Kriti Mehrotra
It was back on June 10, 1985, that journalist David “Dave” Blum rose to quite a bit of fame as his New York Magazine story titled ‘Hollywood’s Brat Pack’ gained unimaginable national traction. The truth is this piece was just supposed to be a profile on then-rising young star Emilio Estevez, as explored in Hulu’s ‘Brats,’ but he changed things at the last moment to include some of the latter’s co-workers/friends too. Then, with the term he coined, he deemed this entire group of young actors unprofessional and negated all their hard work to practically nothing, only for the term to soon lose its negative connotation.
David “Dave” Bloom is a Career Writer
It was reportedly back when Dave was just a young boy growing up in Queens, New York, that he first developed a passion for words and tales, just for it to continue expanding as the years passed. He thus ended up enrolling at the University of Chicago for a degree in English Literature almost as soon as he graduated high school, which he proudly obtained in 1977. However, it wasn’t until 1979 that he kickstarted his career as a reporter, landing a job at the esteemed Wall Street Journal, where he remained until he got a chance to write in Esquire.
That’s when Dave began climbing up the ladder, resulting in him being promoted to associate editor in 1983 before he evolved into a contributing writer-editor at New York Magazine in 1985. He was on contract with this organization at the time – a contract that specified he had to pen eight stories a year – and amongst his first ones was the now infamous ‘Hollywood’s Brat Pack.’ The editor-in-chief of the publication did apologize for this piece within a short while, yet the truth is he was never reprimanded for the same in any manner – no one even objected to his work before publishing.
Dave thus managed to serve New York Magazine until 1992, and he actually doesn’t regret what he wrote to this day because he never intended for it to be negative; it was just a play on words for him. In fact, per her own account in the aforementioned documentary, he always understood words have an impact, but he was simply looking to express himself as a 29-year-old writer back then. He actually wouldn’t go back and change anything because it ended up being a significant pop culture moment for sure, yet he admitted he doesn’t want the term “Brat Pack” to be the greatest thing he ever did.
Where is David “Dave” Blum Now?
While Dave did serve as a contributor to The New York Times Magazine from 1995 to 2000, following his stint at New York Magazine, he’d also evolved into a published author. His debut book ‘Flash In The Pan: The Life and Death of an American Restaurant’ was published in 1992 as an in-depth chronicle of restaurants and ended up on the New York Times Notable Books of the Year list. Then, roughly 12 years later, he published his second book ‘Tick…Tick…Tick…: The Long Life & Turbulent Times of 60 Minutes,’ which also lived up to its title in every way imaginable and established him as an author too.
Since then, it appears as if Dave has even served as editor-in-chief of The Village Voice, the New York Press, as well as 02138 Magazine, but he then expanded his wings to reach a new height. In fact, this Writers Guild of America East and The Black List member most recently worked at Audible as the editor-in-chief of Audible Originals, meaning he has dabbled in audio spaces too – working on original tales for people to hear rather than read. As for his personal standing, this New York native prefers to keep his private life well away from the limelight these days so as to avoid prying eyes, but it is apparent that he’s still proud to be a writer-editor.
Read More: Where is Jane Daniel Now?
