Magazine Death Pool

Radar:It Just Won't Stay Dead

Rare is the magazine that just doesn't want to stay dead.

They're put in my Museum of Dead Magazines once, they rise again, only to be slain and sent back down. You'd figure enough's enough, right?

This has to be some kind of record -- Radar magazine will appear for the third time in less than four years. Did I not hit it hard enough with my scythe? Did they have round trip tickets on their trip down the River Styx? It's like a zombie that just won't be stopped with bullets and keeps coming back for more.

Radar is the George Romero zombie movie of magazines.

The Reaper is confounded that money can buy you a trip back from the grave, so anything is possible. Will it be long before Roshan and his crew are back down here? What does he know that I don't?

I would like to see Radar succeed if only to knock Graydon Carter and Vanity Fair down a few pegs. That would be worth sparing its life.

Spin In Nowhereland

It's been a leisurely time for the Reaper. I've been following the World Cup matches and a few times, I almost came to visit the US team, but they did themselves in anyway.

And it had been pretty quiet... frankly, those games occupied me, until the real resignation of Spin's editor-in-chief via Blender, Andy Pemberton.

Now let me tell you, folks: Spin is going down. Right now, it is a ship without a captain and there is practically no direction it can go in except what it's been doing all these years: alternative poster boys, throw in your typical political/social story, and hope for the best. As a matter of fact, they are probably rushing to put Dashboard Confessional's Chris Carabba on the next cover as fast as possible to assure their readers that the Pemberton-edited Beyonce issue was a mirage.

Sometimes I feel like this is Jump The Shark, magazine version. In the case of Spin, once they hired a kinky sex columnist and threw a party for her, it was all over. That's not just jumping the shark -- that's being shot through a cannon over the shark.

If it was Spin's outdated editorial that got it into serious financial trouble in the first place, there is probably no other way to go but back down that path. And that path will lead to me and then we'll all be reminiscing down here about Third Eye Blind, Blind Melon, The New Radicals, Alice in Chains, AFI, and all these other bands that would only be championed by Spin and nobody else.

New Signs of Spin's Forthcoming Demise

The Reaper just saw this shot of Spin's first cover under new management, including former Blender editor-in-chief Andy Pemberton.

And this is why the Reaper is just sharpening his blade for Spin. It is just a matter of time. Here is why I'm "crazy in love" to be hanging around...

1. Longtime Spin readers are probably going to wretch when they don't see Fall Out Boy or Yellowcard on the cover, but... Beyonce!

2. This looks just like a Blender cover, especially with the prominence of those infamous lists. There's room for only one Blender magazine, and it's called Blender, not Spin.

ICE Magazine: RIP 1987 - 2006

If you have been a compulsive compact disc and music collector like the Reaper, then ICE magazine was your meat.

You didn't know I had a CD collection? The Reaper has an account with that other "river" -- Amazon -- buying CD's for many many years and storing them in some caves here. Very tough organizing CD's when it's dark all the time, and sometimes I feel like that guy from Diner... but I digress...

Unfortunately, the Reaper had to come today for ICE -- unpaid bills, dropping subscriptions, music blogs stealing its audience. The Reaper hates to take magazines that clearly have great value, but its time was due.

Let us have a moment of rock and roll as we cross the river with ICE.