Practice of the Future Magazine

After a long, long period of time, I'm going to be associated with a publication again; Practice of the Future will be launching soon! Well, the digital version is available already, but it's the printed copy I can't wait to get my hands on next week... I do some of the writing, and most of the proofreading/copyediting, for this quarterly healthcare-oriented magazine, and I've got to say I'm quite pleased with what my colleagues and I have achieved. Of course, this kind of thing isn't exactly new to me...

26 years ago today, August 18, 1995, I met up with some fellow 'zinesters at the second annual Underground Press Conference at DePaul University in Chicago during my all-too-brief stint as publisher and editor-in-chief of the Extreme. Disillusionment with the conference itself and the feuds I saw boiling over, coupled with a flood of submissions but a dearth of subscriptions, led me to unceremoniously pull the plug on the venture shortly thereafter, only eight issues in, and I still regret it...

Before that, I proofread and edited The Voyage of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien: San Francisco to Normandy 1994, a book by Coleman "Coke" Schneider about the Liberty Ship he was assigned to as a Merchant Marine deck cadet for its maiden voyage in 1944, and on which he traveled again 50 years later for the D-Day anniversary. Coke was a great man with a fascinating history, and I'm proud to have both known him and helped him with the book.

Before that? Well, in 1991 there was my semi-legendary stint as "underground journalist" and literary editor/propagandist of the Underground Giraffe. Met initially with amused tolerance by the management of the Toys "R" Us store where graphic editor Steve Augulis and I worked, the irreverent newsmagazine subtitled "Something to read while you're in the bathroom" found its way up a corporate level or two, and our comic and crass rants were eventually suppressed after five issues that year. I then released two final issues in 1992 as a gift to my co-workers when I resigned. I'm not saying that UG had anything to do with T"R"U filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017 and closing all its US stores the following year... but I'm not not saying it, either.

And before that? I suppose my interest in journalism and writing and editing/proofreading began in high school. In my junior year, I was a member of the editorial committee of John F. Kennedy H.S.' school newspaper, The Torch; the next year, I was literary editor of our yearbook, The Knight. The proofreading bug has been with me ever since, and even when I'm reading for news or for pleasure, part of me is on the hunt for errors. Beware my red pen!

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

I do still enjoy writing, too, and though the work I do in my capacity as marketing manager for Microwize Technology and senior editor for Practice of the Future shows barely a trace of my trademark snark and outrage, I'm proud of it. Of course, the turns of phrase, the alliteration, the portmanteaus and double entendres I sprinkle throughout my song lyrics and short fiction and personal 'blog posts are nearer and dearer to my heart. I have fun with words when I can.

Kudos to my PotF teammates on a terrific first issue together! And, who knows... I just might be inspired to try my hand at the 'zine thing again...

May It Be

It's May Day, Labour Day, International Workers' Day... and hopefully more people understand now how important and underappreciated a lot of workers are. Healthcare professionals and other hospital workers, first responders, teachers, grocery store employees, truck drivers, postal workers, plumbers, sanitation workers, and so many more: they're essential. They make the world go round, they make a difference. Not Sir Richard Branson, who wants government assistance to keep Virgin Atlantic afloat, or Elon Musk, who rails against state governments preventing his workers from going back to the factories. Not the governors who are reopening their states for business, nor even the ones who say it's too soon. Not, for the love of the gods, any celebrities. I have my share of favorite actors and musicians, too, but guess what? They're not as important, not as essential to our society, as those workers. Neither are politicians, or Wall Street bankers. Amazon is overrated; I haven't ordered anything from them in over a month and a half. Now that I'm all caught up on "The Tick" and "Good Omens," I may well wave my Amazon Prime membership goodbye.

(OK. Breathe, Andy, breathe.) Thing is, I knew all this stuff before. Some of you probably did, too, at least some of it. But it's becoming clearer to more people, and there are some out there who don't like that fact at all. The idea that "we can't go back to 'normal'" scares the kind of people who made lots of money or got some sort of power from the old 'normal.' So what if 'normal' meant there were a lot of people who were never more than two or three paychecks away from desperation? So what if 'normal' meant that people living in one neighborhood never had to worry about the police, while people in another could never be comfortable around them? So what if 'normal' meant that an illness could bankrupt someone? So what if 'normal' meant that people would obsess over the latest celebrity gossip or outrage or "beef" while important and relevant news died in a vacuum?

Yeah, I don't much like the idea of that 'normal' coming back. I do want to be able to go to ShopRite or Dunkin' or Walgreens again without covering my face. I don't want to keep getting E-mails trying to sell me expensive outdoor furniture or guitars or computer hardware or software at a time when those things mean nothing to me (OK, almost nothing). I do want COVID-19 to fade into the background. I don't want anyone to play it down because "more people die of this, that, and the other thing" (which can't spread the way the coronavirus does). I do want to go to the park or to Greenwich Village, and see and smile at women's faces - and even get the occasional smile back. I don't want to hear politicians taking undue credit and deflecting due blame. I do want discourse and dialog and critical thinking. I don't want knee-jerk reactions and propaganda and entrenched camps that refuse to consider other points of view. I do want the economy to recover, and the Virgin Atlantics and Teslas and Amazons of the world to continue to operate and employ countless people. I don't want it to happen atop the bodies of workers, essential or otherwise, and widen the wealth gap even further.

I don't claim to have the answers, but at least I'm not afraid to consider the questions. And whatever your political, social, religious, ethnic standpoint, for this society to persevere, we need to work together. We need to talk. To argue, certainly, but to have a conversation. With discussion and compromise, or without, change is coming.

Eight years ago today, I marched with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and the Occupy Guitarmy in New York City, in support of Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy movement in general. Some things have gotten better since then, some things have gotten worse. Change is never easy, and sometimes you do have to take a step back, like it or not, before you can push forward another two steps.

Going back even further, twenty-five years ago (yes, I am) I tried my hand at creating a scene. No, wait, a 'zine: the Extreme. "Sort of an alternative to the established 'alternative,'" I brazenly claimed in the first issue. Well, while I threw in the towel much too early, I did sell some copies, and I did get a lot of submissions. After all this time, I've finally begun the process of digitizing the entire eight-issue run (the material I've held onto has held up surprisingly well). Looking over those old copies of "a magazine for three finkers" has made me nostalgic. And defiant. Maybe the stir-crazy has awakened my inner Skinny the Foo...

Anyway, happy May Day, and thank you, again, to all the essential workers.