With great pleasure, Friday morning I read that the federal government has charged Michael Lacey, the former executive editor and co-publisher of the Dallas Observer, with pimping. I am a writer, now retired. I’d like to see all of my publishers, except those at book houses, in jail. It would do them good to see what it feels like to be powerless.
In the coming weeks, I expect that the press will dissect Lacey and his latest business venture, the sex exchange Backpage, in a dozen ways. He’s a guy who earned his reputation mainstreaming the “underground” newspapers of the ’60s into what are today called “alternative weeklies.”
I took his measure within 10 minutes of meeting him. Peter Elkind, a former colleague at Texas Monthly, was at the time — 1992, I believe — editor of the Observer and he wanted to hire me. But Lacey had his doubts and wanted to interview me himself. The three of us sat down for dinner at a nondescript restaurant and Lacey’s first words after our introduction were: “Mr. Reavis, from what I’ve heard of you, I am glad to see that you don’t have a beard.”
News stories Friday morning about the Backpage bust led with the arrest of Carl Ferrer, one of Lacey’s partners there. A photo of Ferrer accompanied the story that the Morning News published. In that photo, Ferrer has a beard.
Over the last month, several ex-staffers at the Observer received unsolicited $5,000 checks from Lacey, I’m told. I was not among their lucky number. If I know Lacey, it’s because he found out that I still don’t have a beard, and he now thinks that I should have one.
He was an unpredictable, capricious boss.
