John Whalen

The Merry Prankster

John Whalen
Like perhaps two-thirds of L.A., Junkyard Willie wants to be in movies. But unlike other aspiring egos, Willie isn’t even a real person. He‘s the audio-enhanced alter ego of a guy named RePete, who right now is standing in front of a microphone in his cavernous living room. He flips......
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Greetings from Multimedia Glitch

John Whalen
Art by Calef BrownONCE AGAIN, THE SAN FRANCISCO AND NEW YORK arbiters of Geek Chic have slighted their poorer relations down in Los Angeles. It wasn't an overt snubbing, or even an intentional one. It's just that last month's annual Webby Awards, the event heralded by the press as the......
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Bill and Steve's Servile Adventure

John Whalen
Art by Calef BrownMEET BILL LESSARD AND STEVE BALDWIN, TWO horribly average new-media guys who have never grinned mischievously on a sorbet-colored cover of Wired magazine or even playfully aimed toy ray guns at each other inside. What they have done is worked behind the scenes in the Internet revolution,......
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Y2KAOS

John Whalen
Illustration by Charise MericleTHE VANITY PLATES ON J. DAVID STEWART'S COLLECTIBLE sports cars announce where and how he plans to drive come the new millennium: Into "Y2CHAOS" (the plates on his 1969 Ferrari 365 GT exclaim), as "Y2KMAN" (the tags on his 1968 Corvette convertible boast). That's Y2K as in......

The Trip

John Whalen
One morning in April 1962, Cary Grant swallowed four tiny blue pills of lysergic acid diethylamide — LSD. Incredibly, it was the 58-year-old actor’s 72nd acid trip under the supervision of a psychiatrist. Grant relaxed on a plush couch and sipped coffee as the drug began to take effect. During......