

(UPDATE: It turns out that the weekday “Outside the Lines” don’t repeat Sunday’s episode, so the streaming web video is your only option.)

Two brushes with media greatness for me today:

• I’m quoted in today’s New York Times, on page B5, in an article on the luxury suite that New York City officials are getting for their own use at the new Yankees stadium. The article is online here, but for some reason the section I’m quoted in doesn’t appear online; for those not in reach of a New York newsstand, my deathless words are: “Is [city council speaker] Chris Quinn going to be able to hand out tickets to people who vote the way she likes?”
• ESPN’s “E:60″ is scheduled to run a segment tonight (7 pm Eastern) about the Yanks’ stadium controversy, for which I was interviewed. If I end up on the cutting-room floor for that one as well, I’ll, um, post a YouTube clip of me talking about stadiums or something.

UPDATE: I was indeed cut from the “E:60″ segment. I’ll get working on my lip-syncing to Rick Astley.