Thank you, and a fond farewell
The Sun Runner magazine began publishing on New Year's Day, 1995 in Twentynine Palms. Vickie Waite was the founding editor and publisher. The magazine was honored by the City of Twentynine Palms and the Basin Wide Foundation, and spread its coverage and distribution across the hi-desert in beautiful black and white.
In 2004, I was working as news editor for a Coachella Valley alternative news weekly, doing investigative work, hard news - political, environmental, and business reporting, as well as arts and entertainment features. We had a small but solid editorial team at the Desert Post Weekly, but the management at our Gannett sister paper, The Desert Sun, decided to destroy the paper. They cut our circulation, then they began a full-on attack on our paper. Our publisher was forced out of our office and eventually was fired as she was stuck in a no-win position at The Desert Sun. Our editor left. "I've seen what they're going to do to the paper and I don't want to be around when it happens," is what she said to me on her way out.
The Desert Sun appointed a new editor, a virtually incompetent brown-noser who had never edited anything except the social calendar page of a paper from another state. He neither knew, nor cared, anything about the news business. Our Desert Rat columnist became so fed up he quit in disgust. Others on staff were making plans to go. If I recall correctly, our distribution manager also vanished during this time. The rats were abandoning the sinking ship.
It was around the time when this debacle began unfolding, that Vickie would pop into my consciousness at art openings and other community events. She kept trying to sell me The Sun Runner. I kept telling her I was a hard news journalist, not the kind of guy to produce a magazine filled with people holding their wine glasses and chatting at art openings. She said I was the only person she could think of who could take The Sun Runner to the next level. Finally, with few journalism career options available in the desert, we talked seriously as the situation at the Desert Post Weekly continued to deteriorate.
I bought The Sun Runner for my birthday, May 31, 2004.
The plan was to have Vickie continue to run the magazine for the next six months as I continued to work for Gannett. I could help pay for the magazine purchase and have health care while I was learning the magazine's operations. It was a good plan, except for one thing.....
When I purchased the magazine, I had to publish a new Fictitious Business Name notice. Not thinking there could be ramifications for publishing something nobody ever reads, I went to the local paper to have it published. Gary Daigneault, news director at Z-107.7 FM in Joshua Tree, read the notice. Gary knew my phone number at the Weekly and could have called me. He didn't. Instead, he caught Vickie on her cell phone while she was driving to visit her sister who was dealing with lung cancer. Then, he put a story about me buying the magazine into his local news program six or seven times during the next day.
Someone at The Desert Sun heard his broadcast. I hadn't even heard it. But they had. I was summoned to their offices, where I was told that I could either divest myself of the "competing" publication, or resign. I noted that the magazine wasn't actually in their editorial coverage area, and we had collaborated with the magazine before on stories relating to the hi-desert. Clearly, they were not competitors.
Never mind the facts, I was told, they would not stomach an employee owning their own publication. I wasn't going to give up the one option I had so I could stay on the sinking ship. I resigned.
It turned out to be the right decision, as The Desert Sun closed the Weekly's offices in Cathedral City and moved the remaining staff into The Desert Sun building. The paper began a steep decline, turning into about five pages of syndicated editorial, including puzzles and horoscopes, and another 50 or so pages of legal notices. The editorial team that had worked so hard to build a great reputation for the paper left, all except one, who had planned to keep working in whatever capacity she could find, so she could collect her retirement. It didn't work. They got rid of her.
A really good paper was dead. And I was "the new guy" at The Sun Runner.
Now, 14.5 years later, I'm not the new guy any more. It's been an adventure, but one that's cost me friends, community support, and money. My goals for the magazine, to make it a hub for community input, and to help connect communities across the desert, covering a blend of desert issues, arts, and culture, with a little history and personalities thrown in the mix, with as many contributing writers as possible, never completely gelled. I went into the venture without much in the way of resources, and never managed to build them up to further my vision for the magazine.
That doesn't mean nothing was accomplished. Plenty of good stories, and not just my own, were published. I had wanted as many voices as possible, and we got some excellent contributors. But with it hard to find good help for the magazine, especially for advertising sales, and with most things coming back to me to make them happen, combined with a hefty dose of nasty local politics and backstabbing, along with a changing media environment on so many levels, it became harder to make a living from my work.
Still, over my tenure with the magazine, it moved from a local to regional publication, with distribution at one point reaching Orange County to Arizona. We had tens of thousands of readers who valued the magazine, and hundreds of subscribers. We published two visitor maps for the Joshua Tree National Park area, then three editions of our Joshua Tree Gateway Communities Visitor Guide. The last one came out in spring, 2018, and was our final publication. We published The Joshua Tree Tortoise Telegraph newspaper because as the magazine had become more regional, I had longed for a way to do more local stories. We even briefly published The Palm Canyon Paradise, a really nice Palm Springs newspaper with features on arts and culture there.
For 13.5 years, I personally produced a weekly arts and entertainment calendar radio show for KX 96.3/92.1 FM that broadcast on Fridays across the hi-desert and Coachella Valley. For around five years I also produced a weekly email newsletter, The Sun Blast, with event news and information for desert locals and travelers. For 3.5 years, I volunteered as president of the California Deserts Visitors Association, and together with the CDVA, I found myself at the largest consumer travel show in the country for nine years, promoting desert travel.
And finally, we produced two seasons of a regional travel series, Southwest Stories, which was broadcast to 5.7 million households across southern California for more than two years. I was the writer for the series, as well as hosting and producing it with a talented crew whom I can't thank enough.
We had planned to bring it into national distribution for its third season, but sponsorships and underwriting didn't work out. Tourism agencies literally preferred to pay $50,000 per year to have someone manage their Instagram account instead of support hour-long travel features that would (literally, again) reach millions of viewers. PBS audiences weren't cool enough.
There were many disappointments, but there were some really great times as well. We produced a number of events, from sold out concerts at the Hi-Desert Playhouse, to tours, art exhibits, writer celebrations and workshops, plays, author salons, and special dinners. One magazine cover was picked to be Gawker's 2012 magazine cover of the year. That was unexpected. As was the call from Rolling Stone asking me to go shoot some photos for a book project they were working on, and the invitation to cover the Bangkok International Film Festival for three years while Craig Prater, former executive director of the Palm Springs International Film Festival (Craig was picked by Sonny Bono to run the fest), ran the festival.
We covered allegations of elder abuse against Marta Becket at the Amargosa Opera House, the BLM's indifference to destroying Native American sites, LADWP's lying about their Green Path North plans, and so much more. And there was fun stories too, from interviews with Trick Pony and Gram Rabbit, to stories on Willie Boy and Marshal South, a trip to Leonard Knight's 80th birthday and Eric Burdon's 70th. There were times I'd like never to forget, like hanging out with Dick Dale at his place in Wonder Valley - I mean, Dick Dale was sitting on his couch in his living room playing guitar for me, or when we were cruising down the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok with a full naval escort clearing the way for us to get to the awards ceremony.
It's funny. When I bought The Sun Runner in 2004, someone, I think it may have been Rep. Mary Bono's aide, asked me what I was going to write about since there was nothing to write about in the desert. I replied that as far as I was concerned, even if I managed to put out a magazine a month, for the rest of my life, I would die with a longer list of stories I wanted to write, and people I wanted to interview, than when I began. The same sentiment was voiced by another individual when I launched the TV show. My response is the same: if I could produce a show a week for the rest of my life, there would still be a very long list of people, places, and stories that I wanted to feature but didn't get the opportunity to do so.
There are great stories everywhere. There are stories in every wash, every canyon, on every peak, and behind every cholla out here in the desert. The Sun Runner magazine may be in the past now, and this website will join it soon. But the stories? They're still out there.
I fully intend to get to more of them if I have any say in the matter. I love the storytelling and the stories. You can keep the bookkeeping, page layout, ad design, ad sales, local politics, threats, backstabbing, printing, crowdfunding, stress, debts, employee hassles, and all the other day to day business operations. But the stories? Bring 'em on.
Thanks to all those who have supported and contributed to The Sun Runner over the years. Thanks to those readers who kept every copy, and to those who paid for ads, TV sponsorships, and subscriptions. Thanks to those who came to our events, joined our tours, hung out at our booths, read our publications, and watched our TV shows. Thanks for those who believed in me and were kind to me during the rough spots. A lot of life - and death - happened throughout these years. So much so that I find I haven't had time to process many of the losses of this period of my life. I like to have down time with silence and the desert around me to be able to let the losses sink through me slowly, but I've barely had time to recognize them and get on to business.
Mostly, I'd like to thank my wife for being there for me through the really hard times, and for still being here for me as this adventure came to a close.
Vaya con queso,
- Steve Brown
PS: This website will shut down on Valentine's Day, 2019. It will be archived as a Wix free site, and we will have the URL available through our social media outlets for those who would like to access stories and photos. Our new email address will be sunrunnermedia@gmail.com.