A blog whist I intern at MAD Magazine

I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to blog. I get college credit for this experience (and more importantly I get to deduct the whole trip on my taxes). To get that credit I’ve gotta blog. I’ll hear back from the director of the program soon enough. In the meantime, I’ll just blog every day that I work. If you like it, good! If not, well you’re probably not reading this anyway so who cares.

Today marks the 18th anniversary of the passing of William Gaines, the much beloved first and long-standing publisher of MAD. Much of what I do in the publishing aspect of my little business is based on the actions of Gaines. I was talking with the other intern (whom I call Beatle) about how, from what I can ascertain, William Gaines believed in MAD Magazine so much that it had little choice but to succeed. It didn’t matter that he never did any market analysis, nor sold advertising, nor tried to keep up with the other magazine Joneses. In fact, there’s one story about how he paid extra to have MAD printed on cheaper stock paper even though it was in short supply. Genius!

I don’t know if there has been, is, or will ever be another publisher like Gaines. He was notoriously cheap yet very giving at the same time. Such a dichotomy is reminiscent of the nature of MAD – seriously goofy.

William Gaines, thank you. Thank you for being who you were. Thank you for doing what you did. Thank you for acting in a way according to your beliefs in spite of what people said. And, most of all, thank you for MAD. Your legacy will live on.

On a lighter note (see music pun soon…) I camped out at my new favorite spot Bryant Park after work. And, to my pleasure, there was a live free concert being played. I worked on an article for MAD while sitting in a beautiful setting listening to the live jazz band Jeremy Udden’s Plainville. It was fantastic! The weather was nice and the mood was calm in spite of Manhattan’s after work rush hour.

The Big Apple’s a tasty place to be in summer.

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