When I graduated from high school the 60s were just getting underway. I’d read Kerouac’s On The Road and was soon to encounter Sartre and Existentialism. The conventions of the 50s had to go—all things boosterish, four-square and button-down.
     Fast forward to 1990. I didn’t come close to finding a career and in spite of that—and without crime or dirty dealing—somehow I own my own home in the Bay Area. A judicious person would say that luck had a lot to do with it. One day I even got called a “Yuppie.” (I’d just purchased a new Saab.) Few comments had pleased me more. And the stage was about to be set for a brief tango with advertising.
     I’d just completed another round of schooling, this time getting an M. A. in Clinical Psychology. And just as my earlier milestones in schooling had led apparently nowhere, this one followed suit—except for one thing. This time, I was almost fifty.
     Did I really want to become a psychotherapist? How many productive years might I have left? And what about this art thing—the stepchild of my life?
     My fervent, if fitful, excursions in that direction—first in poetry, later in painting, sculpture and photography—had not yielded much.
     Over the years, I’d never been able to commit myself to life as an artist. But now the formerly abstract idea that my time was limited had become real. It sobered me up. And a decision was made.
     In the time left, I’d give myself to the art side of my life as best I could. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this would include a pas de deux with advertising.

Down from the Mountain
     Here’s how it came about. In less than two years, my new “art orientation” led to the launch of a little art magazine The Secret Alameda. And there’s a business side to doing a magazine. This dawned on me by the second issue. Of course, ads are a major part of all magazines, minus the rare exception.
     Would The Secret Alameda have ads? Well, how about starting out with fake ads? It seemed a good way to warm up. So, in issue #1, for example, we had: “Bertram Eames, Esq. Purveyors of Fine Corinthian Leathers. "We provide our discriminating customers with the traditional European elegance of distinction they require. Our professional staff persons will consult with you to arrive at the elegant solutions for all your fine Corinthian leather needs, carefully hand-fitting you in the privacy of our lush, but traditional dressing chambers. Visit us in your town motorcars and enjoy our premises designed after the paneled libraries and sitting rooms of European manor houses of yore. Each fine leather product is crafted exclusively to traditional guild standards of centuries past, by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, and perfected in the tradition of the finest French wines of distinction, premier cru. By appointment. Or anytime between 9 am - 9 pm.”
     Such were the high jinks of a late-breaking adolescence. However certain developmental steps—as I came to realize, simply could not be avoided. At some point, if the baseball hat has not been donned and worn backwards, all personal growth is in danger of stalling. Ergo, high times!
      All that aside, I soon discovered that our expenses - we’re talking low to mid three figures - eclipsed income from our 88 subscribers leaving a considerable shortfall. Need more income, more subscribers? Advertise!  For the first time in my life, I embarked down a road I’d regarded with disdain—and found it oddly bracing. I suddenly felt part of the main game. Free enterprise! Where had I been all those years?  

Ontology without a PhD
     I didn’t like my magazine being called a “zine.” It would be a magazine. But with 88 subscribers paying $2.50 for a sheaf of hand-stapled xerox pages, undeniably, it had those duck-like features. Still, did it really need to be any bigger or slicker—or more expensive? It possessed the one quality without which everything else hardly matters: it was my own duck-like creation. That meant I could aspire to whatever I wished. If it required that I take up advertising, so be it.  

Joining the Fray — First Ad
Placing Secret Alameda hand-xeroxed promo sheets under the windshield wipers of cars in the municipal parking lot behind the Courtyard Café and Gallery, was my first advertising action. It’s the moment I joined my fellow mortals in the rat race.
     Of that first step across the line, I remember two things. The first had to do with writing the ad copy. I was inexorably drawn toward the standard ad-phrase: blow-out sale. Hackneyed, yes. But kind of fascinating, too, in what “blow out sale” conjures. It’s not just that the items in question must leave the store in a great hurry, terrific bargains that they are. The event is portrayed as explosive. The fine point being that this explosion is needed—the clearing out of a problematic blockage, something impacted, held in, stultifying of circulation. In short, it’s a blow-out that rectifies. The solution to our problem is, of course, to your benefit.
     Present, too, is the subtle invocation of the 4th of July where explosive devices are at their best, deployed for the sharp intake of breath in the sheer wonder of a starry blast lit against the night sky. A faint echo of that is there, only the blow out now is staged in broad daylight causing dollars and merchandise to fly and scatter happily in all directions. Such are the harmonic resonances of the Blow Out Sale.
     And so, whatever else I might have written, this phrase had to be there. Some low archetype had to be honored, but not without a little fine-tuned evidence of another kind of promise. And how to signal that?      
       
Slight Detour: Blast Haus
So taken was I by all this that I wondered if there could be an incantation even more powerful than “Blow Out.” What about BLAST, for instance? But no, it wasn’t enough. What about bringing in some German? BLAST HAUS. Now there was something.  
     Letting the phrase sink in, I noticed a longing not so easy to put my finger on. What kind of place would that be, a BLAST HAUS? Looking deeply, I could sense it. The special action taking place inside the blast haus would be joyously violent—a total obliteration of THE OBSTACLE. An obliterating removal of everything that stands in the way. The only thing remaining would be an empty, open space—rapturously empty—and filled with a dream of pure beginning.
     For awhile, I wondered if I should have called the magazine BLAST HAUS. But eventually I calmed down. I mean, Berlin 1918. DADA. It wasn’t where I was going. At least part of me was already past that.

First Ad, Part Two
The second thing I remember from that promo sheet was the furtive sense of illegitimacy that came over me in the parking lot while sticking them under wiper blades. A shifty feeling. Was it legal? The fear that punishment or embarrassment might intrude at any moment. No wonder I hadn’t found my way into the robust life of commerce. Had instead, taken refuge in abstruse reading, chess, and other strategies of keeping my distance.
     But for this same reason—thanks to this action in broad daylight—suddenly I felt the air around me and my feet on the ground. I was really standing where I was standing. That is, in a parking lot behind the old buildings facing Park Street. I looked out across the Beamers, Subarus, pickups—a bicycle leaning against a light pole—and even Peggy Williams’ electric golf cart. They were all present, too.

Reality Sets In
Over the next couple of years, I ran ads for The Secret Alameda in Utne Reader, Artweek and a few other publications. I traded ads with a few other small magazines. I left magazines in airports, sent copies to media figures hoping for a plug, purchased a mailing list and briefly joined the army of bulk-mailers converting perfectly good trees into junk mail.
     I was getting my feet wet, a tyro. I was given much advice. Rule one: Who is your reader? Retired English professors? Mid-level insurance executives? Next piece of expert advice: don’t try writing copy yourself. That would be a big mistake! Trust the professional. For instance—and here’s a freebie—in any direct mail piece, always mention “Money Back” somehow. The professional knows the key buttons to push out there for manipulating the faceless herd.
     Of course, I ignored the copy writing advice. And I still can’t figure who “my target audience” is. So, right off, two big strikes against me. As my experiments continued, I began to realize my advertising was not cost effective. Was I simply not doing it right? Not spending enough money? (Surely, that part had to be true.) The magazine hadn’t yet broken a hundred subscribers. Spending three or four hundred dollars on an ad equaled something like a third of the magazine’s income. Was I producing an inferior product? But we kept getting good, earnest testimonials and even rave reviews! No. I was sure that couldn’t be the problem. Could it? No. Certainly not. “Look here,” I counseled myself. “I think the magazine is great, but maybe I’m a fool. Or let’s say I’m not the best judge.” How badly could I have bungled it? Would only one person in ten thousand connect? Could it be any worse than that? And in that case, the potential subscriber base in the U.S. would still be 30,000 readers. Thirty thousand! I’d settle for 1000, enough to cover costs. But how to find them?


An Attack of Social Conscience
My own attempts to promote The Secret Alameda via advertising had not paid off, but there was another side to it. If no longer a buyer of advertising the prospect remained of being a seller of advertising. Wasn’t that what magazines did? I should remind the reader that I describe conditions over thirty years ago. But pick up a print magazine today, the ones that are still around. Same deal.  
     So to sell ads, first I turned to a few friends who ran small businesses. Peggy Williams, owner of the Courtyard Cafe and Gallery, was first. It was like turning to my mother. She bought an ad. Next I visited my schmooze-ready business acquaintances. Take the little coffee shop on Lincoln Avenue, “Vines.” John was good for an ad. And then there was “Thompson’s Garden Center,” right next door. Iris bought in. “Kevin Patrick Books” down on Central Avenue was a place of utter perfection in terms of a certain ethos: used books crammed into a small place with Kevin himself—quiet, thoughtful, and a bit untidy, as would be required. He was good for a small ad.
     And “Paul’s Newsstand.” There was an anomaly. Only by stout resistance had a small band of Alamedans been able to preserve the old fashioned, corner news-stand against the philistine forces of civic progress. Paul chipped in for an ad. Then up to “The Sandwich Board.” Sue, the Korean co-owner with her husband, chipped in.
(I always got their roasted, turkey-cranberry sandwich with everything. This was a good sandwich.) I even hit up an old friend in Oakland, artist Daniel Hunter, who ran a small photography business. He was in. And then I had to start doing some cold calls. There was a music store on Webster, “Fud’s.” They looked a soft touch for my project. And sure enough, Fud chipped in.
     And so it went for a while. I liked these people. But then I began thinking about these transactions.
     Although it wasn’t too long before I crossed the 100 mark in subscribers, what was it that I really had to offer these buyers of space on my pages? Would their outlays actually do their businesses one whit of good?
     The moment I put the question to myself, I knew the answer. No doubt these friends and acquaintances, and perhaps even some of the strangers, knew what they were doing. Making a contribution. Giving me a helping hand. Nevertheless, something about the transactions didn’t sit well. 
     It took me about three years, I’d say, to gain clarity about my experiments in advertising. I knew I’d seen the light when, one day I heard myself say that “spending my energy on selling ads was a soul-sucking exercise.” As those words hovered in the air, nothing moved me to revise them in any way.
     My romance with advertising was over.
     The last issue of The Secret Alameda, which was #8, ran ad free. And what I realized as I paged through that issue, was how rare it was not seeing any ads tugging at one’s attention. I felt the spaciousness of it—wilderness preservation on an inner level. And I began to think that maybe my decision to abandon advertising had an aspect of service I hadn’t realized.
      I admit that somewhere in this whole process the thought occurred to me that I should have tried to set up my own agency—Zero Emissions Advertising. It would be a green-certified business. None of its ads would produce any pernicious effects. There would be no typical toxic out-gassing. No out-gassing at all, in fact.
     This would not be so easy. And I didn’t follow up. I took the simplest route. There would just be no more ads. And in 1998 The Secret Alameda became works & conversations. Still ad free.
     People who found these pages could breathe a little more freely. And so it has continued...