Led by producer Daedalus Howell, DHowell Media Group is an entertainment and marketing venture with branches in Sonoma, Hollywood and Brooklyn.
We’re a creative mash-up of a think tank, ad agency, sketch comedy troupe, rock band and film studio. Yes, we’re busy, but we thrill at creative challenges, particularly those that involve video, publications and editorial content (online and print), social media and branded entertainment. But who is DHowell Media Group, really? There is me, that is Daedalus, and my three droogs, Raymond, Shannon and Flash.
Press Kit
Bio | Daedalus Howell
As a young man, Daedalus Howell wrote poetry and performed on the streets of Petaluma, CA, in an acoustic cabaret act. Howell published the satire tabloid SCAM Magazine while studying creative writing at San Francisco State University. Howell later used his education as a small town newspaperman, prior to writing a novel about his experiences in independent filmmaking (The Late Projectionist) and later moving to Los Angeles to work in television and film development. Repatriated to the wine country in 2005, Howell worked in a couple of media start-ups as a writer and filmmaker prior to launching DHowell Media Group to concentrate on creative projects and branded entertainments. He presently lives in Sonoma, CA, with his wife The Contessa and his son, The Cannoli.
Writer-director Daedalus Howell (click for 300 dpi version of this image).
Credits & Clients
Howell’s videos have been distributed internationally on such outlets as Showtime Next, MTV2, MTV Italia, HBO Cesk Republika, BiteTV, IFC and Canal+ (two were official selections of the 2009 Sonoma International Film Festival). Recent national clients include Annie’s Homegrown, Menage a Trois Wine (Folie à Deux Winery/Sutter Home), No Office Records, RCA, the Planetary Group and the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau, for whom Howell serves as the official “Lifestyle Ambassador,” writing and hosting an award-winning series of videos. Additional listings can be found at the Internet Movie Database.
Editorial clients have included the San Francisco Chronicle, North Bay Bohemian, L.A. Downtown News, Petaluma Argus-Courier, Sonoma Valley Sun. Recent bylines have also appeared in FL•Sonoma Magazine, Tasting Panel Magazine, Vineyard and Winery Management Magazine. Howell currently pens a weekly column for the Sonoma Index-Tribune.
In 2007, Howell placed first in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ national “Altweekly Awards” for Food Writing/Criticism.
In late 2008, “Inside Sonoma” won the bureau first place in the California Tourism Industry Association’s YouTube video contest. Howell also won the first place “Colby Award” for client Coldwell Banker’s worldwide video contest in 2007.
Availability
Daedalus Howell can provide direct interviews as well as information for articles (or contribute as a writer) on a variety of issues germane to the entertainment and media experience from a creative perspective. Howell delivers humorous, real-life anecdotes as well as hard-won insight with a light-hearted, erudite manner.
An expert on how narrative and story are the cornerstones of successful branding, marketing and creative initiatives, Howell can address the following topics:
Personal Branding
Social Media Marketing
Independent Media Making
Wine Country Lifestyle
FAQ
Q. Is “Daedalus” your real name?
A. Yes. It is my legal name, nicked from author James Joyce’s character “Stephen Dedalus” from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses by my parents who were studying English literature at the time. I pronounce it DAY-de-lus.
Q. What does a “Lifestyle Ambassador” actually do?
A. Click around this site and it will soon become apparent, young padawan.
Q. Are you always so condescending?
A. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you a “padawan.” I meant sycophant.
Q. Seriously…?
A. No, I was trying to be witty, but it came off a bit snarky.
Q. A bit…?
A. You’re right – totally snarky, but you picked up on the self-parody too, right?
Q. Sure, but if you’re going to deconstruct your media persona, you might consider being a little more polite. I mean, the whole exercise is already pretty trying (yawn).
A. Was that a real yawn or a meta-yawn?
Q. Does it matter?
A. Point taken. I guess I’m the padawan now.
Q. No, you’re the sycophant.
A. Ba-dump-bump.
Pith, Marrow and Media: The True Story of Daedalus Howell
This is a “living document” seeing as the subject is also living. Amendments, corrections and elaborations are encouraged in the comments section below. If you feel your contribution to this story was unrecognized or omitted, please know that is likely the result of protecting your privacy (and reputation), which can be rectified at your own risk.
Chapter 1.
Our hero is born Daedalus Christopher Howell Ferguson on July 19, 1972, and promptly sequestered in Sebastopol, CA, to begin conditioning as a cultural icon. Nixon is still president and the area that would later become known as “wine country” is still apple country. His parents spare his youth and opt to call him Christopher. Meanwhile, they study English, film and theater at Sonoma State University and bring their son to classes. He is read James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake as bedtime reading and sees all the films of the French New Wave by the age of four. At this time, it is not yet known what impact these events will have on the boy. At age 3, his brother Shannon Ferguson is born and begins a trajectory toward mid-level rock stardom despite (or perhaps due to) harassment from his elder sibling.
Chapter 2.
“Chris F.,” as he comes to be known so as to be differentiated from the dozen other children who share his name, does poorly in school, sports and most activities outside of drama, petty thievery and small cons of neighborhood children. At age 8, he commandeers the family Super 8 camera and remakes Star Wars, but with a more existentially honest ending (everybody dies). By the early 1980s, the family has moved to Petaluma, CA, the former epicenter of the poultry industry (now, mysteriously, also known as “wine country”). Chris F.’s parents (now MBAs working in the banking and tech sectors) upgrade their young auteur to VHS video equipment. Several cinematic epics are began and abandoned. In the sixth grade, Chris F. appears as Nick Bottom, the jackass in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, who is mistakenly adored by the fairy queen. Unbeknownst to the pubescent player, he is rehearsing a romantic pattern that he will repeat for the next two decades. He quits his paper route for the Petaluma Argus-Courier and pursues the arts full-time while cutting his junior high classes and perfecting his English accent to the chagrin of everyone within earshot.
Chapter 3.
Chris F. augments his dismal academic record by becoming a disciplinary problem. A ribald theatrical staging of Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb results in first suspension from high school. Subsequent star turns and suspensions follow. Though Chris F. had discovered girls at an early age, girls finally discover him. A lifelong pattern of affairs and breakups ensues.
Chris F. leaves high school to pursue a career in poetry in the cafes of Petaluma, CA and girls. His first volume of verse, Ballad of a Saxon’s Daughter and the Book of Job, is followed by other small press publications. Meanwhile, Chris F. randomly attends junior college and starts and disbands several musical street acts, one of which eventually formalizes as The Lids. Chris F. devises a self-branding plan and changes his name to “Daedalus Howell” for a variety of arcane reasons, which hearken back to early exposure to James Joyce’s writer-hero “Stephen Dedalus.” Later, he learns how to spell it.
Chapter 4.
In the early 1990s, Daedalus Howell launches a subsidy publishing company with his cohorts, which folds under the duress of being 19. Soon after, he launches SCAM Magazine, a satire tabloid, which he supports through modest advertising sales and his diabolic prowess as a telemarketer. Having accidentally accrued enough units at the junior college, Howell transfers to San Francisco State University as a Creative Writing major. This will later prove to be a colossal mistake, which takes nearly a year of heavy drinking to rectify. Howell relocates to Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco and continues pursuit of street musicianship. Returns to Petaluma, returns to San Francisco and returns to Petaluma again.
Chapter 5.
At the behest of a girlfriend, Howell answers an ad that read “Seeking reporter,” for the newspaper he delivered as a child. Armed with clips from SCAM Magazine, Howell becomes the arts editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. He is later recruited by the North Bay Bohemian as a theater critic and then the San Francisco Chronicle as a stringer. During this time, Howell’s friend and street musician alumnus Abe Levy begins directing independent films. He casts Howell in a string of gradually smaller roles. Contemporaneously, Howell pens his confessional comic novel The Late Projectionist, which is subsequently read by screenwriter Jerry Rapp who, encouraged by Howell’s chutzpah and naïveté, introduces him to the dark side of the screen trade.
Chapter 6.
Relocated to Hollywood, Rapp and Howell embark on a series of ill-fated and increasingly bizarre schemes (the best of which are linked here – tomb rubbers, Hollywood Confidential), while stewing in various modes of “development hell” (back lot stories) with every major studio sans Walt Disney Company, who, thanks to our management could care less. Minor triumphs include the R&H Educational Films on Showtime and creating music videos for mid-level rock star kid brother. Later, Howell is recruited to star in Petaluma pal Raymond Scott Daigle’s film Replica after three other actors pass. He and cinematographer Abe Levy spend 10 days on location in a copy shop franchise as Daigle helms film. Throughout, Howell makes list of favors to cash in from Daigle at a later date.
Chapter 7.
With all major projects frozen, Howell wanders back to Northern California for a three-month hiatus. Encouraged by the success and wine-drenched mentorship of sommelier Christopher Sawyer, Howell concocts “Big Fish, Small Pond Theory of Micro-Celebrity” and uses taps burgeoning brand awareness of Sonoma as a platform. His popularity swells in North Bay, at least with The Contessa, whom he marries 18 months later.
Chapter 8.
Howell begins tour of duty at media startup, where he writes columns, edits a magazine, appears on radio and television and produces over 40 short films – until he and his colleagues (including Raymond Scott Daigle) are disgorged in a spray of corporate bloodletting. They regroup and form strategic partnership led by Howell and vow to right the wrongs of the world through creative media and branded entertainment. They adopt the slogan “Ars gratia artis” but abandon it when they learn it means “Art for art’s sake.” The more ambitious slogan, “Ars est pecunia,” (“Art is money”) is adopted instead.
Chapter 9.
Meanwhile, Howell has been appointed “Lifestyle Ambassador” of Sonoma County and, with Daigle, produces and appears in the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau’s video series entitled Inside Sonoma after focus groups reject the title Inside Daedalus. Howell begins the fourth regular column of his career at the Sonoma Index-Tribune to quell potential riots from his ravenous local readership.
Chapter 10.
A stickler for paperwork, Howell officially launches DHowell Media Group in Spring of 2009 and sets up offices in downtown Sonoma. Though he has mysteriously maintained the 310 area code on his cell phone for years, he is committed to growing his empire in the 707 area code. And perhaps later, the 310 and eventually the 666.
Chapter 11.
Invoking principles of quantum physics, Howell successfully places himself both in front and in back of the camera – simultaneously – in an experiment dubbed DHowell.TV. The results are released weekly on a variety of social media and video sharing platforms. The show purports to feature interviews with important figures, brief monologues and sketches (as well as interviews with sketchy figures and monologues of brief importance).
Led by producer Daedalus Howell, DHowell Media Group is an entertainment and marketing venture with branches in Sonoma, Hollywood and Brooklyn.
We’re a creative mash-up of a think tank, ad agency, sketch comedy troupe, rock band and film studio. Yes, we’re busy, but we thrill at creative challenges, particularly those that involve video, publications and editorial content (online and print), social media and branded entertainment. But who is DHowell Media Group, really? There is me, that is Daedalus, and my three droogs, Raymond, Shannon and Flash.
Press Kit
Bio | Daedalus Howell
As a young man, Daedalus Howell wrote poetry and performed on the streets of Petaluma, CA, in an acoustic cabaret act. Howell published the satire tabloid SCAM Magazine while studying creative writing at San Francisco State University. Howell later used his education as a small town newspaperman, prior to writing a novel about his experiences in independent filmmaking (The Late Projectionist) and later moving to Los Angeles to work in television and film development. Repatriated to the wine country in 2005, Howell worked in a couple of media start-ups as a writer and filmmaker prior to launching DHowell Media Group to concentrate on creative projects and branded entertainments. He presently lives in Sonoma, CA, with his wife The Contessa and his son, The Cannoli.
Writer-director Daedalus Howell (click for 300 dpi version of this image).
Credits & Clients
Howell’s videos have been distributed internationally on such outlets as Showtime Next, MTV2, MTV Italia, HBO Cesk Republika, BiteTV, IFC and Canal+ (two were official selections of the 2009 Sonoma International Film Festival). Recent national clients include Annie’s Homegrown, Menage a Trois Wine (Folie à Deux Winery/Sutter Home), No Office Records, RCA, the Planetary Group and the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau, for whom Howell serves as the official “Lifestyle Ambassador,” writing and hosting an award-winning series of videos. Additional listings can be found at the Internet Movie Database.
Editorial clients have included the San Francisco Chronicle, North Bay Bohemian, L.A. Downtown News, Petaluma Argus-Courier, Sonoma Valley Sun. Recent bylines have also appeared in FL•Sonoma Magazine, Tasting Panel Magazine, Vineyard and Winery Management Magazine. Howell currently pens a weekly column for the Sonoma Index-Tribune.
Here’s a mostly accurate Wikipedia listing.
Selected Press
Your friendly, neighborhood Lifestyle Ambassador
“An Advertisement for Himself,” Sonoma Magazine (pdf)
“The Drive,” KSRO 1350 AM
“Morning Edition,” NPR
“Speed of Film,” North Bay Bohemian
“The Wild Bunch: North Bay Filmmakers Forge a New Cinematic Scene” North Bay Bohemian
Strange but Compelling Citations:
“Duck & Cover,” The Escapist
Rosie and Mrs. America: Perceptions of Women in the 1930s and 1940s
Fire, Blood and Alphabet: One Hundred Years of Lorca
Awards
In 2007, Howell placed first in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ national “Altweekly Awards” for Food Writing/Criticism.
In late 2008, “Inside Sonoma” won the bureau first place in the California Tourism Industry Association’s YouTube video contest. Howell also won the first place “Colby Award” for client Coldwell Banker’s worldwide video contest in 2007.
Availability
Daedalus Howell can provide direct interviews as well as information for articles (or contribute as a writer) on a variety of issues germane to the entertainment and media experience from a creative perspective. Howell delivers humorous, real-life anecdotes as well as hard-won insight with a light-hearted, erudite manner.
An expert on how narrative and story are the cornerstones of successful branding, marketing and creative initiatives, Howell can address the following topics:
Personal Branding
Social Media Marketing
Independent Media Making
Wine Country Lifestyle
FAQ
Q. Is “Daedalus” your real name?
A. Yes. It is my legal name, nicked from author James Joyce’s character “Stephen Dedalus” from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses by my parents who were studying English literature at the time. I pronounce it DAY-de-lus.
Q. What does a “Lifestyle Ambassador” actually do?
A. Click around this site and it will soon become apparent, young padawan.
Q. Are you always so condescending?
A. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you a “padawan.” I meant sycophant.
Q. Seriously…?
A. No, I was trying to be witty, but it came off a bit snarky.
Q. A bit…?
A. You’re right – totally snarky, but you picked up on the self-parody too, right?
Q. Sure, but if you’re going to deconstruct your media persona, you might consider being a little more polite. I mean, the whole exercise is already pretty trying (yawn).
A. Was that a real yawn or a meta-yawn?
Q. Does it matter?
A. Point taken. I guess I’m the padawan now.
Q. No, you’re the sycophant.
A. Ba-dump-bump.
Pith, Marrow and Media: The True Story of Daedalus Howell
This is a “living document” seeing as the subject is also living. Amendments, corrections and elaborations are encouraged in the comments section below. If you feel your contribution to this story was unrecognized or omitted, please know that is likely the result of protecting your privacy (and reputation), which can be rectified at your own risk.
Chapter 1.
Our hero is born Daedalus Christopher Howell Ferguson on July 19, 1972, and promptly sequestered in Sebastopol, CA, to begin conditioning as a cultural icon. Nixon is still president and the area that would later become known as “wine country” is still apple country. His parents spare his youth and opt to call him Christopher. Meanwhile, they study English, film and theater at Sonoma State University and bring their son to classes. He is read James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake as bedtime reading and sees all the films of the French New Wave by the age of four. At this time, it is not yet known what impact these events will have on the boy. At age 3, his brother Shannon Ferguson is born and begins a trajectory toward mid-level rock stardom despite (or perhaps due to) harassment from his elder sibling.
Chapter 2.
“Chris F.,” as he comes to be known so as to be differentiated from the dozen other children who share his name, does poorly in school, sports and most activities outside of drama, petty thievery and small cons of neighborhood children. At age 8, he commandeers the family Super 8 camera and remakes Star Wars, but with a more existentially honest ending (everybody dies). By the early 1980s, the family has moved to Petaluma, CA, the former epicenter of the poultry industry (now, mysteriously, also known as “wine country”). Chris F.’s parents (now MBAs working in the banking and tech sectors) upgrade their young auteur to VHS video equipment. Several cinematic epics are began and abandoned. In the sixth grade, Chris F. appears as Nick Bottom, the jackass in A Midsummer’s Night Dream, who is mistakenly adored by the fairy queen. Unbeknownst to the pubescent player, he is rehearsing a romantic pattern that he will repeat for the next two decades. He quits his paper route for the Petaluma Argus-Courier and pursues the arts full-time while cutting his junior high classes and perfecting his English accent to the chagrin of everyone within earshot.
Chapter 3.
Chris F. augments his dismal academic record by becoming a disciplinary problem. A ribald theatrical staging of Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb results in first suspension from high school. Subsequent star turns and suspensions follow. Though Chris F. had discovered girls at an early age, girls finally discover him. A lifelong pattern of affairs and breakups ensues.
Chris F. leaves high school to pursue a career in poetry in the cafes of Petaluma, CA and girls. His first volume of verse, Ballad of a Saxon’s Daughter and the Book of Job, is followed by other small press publications. Meanwhile, Chris F. randomly attends junior college and starts and disbands several musical street acts, one of which eventually formalizes as The Lids. Chris F. devises a self-branding plan and changes his name to “Daedalus Howell” for a variety of arcane reasons, which hearken back to early exposure to James Joyce’s writer-hero “Stephen Dedalus.” Later, he learns how to spell it.
Chapter 4.
In the early 1990s, Daedalus Howell launches a subsidy publishing company with his cohorts, which folds under the duress of being 19. Soon after, he launches SCAM Magazine, a satire tabloid, which he supports through modest advertising sales and his diabolic prowess as a telemarketer. Having accidentally accrued enough units at the junior college, Howell transfers to San Francisco State University as a Creative Writing major. This will later prove to be a colossal mistake, which takes nearly a year of heavy drinking to rectify. Howell relocates to Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco and continues pursuit of street musicianship. Returns to Petaluma, returns to San Francisco and returns to Petaluma again.
Chapter 5.
At the behest of a girlfriend, Howell answers an ad that read “Seeking reporter,” for the newspaper he delivered as a child. Armed with clips from SCAM Magazine, Howell becomes the arts editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. He is later recruited by the North Bay Bohemian as a theater critic and then the San Francisco Chronicle as a stringer. During this time, Howell’s friend and street musician alumnus Abe Levy begins directing independent films. He casts Howell in a string of gradually smaller roles. Contemporaneously, Howell pens his confessional comic novel The Late Projectionist, which is subsequently read by screenwriter Jerry Rapp who, encouraged by Howell’s chutzpah and naïveté, introduces him to the dark side of the screen trade.
Chapter 6.
Relocated to Hollywood, Rapp and Howell embark on a series of ill-fated and increasingly bizarre schemes (the best of which are linked here – tomb rubbers, Hollywood Confidential), while stewing in various modes of “development hell” (back lot stories) with every major studio sans Walt Disney Company, who, thanks to our management could care less. Minor triumphs include the R&H Educational Films on Showtime and creating music videos for mid-level rock star kid brother. Later, Howell is recruited to star in Petaluma pal Raymond Scott Daigle’s film Replica after three other actors pass. He and cinematographer Abe Levy spend 10 days on location in a copy shop franchise as Daigle helms film. Throughout, Howell makes list of favors to cash in from Daigle at a later date.
Chapter 7.
With all major projects frozen, Howell wanders back to Northern California for a three-month hiatus. Encouraged by the success and wine-drenched mentorship of sommelier Christopher Sawyer, Howell concocts “Big Fish, Small Pond Theory of Micro-Celebrity” and uses taps burgeoning brand awareness of Sonoma as a platform. His popularity swells in North Bay, at least with The Contessa, whom he marries 18 months later.
Chapter 8.
Howell begins tour of duty at media startup, where he writes columns, edits a magazine, appears on radio and television and produces over 40 short films – until he and his colleagues (including Raymond Scott Daigle) are disgorged in a spray of corporate bloodletting. They regroup and form strategic partnership led by Howell and vow to right the wrongs of the world through creative media and branded entertainment. They adopt the slogan “Ars gratia artis” but abandon it when they learn it means “Art for art’s sake.” The more ambitious slogan, “Ars est pecunia,” (“Art is money”) is adopted instead.
Chapter 9.
Meanwhile, Howell has been appointed “Lifestyle Ambassador” of Sonoma County and, with Daigle, produces and appears in the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau’s video series entitled Inside Sonoma after focus groups reject the title Inside Daedalus. Howell begins the fourth regular column of his career at the Sonoma Index-Tribune to quell potential riots from his ravenous local readership.
Chapter 10.
A stickler for paperwork, Howell officially launches DHowell Media Group in Spring of 2009 and sets up offices in downtown Sonoma. Though he has mysteriously maintained the 310 area code on his cell phone for years, he is committed to growing his empire in the 707 area code. And perhaps later, the 310 and eventually the 666.
Chapter 11.
Invoking principles of quantum physics, Howell successfully places himself both in front and in back of the camera – simultaneously – in an experiment dubbed DHowell.TV. The results are released weekly on a variety of social media and video sharing platforms. The show purports to feature interviews with important figures, brief monologues and sketches (as well as interviews with sketchy figures and monologues of brief importance).