George,

It's happening. The Hook, Charlottesville's newest and dumbest alternative paper is about to become its deadest.

Hook owners Blair Kelly and Ted Weschler have decreed that third owner Hawes Spencer has until the end of the year (as in New Years Eve to the powerdrunk editor/publisher) to pony up $150,000-- or the presses stop rolling.

Spencer made a fool of himself by spending money like a WorldCom executive during what should have been a period of austerity. It wasn't enough that he had to pay departing C-Ville Weekly staffers a minimum of $40K each to leave with him. Upon arrival at his new office, he quickly went down a road of financial ruin. Office redecoration was the first anauthorized expenditure that got the other owners upset. Spencer inisted on Walnut desks, etc. for the editorial department - while the advertising room which Kelly decorated wisely went with low-cost particle board and glass.

The biggest expense - and the one that realty sealed his fate - was his website. Lost at readthehook.com (an URL nobody remembers to check), the site is pretty good to read, but it burned up over $90,000 as Spencer hired different web developers to do different things. In many cases, coding that he purchased (and he did pay :), and that's a good thing) was simply thrown away. Now that the site is up, it's costing the company about $1,400 per week to maintain. So far, the site has yet to take in more than $50 a week.

Upon startup, Spencer announced that he'd raised $500K. By all accounts, this is true - but equally true is the fact that projections indicate that the company will be out of money by December.

Although staffers are excited that they finally sold a few ads in the Annual Manual, they had to discount them so deeply that even that issue wont quite break even. So the start-up money pool is almost gone. Most on staff know how dire things are, but with their over-sized salaries, they can't afford to jump from the sinking ship.

So where is Hawes Spencer going to round up $150,000?

He has already mortgaged his Jefferson Theater (The Movie Palace) up to the hilt, and the relatives who have assisted him thus far, are feeling so badly burned by his over-sized spending on furniture and website that they've turned off the spigot. The only chance for the paper to survive is a clause in the company charter that turns the ownership over to Kelly and Weschler if Spencer can't come up with the cash. Those two were always (rightly!) weary [sic] of Spencer's little vengeance project. Stay tuned to the Iron Times. You sure won't read this in the Hook.

Jackson Landers (August 14, 2002)