Notes behind a paper

Life takes strange turns.
We were friends at college, always disputing each other's contributions to the schoolpaper and later -papers.
I got the opportunity to learn all the details of how a magazine is run, wrote books, translated books and wrote a lot of other stuff.
He was the one who ran a real paper, was an active part of it for 30 years, did it all.

Then suddenly he withdrew from the stage of life and all I could do was step in his world when I heard the ship was sinking.
How could I allow others to mess up his life's work?

Well, they already did before I realised there were problems.
No money, no active writers, no good organisation, old fashioned site, and even a caricature of a paper's office. An old one. Good for an old day movie.

I didn't know if he wanted me to take over.

But this week I learned he does.

The weeks before I've witnessed power plays, lies, laziness, stupidity and a lot more and I'm not sure whether there are enough words for the drive to blow up ones ego and being so lazy that a 30 year old paper is almost completely ruined.

I feel I've practiced on my children what I have to do now: teach a group of people that when they want to accomplish something they have to dó something and they have to accept coordination.
In fact I feel that I would accomplish there more when I take all my kids there and throw those people out.

There is so much to do.
Find money to pay the taxes in march, to pay other bills, and to pay the new edition.
Reorganise the whole lot into a good running business.
Network, network and network.
Find reliable writers and other people, etc etc.

Any rich reader who wants to invest?

Tomorrow evening another meeting.
I don't even dare to think what to expect.
But I want a new board, streamlined responsibilities, and some fresh common sense.
Working on it!