This year, City Paper turns 25. To mark the occasion, instead of my usual blast of buckshot, I thought I'd launch some fireworks. And why not? It's such a shock that we've made the quarter-century mark. In 1981, Philadelphia had no alternative newsweekly. Many had tried, failed and been forgotten—like The Drummer, PhillyWeek, the Old City Digest and the South Street Star. (At the time, Philadelphia Weekly was a community paper called the Welcomat.)

In November 1981, when the staff of this paper—that would be editor Chris Hill and me—pasted up our first 28-page issue, only a fool would have bet that this labor of love would be anything more than another addition to history's dustbin. And while I'd like to believe, in William Blake's words, that fools become wise if they persist in their madness, it's more likely that our secret to success was that we were too crazy to care about succeeding. All we wanted to do was raise some hell and tell the truth.

I never expected CP to turn out to be the fat tome that today boasts the city's highest weekly readership. And if the praise of industry colleagues means anything—and, yeah, it does—it's a rare occasion that the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association does not choose us as the year's best weekly.

But what's most remarkable, even after I sold the paper a decade ago, is what we haven't become: just another link in some corporate media chain. Independent papers are disappearing from the media landscape. CP is an anomaly: a big circulation newspaper owned by a local family.

CP's owners—the Rock family, of ballet-school fame—treat this newspaper like the public trust it's become. Not once in the decade that I've stayed on as house curmudgeon have they meddled in our reporting. And I've never known Paul Curci—CP's publisher, my colleague and friend of 23 years—to ask a reporter to pull a punch. In fact, Paul usually pushes us to be ballsier.

OK. So enough of the fireworks. After all, I am this newspaper's designated naysayer. And since Christmas, the pictures of CP playing in my cranial theater involve a dumpster. Yeah, one of those big steel maws, which I recently got as a gift from my wife. For me, a dumpster feels like such an apt metaphor for a scrappy newspaper on the cusp of becoming an institution.

My dumpster was huge. You could drop in an SUV, and still have room for a Miata. Over its steel sides, I tossed great black bags of trash, followed by battered loudspeakers and a beat-up bike. For one week, I experienced pure joy. Friends and I shoved lawn mowers over the top, chased by an old deep-freezer and a broken rowboat. Up its 6-foot walls they went, teetering for a sec and then crashing with a bang. Storm windows. Rotted boards. All kinds of useless baggage. (Yeah, I know that the detritus doesn't drop into another dimension—but on this occasion, gimme my metaphor, OK?)

So what does the joy of jettisoning have to do with CP's legacy of 25 years?

For one thing, a container filled with 20 tons of trash makes a horribly accurate metaphor for the product you're holding. CP's weekly run of some 100,000 copies would just about fill a small boxcar. And, though you may be enjoying it now, in a week this will be nothing more than a liability to the planet. As such, newspapers ought to be used like a precious commodity, and it's my deepest hope that somewhere between felling trees and filling landfills we've been worth the cost. Under the best of circumstances, every page would be worth reading. My worst nightmare is that, like a Sunday Inquirer, much of what you're holding goes from printing press to garbage heap without having passed through your mind.

But there's another reason why, on the occasion of CP's 25th, visions of brimming dumpsters dance in my head. I keep thinking that one of the best ways for CP to move forward is toss some of the baggage we've accumulated in so many years. At a recent editorial staff meeting, I cheered at the departure of syndicated sex columnist Isadora Alman, whom I brought to the paper. In her place, we've got a local journalist who'll report on human sexuality as part of an evolving culture that CP seeks to chronicle.

It's wonderful to watch Duane Swierczynski, our editor of just over a year, lead the charge to heave our baggage. And in this anniversary year, I hope for lots of changes. But there is one thing we will continue to be: independent. And as an independent paper—with no corporate ties to bind us—we are free to trash whomever and whatever needs disposing of.

And so for our 25th year, here's my birthday wish for CP: Be fearless. Find, expose and trash the cultural and political garbage that's dividing this city into haves and have-nots. City Paper is blessed by its independence. Now, more than ever, we're gonna raise some hell, and tell the truth.