So things are a'changin' over at Chicagoist...

Today is Marcus’ last full day at Chicagoist as Editor-in-Chief before he heads off to greener pastures in the faerie laced fields of the Onion’s AV Club. I still remember getting his application to be a Chicagoist music writer, being impressed with his work, and bringing him on board after a brief audition period. Little did I know that one day he’s outgrow the A&E section to take over the whole ship! He was the perfect choice at the time and has helped the site through an amazing growth period. He put in a lot of really hard work – YOU try working a schedule where you are basically ALWAYS WORKING, no matter what – and I’m glad he’s moving on to a job that will be a little less stressful but hopefully just as rewarding.

And who is the site being handed over to? Chuck! I admit I was a little worried back when Marcus told me he had started interviewing (since I knew he’d be hired because the folks at the AV Club aren’t fools). I couldn’t see a clear successor amongst the non-editorial staff and I knew there was no way I would leave my job to take the reins and I assumed Chuck felt the same way. So my fear was that we’d have to bring someone in from outside the family and who knew what would happen? Would they jettison staff? Would they just totally screw things up? There were a lot of unanswered questions.

Then Marcus asked me how I would feel if we DID offer the job to Chuck since it seemed he was interested in ditching his 9-to-5 gig for a full-time gig heading Chicagoist and I breathed a sigh of relief. It just felt right. In some ways the two of us have been the backbone of the site for a long time – constants through a number of structural and editorial changes over the years – so there would be no upheaval. The transition should go pretty seamlessly and we can all work on continuing to build on the progress made under Marcus’ oversight. I'm really glad Chuck is going to be the one that takes us there.

Of course with Marcus gone this means I’m going to have to up my quotient of posts mentioning unicorns to make up for his absence…