NOT JUST POKER

Having served as general manager and executive vice president of Brands Mart, a division of Allbrands Appliance and Television, Inc., I left as soon as they filed for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy. Brands Mart was good to me and let me do things my way. We offered extremely competitive prices on TV’s, audio equipment, and major appliances. Brands Mart was unique. To shop at a Brands Mart showroom, one required a membership card. The cards were free and available only through organizations, companies, unions, and such. I came up with a unique concept by accepting college ID as a form of admittance. (There was no Costco, no Sam’s Club, nor BJ’s.)

When I joined the company in 1968 or 1969, Brands Mart was one, closed-door showroom in Long Island City, New York. When I left, they were a major factor in the northeast with branches in New York in Long Island City, Deer Park, and Manhattan. In addition there were three branches in New England in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

My responsibilities including opening their Boston branch for them on Friend Street. The Friend Street location soon outgrew itself, and I opened their most successful branch, a 40,000 sq. ft. showroom in Cambridge on what was then a little known location, Smith Place. Soon after we opened, the entire Fresh-Pond section of Cambridge became vitalized. A Burger King soon opened at the corner of Smith Place. Brands Mart became the Mecca for off-price electronics. We became active in sponsoring major fund-raising events and yearly hosted the Brands Mart 5k in conjunction with the American Heart Association. Sidebar: The first Brands Mart 5k was won byAlberto Salazar, who went on to set a course record and win the Boston Marathon in 1982.

I was able to attract students from all over the metropolitan Boston area by advertising in all the college newspapers. Eventually, I spent most of my time as their director of advertising, running the advertising programs for all six Brands Mart locations (and for a partially owned division in Miami). I became familiar with all aspects of media, managing a $3,000,0000 annual budget in print, radio, and television, even dablling in the creative aspect from time to time.

Through Boston contacts, I became extremely familiar with some of the local publications catering to the desirable 18-40, male demographics. So, when Brands Mart filed for bankruptcy in 1979, I was approached by one of the weekly publications, “The Real Paper,” to join their staff as co-publisher. “The Real Paper” was definitely the weaker of the two major weekly publications in Boston. Yet, through both paid-for and free distribution, we boasted a weekly publication of 100,000.

Knowing little about the inner workings of publishing, I learned on the job. The paper was struggling when I joined their ranks. I was brought on, primarily, to use my contacts with major TV and audio manufacturers to garner some of their lucrative coop advertising budgets and oversee the sales department and strengthen the management team.

I became involved with all aspects of the newspaper. “The Real Paper” was a fun place to work (and learn). The staff was a compilation of both neophytes, learning the trade, and talented, accomplished writers. Over the years, “The Real Paper” was home to renown writers and reviewers like Joe Klein, Mark Devlin, Stephen Schiff, Monica Collins, Arthur Friedman, David Ansen, Mark Zanger, Jon Landau and so many others, who moved-on to bigger and better careers.

“The Real Paper” was more of a factor in earlier years, when music reviewers could make their own mark when new sounds and voices were setting the stage for the future of music for the younger generations. In a prophetic 1974 article, Jon Landau wrote “… tonight there is someone I can write of the way I used to write, without reservations of any kind. Last Thursday, at the  Harvard Square theatre, I saw my rock’n’roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time. When his two-hour set ended I could only think, can anyone really be this good; can anyone say this much to me, can rock’n’roll still speak with this kind of power and glory? And then I felt the sores on my thighs where I had been pounding my hands in time for the entire concert and knew that the answer was yes.”

“The Real Paper” rebounded for a very short time, but it could never compete with the major weekly in town, “The Boston Phoenix.” “The Real Paper” staff was not as hungry or as aggressive as “The Boston Phoenix,” which flourished while “The Real Paper” floundered. The owners of “The Real Paper” included some prominent investors, who had their own motives for keeping the publication alive. One such investor was David Rockefeller, Jr., who held senior-staff meetings at his Cambridge, Craigie Street residence. Why he needed the financial burden of “The Real Paper” was never made clear to me, but due to his support (and that of other investors), the paper continued to exist. (When I left the paper, I was pleased to have a letter of recommendation from him.)

“The Real Paper” had a very strong local presence devoting itself to community-based cultural efforts as well as the arts. Along with “The Boston Phoenix,” “The Real Paper” published a weekly calendar of events that kept the metropolitan area aware of all the concerts (major and minor), all the shows, all the movies, all the sporting events, and all the art exhibits. Since there was no Internet, one needed a newspaper to keep abreast of all the many arts activities of this vibrant area.

These newspapers formed the voice for all those who had something to advertise in the “Personals” section. “Personals” and “Arts and Entertainment” were the focuses, but some of the political viewpoints and causes were reason enough to attract the interest not only of readers, but of political pundits. Throughout the country “underground newspapers,” more aptly described as ”alternative newspapers,“ like “The Chicago Reader,” “The Village Voice,” “The Boston Phoenix,” and “The Real Paper” were popular forums for the counter-culture revolution that was occurring.

There were cliques within departments, but, mostly, we were a friendly group who socialized both in and out of the workplace. Two-to-three beer lunches at Plough and Stars across from our offices on Mass. Avenue were commonplace. Many meetings occurred there. Real work was actually accomplished. Of course there is a history of too much inter-socialization that occurred long before I joined the staff– like when the associate publisher’s wife moved in with the associates publisher’s closest friend, who was also the paper’s publisher. No scandals like that when I was there.

Readers of this blog may wonder what any of this has to do with playing poker. For my entire tenure at the “Real Paper ” (when it was purchased by “The Boston Phoenix” in June of 1981), I played no poker at all. One of the players in the Thursday night game in which I regularly played prior to joining the “Real Paper,” resented my joining “The Real Paper” and applied pressure with the other players to keep me out of the game. It was not until after I left “The Real Paper” that I re-joined the Thursday night group.