COMMUNITY PUBLISHING CHARACTERS

I have completed the grueling, monthly process of putting together three more newspapers for "James". Again, the lack of organization was stunning, the last minute changes and mistakes and drama were mind-numbing. In fact, they somehow surpassed previous months' debacles.

It was a particularly weird month since James' business partner in one of the papers was murdered on Valentine's Day by her husband in a murder-suicide. Terrible story: A very effective, apparently much liked, businesswoman, killed by her philandering spouse. It threw James and the production of the paper into a downward spiral that didn't end until 24-hours past the print deadline. It didn't help that the editor he's hired to create content for the publication seems to have no experience and no interest in learning the ropes.

THE TROUBLES I'VE SEEN

The murder certainly created a crisis. However, there has been some kind of drama enacted almost every month for the past year involving James, his family or his partners. First there was the crisis of James and his wife selling their house. They managed to get into a screaming fight with the buyers because they'd negotiated to leave their washer and dryer with the house and then renegged on the deal at the last minute. The buyers called the cops.

Then there was the crisis of the ad salesperson who turned out to be a speed freak and kept the checks she was getting. James' wife tried to confront her and got into another fight.

Next, their son was bitten by a dog.

Following that, after a difficult pregnancy, Jame's wife had her baby three months early which necessitated a long hospital stay. Meanwhile, their new home had been a construction area for months as they performed vast remodeling.

So, one day, while the roof was off and the roofer nowhere to be found, a rain storm began. It dumped two inches of rain into their house and made it uninhabitable. It had to be taken down to the studs.

The family moved into a rented house and tried to get construction to begin anew. After the insurance company gave them a chunk of money to begin the work, James lent it to a business associate. When James asked the insurance company for more money, they asked for receipts on the work that had been previously done. Since he couldn't get it, and the "friend" had not repaid the money, the house continued to sit.

This month was the murder. Plus, James' wife got into a car accident. And their computer went down.

FAILING UPWARD

James told me, once again, when he came to pick up my work, that he's being offered a chance to buy the Wave Group. The Small Business Association wants to give him $1 million to buy it, and they will forgive an additional $10 million in loans that Wave owes. He will get, what he terms, "a profit generating machine," with no debts and no money spent on his part.

I also finally got a look at the rate card for the papers I've been working on. Though James cries "poor," at every turn, after some calculations it became clear that he could be clearing over $10,000 per month on the papers. The figure is probably less since he can't get several of his clients to pay, and the ads he has designed are riddled with errors, leading to further non-payment. Still, he has to be making enough to be stretching the truth when he acts like a pauper and claims he can't pay writers the paltry amounts he owes them.

Perhaps this is what success looks like. You start a business. You convince actually skilled people to help you for little money. You convince others to help you and never pay them. You fuck up in all the details of running the business, except in the presentation of a successful front to the world. You plead poor to your staff to keep them in the dark. Finally, you meet someone, who has no knowledge of the inner workings of your business and convince them to lend you millions of dollars to get control of an old and actually, viable business.

I can only imagine that, if this happens, the next thing will be to mismanage those new papers until the are faced with bankruptcy once again. And then, on to the next loan and bigger opportunity. Thank God for capitalism.