Why I Blog
The Hoosier Slant is my third blog since 2002.
My first blog had a 1920s Art Deco design consisting of Manhattan drinks and cigars and I made a run of it until around 2005 when I burned out and lost that emotional charge needed to post my takes (and was also finding it tougher to defend George W. Bush). However, I never lost my taste for bourbon. Whew!
The second blog lasted less than a year as I found out that while I was archiving the .xml file during routine WordPress updates, I failed to back up all the media on my host server — guilty of involuntary blogslaughter.
I am back with the one you are reading now; a blog that I hope lasts 150 years and be passed on to my nieces and nephews and their children for generations to come or at least as long as WordPress manages the backend machinery.
Over the years I’ve had readers complain that I focused too much on politics, too much of a cheerleader for the Republicans, too nasty to liberals, that I did not feed the conservative beast enough, criticized for supporting the papacy, or that I never wrote about my everyday life and local surroundings besides Starbucks and a bar.
Everyone had his or her perception, but here is the reality: I am an obsessed news junkie with a great love for history.
It just so happens that I started out in politics and government after college. Walking to work everyday to the Hart Senate Office Building and gazing at that majestic white dome on Capitol Hill, I knew my immune system would be no match for the political bug for the rest of my life.
Washington, D.C. for many is about power and money. For me I saw Big News and Big History at play. I was at the center of the universe. It was important and I felt important (although a few more shillings in my pocket while living on $14K a year would have been appreciated).
The biggest career mistake I made was not being savvy enough in my 20s to stay on the Hill longer, develop journalism skills, become a press secretary, and then jump to Big Media. Go work for the NBC News Washington Bureau or write for newspapers and magazines and one day land a cover piece for Vanity Fair.
Hey I think big. Ok? Just sharing the reality of my daydreams.
I wish I had a mentor back then to guide me through that system and culture so that I could have had a more passionate and significant career all these years.
Instead I resumed my status as a full time Hoosier. Fortunately there was a publishing house in Indianapolis where I eventually landed in the late 1990s. It was somewhat like the media. I had my name in books as an editor, so my fragile ego was strengthened. The books were about computers, which was kind of exciting during that period of Internet explosion and the settling of the Digital Wild West.
That era was probably fun for my colleagues who loved to follow, for example, the browser wars: “Netscape or Microsoft? Which one will prevail? Oh God I don’t know.” I never gave a damn. I had no dog in those debates. I love publishing with the outlining, editing, rewriting, and writing copy for book covers, but if only we had published books by David McCullough. Yes I know. Fantasy career.
Technical editing and writing has provided an income over the years and may very well into the future, but I kept thinking there had to be something else that could exploit my passion for news and politics.
Over the years I have become obsessed with “story” which I guess should not be surprising since I follow the news everywhere I go. By the way, the iPhone has taken that habit and turned it into a medical condition.
This quest for story though goes beyond news outlets and carries over to first class programs like Mad Men, The Sopranos, even Curb Your Enthusiasm. I enjoy listening to what is not said and what choices are made. Characters who are torn lost souls and reside in the gray zone interest me the most.
So my desires are somewhere between story and news (are they the same?) and that probably means I should have made the jump to journalism long ago and cover a political beat with all its strange characters and historical choices.
As I mentioned earlier, some friends have wished that I would be more personal in this blog rather than rehashing political stories that a half million other blogs on the left and right have rehashed from another million blogs.
I guess this post is a start.
I’m not sure how productive the personal side is to readers. Many of us want to follow the ordinary parts of the life of a celebrity but could give two hoots about their own or a neighbor’s (unless it’s dishy). If you are going to write about your day, then remember Alfred Hitchcock’s rule: What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.
A couple of friends want me to “brand” my blog and tie it to my incredible career and use it as a marketing tool, so that prospective clients might find it a convenient way to get to know me. Here is a technical writer who has done exactly that and I applaud his efforts, but I have no desire to do anything similar to it. Sounds like he would rather be doing something else too.
I will do a better job of finding topics and issues that are familiar to Hoosiers, keep an eye out for fresh news, research history and present those findings, write a biography of someone, and if my only choice is to comment on an Obama issue that 2.5 million others have opined on savagely by 8 o’clock in the morning, then I will at least try to find a different slant to it.
News. Story. History. Politics. Personal. Leave the dull bits at the door.
