Does this picture make you sad? I call it Last Robin of Spring

One time in an edit meeting, Erik Wemple said I'd make a terrible profile subject. Drawing a line on a piece of paper, he put me at one end and Jonathan Rees at the other. Rees was too nuts, he said (paraphrasing here) and I was too boring. The ideal City Paper subject, he posited, straddled the center of this continuum. He was right about all three things, so I'll try to keep this goodbye brief.

This is the best job I've ever had. I choose that superlative carefully. Here, I've been privileged to work with the best reporters and critics, the best photographer, the best co-workers, and the best stories I've ever known. I came here from magazines, where fact-checkers sweep up behind writers whose primary talent is being good at parties. I took my first correction not long after landing and realized I had learned next to nothing about journalism in the previous decade. The joy of this job isn't turning out product reviews between languid lunches, it's telling stories well and getting the details right, week after week, day after day.

Here I learned to despise trend pieces and Q&As, but more important I learned that often the best way to tell a big story is through a small one. I learned that puns don't work as headlines on the Internet (just try searching for an old District Line EVEN IF you know the jokey hed! (e.g.: 1, 2). And I learned the importance of chronicling crushed dreams.

Like this one! After City Paper was purchased by Creative Loafing in July 2007, it became a different place. We lost half of our staff to budget cuts, and those and the recession let the air out of many of the paper's cherished traditions–great copy-editing and general-assignment writers, for example. For a while, we mourned. Then we started finding the humor in the situation (some people never got the joke, which to me is the hallmark of a good City Paper comedy piece). Then we tried to figure out what we could do well given the circumstances. Results have been mixed, but Internet-wise, I'm proud of where we stand in relation to our early attempts.

I'm going to miss this project, you know, the one where we keep trying to figure out how to inject the alt-weekly DNA into what's now a daily, vertical-driven publication. And I'll miss the bike commute (new office is too close to my house). But mostly I'm gonna miss the people I worked with, even the ones who sometimes made me bash my head into my screen. For all of you, here's another anecdote from a meeting: In a plenary session, one person who has managed this company said that life was like a crap sandwich. The more bread you have, he said, the less crap you have to eat. I wish my coworkers, their sharp new editor, and the people on our business side nothing but bread.

I will stay in touch with them, but it'll be harder to stay in touch with the readers, who I love in a way that may not always be apparent to those of you who've called to yell at me. (Except the guy who screamed for 27 minutes and threatened to "expose" me after I said I didn't know why our receptionist had trouble transferring me his call: You, pal, can kiss my ass.) Now I'm gonna become one of you, which is more comfort than one usually gets in a goodbye. I'll miss the view from this side of the WordPress interface, but I can't wait to see what the people with the best job in the world do next.

Marty Petty, the former publisher of the St. Petersburg Times and the Hartford Courant, was named this morning chief executive officer of the Creative Loafing chain of alt-weeklies.

Petty's hiring comes at a time of transition for the Creative Loafing papers. In late August, a bankruptcy proceeding forced an ownership change in the chain, taking it out of the hands of former owner Ben Eason and placing it with Atalaya Capital Management, a hedge fund that was Creative Loafing's primary creditor. To manage the newspapers, Atalaya hired a management team that Petty will oversee. The chain has papers in Washington, Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa, and Sarasota.

According to a company press release, Petty said, "I'm invigorated by the possibilities to deepen relationships with our readers and advertisers and expand our influence in our communities. The coverage areas which have differentiated and distinguished the alternative press historically may be more important than ever."

City Paper 2008 best of

Creative Loafing Tampa 2009 best of

UPDATE 1535: Creative Loafing chain sold to biggest creditor for $5 million (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
UPDATE 1459: Washington City Paper Now Owned by Atalaya Capital (DCist)
Atalaya outbids Eason, assumes control of Creative Loafing (Creative Loafing Tampa)
UPDATE 1332: Hedge Fund Atalaya buys Creative Loafing in equity auction (Tampa Bay Business Journal)

UPDATE 1256: New York equity firm snaps up Tampa's Creative Loafing (Tampa Tribune/TBO.com)

UPDATE 1240:Chicago Reader Has New Owners (Chicago Reader)

UPDATE 1236:Tampa's Creative Loafing chain taken over by hedge fund Atalaya (St. Petersburg Times/tampabay.com)

UPDATE 1229: Atlanta Creative Loafing says Atalaya won.

UPDATE 1223: Chicago Reader calls it for Atalaya.

UPDATE 1218: Unconfirmed Twitter chatter is that Atalaya has won.

In Tampa, Fla., Judge Caryl Delano has begun the process of deciding who will own Creative Loafing, the newspaper chain that purchased Washington City Paper and the Chicago Reader in July 2007 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy 14 months later. Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason is bidding for the company, as is Atalaya Capital Management, which loaned Eason $30 million toward the original purchase.

Here are some links to current stories about the proceedings; I'll update them as new information becomes available.

Creative Loafing Auction Goes to Judge Today (Editor & Publisher)

Creative Loafing equity auction is underway (Creative Loafing Atlanta)

Reader Bidder Would Bring Jim O'Shea Back to Chicago Media (Chicago Reader)

Creative Loafing's publisher may lose chain of weeklies today (Tampa Tribune/TBO.com)

Will Creative Loafing's fate be decided today? (tampabay.com)

Battle to control Creative Loafing is heating up (Creative Loafing Atlanta)

Today: Lefties will picket the Whole Foods at P Street. Tomorrow: Righties will respond by handing out Whole Food CEO John Mackey's Wall Street Journal editorial. In the near future: At least one person plans to boycott Wal-Mart to punish the mega retailer for pulling its ads from Glenn Beck's show.

To all of the above, a newsflash: Boycotting is a) wrong and b) doesn't work.

Let's start with the stock prices: Mackey's value has only gone up since the boycott threats. Why? Because people love his store so much that their response has been, "I disagree with what he wrote, but I don't want to shop anywhere else." To investors, this makes Whole Foods appear bullet proof. After all, it may have the most liberal clientele of any national chain in the country, and its owner is a card-carrying libertarian. Not enough people are willing to shop at an inferior grocery store just because they disagree with Mackey's politics–especially since Whole Foods is a model of corporate responsibility in every sense of the word.

Second, even if it were possible to stage a revenue-affecting protest at the P Street Whole Foods (and it's not in this day and age–my generation doesn't protest, we twitter), the people to feel the pinch first would be store employees. The same employees that Whole Foods critics have frequently touted as needing union representation (and who would, in all likelihood, probably lose money by unionizing). Assuming single payer fanatics could arrange an effective boycott, is a cashier's job worth their cause?

And Wal-Mart protesters, please, stop. If you keep this up you'll just be proving that you're as dumb as everyone says you are. (And you and I both know you're not dumb, you're actually really good at prioritizing your financial needs.)

Speaking of government-run programs: Cash for Clunkers ends Monday after putting almost half a million new cars on the road at a cost of $3 billion and hemorrhaging participating dealers due to untimely reimbursements. If my math is right, that comes out to around $6,564 in tax dollars per car. The cap was supposed to be $4,000. So what does that mean? It means that approximately $2,500 per car went to other stuff. Call it a transaction fee or call it bumblefucking, it still means one thing: The only entity that can get away with promising to spend one amount of money and then actually spending 55% more than promised is the U.S. Government.

Don't get scammed, y'all!

• Health care. Jesus Christ on toast with Marmite, am I ever sick of hearing about health care. Whole Foods—SHUT UP. Public option opponents—SHUT UP. Fox News—SHUT UP. Meanwhile, in British rationing news, I'm horrified to report that my wife's grandmother recently had to wait over an hour to be seen, mostly because the Edinburgh Council moved the Royal Infirmary from right across the Meadows all the way out to Little France, which is as far from the city center as it sounds. This is outrageous and would never happen in the United States, where there is no socialized medicine and never will be—SHUT UP.
• MEDIA NEWS! Battle of the Hottest rages on Capitol Hill. Jayson Blair is a life coach! City Paper's parent company begins its Week of Reckoning today! CEO tells Atlanta Journal-Constitution decision to buy CP and Chicago Reader was thoroughly vetted: "It wasn’t just me running over a cliff."

• THE WORLD OF SPORTS! Nats lose, lose acting GM, sell many seats for Friday night's game for $1. Morning Roundup will be there with eldest son, who will be limited to one dessert item purchase. Also exciting: Washington National Opera sent me a Nats hat and some Cracker Jack to promote its free simulcast of Barber of Seville at Nationals Park on Sept. 12. I may go to that, too! But I'm totally sneaking in the Cracker Jack on Friday. YOW! Also, Nascar full of Republicans. Aussi: Quel dommage!
• ENTERTAINMENT! 2009's worst album title. Weezer Advances. MTV maybe does, too.

After the jump: My favorite Post blog, old music. reality Realty, our parent company may need a CEO

I've beat this drum way too much, but I love Post Mortem, the Post's obituary blog, for precisely this reason.

Allow me to geeze: Twenty-five years ago, a spate of classic albums came out of Minneapolis—Purple Rain, Let It Be, and (thank you, Athitakis)  Zen Arcade. "Was it something in the water?" people will ask. More likely,  it was just a coincidence, and we don't remember all the crappy albums that came out of Minneapolis in 1984. I will write a paper on this and submit it to the EMP.

Nats lose.

Finally, for anyone who's been following the sorry tale of our parent company's bankruptcy, new stuff yesterday, very little of which I understand. Especially the part about the CEO maybe stepping down temporarily to concentrate on the equity auction that will determine who owns our company. Isn't concentrating on stuff like that what CEOs do?

Our wacky company. Jesus, our wacky company. Today was the day a judge in Florida was due to decide how best to conduct an equity auction next month that'll presumably end our company's nearly yearlong journey through bankruptcy. She kind of punted.

But: Talk about burying the lede! Following the ruling, Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason said he was considering stepping down as CEO to, as Wayne Garcia reports, "focus on formulating a new equity bid for the post-bankruptcy company."

This leaves us without a CEO. And in the absence of an obvious candidate, may I suggest our own City Lights editor, Mike Riggs? Some points:

• Riggs is a Floridian, so Tampa, with its strip clubs, Hooterses, and insatiable appetite for Shawn Alff posts, would not present any cultural problems for him. In fact, last year Riggs held his birthday party at Hooters. Clinton Portis was there.
• And he's got ideas! On budget issues, Riggs writes: "Fly less. This is America, 2009, not Rome, 100. CEOs can govern via free teleconferences, instant messaging, and Skype. Also, in the case that travel is unavoidable, this company needs someone who can ride the rails and make use of their surroundings. I've read Travels with Lizbeth and can spot a safe head of lettuce in a dumpster full of syringes. Also: couch surfing. Hosts would be treated to one (1) comped soda per trip."
• On advertising strategy: "No one's got this down. I read somewhere that papers across the country are making less money this year than last year. Step one: Offer perks to advertisers and assume that we can afford them. Like in that episode of The Office, when Michael Scott offers the company's biggest client 50% off its massive paper order. Essentially, we would offer something 50% off, but probably not ads. Might even delegate the ad question to an expert, so long as the expert was willing to offer advice for $0.05 per pageview."
• On the transformation of journalism: "New media is my bread and butter. Twitter? Facebook? Social bookmarking? I know all about them. I'm probably going to make a tweet in about five minutes. First things first: No more paying for new media training. Young people use this stuff instinctively–I bet one or two of them would love to teach a bunch of grizzled newshounds the ins and outs of Digg, just for resume padding! Also, writers/bloggers in house/freelance would be contractually obligated to promote their own material. I'm not even kidding about this. Write post, email it to four people who are not your mom or roommate or your mom's friend. Boom. Traffic. Relationships. Social networking."

Riggs also has some worse ideas, but I'm trying to plead his case here. He's young! He's energetic! He's got "Stand Up & Raise Hell" tattooed on his chest! Judge Delano, what more do you need?

Photograph by Lilly Sadler

For the second year in a row, contributor Jeffry Cudlin won the arts criticism category for his work, which this year included the following: "Pine of the Times" about the Martin Puryear retrospective at the National Gallery of Art, "Sheet Smart" about the Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit at the Phillips Collection, and "Pain by Numbers," a wrap-up of what D.C. museums did and didn't offer in 2008.

Editor Erik Wemple won first place for media reporting/criticism with his cover story "One Mission, Two Newsrooms" about the Washington Post's struggle to bridge the cultural and geographic divide between its print and online operations.

In the elusive "innovation/format buster" category, the cover story some loved and others hated—"Washington City Paper Files for Chapter 86 Content Bankruptcy"— also took home first-place honors. The piece by Wemple, Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon, and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville was written and presented in the form of a legal document spoofing both the changing nature of City Paper's journalism and and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by our paper's owners, Creative Loafing.

Creative Loafing's Atlanta paper received second-place honors in the feature category for the first-person account, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley. The Chicago Reader, also our sister paper, received two second-place awards. Ann Ford was so honored in the arts feature category for "Life Without a Script" and columnist Ben Jarovsky's "The Works" was named in the column (political) category

The AAN Awards are open to its 130 member papers. Most of the altweeklies in U.S. cities (plus a few in Canada) enter the contest each year. This year, the top all-time AAN Award winner, the L.A. Weekly, led the pack with four first-place awards. In the 14-year history of the awards, Washington City Paper has won the second-most overall awards in the top-circulation categories: 51.

And unlike the Newseum, which essentially ignores the role of good journalism supported by slutty ads, the PCP includes alternative newsweeklies in the mix. And gives—is "props" the right word here?—to our struggles. To wit:

The alternative press isn't exempt. The past decade has seen a wave of increased consolidation in the weekly industry, and at least one chain is now in serious financial trouble. Creative Loafing, which has its flagship paper in the big and growing Atlanta market, filed for bankruptcy this year. The company borrowed millions to buy Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper. Although all three papers were making money, when advertising slowed down, debt payments overwhelmed revenue.

So the scene is wide open for new approaches.

Hear that Newseum? Why don't you find a new approach and build a shrine to us before we're dead.

• Tim Arango reports in the New York Times that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with Viacom: "[T]he Gates Foundation is set to expand its involvement and spend more money on influencing popular culture through a deal with Viacom, the parent company of MTV and its sister networks VH1, Nickelodeon and BET. It could be called “message placement”: the social or philanthropic corollary to product placement deals in which marketers pay to feature products in shows and movies. Instead of selling Coca-Cola or G.M. cars, they promote education and healthy living." Creepy? Hell yes. Effective? Next generation's obesity rates will be the judge of that. More here.
• After it was made public that Ben Eason would remain in control of Creative Loafing (which owns the Washington City Paper), CL employees of all persuasions spoke their mind in the biggest e-catfight this company has ever seen. A sampling:

"Hope you guys have life boats and that your president has a nice captain’s uniform——– as the bloggers still blog in the distance and the hull fills with Google web ads.. I bid you all farewell..And good luck ….bring on the next round of layoffs"

Was met with:

"All of you nay-sayers need to find somewhere else to spread your negativity. We are happy and celebrating right now! :)"

Check out the entire thread–which is not only hilarious, but also throws into question the writing qualifications of many of the commenters–here.

• Rush Limbaugh has a (second) cousin who's a liberal and doesn't hate him! At least, that's what Julie Limbaugh said in her Salon piece about growing up in the shadow of Rush and his cochlear implant. It's a fascinating piece, full of love and doubt and various "Good Rusty/Bad Rusty anecdotes," until Julie gets to this part riiiiiight here: "Yet lately, I must admit, being a Limbaugh has been a little tough. When listening to Jon Stewart or just about everyone lay into the latest outrageous thing Cousin Rusty has said, it just doesn't seem like he's in on the act, and that makes it hard for me to separate my cousin from his persona. Maybe it's just me — afraid of facing my student loans in our crumbling economy, or maybe I have officially become one of the "crazy liberals" my uncles always warn me of, but it seems that Rush is no longer just playing the political game he plays so well. Rather, he has been attacking hope, and now it feels like there's little room for that." Ugh–are you kidding me? This graf makes it sounds like it was written by a brilliant 12-year-old.

Ok folks, back to film fest screeners.

Apparently a judge in the bankruptcy court will announce tomorrow if Creative Loafing's current owners can continue owning us and the rest of the chain, or if Atalaya, a creditor owed oodles (and a firm that also owns Bennigans), will be granted permission to take over.

Here's the money graph from Creative Loafing-Tampa Bay, the home newspaper of the group that bought us in 2007:

Atalaya wants to foreclose on its $31 million in loans given to finance CL’s 2007 expansion and purchase of Washington City Times and the Chicago Reader. That action was blocked when CL filed for bankruptcy court protection under Chapter 11 of the federal code in September 2008.

"Washington City Times"?

Again, this is from the flagship of the Creative Loafing chain.

"Washington City Times"?

Now I'm wondering why the cuts were necessary to begin with: Our company's market value, I learn this evening, is going through the roof. That's according to a hired "valuator" who gave testimony in Creative Loafing's ongoing bankruptcy case in Tampa. Here's the scoop on this valuation thing, as reported by CL's own Wayne Garcia:

Creative Loafing’s valuation expert, Michael Mard of Tampa’s Financial Valuation Group of Florida, testified through all of Tuesday afternoon about his assessment that the chain absorbed most of its losses and revenue declines before its Sept. 29, 2008, Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. He put the value of the company at $7 million on Sept. 30; $12 million on Dec. 31, 2008; and $13 million by February of this year.

Holy cow—in the middle of the greatest financial crisis in however many decades, and the greatest biz-model crisis ever to affect newspapers, our very own company has nearly doubled in value. Quick–someone call Romenesko!