cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am needed elsewhere I want to point out the sheer volume of material that I have written publicly during the years-long break in new entries here. This is interesting because I spent years writing only here, primarily under a previous user name. "Junius." It would be nice if I can even remember the password to access that stuff. If anyone who by some weird chance is still reading knows that password, please pass it on to me. In that time, I wrote a long series of feature for Slate and built a whole new national audience. I wrote an important feature for The New York Times. I did a lot of guest appearances on TV shows. I started on an important series of features for The Washington Post. During all of that, I was mentioned on the Daily Show and The Colbert Report and Rachael Maddow mentioned my stuff on the air. I seriously impacted the culture. My work really mattered. For the last year I have been mostly writing for two outlets. First, Sm1ths0nian Magazine. And second, a local weekly that pays shit and I'm almost embarrassed to be doing it. The Smiths0nian stuff doesn't pay well, but I love the access. I can talk to any scientist or historian in the world. I have a piece waiting to run where I got to spend an hour on the phone with T3ller of P3nn and T3ller. That is hard to give up. And honestly, the 70 or so articles I have done for Sm1ths0nian are some really fucking great work. And yet what I'm doing for this shitty local weekly is actually really important. For the most part, what I pitch here are stories that are important to me. Stories that are about people who somehow get fucked over by the rest of the world. I did a story about a girl who ODed on heroin. And a story about prominent immigrants who help the community to function. Now. I am writing an article about the idea of this city becoming a sanctuary city. Along the way, I found another story that became my first piece (as a journalist) for NPR. Now I have this big story about what undocumented immigrants are asking of the city they live in, and it is a lot of responsibility. If I fuck this up then people will be rounded up and extradited. Not like writing a restaurant review. I didn't set out to do this. I wanted to write stories for R0lling Stone and GQ. And I have those stories, but I'm needed elsewhere. 12:29 a.m. - 2016-12-18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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