OAKTOWN, CALI - Have you noticed something about your snail mail[postal] box lately? Have you noticed how few postage stamps are in it. Because we got electronic mail, you and me and most folks on this internet, we have just about stopped writing letters.
If Rotney, our Publisher, and his guru Jakob Nielsen, are correct, we won't be using telephones, either, ten years from now.
I think of this because I feel bad about seeing our publisher, and thus the magazine, leave the Bay Area.
As far as I was concerned, from Day One, when this magazine was just a photocopied 'Zine railing against the corporate hegemony from inside Lesher Communications(now owned by Knight Ridder), all of five pages on Day One, back in 1990, it was a quintessential product of the greater San Francisco experience.
When Rod and the magazine moved to San Francisco, I expected changes. I never expected what happened three years ago: the World Wide Web version, and becoming a full-fledged magazine. Despite Rod constantly culling from the archives, we now have over 2,000 pages archived here.
In an e-mail last night, one of the other writers here reminded me of my "senior" status. Despite some of the ranting I've done in these pages over the years about some of the directions the GENERATOR 21 has taken, the fact remains that I've never left. I was here from the dead-tree days, "only" did my HOT LINKS page when Rod took us electronic because I meant to protest the elitist nature of this medium, then got talked into writing a column again because Rod insisted the Internet was the future.
Today, I have to admit that he was right.
I also have to admit, Homes, that since moving to San Francisco, and using e-mail to reach out to writers on other continents and in other countries, this magazine is far better than the one I started with and held so close to my heart back in the day.
When I read a Bob Powers from Ohio, a Fliss Ussher from London, a Kim Carter from Koh Samui, or a Raoul Tesla from the Philippines, I see what Rotney probably saw living in his little hovel in the Mission District of San Francisco three years ago: the world in words. And you and me and anybody anywhere can get that whole world for free. It's stunning! and I didn't believe in it three years ago when he made this choice.
A lot of awards have rolled in along the way. Many more than I would have expected. And we keep getting them, as this week's cover shows.
But, contrary to my beliefs, and many of my rants against Rod's leadership, the spirit of the magazine has remained intact. The satire is unrelenting, the humor has been maintained, and we still rage against the machine.
That's why I feel bad about Rod, and the magazine, leaving San Francisco. I know my man, my brother, is totally in a New York state of mind these days, looking forward to seeing old friends of long-standing out east, seasons, the awesome beauty(as he describes it to me, which I have never seen) of autumn in Connecticut, and I wish him well. But I will miss this proximity. I will miss our phonecalls and our shared meals. I will miss his foolish laughter, so much younger than it should be.
Yeah, Homes. I'm gonnah miss my friend being close.
Sure, we'll have e-mails, but that ain't nowhere near the same.
I don't know about you, but I have already seen New York insinuate its presence in the magazine over the last couple of weeks. The design, which I dig, the tone even, seem to be not-so-subtly changing before our very eyes. The Man has already started moving his heart East, and the magazine along with it.
This may even be for the best. But I'll always remember that we, the G21, were born here at the edge of the world. I'll always hope we stay edgy.
Peace Out.
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RADIO ACTIVE: RADIO RAHEEM gets the last word on the GENERATOR 21's two-plus years as a San Francisco magazine....
IRISH EYES: A Special Editorial on the murders of Jason, Mark, and Richard Quinn.
POWERSSOUND looks at new music from Jimmy Witherspoon, Benny Golson, and Jorge Pardo.
LONDON CALLING! FLISS USSHER, the magazine's Muse, reports from London on our greater CHOICE.
PLANETARY MADNESS. JENNIFER BLUE YOUR in-house stargazer delivers another Distinctively Different horoscope for YOUR UPCOMING WEEK.
G21 SPORTS: KO's CALLS. KRIS OLSON now has his own logo, an apologia, and a look at the week in Sports!
ON DRUGS: ADAM J. SMITH exhorts us all to stick to our sense of rationalism during the coming $2 Billion Prohibitionist media blitz.
TABLOID HART: has a whole lot going on! THOMAS HART dishes on the Boulder Colorado PD, Chuck Heston, the Weekly World News, and Toni Braxton. But that's not all: After reading the article, visit Tom's new TRAILER PARK, a place for chat, link listings, and even more of the Gossip & Innuendo you've grown to love.
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