According to co-editor Nicolas Wagner’s note, the magazine:

“…came out of both frustration and an unexplainable desire to see, collect, cut out, paste and gather visuals of the same person or subject.”

The Editor, The Cover Star and The Wife (Nicolas Wagner, Tal & Arthur)

I got invited because I know the person they chose as their first subject, Arthur K., who happens to be the biggest male model since Derek Zoolander and Hansel!  I keed, I keed; although, he does get booked for a lot of big jobs.  I was happy to check it out and at the same time I was intrigued by the fact that a publication would choose to launch in such a volatile economic climate, it definitely takes guts especially with all this talk about the end of print and the recent writings on the wall.  I tip my hat off to CRUSHfanzine in the name of independent publishing, call me old-fashioned, but I don’t want to see a world without print.  I’ve always loved flipping through a beautiful magazine’s pages or reading the Sunday times; although, I admit finding myself eating breakfast this past Sunday laptop open next to my plate!  Regardless, I still believe in independent publishing and the movement that still exists!  I realize that change is happening everywhere and that it has always happened even with the world of print, but I think there’s some balance and synergy that can be found between both the mediums of print and online.  That being said, I came across an interesting presentation by Jeremy Leslie of magCulture re: The End of Print (As We Know It), there’s no words, but you can get the gist of it visually:

Capone and me "shooting myself in the foot"

I’ve been seeing some recent posts on Capone-N-Noreaga promoting the upcoming release of their third album, “Channel 10″, which leads me to this photo that I dug up from my archives.  Back in March of 1999, while I was working for TRACE Magazine I got offered the opportunity to interview Capone  for a Queensbridge-themed music issue.  Mind you, I wasn’t originally hired as a writer, I handled ad sales and marketing, but with such a small staff I got the fringe benefit of being able to ‘wear different hats’ while I was there.

I remember the day vividly, it was such an indelible experience for me to get an ‘official’ tour of the historic QB projects from one of its very own and being able to see and experience the neighborhood that inspired and spawned so much talent.

Suffice it to say, I’m not that good of a writer, hence my short lived career and to even further add insult to injury, the story ended up being dropped from the issue!  Hahahahahaaa…

Fast forward seven months and now I’m working for Triple 5 Soul, (Yes, I mentioned it as 555-Soul in the previous post, because it was totally different then.*) and DJ Soul was music editor for Mass Appeal. (R.I.P.- Patrick Elasik)  He was trying to close his first issue, so I asked him to consider the story for an upcoming issue and joked that if he wasn’t going to run it I would be left with no choice but to drop Mass Appeal from Triple 5 Soul’s ad plan!  I guess he took me seriously because he ended up running the piece and it was the first story in the magazine only four pages in from the ad we ran on the inside-cover-spread.  I’m joking…I don’t think that was the reason…Regardless, I’m just glad he ran the story and gave me a shot.  Thanks DJ Soul…

You can read the story below: