The Prodigal Writers Return...

MBM STAFF RETURNS!

Back in February and March of 2006 I edited a local "art" magazine with limited scope and unscrupulous people publishing the project. It was the Music Business Monthly staff that got that paper off the ground as the two principles behind the previous enterprise, Arts Media Mag, went to war with each other. When the two publishers split, ruining Arts Media - an already established brand - they both came to me with offers to start a new publication. Since the first fellow who contacted me asked for some ridiculous sum of money ($100,000.00 or something as he needed to put his "kid through college" (???) I quickly said "Thank you but NO thank you."
Then the second fellow called me dangling the money they owed me to get me to come to a meeting. What the heck, pick up the check and listen to what Door #2 wanted from me. Well,
Door #1 phoned and said how unethical Door #2 was and Door #2 kept blaming Door #1 for the failure of Arts Media Mag. Survey says: they both were at fault for ruining a good thing.

They were ridiculously immature and thought NOTHING about the hard work the staff and interns put in to "their" publication. They shut down the offices on Boylston Street and made an agreement that neither party could use the name "Arts Media Mag." What a shame. They destroyed a perfectly good publication with branding because they couldn't get along. They left a hard-working staff out in the cold. And, as noted above, the checks for our work were not delivered in a timely fashion but used for leverage by Door #2.

A "New" ARTS MAGAZINE for BOSTON
The "publishers" (actually, people in another line of business with delusions of grandeur but no substance and no real game-plan) would take us to dinner and charm us with their talk about "the old country." The double-talk from the the father was particularly curious and divisive. Every time there was a mention of contracts of agreements we would hear some story from the past "Back in Iran my brothers took advantage of me" (since he claimed to be the executor of the estate it seemed difficult to believe the brothers were the ones taking advantage)...Every time we would sit down to plan out the magazine the old man would rumble into the room with his "Back in Iran" stories. Yawwwwn. It was his way of interrupting the flow of ideas. He was just using us so that his beloved son could have a magazine and use the resources of everyone around him.

---

"A boy's best friend is his mother,"
Norman Bates in PSYCHO tells Marion (Janet Leigh) early on in the film

After a nutty phone call where the "publisher" told me I had to re-write my story because his mother told him so I gave him a quick and very sharp response: "Your mother told you?
You aren't man enough to make up your own mind?" Well, that put him in a rage. As a good friend of mine put it succinctly, I don't take b.s. from anyone. They paid me far less money than what I was owed and began the back-stabbing process they are so good at - exactly what Door #1 warned about (though he was no day at the beach either).

The incident seemed like something out of The Manchurian Candidate. What is creepier? Lawrence Harvey dealing with the come-0ns from Angela Lansbury (poor Janet Leigh showing up in yet another Mommy Dearest flick) or Liev Schreiber putting up with Meryl Streep's advances?)

LESSONS LEARNED:
But we have survived. The staff that helped build a new publication is now back home - all except one traitor who we've permanently banished for being a Benedict Arnold. He was a previous contributor to Music Business Monthly - previous being the operative word. (Brian's still working for Brand X, so deal with him at your own peril).

We aren't interested in revenge or "crushing the infidels". The infighting over on the South Shore will do them in better than any Michael Corleone-styled daydreams we could ever come up with - we're just too nice to get down to their level; however, we are having fun again enabling our art, our team is ready to go up on You Tube, MySpace Video, into newsgroups, and back on the street with a collectible publication that you will love and appreciate. We love what we do, we write because we like to explore the possibilities and bring those possibilities to your attention. Even the school-of-hard-knocks episode referenced above will make good reading when you get the full story a few months down the road. So now for the big news:

ANDY WARHOL ISSUE OF MUSIC BUSINESS MONTHLY SCHEDULED FOR 1/2009

This story is found on http://www.musicbusinessmonthly.com