I'm very surprised that nothing has been written about Magedson's early days on Long Island when he was a publisher of two different gay publications that I know of. The first was LIB, for Long Island Beat. It was smaller in size and competed against Parlee, which is still around. This is going back possibly as far as 30 years ago. The reputation I heard at that time was that he had threatened to burn an establishment if they didn't carry or advertise in his magazine. LIB didn't last. Then, an individual named Joe D'A (Joe was dishonest and a jerk but who knows, maybe he changed so I'm hiding his name) thought there was a need for a gay newspaper and launched the LI Connection. He soon found he had no experience in this and it showed, so he then felt it best to bring in someone with experience to help run it, so he found Magedson and made him a partner. The two clashed and accrued debt. I can't recall if the paper came out weekly or biweekly. Finally the debt became so huge that D'A offered to give Magedson the publication if he would take on all the debt with it. Magedson agreed. Issues seemed to get bigger and bigger, until one day, employees showed up at the offices on East Carver St. in Huntington, NY to find the locks changed. They had been screwed out of salaries, you name it, but that was nothing compared to what Magedson had pulled with bar owners. He had gone to them offering unbelievable deals if they would pay for several months up front, cash. Many did, and he fled with it. Magedson had vanished completely from Long Island, word being that he was upstate NY putting the revenue he absconded with up his nose. This stunt was real ballsy, as many of the bar and disco owners on Long Island had rumored ties to the mafia. Lenny Kraft, for instance, owner of Starz in Deer Park, owed the mob money and was so terrified he blew his brains out.
That was the last I heard of Magedson until I recently discovered ripoffreport.