Goodbye to All That

Yesterday's announcement that Punk Planet was closing its doors did not come as a surprise. Still personally close to the magazine that I helped edit for over seven years (between 1997 and 2004 I served as the periodical's associate editor and books editor, in addition to writing a column), I was entirely clear about PP's situation. That does not mean, however, that the news was not upsetting. Yes, I was intellectually prepared for it. But emotionally, I was not. I've spent the better part of today dragging, going grocery shopping instead of writing. Coming home from Trader Joe's an hour ago, I even missed my exit, and had to drive several extra miles to rectify the error.

Over the course of the last 24 hours, press coverage of Punk Planet's closure has been intense. From an  SF Bay Guardian piece (GW Schulz waxing about the days when Annalee Newitz wrote for us) to the Village Voice (a critical overview of the magazine's history, by Tom Breihan) the entire alt.press world seems to have gone into mourning with us. It all very much reminds me of the fact that Punk Planet was really a writer's magazine - staffed by serious, young writers, and admired by left-of-center journalists in the rest of the U.S. press. As a young editor, that always meant an enormous amount to me. The journalistic focus on the magazine was a deep and lasting complement that helped us all get by under less than ideal economic circumstances.

But that's only half the story. Punk Planet was a cultural event as much as it was a magazine. Unlike other similar events associated with youth culture, it was a product of immense ingenuity and tireless, hard work too. Thus, when its talented writers started to get offers from other periodical and book publishers, and record labels saw Punk Planet as an important place to break artists, the reason was obvious: Because the work PP was commissioning was insightful, well-written and passionate. During an era in which every 'punk' career move was considered suspect, imagine what a wrench this threw in the so-called works. For once, or so we felt, our subculture was being recognized for non-musical achievements, like political writing, which there was no point in feeling conflicted about.

Punk Planet allowed us to live 'punk' lives without the fear - or the anxiety - of selling out. Sure, we might end up working for a New Times periodical, or sell in excess of 60,000 copies of a novel. But in the grand scheme of things, that's still chump change compared to the 'sinful' kinds of music-derived incomes that punks always complained about. What giving its staff such opportunities entailed was a right to be equally culturally influential without any of the ideological excess associated with the so-called culture of careerism. By itself, that is an absolutely immense achievement, particularly considering how we defined success. The proof is in the pudding: thirteen years of successive issues, a first class book imprint, and thousands of ex-contributors in every wing of publishing.

I could write more about PP, but I've done it before, and I think I've said enough. If you'd like to read an earlier piece about working at PP, which details a bit more about what I personally think about the magazine, check out Punk Planet Forever in Stylus. Written after the first IPA-induced storm clouds began to gather in late 2005, it does a much better job of saying what I've already said above, if not a bit more.