Please Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself
Imagine: Someone thinking I could sell newspapers!
Last things first, sorry not sorry for referencing both old Jay-Z and new Taylor Swift, for as a journalist from Generation X, my story contains multitudes of pop-culture references, and I straddled the print/digital divide. In the photo above, a totally real advertisement placard that my bosses placed in newspaper boxes throughout Kitsap County, Wash., we get a glimpse back in time, an actual portrait of this artist as a young man, straddling. The hair. The Doc Martens. The pleated khakis?!? This was me at the turn of the century.
I joined The Sun newspaper in Bremerton as an entertainment reporter and columnist in June 1998, commuting by ferry from my home in Seattle for a few months until I relocated across the Puget Sound. That November, 24 years ago, I competed in the Seattle International Comedy Competition (reigning champ from 1997, none other than the late great Mitch Hedberg), and convinced my editors not just to let me drive all over Western Washington six nights in a row to tell jokes to strangers, but also write about it, with a daily journal posting online on the newspaper’s website, edited down to fit in print the following week as one column. I was blogging before anyone called it blogging! (the word “weblog” first appeared in 1997, shortened to blog only in 1999) Scripps Howard even threw a cash bonus my way for my innovation. I managed to save my writing from that week, knowing how corporations can become fickle about their Web presences.
Fast-forward to this day in 2007.
My run as a full-time newspaper reporter and columnist seemingly ended at a crossroads 15 years ago today, when I flipped the switch on The Comic’s Comic.
Long story short, after writing about pop culture and entertainment at The Arizona Republic, Boston Herald, and the New York Daily News (launching online comedy columns for the latter two newspapers), I became convinced of the need and opportunity to cover comedy as a beat for a wider audience. Back then, nobody was doing this. A handful of newspapers featured regular interviews with visiting stand-ups, but no papers or magazines covered comedians as thoroughly as they did musicians, actors or even purveyors of the fine arts. I could find only four websites that even tried focusing on comedy, but all four did so too narrowly. So I filled that void myself.
In 2015, I finally started my own podcast, Last Things First.
Later that year, I began reviewing comedy for Decider. In 2018, I began previewing live comedy events around New York City each weekend for The New York Times. My byline back in print, baby!
But by 2019, I felt hemmed in by my own self-identification as a comedy journalist. I’ve written about so many things over the decades, from police blotters and City Council meetings, through local, state and federal election coverage, created new newspaper sections and columns on behalf of my colleagues, and interviewed all types of people from random pedestrians on the sidewalk to the biggest movie stars in the world. I wanted to get back into journalism shape, stretch myself. So I created a Substack, this one right here, Piffany, in March 2019.
The pandemic prompted so many of us to rethink our priorities. I know I’ve gone through a few iterations of what I’ve wanted Piffany to be, not just for me but even more so for you. A job interview with a print publication got me thinking at one point to use this Substack as a proof of concept for them or anyone else. Added podcasts and transcripts last year as an incentive for anyone who might want to pay for Piffany. Created categories when Substack offered them, allowing you to subscribe to separate parts of my newsletter if you so chose.
Now that corporate greed is self-sabotaging social media in real-time? Now that Substack wants to not just be new Twitter but new all of the platforms? Hmmm. Great questions for me to ponder as more of you find my Substack. While I continue to answer those questions, please feel free to comment and tell me what you enjoy and what you’d like to see here.
Here are a handful of items I’ve posted in the past three years and eight months:
I drew the link between Saturday Night Live and Just For Laughs New Faces, which goes a long way also in explaining how SNL has evolved in recent years.
I wondered aloud why actor Jay Johnston hasn’t been arrested for his role in the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol (he’s still a fugitive, at least according to the FBI publically)
I wondered how we can remain civil when all of our conversations are anything but these days
I broke the news on Spotify’s big snub of comedians once they began asking for their royalties, and have been following up on that sporadically.
And speaking of yesterday’s Grammy nominations, I weighed in on the Recording Academy’s inability to read the room earlier this year after they handed out awards to the usual suspects
Here’s my plan moving forward.
You may see a flurry of activity in your inbox over the next week or so as I attempt to finalize a bunch of column ideas that have flooded my own laptop home screen with photos, graphs and screenshots. After that, I hope to settle into a rhythm that’s more dependable for all of us. Which translates to perhaps three emails a week? Weekly podcast drops (with transcripts and more for paid subscribers). Weekly summaries of what’s up in comedy From The Comic’s Comic. And weekly (or when appropriate) essays for when an epiphany strikes.
And if my plans change, I’ll be sure to let you know first! In the meantime, thank you so much for reading and subscribing!