The Rise and Fall of the Parochialist (part two of three)

Looking back…I never had a shot at this. I know this now. But at the time, it was a huge labor that I spent quite a bit of time trying to make happen. I’m not above putting my energy behind a stupid or hopeless cause. After all, what is the point of living if you aren’t willing to do something pointless at a 100 miles an hour once in a while? I made flyers, I blogged about it, I posted to my Myspace page (because that was still a thing at the time), I told all my friends from the Pub where I worked, I shoved ballots in front of people to get them to vote for me…it was a push like I’d never pushed before. I tried so hard, in fact, that when I didn’t win so much as an honorable mention, I just said “to hell with it.” And while I can’t say it was the whole reason for project, it was at least a catalyst.

The First post included this explanation for what I was attempting to do:

"There are things in the CP that I do like to read, such as Savage Love, Political Animal, This Modern World, etc. Not to mention that CP is a free source for what’s going on in Baltimore on any given week. How can I still get this information without having to resort to picking up the paper that irritates me so much?

Well, here’s where my plucky resourcefulness comes in. I am making my own bastardized version of the City Paper, for my own personal use, (minus their snotty, annoying commentary) and you can too! Print it out for yourself, add your own columns!"

Since City Paper came out on Wednesdays, The Parochialist came out on Thursdays. The rage that led me to that first post kept up for several weeks, and by the end of the month I stumbled across a hook that kept the fans into it for several weeks. It was my top 5 reasons why I was boycotting the City Paper. For the record, here they were:

5. The Handling of a local club’s closing. I didn’t like the way they smeared someone in the way they did. 4. They reviewed a Weird Al show in a very snarky manner. Which REALLY upset me. 3. Their “Short Fiction Contest” after-comments…which were typically snotty. 2. Their Borat Movie review. Admittedly, I never saw that film. But this review was typical of their style at the time. Unhelpful to simply call a movie bad and offer no explanation. 1. They ignore me. Yeah…this one was the driving factor.

In retrospect…I think at least 4 of those reasons were valid. I’ll let you guess which 4. That might have been the highpoint of the blog’s run. Towards the end of that year, I had called off my boycott. It didn’t make sense for me to dedicate time to making fun of a paper that I wasn’t even reading. I played a CD release party, to relative success. My girlfriend and I flew to Vegas over Christmas to get married in secret…

The Rise and Fall of the Parochialist, Part one.

In an old version of my zine, I was going to put this out as a feature, but I've decided to let it rest here, on the blog. My new zine, Davezine Number Fourteen: the Bad Roommates Issue is available here. http://davecookson.tripod.com/DavezineNumber14.html

On October 11, 2007, partly based on a whim but partly based on some real grievances I had built up against the local Baltimore City Paper, I launched a little blog known as The Parochialist…a cheeky little poke at CP that billed itself as an alternative to the alternative, including links to many of the same syndicated columns as well as my own “bully pulpit” take on the many issues of the City Paper. The Parochialist got its name from the ideals on which it was founded…dedicated to the idea that possessing a narrow view, with blinders to all distractions was the way I would proceed with this project. I was single-minded, I was hungry, and I was FOCUSED. To understand the forces that led to my launching of such a ridiculous project (I mean, who is trying to take down a lousy Alternative Weekly all by himself? A Quixotic quest at best) I have to tell you a little about my mindset back then....

I had been doing a little musical project called Davey G and the Keyboard, which I billed as “Weird Al on a 3 dollar Budget.” In reality, it more closely resembled the late Wesley Willis, with me playing along with keyboard pre-sets and making up funny songs. I’d been doing this off and on since 2000, but I’d had a renewed interest in 2005 that led to a series of live performances. I’d had at least a small amount of success doing this, playing at small clubs in town and releasing a few CD’s. In 2007, I set about recording my masterwork: a polished and well produced album of new work.

I know it sounds stupid now, but in 2007 I really thought this would be my ticket to…whatever the hell it was I wanted. I had fans, I had shows, and I had momentum. People liked what I did, even if it wasn’t a large group of people. It had cult appeal. A well-produced and well-distributed album would go a long way to achieving that larger success I hoped for. So with the help of Reverend Alex and C. Camp, as well as the photography studio at Sears, I made the most polished Davey G album to date. That was “Chairman of the Keyboard.”



Long story short, this effort to push my musical “career” at the exclusion of all common sense led to my quixotic effort to try something I had never seriously tried before: I wanted to win City Paper’s Best Musical Artist....