The Blog Post Too Hot for SF Weekly?

Stroud's last post, or what he sent to us as his final post, is as follows:

Impulsively, I'm not only discontinuing my training and ridiculous observational writing about 3rd Street Gym's Boxing Bootcamp, but also leaving SFWeekly. If you don't care, this is a good time to duck out, but, for the couple thousand people who followed the growth of SFWeekly's blogs from nothing to something over the past six weeks, here's an explanation:

I was made painfully aware this weekend -- after being asked to consider writing freelance "promo material, like what [I] write for 3rd Street Gym" -- that both myself and Rob Quintiliani (from the Guardian) are making fools of ourselves. Especially me, though. He's an advertising manager; I am not.

The concept of our participation in the bootcamp -- that the Bay Guardian and SFWeekly would go through rigorous training together and then literally fight each other in a boxing match -- is ill-conceived. Simon Redmond and I thought it up. And while it works for 3rd Street Gym as a promotional device, it serves only to disserve SFWeekly and the Bay Guardian by not-too-subtly poking fun at the lawsuit they're currently scuffling through.

Regarding that: As an out-of-towner, when I first started this job, I thought the rift/rivalry between the Bay Guardian and SFWeekly was something I could poke and prod to humorous effect. But as my job and my editors' jobs began to require more and more devotion to writing and displaying anti-Guardian material on sfweekly.com, I realized that the battle between the two publications is very real, and that I had been placed on the front lines. That made me seriously uncomfortable. If the Bay Guardian and SFWeekly want to make war, they can do so in court. I, however, want nothing to do with it -- sarcastically or not, with or without boxing gloves. So that's that.

Regarding my resignation from SFWeekly: After doing quite a bit of work in editorial circles (mostly independent), I've realized that my mentality and impulses are more attuned to smaller editorial staffs, where I can openly communicate in person with bosses and editors. And while San Francisco's SFWeekly staff is filled with very talented, very personable writers and editors, my bosses technically aren't in San Francisco -- they're in Phoenix. The Phoenix editors seem like fine people, too, but, to be honest, if I have one more two-hour Friday morning conference call with all the Village Voice Web Editors, or have to deal with one more cryptic editorial comment ("Your slideshow template is off…") from my seldom-seen corporate superiors (who are, by the way, overburdened with 17 different websites all over the country), I might have a nervous breakdown. So fuck it -- I'm quitting. If Bill Jensen and Pam Mitchell, the Village Voice Media New Media managers, will allow me to, I'll happily stay until Friday.

From there, I'll close with two pleas: 1) if any independent journalists or editors are looking for a young, shrewd editor/writer, I can forever be reached at matt.stroud@yahoo.com. And 2: If you think you can do my job (edit and write for the SFWeekly blogs), send an e-mail to Pam.Mitchell@VillageVoiceMedia.com. If she doesn't think you're retarded, she'll respond hastily.

Many thanks to everyone at SFWeekly.

Selah,
Stroud