blogger interrupted

When I started my first “permanent” blog in January, 2005, Democracy Guy, I quickly came to know George Nemeth. Cleveland-based bloggers used to need to know George. He was known as the guru of Cleveland/NEO blogging, and his blog was once the epicenter for all things bloggy in Cleveland. We quickly hit it off.

Soon, George and I were having big conversations about monetizing this new medium we were both knee deep into. In the middle of Cleveland’s 2005 mayoral race, we struck up a conversation about how pathetic both the media coverage and the online outreach had become among the major mayoral candidates, and a project was born. At a blogger meetup, I gave it the name “Meet The Bloggers” (MTB), after Tim Russert’s “Meet The Press”. My argument was that I, and any blogger worth his/her salt, would go all “Russert” on their asses if they had the mayoral candidates in front of them, and the name stuck.

The project took on a life of its own, thanks to MTB’s model - invite any blogger along to any interview, to push the energy downward to the grassroots of the blogosphere, rather than upward to some gatekeeper. Bloggers all over Ohio got excited, first at the notion they could sit with a major candidate for office, and second at the slowly embedding, and seductive idea, that ads could be sold across the network of MTB bloggers.

People started to see dollars - which is when the trouble started, as it always does.

Time went on, and MTB became a business model. Bring blogs together, aggregate their traffic, and sell ads across the network to fund MTB’s goal of opening up political discourse. Blogs signed on, a greater good was targeted. And ads were sold. Major candidates sat down with MTB, both Democrat, and Republican. Proof it could work started to get the attention of major venture capital investors.

Then one day, Russo Drama inserted itself. After a January, 2006, appearance on WCPN, as an invited commentator from my then-current blog, Buckeye Politics, the producers informed me they had been sent my then-4 year old criminal record. They canceled any future appearances or cooperation, then and there. I had to phone the owner of Buckeye Politics immediately, who panicked, and shut down the blog in minutes.

My first call after that was to George. I had just lost my paycheck, my blog, and was burned to my very core, fearing that MTB would be next. I needed a friend that morning, at that moment, and thought George was that friend. It was time to tell him. He came over, and I practically fell into him with desperation. He had no idea what was going on.

I had hoped that my life would move beyond my worst mistakes, somehow, and that the blogosphere was a great place to make that hope a reality. But no matter how hard you try to forget and move on, someone is ready to remind the world and ruin your life again, and this was that moment, one of so many.

George and I stood in my kitchen and talked; I think I tried to make morning coffee for him. I gave him the whole story, about my conviction, about how it destroyed my life, how it was doing so again, and about how sorry I was to drag him into this.

George said what friends are supposed to say. It’ll be o.k. Don’t worry. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not like them. When this happens, I have a choice - do I believe the person is sincere, or do they think they have a license to lie to me?

I believed him, like I’ve believed so many others in this nightmare, who either believe what they’re saying, too, or are just completely full of shit. It was what I needed to hear at that moment, and I clung to it like a life raft.

Whether or not George completely understood what was going on with me, I don’t know. I never will. But that morning, he was a shoulder I cried on. I cried a lot in those days. And after hiding under a rock, I returned to the blogosphere on George’s own blog, and again took up residence at Democracy Guy full time.

It would only get worse.

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