Geezer magazine co-founders Laura LeBleu and Paul von Zielbauer went live Saturday on Jonathan Small’s Small Talk podcast to talk about why we launched a print-only magazine to explore the Gen X (and early Boomer; and, yeah, also the late-late Millennial) aging experience.
Time-coded highlights:
01:08: Laura’s background: theater, ad copywriting, tech; Geezer is her first personal creative project in her 50s
02:09: Paul’s professional background: 11 years at The New York Times, including a Pulitzer nomination, then founded Roadmonkey, an “adventure philanthropy” company.
04:30: Why start a magazine called Geezer?
04:59: The “visceral rage” Laura felt when she got her first AARP subscription mailer, and how media generally approaches the aging experience in ways that are “patronizing and anodyne and not relevant to where I was personally.”
06:58: How Geezer’s co-founders began working together.
10:51: The many shades of “Geezer.”
11:24: How the magazine’s name, Geezer, format, came to Laura “in the shower.”
13:50: How personal experiences with ageism fueled the rise of Geezer.
15:55: The shower epiphany — why Geezer works as a large-format, 11x15 print-only magazine, and the recent rise of print-only periodicals for niche audiences. (Mountain Gazette, Ori, etc.). “It feels tribal.”
17:32: “We’re drowning in empty calories of digital content... none of it really sticks”
19:37: The bands written on the blank cassette tapes shown on the cover of Geezer’s inaugural issue: XTC, 10,000 Maniacs, Till Tuesday, etc.
22:30: Is print the new vinyl?
24:06: “We’re craving authenticity in a world that is becoming complete. you know increasingly plasticized”
25:05: “Analog is fire.”
28:50: How the first issue of Geezer came to be, and finding the right kinds of stories.
31:09: Geezer’s profile of Mark Pauline, “the last dangerous artist in America” who creates robots that hunt humans.
33:19: The role of nostalgia in Geezer: not too much, but not an afterthought, either.
33:58: The “Memory of a Goldfish” story about a sandwich-generation mom whose son is leaving the house for college and whose mom is moving in, because of dementia.
35:15: Caring for parents with dementia is a Gen X issue.
38:17: Paul’s ageism experience: from head of content at a Bay Area VC firm to zero job offers for two years. “I have 8 friends that are going through the exact same thing.”
42:57: Geezer is a rejection of our culture’s rejection of career professionals once they hit 55.
46:00: The Gen X childhood story swap: Tales of how we wandered off and our parents had no idea where we were until we showed up for dinner.
48:45: Spaghetti Os & Steakums….
53:48: “If we broadcast on a frequency that’s genuine to us, people attuned to that frequency will hear it and respond.”
In the next AGING with STRENGTH post: An audiocast about an important exercise: Reaching back through time to ask your younger self a most important question.
