Disappearing Act

     Twenty years ago, probably closer to twenty-five, I got a notion into my head that the thoughts I carried around all day would be of use to others, so I started a blog. I don't even remember what the hosting platform was, but it was pretty minimal. Each week I would pen a new column and then send out emails to everyone I knew hoping to spark a conflagration of readership.
    Not even a puff of smoke. 
    My topics were wide -ranging, my research was thorough, my objectives were bold. My readership -- if the e-mails didn't go right to the spam folders -- was busy doing something else (don't know what; Facebook and YouTube were both a ways off). My brother read every column, which was nice. I got my wife to read them mainly because I looked sad when she admitted she didn't. 
    I don't know how many I wrote. Not more than a dozen. I remember my first column -- about a month after the September 11, 2001 terror attack, I drove out to Amherst where they were holding a depression screening. It wasn't quite the Watergate moment I was looking for, but it got me into a feel for what I wanted to do. Later, I travelled out south of East Aurora to interview the clerk of a fireplace store about the reemergence of coal as heating fuel. Yep. Pretty hip explorations of alternative warmth-making.
    One of my final columns -- maybe my final column -- was a spoof column, possibly written for April Fool's Day, wherein my wife and I created a fictional beeswax candle company featuring ridiculous scents, dubbing it "Sting King Candle Company." Given what would actually be found on the web over the next two decades, not the least being Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina candles (there's a phrase I wouldn't have bet on ever typing with a straight face in those days), we should have gone all in on the idea.
    By that time, I had discovered something new (woodcut printmaking, and you can read all about that at nappingcat.blogspot.com) and realizing absolutely no one cared if I was interviewing kings or hawking imaginary candles, I just let the column go.
It had been known as "In Other Words." It had been my little vanity project. It scratched an itch. I moved on.
But in moving on, I found myself returning again and again to the keyboard. I wrote many satirical columns for the Buffalo Beast, an outrageous tabloid that strafed politics and culture without shame, while at the same time serving as the newsletter editor for my church (I got range, baby!), logging potlucks and fundraisers and doing little color pieces throughout. I also did a very long piece on capital punishment in which I interviewed actor Mike Farrell and a number of attorneys general across the country. I wrote and recorded a commentary for the local NPR station (in a spot they discontinued not too long after mine aired, a theme I've detected). My favorite moment, though, was writing a column for the Buffalo News. They invited me to the News offices to get a headshot taken for the column. I'd long dreamed of working in that building, and being among real working journalists inside that cavernous mid century modern building was terribly emotional.
    That building sits empty today, the News having been sold to a conglomerate and the offices moved, ironically, to the building next to where I work now.
    I was paid $50 for that column, the most I have ever made from writing, and for some reason, I thought I was on my way.
    But even freelancing, I couldn't catch fire. I made $15 writing an e-How article on tiling a bathroom. I apologize if anyone actually used that information. My dad was a professional tile installer, so it's not like I knew nothing. It's just...don't take construction advice from me. Or e-How. They'll let anybody write their crap.
    So, why am I back at it? Am I really back at it? And what do I think I'm going to find now, when things were a whole lot better twenty years ago?
    Well, the why is an interesting one. I made the mistake of watching "Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists." Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill, two New York newspaper writers, profiled in a beautiful documentary that left me aching for a time that was already an old-timey photograph on a wall when I was in journalism school. And I wanted to run out and buy a newspaper so badly. Instead, I sent a Facebook message to the editor of the local paper, poking him for his pathetic labors. Kind of like yelling at someone after you stub your own toe. I'd feel bad for him, but the paper is trash.
    Am I really at it? Well, you won't read this unless you accidentally find it. You may find it while reading future articles and you scroll back. And hey, you -- thank you for stopping to read it -- let me know you did (ncpwoodcuts@gmail.com).
    What lies ahead? I don't know. A few witty observations at least. Maybe my own fire will catch, and I'll find myself interviewing some poor kid at Wegmans about why they can't keep labels in the scales over in produce. And it will probably be transactional -- I'll get my story, and I'll let him make a Tik Tok of a cranky old man trying to get a price tag for his avocados. Us journalists, we gotta change with the times!