I only interned there for about six months, but I managed to milk a lot out of my time at SPIN Magazine in 1989 (which I’ve written about and alluded to countless times via this post). I met a slew of people I still count as friends and mentors. My association with SPIN led to the opening of several other doors down the line. I only got one fleeting little news item published, and was never paid a thin, red dime (hey… I was an intern), but the experience and the contacts more than made up for that. To be fair, I also made off with a ton of discarded albums, more than a few black SPIN t-shirts and one or two SPIN coffee mugs. Sure, it would have been nice to have been hired on full-time, but that, alas, was not to be.
This year, SPIN — or what’s left of it — is celebrating its 30th Anniversary. I’ve certainly followed it over the years, through its hills and valleys of quality. Some of my friends and former colleagues went onto become staff members for a time. More recently, I’m sad to say that I’ve found the caliber of their writing dipping (witness this rant I posted not too long back). But I’ll always have a soft spot for the place.
In observance of the anniversary, founding editor/publisher Bob Guccione Jr. has returned to the fold to do some guest editing, and he recently appeared on Marc Maron’s excellent WTF podcast.
As a lowly intern, my interactions with Bob Guccione Jr. were fleeting and often intimidating. Sure, he could be entirely hilarious, but he also had something of a hot temper and a frankly unreasonable streak. I watched him tell an underling to fire one of my fellow interns on the spot for delivering his lunch too late (sushi from across town). I remember manning the (very busy) switchboard one day during the receptionist’s lunch hour, and I picked up one line to find Bob on the end of it, screaming `til hoarse at me for taking too long to answer. What if he’d been a potential advertiser? Brusque and abrasive as he may have been at the time, he did have a point.
Sure, he may have been a bit egomaniacal, but this was still the heady `80’s. My only lasting grievance with the man probably has more to do with his unwavering allegiance to the music of John Cougar Mellencamp. Small potatoes, at the end of the day.
In any case, give Maron’s chat with Guccione Jr. a listen. Check it out here.
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