The End. Phoenix closes. 

posted March 15
Wow, I just found this on my page. Thank you for adding me Dan Kennedy. I have "worked" with many recent Phoenicians, though I have not been a 3D presence in the newsroom, due to writing "moon signs" offsite. "Moon Signs" and Symbolien Dai were midwifed by Clif Garboden and Peter Kadzis a zillion years ago in the 20th century. It is the 5th column I have written for the Phoenix.

My memories are of the 100 Mass. Ave office. A low-ceilinged arena separated by wooden dividers, and a heap of broken swivel chairs, manual typewriters, and sagging boxes of files in the wayback. Production artists and typesetters in one zone (without windows, but with a fire escape for those who smoked pot). The rest of us smoked cigarettes -- there was an ashtray by every terminal.

This was the Phoenix of typewriters, and a bottle in the bottom drawer, a straw in the pencil tray and smears on the desk tops. I was a teenager in this Phoenix, a place that gave me license to type fast, listen hard, and drink slow (cheaper that way) at the Eliot, or "news room west." The Phoenix gave me a little bit of money, interesting characters to contemplate and some great friends. I am also grateful to the Phoenix for a fabulous array of romantic interests (Hi David Edelstein, Hi Scott Rosenberg, Hi David Barber, Hi Milo Miles, Hi Robert Polito. It was fun. Sorry I left as I did.)

I am rich in swag and records and oddities like a Tiffany Phoenix bookmark made for the 25th anniversary. My brother Hal Cragin still has the low-tech Yoko Ono "It's Alright" t-shirt I was sent. I am addicted to the music I heard then, and the memory that the death of Samuel Beckett merited a front page. Or that the Turbines deserved a front page. I mourn John Ferguson and Clif Garboden (jf and cg in their lowercase initials on page proofs).

The Phoenix gave me giggles and lead me to true love, en route to reviewing a record: Chuck Warner's "Nobody Gets on the Guest List" a compilation of great songs by local bands. That was the best column ever, Cellars by Starlight.

The Phoenix made me crazy, especially during the periods of incipient unionization. It was not fun dealing with the nice folks I worked with who felt they needed to be mean after meeting with the suits from Modern Management Methods, or whatever the fuck it was. The Phoenix gave me a phone and a desk, and a mailbox and in 1989 I gave those things back and disappeared to LA. When I returned in 1992, Clif said, "We have a paper in Worcester, are you interested in writing for it?" That was the best column ever, Tales from Tritown.

And now. No more. Words continue. They jiggle and glow under glass. It's not the same. But it's what we have.