KILLING MY SPACE

L.A. Observed linked to an Ad Age report that My Space is contemplating starting a print mag. Good on them. New print projects are few and far between these days. Sure it'll probably exist solely to push the online brand, but that's what everything's about now, so there's no point trying to grouse about it. But I'm going to offer some advice to the Fox honchos who are doling out the licensing agreement. Listen to me: You can do much, much better than to put your megabuck brand in the hands of Marvin Scott Jarrett, the owner/publisher of Nylon. Now, I'll confess that I don't know how competently Nylon is run (Any Nylon writers out there? Are you getting paid? Do you have to go to court to get it?), but I worked for him when he owned and operated (along with his wife) Raygun Publishing. I was hired to be the Editor of Bikini, a sort of edgy lad mag, back in 1998. The whole operation was one big clusterfuck. An example: One former employee told me a story about the day he was laid off because the magazine he edited for Jarrett was being folded. A few minutes later, Jarrett asked him if he wanted to check out his new Porsche. Writers weren't paid, we had to pander to his celebrity friends. It was just a horrible situation.

Of course, it got worse, when Jarrett dumped Raygun Publishing on a rube who knew nothing about the publishing business (but, of course, he thought he was a friggin genius), other than it seemed a good way to get hot chicks. This fellow drove it in the ground. But before that happened, I quit/was fired. Most of my writers had to sue to get paid. It was a great relief to be done with them, until I lost my COBRA health coverage because Raygun bounced a check to the carrier. But I digress. Let me just say that company was cursed.

The moral of all this being: Don't do it, Fox! Even a brand as sordid as My Space deserves better.