Tracy Baim and Jeff McCourt in a WCT staff photo on the Belmont El platform, 1986. Photo by MJ Murphy. Right: Bob Bearden
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One of the co-founders of Windy City Times has died. Jeff McCourt, just 51 years old, passed away in relative obscurity in March, and it took weeks for people in Chicago who knew him to find out. His brother contacted The Reader's Mike Miner, a media columnist who had covered McCourt, to tell him the news.
In the 20th anniversary edition of Windy City Times, in 2005, I wrote extensively about the founding and early years of the paper. ( See www.windycitymediagroup.com . )
In the summer of 1985, Bob Bearden, sales manager of GayLife; Drew Badanish, art director of GayLife; and Bob's partner McCourt, who wrote entertainment stories as 'Mimi O'Shea', tried to buy GayLife from owner Chuck Renslow. They backed out of the deal and instead planned to start their own weekly gay newspaper, to be named Windy City Times. I met with the three of them for drinks down the block at a gay club. I was managing editor of GayLife, just 22 years old, and I was very torn about leaving the paper for a new beginning.
Somehow, Bob especially was able to convince me that Windy City Times would be the future. I trusted Bob the most because he sold the ads—I knew he was respected in the community. Drew was a good art director, but Jeff was really the big unknown. He would become publisher, I would remain managing editor, and, for a start-up newspaper, there were a bunch of unrealistic promises made.
We first worked out of the apartment he and Bob shared on Melrose. My girlfriend at the time, Angie Schmidt, helped around the office, and she was especially important when Bob got diagnosed with AIDS just a few weeks after the paper began ( fall of 1985 ) . Angie was a part-time healthcare worker, so she would often help with Bob, who was extremely depressed and mostly stayed in his room. Another sales person, Jill Burgen, also helped with Bob, trying to motivate him. We would be working late hours and hated to be in the way when Bob would shuffle out of his room for something.
Eventually, we moved the office to Sheffield and Belmont, behind Gay Horizons, so Bob could have his peace and quiet. We were in a two-level next to the El line, with slanted floors and loud trains rushing by. But the two floors helped because Jeff was on one, I was on the other. We were not getting along because of long hours, rare paychecks, and especially because Jeff started getting more involved in political issues. He had originally promised to stay away from the news section, because his interest was in entertainment. But that changed and during the 44th Ward aldermanic race, Jeff wanted to back the straight incumbent ( Bernie Hansen ) over the gay challenger ( Dr. Ron Sable, who later died of AIDS complications ) . We ran competing endorsement editorials, and he and I often fought about journalism standards. His background was finance, not journalism, so it was bound to end badly.
The most important turning point was really about Bob. For me, Bob had always been the intermediary with Jeff, the calming voice. I knew that if Bob died, I would have to find an alternative. He died in early 1987, and I started making plans. I found a few folks who would invest in a newspaper, and spoke with most of the staff, who said they would follow me. We first planned to make an offer to Jeff to buy Windy City Times, through an attorney. When he found out it was a group I was leading, he was outraged and confronted me in the office. Jill had to step between him and I before it escalated. I wanted to walk out then, but my colleagues said they wanted to give proper notice. So we did, we gave two week's notice, put out two more issues and left to start Outlines newspaper.
Jeff's erratic moods and temper were well known in the community. He did learn more about the newspaper business, perhaps motivated by almost every employee walking out in May 1987 to start an alternative paper. For 13 years, we battled it out, Jeff winning mainstream recognition for Windy City Times, and Outlines building a solid community base ( especially striving for gender balance ) . Jeff was a ruthless businessperson, and it was a brutal newspaper war, one I never knew if I could survive. But then in 1999, Jeff suffered another mutiny, this time in the middle of the night with no two-week notice. Those who left misgauged the battle, because the way they did it turned Jeff so far around he actually spoke to me again. He was almost nostalgic for the days he and I worked together, with friends freezing their fingers on the typesetting machines in his basement, all-night editing sessions, running the paste-up boards to the printer.
All three weekly papers battled it out for about a year ( Outlines, Windy City Times, Chicago Free Press ) , and Jeff and his former staff also fought in the courts. The legal battle and ad discount war was too much, and Jeff closed Windy City Times late summer of 2000. I called him that day and said I would buy the name—but I also said I was not going to be jerked around, because I did not trust any records or anything except numbers I could prove. Jeff started down the road of emotional support for the idea saying 'Tracy, it was always your paper,' but a few days later he tried to up the price. I said no, and I told him no games, let's move quickly or not at all—the paper had closed down already and the brand was losing value every day.
It took a few weeks, but we finally did have a deal, thanks to his attorneys, who were motivated to get it done fast, for Jeff's financial sake. He had huge bills to pay, and the longer the deal waited, the less likely it would have any value.
Jeff and I met at my bank on the South Side that day, attorneys talking inside. He and I sat outside on the cement wall of South Shore Bank, reminiscing about the old days. How hard it was—how it actually never got much easier. About people we had lost, about Bob, about their old three-story walk-up apartment on Melrose. It was surreal, acting like old friends, when we had fought tooth-and-nail for 13 years. But sometimes that phrase 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' really is true—Jeff had been so wounded that he actually turned back to me as an ally.
The buy-out of the Windy City Times name was important for Outlines, because it gave us a mainstream recognition to face the continual media wars in Chicago. Some in the community did not support us because they viewed it as helping Jeff get out of debt. But I tried to see the value to the community, and to our business, and in the end it was the right decision.
I never saw Jeff again, after that sunny fall day. He looked very ill, thin and coughing, but still chain smoking. He had the shakes a bit, as Jeff had always had problems beyond just cigarettes. He was just seven years older than me, but I always felt he was much older, and that his body wouldn't take much more. I would hear of sightings of Jeff downtown outside facilities he lived in, but no one knew for sure what happened to him. He showed up at a few events, but, again, most of his friends were not even aware he was still in town. As for the 'new' Windy City Times, there was not a role for Jeff. He had burned so many bridges. Most people wanted a fresh start, and Jeff himself seemed to be ready to move on. It was mostly a sad situation, one he had a large part in creating. He angered so many people over the years, even close friends, so that when he needed people most, there were few left.
Fortunately, he did have family, and they knew where he was and tried to help. They were the ones who informed Mike Miner of Jeff's death.
Maybe Jeff is finally at peace now. I am not a spiritual person in that sense, but I do know that he did not have peace in his human existence. He was always fighting against his inner demons, and unfortunately those demons often leaked out into his relationships with the community. Despite my problems with Jeff, I do know he, Bob and Drew are all part of that founding legacy of Windy City Times. I certainly could not have done what I do today without those tough early years. At the young age of 22, I was given the title of managing editor of a weekly gay newspaper—first by Chuck Renslow at GayLife, and next by Jeff, Bob and Drew at Windy City Times.
We walk through life alongside many people who help and hurt us; Jeff did both those things for me and to me. In the end, I thank him for the good work he did do, and I have to forgive him for the pain he caused me. Maybe some day the community will, too.
