An Intern's View Of Alternative Press

Hi! I'm Laila. I'm the summer editorial intern here at Alternative Press. That means I get to be in close contact with all the editors (Scott, Rachel, Tim, Jason and Jennifer, the new copy editor). Be jealous. Be very jealous. They're kind of a big deal. I know I sometimes get jealous at myself and laugh like Dr. Evil...yeah when you're at a corner desk in the darkest ethers of the AP office, you tend to begin thinking of ways to entertain yourself.

Today, I decided to give all two of you who may be reading this (Hi, Mom and Dad! Can you send me some money? And cookies?) an intern's view of AP via pictures and futile attempts at humor. I also will eventually need this masterpiece for my portfolio that I'll turn into get credit for college. Cool, huh? I get to say to my friends and random people I meet in the gym and on the street who give me strange looks that I pretend to be on the inside circle of all things AP-related... AND count it as a class. This blog might even give me an extra point or two. Score.

So, without further rambling from me since pictures are more fun...

AN INTERN'S VIEW OF ALTERNATIVE PRESS:


This was the first thing I saw when I started here. A whole big wall of all AP's magazine covers! I wanted to take them all right then and put them on MY wall. I'm slowly doing it. Don't tell anyone.


Around the office, there are clear plastic walls with lots of autographs. This is one of them. It is awesome.


This is the kitchen, and the general communal area. So it pretends to be. I like it because there's free red bull (guide your eyes to the cooler next to the water). At least I assume it's free.




This is that dark corner I was telling you about. It makes me want to make gremlin noises. Teehee.




This is what I spend a lot of my time doing. I'm an archiving freak, so I decided to re-alphabetize all the press photos in the vault (okay, the 7 cardboard boxes in the back room). Little did I know that there would be 700 bands whose names began with the letter S. Word of advice? Don't ever start your band name with the letter S. You will suck. Trust me. I pretend to know things about the music business because I intern at AP.




This is something I really like. Stickers on desks. Stickers on trash cans. Stickers on everything. It was a moment of happiness for me. I never thought they could go anywhere except my laptop and car. Now I have a road of endless possibilities ahead of me. Watch out, light switch.




I don't know how this works, but it looks like something I'd be awesome at. BTW those totally might be Craig Owens' legs. Or Geoff Rickley's. Or Sherri Dupree's. You never know. Because I'll never tell. Muahaha.




The art department keeps it real.




You know when you order back issues? Yeah, this is where they come from. It's a scary place. I trip a lot. I think it's the gods telling me not to try to live there.

So that's a little snippet of what I like to notice here at Alternative Press. If you're interested in becoming an intern, I would give you this advice:

Be prepared to be shoved in a dark corner.

Bring a duffel bag and take all the cds the editors try to get rid of because they think the band sucks. They probably do, but the cd still have that brag-to about them.

Avoid this guy at all costs. He'll either try to hump you or growl and give you the evil eye:

Get a part time job. You will not get paid at AP. And that's fine, cause it's worth it. But you'll go broke pretty fast. Now, I'm not one to talk because it took me until the beginning of July to get one. But hey, I'm advising here. Shush.

Ask lots of questions and for advice. Tim Karan sat down with me yesterday for a good hour after looking at some old articles I had written for my college newspaper and gave me some AWESOME advice. I'm serious. This is free aid to be a music writer. Take it.

Have fun! I know I do =). Everyone is incredibly nice and laid back. The stuff I have to do is meaningful and makes me feel like I'm important. Aside from the photos, which I took upon myself anyway, I post a lot of the articles that you see in the back issues on the web, I do some research and I've even gotten to write a few articles that are going to be published. That's always a rad feeling.