Letter of Demise by Dave Carnie

It's too late to think of what you want on your tombstone once you're dead. Which is where we've found ourselves. Dead. On Thursday, January 16, Martin Luther King Day, after 14 years of publication, LFP pulled the plug on Big Brother magazine. MLK day was a very black day indeed.

"Why?" You're all clamoring to find out. LFP has been downsizing the last couple of months. Before us they killed MX Machine, Busty, Hometown Girls and Taboo. And due to the soft economy and how sketchy the skateboard industry is right now, we were just barely making it. Mr. Flynt is a businessman and he just decided to kill the title rather than wait for the industry to rebound. There's also been a rumor that they're converting our floor into apartments or something. Not sure. But if you want to blame someone, blame the industry. Everyone always said they loved the mag, but they never supported it.

There was no warning. We had talked about the state of the mag with the executives last year and we knew we were in trouble, but we were under the impression we had 2004 to turn things around. So when Heather and I were called up to the executive offices, we had no idea why we had to close the door for the meeting.

"Uh oh," Heather said, "this doesn't look good."

"We hate to do this," they began.

What's fucked is that I was just beginning to look at buying a house. In fact that day was going to be my first day out with my realtors. "Uh, hey Jim," I said to my realtor later that day, "I'm going to have to cancel today." He then told me to get drunk. Which I did.

So we're done. At least for now. There are, however, at least four investors interested in the title. We'll see if any bite. If the deal is right, we just might carry on. If not, you'll still see us around. Heather is interested in marketing and has extensive experience in the skateboard industry. She's looking for a job, so hire her. I'm already doing work for The Skateboard Mag. I guess they were kind of excited that Big Brother died, because then they could steal me. If they go in the direction they say they're going to go in, I'll be proud to be a part of that mag. Other than that I'm working on a book and some scripts and TV show treatments, shit like that. Might do some work on Dave England's new Comedy Central show, Do-Able. Also going to work on some documentaries, one of which is a black metal documentary I'm working on with Nieratko. It's all filmed, we just need to edit it. Chris already freelances for a bunch of mags, like Vice, and he's been shopping a script he wrote around and it's been receiving some attention. Plus he's got that goddamn NJ skateshop to keep himself busy. So there's no need to worry about IF we're going to be doing anything, it's more a question of WHAT are we going to be doing?

It's been fun. Believe me, we've had more fun doing this than you have had reading about it. Even cleaning out my office has been kind of fun. I've been finding the most fucked up shit in here. And unfortunately there won't be a last issue. Imagine how fucked up that would be? There would not only be tits in it, there'd be penises. It would have been off the hook. I begged, but they weren't having it. But there is one more issue left. The March issue, number 106. It's not a bad issue to go out on.

Aaron Meza from Skateboarder asked, "Isn't there any part of you that's relieved?" Frankly, no. I've been doing this for 12 years or whatever, and to suddenly not be doing it is kind of weird. I keep waking up thinking I have to write this article, or that article, and then, "Oh yeah, I don't have to do it anymoreŠ" I know everyone else on staff feels the same way.

I will admit, though, that the magazine was really starting to cut into my drinking time. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

Thanks for everything. May Big Brother rest in peace. ‹Dave Carnie 1/23/04