Forging a New Identity : Editors of Juxt hope to dispel the stereotype they say has been created by the term ‘Generation X.’
SHERMAN OAKS — With a MacIntosh home computer and a little help from her friends, 25-year-old Hillarie Waadt is on a mission to change the label leveled at her generation.
X doesn’t mark the spot for this Sherman Oaks native.
With the recent release of the magazine’s second issue, Juxt--kind of an anti-Generation X publication aimed at those born between 1961 and 1981--Waadt is fighting what she feels is an apathetic stereotype thrust on her age group by the media.
“We are all so different and that is what we have in common as a generation,” said Waadt, who refuses to even use the term “Generation X.”
“If people are going to separate us by generation, they should come up with new criteria.”
Stephen Peters, 29, the magazine’s co-publisher and co-editor, agreed.
“People of our age group hate the label so much that if they hear it they tune out,” Peters said. “It sounds like an experiment gone awry, and that just isn’t us.”
Their solution was to start Juxt--short for juxtaposition--which offers its target audience everything from political interviews to poetry to open letters to President Clinton, in about 50 pages.
They describe it as a “compilation of friends’ work.”
“The value of the project is the subject matter,” said Peters, who grew up in Studio City and graduated from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks. “There is no real representative voice for the post-baby boomers and there is a lot of slanted media regarding this generation.”
In the May issue, articles range from an obituary of an artist who died in the Northridge Meadows apartment collapse to a story on the trend of computerized pornography.
And unlike the yuppie crowd, nobody is going to get rich from this venture.
Waadt’s stepfather and father have funded the last two issues, and contributors to the magazine get paid in cookies. “It’s kind of piecemeal,” Waadt admitted.
Waadt, who grew up in the Valley and attended Grant High School, took the high school proficiency exam and left for Los Angeles Valley College at 15. Recently she decided to leave her studies for a year to concentrate on Juxt.
With the help of friends, 5,000 copies of the May issue will eventually be distributed, twice the amount of the first issue that came out in December, 1993.
In addition to the Valley, copies are distributed on Melrose Avenue and Beverly Drive, as well as on college campuses and to a few nightclubs in Los Angeles.
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“It is a do-it-yourself distribution center,” Peters said.
On the day the May issue came out, Waadt sped around the Valley in her Bronco truck, stopping off at hangouts favored by hipsters such as the Boom Boom Room, a funky coffeehouse and deli in Valley Village. With 1930s music playing in the background and a few customers seated at small tables, Waadt rushed in and placed her magazines next to L.A. Weekly and Bam.
After she left, Phil Downey, 26, a Boom Boom Room regular, picked up a copy while downing a quick cup of coffee.
“It is really a cool mag,” Downey said. “It’s not like LA Weekly where everyone is so politically correct. They don’t follow those guidelines, and do a lot of risk-taking.”
And it is the little things that Downey likes most about Juxt. In the current issue, it is an offbeat poem about cereal. “The thing that made me laugh was the ‘Eau d’Cereal.’ It starts off being really deep and ended up being about cereal,” Downey said. “Simple, yet risky. I like that.”
Later, during an afternoon break at Insomnia Cafe, a stone’s throw from where she grew up, Waadt sits back on an old red velvet couch and indulges in what she calls “artistic decadence”: lots of coffee and all-natural cigarettes.
With her long blond hair, green eyes and an athletic build, she still has that Valley Girl look, a label she accepts more comfortably than the Generation X tag.
“This is my turf, so I feel more comfortable here,” she said, tossing back her hair. “Because I’m from the Valley, the magazine is not quite as urban. It’s more relaxed . . . Less dismal than if I had grown up in Hollywood.”
Her less-than-serious approach is evident, especially when it comes to defining her generation.
“People should break up generations by which video games they played when they were young,” she joked. “I grew up with Pong, and then there was Atari and Nintendo.”
As with any budding project, Waadt and Peters ran into problems early on. The Jan. 17 earthquake delayed the second issue by a month, and in August, 1993, the pair ended a professional relationship with a third partner over the direction of the magazine.
Juxt survives on advertising from local merchants as well as Kinkos and Chevrolet.
Both issues have been mailed to Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and congressmen “of our generation,” Peters said, such as U.S. Representatives Cleo Fields, 31 (D-Louisiana) and Richard Pombo, 33 (R-California).
But there has been no response.
“(Leaders) don’t ask questions of people of our generation who have something to say; they go to people who are Beavis and Butt-head fans,” he said.
The battle to win a good name for their generation is not an easy one, but seeing their message get across is sometimes good enough for Waadt.
“The cool thing is to hand it to someone and have them start reading it cover to cover because they like it,” she said.
WHERE TO GO
What: Juxt.
Location: 13601 Ventura Blvd., Suite 140, Sherman Oaks.
Price: Single copies are free; annual subscription is $28.
Call: (818) 787-8687.
