Gord Gekko is dead, or perhaps more accurately, he no longer edits Enter Stage Right.

Back in late 1993, I had the idea to write an weekly conservative -- and incendiary -- column in the pages of a small university newspaper to counteract an establishment I saw as liberal, powerful and very entrenched. The university and the newspaper were dominated by the left and smothered any real debate between students.

The column ran in that newspaper for three and a half years. Over that time, my admittedly combative pieces managed to anger nearly every segment of the university's population -- and some outside of it -- with its version of the truth. I tried to stress liberty, individualism and capitalism -- still the guiding ideals behind Enter Stage Right.

In June 1996, I moved the column to the web and decided to publish a monthly magazine. The early efforts -- to be kind -- where reprints of my newspaper column with some original material. It was gradual, but Enter Stage Right improved and became what it is today. This magazine has morphed from a small seven page web site into nearly 60 pages. In 1996 I wrote all the pieces published, now a stable of writers generously contribute their thoughts.

Gekko -- obviously not my real name -- was picked because of a character from the movie Wall Street. Made into a villain by director Oliver Stone, I decided that I would use his insult as a badge of honour. With the move to the World Wide Web, I kept the pseudonym out of tradition.

But that changes as of today.

Gord Gekko has suited me well for the past six years but recently I decided it was time to give the name an honourable retirement. As Enter Stage Right matured from an amateurish attempt at a learned journal to something a little more polished, it occurred to me that using the pseudonym was a little cartoonish. While many people actually thought Gord Gekko was my real name -- it sounds so outlandish that it must be real -- I think it's also held this journal back a little because it's hard to take seriously someone that would hide behind a pen name.

And I admit that I actually enjoy having people know it's me that's writes some of this stuff. Why go through the effort and receive no reward?

So the cloak of Gekko comes off for the last name. 'GG' never existed but it almost became a living character sometimes so I am a little sad to see the cat go. Gekko was in equal parts sarcastic, motivated, passionate and lazy. So is Steve Martinovich. See you around.

Thanks for reading,

Steven Martinovich

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

We are winners

Thanks to reader Tim Edwardson -- who nominated us -- Enter Stage Right won the Critical Mass Award on February 2, 1999 for being a "very nice site, excellent design, tasteful original graphics, and ... [the] content is informative, entertaining."

Many thanks Tim and Bill Darling from CMA for the recognition. Quite kind of you both!

Hey, the professor's just a logo!

While checking the logs recently, I noticed a that a community college was listed as a referring site. Checking, it turns out that Enter Stage Right is part of the syllabus for Western Civilization II (History 122) at Wilkes Community College in North Carolina.

It's at least the second time that ESR has been listed in a college's syllabus. Who says college doesn't teach the youth properly!

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