Do you believe your own hype?
No, but I believe my own hyphy. Seriously, though, I don't hype things I don't believe in. If I'm publicizing something I don't like, you'll be able to tell. For example, I'll say, "please write a story about this movie but if you don't want to I understand because, well, it sucks." Ok, I don't do that so much. But, luckily, a large part of my job is to make sure a movie gets reviewed, and if it's a bad review, so be it. I screen it for the critics, but I can't, and am not expected to, influence their opinion.

The easiest type of person/thing to promote is?
Something that's original. Not another snoozer documentary about a topic that 15 other docs have covered. If it's a concept that is easy to understand, that helps too. Most journalists tune out after 5 seconds so you've got to be able to condense the concept you are pitching into a quick, graspable, blurb. Something like "Colma: The Musical" is an easy one. Journalists, local ones, at least, "got" it as soon as they heard the title. It's weird, it's whacky, and it's original so we were able to get some good press on it.

In addition to our show reviews, artist interviews, and weekly concert listings, we added a new dimension to our music coverage this year: giveaways! We know you just love to read us talking about music (see: dancing about architecture), but we did our best to put CDs and concert tickets in your hands as well. We hope you enjoyed it.

These giveaways would not be possible without the cooperation of friendly music publicists, band reps and record label contacts. Speaking of, our friends at AddVice put together the mother of all prize packs to end this year with a bang.

As much as we'd like to steal this for ourselves, it's going to one of our faithful music-loving readers. Enter to win all these great CDs! (Contest ends 1/4/2006.)