Best of PID—Kurt Andersen (Author & Editor: Spy Magazine, New York, Studio360, more)

Hub and spokes audio Collective hey guys it's Mike Rie from Mountain Gazette this is cat KCK from SE and we have both been on this podcast feed and this is the best of summer series you should subscribe to cat's magazine you should subscribe to Mike's magazine there you go that's our ad ads are dumb magazines are sweet enjoy the pod control is new from commercial type originally drawn for interview by Christian Schwarz and Miguel Rees this sand serif is designed for flexibility and can bring taste for modernism or a70s tip KN touching exuberance to any layout see control and download a free trial version at Commercial type.com [Music] and I also think because it was satirical and we were making fun of people we wanted it to stick we didn't want it to be oh yeah that was a funny joke about this person oh that was a funny nickname for this person or whatever we wanted to have an impact this is print is dead Long Live print a podcast about magazines and the people who made and make them I'm deor Bishop I'm George jenden I'm Patrick Mitchell we've always had a thing for magazine launches they're filled with drama and melodrama people behaving with passion and conviction and people misbehaving anything to get that first issue onto the stands and into the hands of readers some new Ventures seem to sneak in the back door who saw wired or fast company coming others are to the manner born and from the most elite print parents but even with that pedigree they never gain traction never display the scrappiness and experimentation that we've come to expect from anything new you know who you are but then one day along with becomes the greatest startup in the history of magazine startups a magazine that dares to mercilessly and humorously vilify High Society the one that big-time journalists pretend to ignore but were first to the news stand each month to grab their copy the one that created packaging conceits separated at Birth private lives of Public Enemies blurbomat and Naked City Plus the adorable nicknames like short fingered vulgarian that persist to this day that's right we're talking about spy and in this episode we'll meet Kurt Anderson who along with Gren Carter and Tom Phillips founded what became an instantaneous cultural phenomenon spy magazine the axis of the publishing World tilted when it hit the stands spy was the most influential magazine of the 1980s the author Dave Edgars wrote it definitely changed the whole tone of magazine journalism it was cruel brilliant beautifully written and perfectly designed and feared by all there had never been anything like spy before nothing since Has Come Close so let me just start by jumping in what was the very first conversation you had with grath and carer about a new magazine when was that it was probably 1984 it's my best guess you know at uh we we'd become friends I I'd arrived at Time Magazine 3 years earlier and we'd become very good friends and uh it may have been earlier than that but I I distinctly remember some launches in 1984 where we were talking about this unnamed new magazine that we would love to have it didn't begin as a conversation of oh let's start a magazine it began as wow we we loved magazines When We Were Young what do we miss what what what isn't there now that could be say more about that what was from your point of view in grens what was the state of the magazine industry at that point well we were still young enough to like be dissatisfied and want to cause trouble but had been around enough at that point you know I was 30 and he was old he was 35 and uh you know I I guess we felt it was everything was safe and kind of fat and happy and unambitious and you know that basically a kind of what I remember in in our in our prospectus that we then once it became like yeah let's see if we can do this and started writing you know writing it up we called it one of the terms we use was literate sensation ISM we thought that you know it was possible to be well our our the The Motto we came up with was smart fun funny fearless and so we thought it was possible to be smart and thoughtful but like No Holds Barred and shocking and in in a kind of non-ideological way um we thought we thought that you know again we'd been around long enough and hanging around with reporters and journalists long enough that we realized you hear all the great stories at the bar and never see them in print effectively and we thought like well why why why can't we do why can't we put them in print and uh so that's what and and we we also there was a foot you know a kind of humorous ironic comedic Zite guys change uh the David Letterman show uh was part of that the you know laen Dow as a reporter was part of that there are other things happening and we were part of that wave I suppose in imagining this magazine that would be both satirical but not in any sense a humor magazine um different than private eye in Britain which was a kind of predecessor but very different than what we ended up doing so I mean the old Esquire had been very important to both of us the national ampun back in the day again a pure Humor Magazine not journalistic at all but that that had you know shaped us and certainly Mad Magazine when we were children but but bits of Harbor and again the old days these magazines of the of the 70s really 60s and 70s When We Were Young had uh made us fall in love with magazines and that didn't seem to be being done much I mean you know Esquire had its annual dubious achievements Awards you know which was creditable and and okay but once a year you know a big piece once a year so we felt there was there was room to move what's your theory looking back on why magazines were as well I'll use the word Bland you know I I think at one point you guys said in the book about spy one of you was quoted as saying something about the fact that they had lost their Edge they didn't really have a personality you have a theory was that a response to or reflection of the culture at large or was that more to do with the life cycle of individual magazines both I would say and also generational I I think there was something about the baby boom generation when they were still young and and not yet old you know but coming of age right I mean as I say I was 30 gr was 35 the the the kind of anti-establishment Buu Ness of our generational sensibility had not really made its way into magazines and the also and this is more not even generational or the SP of the time so much as you know in Great Britain I mean there's lots of things wrong with British journalism and always has been but there was an ability to kick people in The Shins that was lacking in the United States you know so so that as well and uh you know I mean on the one hand you could say well you know magazines were long in the tooth and old and but on the other hand in retrospect I often think that among other things spy was representative of or embodied a kind of late magazine age thing now we did did we didn't know it was late in the magazine age in 1986 because we didn't know it was about to happen but in a certain way it was this kind of flourishing of magazines late in the magazine Century if you will and I know it's true of us and I think it was true of all these other little magazines that started in New York around the same time and seven days and all these other things there was suddenly starting in 1982 when you know New York was back and booming and there was money sloshing around because of the bull market it was a lot of money that for you know kind of Angel Investors to throw around to Enterprises like ours so that I think permit these up young people to try to do it in a different way than it was being done by the big time in conon ass entities but I guess back to your question I mean yes these big dominant magazine companies like time in and conest were dominant and by their nature right by their corporate nature weren't going to do a lot of risky things what were you and Gren both doing at the time were you both a Time Magazine I was still a Time Magazine he by that time had gone to become an editor of a a startup called TV cable week uh which didn't last my God yes right which was meant to be was a time in magazine meant to be the kind of TV Guide of the new cable era and it was you know a big failure and uh so he was involved in that startup you know I mean did his job but was really focused on on on spot and we as we've talked about from the beginning and we used the infrastructure of time Inc the library the as used to be called back then in the 19th century Watts lines for free long distance and uh all these you know we we used the means at our disposal to to do our little startup in our offices at time in so at some point this transforms from a conversation about the magazine you'd both love to read to one that well maybe you guys were going to launch this yeah and I've been told that you started swapping notes about the magazine we did we didn't the the what made us start to do that and take it more seriously than just you know the sixth lunch where we were talking about this larkish thing that we would want um my wife who was then working at Sesame Street yes she was and or maybe had just went to CBS anyway she was working and and one of her friends from college was this guy Tom Phillips who we'd never met and I knew no maybe I met him but I didn't know him well she said you know you guys need a third person you guys need a business partner let me introduce you to Tom maybe you'll like him maybe I'll be into it and and he was and he became our our third partner and had bu his business chops you know he worked on Wall Street and had you know had an NBA um he having an outsider pushing us to like hey get serious write ideas you know start memorializing this and figuring out and that's really what started making it real you know you know what's interesting about that is um in the industry when you hear the title publisher it connotes well he's he's the ad sales guy he runs the ad team and yet almost every single startup needs somebody who has this kind of infinite capacity to get [ __ ] done yeah and to get other people to get stuff done yes and it seems as if that was the key role he played for you it was a very key role and and again it was it add it made for a complimentarity of yes we were two buddies and Pals and the creative whatevers to have this other person who could do the stuff and set up the meetings and raised the money and all that and Who Loved who who liked us and completely shared the mission of the thing he wasn't there because it was a job or you know he was in it it was a it was a we created a little cult right it was it was a mission oriented operation and then and he wasn't really the guy who sold ads that much he was everything else as we were starting realized wellow we need somebody to sell ads he he we he hired my wife an Kramer to be the ad director marketing director and uh and she in that sense along with our early editors became a kind of co-founder when it comes to selling where are you on the Spectrum a lot of creatives just they don't like to sell they don't mind going into an environment with a client or an agency where they're going to talk about the market or the culture at large but man they we don't like asking for the business we don't like closing a deal God forbid no we we we and me again my wife was the person so I we were able to work it out pretty well um uh and and I remember once actually we were at we'd gone on to St Louis to sell anheiser Bush and we didn't we didn't announce that we were married you know we have different names and and at the end the guy said or somebody said wow I've never seen an editor and a ad director get along so well and be in such snc at that at that point we admitted it but I you know I didn't go out in so I I I was happy to be a kind of you know show up and be interested in this business or whatever at the appropriate time a kind of pre-closing appearance you know I was to happy to be used that way so so was gron for that matter and and uh I mean and and of course raising money was you know a series of the first important series of selling the thing so of course you know where' the name come from it was grayden's idea and it was from the play and film Philadelphia Story in which uh Jimmy Stewart works for a spy magazine and uh and you know uh grden always wanted to live in the 1930s and 40s and that was another way we could we could do it and uh um uh that's where it came from and it was F and you know it worked out great and and among other things allowed to have it be a gigantic logo on the cover and and uh yeah no that was entirely his idea it broadcasts a certain kind of attitude that the title TV cable week just doesn't it's true it's true although unfortunately may you know there there were always people thought like so it's it's about Espionage or it's about intelligence no that's okay yeah yeah well yeah and occasionally was yeah it was yeah that's absolutely true it's interesting that um in reading the excerpts in what was it funny years yeah in the book about spy reading the excerpts that I think are all grens and the notes he was sending to you you guys got to a certain point where it seemed as if the conversation about this new magazine was all about style attitude intelligence sensibility sure on top of a commitment to rigorous reporting and research well that was my next question yeah where did that come from where did which come from this unbelievable almost maniacal yes focus on reporting the reason I ask here's what it's of interest to me in particular I was at New York Magazine in the early 70s and I was really struck as I moved through my career how influential the new journalism some of which was Esquire the Trib and New York and New York how influential it was among young journalists who who somehow misinterpreted it and didn't understand that the foundation of this was a kind of Relentless reporting and attention to observational detail I mean it was just it was extraordinary yes and when I think about that the other magazine that I think about was spy oh that's nice well no I mean one of again I mean I I mentioned the magazines I mentioned but the new journalists I mean uh Norah Efron you know uh Johan didan for that matter Tom Wolf G toise all of them obviously were reporters first who also had these amazing sensibilities and and pro Styles right so yes in absolutely 100% And you in both magazines you began to realize quickly those Details Matter they broadcast something about the characters and the stories yes and I also think because it was satirical right and we were making fun of people we we didn't we wanted it to stick we didn't want it to be oh yeah that was a funny joke about this person oh that was a funny nickname for this person or whatever we wanted to have an impact you know and um and you only do that by you know giving new information yes in a new way and yes stylishly and God knows our I think our art Direction was key to the whole operation in a big way but yeah there there it is reporting driven and and again that was what was new I mean people were familiar with humor and satire naal andon so forth but that that combination was rarer although one of our predecessors that nobody realized certainly by then but we had because we look back at old magazines the New Yorker back in its Beginnings yeah and it's not right at the beginning but like Walcott Gibbs in the 30s and stuff those were spy stories essentially you know uh that they were doing yeah that's a good point you were talking earlier about the Zeitgeist and um I guess what interested me about the angel money that you raised was that it came from very conservative sources The Heirs of mar Lynch coca colola kagra I mean one of the big wall stre you've done your research yes I have done my research yeah yeah yeah uh well conservative not in that they are political conservatives let's no no no I didn't mean it that way I know no but like no much of it was exact yeah was was you know rich people we happen to know and who to whom 50,000 was was not a huge deal especially four years into this new bowl Market you know so yeah it they were mostly friends of ours of Tom's in mind especially and and uh you know a little bit for my parents as well and and uh but again a little bit I mean you know and they were they're not rich people at all so but yes yes conservative in the sense of one's parents in Nebraska yes indeed yeah that's what I was really getting on but it also says something about kind of maybe the last days of magazines having that kind of cache for sure it and I think in a way again by sheer fortuitous chance we locked into doing this at a moment of some Way's maximum glamin of magazines as a thing right you know and and uh you know Vanity Fair had been revived SL started you know 1982 I think so yeah it was uh magazines were a glamor in some ways the most glamorous part of the Glamorous New York media industry at that at that moment yeah having run Inc magazine for decades I have to ask the question what did you guys take around with you when you were pitching investors do you have a prospectus business plan do you have a prototype uh we we had all those things well not not a I mean the the Prototype was was you know boards like I don't know six Boards of here's how it'll look here's what the coverage look like but yeah a perspectiv and somewhere in some archive that's still I still have that and uh and yeah we had a business plan as well and like all business plans it was like you know fiction but plausible fiction um still have a copy of it I I of the business plan I don't think so Tom Phillips probably does but I do not boy I'd love to take a look at that I love looking at all business plan yeah I again it wasn't crazy and and we and we we had moded the business as conceived and in the business plan and was modest it was you know the our initial subtitle was spy the New York monthly we weren't trying to be a national magazine which H it's our little you know our little version I mean we really saw in in our Direct Mail we sent out direct mail I guess they maybe they're still direct mail but we we we we we sent out you know Direct Mail junk mail and tried to make it funny and and compared ourselves on this little card to New York and The New Yorker or and the New York Times so we thought of ourselves as you know the little scruffy Commandos in New York but my point is that it we didn't think oh we'll have we'll be a national magazine and sell a million copies we thought no we'll be a New York Magazine and I think I I don't know what we projected uh as a circulation but I I'm sure we exceeded it I mean I know what our circulation was at the top and I'm sure we didn't say it we'll have 300,000 circulation in 3 years and we did yeah that was extraordinary yeah we'll be right back prin is dead is made possible with the support of Mag culture read our online Journal listen to our podcast and visit our shop to discover why we're convinced print is very much alive all available at mag culture.com so you guys raise some money and then you go out and you rent an office yeah and appropriately enough the puck bill yeah we did well you know it's funny even before we were even when we were just still talking about it and dreaming about it and green and I were having lunch we would have lunch in Time Square and Play Asteroids the video game asteroids in one of these play lands uh after lunch and then we walked back to time M I literally remember looking up we were looking up at buildings and we looked up a one old building and one of us said probably gron said you know that's the kind of place where we could have these offices from this magazine be like our clubhouse and uh you know and I'm not even sure we knew about the pck building at that point But as soon as we discovered it which had recently been renovated right and and and and and there weren't many attendants yet of course it was the home of this famous satirical magazine a century earlier and but as soon as we saw that building and it was in SoHo but a kind of grungy edge of Soho and it was a beautiful little building and it was just kids met we had to be there and it was cheap it was super cheap not anymore well no not now that Jared Krishner owns it no not anymore although recently I discovered I didn't realize it then that Jared christner's father was already an investor in it when we were there which adds to the something the the uh my retroactive amazement of my various connections with all Trump and his family yeah boy but that's ironic isn't it yeah yeah I didn't realize that I thought the kushers were a relatively recent me too me too but no I mean they weren't the owners then but they were part of a group that I think had just right around that time we we certainly occupied the puck building when the future inmate Mr Krishner was uh was was part of the investor group who owned it boy it just can't kick the habit K you you know might interest you to know you and your wife that um there's a there's a nice tidy little penous for sale on one of the top floors of the puck building for a mirror 42 million if you're feeling nostalgic well you know it's funny when when when uh they opened that and and Jared Krishner and Ivanka Trump were were the dwen of that whole operation and I know they had that apartment I believe I don't know if it's their apartment but you know spy was I believe on the eighth floor and it was ninth floor so I always wonder are they living in my office now um but yes indeed I'm aware of that of that availability did you guys go into the office every day oh yeah no we worked remotely yes of course we went [Laughter] went no I was just curious about work habits back then right we were especially especially for our younger listeners here no we were it was the hardest job I mean you know time had had its hardness you know two nights a week too but man no we worked long hard hours there you know absolutely um although you know it's interesting and and I remember I felt like I was working every waking hour but we didn't go into the office much on weekends but yes we worked hard we went to the office you know showed up at whatever we showed up at you know 8 or n9ine and and we're there till after dark was it what we would call a newsroom is environment it was a yes it was well open plan which we never called it that but it was it was yeah it was just a big Loft with with some you know kind of cool partitions that we that architect friends had put up and uh uh yeah it was it was just this you know whatever it was 3,000 square feet with an increasing number of people just running around screaming at each other in in in sight of each other all the time it was great yeah that now we're getting to something that really interests me which is the relationship between spaces and how people end up working yeah I mean I got so just hooked on The Newsroom at New York Magazine particularly in the old one in 32nd Street uh which eventually became the push bin building but uh man there was just something about that kind of energy and buzz when you could have all these conversations you could sit and as a young kid for me I had been the mailboy there and when I moved up to The Newsroom I felt like mat I was I could just sit listen every day kind 100% no to learn totally and it's funny that you mention New York Magazine because when I went on a New York Magazine after spot at at a different location on 41st Street I guess it was Yeah by The Daily News yeah exactly and there was this the editor 's office which I occupied was this big you know closed off like wood panel thing I I kind of hated that you know and I and I at one point proposed like can't we just tear this down this wall down here but I I totally agree the the uh you know it's again I don't want to be the old folk back and back then it was great because of this but but the fact that you know nobody wore headphones or earphones and they actually T you know it wasn't all these people all these Dilbert in their in their cubicles just typing away alone there was a communality by the nature of not having I we had computers that was of out of guard in 1986 boy wasn't ever but yeah but uh it wasn't it was it was a it was a lively office culture as you say news roomy in which in which everybody sort of experienced together all the time it was great one of the other things I loved about it was least the illusion and it might have been an illusion for a young kid that man it was hard to keep a secret in the news room yeah yeah everybody knew everything it was hard to keep a secret the other thing that I don't know you might bring this up but on I just occurred to me in terms of not only did we have serious work ethic happening there but you know for a magazine that was mean and like I remember when the Wall Street Journal of all place was accused us of being too mean but it was the opposite mostly in in the office it was a very collegial you know we happy band sisters and brothers thing which was I think an important part of this you know scary operation we were uh we were doing I'm really curious um where did story ideas come from you know all the usual places which is everywhere and everybody hears everything but we had we had you know regular I don't even know how often frequent editorial meetings we we often with lunch and we would just gather around and people bringing sandwiches and and the whole 15 person editorial staff would uh gather around a table and say oh I have this I this you know I mean it was just it was they were such magnificent wonderful exciting meetings and and you know yes gr and I were in charge but it was a pretty Democratic you know jazz-like improvisational thing it was it was it was wonderful and again having had a subsequent life of going to meetings that weren't so fun or exciting or jazz-like uh it was one of those things that in retrospect I certainly realized man I I didn't know quite how good I had it but yeah so they were editorial meetings and they were and and that's once we were doing this thing and once people understood what it was we were doing which they didn't at first and and one of the reasons this sorry I'm digressing to this but no one of the reasons we we did so much editing from the beginning was a highly edited magazine was not because we wanted to kiss on everything or get get our hands on everything but because what we were doing was kind of a new thing that people didn't we couldn't point to oh it's like this do it like this we had to H we had to be around for six months or so before even writers let alone everybody else could say oh I get it I get what you're trying to do so that that's what I mean in a way when you said it's it was about sensibility and style and all that and we certainly had a house style or a set of house styles for sure but it didn't begin it was we had a vision and then it took a while for the rest of the world and our staff and outside writers to sort of come along one thing that was absolutely remarkable for me as a reader was that there was more going on per square inch on a page of spy than anything I had ever seen before ever and so as a reader it was it was literally a miracle a conceptual Miracle on the other hand I kept thinking how in God's name do you guys do this without just burning out well I take that as a great compliment and many of my friends at magazines at the time were were struck as you were by the OB especially if you do that for a living you are aware of how much of of the person hours per square inch you know uh that went into this and uh you know we didn't have any bosses right we we were working for ourselves doing this scary fun thing that that pretty soon was getting a lot of attention and enthusiasm among readers and everything else so it was you know we we had invented this thing that took a lot of work to do as we wanted to do it and took the art directors a lot of work to do as they want you know and they're fact Checkers and everybody so it it was a labor intensive uh labor of love I was reminded of that one recently I was went back and reread the uh the funny years because that book did somebody to capture that same sense of layer after layer after layer of yeah kind of editorial conception well and and you know I mean and and that kind of Highly layered fussed over even mannerist version of a magazine that we did some you know ow something to our childhoods as Mad Magazine readers right you know I mean there was about all those little you know marginalia of that you know together with with you know having both kind of come of age to some degree at at Time Magazine and all the the you know infographics and charts and stuff and sort of doing that but subverting it and doing it without a staff of you know 500 you know I mean uh yeah exactly yeah So eventually you guys not I shouldn't say eventually pre-launch you hire um Steven Doyle dentel Doyle to design the magazine had you and Gren or you or grden highly visualized the magazine before Steven came along Gren certainly had a notion that it should be that it should have a classical and traditional look because again it was how did magazines look in 1940 um uh and and certainly the the logo in in a certain way bearss bore that out bears that out but no the the uh it wasn't as though then Steven Doyle just showed us no it's this you know as one does when you're an editor working with a very skilled inell art director you iteratively go back and have conversations about what there should be and we realized that we we wanted it to be dense and uh and and and a little strange a little singular and but because we we did have a certain amount of because it was this weird sacal edgy thing right we didn't want it necessarily to be you know we we like the idea of it having a certain amount of traditionalism and rigor in various ways uh you know in the end the art Direction was not traditional by any means although you know certain there were there these you know FL drop cap flourishes and there there are bits of traditionalism within this uh s generous mad house of possibilities that Stephen and and his his successor Alex Eisley invented I still find it hard to explain when I'm talking to a journalism class that impact that you guys had on the look of magazines in the late '90s I hired dentel Doyle to redesign Inc magazine and when I went down to their studio and saw the first round of roughs I swore and and Stephen can attested this that I could still see vestages of spy and they looked as fresh then as they had a decade earlier well it it did have an impact and and which was again no no credit to us except we we made it a good magazine but he it was amazing to me yes 10 20 years later even today you know when I see these funny charts with you know silhouette silhouetted heads decorating them I go well we invented that you know you know and and it did and and and in a weird way I I jokingly say well we invented the Internet or anticipated the internet we there's some anticipation in some of the things we did these massive connect the dot charts and and and infographics you know there was there was because the internet came along while we were doing it or right after we stopped doing it there was a certain amount of like wow we we we want some way to connect all these disperate things and have it delivered with this satiric sensibility well I mean the internet you know I mean uh so as it turned out there was there was some kind of Proto internet quality to much of the of the graphic design but just also just using old photos that you know because they're dated and the models look funny because they're from the 60s or something uh that that again that was just brilliant art direction of of that Stephen and and again his his other and Alex and others put in there but um yeah it did again that helped a lot too right I mean the fact if if it just been it looked like the Atlantic or Harpers or the New Yorker but was the same thing we wouldn't have had nearly no I agree with that completely they both happen to be alums Emon company yes tore Colman's firm and I'm curious was that part of what attracted you to those guys I mean people forget just how sexy em and Company was back then I don't think there's anything comparable right now yeah well I mean there you know uh in different ways along the way Stephan sagmeister has been you know well that's true yeah but but no tore was and em and Company were an amazing thing during his efflorescence it it was extraordinary you know no we were not that frankly you know we were not that deep into the graphic design world yet so we we weren't part of the you know didn't know tore we not part of the EM company uh cult yet but certainly as soon as we hired Stephen and and dentel Doyle and then saw oh man here here's a guy in the case of Tor independently of us you know we're working we're in adjacent Lanes you know in many ways yeah and and and and the use of vernacular bits and pieces and and the combination of the extreme freshness and and mischievousness and all of it yeah definitely and then I became fortunately before he died in the 90s he he became one of my best friends it's interesting that when you think about all the talk about human Center design these days it puts how far ahead of his time Tor was not just in terms of his design style and his Antics but his values yes totally and and did it you know he could be serious and he could be Earnest and all that but doing it in a kind of fun way you know I mean and and and kind of you know misbehaving in a in a in a serious way I mean he wasn't a yippy you know right he wasn't just like trying to tear it down for no good reason he combined kind of virtuous intent with a sense of fun and Glee you know not unlike spy well exactly well which is yeah why we got well once we finally you know met and got along you know he we talked about starting magazine actually in the late ' 90s we had a couple of different ideas for magazine we wanted to start and you guys were both eventually associated with uh colors well he's he created it and I came in near the end to do it for a year and a half but yeah it's going to sound like a random question but I have to ask it I spent most of my professional life kind of exploring and documenting entrepreneurship and creativity and um it's always struck me that many of the most original edgy fresh ideas emerged from environments characterized by resource scarcity when you don't have Capital you have to invent you have to be resourceful you have to substitute Ingenuity for financial Capital was that true with spy yes absolutely I agree with you both in theory and in my experience of doing spy but we didn't have nothing right we wasn't a Zen right we had a million and a half dollars and then once at a crucial time when when we were successful but like didn't have enough money to just go on we got another million and a half and so you know I mean that so 3 million in 1986 887 is as I say what 8 n 10 million maybe you know that's a lot of money um that we husbanded a lot but yes absolutely I think that there what I think is not that like the less money the better depending on what you're trying to do but there is some optimal amount where where where you know it wasn't koness portfolio which it was a fine magazine but I'm saying not not a magazine where having all the money in the world necessarily helped it do you know yeah well at a certain point too much money does become kind of toxic yes yes indeed no and and we had more and and and then we were making money right we were breaking even so we had like at a certain point you know I don't know 88 889 like like wow we have enough money we can we can do this I mean for instance I mean we spent I don't I don't even I would like to go back and look how much we spent on these incredibly expensive mindblowing computer you know essentially what you can now do on Photoshop like you can I my child my you know little kids can we spent thousands of dollars to have a have a cover of Ted kenned having water thrown on him or whatever it was and so we we picked our places to spend a lot of money right it wasn't on we didn't pay Riders very much and uh we didn't pay ourselves and our staff that much and but like whoa if we can we can we can do this amazingly realistic looking fake obviously fake photo cover then yeah let's spend $3,000 or whatever it took but it was like literally a Mainframe computer that was required to do these things we did on a more mundane level I I always used to wonder how much did it cost you guys to put together the chart that documented every CIAA client in Hollywood well it wasn't so much that wasn't so much money as sheer sweat and Blood and Tears uh yeah that was and for such a and that that's all it was right it was just this this incredibly powerful all powerful Hollywood agency that was suddenly the force in Hollywood kept there was no list of of who they represented so we thought well I'd like to see that people would like to see that so that was just a matter of just like gazillion hours of very poorly paid you know researchers just digging up in every way possible who who were the actors and writers and directors they represented and then we just published the name that's all it was it was just publishing the names on two or three pages and that single thing I think as much or more than any of the regular monthly coverage news story you know column exposes we did of CAA uh they were real focus of ours that completely freaked Mike Ovitz who ran it and them out I mean what this is this is the secret we've been able to keep and this little Pip magazine has exposed it I know you know it was it and that again that really set them off and uh and what a pleasure that was for us to get such a rise out of you know these big powerful grown-ups you know with a chart a list well of course charts know I mean know and then the I you know and I still love I love Maps as a little kid and I love charts and I did then and I still do but yes indeed but it also displays a certain kind of editorial restraint I could imagine other Publications building an entire special issue around that the Hollywood issue thank you thank you yes indeed indeed so no that's that's true that we we yes well and again in that sense the the the the person hours per square in may have been to your point the the maximum I mean uh I don't think of it as expensive but of course in some sense it was it was yeah expensive we'll be right back print is dead is made possible by the support of the Society of publication designers the SPD Powers the feature of visual storytelling setting the standard for editorial excellence and shaping the future of visual culture for more information visit SPD dog so we've got to talk for a second about you and gravy because in a way you defi all the odds that that you know about the conventional wisdom which is you can't have co-editors you can't have co-ceos you can't have code directors right it never ever works I know Venture guys who basically say for them that's a dealbreaker yeah two guys come in and they can't answer the question who's accountable who's in charge here and you did it I love the quote of I think it was grens who said um what was it here between the two of us we make one great editor yeah yeah yeah no it is again in retrospect it is amazing because as you say it wasn't I mean everybody says no no no you don't do that and and there was no precedent right we didn't oh we can be like them you know I mean at that point there weren't even like these brother director teams who who made movies successfully right so you know uh you know I I don't know how we were we were extremely in every respect very complimentary right I mean to to gr's point I mean we we we were Pals but we are very different people and and we all have blind spots and we pretty successfully uh covered for each other's blind spots and and we made each other laugh right we made each other we intrigued each other we interested each other it was it was a fun you know buddy comedy partnership how' you handle it if and when the two of you just had what might appear to be an irreconcilable difference it just we while we were doing the magazine I literally can't remember any such thing as we when we in the startup period there were some moments when there were you know harsh words you know and and like oh should we raise the Mone this whatever I don't remember what there what the arguments were about but there were some moments tough moments right and then when we were you know selling it there were there were some inevitable differences of opinion about how that should go or what not but for the you know for the 5 years we were doing it together I don't know we just we had through our fondness for each other and for what we were doing we just we got along almost without exception that's really extraordinary you two guys still close we're still Pals yeah and know we don't you know go into the office together every day but yeah I still talk to them and communicate with them regularly yeah one of the things I find really interesting and remarkable about your career is not just the quality of what you produced but that you produced creative work along a spectrum from books got to be one of the most I don't know solo intensive creative projects imaginable to a radio show which is sort of in the middle of the spectrum to magazines which we've been talking about I'm curious to hear kind of where your passions lie when it comes to actually doing the work for these different kinds of projects you're right they are very I mean magazines in you know everything but books in a certain way are highly collaborative Enterprises I love I doing spy was just was intense and scary and kind of I just felt like I was attached to some giant generator all the time it was just like I like not that it aged me but it was just like intense and and and having this team of people to do it with was such a delight and and frankly because I've never been a natural reporter I I don't I have done it I can do it but like it isn't really my happy place but having ideas for some outrageous story that I can just then ask somebody else or order somebody else to do that was my idea that was fantastic yeah and and I like that at at New York Magazine as well where that I ran and and so I I I liked it I think being a magazine editor I had not been a magazine editor before I we started spy and then I did New York and then I I that was the end of that I think 10 years of doing it and a completely pleasurable 10 years of doing it was about as much as I I I I locked out another way of the many that I've locked out was that it was like yeah I got I didn't have to you know work my way up I I I got to run two magazines and then I was done and that was fantastic and I you know I I don't think I'm a great boss I think I was an okay boss I don't think I was a bad boss but you know managing people is not my favorite thing in the world to do my God tell hiring fire all that I just you know if you if you like the thing you're doing that's in my case you put up with the managing of people people but uh so so once you know once I got once I said no now I'm the rest of my life I didn't say the rest of my life now I'm going to write books and novels I I found at least and maybe that was a function of being you know 44 when I started being a book writer mainly I found myself temperamentally highly suited sitting along in a room all day and doing that maybe because I I had gotten the 10 years of incredibly intense collegial teamwork out of my system or something you know yeah yeah no that makes sense I'm curious it indulge the uh the print romantic in me for just a minute what what is it about a magazine the effect that magazines seem to have on people that makes them so distinctive in that regard yeah it's funny you use the present tense I guess that's still true but um uh well you know a bunch of things I mean certainly now in the in the digital age the artifactual nature of them is lovely but it was even before it when when it was when that wasn't that big deal because everything was physical a well-made well-made and in some cases creatively ambitious object of magazines and we did try to be physically creatively ambitious with foldouts and maps and bind in tattoos and all kinds of stuff I think that is appealing but I think moreover and again what is lost pretty much entirely in the digital format is the sense of here is an authored thing this thing of this we or this month or this quarter or whatever that is all put together for some set of reasons and the mix is chosen and and it's all made it's it's a thing it's it's a it's not a a bit of stuff floating in a sea of the Internet it's this thing that the editors for better or worse successfully or not have chosen to put together in this way right now now that sounds like well yeah but that doesn't exist anymore in terms of you know it can't exist in newspapers even I mean physical not I mean the newspaper has never been that because it's this daily thing a magazine get weekly fortnightly monthly whatever was exactly that it was what should we put together this week or this month to do this thing and give it this cool poster as I always thought of covers on the cover so I think in that sense it from a reader's point of view consumer's point of view it's it's something more like reading a book right it's it's oh it's it's your that a book is a relationship a good book it's this kind of intimate relationship with you and the author and every word she or he chooses or every sentence and how they do it magazines have that in a way I mean again individual pieces can be as brilliant as ever online as they were in magazines but it's the collection of them to some larger purpose or expression of sensibility or whatever a given magazine is trying to do so many people that I've grown up with obviously magazine people often look and about you know experience particularly creating a magazine and say you know that was the best job I ever had there's something about that level of intense collaboration yes with an actual artifact at the end of the day something tangible you're going to hold it in your hand totally I I found always that I and other editors and writers whatever I knew have different metabolisms right you can do a daily thing you can do a quarterly thing but like you know or you can do a weekly you can do a monthly but like I knew from early on my one day as a employee of the New York daily news that like daily was not going to be my metabolism you know it just wasn't and weeklys are exciting but like a monthly back in the day when you didn't have the 247 gush of news on the internet and cable television a monthly was possible in a way that you know basically as soon as you know not as soon as but in the digital age monthlies weren't the first to go necessarily but they were the first to be rendered like what why do we monthly magazine I mean there's still ways to do it and they're still good monthlies and they figure out ways to do it but like before the internet a monthly was an opportunity to do a certain kind of thing that that just can't be done now I mean yes the Atlantic does a brilliant job of being a monthly magazine but it's all about the stuff they do every day do you know I mean it's just there is I mean again not to say well the the you know those times are gone forever but they are in addition to this more fundamental thing of as we talked about this authored object that the internet really just cannot provide I remember from the time I was relatively Young when monthly magazines would arrive in my house and later when I was on my own in my apartment when my favorite magazines ared it was an event completely you know you you have a glass of wine you go to your favorite chair you sit down and you light up the cigarette if you're me you know oh yeah absolutely yeah we would even go there now yeah yeah and you sit there and you think you know I'm going to spend time with my with my friends with my exactly and and again if you're like me growing up in Omaha Nebraska and it was even true we reading DC Comics in Omaha from New York it was a like a connection to New York City which is why soon as I could I move there you know so yes it was it totally was and and again that Loops back to this this feeling that I think both gr and I had when we when we decided to do this was like we want that we want that how do we create that again for ourselves and for people who share our whatever taste you guys started out kind of skewering uh the glitterati in New York and then you became kind of celebrities yourselves in a way VIA spy were there times when the two of you were together at an event or something and you looked at each other and said what not bad for kids from Canada and Nebraska in the in the biopic yes we did that I don't know if we ever literally did that I mean we we certainly had a sense of how fortunate we were and how great this was as it was going on I know I did and I'm yes we did not uh we thoroughly indulged our ability to be excited at the time yes and and you know we knew at the time I mean great news to say to you know these poor youngsters that we paid so little to like you know yeah yeah you're not paid very much but this is I guarantee you this is going to be the best job you ever had and many of them have subsequently said now middle-aged people of course uh you know you're right that was the best job I ever had so yeah we were totally like we felt like you know we we had grabbed a br R did you ever think to yourself whether the fact that you were Outsiders in a way was a competitive Advantage yes I I would never call it a competitive Advantage but but but absolutely I think and we maybe even yes we we talked about that and and we're aware of that and I think you know being yeah from Ottawa and Omaha and in the big city we'd seen movies about and TV shows about and dreamed of and also being able to see all the weird outsized stuff about life in the big city and the big cities that we could see with the fresh you know yolal skeptical eye I I it was it was this combination of loving it and you know also but seeing the absurdities of it and you know I don't know I guess pressing our nose against the glass and breaking the glass occasionally you know I mean something like that but yeah no I think I think the outsider them is is a big part of it and I remember reading biographies of of Harold Ross the founder of the New Yorker and of course he was from the middle of nowhere as well so uh I think there's something to that yeah a lot of people who enjoy even a modest level of celebrity find that it's really toxic there's a lot of talk in the culture these days about celebrity culture being toxic but I'm talking about it from a different point of view I'm talking about it in terms of the effect on the celebrities themselves and I've always wondered as I've watched your career evolve and grens whether for at least for you the um the way you kept your feet on the ground was the through the pursuit of interesting work yeah and each of us has had a certain amount of whatever notoriety if not fame but never I mean I yeah I don't think either of us have we haven't turned it down you know but we haven't like look at what we've done and how we lived our lives that hasn't been the the driver we haven't amped it up we haven't we didn't fall for the modern American besetting sin of you know Fame is everything and that's really all you want and I can only speak for myself in in in saying yes to what you just said which is you know trying to be interested and stay interested and do good work and yeah if you get paid well or if you get if if if if you you know get praed great all that's good and in my case I know if it allows you as it has allowed me to do all these things that I had no natural credential or standing to do like oh you've been you've been a magazine editor how you want to host a radio show like what yeah sure you know so and and you know at that point I was you know writing books as well and one of my thoughts at the time was well got this radio show everybody listens to public radio buys books like that's a good thing for an author to do so in that ways it wasn't like you know I did have some consciousness of how to use the fact of of having some degree of public profile for my own benefit but again whatever because of how we were raised or where we were raised I don't know who we are we we have not spent our time either of us in certain uh being Seekers of of the Limelight hey Gren especially Gren is God knows as editor of Vanity Fair he could have he he was if anything the opposite of not seeking trying to get interviews trying to get photographed all that stuff never at all this is going to sound like a I don't know an offbeat question but I'm um but there's a serious purpose behind it so I want you to imagine that you're sitting and having lunch with uh Loren Powell jobs okay and she's um and she says she passes across the table a check a very very very large check and says you can use this but you can use this only to create a print magazine what would you do I don't know it's a good it's a great question and we'll have to go away for a day and come back if you want me to answer it with any seriousness it's a great question and I think I have never entertained that fantasy because I thought like my day editing magazines and and the day of the print magazine is kind of done unless you you know you some tiny little niche you know fine boat building or whatever you know if you had like a gazillion dollars to create a print magazine I have a feeling I could come up with some I I can't say here's what I do because if I had that then I'd go to R jobs and say hey give me a $100 million but uh but uh no I it's funny like one idea the last serious idea that I had or we had tore kelman and I back in 98 or something like that was we wanted buy Life Magazine which was uh a a sort of existed but barely at that time and turn it into a modern turn of the century 21st century pictorial weekly like like Life Magazine as it could be today so I don't know could that be done in 2022 I don't know but but I can imagine even though I I have said to myself to my wife to everybody like I'm done with jobs I I can imagine that offer being you know appealing enough if if those were the only constraints here's a gazillion dollars or an SBA print magazine I would spend a lot of time uh thinking about that I think it's an interesting way of exploring a question which is what is it that we as readers as consumers as a culture are missing as a result of obsolete magazine business models sustainable business models yeah it's a great question and well but I think you know I got to the answer of what we're missing before in describing why people like liked and perhaps like print magazines is you know they are like a fine boat like or like a beautiful house or something that they there is no nothing else like them because they are not quite a book and they are certainly not an internet magazine there's something else and it is that sense of craftsmanship and and and and a kind of coherence that can't be done any other way that I've seen so it's a really interesting question if if you could just do it just to prove that it could be done and and have Beauty usefulness impact all that that that that would be fun to figure out follow Kurt on Twitter at KB Anderson or visit his website Kurt anderson.com for more information his two most recent books Evil Geniuses and fantasy land both New York Times Best Sellers remain relevant and even timely find them at your favorite book seller and if you want a little bit more spy grab a copy of the beautifully designed by our friend Alexander icle and richly detailed bu spy the funny years which contains over 300 pages of spy's funniest and most creative work along with the ultimate Insider account of how it all came to be if you'd like to connect more deeply with our guests be sure to visit our website where we have complete transcripts of all our interviews along with portfolios archival photos links and other great information visit Long Live print. cins for more print is dead Long Live print is a member of the Hub and spoke audio Collective a nonprofit Association of audio storytellers dedicated to promoting and 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