January 3, 2003
We have a finance committee now at TW and it is in full gear, scrutinizing every purchase, examining mucho upcoming expenditures. It actually takes some pressure off me and I appreciate that.

Worked all day yesterday on April editorial and a road trip piece for the travel issue (Walleye Patti Changed My Life, culled from these very pages).

Magazine Wars: we are collaborating with the Hubbard Museum in Ruidoso on a Gunfighter show which will open in April. On a conference call with the new director we went over some of the parameters. One of the things we talked about was how our name would be displayed on the advertising. Not that it matters. Our so-called competitors are so petty that when the ads for these shows run in their magazines (that would be Wild West, American Cowboy and Cowboys & Indians), they either take our name off the ad completely, or, they take the word “magazine” off the bottom of the logo, as if that will somehow stop their readers from throwing down their magazine and running thru the streets to find ours. This is so high school, it’s not even funny. Of course, radio is even worse. One time on KSLX when I was doing the morning show, a program director ran in after a break and admonished us: “Stop telling what songs you have coming up!” My curiosity piqued, I asked him why. He actually said, “Because KDKB (one of our classic rock competitors) will hear we are going to play ‘Brown Sugar’ and then they’ll put on a P-1 (a stronger song) and steal our listeners.” I pictured a guy in a foxhole listening to our show and then ringing up his command center on a two-way radio: “Code Blue! Code Blue! KSLX is launching ‘Brown Sugar’. Stand by to cue ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Do you read me? Over!”

On a related note, one of the trade magazines we get at the office just ran a dos and don’ts for your website and one of the major don’ts was the admonition not to run information on your website about your upcoming plans because your competitors are studying your site to steal valuable information. So, with that in mind, here’s our secret plans for this year:

• Put out the best magazine we can, with the best information from the best writers, researchers and artists.

• Try not to take ourselves too seriously. Do you read me? Over!

“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
—Muhammad Ali