January 24, 2007

Read Rachel Kramer Bussel's full interview with JahFurry on GOTHAMIST

You probably already know Jeff Newelt, a.k.a. "Jahfurry," and if you don't, he's probably waiting to meet you. The professional publicist, tireless connector, and man about town, goes out almost every night of the week, with several parties and people on permanent mental speed dial, his brain constantly buzzing with new ideas. Described by friends as a "human MySpace" (Anthony Lappé) and "an infectious force of nature" (Larry Smith), the 35-year-old Long Island native and current Queens resident even has his own logo, courtesy of Dan Goldman, and flits from the mostly underground arts and comics world to the reggae and jazz scenes and beyond, always in search of more people to add to his coterie. By day, he works as a publicist focusing on Samsung in his job as PR Account Supervisor at MWW Group. By night, he wears any number of hats: Minister of Hype for online comics collective ACT-I-VATE, SMITH magazine Comics Editor, creative consultant for online graphic novels Shooting War and A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, writer and performer, popping up on stages at parties and bars across town to rattle off his unique musical blend into the mic. Whether reporting on Comic-Con, waxing lyrical about Alan Moore, performing with Kochie Banton, auditionining for Gizmodo's theme song competition, or throwing wild parties, he puts 100% of himself into the task at hand, and has a wonderful time doing so.

After spending 20-hour days at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas, he returned to New York with energy to spare, but took the time to email Gothamist the scoop on his kinship with Frank Zappa, on-stage alter ego, the future of online comics, who's on his must-meet list (hint: not Britney Spears), and how he keeps track of his ever-growing social calendar.

Where in Queens do you live and how long have you lived there?
I live in Woodside, and have been there for 4 years, Great 'lil neighborhood with grade A nooks for nosh, like on my corner, La Flor, a mind-blowing Mexican restaurant/bakery. I order either a Mexican pizza or torta milanesa on my way home from work, while still on the overhead 7 train, the call made as I hit Queensboro Plaza. I get their definitive big chocolate chip cookie for dessert, primordially jahrumptious like something Hansel or Gretyl would pull out of a snacksack packed for them by a goodnatured gnome.

When and how did you get the nickname JahFurry, and what does it mean to you? Do you feel or act differently when you're performing or known "as" JahFurry vs. as "Jeff Newelt?"
"JahFurry" the moniker was morphed from Jeffrey to Jeffurry to the rasta-ready JahFurry by my chum and Dub-dealer DJ Ananji.

JahFurry is me when I break the fiction wall and jump into the "movie" Purple Rose of Cairo-style?when I guest reggaejazzy psychedeliditty on stage with some of my heroes in the NYC magical musical underground like Cedric Brooks, Pat Cisarano, Ras Droppa, Clark Gayton, Bill Sims Jr. I started by helping promote shows, and writing promojournalistic emails about shows I recommend, then one day, when I was doing a backstage imitation of my raggaguru Kochie Banton, keyboardist George Laks told me I should "do that some o' dat on stage." So I did, and that was my first time ever on stage, and I do so now and then, and only recently started doing so under my own JahFurry banner, like I did last week for Heeb magazine's Group Therapy show at Mo Pitkin's.

JahFurry is the fortunate transmorgrification of "Man-Boy Jeff," the 14-year-old glandularly precocious funnysmart nerd summercamper with "counselor legs" and pelt-to-match who was mercilessly derided by YMHA teen tour tarts. I was a teenage 40-year-old-virgin. Now I embrace the tufts, the errant follicles, the anacondian nose hair that mischievously protrudes, poking pals in the eye from across the room. In fact, in my performance last week at Group Therapy, backed by Bill Sims Jr. (Lackawanna Blues, Seven Guitars) on guitar, I introduced the imaginary nose-hair-harp and strummed a mean long strong strand, if I do say so myself. [twang]

But, whether I'm in a suit being introduced as Jeff Newelt or on stage as JahFurry, it's the same shtick. One beard one man one love.

You told me that you often see people that you know you will meet or plan to meet in the future and bring them into your wide web of activities and artists. What are the qualities that make someone the sort you'd want to meet and take under your wing or vice versa?
Actually, you are one of a gaggle of folks who I knew about, and thought "hey, I could should be friends in cahoots with them," encountered first, online, by way of blogs, on MySpace or wherever, and then met IRL in 2006. Each time it's surreal yet inevitable, more "of course" than "oh my goodness." The key being, there's no planned seeking out, it was just written . . . online. This happened a scary amount of times recently, where my online orbits with someone intersect, that someone's thumbnail icon becomes slightly sharper upon each subsequent view, more 3D then others, almost winking at me, and then sure enough, IRL encounter soon, usually days after. Of course this is coming from someone who was positive that Jan was winking at him from her Brady intro-sequence square.

In terms of the sorta folks I embrace, Martin Buber, my favorite early 20th Century Jewish German existentialist once wrote, "When the Day of Judgment comes, the Lord is not going to ask you 'Why weren't you Moses? Why weren't you Jesus? Why weren't you Buddha?' . . . He's going to ask why weren't you Rachel Kramer Bussel? Or why weren't you JahFurry?" Meaning, it's one of our holiest tasks to realize our own uniqueness. We're here to be ourselves, so that's what I look for, folks who are themselves . . . and who don't smell.

Wrote this below somethinsomethin two years ago for Comic Book Galaxy's "Alan Moore Writing Contest." It won me a magical stack of signed n' sketched books that I take off my shelf to fondle now and then:

  

Moore, Magic n Me

Shazam. Nah. Kimota! Nope, doesnt do anything for me. Alan Moore. Bingo.  I say it, type it, think it, and whoosh , all the wonder, emotion, ideas, images, characters Ive absorbed over twenty years of reading him jiggle inside and juice me up. The invocation-activated Vitamin M is long-lasting and contains plenty of what baked-good copywriters call goodness. New Moor-ee-os, Now Even Magic-ier! They shrivel your cynicism, suspend your shame, and sabotage your stupidity!  New Moore-Magi-goggles! Translates ordinary life occurrences into moments of wondrous significance! Idea of batteries included.

1984:  Im taking a break from studying for my Bar Mitzvah, lying on the floor reading comics, one of which is my first Moore, Swamp Thing #25.  Page One has Jason Blood (I didnt yet know hes also that rhyming Hell-dweller, Etrigan) telling an insulation salesman, At 5:32 this evening you will be impaled by a swordfish. There is nothing to be done. It is written. Selena has already decided not to buy the lawn furniture. Im impaled by that line, read it five times, and spring up for the first of many spontaneous Moore-inspired imagidances (when imagination is so stimulated it releases by way of a jig). Then I continue and first meet Abby and Swamp Thing, two rich  souls talking on two-dimensional paper, gaining life in the transaction between writer and reader, between Moore (w/ Bissette and Totleben) and Me. I didnt get it all, but sensed that secrets were being passed on, about our world, people, adults, and how they really would and do act / feel.

1989: My first semester at UPenn, I was randomly assigned to an English Lit seminar with Watchmen on the syllabus. After the first class, I mailed my Grandma a  note, Required reading at an Ivy League school. Grandma, now would you please stop calling them funnybooks?

The two below Alanecdotes illustrate how Alan Moore has effected my perception of my life, which is my life to a great degree. Change the way you see the world, change your life. The monster in the closet makes you sweat whether he physically exists or not. Your favorite blankie is not just fabric, it does make you feel better, does have an actual net-effect.  Believe in magic and it happens, the ideas floating around in your noggin permeate and effect reality.

2003: Im visiting my parents, in my old room, fondling my collection. The walls are covered in superhero posters from 1984: New Teen Titans by Perez, a Crisis on Infinite Earths promo poster, a Legion of Super Heroes everyone who was ever a member- and the Fantastic Four by Byrne.  I find that issue of Detective Comics with the Moore/Klaus Janson Green Arrow back-up story.  Whoosh. Im instantly possessed, compelled to assemble all un-reprinted Moore DC gems from the 80s and I do. I then pull a 13-year-old-Me-move and write-up a list of what would go in an imaginary compilation. The next night, in Soho, Im checking out another hero, Clark Gaytons, Explorations in Dub concert (a superteam-like all-star band, each member a Kirby character, their leader playing deeply resonant fat bassy Oms on a Doctor Doom-used-this-weapon-to-attack-The Fantastic Four-looking Sousaphone, the on-stage assemblage looking like a 2-page spread from New Gods), I run into Dale Crain, Editor, DC Collected Editions, and again, Im possessed - this time to foist my idea upon him, to insist that DCd be foolish not to publish such a compilation ASAP. I had in my bag, the Secret Origins with the Alan Moore/Joe Orlando Phantom Stranger story and I whip that out too.  Dale gives me a look like I pulled a snake-god out me bum, Uhh, Jeff, we approved that idea just this afternoonbut we forgot about that story, thanks  My imaginary compilation  already had a name, and now, as fans know exists as Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore.

A month later, Im on the subway, reading the Alan Moore tribute, Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the fellow next to me is reading Top Ten. A conversation ensues, we wax worshipful about the Magus and Promethea, how its Kabalistic quest storyline uncliches mind-blowing.  Were talking Moore, and Im relaying the story from the previous paragraph, saying, Isnt it neat how it coincides with Moores notion of Idea Space (i.e., tis not a coincidence that two blokes on different continents invented the steam engine within days of each other, etc) when, whoosh,  to our left,  a guy starts pointing at a scene in Promethea, saying to his girlfriend,  O, man, you gotta check this out. Our subway duet turned trio and when I reached my stop, I closed my eyes and saw Moore doing that Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow wink,  from the last panel, when Superman, who we thought was dead, lets us in on the secret hes got a new non-Kent alter-ego.

Originally I was only going to include those two coincidences, but, yesterday, and this essay is due tomorrow another. Again Im on the subway, this time reading the new Locus, with an Alan Moore cover/feature on graphic novels and interviews with Bryan Talbot, Neil Gaiman, Charles Vess, and Jeff Smith. The kid next to me is reading Gaimans Sandman: Brief Lives. Turns out its the first series hes read, hes taking Mythology in college, is bursting with enthusiasm, has never read Moore, and asks for recommendations on what graphic novels to read next. I tell him, Obi-Wan Kenobi is to Neil Gaiman as Yoda is to Alan Moore, give him my magazine, get off at my stop, and do the wink myself.  

Moores helped me discern the shimmer around the edges of my life. In an interview in Arthur Magazine, he says Just walking down the streetif youre doing it in the right frame of mind, if you keep your eyes open, then just walking down the street to get a newspaper can be a magical act Magic is about uncovering the revelation thats in everything as opposed to escaping to some magic land.   Another imagidance - ten minutes with high kicks.  As soon as I saw my life as magic, the magics been increasing exponentially.

Recently, my passions/interests/obsessions/talents/dreams/fears/wishes have all been swirling together, borders evaporating like cotton candy in saliva. For years Ive been promoting things I love and only hype concerts, books, comics, etc that I know are off the charts on the magicometer.  Moore says, Advertising is a form of low-level Black Magic, using words to alter consciousness, and I see the promotional copy I write as the opposite, trying to use magic/language to influence others to check out something that will give them some o dat magic-goodness. Moores framing of language as magic and music as language has helped me understand what Im pushing and now joining-in, is conscious altering and psychically/physically/spiritually nutritious. 

Observing Moores career, how he constantly pushes himself to the creative precipice, has fueled me in my transformation from Snapper Carr hanging out at JLA headquarters eager to wash the teleporter, to being a new JLA recruit, ready to tackle Darkseid with the big boys. Ive crossed over to the other side, performing with Clark Gayton and other heroes, instead of just promoting, while they play improvised music at the highest level. I get onstage and do improvised shenanigans with the bands, sounding like Shaggy-meets-Louis Armstrong-meets-a Cantor-meets-Cookie Monster.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of an old reggae tune,  I decide to throw in some Alan Moore-inspired lyrics.  I figure aint no one in the house whos going to catch the reference. After I sing it, someone from the back of the small crowd says, Hey I know you right? It was Lawrence Klein, chairman of MOCCA Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NY. Twas nice to see him regardless, but the coincidence gave me an added magic tickle.

Moore has something in common with another magician, Miles Davis, whose art was also almost entirely collaborative. Both men radiate a respect and love for their collaborators, those who help bring their visions to life. And like Miles, whose presence was still palpable when he wandered off stage while Shorter, Hancock, Williams and Carter kept it goin, Moores presence permeates even those pages with no dialog or narration.  

From Alan Moores Writing for Comics It is more important to be a good human being than to be a good writer. The artists, writers, painters, whose voices speak loudest to us across the centuries are

those that turned out to have the most profound souls, those who turned out to actually have something to say that was of lasting human value. Love people. Love yourself and Love the World. Its only when we love things that we see them in their most lucid and perfect aspect; Then we truly know them.

I was interviewed by the smart and sweet Beth Snyder Bulik of Advertising Age about MySpace. This came about b/c she lost track of me in between my agency shift, and needed to get in touch with a client of mine. She googled me, found my MySpace page, tracked me down thru the "where i work" section, and this article was born. Nothing earthshattering, but somewhat amusing:

JahFurry in Advertising Age article about "MySpace for Adults"   

The Man Moves in on MySpace

Businesses Flock to Teen-Socializing Site to Network, Trend Watch and Get the Word Out

By Beth Snyder Bulik

Published: June 12, 2006

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- Jeff Newelt is into MySpace. Within the social network, he's known as "JahFurry," has 1,817 friends and is a typical MySpace user. In real life, the 34-year-old New Yorker is a public-relations specialist with clients including Samsung Electronics.

MWW Group has created MySpace pages as part of broader programs for clients including the Christopher Reeve Foundation.

While many think of MySpace simply as an online teen-socializing site, grown-ups are using the social-networking behemoth in ever-increasing numbers for networking, marketing and trend-watching. Today more than 22 million adults aged 35 and older use MySpace, and more than 60f unique visitors are older than 25, according to comScore Networks.

Doing business
But they're not just there for recipe swapping and travel tips. Like Mr. Newelt, they're also doing business. While traditional corporate fare is out, as MySpace has rules against commercial ventures, there is plenty of room for nontraditional marketing and creative business strategy.

"Finally, different age groups are beginning to happen upon it," said Tom Biro, director-new media strategy for PR consultancy MWW Group, where Mr. Newelt works. "It can serve as a kind of permanent touchpoint that's linked to a brand or company or advertiser." MWW has created MySpace pages as part of broader programs for clients including the Christopher Reeve Foundation and exclusive health club Holmes Place Chicago.

The grown-up growth on MySpace is still just that, though -- growing. Jupiter Research analyst David Card said while he believes MySpace has "good ideas and a great audience," adult use of the site is uncertain. "MySpace is most useful if you're a heavy user, and for most adults who have a job, that's not really possible."

Music, film and TV studios are frequent users of MySpace. Shawn Gold, MySpace senior VP-marketing and content, said reality shows use the site for casting purposes. Movie promotions and contests are common. The soon-to-be-released "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel, for example, has a popular site (almost 70,000 friends) at myspace.com/deadmanschest. Finding and marketing new bands online has grown right along with the rise of MySpace. "The record industry has changed the way it does business. It has democratized A&R [Artist & Repertoire, the talent scouting division of record labels]," Mr. Gold said. "Very few [music] companies would release anything today without having a MySpace strategy prepared."

Small-business owners
Small-business owners also use MySpace to promote their wares. Artists, fashion designers, restaurants and clubs are especially prevalent. One artist told Mr. Gold he has sold several pieces online through his MySpace page-at more than $10,000 each.

Aquafina is one of a number of giant marketers looking to reach a wide audience via MySpace.

Culture-watchers use MySpace for informal research gathering and taking the pulse of the trendsetters-consultancies such as Youth Intelligence Group regularly utilize the site.

And then there are the giant marketers looking to reach a wide audience. Big brands with MySpace pages and marketing campaigns include the Honda Element, Motorola's Q phone, Victoria's Secret, the Travel Channel, Chili's Grill and Bar, Aquafina and Jose Cuervo.

But for big brands to create an effective campaign and grab lots of "friends," they will likely need MySpace's help. If an advertiser simply created a MySpace page and started sending thousands of requests for friends, recipients would likely be suspicious of something so commercial and mark it as spam, Mr. Gold said.

Advertising areas
MySpace facilitates the process by helping the advertiser create a program in advertising areas. MySpace users then "opt in" as friends of the brand, and the marketer can start compiling a list of users to e-mail and send MySpace bulletins. Those MySpace pages also serve as conduits or links to commercial Web pages, where sales can be made. MySpace did not disclose the cost.

MySpace isn't for every marketer, but experts don't rule out product possibilities such as toilet paper for potential marketing plays.

"The most important thing to consider is what you're trying to get out of it," Mr. Biro said. "Maybe it's because you want instant exposure to a particular audience, and that's fine. But [a brand or company] shouldn't just put up a page because everyone else is."