Metropolis Sold
On September 28, we sold Metropolis magazine to Japan Inc Holdings, a company run by our friend, Terrie Lloyd. We felt that, after taking the magazine from a four-page folded sheet to a 64-80 page magazine we had gone as far as we could. Terrie announced the event here and our last word is below:
Our Last Word: Thank you for 706 issues
It's been quite a long journey. Just over 18 years ago, in October 1989, when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan ruled the world and Scotland was as miserable as it is today, I stuffed £400 in my pocket and flew to a dark, mysterious place at the end of the world. Somewhere over the Philippines Sea
I looked out of the window and realized that apart from a few Japanese lessons, I knew nothing about Japan. I even lost my Lonely Planet guide on the train coming into Tokyo. The Japanese should have been more concerned about my arrival the moment I set foot in Japan, the infamous Bubble burst and 18 years of recession and stagnation followed.
But although I arrived on my own, I was not alone. With my partner Mary, who came to "rescue" me after a year, the two of us found ourselves part of the "Bubble Babies", victims of the propaganda of the overcooked Japanese miracle, attracted like modern-day Dick Whittingtons to see if the streets were really paved with gold. Golden neon, certainly. Gold-flaked sushi, yes! Gold in our pockets? That story is still being told.
Our isolation brought us together. We were almost completely cut off from the outside world, and there was very little support for our growing community. Nobody owned a computer. Nobody had even heard of the internet. No email. No websites. No satellite TV. (No wonder it's dark.) And ¥300/minute to phone back home meant calls lasted no more than three minutes. Reading flimsy airmail letters sent back to family who wondered if we would ever return, we can still sense the excitement, the wonder, the possibility.
The first four-page issue of Tokyo Classified, which appeared on February 26, 1994, had a simple aim: "This magazine is for you. It's about time you had the power to broadcast your message to the world. Want to buy, sell, meet, have a party? You can do it here. Do it now!" A classified ads magazine doesn't sound like much, but it was a big step up from posting a note on the National Azabu notice board, or dealing with the deeply restricted classifieds page in The Daily Yomiuri, whose editor censored our ads and banned our in-paper distribution, objecting to ads for "nude and still-life art classes" and the AIDS Support Line for "encouraging people to be gay." The Japan Times editor-in-chief even chimed in, stopping our distribution with his paper with no notice, calling us a "tawdry, pornographic publication."
The ads, posted by real people with ordinary needs, helped give foreigners some sense of community. We were actually not alone in this big city, especially when we read the personals. The unleashed power of the libido writ large entertained all of us on many a lonely night, and there are babies and families to prove it.
Within a few months, we were at eight pages, then sixteen, and then we needed to add something to read, so we started to attract an editorial, design and sales team around us. While Mary pounded the streets explaining what a classified ad was to bemused Japanese businessmen, Dan Grunebaum joined as our first, and longest-serving editor. When Tokyo Journal imploded, Don Morton, the Movie Man, came over on the condition we would not edit his work (who would want to? Who would dare to?). Dedicated editors polished the words and image, through Georgia Jacobs, who oversaw the change to Metropolis -- a real magazine at last! and Steve Trautlein, the current editor. We'll leave you to wonder if the name change was because the magazine was more than just Tokyo and Classifieds, or because we are all Supermen living in the city of the future.
Behind what you read, Monty, Joy and Rae, Masaru and Kaoru and the rest of the sales team have created connections to hundreds of businesses, helping them grow. It's a plain fact that if we did not give value to businesses, they would not use us and the magazine would fail. Please support them because they pay for it all. And there would have been no magazine without financial support through timely loans and investment. Strangely enough, 12 years ago it was Terrie Lloyd, your new publisher, who gave us the funds to incorporate the business --and now the circle is complete. We thank all contributors deeply for their ongoing support and friendship.
But now the journey, for us, is drawing to a close. Many years ago we wondered, daresay dreamed, whether our four pages could ever grow to 60-80 pages a week. Seven hundred and six issues later, it is a great and wonderful thing to have that dream come true. We did what we wanted to do, and we did it our way. Our baby, our friend, our teacher, our guide to Tokyo life has grown up, and is going out into the world to make its own way. Guided by capable hands, we look forward to an even greater future.
Thank you for taking the journey with us. We remember these times fondly. We hope you do too.
How it began: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l39dOq0wpWc
The pic is of me and Mary with the first issue in February 1994.
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