Jim Berg, Publisher of NoHo Magazine 1993-1994. Photo by Cindy Beal.
Twenty years ago, in January of 1993, I was 28 years old and I was lost, trying to find my way in a world that was full of dead ends, false turns and mismarked paths. I was failing. I was broke, emotionally adrift and losing the last remnants of meaningful connection to the world in which I was living.
And it was going to get worse.
The first issue of NoHo News, which would later become NoHo Magazine, came out in January of 1993. For that first issue I was the publisher, editor, and principle writer. It was 16 pages, one feature article, a publisher’s note, four theater reviews (three written by me), a cartoon, and nine advertisements. It was a good start to what would be a 20-issue run over nearly two years.
But it was not a cure for what ailed me. The advertising revenue barely covered the print cost and I was in the process of losing the part-time job that was supporting me. I was sliding down a gentle slope of desperation toward complete destitution. I don’t know why I wasn’t panicked by my situation. Perhaps I was conditioned by repeated disappointments to not look ahead, and just keep my head down, putting one foot in front of the other. I’ll deal with the cliff when I get to it. I didn’t realize that I had already gone over the cliff on a very shaky bridge that was going to completely collapse.
That bridge took a year to collapse, and when it did, I was rescued by a terrible miracle.
This is the story of two years of my life 20 years ago when I published 20 issues of NoHo Magazine. This is a failure story. Twenty years later I think that failure stories are important and need to be told. I will let you be the judge if I am right or not. By the end I think we will both have different ideas about what constitutes failure, if there really is such a thing.