Yo…
What stands out in American’s dense and often disturbing mythology are all the outlaws.
From the get-go: British colonists came to America for a variety of reasons—often more than one—and yet for many those included religious freedom and political liberty.
A cursory glance at history confirms America has always been an outlaw factory. (It’s no surprise True Crime is wildly popular across streamers and podcast networks. True Crime is all outlaws…people literally trying to get away with murder.)
Usually—not always but usually—the outlaw is…cool. Especially in music…there’s a notable element of infectious danger.
“Johnny Cash was an outlaw country music star who was known for his rebellious lifestyle and gritty storytelling.”
Yo, son: Outlaw Country is a genre.
And beyond Outlaw Country? Well, there’s only a handful of truly legendary outlaw media outlets...early Rolling Stone was edgy like for decades and so was Creem.
And of course on that outlaw outlet list is The Village Voice. All 3 outlets were incredibly and gloriously anti-suburb. The siren seduction of neon signs. The strange characters populating a line to get into a club concert where nobody in the band dressed…normal?
Sooner or later we all grow up, pay a hard mortgage and read the NY Times.
But it’s always fun to wander down a dark graffiti covered alleyway and see if an unmarked door will open and reveal something spectacular. The Village Voice was a bright flashlight when you wandered down that dark alley.
Sometimes it was the reason why you were in a dark alley.
I suspect our culture is struggling because our (current) counterculture just isn’t as strong or as bold. Lately, we’re getting less notes from the underground.
“In 2009, there were more alt-weekly newspapers in the U.S. than ever before—135 of them—and these papers tended to cover local music in a way that to date has never really been replaced.”
A telling quote from Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly.
The value of these alt-weekly newspapers was…the alt. Duh.
Show me something cool.
Tell me something cool.
What is…cool?
When you read The Freaks Came Out To Write by
there was clearly 2 distinct New York Citys: the surface world with Wall Street and landlords…the day shift.And there was the bright night lights and the dark night life.…Nighttown only set in The Big Apple; underground like the subways. And just like the subways, The Village Voice could take you to magical places.
Often called America’s greatest alternative weekly newspaper, The Village Voice has a 50 year plus history. The Village Voice was launched and founded by Ed Fancher, Dan Wolf and of course: Norman Mailer on October 26, 1955.
By the time The Village Voice reached the 1960s it was entering its golden era which would run well into the ‘90s: deftly covering music, film, local politics, national politics, books and the art world.
In short: many of the combustible cultural elements that make New York City so great.
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say The Village Voice? For me it’s New York City. That third world energy, that steadfast hustle, that consecrated grind and all that glorious pop culture.
(Personally, the ‘70s and ‘80s decades stood out: hip hop was emerging, indie films were flourishing and off-Broadway shows were happening. So much culture and creativity all loving captured by The Village Voice and their fierce gang of rascals armed with typewriters. Notable those graffiti covered subways became an avatar: if you dig the culture this was fresh. If the culture terrified you, the bombed subways were your shorthand to express your fear.)
In this My Summer Lair episode you’ll meet journalist and writer Tricia Romano who assembled a dynamic oral history of The Village Voice.
Over 200 former Voice writers, staffers and editors reflected on their work and their experiences. And because it’s an oral history her book The Freaks Came Out To Write captures all the charming chaos of writing and working at The Village Voice.
As she says to me: “For almost everyone that was there at The Village Voice: It was the best part of their career and the best part of their life.”
The Freaks Came Out To Write is organized chronologically so you can read about The Village Voice’s reactions to spontaneous historical movements that would have butterfly effects far beyond New York City. The Women’s Movement...feminism, Stonewall and gay rights, the birth of early hip hop. Early Spike Lee to early Donald Trump…both remain synonymous with New York City. The war against gentrification. Which sometimes is a losing war.
Tricia Romano started at The Village Voice as an intern and wound up writing columns on New York nightlife.
I so appreciate a theme that runs through this conversation is celebrating characters. If you’ve ever been to New York City you know what I mean about characters. Just really weird yet really cool people. Characters wrote at The Village Voice. Tricia encountered characters covering nightlife. Characters are why you put on pants and you wanna travel.
The title of her book is...after all: The Freaks.
Vivian Gornick’s business card reads in part: radical feminist critic, journalist and essayist.
On page 119 of Tricia’s The Freaks Came Out To Write Vivian reveals: “What The Voice did to a great extent, and especially politically, was advocacy journalism. And advocacy journalism is not biased. It’s very frank in its own way. It’s the most honest kind of journalism, because you know where the writer is coming from. And at the Voice we did, for the most part, hold advocacy journalism to a high standard. We didn’t just do legal checks, we did really serious fact checks. The Voice had a crackerjack fact-checking department. It is more useful and there’s nothing wrong with having many points of view. On the contrary, you want that conversation at that bar, or you’re just a bunch of boring drunks.”
Did you read Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post?
It’s by Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber played him in Spotlight.) The paperback came out on October 08, 2024.
It’s an excellent companion piece to The Village Voice book. As much as The Village Voice was grappling with all this flourishing gay culture and the expected homophobia that came with it; the Washington Post hadda figure out how to cover Donald Trump’s Presidency in 2016.
And at the same time deal with a new billionaire owner. Both books deal with a newspaper struggling to maintain independence and integrity when all these different forces are aligned against them.
Both books detail the issues to maintain objectivity and to issue (mostly) good writing. If you wanna know how the news we eagerly consume is made from completely different perspectives…I highly recommend both books.
4 more non-fiction books about large cultural intuitions like The Village Voice? (The links all connect to Bookshop.) Here ya go.
#NewBookSmell
From the Lorne prologue: “The show has good years and had years, like the New York Yankees, or the Dow, and the audience has come to feel something like ownership of it. Just about every person who has ever watched SNL believes that its funniest years were the ones when they were in high school.
Lorne Michaels likes to say that everyone in the entertainment business has two jobs: their actual job and figuring out how to fix SNL.”
That’s it exactly! As Saturday Night Live celebrates #SNL50 this is timely. Not bad work for a kid from Toronto. (Random House; Published: February 18, 2025)
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According to the back of the book: “Discover the real truth behind the original fake news with this in-depth history of beloved humor publication, The Onion. In 1988, a band of University of Wisconsin-Madison undergrads and dropouts began publishing a free weekly newspaper with no editorial stance other than "You Are Dumb."”
For years every time I went to New York City I’d pick up The Onion. Even had a couple of friends who went to The Big Apple pick me up the paper. It was wicked funny, lotta Simpsons like humour of how our society is…dumb.
That’s what the best stand up comics do…ridicule the many absurdities of modern life. (Running Press Adult; Published: March 18, 2025)
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You know? I listen to NPR but I don’t know anything about em:
“Founded in 1970, NPR is America’s most powerful broadcast news network. Despite being overshadowed by the larger and more glamorous PBS, public radio has long been home to shows such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition and This American Life that captivate millions of listeners in homes, cars, and workplaces across the nation. NPR and its hosts are a cultural force and a trusted voice, and they have created a mode of journalism and storytelling that helps Americans understand the world in which we live.”
Aside from being curious about NPR…I wanna know about empire building; that’s why I picked up the book. How do you build big? How does NPR compare/contrast to say the CBC?
And I’m curious about quality. Ya gotta be good. How do you internally determine quality? I’ve got questions and I’m curious; always a good place to start before picking up a non-fiction book. (Avid Reader Press; Published: March 18, 2025)
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And now…magazines. “Graydon Carter is the founder of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair.”
Ah yes…remember magazines? “From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture.” (Penguin Press; Published: March 25, 2025)
It’s funny all these non-fiction books came out roughly at the same time. I can never tell the difference between a trend and a coincidence.
If you wanna know how we got here…culturally, journalistically…from Donald Trump to the Internet these are the pop culture textbooks you pick up.
Doesn’t Smell As Good As A New Book…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
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