where are they now? special contest: brian dietz

From Rob Clark:

amy and i were talking to [name deleted] this evening, and in the course of the

conversation, [name deleted] came up with an idea for the blog.  she was wondering, if 

you would post a blog giving a "shout out" to Vegan Porn Brian, how long

it would take for Vegan Porn Brian to get in touch with you. 

"Vegan Porn Brian" was the nickname of Brian Dietz, a student who was in Rob's cohort (* see note below) in graduate school in sociology at Indiana, but who left after the first year. Brian Dietz was given the nickname VPB as the result of this peculiar business venture--about which no more will be said on This Family Weblog--that he kept trying to get other graduate students to invest or participate in during his year there (**see second note below). Everyone loved Brian Dietz and was very sad to see him go, especially perhaps one tallish friend of [name deleted], who certainly seemed to have a bit of a crush on him, although she likely nowadays denies this.

Anyway, the challenge is whether by issuing this shout out to Brian Dietz on this weblog, if that can result in us hearing from him. I've done some preliminary googling, and it turns out there are a lot of Brian Dietzes out there, so I'm not sure if just by saying Brian Dietz in this message a lot, that is going to be enough to break through the Google wall for this entry to be prominent to anyone who would try idly googling him. Still, it's worth the effort: Brian Dietz, Brian Dietz, Brian Dietz: Jeremy Freese and Rob Clark are issuing a "shout out" to you. Please respond. We miss you Brian Dietz. We're sorry that we were too shortsighted to see the value of your business ideas in an increasingly Internet-saavy and nutrition-conscious world. Send us an e-mail, Brian Dietz.

There are 56 Brian Dietzes listed on switchboard.com. One of them is in Madison:

Dietz, Brian
302 Norris Ct,
Madison, WI
(608)257-1564

I'm sure I would have heard from him if it was that Brian Dietz. Last I heard he was in the DC area involved in a Library and Information Sciences program at Catholic University, but her was expecting to be departing that soon. There is a different Brian Dietz in a different graduate program:

Brian Dietz - Ph.D. Student (Applied Economics)
Phone: 612-625-9783
Email: diet0078@umn.edu
125b Classroom Office Building
1994 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108

But that still seems like a longshot. Brian Dietz was an east coast kind of guy. He did his undergrad at James Madison University, in sociology. I wish I could remember Courtney's last name. She was in a women's studies program at the University of Cincinnati, and then became a head start teacher.

Brian Dietz, if you see this on Google, please reply. If you are a friend/relative/lover/enemy of Brian Dietz googling "Brian Dietz" and you think this might be the "Brian Dietz" we are looking for, please let him know that we are trying to find him. There may be a special Brian Dietz Bounty awarded to the person who contacts him and gets him to contact us. Brian Dietz, where are you now?

BTW: From a message I got from Brian Dietz a couple years ago: "Ps, If you have any spare time, and you haven't already done so, you might want to pick up Michael Chabon's new novel, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." Beautiful stuff. Very moving. Hell of a read. Loved it. Plus, it gave me some new ideas for that business venture I'm still working on." As devoted readers know, I talked about my adoration of Kavalier and Clay at length on this weblog, which provides all the more indication of Brian Dietz's good taste and why he is a person worth our finding. The Brian Dietz hunt is on. Don't let us down, Brian Dietz.

* Update, 1/3: Rob writes in to correct me. Brian Dietz was not in his cohort. Brian Dietz was in the cohort before Rob's. That cohort included Kathryn Henderson and Brian Starks, the latter recently being named the consensus Associated Press selection for most handsome man ever to enter the Indiana University Sociology Graduate Program.

**Update, 1/3 A reader from Charlottesville, VA writes in with another clarification: "I did want to offer the following correction to your statement about how he was given the nickname "Vegan Porn Brian"... As I remember, the name came about to distinguish Brian Dietz from Brian Starks (the AP consensus most handsome man to ever enter the IU Sociology Graduate Program), as they were in the same cohort. (Side note: I would actually beg to differ with the AP's assertion, given that Rob "Vanilla Ice" Clark would get my vote)... The "Vegan" part came from the fact that well, Brian Dietz, was in fact a strict practicing vegan. The "Porn" part originated from his visit to IU as a prospective student the spring before his (and Courtney's) arrival, upon which they both attended a potluck dinner at Tamara's house. After a vegan-friendly dinner had been consumed by all, the guests retired upstairs to Tamara's office, where we listened with awe to Tamara's tales of data collection for her dissertation on the adult entertainment industry in Southern California... Her stories came to a dramatic climax when she played a tape with a scene which included a "voice-over", that is, a scene where the audio quality was either bad or non-existent and thus substitute voices had to be inserted in order for the scene to be used. Tamara and a couple of colleagues apparently had to watch the scene, and substitute the varied "dialogue" between the principals... The graduate students in attendance initially thought that Brian Dietz (and Courtney) might be so offended by the evening's conversation that they might not move to Bloomington [but move to Bloomington Brian Dietz did!]"