Monkey Man & The Pink Press Phuck-Up
Take one ego-driven publisher who thinks he’s god’s gift to the
gay community. Mix with a newspaper, slowly beginning to crawl its
way back into the Sydney queer street paper scene. Throw in two
staff walk outs, a myriad of broken promises, a mast head full of
names that haven’t worked in weeks and shake with a dash of an
out-of-town businessman and 50% stake holder who refuses to meet
with staff who can assure him of doubling his profits on just one
condition - the publisher goes.
Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so too. But Satellite Media, part of
the group with the same name, had bitten the cocaine dust last
November, a debacle still caught up in litigation, administration and
media manipulation, while those of us who slaved our asses off for
the “first gay stock market float” remain without any of the
superannuation, holiday pay, leave loading and salary that one
expects from a “community-minded employer”. It couldn’t happen
again, surely; we wouldn’t be fooled a second time around, and
anyway, with an investor watching over us, pooftas in the press
could only equal profits. Think again.
For interests sake, let’s call the paper by a letter of the alphabet -
G, for example. While we’re at it, let’s refer to the publisher as
Monkey Man - large, hairy, vicious when cornered and prone to stalk
around the office, thumping his chest and calling designers “Disloyal
Cunts” when they go home at 9pm instead of working through until
dawn after gorilla-in-chief loaded her with 8 pages 3 hours before the
5pm deadline. And me - well, Geoff’s normally fine but you can call
me Betty if it pleases.
I’d been bitten by the Satellite bust whilst working as the
Arts and Entertainment Editor of Brother Sister in QLD, and
like others around the country I’d helped raise another
community paper from scratch, Q News just in case you’re
interested. You see us fags think that a community press
is still needed - after all, it’s only during the magic month of Mardi
Gras when the politicians fill the broad sheets with their support of
the queer community and most of us locals are fucked up the ass by
the influx of pink dollarisms flooding Oxford St that we rate a
mention in the “mainstream” media. Issues like the current trend
back towards rubberless fucking won’t be touched by the Murdoch
and Fairfax empires, and while Tim Fischer continues to deny that
sexuality forms any part of the problem related to the rising rate of
youth suicide in the outback, it’s up to us to make our voices
heard. Not to mention print scores of photos of sculptured pecs and
abs, and the ever faithful acronym-filled personals (CB&TT anyone?)
Anyway, individual backers had come back to the metaphorical party,
and new publications like Q, G, MCV and GT - yeah, I know, we like
our initials and our next paper’s gonna be called FU - had sprung up
in the backwash of bitter hacks and, even worse, broke and
ripped-off homos.
I moved to Sydney in mid-February, saw a copy of G on the street
and read they were looking for a news editor. After giving the editor
a buzz, I came into the office Friday arvo and started work straight
away. My introduction to MonkeyMan was short and sweet - he
wanted to know what the hell I was doing standing there, talking to
him, while I should be typing and proofing the next issue. Suddenly
the idea of telecomuting seemed a nice idea. I didn’t mind the fact
that there was no computer for me to work on, nor that there was
only one phone line for the editorial team, and I was pleased that
advertising and editorial were located at opposite ends of the office
space. Little did I know that the reason turned out to be that we
wouldn’t hear MonkeyMan’s lies to them, and they wouldn’t hear
ours and, Lord of the apes willing, we’d never get together after
work to talk.
But we did - and what we had to say wasn’t pretty.  The talk came
after the disloyal cunt comment, after
MonkeyMan changed our front page on us,
including banner lines that referred to articles he
didn’t end up publishing because he hadn't
written them and the talk came after half of the
advertising department had quit and the other
half, plus editorial, plus design had walked off the job when we
found out that neither wages, nor superannuation, nor tax, nor
holiday pay were actually being paid. It seems those little pieces of
paper called employee declaration forms hadn’t even been sent to
the ATO.
So whilst on strike, we plotted and we schemed, as all good
Machiavelian Marys do over good wine and strong cigarettes.
Between advertising, marketing and editorial, we came up with a
new business plan, one that would launch G as a quality publication,
broadly targeting larger sub-cultures whilst maintaining its queer and
quirky base. We had 12 full pages of advertising lined up for the
next issue, we writers could hammer home an issue in two days,
given enough caffeine, and design were hell bound on helping out.
All we had to do was meet with the 50% stake holder, explain the
deal, get his approval and Bob Downe’s your uncle, we had a
paper. We just wanted MonkeyMan gone.
Do you think this mysterious Melburnian would meet with us? Do
you think he would respond to our calls, our faxes and our emails?
Do you think a guy who’s going halves in a paper that no-one will
touch, that has no staff, that has advertisers, including male escorts,
ringing up to have their ads pulled, do you think he’d want to get
things sorted out as quickly as possible, knowing full well that once
a paper has been delayed or sucked ass two weeks in a row you
might as well roll the whole thing up and smoke it with a giant
roach?
Of-fucking-course-not. He went, instead, straight to MonekeyMan,
telling him that he’d have another two weeks to prove himself, and
telling the former editor that all claims for money would have to be
addressed to him, whilst maintaining that he would not meet up with
our group of interested parties.
So three weeks down the track, we’re all still without work. From
insider reports at the paper, Mr MonkeyMan is planning to leave the
country, imminently. Could it have something to do with the police
dropping in to the office last Monday, and saying, “No, it’s OK,
we’ll catch up with him at his home.”?  Could it have something
to do with investigations being launched by the ATO and Fair
Trading, wanting to know where all the money’s gone and
why, considering that his previous publication had been
wound up by administrators, this man was trading under
another business banner, even though he looked rather
insolvent, not to mention was on a working visa? Or could it have to
do with the fact that he’s been flooded by legal threats from former
staff, wanting to know where their money is and why their names
were placed on last week’s masthead, even though they’d had
nothing to do with any part of the publication, a publication that
included a blistering diatribe critical of the Mardi Gras, a diatribe that
has lawyers from the MG committee looking very, very closely at
what avenues are open to them for compensation?
Maybe....but you see, MonkeyMan wouldn’t know. He’s refusing to
read any incoming correspondence. He’s refusing to collect
registered mail from the Post Office. He’s refusing to bank cheques
that he knows could go toward paying off the money owed to staff.
The paper is dead, he knows that much as he huddles inside his
office, running up the phone bill on international calls to his
homeland. We’re thinking of having a farewell party for him at the
airport, but none of us have got the money for a cab-fare, let alone
the bar tab that booze-hound journos require. Another gay paper
has gone to the great amyll high in the sky. One less voice that can
reach young people in Sydney’s outer suburbs. One less voice to rip
the shit out of Britney Spear’s latest release. And yeah, one less
office to watch the parade from come March next year.
This article appears here at disinformation
 
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