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Welcome to the Dungeon

 

Or How I joined the OP, lost my virginity, became
really popular and found myself in 10 column inches.

by Trent Ernst

Trent is the currently reigning OP Editorial Resource Person, which he
defines as “a cross between managing editor and indentured slave.” He's been
around the OP since 1993, when he stumbled through the office doors while
looking for His Canadian Lit Prof. He remains bound and chained in the
darkroom, where he can do no more harm to society.

know me when I first joined the

OP. I was not the confident, self-
assured, handsome chick-magnet that I
am now. No, I was a shy, quiet,
awkward lad. I fit in with society
about as well as Long Dong Siiver fits
into a codpiece, i.e. not very.
Fortunately, at the Other Press I found
a band of awkward misfits with whom
I could commune and break bread
with.

Well, not really. That came later. My

I: you know me now, you did not

A Sordid History of the Other Press

by Tim Crumley

first year at the OP was much as my
life anywhere and everywhere else. I
blended into the woodwork, with one
important exception; I could write.

Ah, yes. Seeing my name in print
kept me coming back. The joy of
seeing my creation on the page drew
me like a moth to a candle. I used to
sneak around the library when the new
issue came out to watch students read
my article. That more than anything
kept me at the OP.

As time passed by I realized that the

The Other Press is proud to be cause of Tim’s first (and hopefully last)
nervous breakdown. After six years here (more than a quarter of the OPes entire
history) Tim moved onto the less stressful climes of amatuer lion taming and
bear baiting. To support these habits he works at WYSIWYG.

ost of you don’t know me. I
haven’t been gone from
Douglas for long, having

hung up my keyboard just two years
ago. But for most students, two years
is all they want to spend at Douglas. I
spent six. No, I’m not stupid. Maybe
lacking wisdom, but I’m not stupid. I
had the dubious honour of being a staff
person at the Other Press. For a good
part of that time I was the only staff
“person at the OP. I stopped taking
classes (full-time) in about 1991, and
spent my remaining years just working
at the OP. But that’s getting ahead of
myself.

The story I want to tell you starts in
the fall of 1988. I had been going to
Kwantlen College. Back then it was
still a glorified trailer park. About the
only good thing you could say about it
was it was close enough to Surrey
Place mall that you could still skip
classes. I volunteered for the student
paper there, and they sent me to a
conference of student papers from
across Western Canada, held,
coincidentally, at Douglas College.

That weekend changed my life. I
met my to-be first roommate (a
wonderfully hairy guy who drew neat
commix about slugs) and got really,
really drunk. Okay, so.maybe it didn’t
change my life that much, but it did
Pique my interest in Douglas, and I
decided to go as soon as I could afford
it.

I was working to save for school in
the fall of 1988, so I decided to hang
around and volunteer at the OP. Those
first few years I spent at the Other
Press changed who I am forever. It
wasn’t just the work. Of course,
spending 72 hours at a time in an
office with no direct sunlight or real
air will change you indelibly, but you
can never get those brain cells back.

I met my first love at the Other
Press. I made my closest friends at the
Other Press, people I still hang out
with today. My son was an “Other
Child.” He was at Douglas College, in
the OP 3 days after his birth. (Rumour
has it that his son was also conceived
in the OP. -LPM, esq.) | had my first
work-related screaming match at the
Other Press, and there’s more. There
was a feeling of belonging there,
stronger than I had ever felt before. I
cut my teeth on politics at the Other
Press. Developed a sense of morals

there. Fought injustice there. Rolled on
the floor laughing there. And yes, like
most of the other individuals who have
been in the OP, had sex in the
darkroom there. And it was fun.

We were rebels. Some of it may
sound tame in comparison to the hijinx
of other years (the adventures of Mr.
Glavin come to mind), or other
lifestyles, but it was a different time.
I’m also not stupid enough to admit to
everything I did. Anyway, student
press has a long tradition of rebellion.
Some of my favorite times at the paper
came from living up to that tradition,

Like the time we stole what we
needed for the paper from the college
(sorry, Mr. Leonard). I remember we
acquired a rolling chalkboard from the

November 29, 1976. The Other Press Volume ff, Number 10)

the Other pres

 

Other Press was floundering. Oh, there
was one or two people trying vainly to
keep everything on an even keel, but
in a collective situation, one or two
people is not enough. Against my will
I found myself becoming the third vain
person, struggling with deadlines,
obstinate writers and classes that
happened at the most awkward times.
But slowly, things started to come
together. More and more people
Started pitching their umbrellas under

. the OP tent, and the Other Press

entered a period of renewal and
revival.

As I began to get involved, I began
to change. I found that prolonged
exposure to writing meant that I could

OPS membership fee was $4.50 at the
time, and the DCSS cost $22.50. We
were promised by the DCSS executive
that because we were no longer DCSS
members, our society fees would be
returned. Then we posted signs around
campus advising students that if they
didn’t want to pay their DCSS fees, all
they had to do was join the OP. The
signs were taken down pretty quick,
and the policy was discreetly dropped
(although not officially removed from
the DCSS books until last year).

Or the time we were banned from
the DCSS for printing a story
about...well, probably about some
stupid thing that the DCSS was doing.
They didn’t like it, so they banned us.
We had to do a story about it. It was
news. One of our reporters, Matthew
Martin, went to do the story. But there
was no film in his camera. The strange
thing about this bunch of executives

Mil: mui mile) med e-Mail
Press. | made my closest friends at

the Other Press, people | still hang
out with today.

 

college, and it was two years before
anyone noticed. They took it away, but
by the next day we had appropriated
another.

Like the time we did the ‘Inaugural
Jack Daniels Production Night.’ OK,
so it wasn’t that formal. Anyway, we
were reading the masthead, which is
essentially a list of credits saying who
did what in the paper. We were trying
to proof it for typos and such, when
we realized that there was a credit
given to the readers of the paper. It
simply said “Readers... You.

We flipped. We went berserk. If the
readers of the paper didn’t know they
were the readers of the paper, they
must be idiots. No, they must be
fuckheads. So there it was, the next
day, through the haze of the hangover.
“Readers... You, fuckhead.” We got
more mail about that than any article
we printed that year. Hmm.

Or like the time the student society
banned OPers from membership in the
DCSS. Any student who became a
member of the Other Publications
Society automatically lost their
membership on the DCSS. We
panicked for about a day, until
someone got a bright idea: money. The

was they hated their pictures being
taken. They expected all the power and
privileges the office accorded (often
with 2% or less of the student vote),
but they didn’t want their pictures
taken. They didn’t want their meetings
reported on. They didn’t want scrutiny
of any kind. So I told Matthew to go
up with the camera anyway, just to
scare ‘em. He took lots of ‘pictures.’
Never let your leaders off easy, I
always say. Petty? Yes. But it was fun.

Or the time we published our first
queer issue and a piece that almost
landed us in jail. It was called “The
Gay Man’s Guide to Erotic Safe Sex.”
Ooooh. It was a guide to safe sex that
wasn’t boring, because it had erotic
storylines to illustrate the point that
safe sex is still fun sex. In short, it was
a way to save lives. But you know
some people just didn’t see it that way.
We found ourselves under
investigation by the RCMP for
distribution of pornography to minors,
because the Maple Ridge campus is
part high school. Eventually the
charges were dropped, but it was a
tense period around the office.

People will tell you that journalism
is objective. Bullshit. My experience

whip off a B+ paper in a few hours.
Which is a good thing, because more
and more of my time was spent at the
OP. More importantly, I began to
change socially. Late in 1994 I became
Arts and Entertainment Coordinator,
and found myself in a position where I
had to talk to industry reps and OP
writers. And I discovered a new and
surprising fact: people liked me. Or at
the very least, didn’t despise me to the
extent that I had always believed.

This was an important revelation to
me, and it did wonders for my self
identity. And because my voice was
equally important as anyone else’s in
the collective, I began to feel equal to
my fellow OPers. I began to see a path

with the media (volunteer and
professional) has shown me that that is
never the case. Journalism isn’t
objective. Can’t be objective. Never
will be objective. The best you can do
is wear your biases on your sleeve and
forge ahead. The interesting part is, the
writing is better that way.

I was most proud of the times we
weren’t objective. When we took as
stand, like we did with the Gay Man’s
Guide. Or when we stood behind the
Faculty Association in the strike of
1989. Or when we rallied behind the
Frances street squatters. Or against the
Gulf War. Or with the natives in Oka.
These are the proper functions of a
press, especially a community paper
like the OP. We took stands. We raised
issues. We tried to get people thinking
about the issues that affected them.
Not just nationally, but locally as well.
With issues of campus safety. By
keeping tabs on the DCSS, and by
trying (this was a big bee in my
bonnet) to get more than 2% of the
student population to vote in student
elections. In my six years at DC, voter
turnout never broke 10%. We tried to
point that out as much as possible. I’m
still proud of that.

Did we make mistakes? Sure. Every
paper does. I regret not covering
campus news with efficiency, ever.
The staff was always too small, and it
was a big job. So coverage was spotty
at the best of times. We were also too
cliquey; too cocky. It was a defense
mechanism to cover our shyness and
the insecurities that come from toiling
over a labour of love you are never
sure anyone else cares about. I would
like to have been more accessible. I
regret staying at the OP for too long.
There comes a time when burnout and
cynicism set in, and you become
ineffective. I hit that point in 1992, but
stuck around ‘till ‘94, But do I regret
the experience? Not at all. I will
treasure the Other Press my whole life,
despite my numerous protestations.

I realized as I started to type these
words that this is the first time I’ve
written anything of substance since I
left the OP. That scares me. I dreamt of
being a writer for a long time, even
before I got involved with student
press, and it’s almost as if I need to
sum things up before I can go on.
Maybe this final piece for the OP will
let me shut the door on my memories 5
and open the door to new realities. =

Now I have one more thing to thank
the Other Press for. Thanks, OP.
Thanks, Douglas.

open before me in my future, where
before there had been only a blank
wall.

It has pleased me to know that this
waxing of the student newspaper has
roughly paralleled my career at the
paper. On days that I am feeling
particularly arrogant, | start to think
that this has something to do with me.
But I know that this is just one of
those “inconsistent cyclical exoduses”
that Ian Hunter mentioned. Still, it is a
good feeling to look around at the
current OP and remember where it was
just a few short years ago. These are
good people here, and I am glad to
count them among my friends. Just
remember. You could be here too....

 

 

 

 

 

 

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