No. 657 – Blue Sky

Performer: The Allman Brothers Band

Songwriter: Dickey Betts

Original Release: Eat a Peach

Year: 1972

Definitive Version: An Evening with The Allman Brothers Band, First Set, 1992

The magazine-publishing class was the last thing I needed to graduate from Northwestern, for two reasons. First, I needed the credits; and second, and more important, it was my core class—my “major” in journalism, if you will.

At Medill, before it became a p.r. school, you either went into a newspaper or a magazine focus. Typically, if you went newspaper, you took hard-core reporting classes, where you would cover, for example, City Hall at the downtown Chicago office. For magazine, you took magazine writing and publishing and then one hard-news reporting class.

After my experience in Medill Boot Camp, it was obvious I would take the magazine track. Magazine publishing, as I think I mentioned, was offered only in the spring or fall quarters. I originally was going to take magazine publishing in the spring after my required hard-news class—business, which seemed less daily-oriented—and then take magazine writing in the summer to finish up.

But when Medill announced that it would offer its first sports-reporting class in the spring, well, I had to take that. That, of course, necessitated taking magazine publishing the next fall, taking off the summer quarter and finding an internship or a job. I didn’t need magazine writing to graduate.

Magazine publishing is exactly what it sounds like: In the span of a nine-week quarter, you create a magazine from scratch. You develop the concept, market-test the idea, create a prototype that includes articles and advertising and then sell it to a magazine company.

The first order of business—it was the first day of class, but it might well have been the second—was to fill all the necessary “job” positions, in editorial, art, research and advertising. You got up in front of the class and presented your credentials, as did other candidates, and then leave the room while the class voted. Because of my background at Wabash and YMCA, I decided to try for publisher. It was a bit of a reach, but why not?

I didn’t get it, nor did I get editor or any of the associate editorship positions. I also didn’t get anything on the copy desk even though I submitted as part of my record that I had the highest grade in the entire school in copyediting. And I didn’t get the position as head of the research department.

This was past the point of being embarrassing. By now, I had been in front of the class six times—in a suit, no less. I now felt a kinship with the last kid picked for kickball. Finally, the class took pity on me and elected me to a research associate position. I got a round of applause. At least it wasn’t advertising.

I worked with another guy, named Mike, I think; my old junior-high associate, Rick, was in charge. Our task was to create and conduct focus groups on the magazine concept—Exit Chicago, which covered weekend travel in and around Chicago—and then create and generate a random phone survey.

And I thought losing six elections was humiliating. That was nothing compared to being hung up on repeatedly. Each person in the class was required to get 20 complete surveys. The survey took about five minutes to complete, and those were the longest five minutes of my life. Every second, it seemed, I was anticipating the dreaded click on the other end of the line.

If you got someone who didn’t hang up on you immediately, we had one question that typically was the trip, because it sounded the most like a sales question. It was something along the lines of, “if such a magazine as Exit Chicago existed, would you be willing to pay X for it?” If they answered that question, however, they always finished the survey.

Like you, I have no patience for sales calls at home, but since my experience at Northwestern, I ALWAYS take the time to answer survey questions. I once was on the other end of the line once, and it’s no fun.

Anyway, Mike and I had to generate the results after collecting everyone’s surveys. We got together at his place one night to pore over the data. He was an Allman Brothers fan and put on Eat a Peach, which I had never heard before.

I was feeling good that night. Our primary responsibility for the magazine project essentially was done, so we could move to other departments where help was needed and concentrate on writing our stories. I was planning to head to Frankenmuth, Mich., to do a feature on Bronner’s Christmas store, and, oh yeah, advertising sales calls were coming up.

Gulp.