Revenge is sometimes a dish best served by someone else.

Have you ever worked for a sociopath? I have. His named is Steve Hager and he was my boss at High Times.

The summer that my mom was dying was his most hideous hour as far as I was concerned. Every month or so Steve would cast a different staffer in the role of his mortal enemy. He would alternately shun them, then scream at them. Then he'd go to the owners of the company and try to get them fired and talk shit about them to anyone willing to listen. This particular summer was my turn.

So basically I'd get up in the morning, go to work, attempt to discuss job-related issues with Steve, who would look me up and down and march off without saying a word. (I was the managing editor, so it was vital I be in communication with the editor-in-chief). Then at lunchtime I'd walk over to the hospital and see if I could get my mom to eat something. Often in tears from our visit, I'd return to work for more abuse.

When my mom finally died, Steve signed the group sympathy card, "I hope I never go through what you're going through." Narcissist much?

I was fired shortly thereafter and have pretty much loathed that vile piece of shit ever since. Which is why I was so excited to read Mike Edison's new book, I Have Fun Everywhere I Go.  Mike worked at High Times a few years after I left and quite possibly despises Hager more than I do. Only Mike had the good sense to take notes on Steve's hilariously deranged behavior and make a book out of it. After the jump, some highlights:

• Despite the fact that he's a WASP from Indiana (or some other godforsaken place), Hager now only answers to "Phoenix." I guess "Stephen" was his slave name.
• Hager confronted a hot dog vendor at some idiotic hemp rally and said to him: "Nobody wants your babylon food .  . why don't you go solar and sell organic food?" Irie, dude.
• When being interviewed about the status of pot smokers, Hager shrieked, "We're the Jews! We're going to the concentration camps!" 
• Hager's rationale for relieving Mike of his editorial duties—which he screamed in a meeting with the company's lawyer/owner was, "YOU CAN'T BE THE EDITOR OF HIGH TIMES. YOU DON'T EVEN LIKE THE BEATLES!" Ha. I recall this being a problem with me too. (The other being the fact that I was an uppity broad and Hager, like so many hypocrite hippies, considers females the vastly inferior gender.)
• "I had never seen a grown man behave like this before, except possibly John Cleese, in an old episode of Fawlty Towers. Hager paraded himself around the room like that, spanking himself and hopping around, the whole time yelling, 'Bad doggie! Bad doggie . . . I'm the bad doggie!"

I worry that outsiders might think Edison's exaggerating, but believe me, I can tell he's holding back. What I wouldn't give to read the version he'd written before the lawyers vetted it! And while I had a big problem with the way he slams a friend of mine, I mostly loved this book. From the Dave Insurgent (RIP) stories to girlfriend drama to wrestlemania, it's a highly entertaining, very well-written and quite addictive.

Comments

[The Vidiot]

I, too, have worked for the deranged publishing type, at a now long defunct Brooklyn magazine. The owner was a nutcase. My very first day there, she hadn't yet fired the girl I was to replace. So I had to hide out on the top floor until the deed was done. Meanwhile, her computer suddenly died and she screamed at me to fix it because "it was too important! It must be fixed!" Turned out, the psycho never cleaned her workspace, smoked incessantly and let the cat crawl around where it wanted to. So, her computer was working fine. But her mouse, was a hazardous waste station. (Of course, she didn't even thank me.)

Oh, the stories I could tell. From the pun-obsessed senior editor, to the drug addled managing editor, the cross dressing office assistant, to the drunken ad manager, I mean, the list of characters is endless. And she fired them all, sometimes en masse.

I sympathize with your experience.

I also suspect we're not alone. It seems publishing really draws in the crazies.

[harriet seagull]

oh my.

i just sneezed and "new york press" came out. how strange.

[ks]

Hager's pals with Dan Savage, I'm guessing?

[GMH]

I was once fired from a volunteer job. While I was on my coffee break. I begged to get my "job" back. Told to call back Monday. The editor said "We can't possibly take you back, under the circumstances." There were no circumstances. When I asked why I was being fired, the editor informed me her boss' friend had breast cancer and this was a tough time. I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but you know what was a tough time? A decade of working for asshats like these. Publishing brings em out, man. Like you wouldn't freakin' believe. Glad you got your revenge, Judy, even though it was through someone else.

[tallulahbankhead]

It's not just publishing... the film, television and music industry attracts these walking justifications for keeping abortion legal and safe.

I have poisoned so many people in my mind, I've lost count.

[Michelle Goodall]

Sounds eerily similar to what just happened to me. My boss is a chronic cocaine user. When i took her aside and told her that as a friend she needed to know what was being said about her by the public she blew up at me and 4 days later fired me because she said she couldnt trust me.
Now this deranged woman has made dozens of phone calls to people telling them I was fired because i was abusive and is contunuing toharrass several magazines i work for.
I'll never understand why people are so hateful and miserable. I feel sorry for them