The Legend of Beckerman

A Visionary for Our Age... A Vision for the Ages

Marty Beckerman, 26, started his career at the Anchorage Daily News, which published his weekly humor column for 70,000 readers during his freshman and sophomore years of high school. He famously lost the $15 per week gig after asking a female cheerleader—during an unapproved interview—how it feels “to be a urine stain on the toilet seat of America.” Neither the girl's parents nor Beckerman's long-suffering editor found this question amusing.

In 2000 Beckerman collected many of his columns into Death to All Cheerleaders: One Adolescent Journalist’s Cheerful Diatribe Against Teenage Plasticity. He sold a thousand copies of the book from his parents’ basement. The ensuing publicity led to a deal for Generation S.L.U.T. (sexually liberated urban teens): A Brutal Feel-Up Session with Today’s Sex-Crazed Adolescent Populace, which MTV Books / Simon & Schuster published in 2004. The book was translated into numerous languages. HBO Films optioned the movie rights and hired a director, but the option has since expired.

S.L.U.T. propelled Beckerman, still a junior at American University in Washington, D.C., to the national and international stage. He has been featured by the New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, Guardian, Atlantic, BlackBook, Frisky, Gawker, ABCNews.com, MSNBC, Salon.com, Fox News Channel and National Public Radio. He has written for Playboy, Reason, Discover, Radar, Huffington Post, New York Press, mediabistro, AintItCoolNews.com and the Daily Beast.

The Disinformation Company published Beckerman's third book, Dumbocracy: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right and Other American Idiots, in September 2008. About.com proclaimed it one of the best political humor books of all time, alongside volumes by Dave Barry, P.J. O'Rourke, Bill Maher, Al Franken, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
 
Beckerman has interviewed O'Rourke, Franken, David Duchovny, Kinky Friedman, Leslie Nielsen, Mark Ebner, Anna David, Nick McDonell, Matt Taibbi and the Fred Phelps family. He has appeared live with authors/performers Stephen Chbosky, Steve Almond, Neal Pollack, Junot Diaz, Jonathan Ames, Jacob Weisberg, Ned Vizzini, Nick Antosca, Susan Shapiro, Virginia Vitzthum, John Strausbaugh, Grant Stoddard, Rachel Kramer-Bussel, Seth Herzog, Carolyn Castiglia, Dan Hirshon, Shayna Ferm, Shawn Hollenbach, Margot Leitman and many more at prestigious venues such as Barbès, KGB, Happy Ending, the Half King, the Center for Independent Publishing Book Fair, the Somerville News Writers Festival and the Brooklyn Book Festival.
 
His best-known journalistic achievements include taking a prostitute to his senior prom (S.L.U.T.), provoking the wrath of punk rock star Henry Rollins (Cheerleaders), getting sodomized with a dildo, receiving a sperm facial at an upscale NYC spa, and interviewing legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who called him a "morbid little bastard.” Beckerman considers this the greatest compliment of his career.
 
He lives in New York City.