Posts Tagged ‘under the fedora’

15 Thoughts on 15 Years of Blogging Under the Fedora. Thoughts 11 to 15 Back to Blogging… The Truth, WQPH, Trump and my boys, The Fall and One More Year

Posted: December 3, 2023 by datechguy in blogs, catholic, catholic devotions, dablog, under the fedora
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I talked about Stacy McCain being most influential on me and he mentioned something in a post yesterday that really hit the lesson he taught me:

 I was talking to a nice Republican lady who, remarking on what I’d said about liberal bias in the media, asked, “What makes you different?” That is to say, why am I not part of the liberal hivemind? On the spot, the best answer I could come up with was, “Well, I was a reporter before I got into politics.” I didn’t get into journalism because I wanted to change the world. I got into journalism because I needed a job. I started out on the bottom rung of the newspaper business, as a staff writer for a local weekly, and worked my way up, spending five years as a sports editor before landing a gig as an assistant special projects editor at the daily Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune. It wasn’t until I’d been in the business about seven years that I became interested in politics, during the first term of the Clinton presidency, when I had my own road-to-Damascus epiphany and abandoned the Democratic Party, of which I had hitherto been a staunch supporter.

The point of that digression is that I cut my teeth as a reporter covering local stories that had nothing to do with politics, and thereby developed the belief that the three most important things in journalism are accuracy, accuracy and accuracy

Having a Computer Science degree back from 1985 the idea of the importance of facts was already imbedded. The biggest lesson I learned from being credentialed press and sharing rooms with them as they wrote and talked is that this is not the norm for journalists. It was all about producing spin and a particular result. That (along with a natural degree of sloth) is why you never see my videos edited. Like the images from the Ghost of Christmas Past they are what they are.

That reputation for accuracy and the reputation as “The hardest working blogger at CPAC” are still a source of pride to me.

The biggest thing to come from the blog and the Radio show that came from it has been my association with WQPH 89.3 FM Catholic Radio which began around 2012 when I was approached by Mary Ann Harold the head of the station. I had at first thought it would be a full time job but instead it’s was more of a Special project for the blog that continues to this day.

In 2017 My Catholic Radio Show “Your Prayer Intentions” now in its 6th year, premiered on WQPH every Saturday at noon. 2017 also saw the publication of my book “Hail Mary the perfect Protestant (and Catholic) Prayer adapted from a blog post which you can still buy at Amazon or from me directly if you want it autographed. The most significant thing from WQPH came in 2014 a few months after the Harvard Satanic Mass scandal & the MIT procession on a trip to Alabama, but if that story is ever posted it will be after I’m gone.

What I thought would be the biggest moment of my blogging career was when I was called on twice during the 2016 presidential campaign by Donald Trump during press conferences. The first in Derry NH which I had to cover after the contract job

The second when I covered his rally in Worcester before going to work at what was then a temp warehouse job on the 10:30 to 7 am shift. He recognized me and gave me the complement that remains on the top of the blog to this day.

Covering Trump fairly didn’t endear me to the GOP in MA and neither did my endorsement of Trump when he won the primaries or my famous post defending Trump after the Billy Bush bit came out which called out the left for trying to use our own morality against us while repeating these words which turned out to be a prophetic after the 2020 steal:

…I know that there will be times that Donald Trump will disappointment me just as I expected Mitt Romney to disappoint me on social issues and John McCain to disappoint me on immigration and George W Bush who disappointed me on spending and the bank bailouts.

But while Trump will occasionally disappoint me (when he does I’ll call him on it) I am convinced he will neither persecute me nor strip me of my rights for holding my Conservative Catholic beliefs and acting on them.

I am very sorry to say I can not make that same statement about Hillary Clinton, and I’m even sorrier to see the day when I would say this about a presidential candidate.

but this led to the real high point of blogging for me was CPAC 2018 where my two sons came with me as credentialed press. It made for a better CPAC:

In other words, he make sure that I was OUTSIDE the activist/msm/news/blogger bubble for at least a few hours. This not only decreased my tension level immensely but it provided me the chance to speak to actual Marylanders and Virginians who were not there specifically to serve me as a CPAC convention goer and thus more free to be themselves and give their own opinions in conversation.

No blogging moment will beat that EVAH!

Despite the two highs of 2016 & 2018 the blog’s decline in traffic seemed to start in 2014 after my Jeffrey Epstein post to the point where contract work was necessary.

In 2016 the decline in traffic and rank (this blog was once in the top 100,000 in the world) meant I took a 3rd shift temp job. The job became permanent in 2017 and any lingering dreams of the blog becoming more than a part time job at best were gone and my ability to go to cover any event had to be sub servant to the steady income to pay bills that came from attendance at work.

Problems at GoDaddy led me to finally leave them by 2019. After election 2020 like many others I found myself suspected from Twitter multiple times while the election was in dispute over false charges that led to a pattern of suspension, appeal, apology and reinstatement then suspension again until the courts ruled against Trump. This was shortly followed by my banning by Youtube erasing more than a decade of work. Meanwhile the new owner of my hosting company became invisible I was not only forced back to my old wordpress blog, but had lost my domain, more than 75% of my daily traffic, all of my ad and guest post revenue and a decline in DaTipJar revenue and subscribers to the point where the blog has become an expense rather than an asset.

The fall was slow, then gradual then like the fall of communism all at once. Right now after paying my writers I barely bring in enough to pay the annual fees to wordpress let alone the costs of covering Pintastic NE or any other event that I can manage on days off or using vacation time.

So here we are 15 years later like Sam Rothstein in Casino back where we started at our original site.

I’m drawing about a 1/3 of the traffic that I did back in the Scott Brown days but not worrying about trying to regain lost glory. Still giving our opinion and occasionally covering something from the Catholic Men’s Conference to Pintastic NE and writing about the news of the day and my online baseball leagues.

Barring a sudden change in fortune allowing the blog covering its costs as it once did I figure I can afford to hang around one more year for the election before the blog becomes too much of an expense to carry.

So you can expect me and my magnificent seven writers to be here for the election and to at least finish year 16. After that, who know but for all those who have stopped by over the last 15 years and especially to those who have contributed over the years and those few remaining stalwarts who still do, let me say this.

Thanks so much, it’s been an incredible 15 year ride. We’ve done and learned a lot together. I’ve seen a lot of the country and those who run it. I’ve seen many incredible things and I’ve met many incredible people along the way including quite a few of you dear readers. None of it would have been remotely possible without you. Me and mine are better for having been on this ride. I hope that you feel the same.

15 Thoughts on 15 Years of Blogging Under the Fedora. Thoughts 6 to 10 …The Glory Days…

Posted: December 1, 2023 by datechguy in blogs, dablog
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Part one of this post: In the Beginning is here.

I mentioned how Robert Stacy McCain made a huge difference in my life. That came from this post titled “Send DaTechGuy to CPAC” :

Before I left Massachusetts a week ago, I told him that if he’d create a PayPal account, I’d make sure the tip-jar hitters sent him to CPAC. He said, “I need $800 a week, plus expenses.” And today, I noticed he’d created the “Do It Myself Fund.”

To the shock of everyone including me the money came in and I attended what would be the 1st of many CPACS during the 2010’s

At CPAC 2010 I created a Youtube account for the videos I shot. It began with this interview of Steve Eggleston of No Runny Eggs.

This would eventually become DaTechGuy’s Field Guide to Bloggers. Some like Nice Deb who have gone on to bigger things, Some like the Lonely Conservative who would put me up when covering events in NY. And some who have become huge names like Dana Loesch, Kurt Schlichter and Professor William Jacobson.

All this became ten years of videos and interviews from covering events that were a big deal on youtube until a year ago but that’s a story for part 3.

The Trip to CPAC was the catalyst but the thing that pushed me over the line was April 14th in Boston MA when the Tea Party Express came to town for a rally. I decided to go and cover it getting video like this of Sarah Palin taking the stage

and plenty of great photos But the real shock was that I found myself I was invited onto the bus heading for the DC rally and decided to accept with only the clothes on my back, a laptop in need of a charge, no place to stay in DC just the credit cards in my wallet. It was a leap of faith and what a leap it was.

It was during the course of this bus trip that I bought my first flip phone (Standing behind Victoria Jackson in line at the Radio Shack) which was used to call DaWife and tell her where I was and what I was doing. She was not pleased.

This Trip however was the trip that made me as a blogger. I interviewed Byron York who was the 1st member of the MSM I ever encountered who had heard of me.

I interviewed Tucker Carlson, I interviewed Andrew Breitbart for the 1st time and most importantly interviewed Clara Csiong who having fled the communists in China & Cubs saw what was coming today more clearly than anyone else

When Glenn Reynolds instalanched my tipjar shake to cover the expenses of this unscheduled trip I decided to see if I could make a living blogging.

It would all become a whirl. It led to a radio gig, DaTechGuy on DaRadio on WCRN Worcester and then syndicated on stations in the Money Matters Radio network. I would write for the examiner and pick up other writing gigs making a few bucks here and there.

But the real deal came as I earned my catchphrase: “Have fedora will travel” by the grace of my readers. I who had not even been on a commercial flight since my honeymoon would thanks to the generosity of my readers travel across the country. I would fly to Arizona, Colorado and Georgia to cover campaigns. I would drive with Stacy McCain through 7 states covering the big red wave of 2010. CPAC 2010 became CPAC 2011 and more. The tip jar hits and the interviews with people like Steve Bannon before the Trump years when he was a CPAC outcast , Pam Geller and Robert Spencer who were warning the world of the things we are now seeing kept coming. And during Weinergate I would have one of my blog posts appear as a column in the New York Post and lead to an appearance on the local Fox Station in Boston.

I would cover the 2012 and 2016 election campaigns being credentialed press at the Mitt Romney Victory Party. The blog would expand to it’s own domain and I would hire my magnificent seven writers, who even now still produce content on the blog (although of the original team only John Ruberry still remains) and it seemed for a while that I might be able to make it in this business.

But as I was to discover notoriety is not the same as income.

To be concluded on Sunday…

15 Thoughts on 15 Years of Blogging Under the Fedora. Thoughts 1 to 5 In the Beginning…

Posted: November 29, 2023 by datechguy in dablog
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Fifteen years ago this week this blog started as the Tech blog for HiWired the company I was working for and wrote the blog for went away. It was going to be the platform where I could talk about subjects that I couldn’t touch on the work blog.

Ironically that seemingly innocent decision has next to my marriage been one of the biggest pivots in my life.

Funny isn’t it

At the time this blog was started Obama had just been elected but not sworn in. I had a good job in my field, financial security and was about as secure as a person could be.

Within a year I was unemployed and unemployable in my field, and the blog that was going to be a pastime became a full time platform to write about things while I tried to find work during the Obama years.

It’s is 14 years later and my full time job which began as a temp position during the final year of Obama still doesn’t pay what I was making before Obama was sworn in and that’s unadjusted for inflation. Four years of Trump was not enough to counter 11 years of Biden and Obama.

The irony of course is all that extra time to write, read and blog led me to the great conflict between Little Green Footballs who I had read for a long time back when Charles Johnson was still sane and the person whose actions would have the greatest effect on my life since the birth of my final son. Robert Stacy McCain.

The conflict between Johnson and McCain can best be followed on Stacy’s old blog here here and here and it was because of that conflict that I contacted Mr. McCain to hear his side of the story:

The story of the phone call that followed is here.

In the end I became of one that group of conservative commentators banned by Charles but my association with Mr. McCain would lead to amazing things.

When the Scott Brown thing was going on, Stacy shook his tip jar to get the funds to come here and cover it. Still not having found a job I had no funds to offer but DaWife consented to letting Stacy stay here to cover the story and I became his driver.

Programming and engineering deal with reality and it was during that week that I learned the difference between commenting from afar and covering something in person.

One of the best posts I ever wrote was done at this time. Boston Berkshires and ‘Bama, the close:

She was a 50 something Coakley volunteer. As I greeted her she sat down in front of Au Bon Pain tired from her exertions and dismayed by the Brown supporters all around where she sat. She had been sent out because of fire regulations, I couldn’t see why she couldn’t be somehow accommodated. I discovered she had come to Massachusetts 15 years ago from her native state of Maryland and cheered the liberal policies that she so believed in that the state seemingly embraced. I asked her finally why she thought a state that had voted 69% for Kennedy and had so convincingly selected Martha Coakley in the primary could change so quickly?

She had her answer.

“The Brown people are a bunch of Redneck Teabaggers.” she proclaimed. “Massachusetts is Boston on one side, the Berkshires on the other with Alabama smack in the middle.” She said this with a bitterness and a contempt that she presumed I had shared since I was standing with the Coakley crowd for nearly my entire time.

At this moment Robert Stacy McCain emerged from Au Bon Pain with the coffee that is the Gasoline of his engine I wished her well and excused myself knowing that my experience of 46 years in that middle of her adopted state would be no match for the comfortably bigoted fiction with which she consoled herself, even if I was inclined to be so un-gallant as to try

The campaign cumulated with my first official set of press credentials when Stacy, Dan Riehl and myself entered the Scott Brown victory party, each of us wearing one of my fedoras

That’s where I met Ace of Spades, Pam Gellar, Roxeanne De Luca Carl Cameron and got my first condescending reaction from a member of the MSM but most importantly it’s where I learned this about the press:

While most of the reporter types were busy talking to themselves, I was interviewing the waitstaff. Why? Because they were the only voters in the room! I talked to more than a dozen of them and got great information on all kinds of things. It speaks volumes that a room full of reporters didn’t think of doing this.

What I didn’t realize at the time is that it wasn’t a question of them thinking of doing it, it was that their narratives were already written. But what I also didn’t know is this tendency to talk to normal people would be the basis for the event that made this more than a one off.

6-10 on Friday

Thanksgiving Thoughts Under the Fedora: Still no Apology, NFL Trumps the College Games, Their Call not Mine, Jokes not Told and the Week that Will Speak Volumes

Posted: November 23, 2023 by datechguy in economy, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, local issues, nfl, Sports, under the fedora
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It’s Thanksgiving day and because the Turkey is cooking and my wife is on full blast I did a quick Dunkin & McDonalds run so as not to dirty stuff for DaWife’s coffee or my breakfast.

I passed by St. Bernard’s football field and remembered the phony hate crime hoax from years ago that got national attention of the FBI & the Obama admin and caused the Lunenburg St. Bernard’s game to be cancelled that year. I covered the story here:

As I recall the town never got an apology from all those who called them a bunch of racists nor did the players who missed their Turkey game that year.

They never do.

Thanksgiving is a traditional day for football (as mentioned above). When I was young the TV would be filled with college games. Now the NFL has gone in a big way, not only just the Cowboys and the Lions who both host home games on Thanksgiving (and will therefore never face the other on Thanksgiving day) but a late game that is an A list matchup between the 49ers and the Seahawks. They have even added a black Friday game Dolphins at the Jets.

I guess they’re all in on Thanksgiving weekend and taking the business from the colleges and I guess it’s the right move. Make the money while you can now because nothing lasts forever.

As for me, well I guess it a good way to pass the time waiting for spring training

In a recent speech Tucker Carlson talked about trusting your gut. My gut says that the deal with Hamas that Israel has made for hostages is a bad idea.

But since it’s the Jews of Israel who are doing the fighting and dying and it’s the Jews of Israel whose woman and children are hostages and I’m just sitting at a keyboard in safety I think I’ll defer to the judgement of their leadership vs my own.

I’m old enough to remember when I could make a joke in public or online without worry that it wouldn’t give supporters of terror groups that want to kill jews idea.

Alas those days are gone so my excellent joke shall have to remain in house.

Finally today is going to be my last day off before Black Friday. During the Trump years this was flat out time for me. We ended up working 14 days in a row after Thanksgiving and six days a week all though Christmas and carried a ton of temps all thought that time.

Last year we had one busy week and it was so quiet that the Friday after black Friday was optional and all the extra temps were laid off within two weeks.

We had a busy week this week as one of our retailers had a pre-black friday sale but this week will say more about the truth of Biden economy than any talking head can.

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