Hilariously, people only ever use the words “avid” or “voracious” to describe their reading habits, and I’m gonna go ahead and do the same to explain the way I plowed through periodicals, from an early age.
I loved getting magazines at newsstands, train stations, drug stores, and the corner store. Most frequently at the corner store or drug store. I’d flip through the pages, fascinated by the outfits, writing, design, and photography.
When I started reading magazines steadily, my repertoire would come to include titles like Boy’s Life, Highlights, Mad, Cracked, Word Up!, Fresh!, National Lampoon, Soldier of Fortune, Omni, Skiing, Ski, Thrasher, Transworld Skateboarding, The Village Voice, New York Press, Interview, Rolling Stone, Spin, Straight No Chaser, Dub Catcher, The Face, i-D, Raygun, Vibe, Spy, Street Sound, Propaganda, The Source, Project X, and a million more.
I even checked out Sassy because I heard it was popping.
It was.
I’d read these rags front-to-back and eventually became particularly intrigued by the backs of the mags.
Who wasn’t? How could anyone not be?
In the 80s and 90s, the backs of print magazines and alternative weeklies were a wondrous bazaar, teeming with the forbidden and mysterious curiosities of the world. Throughout history, the backs of newspapers and magazines was where America did a lot of its “dirt”.
The backs of bike mags mostly had ads for parts and gear.
The back of Boy’s Life, the official magazine of Boy Scouts of America, displayed row after row of advertisements, touting X-Ray Spex, floating hovercraft, switchblades, and (mostly Southern) summer camps, preparatory schools, and military academies. Bullet-pointed lists of fluffy leadership language were shown beside pictures of children engaged in “learning” or “action”, or lined up in formation, sometimes even costumed in camo “BDUs” (battle dress uniform).
At 9 years old, one of the ads worked on me and I somehow convinced my parents to let me go to Army camp instead of regular camp. In 1987, I began shipping off to North Carolina each summer for a few weeks of child soldiering, JROTC adventures, and mingling with people from around the country (people from around North Carolina and rural Virginia).
On my North Carolina Tours of Duty, I learned about Soldier of Fortune Magazine, whose latter quarter was filled with ads for unspeakable things, worthy of their own exposé. They were practically recruiting for coups back there.
The “back pages” of New York Magazine featured grids of ads for massage and escort services. The language was cryptic and non-prosecutable, but we all knew what it was.
In contrast, the back of The Village Voice was considerably less discreet, explicitly showcasing (basically) XXX photos in tawdry, black and white advertisements for phone sex lines and sex workers of every feather and whip. The sexytime ads came just after the personals and the standing, weekly, nightclub and concert venue schedule ads. Anyone from that time will remember the long-running graphics for The Ritz, Roseland Ballroom, McGovern’s, The Pyramid, Tramp’s, S.O.B.’s, and Wetlands shows.
Both of these categories fascinated me equally.
The back of Thrasher (and other skate mags) had full-page displays of skate equipment and amazing t-shirt graphics for an assortment of bands from a wide range of genres. At the time, most of them would get broadly grouped together under the “alternative music” banner.
The bands all had the coolest names and logos.
Bad Brains, Black Flag, Minor Threat, The Cure, The Dead Kennedys, The Dead Milkmen, The Damned, Fishbone, The The, D.R.I., Circle Jerks, 10,000 Maniacs, Violent Femmes, Love and Rockets, R.E.M., Danzig, Samhain, The Misfits, Corrosion of Conformity.
The merch was music to my eyes even though some of the music was not, to my ears.
It’s hard to explain now, but at the time, all of these bands were all sorta one category, kinda, “not mainstream”. To put it another way, liking these bands signaled that you were cool, “different”, a weirdo-of-depth.
Magazines like Interview, The Face, and Details made me want Beverly Hills 90210 sideburns and a Cypress Hill goatee and whatever stupid kind of shirts and footwear were cool for the moment. These, and other magazines, made me want Zodiac shoes and baggy, drawstring pants by Skidz. The pictorials made me crave designer pirate shirts from Charivari, then, Duffer of St George, from Union, tie-top hats from 555-Soul, and techno-color ravewear from Liquid Sky. The fashion spreads in Details listed the designers and prices and told us where, in the city, we could “shop the look”.
Faithful to the time honored blood ritual, Paper Magazine kept their portals to other worlds in the way-back of their mag, too. Every few issues, (but not every issue), towards the back, Paper would run a black and white ad with information about joining their intern program.
By the time I hit my mid teens, it was clear to me, Paper was my favorite magazine of them all.
Interview often leaned a little “Hollywood”, and Details eventually sold to Condé Nast, transitioning from funky, downtown-centric style guide into the prototype for the imminent onslaught of douchey "dude mags”, like Maxim (and a bunch of other dumb titles I can’t remember and don’t care enough about to Google).
Paper Mag was my favorite, by far.
An insider’s “trade paper”, devoted to the cults and cultures of cool, each month, Paper accurately reported and bravely forecast the latest comings and goings within downtown New York City’s diverse incubator of creativity. The magazine, founded in 1984 by Kim Hastreiter and David Hershkovits, was a skilled and joyful club kid seamstress, quilting together downtown’s wacky patchwork of weirdos and best-in-class young creatives, chronicling all of the movements and scenes that kept springing up everywhere.
Paper made it all make sense.
The way musical artists like A Tribe Called Quest and Deee-Lite perfectly encapsulated and broadcast the era’s audio-visual languages, Paper put it all down on, well… paper.
Paper Magazine, since its earliest days, served as downtown’s (and “Digital" Downtown’s”) Herald News, expertly selecting the best and latest in anything The Arts, Fashion, Books, Film, Music, more Fashion, Nightclubs, Fashion again, and New York City.
Paper was like a whole magazine of backs of magazines.
Years ago, right after a temporary gig, assisting my photographer friend at a music publication, I remembered the ads from the way-backs of Paper. I decided to give it a shot and apply for an internship at my favorite magazine.
A few weeks later, I received a callback.
My interview was set for the following week.
“Magback University” is an excerpt from my work, "Just Right Outside”.