Rumors of a demise

I got word Graffiti is over. The editor has been removed. The staff has been reassigned and it's going to be refitted into some kind of bullshit insert filled with free news, probably drawn from the internet. Essentially, this is what I suggested to them personally, after they ran their silly non-interview piece on The Shins. Specifically, I think, I suggested they download and reprint porn.

It's the beginning of the end, the real end of West Virginia's "indie" paper.

As it has been mentioned, I used to write for Graffiti. That's where I got my break into writing again. It was a good time, except when it wasn't. Say what you want about Michael Lipton. At its worst, it was a better paper under him than it was at it's best under the stream of editors and publishers who never got what the paper was about. They tried to turn it into a product they were familiar with. They never seemed to get what made it work -at least as a publication. As a business, nobody seemed to figure how to make it profitable.

I regret what it became and could barely stand to look at it for years. I had some of my best ideas while writing for them. I loved Graffiti and hated it. It's a shame if this is the way they have to go.