Regular posting is returning, now at RogerBaylor.com

 

It's here: https://www.rogerbaylor.com/

NA Confidential fought and ran away, but I'll live to fight another day -- just elsewhere.

The long-awaited day has arrived, and the anchor-festooned junta will be awash in Bud Light Peach-A-Rita. Your "Deez Trump Nutz" calendar for 2020 is headed for the landfill, it's January 1, and NA Confidential has officially concluded its 16-year run. 

Help me kill another decade, and maybe there'll be a box set. 

Until then, or whenever Google/Blogger gets around to further atrocities against taste and decency, I'm proverbially OUTTA HERE. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I'm a bit behind schedule getting the new web site in the water, but no worries. The past few months have been busier than expected, but the site will begin soon. 

If you're just tuning in, three recent essays explain why this has happened. 

1. A change is coming to the model village, and NA Confidential is winding down.
2. On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after.

And the third, repeated verbatim here. 

---

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.

 

It cannot be denied that I’m a slow learner, a late bloomer and a serial procrastinator. 

This much is perfectly clear. Actually, I’ve never cared enough to even try dodging these compliments. 

The odd part has always been that once I get around at long last to learning, blooming and/or making up my mind, it’s a done deal. Once a decision has been determined, right or wrong, it is pretty much irrevocable with me.

So it was last week when I awakened to thoughts about NA Confidential’s future, and concluded it has none, at least in its present format. I'll continue writing elsewhere, and soon the blog will cease to exist as an active, ongoing entity.

NAC began in 2004 as a way of channeling a long-gestating insight, this being the importance of grassroots localism. It was and remains my view that people tend to obsess about hugely complex national and international topics to the exclusion of approachable issues outside their front doors, and in their own communities, because theatrically pontificating in broad terms is easier than getting involved with the grit and grime of specifics.

NAC started out as a diary of sorts, a place to chronicle my journeys, promote the beer businesses I was involved with at the time, channel my inner Mencken, and write about anything I damn well pleased. Other folks helped out with writing (Randy, Jeff, Lloyd), and then they didn’t. 

The blog grew into a public gathering spot, a function that ebbed drastically once social media exploded. All along, it was a spot to broach subjects no one else would. I followed these stories where they took me, and it didn't always make people happy. 

They're entitled to their own opinions, although not their own facts.

NA Confidential’s first post was on October 22, 2004. Who even imagined we’d still be talking about it in 2020? I didn't.

You don’t need a gumshoe with rotten breath and one too many alimony payments to figure out the problem with this town. It’s something in the water that causes people here to lose their vision. Q: What do New Albanians call Southside's mashed potatoes? A: Freedom Foie Gras. Well, we’re here to change all that.

Ha! 

Change all that?

A tad cheeky, and ultimately a point to debate, although others can decide the extent, if any, of the blog’s influence hereabouts. Irrespective, the blogging experience has changed me, and nowadays I’m at a crossroads amid the crossfire. Consequently, there are several good reasons for acknowledging various irrefutable realities and drowning the blog in the nearest available bathtub.

Allow me to explore the reasoning.

---

Localism? Not so much. Between our toxic social media fixation, the pandemic and Trump’s invasive cult of personality, interest in provocative takes on local matters in Nawbany has largely disappeared. Readership has responded accordingly, by plummeting. This should please my betters. 

Part of this decline owes to the scattershot essence of Blogger; it is an utter piece of crap, and a dysfunctional platform overall. For at least a decade Blogger has been unsuitable for my intentions. Now it’s largely unusable owing to recent revisions, and I should have exited long ago when the going was good. That one's on me.   

In addition, I turned 60 in August, and began paying attention to what the mirror (and my wife) was trying to tell me about the meaning of life. In short, it’s time for an autumn (of my years) deep cleaning and reboot. What better time than multiple, horrifying daily existential crises?

Then an e-mail notice came, reminding me it was time to renew my rogerbaylor.com domain name. Having finally learned a bit about WordPress owing to my position as digital editor at Food & Dining Magazine, and with the publication’s house web guru Jason around to advise me, starting anew at my own web site suddenly became an attractive option.

The year 2020 already was the most tumultuous year of my life, and probably yours, too. Why not end it with closure, by euthanizing NAC, and moving forward to something different?

---

Of course there’s another aspect to the blog’s impending termination, a process which began in earnest the moment last year’s municipal election cycle concluded.

Jeff Gahan’s unprecedented third mayoral term (save for C. Pralle Erni’s four), and especially his increased margin of victory in the 2019 election, constituted voluminous (and perhaps inevitable) handwriting on the wall. It was a clear, unmistakable vote for civic fantasy, and against truth telling, whether by a malcontent like me or on the part of perpetually somnolent local newspapers … or anyone else, for that matter. 

It was, in fact, a slam dunk. 

Accordingly, a solitary dissident at a blog parked at the woefully deficient Blogger hell hole simply cannot hope to make a difference in such a dismal, uncomprehending milieu. Ironically, what it can do is make the dissident’s own position unsustainable -- and it has. 

None of this thrills me, but the truth of it is simply undeniable, and that’s why I’ll go through the narrative a final time before NAC self-destructs. Accordingly, let’s award credit where it’s due, sans snarkiness. 

I fought Nawbany, and Nawbany won. 

That's it, in a nutshell. As an intelligent, well-educated and worldly person, I can fully appreciate the tactical deficit of my coordinates in this pandemic year, as pinned down in a fox hole with massed (metaphorical) artillery pointed in my general direction. 

Well played, dominant cadres. I've learned that "it's the way things work here" is more than a recurring promise; it's a big-ass buzz saw, and I'm sliced, diced and vanquished. 

Evidently “check mate” means the same thing in all of those European languages I wish had come easier to me so as to facilitate being a joyful expatriate. It looks like we’re marooned here until the house is paid off. After that, Ireland (or Malta, or Bolivia; whatever), here we come. 

Verily, the governing Nawbanian clique's “lone dissident on the grassy know-it-all” containment strategy for the past seven years has proven to be highly effective. Granted, it took a few dozen of them to whip one blogger acting alone, but make no mistake: The lash of the nabob's whip is real, and accordingly, I’m whupped. 

Cutting me off from any “official” political and governing dialogue is only a small part of it, because the community pillars have completely succeeded in institutionalizing a local perception of me as social misfit and pariah, to be shunned by “right thinking” people as if I were a member of India’s untouchable caste.

Evidently if you whisper often enough that Roger’s a dangerous nutcase, otherwise sane and intelligent people will start to believe it. The ones who don’t? They'll merely say they regret the inconvenience, but just can’t risk being seen with you – you understand, they’ll say amid the furtive glances, it’s just business.

Yes, I understand the obligations of current accounts, although frankly, some of you should be ashamed to spend hours denouncing the perfidy of national Republicans while simultaneously encouraging crickets to chirp when it comes to the eually repellant habits of local Democrats. That’s cowardice, and it’s also hypocrisy. I genuinely feel bad for you, but really? 

Toss a starving dog a bone. Maybe just a wee shred of resolve, every now and then?

What’s more, in so many of these "tsk tsk" instances, it has not mattered in the slightest what I actually said or wrote to prompt a flurry of finger-wagging; folks have concluded automatically that I’m mistaken, not to mention disreputable, based on what they imagined me saying or writing, and not actually hearing or reading it. Purportedly it is understood by those who – you know – understand these sort of things.

Frustrating, but also quite brilliant. 

I’m stymied, hung out and left to dry. Like I said, full credit where it’s due. The Kool-Aid is strong, and I am weak. Long live the junta!

---

Furthermore, the ruling elite came to an astute recognition that while they cannot hurt me personally, people around me are vulnerable. It’s a crude, blunt-edged form of reprisal, as well as a highly efficient one. In good conscience I can no longer risk the threat of collateral damage to innocent bystanders.

Additionally, because the leading element in New Albany has successfully characterized NA Confidential in its diverse entirety as the equivalent of deranged snuff porn fetishism, the blog’s “brand” is compromised, stuffed into a straw man's cubbyhole and tainted by association.

Masterful, indeed.

My earnest efforts in 2020 to remove the political element from the blog have been easier than I imagined, but ultimately it's futile. The torture is unlikely to stop, the Blogger platform remains inadequate for future writing, and the blog as currently constituted is dead in the water, adroitly blockaded by local arbiters, blithely shunned by the aspirant vanguard, and abjectly short-circuited by its own host platform.

I can take a hint and surrender, dear (leader).



---

Granted, I might start again at a new website and continue calling it NA Confidential. But it needs to be retired. At the forthcoming Roger Baylor Dot Com there will be an archive of the 15,000+ posts appearing at NAC since 2004, albeit completely inactive in terms of new content. It will be maintained strictly for historical interest, and as a sketchbook for future writing. 

Resurrecting NAC wouldn’t be the same. I played the game and lost. So it goes. It may not have been fair or square, and yet make no mistake; I knew exactly the nature of the surreal absurdity I was getting into way back in 2004, purporting to chronicle the life and times of a city that hasn’t been on the cutting edge of anything since the 19th century, and probably never will.  

As proof, note that in their most recent races, Donald Trump (Republican President), Jeff Gahan (Democratic Mayor) and Scott Blair (Independent City Council) each won the 6th council district by almost exactly the same percentage of vote as the others.

Huh? If you can explain that, then it’s your turn to grapple with this town’s psychotic DNA.

Looking at it objectively, NAC can be said to have accomplished some positive outcomes; just the same, it is exhausted. So is the blog's creator. 

NAC is the only Nawbany blog that truly mattered, ever, except blogs seldom matter here, ever, especially when pursuing the sort of subject matter that differs with the prevailing "mentality" (rest assured I use this term guardedly).

In the beginning, back in 2004, good friends warned me that we're a barely literate, perennially dirty little river town, and likely would always be this way, forever.

I laughed.

I’m laughing no longer. Stick a fork in me, because I’m done.

To those who have read, thanks for reading, and for all your support over the years. When the new digs are ready, I’ll let you know, as long as you let me know if we ever arrive at answers to the opening questions.

New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

Splitting the atom was far, far easier than this. 

On (or off) the Avenues, there's got to be a morning after.

What I do want to nudge you to consider is this: everything you are passionate about at the national level has a local analog that needs your attention. 

-- Charles Marohn (Strong Towns; "It's All Local Now")

No, there haven't been any columns lately, and very few posts. This is to be considered a status report. 

As confided previously, this blog is being allowed to wither on the vine. There's a place and time for everything, and 15,000+ posts during 16 years are enough. This particular soapbox is being dismantled. Another will be erected elsewhere, although it will not be entirely the same. ON THE AVENUES will make the transition. Beyond that, I'm unsure.

It is an oft-told story, but worth a quick rehash. NA Confidential arose from my deep frustration with the (seeming) pointlessness of political involvement at the "macro" level of nation state. Hours, days, and years arguing about what should happen "up there," but no real way to be heard or to influence the outcome. It's actually easier that way; it absolves the individual from doing anything about it except talk.

This was in 2004, and as the presidential contest approached (W's re-election would be a bitter disappointment), I decided to look out the front door, down the three-lane, one-way racetrack running past our house, and see what could be done at the grassroots "micro" level. 

As noted, this change of focus played out over an unexpectedly lengthy period. Here's something I wrote at Fb yesterday, as we await confirmation that Trump has been dumped:

I thought this would be an excellent time to announce a return to active local participation, much like the Dick Nixon account at Twitter, given that I feel little different than I did in 2004 when W's re-election turned my interest toward the street outside. 

Then it occurred to me that it took 13 years of local participation to turn this one-way street to two ways. That's right: 13 years. 

Furthermore, since I'm not a Republican and am still effectively blackballed (blackmailed?) into silence by reigning DemoDisneyDixiecrats -- whose stripes haven't changed since Tuesday -- there's no pathway available to me to do much of anything apart from coded commentary, a nice reading list, plenty of alcohol and the occasional sausage. 

Okay, so be it; consequently, the new web site will be called Expatriate in Place, or Open Air Exile, or something like that. I'll be delighted when Trump departs. But it's the same unforgivingly stupid Nawbany outside these four walls.

It appears Joe Biden will win the election, but I'm not "celebrating" one damn thing beyond the singular and profound relief afforded by NOT being compelled to listen to Donald Trump's nonsensical, narcissistic bleating and babbling every single day of my life.

I have almost no confidence that the Democratic Party, as currently configured, can do much of anything positive in the years to come. My position has been, and remains, that in spite of differing appearances, our two major political parties are conjoined in their duopoly. If they both can’t be vaporized at once, one must collapse and the other will soon follow. 

And I don’t care which one goes first.  

Consequently, I have as little interest now, as in 2004, in wasting time debating broad macro topics with no conceivable way of being heard. But locally, the pillars of the community have me effectively blockaded, scourged and blacklisted, primarily because of the past 16 years I've spent reminding them of their tendency to be utterly without clothes (politically and in terms of consciousness, not -- heaven forbid -- in the sense of public nudity).

They're all in favor of truth, until the truth is they're undereducated, incompetent, and in many instances outright venal. It shatters their self-delusions, and they get touchy (but not feely). Tough shit, although I'll concede there's a price to be paid when you're the one spotted holding a ball-peen hammer. 

What happens next? I don't know, and neither do you. 

History has shown, time and again, that absolute certainty is a fool's errand. The pandemic already has proven that everything we take for granted and flip overnight into an entirely different reality. 

So I plan to be loitering around the perimeter for while, working my two jobs, scanning the landscape, and forever mindful of the year 2015, when the incumbent mayor tried ineffectually to take a swipe at me: "Roger’s never done anything in a positive manner to help the city of New Albany.” 

In 2017, I explained why he's completely full of shit in making this assertion, because he never spent a single day in his life being entrepreneurial with his own money, and I mention his haplessly ignorant words now only because they're a powerful reminder that there are numerous ways outside ruling elites, social cliques and "the HWC fix is in" to be involved, accomplish things, make a difference and agitate for change. 

One of my favorite W.C. Fields stories may or may not be true, but it's a good one about the comedian on his deathbed. 

As the end approached, on that Christmas Day in 1946, an old writer-friend named Gene Fowler entered the hospital room and there was Fields, a self-admitted agnostic, thumbing through a Bible. 

 “What are you doing, Bill?” asked the incredulous Fowler. 

 “I’m looking for loopholes,” Fields whispered.  

Pretty much. NAC can die, because it will make the dipshits happy, and as such, it's my loving gift to them. 

Me? I'm looking for loopholes.

Update: NAC is heading for the exits, but we're not there quite yet.

ON THE AVENUES: I'm voting for Biden. Otherwise it's Trump's burgeoning fascist GOP death cult.

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.

Update: NAC is heading for the exits, but we're not there quite yet.

I'm still moving toward the ultimate goal of putting NA Confidential to rest. 

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.

There still isn't a firm timetable for the conversion, although at this point it's reasonable to assume that postings won't come to a complete halt until later in October, or even early November. 

As of now, I'll be reducing activity to only one post each day. There is much transitioning to do, and I'm busy with other tasks.  

The new web site is built and functional. Now it must be decorated and some furniture moved inside. The NA Confidential archive, all 15,000+ posts since 2004, is secure; if tomorrow morning Blogger might sink beneath the waves, there'd be a backup.   

Your patronage is appreciated. Thanks. 

2006: The NA Confidential - Volunteer Hoosier merger.

Diana and I first met Randy Smith on the grounds of the Moser Tannery in 2004 (wife Ann was with him; I knew her from university), a story which was told earlier in 2020: "ON THE AVENUES: Alas, New Albany is less of a place without a bookstore." He'd just moved here with Ann, and they were opening Destinations Booksellers.

To make a long story very short, Randy and I have collaborated numerous times on civic matters over the intervening years, with the needs of the moment at our respective business ventures ordaining an ebb and flow to the relationship.

If it isn't too bold a statement, allow me to observe that of all the folks I've met over the years who turned up in New Albany from elsewhere with abilities and good intentions, and found the creaking antebellum wagons of "that's the way we've always done it here" circled and manned by vigilante NAHS graduates, Randy's frosty reception is the only one to have equaled my own.

Perhaps that's why so many locals think we're brothers. It isn't so, although spiritually -- in the sense of necessitated samizdat and the petty pushback from locally inbred mediocrity -- there's a case to be made for a solid bond.   

From April 3, 2006. It would seem that 2006 predated the use of labels at Blogger.

-----------------------

Constantinople to Istanbul: NA Confidential welcomes All4Word, a familiar voice, to its roster. 

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things - the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit,and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit. --- Samuel Johnson

“Good” and “genuine” are just two of the many words I’ve used to describe the quality of the writing and the advocacy at Volunteer Hoosier, a blog long included in NA Confidential’s sidebar links and often cited on these pages. 

Today I’m pleased to formally announce the addition of All4Word, a/k/a Randy Smith, to the editorial board of this Web log. Randy is a fellow businessman arrived lately to these shores, and was the founder of Volunteer Hoosier in 2004. Readers will be familiar with his work, online and behind the scenes, in drawing attention to matters of public affairs. 

After long consideration, Randy and I decided to consummate a merger of interests in the belief that together we can make NA Confidential a more comprehensive and useful site. With two primary reporters/commentators, each of us will be able to devote more time to making the site better without neglecting our other responsibilities. 

NA Confidential, effective this date, has acquired the rights to Volunteer Hoosier, which will cease publication. However, the archival postings and comments will remain online.

The New Albanian

 ----

Istanbul is widely recognized as the name of Turkey's most well known city, but it was not always this way, and even today some confusion over its proper name still exists. The confusion is rooted in the various names the city assumed under the Ottomans in the centuries after their conquest of the city in 1453. Although the Ottomans did not purposely change the city's name, they opted to make "Constantinople" into a more Turkish style name "Konstantiniye" (which loosely translates as "of Constantine"), however variations on Konstantiniye soon cropped up. 

"Stanbulin," (Greek for "to the city") once commonly found on road signs directing travelers to the capital, was punned by devout Turks into Islambol, where "Islam abounds." The names Islambol and Konstantiniye were used interchangeably in Ottoman documents up until the empire's demise in 1923. Westerners continued to refer to the city as Constantinople well into the 20th century. In the 19th century, however, the city's large foreign expatriate community took to calling the old city Stamboul. Western accounts of the old city during this period make regular references to the name. -- Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture 

Effective this date, Volunteer Hoosier ceases publication. This blogger departs from "Constantinople" for a new home at "Istanbul." 

The New Albanian and I have, in his words, consummated a merger of interests, and I will be joining him in the hope of making NA Confidential even stronger. It is already the premier Web log in the region. The separation between us has never been as wide as the Bosporus, but we, The New Albanian and All4Word, have always marched to the beat of distinctly different drummers. 

As for me, I early on decided that it would have been boorish of me to write at length as a commenter on NA Confidential. And yet, like The New Albanian, I’m not one to write in short bites. Thus, shortly after NA Confidential came online, Volunteer Hoosier was born. We hope you have found it stimulating. 

In my judgment, The New Albanian offers strong insight and a wit that I appreciate. If anything can be said about our senses of humor, it is that he has the better delivery of it, and I have a greater appreciation of it. I will say that I can think of no instance in which The New Albanian has taken his satire further than is appropriate. I would proudly sign on to his spot-on critiques. 

Another distinction is that, between the two of us, I am clearly the “wonk” in the equation. In addition to my affinity for policy and financial detail, I’m more likely to consider the electoral strategies that underlie public policy decisions – at least, I’m more likely to speculate about them. 

As mentioned above, Volunteer Hoosier ceases publication effective today. I have no regrets. I’m pleased to join the online platform at NA Confidential, and the acquisition price was sufficient incentive to surrender my single-author site. 

We are of like minds about many matters, but don’t expect a monolithic front here. 

I will have the freedom to post on any topic at a moment’s notice, without prior restraint, and it is a given that agreement between us is not a requirement. We do disagree from time to time, including recently, which makes this a fortuitous time for our “merger.” In short, we trust and value each other’s judgment. 

One final note. It is our joint and fervent desire to encourage contributor Bluegill to “ramp up” his contributions and make this site even stronger. 

The New Albanian is departing for a well-earned vacation road trip and will be on enforced hiatus. NA Confidential has been a primary source for community news, like tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Summit. 

Be sure to copy me with such items, particularly during NAC’s hiatus. 

All4Word

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to the last will and testament of NA Confidential.

It cannot be denied that I’m a slow learner, a late bloomer and a serial procrastinator. 

This much is perfectly clear. Actually, I’ve never cared enough to even try dodging these compliments. 

The odd part has always been that once I get around at long last to learning, blooming and/or making up my mind, it’s a done deal. Once a decision has been determined, right or wrong, it is pretty much irrevocable with me.

So it was last week when I awakened to thoughts about NA Confidential’s future, and concluded it has none, at least in its present format. I'll continue writing elsewhere, and soon the blog will cease to exist as an active, ongoing entity.

NAC began in 2004 as a way of channeling a long-gestating insight, this being the importance of grassroots localism. It was and remains my view that people tend to obsess about hugely complex national and international topics to the exclusion of approachable issues outside their front doors, and in their own communities, because theatrically pontificating in broad terms is easier than getting involved with the grit and grime of specifics.

NAC started out as a diary of sorts, a place to chronicle my journeys, promote the beer businesses I was involved with at the time, channel my inner Mencken, and write about anything I damn well pleased. Other folks helped out with writing (Randy, Jeff, Lloyd), and then they didn’t. 

The blog grew into a public gathering spot, a function that ebbed drastically once social media exploded. All along, it was a spot to broach subjects no one else would. I followed these stories where they took me, and it didn't always make people happy. 

They're entitled to their own opinions, although not their own facts.

NA Confidential’s first post was on October 22, 2004. Who even imagined we’d still be talking about it in 2020? I didn't.

You don’t need a gumshoe with rotten breath and one too many alimony payments to figure out the problem with this town. It’s something in the water that causes people here to lose their vision. Q: What do New Albanians call Southside's mashed potatoes? A: Freedom Foie Gras. Well, we’re here to change all that.

Ha! 

Change all that?

A tad cheeky, and ultimately a point to debate, although others can decide the extent, if any, of the blog’s influence hereabouts. Irrespective, the blogging experience has changed me, and nowadays I’m at a crossroads amid the crossfire. Consequently, there are several good reasons for acknowledging various irrefutable realities and drowning the blog in the nearest available bathtub.

Allow me to explore the reasoning.

---

Localism? Not so much. Between our toxic social media fixation, the pandemic and Trump’s invasive cult of personality, interest in provocative takes on local matters in Nawbany has largely disappeared. Readership has responded accordingly, by plummeting. This should please my betters. 

Part of this decline owes to the scattershot essence of Blogger; it is an utter piece of crap, and a dysfunctional platform overall. For at least a decade Blogger has been unsuitable for my intentions. Now it’s largely unusable owing to recent revisions, and I should have exited long ago when the going was good. That one's on me.   

In addition, I turned 60 in August, and began paying attention to what the mirror (and my wife) was trying to tell me about the meaning of life. In short, it’s time for an autumn (of my years) deep cleaning and reboot. What better time than multiple, horrifying daily existential crises?

Then an e-mail notice came, reminding me it was time to renew my rogerbaylor.com domain name. Having finally learned a bit about WordPress owing to my position as digital editor at Food & Dining Magazine, and with the publication’s house web guru Jason around to advise me, starting anew at my own web site suddenly became an attractive option.

The year 2020 already was the most tumultuous year of my life, and probably yours, too. Why not end it with closure, by euthanizing NAC, and moving forward to something different?

---

Of course there’s another aspect to the blog’s impending termination, a process which began in earnest the moment last year’s municipal election cycle concluded.

Jeff Gahan’s unprecedented third mayoral term (save for C. Pralle Erni’s four), and especially his increased margin of victory in the 2019 election, constituted voluminous (and perhaps inevitable) handwriting on the wall. It was a clear, unmistakable vote for civic fantasy, and against truth telling, whether by a malcontent like me or on the part of perpetually somnolent local newspapers … or anyone else, for that matter. 

It was, in fact, a slam dunk. 

Accordingly, a solitary dissident at a blog parked at the woefully deficient Blogger hell hole simply cannot hope to make a difference in such a dismal, uncomprehending milieu. Ironically, what it can do is make the dissident’s own position unsustainable -- and it has. 

None of this thrills me, but the truth of it is simply undeniable, and that’s why I’ll go through the narrative a final time before NAC self-destructs. Accordingly, let’s award credit where it’s due, sans snarkiness. 

I fought Nawbany, and Nawbany won. 

That's it, in a nutshell. As an intelligent, well-educated and worldly person, I can fully appreciate the tactical deficit of my coordinates in this pandemic year, as pinned down in a fox hole with massed (metaphorical) artillery pointed in my general direction. 

Well played, dominant cadres. I've learned that "it's the way things work here" is more than a recurring promise; it's a big-ass buzz saw, and I'm sliced, diced and vanquished. 

Evidently “check mate” means the same thing in all of those European languages I wish had come easier to me so as to facilitate being a joyful expatriate. It looks like we’re marooned here until the house is paid off. After that, Ireland (or Malta, or Bolivia; whatever), here we come. 

Verily, the governing Nawbanian clique's “lone dissident on the grassy know-it-all” containment strategy for the past seven years has proven to be highly effective. Granted, it took a few dozen of them to whip one blogger acting alone, but make no mistake: The lash of the nabob's whip is real, and accordingly, I’m whupped. 

Cutting me off from any “official” political and governing dialogue is only a small part of it, because the community pillars have completely succeeded in institutionalizing a local perception of me as social misfit and pariah, to be shunned by “right thinking” people as if I were a member of India’s untouchable caste.

Evidently if you whisper often enough that Roger’s a dangerous nutcase, otherwise sane and intelligent people will start to believe it. The ones who don’t? They'll merely say they regret the inconvenience, but just can’t risk being seen with you – you understand, they’ll say amid the furtive glances, it’s just business.

Yes, I understand the obligations of current accounts, although frankly, some of you should be ashamed to spend hours denouncing the perfidy of national Republicans while simultaneously encouraging crickets to chirp when it comes to the eually repellant habits of local Democrats. That’s cowardice, and it’s also hypocrisy. I genuinely feel bad for you, but really? 

Toss a starving dog a bone. Maybe just a wee shred of resolve, every now and then?

What’s more, in so many of these "tsk tsk" instances, it has not mattered in the slightest what I actually said or wrote to prompt a flurry of finger-wagging; folks have concluded automatically that I’m mistaken, not to mention disreputable, based on what they imagined me saying or writing, and not actually hearing or reading it. Purportedly it is understood by those who – you know – understand these sort of things.

Frustrating, but also quite brilliant. 

I’m stymied, hung out and left to dry. Like I said, full credit where it’s due. The Kool-Aid is strong, and I am weak. Long live the junta!

---

Furthermore, the ruling elite came to an astute recognition that while they cannot hurt me personally, people around me are vulnerable. It’s a crude, blunt-edged form of reprisal, as well as a highly efficient one. In good conscience I can no longer risk the threat of collateral damage to innocent bystanders.

Additionally, because the leading element in New Albany has successfully characterized NA Confidential in its diverse entirety as the equivalent of deranged snuff porn fetishism, the blog’s “brand” is compromised, stuffed into a straw man's cubbyhole and tainted by association.

Masterful, indeed.

My earnest efforts in 2020 to remove the political element from the blog have been easier than I imagined, but ultimately it's futile. The torture is unlikely to stop, the Blogger platform remains inadequate for future writing, and the blog as currently constituted is dead in the water, adroitly blockaded by local arbiters, blithely shunned by the aspirant vanguard, and abjectly short-circuited by its own host platform.

I can take a hint and surrender, dear (leader).



---

Granted, I might start again at a new website and continue calling it NA Confidential. But it needs to be retired. At the forthcoming Roger Baylor Dot Com there will be an archive of the 15,000+ posts appearing at NAC since 2004, albeit completely inactive in terms of new content. It will be maintained strictly for historical interest, and as a sketchbook for future writing. 

Resurrecting NAC wouldn’t be the same. I played the game and lost. So it goes. It may not have been fair or square, and yet make no mistake; I knew exactly the nature of the surreal absurdity I was getting into way back in 2004, purporting to chronicle the life and times of a city that hasn’t been on the cutting edge of anything since the 19th century, and probably never will.  

As proof, note that in their most recent races, Donald Trump (Republican President), Jeff Gahan (Democratic Mayor) and Scott Blair (Independent City Council) each won the 6th council district by almost exactly the same percentage of vote as the others.

Huh? If you can explain that, then it’s your turn to grapple with this town’s psychotic DNA.

Looking at it objectively, NAC can be said to have accomplished some positive outcomes; just the same, it is exhausted. So is the blog's creator. 

NAC is the only Nawbany blog that truly mattered, ever, except blogs seldom matter here, ever, especially when pursuing the sort of subject matter that differs with the prevailing "mentality" (rest assured I use this term guardedly).

In the beginning, back in 2004, good friends warned me that we're a barely literate, perennially dirty little river town, and likely would always be this way, forever.

I laughed.

I’m laughing no longer. Stick a fork in me, because I’m done.

To those who have read, thanks for reading, and for all your support over the years. When the new digs are ready, I’ll let you know, as long as you let me know if we ever arrive at answers to the opening questions.

New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

---

September 24: ON THE AVENUES: Magic and loss. 

September 17: ON THE AVENUES: Stuck inside of Nawbany with the Flanders blues again.

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: The Weekly Wad lives on in the minds of malcontents.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: If you really want to be my friend.

A change is coming to the model village, and NA Confidential is winding down.

For several years a division of Google, Blogger hasn't ever been a particularly relevant (or efficient) communications platform from a writer's standpoint. Maybe it was okay briefly when it began back in 1999, or whenever it appeared. So was Bill Clinton, for a few minutes at least.

My only allegiance to Blogger all along has been the low cost of writing (zero), which is a good thing for a blog that has yet to earn its first penny in revenues. 

As it stands right now, the latest Blogger update has incapacitated NA Confidential by denying me the use of labels. These are important to keep things straight. Think of an old school file cabinet with infinite file folder capacity but only a finite ability to mark the folders. Soon it's chaos. Blogger already had a label limit that I never knew about because there was no reason to care for so long as processes worked.

Now they don't. The "matching suggestions" label finder is beached and inoperative, the assumption being I've exceeded my label limit, but there no longer is a pathway inside to look and see, or to make corrections, and trying to arouse interest from a human reminds me of banging my head against Yosemite. NAC is floating out on the water, without any way to repair an engine failure.

Fuck Blogger -- to death, in its entirety. 

However, I digress.

Since last November, in response to (a) incessant threats of retaliation from the hypocritical community pillars in this one-thought town, (b) the escalating time requirements of my two jobs, and (c) a very real sense of fatigue and burnout, I've been steadily reducing the blog output and refraining (for the most part) from commentary on local issues. 

In essence, I've been smothering my baby in fits and starts. Readership has plummeted. All eyes have been averted from local issues, consumed with the social media-inspired culture war at the national level. Meanwhile the arrogance, cupidity and vandalism proceed apace in this barely literate, perennially dirty little river town, and it might as well be 2004 all over again. 

You know, this used to be fun. 

Now it's like going to work at a job you detest, not because of your own motivations or interest level, but due to hideous working conditions. Blogger is making it twice as hard to do half as much, an example of inane big tech insanity that I have no interest in indulging any longer. 

All that's left is an official announcement, and while this isn't exactly it, I can't tell you how much longer I intend to post regularly here. 

The plan at present is to maintain NA Confidential as best as I can as an archive and reference resource (when the arrests begin, I need to be able to say I told you so), and to build a full-fledged WordPress-powered, stand-alone web site under a different name. I'll post there regularly, and use it as a place for my writing -- travel, beer, whatnot. Negotiations are underway with a local designer. 

I'll keep you posted. 

This saddens me, of course. And yet all things must pass, and the sheer, pervasive dumbassery of the year 2020 offers an ideal opportunity to make a clean break with the past. 

The dipshits in Nawbany win again, but don't they always? 

Look, an outsider like me doesn't climb into the ring imagining miracles. It's asking a lot to vanquish the overwhelming forces of decades-ingrained ignorance, venality, greed, corruption and inertia by summoning comic book levels of strength and firepower. 

Rather, you try to take the bout 15 rounds, looking for chances to score points, all the while conducting yourself with guile and aplomb before the cliquish big fish drown you in their insufferably small pond. 

It's gone 16 years, not 15 rounds, and the final bell is about to sound. 

I'm not yet sure what will become of the ON THE AVENUES column; either it or something similar probably will continue at the new digs. I will keep you informed about the changes to come. 15,000+ posts later, thanks very much for reading.   

(unless I change my mind, naturally)

The end times are far too topical, so my diary comes to ... a conclusion.

At the start of the year I was looking for ways to shake up this blog, partly because I'd vowed to embark upon a sabbatical of sorts from direct and time-consuming involvement in local politics, but also from a sobering realization that ruts are real.

The "sober" part didn't last very long.

As explained on several occasions, time constraints also became more of a factor, which was a good problem to have. Two part-time jobs add up to a whole; both Pints&union and Food & Dining Magazine pay me actual money, which is something this blog has not ever done in 15.5 years of operation.

Having lowered my daily quota of posts from four to three, and now to two, it seemed like a good idea to have regular topics.

Monday ... Roger's Diary of the End Times
Tuesday ... Beer with a Socialist
Wednesday ... Shane's Excellent New Words
Thursday ... On the Avenues
Friday ... Green Mouse Presents Nawbany Week in Review

It was (and remains) my hope to do food on Saturday and music on Sunday. These will happen, although I'm not sure when.

You'll have noticed the strikethrough: Roger's Diary of the End Times. COVID-19 was the furthest thing from my mind when this idea came to me. Rather, it was inspired by designer ice cubes.

ROGER'S DIARY OF THE END TIMES: If polar ice caps melt, what happens to ostentatious bourbonism?

However, while the advent of our current coronavirus strain/drain might itself be a verifiable sign of the end times, it's tacky to make a direct reference to it, and so I'll drop it for a while unless a format change seems justified. It might.

Like everyone else without a template, I'm just waiting to see how it all shakes out.

The beatings will continue until morale improves: Happy 15th birthday to NA Confidential ... the only New Albany blog that matters.

Tuesday, October 22 will be the 15th anniversary of the NA Confidential blog.

There have been just over 14,353 posts, 4,670,829 page views (including a handful recently from Singapore), 409 posts tagged "street grid," and flaccid spitballs too numerous to count lobbed back at us, often anonymously, from folks who -- in the parlance of our contemporary era -- are "butt hurt."

We've outlasted all the Trog Blogs of old. Naturally the main reason for their demise is the ready accessibility of social media; with reduced attention spans there is an accompanying reluctance to read and write. For a contrarian who revels in both, it's the perfect time to double down on longer-form expressions.

The vast majority of posts at NA Confidential have dealt with the eternally confounding life and times of Nawbany, a confounding little river town with an inferiority complex. The blog's founding premise in 2004 was, and remains, that local issues deserve more attention and discussion than national affairs, primarily because proximity at the grassroots brings possibilities to be involved and effect changes.

Since 2004 the municipality of New Albany has changed far less than misleading (and expensive) appearances might indicate, but it has proven to be far more entertaining than I'd ever have imagined.

It's a tad ironic that a blog so few will admit to reading is regularly "answered" in other media and out on the hustings, and I wish I had a beer for every time someone snarled, "If you don't like it here, leave!"

But you see, I've not been doing this for 15 years because I want to leave.

I've done it because I want to stay.

Why should I always have to be the one to change?

Neanderthals, puritans, sloths and teetotallers -- inhabitants of the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness -- step right up and take your turn. Maybe the time has come for YOU to go back to wherever.

Fifteen (15) years is an eternity, so on the occasion of this column, profuse thanks to Jeff Gillenwater, Randy Smith and the late Lloyd Wimp for their credited contributions over the past nine years, to Mark Cassidy for his support and willingness to cross-examine, and to all the green mice, guest columnists, moles, agitators and malcontents who help these ideas to gestate. Thanks to my wife for tolerating my writing and cage-rattling compulsions, and to Joe, my current employer, for his unparalleled patience.

Thanks especially to you, the reader.

Special thanks to the late, great Howard Zinn for demonstrating the fundamental veracity of a people's history, and the critical need for it, because while this blog is as imperfect as its originator, the intent all along has been to provide New Albany's “other” side.

Doing so has required a learning curve, but I'm damned proud of the results, and I think we've helped provide a body of work and an alternative record, while offering more ideas per square pixel than New Albany’s local political power structures and non-local media combined.

Disney does fantasy just fine. I prefer the real world.

Has any of it really mattered? It's a question others must answer. I'm too close to the beating heart to tell. Personally, I think NAC is ridiculously underrated, particularly by local "media" outlets, but of course this doesn't matter all that much. It's their loss, and that's life, because somewhere it's beer-thirty.

Through it all one question still remains:

New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? We continue to observe the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town, because if it's true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

A reader writes: "God sent me there," although the rest isn't quite as clear.

Gradually over time discussions engendered by NAC blog posts have shifted to social media. These days not many comments are appended to original posts, but occasionally one appears -- and every now and then it's so thought-provoking that it simply must be repeated in this space.

Like this one. It's a comment made only yesterday to a blog post from August 18, 2018: "Rev. Bernice Hicks, founder of Christ Gospel Church, dies."

---

God sent me there after being on the road with skynyrd first tase of jesus i really got was with a man Randy cutlip came to our school i was in 7 grade he was in three dog knight band didn't listen much but learned how god set him free no church no preacher he whent to voodoo lady she told him to say theses words light 3 candles and a dead musian would fill his soul he lit the candles black cloud appears then a bright light comes into the room he blew out the candles and reached for the light of jesus thank god he did jesus and him saved my life. The next year i was in 8 grade. I came home there was randy cutlips van world wide bread casting company. All man school told him i was bad selling pot at school. So i went smoked a joint out side my room then went in pulled my dad into the kictchen dad what this guy doing here well son we are host family for him to stay here while he goes through the schools and churches kool i start to go my room he walks behind me he is staying in my room i turn around he i know the basses in that band lynyrd skynyrd really i said he said if you would like come this summer help set up tape record t shirt sales you can meet him ok i said he came and got me that summer we went church camp first as we get out of van some kids up to him brother Randy this girl is laying down with the boys putting spells on them then this boy comes up tells his story that somthing came over him and he wanted it gone they got more people to pray with him he falls to the ground starts sweating gallons of water comes out deamens start to appears in demond voices you cant make me leave he had 16 demons castesed out of him wow did i start to pray read my bible i was listening to every word brother Randy had to say. I wanted what he had a true relationship with christ not a church not preacher jesus and him a lone going to finish the book me and started to do my ministery is called beat the streets ministry i dont have big fancy church with coffee shop or day care i am in street with the sinners the drunks the lady of the knight the vetrans most important of all the children of all black white yellow brown we all have jesus blood pray for some one every day you can see the hurt the sadness on there faces by them lunch pray with with them it cost nothing. If a man or woman can see a problem decern that problem. We are obligated to become part of the solution. That is the price of freedom to me god bless i do give testimony in churches god bless.

---

I've no idea what to add. J, is that you?

ON THE AVENUES: Where do we go from here?

I’m …

“Chicago is an edgy avant-garde fusion rock band”

… old, and this song from 1970 perfectly encapsulates my mood in the down-buzz aftermath of last Tuesday’s primary election.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that keyboardist Robert Lamm wrote it. He was the band’s most prolific composer during the early years, and served as mouthpiece for a decidedly left-wing political conscience that faded later as the hits came fast and furious.

Actually “Where Do We Go From Here?” was the first song ever penned by bassist Peter Cetera, later to become a middle-of-the-road love-song-emoting pop star. The horns are absent. In it, Cetera surveys the socio-political landscape in America at the time and emerges hopeful, if puzzled.

That’s understandable. The Summer of Love had passed through Woodstock in route to a big crash at Altamont; now Richard Nixon was on top, the crew-cut adults were keen to crack the whip on a counter-culture that itself was becoming ever more disillusioned. Moreover, Vietnam remained an 800-lb gorilla.

Here’s the pivot: Where do we go here in Nawbany, circa 2019?

Deaf Gahan’s hefty wallet was enough to defeat David White, and the incumbent is the DemoDisneyDixiecratic nominee for mayor despite hemorrhaging 15% of his 2015 primary vote total, something other analysts seem determined to ignore.

Wait -- we have other analysts apart from NA Confidential?

According the usual suspects it was a quasi-Biblical outcome, with Hitching Post fried chicken and loaded Rice Krispies Treats standing in for fish fingers and loaves. The Kool-Aid flowed like wine, or at least it cascaded in the fashion of storm water obeying the laws of gravity from the heavenly heights of the Summit Springs chain-think strip mine.

One Gahan functionary, evidently disturbed by the imminent prospect of a job loss, happily took to Facebook to celebrate, crediting God herself for preserving pay-to-play patronage in our fair town.

It would have been the ideal occasion for a gospel choir "come-to-Duggins" moment, except that during Gahan’s 16-year career of mind-numbing mediocrity he’s done almost nothing to empower minority rights and advancement in this city.

“He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”?

Perhaps, but for now Deaf is most fond of “Disneyland Uber Alles.”

---

Naturally it was disconcerting to watch as the misgoverning clique, their elite party hacks and various other engorged sycophants merrily pelted the opposition with Jorge Lanz’s ceaseless C-notes while thumbing their noses at the Election Board’s dignified request to behave at the polling places, prior to doubling down on the Bud Light Mang-O-Ritas.

However, as previously noted, the electoral math emerging from May 7 is looking quite solid for Republican challenger Mark Seabrook.

Most importantly, Gahan's intrinsic crookedness no longer can be doubted. He’s a con man, a bully and an addict, dependent on the campaign finance revenue stream from out-of-town contract seekers, and thus compelled to keep the Ponzi scheme alive with projects funded by cash infusions from wherever he can pocket them.

Soon Team Gahan will be “borrowing” money from eatery tip jars. Whatever. Your grandchildren can deal with it.

Precipice, meet Wile E. Gahan. Few of White's supporters will vote for Hizzoner. Some of them may sit out the general election, but most will opt for Seabrook. Combine the corrosive trends of two-term attrition with those 300 votes Gahan lost Tuesday, and Dear Leader’s autumn ceiling is looking like 3,000 votes at most -- and this doesn’t factor the chunk subtracted from the Democrats by Dan Coffey's probable independent candidacy.

(May 15 update: for a consideration of Coffey's potential impact as an independent candidate, go here and here)

Seabrook can win in November, and he might win convincingly. To be sure, Gahan will have $175,000 of pay-to-play money available for saturation sliming, and he'll be willing to spend every last cent of it to keep the gravy train rolling. All the same I believe a derailment is coming, so it’s straight to hell (or the Cayman Islands) for our malignant narcissist-in-chief.

Anchor Elvis soon will be leaving the building, because I have a feeling God will be siting out the general election.

---

My post-primary thoughts have been sober and reflective, as with Eric “Otter” Stratton’s prescient 1978 pronouncement.

I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

Customarily this task falls to me, and yet I’m also mindful of Groucho Marx’s famous injunction.

"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."

Short of Falling Run being renamed “The Rubicon,” there’s a camel somewhere in a full-body cast. This time the post-election housekeeping feels different to me, even transformational. Resolutions aplenty are in the offing, one in particular.

Granted, I’m always venting about an impending exit from the resistance treadmill, only to drag myself back into the maelstrom when the second-raters annoy me. Now something seems to have changed. If I can’t entirely disengage, how exactly to reformat the nature of engagement?

I’ve been asking myself lots of questions like this, leading to one central query: I’ll be 60 years of age in August of 2020, and accordingly, what can I see myself doing these next few years?

The top answer to emerge from this dialogue is what I cannot visualize myself doing, and that’s serving as 3rd district council person.

Consequently, Greg Phipps will be delighted to learn that he’s safe. I’m not seeking public office this year. What the future holds is anyone’s guess; after all, never say never. However, I’m saying “highly unlikely” -- and for the following reasons.

First and foremost, I’ve said all along that my candidacy was exploratory and depended on the well being of family and household. We’re doing fine, thank you, but we’re coming very quickly to a time of numerous decisions that will impact our future. Simply stated, the inhabitants of the 1117 East Spring Street Neighborhood Association, human and feline, come first.

I’d make a damned effective council person, and even if Phipps won this fall, I’d make him work far harder than he has before for the right to continue as a obedient rubber stamp for a soulless, agoraphobic mayor. In so many ways, one passive and the other manipulative, they’re perfectly matched politically. The real fun comes in imagining Phipps’ council performance to come, when outnumbered by Republicans, without the mayoral safety net.

I imagine he’d resign rather than face the challenge.

In addition, working with David White for the past 18 months has gifted me with valuable lessons. Love him or hate him, David’s conception of public service (his “people first” really wasn’t a slogan) and his commitment to the ideal of this service are admirable qualities, and as such I believe the Democrats sacrificed an opportunity last week when he lost.

Contrasting David’s service-oriented outlook with my own office-holding inclinations led to intense introspection. Is public service really what I want to do? Is this my preferred place in the cosmos?

Honestly, no. It isn’t. The sweetest spot of all for me in terms of dedication and intensity is the daily practice of writing, and in the art of the polemic in particular. It’s what makes me tick, and how I can best contribute.

Especially now, with the News and Tribune coming off its most vacantly inept performance in recent memory while pretending to “cover” a New Albany municipal election, NA Confidential has taken on greater importance as an alternative source of information.

The News and Tribune has proven definitively that it won’t be part of any conceivable solution, at least in Floyd County. This newspaper is dead to me, and I propose to treat it accordingly from this point forward.

It’s not pinin'! It’s passed on! This newspaper is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the floor it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now 'istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-NEWSPAPER!!

Finally, there’s the matter of my ongoing involvement with Pints&union, where Joe has been remarkably indulgent and supportive as I’ve followed my local political obsessions to their logical conclusion. We have a deal and I intend to honor my part of it by doing my utmost to help make Pints&union the success it deserves to be.

Coincidentally the demise of Bank Street Brewhouse has contributed mightily to my current frame of mind, as did attending the funeral of my friend Rick Lang last week. These whiffs of mortality conjure considerations of legacies, and they also prompt an assessment: How much is left in the tank? How many minutes are on the game clock? How best to direct my energies?

Where do I go from here?

To repeat: Home and Hearth ... Pints&union ... NA Confidential.

I’ll keep writing, agitating, clarifying and informing. I’ll keep these writing and publishing options open. I’ll continue to help as best I can as reporter, satirist and polemicist. I’ll follow my muse, and there's no backing away from the resistance, albeit not into another campaign for office.

But find me a way to live in Belgium, Estonia, Sicily or Western Massachusetts, and every single word I’ve written today goes right out the window.

As always, thanks for your support.

---

Recent columns:

May 6: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Ghosts within these stones, defiance in these bones (2018).

May 5: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Our great and noble leader soon will be going away, so let's break out the țuică and make a joyful noise.

May 3: horse-race-rehash-sadly.html">ON THE AVENUES HORSE RACE REHASH: Sadly, the Kentucky Derby no longer is decadent and depraved. It’s just another vacuous capitalist bait ‘n’ switch.

April 23: ON THE AVENUES: Gehenna, Franklin Graham, Jean-Paul Sartre and Fred Astaire lead us straight to Hell.

The blog that dares not speak its name, although this doesn't prevent the professional from asking the amateur for help.

Deaf to Bill, 2019.

A polemic (/pəˈlɛmɪk/) is contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive claims and undermining of the opposing position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about controversial topics. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics. A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is called a polemicist.

With voting underway, and election "day" just around the corner, you'll have noticed that the News and Tribune has had almost nothing to say about the candidates and issues.

This has been true about New Albany, the newspaper's most consistently neglected coverage area, as well as for races in Clark County, where the newspaper now allocates most of its sadly flagging energies.

Let's delve into double standards, but first, as a citizen polemicist, I don't mind being held to a higher bar when it comes to submissions. Still, the hypocrisy gets to me at times.

My letters to the editor, which are not allowed to bear a signature that includes "NA Confidential" as identifier, always are subject to scrupulous editing for proof and evidence -- even as Bill's and Susan's Excellent Adventure runs two weekly Christianity columns and permits numerous Christian advocacy letters to the editor, one imagines without the same scrupulous fact checking, because if such were to be applied to the absence of facts ... well, you know.

It's faith, isn't it?

At times even an "online comment" merits a follow-up, hence an amusing exchange from March. I'd mentioned Jeff Gahan's pay-to-play corruption in this comment about Chris Morris' abortion column.

Note the irony of the first example in this definition of corruption.

1. dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.

"the journalist who wants to expose corruption in high places"

synonyms: dishonesty, dishonest dealings, unscrupulousness, deceit, deception, duplicity, double-dealing, fraud, fraudulence, misconduct, lawbreaking, crime, criminality, delinquency, wrongdoing, villainy

2. the process by which something, typically a word or expression, is changed from its original use or meaning to one that is regarded as erroneous or debased.

synonyms: alteration, falsification, doctoring, manipulation, manipulating, fudging, adulteration, debasement, degradation, abuse, subversion, misrepresentation, misapplication; rarevitiation

"these figures have been subject to corruption"

Corruption is a many-splendoured concept, gloriously mutable for the purpose of polemics. Less so any newspaper blithely content to be a feel-good lifestyle publication to the exclusion of its duty to afflict the comfortable while comforting the afflicted.

Here is our cyber trail.

---

From: Susan Duncan
To: Roger Baylor
Cc: Bill Hanson - NT

Mar 22 at 3:40 PM

Roger,

Your online comment references “corruption,” indicating criminal wrongdoing. Where is your proof?

Susan

---

From: Roger A. Baylor
To: Susan Duncan
Cc: Bill Hanson - NT

Mar 22 at 5:48 PM

Don’t worry, guys. I protected your star mayoral $ advertiser by not mentioning his name. I could be talking about any mayor, couldn’t I? Now can you give us a reporter, as opposed to a crusading anti-abortionist steno?

R

---
From: Susan Duncan
To: Roger A. Baylor
Cc: Bill Hanson - NT

Mar 22 at 6:45 PM

You could be referencing any mayor; however, you posted the comment on a column by our assistant editor based in New Albany.

I’m not worried about advertising money from anyone, including mayors — nor do we make coverage decisions based on who does or doesn’t advertise in the newspaper.

If you have any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by any mayor in Southern Indiana, we would be interested in looking at it.

Susan Duncan

---

From: Roger Baylor
To: Susan Duncan
Cc: Bill Hanson - NT

Mar 22 at 8:54 PM

Wearily ... and if I have such evidence, why on earth would I share it with the News and Tribune? How could I ever trust you to do anything with it?

In spite of my antipathy amid indefensible blathering like Morris' abortion piece today, for almost 15 years I've been linking my readers to your newspaper, thereby exposing them to the contagion of Gahan's self-congratulatory daily newspaper ads, and yet not once has anyone at the newspaper said something along the lines of "thanks for the traffic - here's a complimentary on-line subscription."

You said it yourself a while back: you're just not giving free blurbs to a mere blogger. That's hunky dory, but know that it's fairly obvious to the blogger and HIS readers when your reporters get their ideas from perusing my material. I'm down with it, too; at least (the reporters) will engage in conversation and be human, and as a former business owner, I've generally refrained from critiquing the shop floor, because the buck stops with management.

As it does in this instance. To reiterate, if I had solid evidence of criminal wrongdoing, why would a degraded alcoholic blogger like me give it to the News and Tribune when it's the News and Tribune's job to do things like that -- you know, reporting -- in the first place?

Sincerely,

R

---

Here's the thing. I understand perfectly well that as a blogger, there are natural limitations.

I'm solo, pro bono and periodically loco. Conversely the newspaper's readership may have declined precipitously, but it's still more broadly distributed across various segments of the local populace than NA Confidential's -- though I surely have a loyal audience here, too. Just think about these two conditions, working together.

I do, often. They don't, ever. That's too bad, isn't it?

At any rate, we might spend the remainder of the day arguing about the meaning of journalism, and whether blogger can be journalists, and what a newspaper like the News and Tribune can be expected to accomplish in this day and age. I suspect the day would be wasted, and I'd be drinking by 5:30 p.m.

The point remains: If they won't allow me to identify myself as the NA Confidential blogger in a letter to the editor of the News and Tribune, it's some massive cheek to ask me to share "evidence of criminal wrongdoing" when I've put lots more time into exploring the preconditions of this topic than their entity has -- and they're far better placed to find it than me, given our respective economies of scale and potential magnitude of our bully pulpits.

I contend, and I will continue to contend, that in a time when local governments hire PR fluff firms to purchase advertising in newspapers, while continuing to pay classified rates for mandated notices and announcements, any insistence by a newspaper editor to the effect of revenue streams having no bearing on editorial decisions is disingenuous at best.

Although perhaps it's not indicative of corruption, only deferring to financial reality. Who knows? After all, I'm merely a blogging polemicist -- and the supposed local newspaper of record is allowing another election cycle to pass in a position of supine disengagement.

Here's a thought. Maybe if they find evidence of criminal wrongdoing, it will be shared with NA Confidential, the blog that dare not speak its name in the News and Tribune?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to look for "proof" in today's multiple religion columns. Not holding my breath, though.

The beatings will continue until morale improves -- or, happy 14th birthday to NA Confidential.

2006. Sold out!

This essay has been substantially revised since its original publication on the occasion of the blog's 10th birthday in 2014. Much has happened during the intervening 48 months, both publicly and privately, but through it all one question still remains: New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? We continue to observe the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town, because if it's true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?

---

This coming Monday (October 22) marks the 14th anniversary of NA Confidential.

As usual, I've pondered the possibility of a party in celebration of making it another year without my imposing physique being institutionalized, but there’s no pressing reason for a gathering.

We need only gather at the pub of our choice for commemorative elixirs (on Tuesday, seeing as Pints&union is closed on Monday) and call it good.

Fourteen years is an eternity, and I've long since conceded to fudging when making the claim that the blog's conception was a direct result of massive personal despair in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election; obviously, the actual NAC birth date in October preceded Election Day in 2004.

However, in retrospect it is perfectly accurate to suggest that the grim promise of four more wasted White House years merely exacerbated the development of an epiphany already budding. It's hard to tell whether matters have gotten better or worse. In 2016, in a cataclysm at once bizarrely inconceivable and entirely understandable, election day gave us Donald Trump in the presidency.

In New Albany, we already possessed ample reason to resist -- and once we're done with Gahan, it'll be on to Trump. More than a blog will be needed to cope with the necessary cleanup, and so I've started drinking bourbon, too.

However, the blog's opening phases remain somewhat intact in the historical record.

During the years 2003 and 2004, several previously disparate threads gradually came together in my life. The most significant factor was personal renewal. My first marriage was finished, and a wonderful new relationship under way.

We felt sure enough about our combined future prospects to begin shopping for a house, and in 2003 came the purchase of a home located on Spring Street, in what these days occasionally is referenced as Midtown. Halloween of 2018 will make 15 years of living there.

Verily: Trick or treat? If we’d only grasped these nuances of civic foreshadowing.

Circa 2007: The stuff of 1,001 captions.

Even before the ink was dry on our bouncing baby debt, I'd taken dozens of walks and bicycle rides through the deserted wastes of a criminally neglected downtown, with a huge question eventually looming over all of it: Why was New Albany’s devastated former business district downtown different from those vibrant quarters I’d visited in other states and nations?

Was the decay avoidable? Could it be these people in other places knew something we didn’t? If so, why weren’t we emulating it? Was it money, politics, culture … or something in the water?

The questions mounted, and easy answers seemed frustratingly elusive. I didn't fully understand at the time the extent to which my ground was shifting. Thoughts previously devoted to escapist obsessions (generally, variants of beer and travel) began turning elsewhere, toward a vague context of rootedness.

Surely, something could be done, right there in the city's core.

NABC already was brewing on the north side, but it was only a small facet of the “good beer bar” business model. It began to occur to me that the answers to these questions of everyday life in one’s place of residence impacted this model. As a brewery, perhaps NABC was transitioning toward a fuller embrace of local existence. Might brewing make sense as the ultimate, local, creative act – in fact, what we should have been aspiring to achieve from the start?

This emerging epiphany was about place, and one’s place in it. As the presidential election year of 2004 advanced toward the pathetic re-enthronement of the second-worst American chief executive ever, an absurdity began gnawing at me.

Most of us spend vast chunks of our lives living in a specific place, but spend much of our time debating issues far beyond it. Granted, being aware of the world outside remained absolutely vital, and I wasn’t about to renounce my planetary citizenship, but when it came to action, as opposed to verbiage, what chance did I have of influencing the tragedy of a second Bush administration?

(Or Trump's first.)

To devote precious psychic energy debating these faraway issues left none to apply to matters nearest me, when these were precisely the sort of local conditions best addressed through direct participation. How to make things better right here, outside the doors of my home and business?

The comparative odds were 1 in 300 million, or 1 in 37,000. Which would you choose?

At this juncture, a deeply personal proclivity came into play, because what I decided to do first was write about it. After all, everyone is entitled to my opinion, although some might say that writing and action aren’t the same things at all.

I disagree. Ideas, words and how we use them do matter.

Quite early in my life, it was obvious that being able to arrange words on a page was essential to my being. I don't know why. It just is. Through most of my adult life, I have awakened to a jumble of thoughts centering on topics for the day, along with thoughts on how this jumble might be untangled and organized. They must be written, as soon as possible, in order to expel the current crop of thoughts and make room for others.

I suppose it’s a compulsion of sorts. Music always plays in my head, alongside sentences forming there. I'm convinced that when these idiosyncratic synapses cease to occur – or when math and numbers finally start to make sense to me – death will be imminent.

Concurrently, what better way to facilitate these needs in 2004 than electronic media? It required no start-up funds. I could write locally, and disseminate globally. And so it has gone, from then until now. It builds character, and makes me a better gadfly.

On the occasion of this column, NAC's 13,228th post, thanks to Jeff Gillenwater, Randy Smith and the late Lloyd Wimp for their credited contributions over the past nine years, and to all the green mice, guest columnists, moles, agitators and malcontents who help our ideas to gestate.

Thanks to my wife for tolerating my writing and cage-rattling compulsions, and to Joe, my current employer, for his patience.

Thanks especially to you, the reader.

Lloyd at the Bistro New Albany, circa 2006.

Special thanks to the late, great Howard Zinn for demonstrating the fundamental veracity of a people's history, and the critical need for it, because while this blog is as imperfect as its originator, the intent all along has been to provide New Albany's “other” side.

Doing so has required a learning curve, but I'm damned proud of the results, and I think we've helped provide a body of work and an alternative record, while offering more ideas per square pixel than New Albany’s local political power structures and non-local media combined.

Disney does fantasy just fine. I prefer the real world.

Has any of it really mattered? It's a question others must answer. I'm too close to the beating heart to tell. Personally, I think NAC is ridiculously underrated, particularly by local "media" outlets, but of course this doesn't matter all that much. It's their loss, and that's life.

Because: Somewhere, it's beer-thirty.

2012.