The launching pad

A tribute to one of my favorite magazines, plus the Doobies, Colbert, and the value of a Golf Buddy

My friend Greg Lacour, the editor of Charlotte Magazine, called with some news on Wednesday. He would not be needing the essay he had asked me to write for the February issue of the magazine. That’s because there would be no February issue. The magazine’s owners were shutting the whole thing down.

I prefer to stay positive in this newsletter, but I do want to spend just a couple of sentences here on the owners—Morris Communications, a media company based in Augusta, GA. Morris gave me my first job out of college, at the Augusta Chronicle and Herald newspapers. I was grateful for the job. I left there with good friends and fond memories. However. Even in the cost-slashing world of local media, the Morris folks had a reputation as notorious skinflints*. I don’t know if Charlotte Magazine was making money or not. I just know that at some companies, however much you’re making, it never seems to be enough.

*If Dave Barry were here, he would say that The Notorious Skinflints would be an excellent name for a rock band.

Charlotte Magazine served its readers well from the time it was founded in 1968. Like almost all city mags, it went heavy on the restaurant listings and Best Doctors In Town features. But in the 30 years or so I’ve been reading the magazine, it has always had meat on the bones. You could find interviews with some of Charlotte’s most interesting people, or features trying to peel back the layers of important issues, or a back-page column designed to make you think.

That’s the value for the reader. For the working writer, a city magazine can provide a foothold as well as a paycheck. My friend Jeremy Markovich was a TV producer who wanted to write for print. Charlotte mag gave him that chance. Now he writes the brilliant North Carolina Rabbit Hole. I can’t count the number of journalism friends who got a start or a boost from being in the magazine. But if you’ve read Kristen Wile’s Unpretentious Palate or Michael Graff’s Charlotte Optimist, or if you’ve been moved by the photos of Logan Cyrus or Travis Dove, you've benefited from the work that Charlotte Magazine helped nurture and create. It was a launching pad not just for careers, but for conversations.

For me, it will always be a thrill to see my byline in a glossy magazine, with my words nestled around beautiful color photos. I was lucky enough to appear in Charlotte Magazine a few times … we combined a couple of essays I had written about our old dog, Fred, into one piece that I still hear about nearly 10 years later. That piece served as the heart of my book DOGLAND.

There have been so many little deaths in local media—not just in Charlotte but everywhere—that it’s hard not to be numb to it all. I feel that way and I’m right in the middle of it. It’s a tough time for the people who loved our city magazine, not to mention the people who counted on it to make a living. The final crew at Charlotte mag—Greg as editor, Andy Smith as publisher, Jen McGivney as columnist, and all the others who worked there—did so much good work, and they deserve a better end.

Newspapers, magazines, newsletters like this one—most of the time they get recycled, deleted, forgotten. That’s the nature of a periodical. Sometimes a story or a cover photo or a headline sticks. But what really lingers is the cumulative memory of the thing—to paraphrase that great Maya Angelou line, not what it said or did but how it made you feel.

Opening up my mailbox, and seeing Charlotte Magazine in there, always made me feel good.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My other post this week was my nerdy attempt to rank the country’s best college football teams.

2. I devoured this story by Jamie Thompson on a kayaker in Wisconsin who went missing and was presumed drowned … until he wasn’t. (The Atlantic)

3. How a group of runaway monkeys in South Carolina galvanized people on both ends of the political spectrum to fight animal research. (The New Yorker)

4. That monkey story made me think of two other things: Melanie D.G. Kaplan’s recent book LAB DOG, on the beagle she adopted from an animal research facility; and my friend Michael Kruse’s brilliant story from 2010 on the loneliness of a fugitive monkey. (Tampa Bay Times)

5. Time for the College Football Name of the Week! So many blessings this week—Luke Knox of ESPN posted a whole list of great names over on Bluesky. Here’s my favorite:

   

   His parents were right on the money, yes?

6. There’s a big football game today between Texas Tech and Brigham Young … and fans of both teams have pitched in to support Texas Tech’s team barber, whose wife was in a terrible car accident. (Washington Post)

7. My buddy Kevin Van Valkenburg wrote a beautiful essay in praise of the Golf Buddy—being one, and needing one. I hope I don’t have to tell you he’s not just talking about golf. (Fried Egg Golf)

8. Stephen Colbert has long been the most interesting person in television. This Q&A with GQ’s Zach Baron covers a ton of intellectual and emotional ground.

9. Bruce Lee stamps! Lowrider stamps! The USPS is on a heater. (Kottke.org)

10. The Doobie Brothers crowded into the NPR Tiny Desk space for a four-song set … they’re getting up there in years, of course, but Michael McDonald is still one of the all-time great pop voices.

Upcoming events

Jan. 10: Casino Theater, St. Simons Island, GA

One last thing … I’m not much of a photographer but I did recently catch our cat, Jack Reacher, in some pretty good late-morning light. Have a great weekend, everybody.

—TT