Cavalier and Clay
He brought us New York. He brought us Ms. (but thought it odd for a man to be publisher of a feminist pub, so handed it off to Gloria Steinem). He brought us Urban Cowboy and Saturday Night Fever. But what I know from Clay Felker was a semester in journalism school where he tried to re-create the new journalism for the new journalists. As a student of his, I loved the stories, but struggled to sound like Tom Wolfe. He sent us to bars to find a story (I wrote about one in the Mission that gave manicures with the drinks.) He sent us to profile journalists, which we later found out was an exercise in networking, possibly not far off from actual journalism. He could be gruff and dismissive. He could also be inspiring and poetic. But mainly gruff and dismissive. He told me I was lucky I was a woman, since people would trust me who shouldn't. We had no allusions about what we'd learn from him in that magazine writing class. We wanted to learn about the old school new journalism, and that's what he delivered.