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…
No comments:
Post a Comment