Mike Edison
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Mike Edison is a New York-based writer, editor, and musician, who has worked for some of the most notorious magazines in the world. He was the publisher of marijuana counterculture magazine High Times, and was later named editor-in-chief of Screw, the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Newspaper." In a twenty-year career, Edison has been both lauded and villified.
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[edit] Pro Wrestling, Porn, and Pot
Edison earned his first magazine publishing job in 1986, as editor of Wrestling’s Main Event, by defeating the incumbent editor in a bloody Loser Leaves Town Match. [1]
Between 1985 and 1988 he was the author of 28 pornographic novels, and in his career on the seamy side of the publishing business, he has written about German whorehouses and Spanish coke dealers for Hustler [2], and has published a series of erotic “confessions” for the legendary Penthouse Letters. He was also a frequent contributor to "Screw" magazine, penning chronicles of 42nd Street, then the adult entertainment mecca of New York City.
In the late 1980s Edison began writing a featured column for famed marijuana and counterculture magazine High Times, Shoot the Tube, about television and politics. In 1998 Edison was named publisher of High Times, and soon after took control of the editorial side of the magazine as well.[3]
As editor and publisher, he caused a furor among staffers by putting Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osborne on the cover, and then leaking to the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column [4] that thousands of dollars of pot had gone missing from the photo shoot. After taking the magazine to new heights in sales and advertising [5], he was instrumental in producing High Times' first feature film, HIgh Times' Potluck [6]. Edison left High Times in 2001 [7]
Following High Times, Edison became the editorial director for Jewish culture magazine Heeb, for whom he went undercover and exposed Jews for Jesus as a Baptist cult.[8]He also covered the 2003 harassment trial of Screw magazine founding editor and publisher, Al Goldstein.
Edison left Heeb later that year in protest over a cover story on the Passion of Christ, a rebuttal to the Mel Gibson film.
In 2003, Edison was named editor-in-chief of Screw (replacing Al Goldstein), where he began writing seventeen years before as a freelancer, In late 2006 he announced that he was leaving the editor-in-chief position, but remains Screw's editor-at-large under the title "special agent." He frequently uses the pseudonym "Charlie Mordecai." [9]
Currently Edison is working as a "book doctor," editor, and journalist, and is writing a memoir of his adventures for Faber and Faber, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. [10]
[edit] Rock’n’Roll
Edison is also well-regarded for his eclectic music career, and is probably best known as the drummer for New York proto-garage band the Raunch Hands (Crypt Records) as well as being a collaborator of infamous punk rocker GG Allin with whom he wrote a number of songs and recorded two albums. He currently leads his own band, the Edison Rocket Train.
In addition, Edison has worked closely with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion as their "Minister of Information," writing the band’s press releases and industry propaganda, fan communiqués, and dedicated web copy. Jon Spencer also appears on recordings by the Edison Rocket Train.
[edit] Quote
"I'm a New York Jew. I can kvetch and haggle with the best of them. Salvation, however, is the one thing I will not buy wholesale." - Heeb Magazine, "The Missionary Position," Fall 2003
[edit] References
- ^ Wrestling's Main Event, Pumpkin Press, October 1986, "Bloody Office Battle: Editors Fight to a Finish"
- ^ Hustler Magazine 1993
- ^ High Times Magazine, 1998-2001
- ^ New York Post, January 267, 1999
- ^ Village Voice, Press Clips, October 27, 1999
- ^ Washington Square News, October 5, 2003, "Dropout Produces Pot Film"
- ^ New York Post, Page Six
- ^ Heeb Magazine, 2003, also The Jewish Telegraph Agency www.jta.org
- ^ Screw Magazine
- ^ Publishers Weekly, also New York Post, Philadelphia Enqurirer, etc
