Hot Rods The State of The Rodder's Journal - a note from Steve Coonan

As a relative newcomer, without an iron in this fire, let me point something out from a totally neutral perspective.
Regardless of what has, is, or will be happening at The Rodder's Journal, one thing is becoming extremely hard to ignore. The situation seems to be causing a rift within the HAMB community, and that is sad and disappointing to watch. None of you guys are responsible for the current TRJ situation, nor can any of you do anything about it. It will play out in it's own good time. Can we please get back to presenting a united HAMB front ???

How's this for starters. I am going to start a new thread called "Your favorite pic from The Rodder's Journal".
Not for comments about the situation. A diversion of sorts..............
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/your-favorite-pic-from-the-rodders-journal.1228495/

 

I don't see any rift here in The HAMB ... People have voiced their pro's and con's to what is happening TRJ wise.. Favorite Picture thread ? hmm don't think that would be a wise idea.. just saying... this will be my last post to this thread... .. take care ..

 

Twenty9, you’re right, it’s not my fight, I cannot affect the outcome. I’m out and in a wait and see mode. Last post for me

 

Ok, rift might not have been the right word, but still........
As for the pic thread, if the powers that be deem it unfit, it will disappear. No big deal...

I'm "twenty8".................twenty9 is the guy in line behind me......... Just playin'..........

 

Fuck, I'm still waiting on my Rod & Custom to show up. Street Rodder my ass

 

The thing is if you are an overseas subscriber this has been going on approaching a year.
if you aren’t on the hamb then there hasn’t been any contact of any sort from Rodders journal since January 3rd, basically 5 months. People are asking questions on Facebook weekly if not daily, some seem to still be purchasing and not finding out until it’s to late.
In my mind benefit of the doubt passed sometime ago, it is a shame the magazine has likely gone, yes.
Do I have any sympathy, none what so ever.

 

Don't feel like you've been picked on. I'm a domestic subscriber and the last issue I got was spring 2019 so I haven't seen anything for two years.

 

I don't think there is a rift here. I respect the guys that support TRJ and they are entitled to their opinion. ( Ryan is between a rock and a hard place here on the board being in his position.)
That being said I am entitled to my opinion also. I think Steve should have more respect for his subscribers etc. and keep them up to date at least weekly or so.
Think abort this, someone here said they paid through Paypal and got their money back, someone told me they filed a dispute with their credit card company and got their money back. Another guy posted here that a full page add in Street Rodder cost up to $7k. What is going to happen to TRJ when Paypal, credit card company's and the big boys taking out adds start filling legal documents against TRJ?
I don't know what will happen but considering the legalities of the situation I don't think they can ever recover so they should have quit taking subscribers money a long time ago.

 

I think the stinkiest part of the deal is the almost total lack of communication.

 

Well.........after finding this thread and reading from Steve Coonans original post I thought that he'd at some point get back & explain the current situation...........but nothing.......I have every issue of TRJ and even up to #84 from the Oz distributors so I am very lucky but this whole thing has left a bad taste and I just wish it would end positively..............a few years ago I got screwed when Street Rod Builder went belly up, I had taken out a 2yr subscription that cost over $150 Australian at the time & got 1 issue and couldn't get an refund, reply or anything so I have some understanding of what other posters are experiencing............some small reply would go a long way to help diffuse the situation.................just a shame............Andy Douglas

 

Every time I go to the super market, which is not often, I always see woman's magazines on sale in the rack by the check out. Good size, many pages, less ads, cheaper than a "hot rod magazine", so what gives?. How can they do it and our magazine publishers are going out of business. Oh yea, as a side note, I don't read women's magazines so don't any of you guys get the wrong idea.

 

Finding it? Or being led to it..........
All good man.

 

.........Hey, no judgement. It's a whole new world out there.

 

It cost $$ to get placed in that rack by the check-out,too.

 

Just the fact that Steve came on the HAMB and posted that he is having problems is good enough for me. I have confidence in him and believe that he is doing everything in his power to make things right. He has made it clear that he knows bad decisions were made and the circumstances of the last year have been difficult if not impossible for many businesses. I believe we should give him some time and space to make this happen and let him concentrate on getting back up and going. In my opinion expecting a weekly update from him would be counter productive and selfish on our part. He will get back to us when he has something relevant to say, until then let the man do his job!

 

And now radio silence for another six months? They might as well send me 2022 calendars at this point...

 

It has been exactly 4 weeks since he posted this, not 6 months!

 

And 3 weeks since the e-Mail was supposed to go to subscribers!

 

First and foremost, thank you all for your feedback (both positive and negative) and for your support. We’ve been overwhelmed by the goodwill shown by so many of you guys. Many commented or DM’d us that you’d be willing to give us a hand with shipping, answering emails, etc. We had hoped we’d be ready to ship by now, and although we’re not there yet, we will be getting back to you all when the time comes. Regardless, the fact that you’ve offered is sincerely appreciated.

Though we’ve made a little bit of progress this month, everything is taking longer than we’d hoped. As a result, we have not yet resumed shipping. Regarding the email communication that was never sent, we mentioned that we were having some difficulty with our mail server. We are still dealing with that, and we aren’t able to send a mass communication through our regular email because it gets flagged as spam. We’re trying to figure out a solution so that we can communicate directly, rather than through message boards only.

I wanted to address some of the overarching points being made. Several of you expressed your unhappiness with our inconsistent publishing schedule in the recent past, and those are completely valid complaints. It is true, as @alchemy noted, that a subscription is good for four issues regardless of how long it takes us to produce them. But customers are right to have a reasonable expectation that a quarterly magazine should produce four issues a year, and we are obviously far behind. Solving some of the problems we’ve been working on will hopefully allow us to resume a regular quarterly schedule, but again, we’re not there yet.

Regarding the concerns @Crazy Steve voiced about our timeline and explanation, the fact that he hasn’t received an issue since #82 in Yelm, Washington, when his friend @34Larry has stated he's received the subsequent issues just 42 miles away in Federal Way, Washington, really illustrates the crux of the mail delivery problems. We do know that the mail seems to be improving to some degree, but until we’re in a position to test it ourselves—to ship the international copies of #84, and to complete production of #85—we won’t know for sure. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. What we do know right now is that some people are STILL receiving holiday catalogs, which were mailed before Thanksgiving. @Crazy Steve when we resume shipping we will gladly send you a copy of your missing issue #84.

Not that this is the focus of this thread, but there was one specific post by @Special Ed that I felt needed to be addressed because it made allegations against Geoff Miles that were not accurate, and we wanted to set the record straight. Geoff did have some work done on his roadster at Ed’s shop somewhere around 14 years ago. He paid him a significant sum of money up front, and when Geoff's friends who worked at the shop left the business, he took his car out as well. He was never given any additional invoices, and to his knowledge the case was closed, so to speak. If @Special Ed feels it necessary to take a pot shot at me for arriving to shoot a 12-page feature on his car and not having film when I arrived, I can take it. But calling Geoff’s character into question in this way and on this thread was a low blow.

As a side note regarding the film situation, it’s worth noting that this was at the end of the era when we used real film, and we routinely had film drop shipped to the location because it was easier than trying to bring it on a plane and having to argue with security about running it through their X-ray. It was not always a seamless process, but never once did it result in us having to to reschedule a shoot or inconvenience a car owner. Had I known that situation would be dredged up a decade-and-a-half later when I was trying to deal with much larger issues and address customers with much more legitimate concerns, I probably would not have photographed that car.

But back to those larger issues…we know that “doing our best” isn’t enough right now. We understand that we’ve let many of you down, and that there are still those of you waiting for orders. But we are still trying to work through these problems and make things right so that we can move forward. We appreciate Ryan leaving this thread open, and we appreciate all of you who have expressed your interest, concern, frustration and support. As one last aside, we understand that in addition to Ryan having to field complaints and concerns about this matter in his own inbox, it was also brought to my attention that someone posted that he was my son. Despite the fact that I’m significantly older than Ryan, he is not. As he’s said elsewhere, we are just good friends, and we appreciate him providing this forum for all of us.

We will post again when we have more information to share. Thank you.
Steve

 

Thank you Steve for the update............my best wishes go with you and I sincerely hope you get things sorted out .......andyd

 

Solid update and best of luck Steve.

 

not really much of an update,same bs to me,sorry

 

Thank you for the update! It’s good to see and hear. Wishing you the best and hopefully this is put behind you quickly.

 

I'm willing to cut Steve some slack, but this shouldn't drag out too much longer. And he really shouldn't accept money for either merchandise or subscriptions until he resumes 'normal' business operations...

 

x 2

 

Son? Buwahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who has been here for more than a brief time knows Doc Cochran was a hell man and a Father to our fearless leader. RIP. Made my day at HAMB Drags #1 when he came up tome at the pig I was roasting and said "Not bad for a Yankee!" I knew I was on the right track.

 

The only thing I was EVER paid, was empty promises. Please show me a canceled check, receipt, or any tangible evidence to prove otherwise, and I will publicly apologize to you both. I got hosed ...

 

@TRJ and @Ryan , to clarify, the reference Steve made about a post saying Steve was Ryan's father was on Facebook, not the HAMB.