This is for those of you curious enough to wonder which of our covers sell well on the newsstands and which don’t. Yesterday I found out that our May and June issues were the major home runs we expected them to be. The Willie cover did extremely well, as all Willie covers do: a sell-through of 62 percent, well above the 50 percent or so that is our average, and more than 44,000 copies sold vs. the typical 31,000 or so. And the best barbecue joints did even better: a 67 percent sell-through and nearly 47,000 copies sold — a full 11,000 copies better an our ‘03 barbecue cover and 8,000 or so more than our ‘97 cover. We’ll close out the first six months at somewhere north of a 51 percent sell-through on average, a full 20 percentage points above the industry average. ]]> http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?feed=rss2&p=541 http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?p=539 http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?p=539#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:25:17 +0000 Evan Smith http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/stateofmine/?p=539 Today my boss, Mike Levy, our founder and publisher, announced that upon his retirement on August 31, I’ll slide into a reconfigured verison of his job. My new title will be president and editor in chief, and I’ll continue (for the foreseeable future) to have purview over the editorial side of TEXAS MONTHLY — but I’ll also be responsible for running the business as a whole. I have to say that I’m honored and humbled by the whole thing, and I feel enormously lucky to be working with such an extraordinarily talented group of people. And, of course, I have nothing but affection for Mike and unending admiration and gratitude: He built a great magazine, and my job going forward, leading our team, is to preserve the legacy he leaves behind. Here’s the press release that went out today announcing the changes to come:

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Contact: Cathy Casey, TEXAS MONTHLY
ccasey@texasmonthly.com, 512.320.6980
Jodi Wright, Emmis Communications
jodi@emmis.com, 317.684.2971

EVAN SMITH NAMED PRESIDENT AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF TEXAS MONTHLY

VETERAN EDITOR TO SUCCEED OUTGOING FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER MICHAEL R. LEVY

Austin, Texas. Emmis Publishing L.P., a wholly owned subsidiary of Emmis Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: EMMS), today announced the appointment of Evan Smith as president and editor-in-chief of TEXAS MONTHLY. In taking the helm of the magazine, Smith succeeds founder and publisher Michael R. Levy, who announced in May that he will retire on August 31. Smith assumes his new duties on September 1.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Evan is the perfect choice,” said Levy. “He will do a phenomenal job going forward, taking the magazine my colleagues and I created in 1973 and making it even stronger. The state of Texas and our phenomenal staff will be well served by Evan’s vision and leadership. The magazine is in great hands.”

“TEXAS MONTHLY has a distinguished history, one that was created and sustained by Mike Levy,” said Gary Thoe, president of Emmis Publishing. “We’re pleased that Evan will now lead into the next era what has become one of the country’s finest publications. He is the ideal steward for TEXAS MONTHLY.”

Evan Smith joined the staff of TEXAS MONTHLY as a senior editor in January 1992. In February 1993, he was promoted to deputy editor and in July 2000 was promoted to editor. In May 2002, he added the title of executive vice president of TEXAS MONTHLY. “TEXAS MONTHLY has been my home for more than 16 years, and in that time it’s been an honor to work alongside our extraordinary staff and for my great friend Mike Levy,” said Smith. “There’s no replacing Mike, but I’ll do everything I can to preserve his legacy and take the magazine he loved so much to new and loftier heights.”

During Smith’s tenure as editor, TEXAS MONTHLY has been nominated for 14 National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer prize. In April 2003, TEXAS MONTHLY was awarded the National Magazine Award for General Excellence for the third time in its history.

A graduate of Hamilton College (Clinton, New York) with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois) with a master’s degree in journalism, Smith previously held editorial positions at a number of national magazines, including The New Republic, where he was deputy editor. Since 2003, he has hosted TEXAS MONTHLY TALKS, an interview program that airs weekly on all PBS stations in Texas.

Emmis Communications - Great Media, Great People, Great Service(r)
Emmis is an Indianapolis-based diversified media firm with radio broadcasting and magazine publishing operations. Emmis Publishing includes TEXAS MONTHLY, Los Angeles Magazine, Orange Coast Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, Cincinnati Magazine, Atlanta Magazine and Country Sampler. Emmis owns 21 FM and two AM domestic radio stations serving the
nation’s largest markets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as St. Louis, Austin, Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Ind. Emmis’ Austin radio properties include KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KBPA-FM, KGSR-FM, KROX-FM and KDHT-FM. Emmis also owns a radio network, international radio stations, an interactive business and ancillary businesses in broadcast sales.

Founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, TEXAS MONTHLY has a total circulation of 300,000 and is read by more than 2.4 million people each month — one out of every eight Texas adults. Emmis Publishing purchased the magazine from Levy in 1998.

-30-

Journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics. Staff members are entitled to vote, but they must do nothing that might raise questions about their professional neutrality or that of the Times. In particular, they may not campaign for, demonstrate for, or endorse candidates, ballot causes or efforts to enact legislation. They may not wear campaign buttons or themselves display any other insignia of partisan politics. They should recognize that a bumper sticker on the family car or a campaign sign on the lawn may be misread as theirs, no matter who in their household actually placed the sticker or the sign.

Staff members may not themselves give money to, or raise money for, any political candidate or election cause. Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.

For the record, as I’ve noted before, this is and has always been our policy — and my charge to our editorial and art department staffers. Even Eileen! (Will somebody buy her that *$%#! “Give me Hillary or give me debt” shirt?)

“People use these words in everyday speech. Why should we editors become so decorous and want to protect our readers from them? If a vice president uses a profanity to describe a senator, why should we sanitize his expression?”

Why indeed? In the July issue of TEXAS MONTHLY, the words “eye-fuck” and “cock holster” appear in the first section of “Soldier,” Matt Cook’s memoir of his time in the military. I didn’t think for a second that we needed to sanitize Matt’s account of basic training any more than I would have kept the words “major league asshole” from a story about George Bush’s muttered crack about then Times reporter Adam Clymer, or “Fuck yourself” from a telling of Dick Cheney’s niceties on the floor of the U.S. Senate. In the case of Matt’s story, we simply could not clean up the language of a profane drill sergeant if we meant to portray accurately his experience. In each of the last two examples, and in Reverend Jackson’s case, the cussing is germane to the presentation of the news. It is the news. We in the media should respect you out there enough to understand it.

Yes, Mr. Hoyt, the Times should have had more balls, institutionally speaking. And nuts to anyone who disagrees.

Is that how you remember him, as a larger-than-life father?

Oh, yes. I’ll tell you a story about my daughter Nicole. We got into a bit of a humorous debate, and I turned to her and said, “I would never, never have talked to my mother that way.” And she said, “I would never have talked to your mother that way either.” I use that to illustrate that I’ve enjoyed a more candid relationship with my children than with my parents. That presence, that atmosphere of accomplishment, that position of being a senator or a majority leader or a vice president or a president or a first lady, cast a shadow over my relationship with my parents.

It made it less intimate?

I don’t think it made it less intimate, but the kinds of transgressions that I’ve enjoyed with my children, where they’ll talk back or fuss or be defiant—those things would never have happened.

How easily did he persuade you to do things?

Here’s what my father did. He would say things like “I’m fifty years old. I don’t have all the answers. God is not through with me yet, Luci Baines. But my judgment says that nothing good happens on the streets past midnight, and that’s why I really am concerned about you being out then. But you’re a bright girl, and you’re a good girl, and I expect you to do the right thing. You always have. So I’m not gonna tell you what you can or cannot do because I don’t want to make our relationship adversarial. I’m just gonna tell you I have faith in you.”

Parenting by Lyndon Johnson.

If he had just told me, “You cannot,” I might have been up to defying him. But when he told me I was smart and I was good and I was thoughtful and he had faith in me—ohhh! There was no chance of me doing anything except what he wanted me to do.

The lone state trooper on duty when an arsonist torched the Texas Governor’s Mansion on June 8 surfed Internet sites such as YouTube and waterpoweredcar.com in his security office before the fire broke out, new information made public on Monday shows.

The unidentified trooper spent about 5 five minutes on youtube.com, about 2 minutes on livevideo.com and 20 minutes on waterpoweredcar.com, according to the records released under the Texas Public Information Act.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials confirmed weeks ago that the trooper — working a shift at the Mansion after finishing another at the Bob Bullock State History Museum — was surfing the Internet, several feet away from a security camera console, when an alarm alerted him to the fire.

Internet surfing does not violate agency policy unless it interferes with an employee’s performance or involved prohibited or pornographic Web sites, which they said this surfing did not.

Seven of the Mansion’s security cameras were broken, and an infrared intruder-detection system was mistakenly thought to also be broken the night a still-loose arsonist hopped a perimeter fence and tossed a gasoline-filled bottle on the front porch.

[T]he party looks to be skidding toward a bloodbath in 2010, when insiders expect both Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, a hellfire-and-brimstone Christian conservative, and Senator Hutchison, who embodies the politer, Chamber of Commerce wing of the party (and says she’s tired of Washington and wants to come home), to challenge Perry in the Republican primary.

Where to begin? 1. There’s no guarantee — none at all — that the Dew will run if both Perry and Kay do. 2. The Dew is a hellfire-and-brimstone Christian conservative?????? 3. Perry isn’t running. Seriously. C’mon.

What do you think about when you meditate? Usually, some form of trying to excavate any kind of negative thing cycling in the mind and turn it toward the positive. For example, when I am annoyed with Dick Cheney, I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.

You mean you fantasize about being breast-fed by Dick Cheney? It’s a fantasy of releasing fear and developing affection. It’s a way of coming back to feeling grateful toward him and seeing his positive side, finding the mother in Dick Cheney.

What would Freud say about that? Freud would freak out.

An excerpt:

When I see friends from the National Guard or the Reserves called up, then called up again, then called up yet again; when I see former troops who served multiple tours in the war zone pulled out of civilian life and sent back to the war; when I see talk show hosts and politicians cheerleading for a war they wouldn’t dream of serving in themselves, I take it personally. When the remains of dead young Americans are brought home in secret and some are cremated in pet cemeteries; when we’ve created nearly 5 million refugees in Iraq and taken in just 692; when we cage people without trials for years and treat them like animals; when supporters of the war oppose a new GI Bill that would give enough money for veterans like my son to go to college—when they say the men and women who served three and four war tours deserve only enough to cover a fraction of their college education, even though they gave 100 percent of their service—that’s personal too.

I’ve had enough of this war. I’ve had enough of the pictures of good American families, the mom with her arms around her children and the caption saying she’d just celebrated her wedding anniversary when she was killed in Iraq. I’ve had enough of the pictures of wounded Americans trying to learn to walk or talk or eat again. I’ve had enough of the pictures they won’t let us see but which I can too vividly imagine. Of the Iraqi children dead in our bombings, their homes destroyed, their families blown away. Of the millions of Iraqi refugees without homes or jobs. Of the return of Islamic fundamentalism to Iraq in our wake, with women murdered for not being married or not wearing a head scarf.

I’ve had enough of throwing billions of our hard-earned dollars down a rat hole of corruption. Fifteen billion unaccounted for by the Pentagon. Nine billion unaccounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Another $1.8 billion in seized Iraqi assets that simply disappeared. When I’d finished my year in Vietnam, I couldn’t wait to get on that freedom bird and go home, but they wouldn’t let me leave. You know why? Because I’d signed out a shovel and hadn’t returned it. A shovel! The supply sergeant told me the taxpayers had paid for that shovel and I’d better bring it back or he wouldn’t sign my departure papers. I had to buy one for five bucks on the black market and turn it in before I got my ticket home. That’s how America used to do things.

You know how a mean-spirited parent will threaten to slap a child but stop his hand inches from the child’s face? That’s what the state of Texas did to Charles Hood last night. Twice. Two times the state said it was going through with plans to execute him, and two times it stopped, just inches away. I was in Huntsville at the Walls unit for the execution last night — I’ve been working on a story on Hood and was set to be a media witness for his execution. Instead I witnessed a bizarre, complicated, and ultimately cruel and unusual run of events. And not just for Hood: Last night was also cruel and unusual for the family members there to witness his punishment — among them Julie Wallace (crime victim Tracy Wallace’s sister), Roger Williamson (victim Ron Williamson’s son, who has cerebral palsy and had to be moved in and out of the prison in his wheelchair), and James Hood (Charles’ brother).

It was just plain absurd to the guards and prison staff, many of whom were walking around shaking their heads in wonder. For the rest of the world, it was just more proof that in Texas we do things differently. And different is not always better. Hood got his first stay about 4:30 pm, an hour before his scheduled time, when Collin County trial judge Curt Henderson withdrew the execution warrant. Hood was taken from his cell at the Walls unit and put in a van for the return trip to Livingston, where Death Row inmates live. Henderson’s move was appealed by the Collin County D.A., and the case went before the Court of Criminal Appeals, which the day before had denied Hood’s writ of habeas corpus alleging an affair between Judge Verla Sue Holland and D.A. Tom O’Connell at his 1989 trial (the writ was based on an affidavit from a former assistant D.A. that claimed knowledge of the affair was “common knowledge” around the courthouse). Around 8, the CCA denied the withdrawal of the death warrant, saying the judge had no authority to do so; however, Henderson, who had himself worked for D.A. O’Connell back in 1989, had also recused himself from any further consideration of the case, preventing the CCA from forcing him to re-install the warrant. “He’s cockblocked the CCA,” said my colleague Jake Silverstein, who made the trip to Huntsville with me.

Sometime after 10, another judge finally re-intalled the warrant, using the indelible words, “This court hereby rescinds its order in which it previously withdrew its order earlier today.” In the meantime, Hoods’ attorneys had filed three more appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, about 11:10, the Supreme Court turned them down, and Hood was told to get ready: it was time to die again. I and the other witnesses were taken to the rooms outside the execution chamber, where we were all searched thoroughly. Then we waited. Ten of us, including three guards and James Hood, sat or stood in silence for ten minutes. Finally, a guard came in. “Stand down,” he said. The execution was off again. It was 11:40 and officials had decided there wasn’t enough time to fully do the procedure — to get Hood out of his cell (he had told me he was going to make them carry him), to put him on the gurney, to find a vein, insert the IV needle, to wheel him into the chamber, to get the witnesses in there, to pronounce sentence, to hear his final words, to inject the chemicals, to allow them to do their job.

The whole procedure needs to be finished by midnight. Essentially, prison officials ran out of time, so they halted the execution. Then the governor stepped in, giving Hood a 30-day reprieve and essentially doing an end-around the trial judge, who is the officially who usually sets the execution date. That is, when he isn’t recusing himself. Hood was put in the van for the drive home. Twice he was prepared for imminent death and twice he was given a reprieve. No matter what you think about Hood’s guilt, this is no way to treat a human being. Unfortunately, there will always be nights like this, at least as long as prosecutors relentless seek the death penalty, defense attorneys incessantly file appeals, and courts throw cases back and forth between themselves. In other words, it’s the nature of the beast to be this way, to be this cruel.