Looking Backward, Going Forward

I’m not a fan of the here’s-who-am-and-this-what-it’s-about posts, but I think in this instance, it’s probably necessary in this instance. If you found your way here, you probably know me from West and Clear or The Caravan of Dreams or one of my other blogs. And, if you know me from there, you probably wonder why I’m here.

Good question. So, let’s try to serve up a few answers.

Looking Backward
When I posted the final entry on West and Clear, a lot of people wondered why we would pull the plug on a well-regarded and well-read blog. Some wondered what the “real” reason was. Because of the brevity of the sign-off, I can understand the why people were curious. However, it doesn’t change the answer. West and Clear was a lot of work, and even though we sold advertising, our per-hour wage would have been ridiculously meager. On the left of the decimal was a zero, and on the right, you’d need a NASA computer to figure the number of zeroes before you reached a whole number.

Money wasn’t entirely the point. When my friends and I started West and Clear, the goal was to have fun doing something we loved and maybe make a little money. The money may have sucked, and the fun was for real. The first six months doing West and Clear is the most fun I’ve ever had doing anything.

In retrospect, I am still unable to define what West and Clear was. I hate the term “citizen journalist,” but occasionally we reported news. Other times we aggregated it, linking to what other people reported. Sometimes we commented on it. And other times we just flat out made fun of it. I don’t know what to call that, but I spent enough time in a newsroom to understand that the amount of responsibility involved. That, of course, takes time. And as people would call and email about this or that, the time to check things out before writing — you know, reporting — wasn’t actually there. If you are looking to pin that on anyone, that one’s mine. Many people thought that West and Clear was my real job because I spent so much time doing it. However, I did that at the same time I was working a full-time day job.

Although some people want to imagine some internal in-fighting, that just isn’t the case. The truth is that real life intruded — people changed jobs and locations. It makes for a better story if you can manufacture some drama, but Kevin Buchanan, Pete Geniella, Bernie Scheffler and Pete Wann are still very much my friends. If anything, I hate it that I can’t see them more often.

For me personally, the perfect storm was this: West and Clear was it’s best when five guys got together and got together and had fun. As the five of us were pulled in different directions, West and Clear began to feel a lot less fun and a lot more like work. As it became less enjoyable for me, the quality of my work suffered. And when my work began to suck, it seemed to me like a good time to stop.

That’s about as honest as I can lay it out. I think Fort Worth needs something like West and Clear, but I’m sorry to say I just can’t be that guy anymore. If you are hoping for a comeback, save your time. It ain’t happening.

Going Forward
So what is this all about? I don’t really know, but I do have a rather modest goal. I started blogging simply because I love writing about the world as I see it. All I want to do is right about things I find interesting and enjoy doing it. At this point, trying to do so anonymously seems pretty irrelevant. If anyone wants to find me, I guess I ought to make it easy.

There are lots of ideas and formulas for “successful” blogging and I’m pretty much throwing all of those out the window. I’m writing about what interests me, when it interests me. I might write about Fort Worth. Or music. Or newspapers. Or someone I know. I might write three things a day. I might not write anything for a month. It’s here if you want to read it. Leave a comment if you feel so moved.

About the subtitle, it’s a line from a Frank O’Hara poem that seemed like some cool shit to say. Enough people have told me that they enjoy reading my writing that I am truly humbled that anyone would really care. I hope those people and other will still enjoy reading. Although, invoking the words of a guy who can write a poem about drinking a Coke seems to be setting expectations I can’t manage. Maybe we just need to leave expectations out of it.

Thanks for reading.