Socialist Scholars Archive May 29, 1992
(from R L Norman) Bogdan Denitch: On the whole the BMCC memo seems on track. I have a few questions. First I was dead serious about moving on this year. I have had it with imcompetent people. Kott's work this year has left me in a bad way. Your trusting him damn near cost us the existence of the conference. Frankly, I saved our ass. I did a half dozen crucial things, all of which had to be done at the time they were done. When Danielle [Coehn] failed to do any work last fall, I did the first mailing. On my own time, I assembled and mailed the posters. Just figuring out who and what organizations to send the damn things to took twenty-five or thirty hours. I spent two days at the photo shop going through pictures. I get a copy of the internal mailing list set up to where it could be used externally. This aggravated Kott no end. He used ‘to do’ the mailing, only it never got out. My version got out. The poster roughly doubled itself in terms of costs(which totaled a little over $3000). We took in at least 250 registrations from the poster. The internal mailing probably brought another 250. The margin of financial survival was between 200 and 300 registrations. Your style of organization encourages most people to do nothing and requires a few to bear the entire burden. When those people leave or drop, the operation collapses. If any one has a problem with my getting some money out of the operation, you can tell them to go and fuck themselves. You can remind them who busted his ass to keep it going for ten years, when the majority of our fellow travelers wouldn't lift a damn finger to help us, not even to publicize their panels. You can remind them that in 1991, I bet $ 1500 of my own cash on the second mailing, when the cash got short and that was not the only time. Beyond all of 1992 problems, I've been doing this for ten years. I've run up huge bills and I cannot do this work and pay them, much less take care of my dad. I intend to finish that thesis within the academic year or drop it. I have to restart my consulting immediately. I will design a few posters, print them and post them by November. I'll run ads in the New York Review of Books and maybe The Nation. By March or April, business should be coming in slowly. If I can keep either of my two jobs through summer 1993, I'll be okay. As to the conference, I expect that at least 8 grand will be there for 1993 and that much or more for 1994. The conference can pay off some of the money I've borrowed so that I could keep it going. And again if anyone has a problem with that, I'll be god damned glad to tell them where to get off. [As it so happened, I remained with the conference until 1994. In October 1995, my Father developed Lung Cancer and I was forced to be away from NYC for extended periods of time. My years of supporting the conference inadequate cash flow left me short of cash and I could not do enough consulting as I flew back and forth to Georgia. In winter of 1995, I was forced into bankruptcy and had not enough money to travel as needed to look after my Father. He succumbed to cancer on September 21 1996. He died in my arms about one hour after I arrived in South Georgia, for the last time. I had worked with Denitch about one year too long. I will regret this as long as I live.]
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