NORMAN WONDERLY:
I was working at a photo lab in Solon, Ohio, and I knew I wanted to be a photographer, an artist or a furniture maker. I remember going over to Mike Shea’s house one night after work, and he told me that he wanted to start the magazine back up. I remember feeling excited and skeptical. He had a desire to make things work and was full of plans to bring it back, but he didn’t have follow-through. We were in our early 20s and were trying to figure out who we were.
JASON PETTIGREW:
I was living in Homer City, Pennsylvania, having my soul eroded daily working for National Record Mart. Mike knew that the frustration I felt was seemingly three steps away from a background check followed by a tri-state killing spree. He kept me from snapping by encouraging me to write lots of stuff, with the promise that the mag would be up and rolling, louder and prouder than previously. The girl I was living with at the time was pissed off that I kept blowing through her $9 typewriter ribbons, writing reviews of promo albums I’d heisted from work that would, in hindsight, never be read. I know Mike thought that the idea of keeping AP alive was a convincing-if deceiving-scheme to keep me from the lure of violent crime and death row. But I think dreams die hard, and I don’t think there was ever a moment where he wanted to relegate AP to a big box of faded issues at the bottom of a closet with the phrase WELL, WASN’T THAT FUN? written on the lid in Sharpie marker.
MIKE SHEA:
It’s hard to let go. Or give up. Especially after you’ve given birth to something you can call your own. Even though AP wasn’t a living, breathing human being, it might as well have been for the short time we put out seven issues before we had to shut it all down due to a lack of money (and business sense). Well, actually, I walked around Cleveland telling people AP was “on hiatus.” Isn’t that the standard line publishers use when their magazines close shop?
I’m not too sure if I was in a state of denial, like how you get over the loss of a loved one, or if I was being optimistically naïve, which is pretty standard stuff for new entrepreneurs. Usually, it’s the only way you can get through the initial hell periods when starting a new business-be ignorant to reality. Either way, even though I had no clue when, if ever, another issue of AP would come out, much less where the hell I would dig up the money to produce it (my mom was tapped out, and she was starting to deal with a depression ’cause of an illegal tax claim by the IRS on her), I kept working on this ‘to be scheduled” next issue.
Bands would call; I’d do a few interviews promising to put them in the next issue. I sure as hell made sure I kept getting records sent to me (this was when vinyl was still king); I wasn’t a promosexual, I just didn’t want to be left out of the loop in case money landed in my lap the next day and I could somehow spit out a new issue of AP. Occasionally, even some of my regular freelancers and “staff” would call in to see what was up and pitch story ideas, though that grew less frequent as the year went on. By August of 1987, more than a year and a half since the last issue of AP was put out, the calls had pretty much stopped coming in, save for Pettigrew who, thank God, kept my spirits up with his constant music trivia history lessons and Monty Python fits.
As my 22nd birthday approached in November, I had pretty much came to grips with reality. I grieved inside for the loss of something I thought could have been so good. Usually I did it on the long drives at night into Cleveland from my mom’s house in suburban Aurora to go to a show or to go clubbing. It wasn’t fair what happened. If something is a good idea at the right time, it was bound to succeed, and I knew the timing on AP was right. So why didn’t it work out for me? And what the hell was I going to do for a career now? I was dorking around, working at Dillard’s selling socks and underwear and hating every minute of it.
So into the end of the year I coasted, letting life do whatever it pleased with me. I was beginning to think again about moving to California to try and break into film, which was my plan all along. During the New Year period, I took most of my AP stuff down off my walls, packed up my “To Do” lists, various freelance submissions from other writers and put them in my closet.
I swear to God that the week I did that, out of the blue, I got a phone call from Carl Bujorian, one of our freelancers and enthusiastic AP supporters. “Ever thought about doing a reunion issue? Like one final one?” he asked. “Uh, yeah, and, no...” I responded, surprised that anyone cared as much as I did by then. He asked me how much we would need to get this reunion issue out. I scrawled out some figures on a piece of paper quickly and rattled off some number that I knew was bare minimum, like dumpster-diving minimum. “Well, how about if I front that money?” he offered. I was stunned. Here was a crazy music enthusiast who reluctantly worked at a car dealership for a living who was now offering to bring AP back to life. Could I, though? Would the scene in Cleveland care, or had they already forgotten about us? Could I even find some of the original staff that contributed? I began to worry.
I went to the bookstore that week and I couldn’t even bear to catch a glimpse of the new issue of Spin. I had this new hope of reviving AP but I had so much working against me. I was pissed off. And if there’s one thing I learned about myself shortly thereafter, when I get pissed off, I get productive.
