Erin Granat

About me

I'm an incessant dabbler. I've done only a few things consistently throughout my life and there are: reading, writing, and taking a really long time to get ready. Jobs/experiences in which I have dabbled: competitive skiing (then I fell 80 feet off a chairlift and threw in the poles), competitive horseback riding (then I discovered boys), serious soccer player (ditto), beauty pageant queen (the $$$ helped put me through college), serious newspaper journalist (yawn), Roling Stone magazine intern (fun!), Universal Music Publishing Group intern/American Film Institute intern/cocktail waitress (all in L.A. the eventful summer of '05), promotional model (I've been a hawker of toilet paper, Mexican yogurt, chewing tobacco, insurance policies, and much more), newspaper sex columnist (almost thrown out of sorority, university), showgirl (actually pretty great!), philanthropist (started chapter of Amnesty International, etc.), and many, many more dabbles. I also like to do “stints.” Places where I have stinted: San Diego (born there so probably doesn’t really count), New York City (a summer and a winter), Los Angeles (ongoing off and on), Madrid (six glorious months), Australia (a winter/their summer), Reno/Tahoe (home base), and stint dabbled in Wellington, New Zealand last year. Why, you might ask, do I flit around so much? I suppose it’s because I like to gobble up experience like it’s going out of style. Don’t you just feel like there’s so much to DO? Man, I could never get tired of life.

Why I travel

Because it's like religion: it inspires, humbles, and comforts. But it's better because I'm not obligated to go every Sunday, only when I can afford it.

Travel style

I'm a bit of a contradiction when it comes to travel style. I'm definitely still in the rough-and-tumble stage- a hostel that’s dirty and creepy equals adventure rather than danger. Yet, staying at a luxury resort is interesting as well for its own little culture. But I’m not above sneaking into someone’s hotel room to steal a shower (Airlie Beach, Oz) or sleeping in my car to save money (most of California). I’ve never enjoyed traveling more than when I’ve done it alone. I really wish I was more into, like, hiking and other outdoorsy shit. But I can’t really swim and even sitting on a beach is boring to me. I like to go to museums and go out to eat and drink. I suppose what humans have created (art, culture) is just more interesting to me than mountains.

Ideal place to watch the sunrise

The sun rises?

I felt the most immersed in a foreign culture when

I come home at 6 am from a night in Malasena and my Spanish roommates are cooking breakfast and I can actually understand when they ask if I've had a long night.

Let's collaborate

I'm a vBlog host looking to collaborate with anyone that shares my vision of a travel show for young people for whom traveling isn't a luxury, but a way of life.

Here’s my vision: I want to create a travel show that emphasizes “voluntourism,” leaving the places you visit just a little bit better, and makes eco-tourism sexy. I want to appeal to young people and give them an alternative to the celebrity-laden fluff they’re fed every day. I want to show them being a bad-ass isn’t what life is all about. I want to show them how much more fulfilling and meaningful it is to put their allowance towards a life-changing trip rather than jeans or a car payment.

I fully believe once they learn celebutantes aren’t worshipped the world over, and that the current way of American life/pop culture is a scarily vapid path towards disenchantment, that they will choose to become citizens of the world rather than citizens of commerce. The Day of The Locusts has become the rule rather than the exception, but it’s not too late to make a change.

Anyone that wants to make this a reality, get at me. Let’s make this happen.

Favorite artist(s)

Dali, Man Ray, Toulouse, Michelangelo

Sports I do

Soccer, pretty good at flag football

I want to make a difference by

Check out the "Let's collaborate" section

Tunes I rock out to

Mainly old stuff: Stones, CCR, etc. Other stuff: Kings of Leon, Prince, The Faint, anything that makes you dance. I'm actually incredible lazy about music, though I freakin' love it.

Favorite books

East of Eden, Neither Here Nor There, Lolita, Me Talk Pretty Some Day, The Virgin Suicides

My links

My life, my baby, my ongoing project/career goal/blessed income- The ERIN 411! Show watch episodes at:

http://blog.visitrenotahoe.com/ (the site that sponsors the show so go there first to watch it please please please and leave a comment and up my hits thank thanks thanks!)

http://archonfilms.com/filmpages/erin411.html (my producer's site, he's rad)

www.myspace.com/watch_erin_411

Some of my published writing:

Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/02/26/taste-of-chaos-tour-report-mild-chaos-ample-angst/

Reno News & Review http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Archive?author=oid%3A113628