Sager’s Rolling Stone piece “The Devil and John Holmes.” So was Wonderland , starring Val Kilmer, as well as 2012’s The Marinovich Project , an ESPN documentary based on Sager’s piece on the former NFL quarterback and the effects of the all- consuming training regimen he was put on at such a young age. There are also stories about “The Pope of Pot,” who ran New York’s first marijuana delivery service, and another dispatch from the underground world of Southern California’s hash scene. These days, he also runs his own publishing house, The Sager Group, which is HQ’ed where many businesses are these days—his home. Sager started the imprint in 2012 as a “multimedia content brand” geared towards “empowering those who create.” he knows better than anyone that a media career these days doesn’t exactly guarantee riches, even more so with print journalism. And though he’s made out okay—he calls his La Jolla perch the “house that Hollywood built”—he also knows he’s been lucky, and he wants to pay it forward. Plus, he likes staying in the mix. To do so, Sager finds who he considers the best, brightest, and most underexposed writers kicking out the most interesting stories. He works with them to develop and bring to completion books and e-books. He lends a hand with heavy edits and helps with product design, and thanks to his Hollywood connections, the press also helps authors turn their books into documentaries and feature films. Since 2012, they’ve published more than 80 books (a dizzying eight per year), including a Women in Journalism series, which Sager claims is the “world’s only three-volume textbook or anthology of great women writers.” A cursory Google search confirms that. Many of these books are being turned into movies. Shaman and Labyrinth of the Wind have been optioned by TIME Studios, plus Bang Bang Productions in India. They’re also working with fiction and long-form journalism publisher NeoText, whose parent company recently became part of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories Productions. Currently, the dual production teams are creating a film, podcast, and documentary to accompany Deadliest Man Alive by Benji Feldheim, published earlier this year. It’s about Chicagoan John Keenan, a martial arts expert with a “Most Interesting Man in the World” sort of pedigree. He also ran occult and pornography shops, harbored a lively cocaine habit, and was rumored to be linked to the mob. I joke to Sager that he could qualify as “the Most Interesting Man in the World.” A tour through his office and studio is a look into where he’s been, what he’s seen. Pictures of Sager with various celebrities line the walls next to his many books— some he wrote, the rest classic and obscure works, many penned by friends. One photo shows Sager
42 AUGUST 2022
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog