What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Another one of those “need to say this in order to set up that” posts, so please bear with while I chase down yet another rabbit hole. Which has nothing to do with Brer Bear chasing after Brer Rabbit, although I do wish Disney would release Song of the South on DVD sometime before I shuffle off this mortal coil. But I digress.

I’ve found myself listening to the Grateful Dead lately. A mite odd, in that despite my San Francisco Bay Area roots, I have been at best lukewarm about Jerry Garcia and company the past few decades. Nevertheless, although I seriously doubt I’ll ever become a full-blown Deadhead I’ve come to enjoy their easy-going country/folk/rock/whatever comes to mind at the time boogie along with Garcia’s straightforward melodic playing. That said, let it be known a friend of the devil is not a friend of mine.

This came to mind the other day when a line from Truckin’ (“what a long, strange trip it’s been”) popped into my head when I was going through the mail and found my NMPA membership card. No, not National Music Publishers Association or New Mexico Psychological Association or National Marine Propeller Association or North Mississippi Physicians Association, although no doubt they are fine groups one and all. This is something different.

National Motorsports Press Association.

Who, me?

If someone would have said eight years ago when I first started blogging about NASCAR one day I’d be accepted as a legitimate media member, they would have been laughed out of town. I mean, c’mon. I was a flippin’ blogger. Not to mention abrasive and combative. (Some things never change, what say?)

Nevertheless, as the years progressed and I smoothed off at least one or two of the rough edges, some of the mainstream media people covering NASCAR and related topics, whose throats I hadn’t jumped down (and even a few who received lambastings) began to communicate with me. Yes, sometimes it was a counteroffensive to one or more of my snarks. That said, more often it was a compliment or inquiry of some sort. Some of us even became friends.

After a few years of flying solo, I went semipro with SB Nation, which at the time was a collection of sports bloggers under one umbrella (it’s since gone much more mainstream). It raised visibility and increased the impression of legitimacy, but I felt my work there was decidedly subpar to what I had been doing before. I was trying too hard to be a sports blogger, and even though I had been blogging about sports for years I never considered myself to be a sports blogger per se. Rather, I was a blogger who usually wrote about NASCAR but felt free to wander off into whatever topics struck my fancy.

I ended my tenure at SB Nation in 2008 partially for this reason, but mostly to work on the book that had become my true calling. The thinking was once I had finished it, I would get back to where I started from and resume being lovable ol’ me. Well, me anyway.

So much for that thought.

2009 was consumed with promoting the book and this blog while dealing with the drain of an oppressive financial situation, family matters and a different set of workplace issues than the ones which had dogged me most of 2008. Not an environment conducive to cute, cuddly and sometimes snarky comments about driving fast and turning left. 2010 was even worse, with the passing away in February of my aunt I and other family members had been caring for as she faded away from dementia, followed by my Mom joining her in heaven in May.

Yet even while this was going on, I was taking a massive step toward media status by going to my first NASCAR race not as a spectator, but as a credentialed member of the press. It was a tumbled whirlwind, watching and learning and writing while coming to grips with my aunt’s passing, as she died the morning I left for the track in southern California. The weekend would have been surreal anyway; now it was Alice in Wonderland territory minus the White Rabbit although an argument could be made about Tweedledee and Tweedledum being present.

Shortly before this took place, I signed on with Examiner.com as a NASCAR writer, later changing that to motorsports as I wanted to discuss other racing series. I felt bad that I wasn’t contributing as much as I should, but last year I was preoccupied with life issues and/or health problems in the presence of a nasty bout of tendonitis which made typing a painful chore. Guess what I do at the office at day. And, as a capper, I decided to revise the book.

We’re now into 2011. The only New Years resolution I make is one I’ve never broken: resolving to not make any New Years resolution. This duly noted, my goal for this year is to reclaim my life, getting back to the things I enjoy. Part of that is writing about motorsports, with the goal being to get on it at Examiner.com under the directive of playing it semi-straight there as more of a columnist than an actual reporter. I’ve more or less mothballed the NASCAR blog, but I hold in reserve the option of resuming activity. And, I intend to continue working on this modest waystation on the information superhighway. But back to the motorsports thing.

Yes, I am a member of NMPA. Whouda thunk.