So the question is this: if mailing labels in the front cover annoy some of their subscribers, why don’t they put them on the back cover, where they can be left affixed, not marring the expensive photography or artwork commissioned at staggering prices in hopes of snagging an audience?
If you cannot answer that question instantly, merely turn over the nearest magazine in your home and look.
There is an advertisement on the back.
They won’t put the label back there, because it might piss off the advertiser. That’s the simple of it.
When I put that question to five different magazine circulation directors, in preparation for this column, each one of them tried to snow me with the Accepted Wisdom that by postal regulation they can’t put it on the back cover. They swore it was the truth. Now, since each of those people makes a decent wage at the respective publication, and one presumes the paycheck is so substantial because they know the job, I am left with the choices of them being uninformed…or they lied.
Because according to the Domestic Mail Manual, section 464.36, no preference is stated as to front or back cover. It is clearly indicated, in fact, that either cover will suffice, as long as the label is readable. So sayeth 2nd Class Mail Specialist Ed Biles.
So I called them back and read them the section. Then they went phumfuh phumfuh and said it was physically impossible, or at least hideously difficult, to do the job at the printing and binding plant. Uh-huh, I said.
So I called Larry Moshier, Jr., one of the customer reps at Pacific Press, which is the largest printer and binder on the West Coast, and maybe the biggest in America. Pacific Press handles 300,000 copies of California each month. Every week they run through a million copies of Time. (Six million more are processed through five other plants across the country.)
Larry tells me, in answer to my query about the impossibility of putting labels on the back cover, “Hell, no. No problem at all.” Uh-huh, I said.
You see, the way they do it is this: The magazines are printed in signatures, then they’re run down a conveyor belt from binding straight to mailing, non-stop. It’s called “in-line mailing.” The magazines are fed, cover up, into the addressing machinery, loosely termed a Magna Craft (though the wizards at Pacific Press have mutated the original Magna Craft behemoth with their own appendages) and they come out in a stack with the label stuck on the front.
Larry tells me the glue they have to use is as strong as it is because it has to bite through four color inks. Those suckers are, therefore, on forever, or until you break your fingernail trying to pry them off.
The line can run between 5–8000 individual units an hour. And all they have to do to put the label on the back, instead of the front, where it rankles us, is change the initial press layout for all the forms. In other words, all they have to do is send those units through upside-down. According to Larry, it costs not one cent more, takes no additional time, and makes no difference to the staff or the machines.
I asked him if any magazines do put the label on the back. He said yes. Alaska magazine does it. That’s because they have some beautiful photography on the front. There are a few other magazines that please their subscribers in similar fashion; but the instance that gave me the clincher I needed for this column was Westways. That venerable publication prides itself on its cover art. And apparently they got some beefs from subscribers who didn’t like their copies defaced. So Westways decided to put the label on the back cover.
No advertiser would go along with it.
So they didn’t do it.
And when I approached Lou Harris, Executive Editor of Los Angeles, for which I sometimes write, and made my case for treating the loyal subscribers at least as well as the casual, capricious newsstand buyer, he said no chance. I asked him why, and suggested he was afraid of antagonizing the advertisers who supplied the money to keep the magazine solvent, while angering the subscribers who provide the circulation figures that the Audit Bureau of Circulation publish that enable Los Angeles (as is the case with all magazines) to get those advertising dollars. Lou said, “You got it. We prefer the bucks.”
May I quote you? I said.
I’ll kill you if you do, he said.
But you didn’t say it wasn’t for the record, I said.
Wait’ll you see the rotten letters I run about your latest article, he said.
Sticks’n’stones, I said. Go ahead, run the crummy letters. Los Angeles only comes out once a month. The L. A. Weekly is out every Thursday. Instead of the letters demanding labels be put on the back instead of the front going to your Production Manager, or the Circulation Director at Los Angeles, I can arrange to have them sent directly to your home.
“You are not a nice person,” Lou Harris said. “You are deeply disturbed.”
Which is why you asked me to write the article on anger and revenge, and not Erma Bombeck, I said.
The point, gentle readers, is that Toyota, knowing Alaska was going to put a label on their ad, designed the layout so the label would lie along the spine, interfering not one whit with their hustling vehicles. Advertisers will accede, if the magazine owns its own soul.
But most magazines don’t. They want your subscription bucks, which are nearly as important as advertising bucks, but they would rather short-change you than the advertisers. If you are a loyal subscriber, entitled to enjoy the art and photography on which the magazines spend millions of dollars obtaining the best, then too bad chump. If you are a passerby, maybe you buy and maybe you don’t, then you get a pristine copy, unbesmirched by label. You see, folks, once they got you…you ain’t worth worrying about, because it’s the free-floating bucks and the advertiser’s clout that really carry the freighting of concern.
So I propose we initiate an experiment. The Addressee’s Crusade. Let us all pick one magazine that we want to convert. Let us decide which of the local magazines best needs to learn who’s paying their way. Maybe you don’t give a shit about the label, but do you also feel terrific knowing you couldn’t do anything about being considered second-class subscriber, even if you wanted to?
Don’t it anger you, kiddo?
Don’t it make you feel impotent?
Wanna see if we can start a trend?
Okay, tell you what let’s do. Let’s pick a magazine. The best choices for us here in Los Angeles are California or Los Angeles magazine. Drop me a postcard. Put on it either one name or the other. I’ll tote’m up and let you know in a couple of weeks which of these two miscreants slavering for the dollar instead of our approbation is the target. And then we can start sending letters to the Circulation Director.
I’ll have sent copies of this column ahead, so they’ll know what’s hit them. Ed Biles of the Post Office and Larry Moshier, Jr., of Pacific Press tell us there’s no good reason why a mailing label can’t be stuck on the back cover. Let’s see what California or Los Angeles do in response to a direct appeal from their readers.
Let’s see who owns whose soul.
Interim memo
After I left the Weekly I’m told that inquiries continued to come in for several months: what happened to the Ellison column? The publisher’s line was that I’d just decided to stop writing An Edge in My Voice, which was codswallop. When I’d go out on the lecture circuit in the Los Angeles area, invariably I’d be asked why I’d decided to stop writing the pieces. I explained that such was not the case, not that simply explained. And in far places I’d occasionally encounter someone who’d subscribed to the Weekly so they could read An Edge. I tried to explain why I had vanished from those environs. But, on sum, I felt good about two years’ worth of occasional pieces. In the Weekly of 28 January 1983, a letter from an Alex Cox appeared. I never saw it. I was elsewhere by then. Apparently it stirred some residual interest and, in a spirit of completism, you’ll find Mr. Cox’s letter and several responses to him from the 4–10 February issue of the Weekly. These were the last times my name was taken in vain, or any other way, in that newspaper.
&n
bsp; Letters reprinted with permission from the L.A. Weekly
LETTERS
Creeping Cultism
Dear Editor:
This is to inquire if other readers have noticed a strange slant creeping into the Weekly’s once-excellent editorial coverage over the last year or so: something one might call “the cult of personality reporting.”
While other local rags contrive to publish interesting issues virtually devoid of star-status by-lines, the Weekly seems determined to thrust its pet reporters—specifically, Ginger Varney, Michael Ventura and columnist Harlan Ellison—at us in a manner so brazen as to put even Ben Stein or Andy Rooney to shame. To wit:
“There are two versions of Nicaragua—Ronald Reagan’s and Ginger Varney’s.” (Weekly, 10th December). Two versions—really? What about Jaime Wheelock’s? Or Eden Pastora’s? Or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’? Or the Mizquito Indians’? Or even Thomas O. Enders’? Varney may be right on: that isn’t the point. If you juxtapose Varney’s name with Reagan’s you reduce the whole Central American question to a conflict of personalities. Whom do we prefer—the actor / president or the film critic? This Point / Counterpoint approach is TV-feeble and will only convince those who don’t need convincing. Is this enough for you? Or do you actually want to change some minds out there?
Similarly, a couple of months back you ran an excellent piece on the CIA’s use of subliminals in the Latin America media. I showed the article to a sharp but skeptical acquaintance of mine. Unfortunately for my credibility, she turned the page—and was confronted by Michael Ventura’s hommage to a hippie girl who picks up stones and ommms on Venice Beach. My friend shook her head and put the Weekly down. “And you take any of this seriously?” she asked.
Either you want to change minds or you don’t. If you do, you can’t afford this kind of lamebrain rambling undermining major cover stories. Now we are partway into Michael’s major epic, a six (?) part series on the Screenwriter in Hollywood. Let me ask you this; does L.A. need another one of these? Does anyone, other than Mr. Ventura, who thinks he is a screenwriter, and likes to write about himself? [sic]
Harlan Ellison, finally, was washed up and discredited in science fiction circles years ago. A once-interesting writer (once being the late ’60s), his readership deserted him as he drifted into egomania and the relentless detailing of his daily minutiae. I know of no magazine that would regularly print his stuff until the Weekly picked him up. And there he sits, part of the pantheon, informing us at length about the kind of car he drives, how he wrecked it, which good causes he supports this week, and how, above all, Harlan is not a sexist. This from the author of A Boy and His Dog.
As you can probably tell, I read the Weekly. I read it every week. And it makes me Goddamn mad that some of it is very good while so much more is garbage.
Might I suggest a small experiment? Give your Strategic Triad two months off. Send them to look for yellow rain in Laos and Afghanistan. And while they’re huntin’, look around for other work from other writers. Maybe they’ll be sadly missed. But on the other hand…
—Alex Cox
Los Angeles
Defending Harlan
Dear Editor:
I’ve just finished reading Alex Cox’s rather sour-grapish sounding letter (L.A. Weekly, 28th January), and while Harlan Ellison is admirably suited to defend himself—what the hell. I’ve got a few minutes to spare.
First, Mr. Cox complains about Ellison’s column as a responsible, legitimate forum for journalistic endeavor, decrying “the relentless detailing of his daily minutiae…informing us at length about the kind of car he drives, and how he wrecked it, which good causes he supports this week,” and so forth. Perhaps someone should inform Mr. Cox that the personal essay—yes, minutiae included—is most assuredly a valid literary form. Just pick up either of the big local dailies and check out the Op-Ed page. Read Mike Royko. Or Hunter S. Thompson, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe…the list goes on, but why waste space?
Second, a flat-out error of fact on Mr. Cox’s part. To say that “…no magazine would regularly print his stuff until the Weekly picked it up,” is just plain untrue. “An Edge in My Voice” ran in the monthly national magazine Future Life for something like a year prior to the Weekly getting it—and even then, the popular column only stopped in its original incarnation because the publication disappeared from the newsstands. That he has done other columns in recent years for a number of publications is recorded fact.
And leave us not forget Ellison’s column for The L.A. Free Press, entitled “The Glass Teat,” which wound up anthologized in two volumes that have been reprinted several times and are still regarded as some of the best observations on TV by Walter Cronkite and Publishers Weekly, to name only two.
Finally, to say that Ellison was “…washed up and discredited in science fiction circles years ago,” is a misreading of the facts that borders on outright fabrication. Much of Ellison’s work, by his own admission (and insistence) does not fall under the heading of true SF. Most critics and published appraisals of his work—including the prestigious reference work Contemporary Authors—describes Ellison’s work as “magic realism,” on a par with some of the fantasy oriented writings of Mark Twain and Jorge Luis Borges. In addition, Ellison makes no bones about keeping his name more-or-less disassociated with SF because to do otherwise is a terrific way to get pigeon-holed and, as a consequence, slapped into a lower standard of living and income. But this still doesn’t stop publications like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from purchasing stories of his like “The Hour That Stretches” sight unseen; nor does it prevent his work from being nominated for, and winning, Hugos, Nebulas and the like. So much for being discarded and washed up!
Mr. Cox’s greatest single charge is that of egotism. Which is really rather amusing. It never fails that, if you live a varied, interesting life, people will grudgingly go ahead and permit you the right to live as you choose. But as soon as you start to talk about how interesting and varied your life is, you get hit with the charge of egotism.
Perhaps people like Mr. Cox don’t like to hear from those whose lives are rich enough and fulfilled enough so that they don’t have the time or inclination to attack those who, by way of printed word and resulting comparison, cause them to feel dull, inadequate, or bored.
Just a thought.
—J. Michael Straczynski
Glendale
Dear Editor:
In response to Mr. Alex Cox’s letter (January 28) concerning the “cult of personality reporting” in the L.A. Weekly, I submit the following statements;
1) Having been associated with a similar type paper as the L.A. Weekly, in northern California, we found that irresponsible critics when offered a chance at a regular column would not, or could not, offer any copy whatsoever.
2) Hooray for Michael Ventura’s series of continuing articles on “Surviving in Hollywood.” As one involved in screenwriting for the last six years I can testify that, so far, the insights are fairly much on target and the writing style and enjoyment excellent. Once the series is complete, I hope the Weekly encourages and publishes a full response from the readers.
3) Mr. Cox’s comments on Ginger Varney’s Nicaragua series is well taken. The articles were meaningful, but the title (“There Are Two Versions of Nicaragua—Ronald Reagan’s and Ginger Varney’s”) is a total mis-fire. Weekly, take note, this criticism did catch you with your pants down.
4) The reference by Mr. Cox to his “sharp but skeptical” friend that found disagreement with both the article on the CIA’s subliminals used in Latin American media and Michael Ventura’s feature on a particular woman poet as somehow connected is flam, non’specific and a self-serving anecdote of the embarrassing first kind. Let this “sharp but skeptical” person present her view forthright to all concerned.
5) Harlan Ellison’s stature as an SF writer is well-established and well-earned, irregardless [sic] of the latest pronouncements by the newest clique of self-appoi
nted experts. As far as Mr. Ellison’s column is concerned (and I don’t agree with Ellison all the time), he has always said it will be rambling and discursive. Submit your own column, Mr. Cox, for consideration. Perhaps you can do a better job.
—Michael Kerwin
Hollywood
Interim memo
The column seems to want to cling to life. I made the mistake of allowing a lying, duplicitous, monumentally corrupt and evil pus-bag permission to continue reprinting the old installments in his psychopathic clinical test-reports (he called it a magazine) (but then, the KKK calls what it does “patriotism”). This essay, not originally an installment of An Edge in My Voice as it regularly appeared in the L.A. Weekly, was commissioned by—and in an unauthorized edited version appeared in—Video Review magazine (volume 3, number 6: September 1982). It was written in June of 1982 and was updated with an addendum for its October 1983 appearance in the vomitous publication noted above.
As further update, a front page article in USA Today, the national newspaper, on Thursday, March 22nd, 1984 was headlined with the legend: 3000 VIDEO ARCADES ZAPPED. The piece went into detail of a self-fulfilling prophecy sort (to my smug pleasure) anent the failure, in the nine months preceding this item, of more than one third of the 10,000 videogame arcades in America. Game machine sales plummeted 65%, from 480,000 in 1982 (when, at the peak of the boom, I wrote this essay) to 170,000 in 1983. Income per machine at many arcades has dropped in half, from $120 to about $60 a week. And the Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatres and Video Arcades, based in Sunnyvale, California, franchisers of 247 pizza restaurants with arcades attached, lost $16 million in the fourth quarter of 1983 and have indicated they may well have to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. You all know what’s happened to Atari. I hope I never run into Bruce Apar, editor of Video Magazine, who made it clear he thought I was a know-nothing because I suggested he was making a buck off the weakness of kids. I’m not sure I’d have the nobility to avoid laughing in his face. History quickly got ’im!
An Edge in My Voice Page 44