An interview with James
by Scott Hefflon
The ‘Zine Uprising Goes Upscale
James, have you ever had a last name?
Yes, I have. My original last name was so long, no one could ever fuckin’ pronounce it, so I had it changed. After that, I just shortened it to James, and that was that. I have a plaque on my desk that says “James Popsmear.” It was a birthday present from an employee before I fired her. It was generous and all, but it’s fake grain wood with cheesy gold lettering. Now new employees come in here, and business guys come in to pitch me stuff, and they think my name is James Popsmear. So what else do you want to know?
He works in DC. We started as a fanzine. I owned a ravioli company at the time, and he was living in DC, working for the City Paper. We both were reading a lot of fanzines, and sent them back and forth to each other. Then we started to do the mail art thing. We would try to out-do each other’s packages. We’d write letters and stick them in empty two liter Coke bottles, then stick stamps on and throw it into the mailbox to see if it got to the other one. We have one package, I think he has it, he must be waiting to spring it on me, that’s gone back between us and forth unopened. I think he ordered information from the California Prune Company, because he mailed it to me. I put a bunch of stickers on it and mailed it back to him. He took it with him on a trip to North Carolina, and he mailed it to me from there. And that’s where the fun started. I used to mail it to hotels for him to pick up as he made his various stops. Now there’s stuff all over it. And that’s how we started the magazine, as a side project. I sold the pasta company and started this direct mail thing. It was like a ValPak for cool stuff. So instead of that stupid blue envelope, it was 9×12, full-color crazy envelope filled with stickers and club passes and new record release information. Plus there were keychains and pens and whatever else people could stuff in there. I mailed it out to 10,000 “cool people” in New York, kind of a taste-makers list.
“Cool people?” Were there membership cards and secret handshakes? Did you charge dues?
That’s the problem. “Cool people” never pay for anything, so I had to comp ’em all. The companies paid to put the stuff in there, and while they saw it as an advertising vehicle, I was trying to build it into a lifestyle thing. And make money off it, obviously. This was before the magazine got any critical mass and anyone really knew the name, so people weren’t really into it. That turned into the postcard company (POPsmear Postcards™), which then funded the magazine further, and everything grew on itself. We keep putting out the magazine on our own money, but the postcard company at least helps support it.
At the beginning of ’97, we were working on issue 11, and it was just no fun anymore. We worked on it with nothing said, and then we took a break and got some pizza. We sat down at the table and I said, “I think we should stop doing this.” He said, “I think you’re right.” That was it. That was the end of POPsmear. There was a guy sitting at the table who’d been with us since issue one, he was like, “Did I miss part of the conversation?”
How long had you been doing it?
We started in September ’94, and issue 11 was the beginning of ’97. We finally put it out as the last one, but we caught so much flak for it that we decided to part ways, I would do it the way I wanted to do it, and Petey would stop doing it. He’s now the curator of the Squished Penny Museum of America. Ya know those pennies you get when you go to tourist traps and you put a quarter in the machine and it squishes a penny?
Neither did I until Petey started collecting them. He’s obsessed. He and his girlfriend go around the country squishing pennies and writing about it. They have a whole display they brought to New York for some convention. It’s very kitschy, and he likes it.
I couldn’t help but notice the “Pussy of the Month” in issue 11 was Dug Lloyd, a guy from Massachusetts, who’s trying to sue Morphine and Deb Klein, their manager, for an injury at a free show they did.
Did you get that letter too? I think he’s been sending his complaint to everyone. He sounds like a nitwit, like I said in the article. I mean, what do you expect? If you go to a show, you’re going to get bumped around a little bit. I got the real story from Deb Klein, and it was nothing like he explained it. I guess he was acting like a jackass, and some bouncers took him out (presumably meaning they removed him from the premise). I doubt he was injured, really, I think he’s just crying. I wonder if anyone called him. I printed his phone number by mistake. Actually, you know who called me last night? The manager for Lemmy from Motörhead. He was pretty, well, very pissed off that we printed Lemmy’s home address in “Celebrity Addresses” in issue 12.
Since the beginning. Issue one had home phone numbers. I was living in the Hamptons when I started my ravioli company, and I opened up the phone book one day, and they’re listed in the phone book. You can call Billy Joel’s house, Calvin Klein’s house, Martha Stewart’s house. I thought that was great. And the more I started publishing them, the more people started bringing me numbers that weren’t listed. It turned into this whole, big thing – until the big lawsuit.
What happened with the lawsuit?
I got a lot of threatening letters after issue 6…
From who, specifically?
Sarah Jessica Parker’s lawyer, Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters’ lawyers, and Nynex actually called their fraud department to find out if their employees were giving out Walter Cronkite’s phone number. We put out the issue on St. Patrick’s Day, a Saturday, and by Monday morning, I walk in my office and hear Nynex’s security department was on the phone. I guess he got a ton of calls. I thought that was pretty cool. At least I know a lot of people read the magazine.
That’s more convincing than any demographic studies you could do. “Lawsuits show people read POPsmear and respond!”
I should present that to my advertisers.
That’s Time Out NY for you. Who cares about that thing? There’s zero reaction, no one writes in because no one cares. They comp me issues that I throw right in the trash because there’s nothing in there of any value. But back to the lawsuit: I called the lawyers back and played the small guy routine. “I’m a small guy, I run a little magazine.” Sarah Jessica Parker’s lawyer was the most pissed of them all. He said, “Look, I’m going to be watching you. I have a lot of friends who have celebrity clients. If you do it again, we’re going to sue your ass and put you under.” So I made the choice. I couldn’t keep doing it. I got tons more great numbers, but I couldn’t print them. So I sent them to other people. I printed all the lawyer’s letters and all the responses, then that was the end of Celebrity Home Phone Numbers. Then I started to do addresses. I had to do something. But there are good stories, too. I printed Tommy Lee’s email address, and some guys from a bong company emailed him. They said something like, “Dude, we love your wife. Can we send you some free bongs?” Of course he emailed back saying yeah. So they sent him bongs, and he called them saying something like, “Dude, you guys rule. My wife and I are going to be in your town doing Letterman, why don’t you hook up with us.” They were stoked and they sent me a bunch of bongs. I don’t smoke pot, but they look cool. They’re really cool bongs.
What a cool photo op. Photos of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson Lee diggin’ your wares, then making ads and posters with them and sending them all over the place.
Someone’s sending me a video tape of the two of them having sex. There are apparently some really good close-ups and graphic stuff, so we’re doing a review of it and publishing pictures from it in the December issue.
That’s excellent. We started doing that a while back. I’ve got the guys in Phish, Fab Five Freddy, and Lemmy, believe it or not. But I never ended up printing any of them. I was thinking about those great photos in the huge metal magazines…
Nikki Sixx or Axl Rose reading RIP and giving the camera the thumbs up…
I don’t know why I never followed through on that…
Shit, we run these magazines, we can do anything we want, so why not do all kinds of stupid shit like that? Your letters page (Male Sack) and Assholes of the Month have always impressed me.
We printed a letter from Dutch East (Distribution, who, in theory, distributes both records and ‘zines), one of the worst companies I can think of, and after it came out, I heard so many stories about how much of a scumbag those guys were. The same thing with Jerod from Chemlab and Fifth Colvmn Records. I got tons, and I mean tons, of responses saying that guy’s a prick. In fact, The Washington Post called yesterday saying they got the new issue, and then requested a copy of the issue with Jerod in it. That was issue 9. I think it’s cool that they remembered that. Actually, I met him at CMJ while I was handing out the issue with his Asshole of the Month in it. We were introduced, and he said, “Oh, hey.” I said, “Yeah, ‘oh, hey.’ These’s a little something in the magazine about you. You know you owe me some money.” He said, “Oh yeah, dude, I’ll pay you in two weeks. When I get back, I’ll settle it out.” The fucker never sent it. He’s just a little scumbag junkie liar.
I’ve only been fucked by a few advertisers (names withheld, for the moment at least. You know who you are), but, man, I’m totally into your policy to go after these people who book ads, then don’t send them. Or send them, promise a check ASAP, then, after you run the ad, duck your phone calls for six months.
I know what you’re saying. You’ve done your part. You ran the ad, printed the magazine, and yet some of these people think it’s OK to dick you out of the money. Issue 12’s Gospel According to James is in support of revenge. Certain people go around dicking people all the time. And when people get dicked, they always say that person will “get theirs one day.” My question is, how is someone going to “get theirs” if no one ever gives it to them? If no one ever makes the effort, that person’s never going to get it.
But “luckily” there are people willing to print really vicious essays and letters, not to mention, ahem, a few of us have extremely sharp tongues. Every insult or fuck up is mentally catalogued, and when the tally becomes too much to bear (or the individual case is just monstrous), “word” that that person is a complete loser and should be avoided at all costs dribbles off our lips more frequently than, “Nice day, isn’t it?” Everyone talks to everyone, and word does get around. Have you ever had to print a retraction for anything you’ve printed?
Nope. The shit I write about, what, you want to try to prove it’s not fact in court? All those people have dicked me over, and I have the data to prove it. Fine, take me court. Maybe I’ll get my money back.
Have you ever actually been taken to court?
No. But after the celebrity phone number hassle, I’ve taken a lot of steps to cover my ass. My incorporation is intact, and it’s far removed from anything else I do. If anyone ever sued me for legitimate reasons and won, I’d still be OK. But I try not to get myself in that situation to begin with.
You have to pick your enemies as carefully as you do your friends. There’s a guy who’s Asshole of the Century for me. But I can’t write anything about him because he has so much money, and he so much loves the court. He loves to use his lawyer. He already bankrupted one of my companies, and he would not hesitate to do it again. But this guy Dug Lloyd is obviously a whining pussy, and I’m not afraid of him. He couldn’t afford a lawyer to begin with, and anything I print wouldn’t be worth shit in a courtroom anyway.
Does it bother you that you…
Pick on little people? I don’t see it that way. You pick your enemies. A) They have to deserve it, and B) It has to be legit. You can go up against big companies as long as you can back up what you’re saying.
But it’s the big guys who usually don’t care. You can’t hurt their businesses, and they don’t care because whatever dig you took doesn’t touch them personally. It’s the little companies that get all pissy. Your latest release sucks. Your club smells like puke. Your sound guy couldn’t tune a radio. You couldn’t size an ad properly if your life depended on it. The last few bands on your label I interviewed think your staff’d have trouble operating a toaster, much less a record label. You owe me fuckin’ money. Whether these things are fact or opinion, they go in the magazine ’cause they were true enough at the time. The words stay on newsstands for 30 days. The problem we’re pointing out existed long before and will probably continue long after. Live with it.
That’s the thing. If you are at fault, live with it. People don’t take enough responsibility for their actions. If I fuck up, I rectify it. More so with the postcard company than the magazine. If one of my employees made a mistake, who am I to blame the customer or rip them off? I admit we fucked up, we eat it, and then we do it right. If you do that all the time, you don’t have to worry about people coming after you, and you don’t have to worry about the people you’re going after because you know they deserve it.
No. Never. I’ve always tried to choose the right targets. I make sure they really deserve it. There are plenty of people who’ve fucked me over who never made Asshole of the Month. Tons. I could have a whole issue of Asshole of the Month. But I’m talking about people who are truly vile individuals who I choose to single out. So no, I have no regrets, because I’ve fortunately made no hasty judgment calls in terms of who I go after.
I’ve thought about doing this so many times: printing The Fuckos Who Owe Me Money. Honestly, they’re hitting us where it hurts most, our checkbooks. (The first thing to get cut is our already measly paycheck, followed quickly by any cool, progressive ideas we may’ve proposed, then our magazines begin draining any additional funds we may have left, and then we start taking out loans/maxing credit.) But we hit them where it counts, their reputations.
I’m going to start printing a list.
I’ll join you in that. I think ‘zines ought to warn each other who’s fucking over who, and perhaps the readers might think before supporting a label who seems to owe money to every ‘zine in existence.
And they deserve it. Have people face their karma right there in print. And that’s one small thing. For so many small fanzines, it’s just a big bitchfest. Every Editor’s intro, and every Publishers intro is the same thing: “Oh, this issue was so hard to put out. I worked twice as hard at my job at McDonald’s, and blah, blah, blah.” So I don’t like to make my magazine focus on negativity. I keep the Jackass of the Month short, but I keep it in there. The idea of my magazine is to make people laugh. Yeah, negativity is a way to do it, and yeah, it’s a way to show what you stand for, but dark humor is only a component of it. I hate to make it a focus. I have a number of people around me, close to me both personally and professionally, watching to make sure I don’t turn this into a big negativity-fest. No one wants to read 80 pages of bitching. I try to focus more on the funny stuff, the outrageous stuff.
Let’s talk about positively. Porn, for example. You’re pro-porn, at least in theory.
Honestly, I don’t even like porn movies. They don’t turn me on, I don’t think they’re done well…
There’s a total slap-it-together, it’ll-do mentality. Bad soundtracks, minimal editing, drawn-out scenes with boring camera angles… There’s sooo much you could do. There’s so much potential. Why there wasn’t a porn explosion like there was an indie label explosion and a ‘zine explosion, I’ll never understand.
Well, here’s my prediction: There will be a porn explosion. That’s why I’ve started to cover it now. I’m starting to see some changes in the porn industry. There are a lot more younger people doing stuff. In a recent issue of Adult Video Monthly, there were some ads that caught my eye. One was for Zane Entertainment, this guy Matt Zane and Drop Tommy. It was originally Matt’s dad’s company, but these two punk, surfer California skater dudes came in and are now making porn videos with tattooed and pierced girls wearing skate clothes. It’s them and all their friends getting laid on film. It’s great, ’cause they try different stuff, and it comes out really cool. There was another ad that looked like an ad for a techno disc. So I’m thinking, there’s definitely something going on. Porn would become more mainstream acceptable if it were done better, and I think people are becoming more open-minded about that kind of stuff. And with so much porn floating around on the Internet, more people can take an interest in it at home. Originally, you had to go to the theaters, which wasn’t exactly a treat. And then you could rent videos and take them home, but you still had to go to the store for the videos. Now with the Internet, you can check it out and if it peaks your interest, you can order it online. Or you can order away for it, or at least find out more about it. Society’s getting a little more open-minded, but that always comes in waves anyway. I have a feeling porn will undergo fundamental changes over the next few years. And hopefully, POPsmear will be there with it.
On the cusp, so to speak.
The cutting-edge of porn.
Have you ever seen porn bloopers?
No, but they’ve got to be great.
Most companies couldn’t put together a good plotline anyway.
How do you chose what to print in POPsmear?
For issue 12, the first glossy issue, we received about 500 ‘zines, letters, and stories as submissions. We read every single one of them. Actually, Troy (Fuss, Editor) and Shivon (Vanessa, Assistant Editor) read all of them, then I read the ones they thought were good. Then we all picked the articles we liked best.
Some of the articles are reprints from other ‘zines, and some are original?
Right. Some are reprints, and some are from writers we’ve picked up from those other ‘zines. It’s hard because I want to put out high quality editorial, but it’s tough to pay people what they want when the magazine doesn’t make any money to begin with. It’s difficult unless you have some kind of a relationship. So I think mining ‘zines is a really good idea. We can find writers who aren’t able to get stuff published nationally because they don’t have a name, they’re too young, or because they’re writing is too radical, and if we think it’s good, we can publish it and get them out there. At least we can give them a start. Of course, eventually they’re going to leave POPsmear and go on to bigger and better things. But in the meantime, we get good editorial product. Everyone benefits. But man is it hard to find good writing.
We’re picky. And while I’m the Publisher and I may be pumping myself up, I feel our magazine is very different from the majority of stuff out there. I think we have a lot of ideas no one else is willing to explore. The problem with most magazines these days is that they’re trying to write editorial that’s going to generate good ad revenue. We want to write good editorial that’s going to generate ad revenue. Obviously, we want advertisers, but editorial comes first. We’re trying to sell to national accounts, and it doesn’t work. They don’t get it. They don’t understand, much less appreciate, what we’re doing. Our readers are voracious, they truly love the magazine. We get so much great, positive response. But when you approach an ad buyer for a huge account, they just don’t get it. Not even slightly.
Luckily, numbers talk. Those people don’t have to get into it, they just have to glance at the demographics and grasp the loyalty of your readership. Their personal taste is beside the point. If you’re something hot, an inexpensive advertising avenue to a notoriously fickle, hard-to-reach audience, their appreciation of your hipness is secondary to their understanding of a viable marketing tool.
That’s what I’m trying teach my ad director. Certain people just don’t even want to get near it. We did a big press mailing with this issue, and in there were a lot of weeklies. Just today, we got yet another polite letter, this one typed up on a typewriter, saying “Please take us off your mailing list.” Yet another offended person on our comp list. But I sent to these papers because I think these are the people who need to be exposed to this. I mean, I live in New York, downtown, so people around here love POPsmear, they think it’s radical, but it’s not so radical in this town. But when we send it out anywhere else, people freak out over it. And those are the people I want to reach. I want to expose them to something that’s truly wacked. It’s a ridiculous battle. That’s the whole thing about going glossy. With this magazine, yeah, as a fanzine on newsprint people who are into that culture pick it up and love it. But then you have masses of people who see something on newsprint and they don’t want to touch it. Now that it’s all glossy, on newsstands nationally, and our circulation is much larger, daily we’re getting more subscriptions, letters to the editor, faxes, and emails. Response has been incredible. I really feel it’s because we’ve broken out of the fanzine market, to an extent, and we’ve hit these people that have never seen anything like this before. We’ve touched something in them, which I knew we would. Normal people can like POPsmear. Really, it’s okay. And I’d like to expand on that, to have more people see that this is a good alternative to regular bullshit magazines.
To really make the phrase “independent magazine” mean more than “glorified fanzine.”
So you put more color in it, and you make it all nice and glossy. You’re basically packaging it up nicely so they can take their medicine easier. It’s nice and smooth, but they still get the impact.
What about the risk?
It’s huge, it’s ridiculous. We’ve lost money on every issue we’ve ever put out. For one issue, we actually made enough to pay the print bill, but we’ve never even come close to covering any of the related costs: Phone bill, mail bill, envelopes, rent, utilities…
How the hell did you ever make it to issue 12?
It’s personal. I put it out because I want to put it out. When I was putting it out in black & white, I was only losing a small amount of money and we could afford it. As my postcard company has grown, I’m able to provide loans to my magazine in order to support it and offset its losses. In the hopes that one day it will come around, break even, then begin to make money and pay back.
Yeah, right.
It’s more important to me that the magazine continues to publish than it is for me to make a mountain of money.
And not just continue, but actually get better, become itself.
That’s one of the reasons Petey and I called it quits. It was starting to become the same thing over and over again. It hadn’t jumped to the next level yet. And now it certainly has. People are really starting to take notice. Now all I need is the advertisers to fall in behind that. The main problem is I don’t have the audits nor the strict demographic based on surveys. Plus we don’t have a niche product. The record labels understand that music is a culture as much as it is sound, so they’ve gotten behind it because they know people read POPsmear, it has a loyal following. And that following listens to music, whether or not we review much of it. Now if only I could convince sneaker and liquor companies of that, we’d be all set. We listen to music, we wear sneakers, we drink liquor, and we read POPsmear.
(www.popsmear.com)