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Talk magazine folded Friday
Excerpt:
The long-embattled, star-studded glossy,
which suffered losses approaching $55 million,
fell victim to a slumping economy and an
identity crisis that dogged the magazine from its
1999 launch to the February 2002 issue, which
will be its last.
Tina Brown and her backers spent $55 million trying to get Talk
to make a profit.
They had the resources of Miramax Films and Hearst Magazines,
endless publicity,
exclusive interviews with can't-get people like Hillary Clinton,
and on and on.
...and they lost $55 million.
If I had one percent of that $55 million, (call it half
a million) I could guarantee
somebody would make a profit by syndicating bartcop.com
We will reach issue # 700 by the weekend.
I'm not saying all 700 issues have been big-time winners, but
maybe, just maybe
one-in-seven has been pretty good. That's 100 issues, written
by one uneducated
Catholic with ADD and an IQ of 64. Think what
Team
BartCop could produce.
Of course, I haven't done it all by myself, there are dozens of
writers who contribute and
dozens of cartoonists/graphics people have sent in more stories
and toons than I can read.
Sidebar:
Which makes me wonder how much better bartcop.com
would be if I had a small staff.
That's the big crime here - the unrealized
potential. I have shoe boxes full of 3x5 cards
with partially written rants that there
just wasn't enough time to develop. I have boxes
of newspapers with quotes and stories circled
that were begging to be written,
but how many hours are there in one day?
If I only had a staff.
Bandwidth (or traffic) is another problem.
To keep costs down, I can only run small
graphics.
Sometimes the best toon is too big so it
never gets published.
If I had one percent of Tina Brown's budget
bartcop.com
could be a contender.
Gens has been handling the BartCop Reader and the Forum/Chat
rooms, David Friedrichs is doing
Project 60, Marty on Entertainment and Michele
on BartCook and JQ at MediaWhoresOnline
Don is just now launching BartCop Sports and Christian
Livemore has been an enormous help with everything,
So I can't help but think if I had one percent of Talk's money,
one percent of the backing,
one percent of the publicity, and a tech assistant and a detail
guy/gal plus just helpers in general,
I could build bartcop.com into a profit-making center
for somebody.
Question: - Did Talk magazine produce 100 issues?
I don't think so.
As always, the story I quoted from was unclear, but if they started
as a monthly
in 1999 and are folding now, that means they produced what, 27
issues?
That's two million dollars per issue.
Two million per issue... Can you believe that?
If I had a tiny fraction of two million dollars, I could put
bartcop.com
on the map.
The story says Tina blames September 11th for the demise (along
with Bush's economy)
but hits at bartcop.com have are UP since
September 11th.
Granted, we're not advertiser supported, but that gives us the
freedom to tell the truth.
If there was some left-leaning millionaire out there who enjoys
reading the truth, and would like
to make a hueueuege profit by backing the truth,
contact
Christian at publicist@bartcop.com
I think humor is a most effective tool in politics.
Remember the 1984 debate between Reagan and Mondale?
Mondale brought up Reagan's age as a legitimate campaign issue,
because everyone knew
Reagan was napping thru the first term of his presidency and
Mondale called him on it.
And what did Reagan say?
Something like,
"I refuse to let my opponents youth and inexperience become an issue in this campaign."
It was a great line and everybody laughed, Mondale included.
But instead of attacking Reagan's comedy, Mondale backed off
and Reagan won, what, ...75 states?
But the point is humor enabled Reagan to diffuse a very serious
issue about his inability to do his job.
Because Reagan had a good joke ready, nobody ever questioned
his lack of qualifications again.
So, I think we need a humorist in the mix.
I think if bartcop.com had some financial
backing we could really take off.
To where, I'm not sure, but I think we'd have a lot of fun and
I think there's money to be made.
If we can do what we've done with nothing but reader donations,
think what could happen
if we had a budget and could actually develop the comedy.
And Koresh forbid somebody sticks a microphone in front
of me to see what might happen.
I admit, I've never done radio, but if I had a partner who knew
how to twist the knobs, I'd be the guy
with potentially interesting opinions on everything, and, unlike
Rush Limbaugh and the other phonies
who fabricate horseshit
ONLY so they can add to the hundred million in they already have
in the bank,
I'm always ready to have a conversation with somebody from the
other side.
Last thing I'd want on BartCop
Radio would be an endless stream of ditto-callers
telling me
how great, how fantastic, how smart, how handsome and above all
how modest I was.
"Please have children so your genius can be
passed on to another generation!"
I actually heard some caller say that one day on the vulgar Pigboy's
show.
And as long as I'm on this bragging binge, it's my opinion that
my stuff has been borrowed by a lot of people.
During impeachment Greg Craig borrowed from me, and I didn't
mind at all.I said something like,
"This impeachment has all the credibility
of Sheriff Cliff Barnes arresting J.R. Ewing for murder
without a body and without
a murder weapon."
seeVolume #134 - To Be a Rock and Not to Roll
My recollection is that a week later, Craig said,
"This impeachment has all the credibility
of a murder investigation without a
body or a murder weapon."
see Volume #138 - Taliban Rapes Monica for the Greg Craig recollection.
Am I certain he stole that from bartcop.com?
Hell no, but since I said it first, I semi-sorta have a right
to claim he did.
Did the funniest man in America, Chris Rock, borrow from bartcop.com?
I wrote that the GOP was using "Niggatrol" patches to
combat their racist.
Months later, Chris Rock used that and held up a picture of a
bottle of Niggatrol.-
Somewhere in the back issues theres a picture of Chris holding that bottle.
It's also my opinion that Saturday Night Live borrows heavily
from bartcop.com.
Examples are in the back pages, and there was a run where they
borrowed pretty closely
three weeks in a row, so at some point the coincidence becomes
less than convincing.
Bottom line?
If Tina Brown and Talk magazine were worth a $55 million investment,
wouldn't you think bartcop.com might be worth
one percent of that?
Even if you dump 84 percent of the lame bits, we still have 100
scripts pre-written.
I could do a hundred shows without ever picking up a newspaper.
If I had a staff, and some income, and if I didn't have a day
job to interrupt me
every time I got off on a good rant, and if I had the freedom
to record ideas as they hit,
instead of trying to remember a funny bit that occured to me
in the car or on a plane,
I could triple the output that we have right now, and
I think we'd be a winner.
Geez, with the right deal, I could get a spell checker and a fact
checker.
How smart would I seem with a spell checker and a fact checker?
So this is for the left-leaning multi-millionaire investor who's
going to get
a great big tax cut from the Weak and Stupid unelected fraud.
Think about it.
Consider it.
Fly me to Vegas and let's kick around a few ideas over some fine
tequila.
I'll damn sure be cheaper than $55 million, and we already have 100 scripts.
I'll give you four times the issues that Tina produced for one percent of $55 million.
That's how we Democrats do business.