The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party – Page 2

The state of the TEA Party: fall 2019

(This is cross-posted to my book site for The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party.)

Since I last updated in July, we’ve had the elections I alluded to in North Carolna – where both Republicans won and maintained the seat for the GOP – but we’ve also had a more recent event which was reminiscent of the TEA Party of old. I’ll grant it wasn’t so much a philosophy-driven protest as it was personality-driven (or perhaps a little touch of desperation) but the TEA Party that came out for Donald Trump in 2016 wanted to take to the streets to support the beleaguered President last weekend.

Led by former TPP and TPX leader Amy Kremer, who now runs a group called Women for America First, the rally was slated on a weekday around noontime, which limited participation. Then they had an issue with the bus companies who were being counted on to bring hundreds more to the “hundreds” who found the time to attend the march in Washington, D.C. (However, nearly 50 other rallies were slated around the country so presumably there were thousands in attendance.)

Considering the Breitbart site set this up as a “massive march” it’s no surprise the meager turnout became the subject of left-wing derision. Of course it was, and the media got its exercise from jumping to conclusions: “Both women seemed to believe that TV video is regularly doctored to make Trump look bad,” said a report from the lefty site Mother Jones. “We are witnesses to a coup!” screamed the Right Wing Watch website, referring to attendees in Washington. “Without the president’s leadership, she fears the United States is fated to trash the Constitution and adopt communism,” intoned Cronkite News (a PBS site) about a rallygoer who actually was quoted as saying, “Not all leftists are against our country, but many have gone with the global philosophy of the New World Order.”

Yet media covered some of these smaller marches, too, in ruby-red places like Wyoming to conservative patches of blue states like Illinois. They encountered opposition in Tennessee.

At least there’s something there to believe in, though. If you’re a fan of the TEA Party Express (as I was) there’s not much to go on anymore; meanwhile the TEA Party Patriots are just hanging out on social media and doing their occasional lunch meeting.

Obviously I can’t see what each and every local TEA Party is doing, but hopefully they’ve made a habit of being involved in their local elections. If change is to be made, the local level is a good place to begin.

As for this ongoing update, I’d like to solicit more opinion and I have some ideas on how to do that. We’ll see where it goes come January.

Radio days volume 26

I had one last show to do before I went on a hiatus for a few weeks thanks to some family time and other obligations. So on Friday I stepped into the ring of a show called “Ringside Politics” with host Jeff Crouere on WGSO-AM in New Orleans. (They podcast the whole show, I come in about the 3:02 mark.)

It’s actually a gig I’d been seeking for awhile, but there were a few roadblocks placed in the way: I let them get through a hurricane, sent him a copy of the book to review, and finally got him to agree to a spot on the last day I was going to do shows before I took the time away. It’s interesting because I think years ago I was on Jeff’s mailing list but somehow we lost touch.

Anyway, the one issue I had initially was originally I was slated to be on at 9:00 a.m. his time. A few days beforehand, Jeff contacted me and asked if we could push it back a half hour, which was no problem with me.

But when it came to the appointed time, my phone was silent. So I went online and checked the station only to find he was talking to another caller. After going “hmmmmm…” I texted him to ask if I was bumped; a half-hour later I got a call from the station asking if I was ready to come on.

Thus, I was a little unprepared because I was also working on a project for work that had grabbed my attention again, but once I got back in the flow I thought I did okay. The biggest issue I had was where I rolled into a break before I was informed we were coming up on it; otherwise, I would have wrapped things up better. But it was a nice overview of the TEA Party and the frustrations that we had to endure.

I probably should have held my tongue on Bobby Jindal, though. It was really intended as a passing remark, but Jeff took it and ran with it. Live and learn.

So now I’m on a radio hiatus for a little while, for reasons I will further explain in a few weeks. There are two to three outlets which are still interested in speaking to me once the fall comes so we’ll see how pursuing them goes.

Radio days volume 25

This was a special one, for several reasons.

First of all, it was a return of sorts to my hometown, on the very station which defined its local conservative radio, WSPD.

Secondly, I had some invaluable help in arranging this one since my friend Bob Densic was the intermediary between myself and their morning host, Fred LeFebvre. Bob put the wheel in motion and I grabbed on for dear life. It was definitely not the longest segment I’ve ever done, but it was the one which most reminded me of my old days doing spots live on the radio here, back when WICO-AM was at 1320 and a talk station. Perhaps it was a little detrimental because Fred and I talked over each other several times, but it was fun for me.

And a third reason was the comment from Bob afterward:

You hit on a point that was a major dividing line with our area Tea Party groups. After the second Obama election we regrouped to discuss what went wrong. We had so much success with the 2010 election. Many of our group wanted to redouble our election efforts…. Focusing on finding and promoting candidates. Myself (Back to Basics) and the leaders of a few other groups wanted to shift focus to educational and outreach programs…. Trying to win the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens.
Many Founders warned that our republic could only survive if the people were moral and well educated. I wonder if those from many, many years ago who took our education away from the churches truly had this long term plan in mind. Now we have a system with millions of “useful lemmings” eager to do the bidding of “the system” without truly knowing the overall goals.
We will not win this battle in the halls of Congress, in the State Houses or even our local city hall and school board. We win this battle over the backyard fence, at the water cooler and the dinner table.
God bless you brother!
E-mail from Bob Densic, 8/2/19.

As I went through doing the book, the parallel realization I had with how the TEA Party elected Donald Trump was about how corporate the larger groups trading on the TEA Party name became. Obviously the TEA Party Express was about political candidates from the start, while TEA Party Patriots tried to keep a neutral facade for a few years, but there were countless organizations who would pass their collection plates to the people who made up the TEA Party, including the “scam PACs” I devote a couple pages to in the book. (Look in the chapter “The TEA Party Is Dead.”)

If you check back to the early, early days of the modern conservative movement, you’ll notice that most of its movers and shakers were also thinkers: William F. Buckley was a good example of this. Certainly National Review was created as a means to change hearts and minds, as it was not a moneymaker according to Buckley. Yet the TEA Party tried a different approach: to change the political players by constant fundraising, which only served to disillusion the rank-and-file when nothing really changed (except the bank balances of those who were running the scams.)

Thus, having said what he did and knowing his background, I pressed Bob on another subject I brought up in my book: the belief that governing was really the hard part for the TEA Party. (This is very lightly edited for a few typos and misspellings.)

Let me separate that into two parts. First, the act of governing with conservative principles is not a challenge. It does take twisting the norm on its head a bit. Rather than focus on what “special request” or project someone may ask for, I try to look at a larger perspective of what challenges are rooted in our government that prevent the project or issue being quickly or efficiently solved. It’s a bit like being the 7-Up of politicians…. I am the “un-candidate”. What can I info to make this work.
The second part involves working within the bureaucracy. Government by design, or at least Legislative action is to be slow, deliberative and transparent. It is very frustrating on both extremes to have to go through committees and multiple readings on certain issues, yet to see readings waived and emergency clauses attached to others.
The larger frustration is dealing with entrenched concepts of how government is to work. We are a very blue-collar, multi-year all town. “This is how we do this” is the most repeated phrase in all our municipal buildings. There is a lack of acceptance of economics impact of decisions. Our area has the highest property tax rate in the county along with some of the highest income tax rates. Yet the answer for every department is new equipment, new manpower, new money. The deep state exists at the local level. Lifetime bureaucrats will do everything (or nothing through a pocket veto) to keep the status quo. In our town as with many others it is more about who you know rather than what you know.
One major plus of being an elected official, it has provided a larger soapbox to teach from. As I get the chance to talk about “the why” of my votes or actions, people get to hear a new perspective. Too often my past educational efforts through Back to Basics ended up as preaching to the choir. As a councilman I talk with people who would never take a Saturday morning or week night to learn about the Constitution. A bit like Paul, I can preach to my Roman captors.

Bob is actually a very good example of being accountable, as he regularly engages with his public on social media to explain the governmental process. But he points out yet another reason hearts and minds have to be changed in the proper manner before political fortunes improve: notice the emphasis on “it’s always been done this way” and political fiefdoms. (Fred brought up the same point: if you have certain last names in Toledo, you will most likely be a Democrat and almost become a shoo-in for elected office no matter the qualifications – or lack thereof. I’m sure they are on third-generation elected officials in the same family, just like here in Maryland: Ben Cardin got his first political seat when his uncle with the same name left it – now it belongs to Cardin’s nephew Jon Cardin. )

So this edition of radio days was more than just a radio show, but the process of keeping a kinship going. However, I do have another gig coming up on August 16 in the great state of Louisiana once again.

Radio days volume 24

To prove that I’m in no real rush to break news, these radio spots occurred over a week ago. But seeing as the big push to secure interviews has slowed down to a manageable trickle – that and being busy with some actual, real life adulting-type stuff rather than my usual fun and games – it took me a little time to get to this wrapup, which will cover a total of four interviews I did during the week of July 15.

Unfortunately, the very first one I did doesn’t seem to be available on a podcast. It’s too bad because the introduction I had to this small-town Texas host was, “Would love to visit with you on the air…. and off!” Brownwood, Texas (a city of just under 20,000) is literally in the center of the state and would seem to have a very receptive audience. J.R. and Celinda were nice enough hosts, and they focused a lot of the conversation (as I recall it) on Donald Trump, which was fine. I just remember that it seemed I got to talk at some length and it went pretty quickly.

Nor have I had any luck with my second radio spot of the week, that of “Real Talk With Riggin.” I truly enjoyed speaking with Faune Riggin, and maybe that podcast is out there someplace, but it appears they only keep a rolling tally of the last 10 or so and that doesn’t cover last week anymore.

Faune was quite well-informed because I sent her a copy of the book (at her request.) And she sounded like she was someone definitely sympathetic to the TEA Party aims, so it was a nice conversation. I remember being pretty pleased with it at its conclusion.

On the other hand, my appearance that Friday was an experience I hadn’t come across before – discussing the book with someone left of center. But Dave Priest and I had a very good conversation, although in listening to it I noticed I have some odd fallback phrases, like per se. Hey, as long as I informed the fine folks of Myrtle Beach and got them interested in the book I suppose I’m doing my task. It was definitely an overview, but for 15 minutes I think I did a reasonable job. Because it was sent to me as an .mp3 file, the show is available from my book site.

Later on Friday I got to tape a segment for broadcast on the following day, which would have been back on the 20th. It’s a show called “Political Vibe” and it airs in the relatively rural area around Chambersburg, PA. (It’s interesting to note that many of my appearances have come in smaller communities, although I’ve also been in the “major league” city of Cincinnati as well as high-minor towns like Richmond, Fresno, and Wichita.)

That show was very enjoyable because, first of all, I got a couple long segments in – no squeezing in between traffic and weather – and second of all, it was hosted by people who had themselves marched with the TEA Party. (In that respect it was a lot like the show I did with Carol Ross.) We had a great conversation, and it was one of those where I sort of forgot I was being taped for later broadcast – except for how Michele did the segment intro. I even got to listen to it online because it was repeated twice on the same day at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.

So it appears I am beginning to wind down the radio tour – I have a few more show prospects but I’m going to try and wrap up this leg by the middle of August, for several reasons. However, I have a very special show tomorrow (the 1st) at 7:30 a.m. because it will be in the city of my birth, Toledo, Ohio, and WSPD-AM – the station which introduced me to talk radio giants like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, among others. I’ll be joining host Fred LeFebvre for a segment, which will probably be over before I know it!

Programming note: Even though tomorrow is the first Thursday of the month, the fact that it’s literally the 1st and the Shorebirds played a night game last night – well, we will do July’s Shorebirds of the Month on the 8th.

I also made another executive decision to push back the August Shorebirds of the Month to the second week in September because, should the Delmarva nine advance to the SAL Championship Series, there will be a Shorebird Position Player and Pitcher of the Month for September, too. (If not, I have to add in the stats for the few September games.) Barring rainouts, errant tropical weather, and so forth, that would assure the Shorebirds play at least 7 games in the month, with potential to play up to 10.

Radio days volume 23

With the emphasis this time on “days”…

Last week was something I had never tried before, but The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party is creating conversation and interest. So I was on SIX different radio shows in six days, although they weren’t distributed equally: I had Monday and Thursday off but did three Friday.

The week began on Sunday night when I spoke to John Whitmer, who does a Sunday night show on KNSS-AM and FM in Wichita, Kansas.

Now that I’ve listened to it again, it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it was initially. But there are days I write better than I talk and that was one. I felt like I had vapor lock a couple times, but those pauses that seemed like 10 seconds of dead air to me weren’t that bad. I did hit most of the points and John seemed patient enough – I didn’t know he had a guest right after me so maybe he was rushing through it too.

So, to say the least, I was really, really nervous about Tuesday’s show with Carol Ross and The Ross Report on KPEL-FM in Lafayette, Louisiana, particularly with Whitmer’s show fresh on my mind.

But for whatever reason, I got my mojo back in about two minutes with Carol and it was an outstanding pick-me-up. Maybe it’s because I knew she was prepared for the show: she had actually read my RAF website and the sample chapter, then bought the book. So she had questions about the book I could answer and we had a wonderful HOUR. (I was expecting more like two segments.) Of course, the ONE SHOW where they couldn’t get me a podcast was that one. Complete bummer, because we had a great conversation.

With that conversation out of the way, I felt much more at ease going into Wednesday’s talk with Gail Fallen and “Mornings with Gail” on KFKA-AM in Greeley. Colorado. And Gail was actually rather funny; as you can tell we had a lot of laughs. I come on at the 17:25 mark, although getting to listen to the whole hour meant I could get the promos too.

(Now about that train reference: I work within 40 yards of an active railroad siding. A train comes by, usually twice a day, and this one just so happened to be coming past and blaring its horn just as I went on air. I was sure they could hear it on the other end!)

One thing that impressed me about Gail is how she used the information with which I provided her. In doing this media blitz, I have created a press kit of sorts and she certainly reviewed it before I came on – and this was one of the more quickly-arranged stops on the tour. But I came off that one on a Rocky Mountain high because it was an enjoyable experience.

So I was still in a pretty good way come Friday, which I knew was going to be interesting as I piled three shows on top of one another. The latter two were scheduled just last week, but my first stop was on a station I remembered from my days at Miami University, 55KRC in Cincinnati. (More formally, WKRC-AM, but they have gone by 55KRC based on their 550 frequency for decades; even before the similarly-named sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati made its debut.)

After the hour I spent with Carol Ross a few days earlier, my chat with Brian Thomas was my best conversation of the week. It had good flow, I got most of my points across, and it was obvious he was nicely prepared – in fact, he links to my website from his website, too. This meant I didn’t need to spend precious moments pushing it myself. I think it was because Brian’s interview was planned well in advance – I seem to recall we set the date back in late June when I reached out to stations in the Midwest. (There’s another Ohio station I was supposed to be set up with, but somehow that’s fallen through for the moment.)

And I could relate very well to Brian’s embarrassment about John Kasich – how many of us have backed a candidate we swore up and down would be conservative because he or she talked the talk, only to find out their walk was a headlong run to embrace the Left?

Later that afternoon I returned to Wichita, Kansas to do a show called “The Voice of Reason” on KQAM-AM with host Andy Hooser. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a podcast on it.

Unlike Brian’s, this was a spot which was arranged rather quickly – Andy reached out to me on Wednesday and originally wanted to do Thursday, but I like to have a couple days to prepare so Friday it was. Initially I thought Andy’s show was on a group of stations, but in looking deeper into it I found it’s just on the one in Wichita. (From what I gather it recently became a midday show, too, moving out of a morning slot.)

I think it was an okay performance on my part from what I recall, although I remember more of pacing around my back yard – with two dogs sleeping in the house and a plumber who had fortunately had finished up just before I started, my mind wasn’t completely on his show. For some reason I don’t get the comfort level at home that I do when I’m on radio shows from my workplace – aside from the random train it’s normally pretty quiet there and I know the boss is cool with it (I just stay late to make up the time.)

And that carried over to my last radio show on Friday, reaching across to the Left Coast to be on The Trevor Carey Show on KALZ-FM and KRZR-AM out of Fresno, California. (I come in around the 21:30 mark, after a lengthy discussion of immigration raids and such.)

It took me awhile to get my bearings with Trevor, but toward the end I thought I made several good points, especially the mission field comments. Trevor definitely has some good bumper music, too.

And I get the impression from the advertising and rhetorical style that Trevor is looking for a younger audience, which fits well with what I’m looking for, too. People of my generation aren’t going to make a lasting change as much as those of a younger age can be taught in the way they need to go.

So this was an unprecedented week, one which may not be repeated anytime soon: I still have a number of leads out there as well as one show slated for Tuesday, but this week was probably the peak of on-air encounters. I’ll keep plugging away to spread the word, though.

Radio days volume 22

It took me about a week to get to this for a couple of reasons, with the most important being that I was hoping to stack this up with a second appearance I was working on – alas, through a series of misadventures and perhaps missed opportunities that stop of the Rise and Fall radio tour appears to have gone by the wayside, hopefully just for the time being.

The second appearance for the RAF tour came at a non-local station, WNTW-AM 820 and its repeaters, W249CI-FM 97.7 and W224EB-FM 92.7, out of Richmond, Virginia. So how did I get on a station like that? Well, let’s just say I’m doing a little bit of research and marketing and in that effort I came across a local host by the name of Craig Johnson, whose on-air persona is Brother Craig, the Hatchet Man. The show is called “The Really Real Deal.” It’s also simulcast on social media.

So why local hosts? I figure it’s easier to get on those shows in the medium and smaller markets, which is where a lot of my target audience lives. Would I like to be on Rush, Hannity, or Mark Levin? Yeah, but that’s not something a heretofore small-time author can realistically aspire to out of the gate. I figure I can start small like a ball player does, working my way through the minor leagues of local hosts before making my pitch to the major syndicated programs.

As I found in doing the research, this station is quite conservative in content and it appeared Brother Craig would be the most receptive host. So I sent him my elevator pitch and was on the air with him less than two weeks later.

To say the least, he has the confidence and bravado swagger of a Rush Limbaugh. He is also a snappy dresser – thank goodness this wasn’t on Skype because I was in my work clothes (business casual.) Since this is a Facebook video I’m not sure it will properly embed by itself but I think I got it to work:

If you don’t mind a lengthy Bible study Brother Craig goes into feel free to watch the whole thing; otherwise I come on about the 1:15:00 mark.

Now let me preface this by saying I didn’t listen to the previous day’s show, but one thing I was very disappointed by was the lack of promotion for me as a guest. I would hope he didn’t treat people like David Horowitz or Walter E. Williams (among the roster he claims as previous guests) that way. But the average listener had no idea I was coming on until I was put on coming out of the commercial segment. I’ll grant, though, that the date of my appearance was (unbeknownst to me until I visited his social media this week to find out if this show was up) was among his last at the station. (From what I’ve gathered, Brother Craig has a brokered program, meaning he pays for his time. Fortunately, I have also found he will soon have a new radio home in an even larger market.) So I’m sure I wasn’t foremost in mind – I just appreciate the opportunity.

As for the interview itself, I thought I did a reasonable job of explaining my book and its points, except I wanted to top off the statement about Doug Hoffman by noting the TEA Party’s shotgun marriage to the GOP began with the 2009-10 Scott Brown Senate campaign before I got a bit sidetracked by something Brother Craig said. It was interesting to note that he also spoke at his first TEA Party in 2009 as a longtime activist. Certainly I had enough time to make most of my points, since I was held over through the bottom-of-the-hour news (my segment began at 5:20 p.m.)

All in all, I thought I did a reasonable job of selling the book – yes, I could have done better and hopefully I will with the segments I have already scheduled – at least one and likely a second that should be nailed down this week. (On that one, I may see if I can do it after the holiday instead. Meanwhile, in the interim between when I first started this Saturday and now, I found out I have two more hot prospects!) The one I already have a date for is a return to one of my old stomping grounds so I look forward to it.

Finally, pinned to the top of my social media page for Rise and Fall is the video of my reading from last Saturday, in case you’re interested.

Radio days volume 21

Think of it as the first stop of a radio book tour. (Well, let’s hope anyway.)

It’s been a long, long time since I did a radio show (March of 2016 to be exact, thanks to my erstwhile cohort Marita Tedder) and even longer since it was live – for that I have to go back to 2013. That was a less-than-desirable experience because I was the lone conservative on a panel of four left-of-center guests.

In this case, though, I got a nice 20-minute segment that was only interrupted once by traffic and weather. And I got to hear how Mike Bradley did a great job of setting up the segment: since I called in a few minutes beforehand I got to hear the intro. It was also nice to hear that I was a wanted commodity – I guess I had to do something more or less newsworthy and releasing a book was just the thing. I certainly have no objection to being an occasional recurring guest.

Initially I thought it would be a little disarming to begin off topic given that Mike wanted my opinion on Joe Biden’s entry into the race, but it turned out to be pretty good – not just because I could break out the line, “if it weren’t for double standards, the Democrats would have no standards at all,” but because it established some of my bonafides to an audience that probably isn’t familiar with my generally Maryland-centric website. I’m sure it also worked with the station’s morning theme of following Fox and Friends as they broadcast from Rehoboth.

But I really liked getting to explain some of my thinking behind the book. I thought I did reasonably well with that, considering how my morning went.

If I can let you in on a secret: last night I sat down and wrote out a list of talking points about my book that I would use for these occasions. I printed it up, set it on the table with a quote I wanted to use if I got time – and realized halfway to work (since that’s where I called from) that I left it sitting on my table. So I was a little freaked out, but realized the act of writing it was enough to jog my memory in most of the cases. So I didn’t give perfect explanations, but I think I got the point across.

However, the one point I wish I had brought up and had more time for was soliciting and getting the input from the early TEA Party leaders like Mark Williams, Joan Fabiano, and others to use in Rise and Fall. I sort of missed my chance when I talked about the corporate TEA Party and the difference from the early days. If this becomes recurring I may bring it up, although I suspect Mike would be more interested in more topical input.

As a whole, though, I think I would give it a solid B. I was told Mike was a great interviewer (not that I hadn’t heard him do a fair number in the past when I commuted to Delaware for work) and they were right. Considering I was doing this off the cuff and was way out of practice it went really well and hopefully will pique the interest of people in Rise and Fall.

So I appreciate Mike Bradley and WGMD giving me the chance to speak and look forward to doing it some more. Maybe I can get back to the same routine I had with Bill Reddish a decade ago.

Presale begins April 15!

The long road is about over. I am in the Amazon queue to begin presale, with the official kickoff for the e-book set for this coming Monday, April 15 – the tenth anniversary of the Tax Day TEA Parties which occurred around the country.

I’m shooting to have the print version ready for presale as well.

The key item in making this book a success is for those who initially buy it to give it good reviews (you really should, anyway, because I thought it was a good book – and so did my beta readers.)

But if you’re wondering where I have disappeared to lately, that’s the answer to your question – getting these last-minute details ironed out. Hopefully over the next couple weeks I will begin catching up on some of those things I’ve been meaning to write on, perhaps as a couple odds and ends posts. I also have a Shorebird post to write as well, plus a record review in my writing queue.

It will be strange not writing about the TEA Party, that’s for sure.

Observations on an avocation

Because people have actually paid me for doing this stuff for over a decade now, I consider freelance writing to be my side hustle. But with a steadier full-time job, I really hadn’t taken the craft seriously enough until I got closer and closer to finishing The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party – in part because I didn’t wish to repeat the mistakes I made with my first book seven years ago. (As part of taking it seriously, Lord knows the tempo of posting here has slowed to an agonizing crawl, right?)

So this year I had a door opened as I found out the Eastern Shore Writers Association was hosting a self-publishing track as part of their annual Bay to Ocean Writers Conference. I hadn’t previously been a member but now I am among their ranks, and it’s an interesting group – as I found out last Saturday.

One feature of their conference is a bookstore of their authors’ products, and I learned that, for the most part, my peers in the group work in fiction and poetry. It’s not something that I have an issue with at all; in fact, I salute their creativity and imagination in pursuing their craft. However, it should be said that I am probably the outlier when it comes to both genre and viewpoint – I tell people I’m “barely left of militia” but my observation was that most of these folks are likely left of center – and a few barely this side of Stalin.

But I think all of us share a goal of getting out our story, whether it be a fictional figment of wild imagination or a historical and political documentation like Rise and Fall. I know it may not have the audience of a Tom Clancy thriller nor the reach of someone who’s a known figure and can negotiate a $65 million advance. (Heck, I would have done cartwheels for a $6,500 advance – or maybe even $65.) Still, I was a bit disappointed that no one really wanted to take a chance on being an agent for the book, but I shouldn’t have been surprised given the hundreds of thousands of titles produced annually, many by already-established authors.

Fortunately, I have an available outlet in self-publishing and over the six hour-long seminars I attended I learned a lot about the ins and outs of selling that way. One author made her series of romance novels a hit by studying the trends of well-selling similar books and adding those elements into her stories, which are set on the Eastern Shore. Another shared her insights on producing a good finished product, still a third talked about the art of face-to-face hand-selling of hard copies, and so on. I have pages of notes and several handouts to guide me. Now I have a strategy in mind for marketing, incorporating some of the elements I already have in place such as my book website.

So now I’m doing the final edits to Rise and Fall, among other things taking care of one maddening aspect that I found to be an easy enough fix. But I suppose I can let it slip that Rise and Fall won’t be the last book I do, and hopefully in about 18 months there will be a companion to it on fine bookshelves and e-readers everywhere. At this point that’s all I will reveal.

All in all, the Bay to Ocean event was good for me, and hopefully you’ll soon agree that it made me a better writer and marketer. I have definitely found more appreciation of craft after the event.

Remembering the rant

For the first time, I’m cross-posting to my book website.

On a humdrum Thursday morning, there were probably a few dozen thousand who were watching the CNBC show “Squawk Box” and a lot of them probably weren’t paying full attention when one man’s statements were the spark that lit the fuse of pent-up political frustration. It was a fire that raged out of control for several years before being contained by a political party more interested in power and winning elections than in its stated principles.

I half-jokingly wrote that night that I thought Rick Santelli would be the next guy on the unemployment line, but instead he’s become something of a cult hero for those things he said a decade ago. Yet in looking up his whereabouts it appears he’s doing pretty much the same thing as he did a decade ago. In that respect, he’s a lot like most participants in the TEA Party who did what they did out of love for the country, not fame, fortune, or political power. I’m sure his name has come up a lot today, though.

But in just eight days after Santelli made his remarks, tens of thousands of people got together in over thirty cities around the nation and began a phenomenon that people still talk about today. And because there are a number of useful lessons that came from the TEA Party, I wrote a book detailing its history: Good Lord willing, I’ll have it ready in time to commemorate the tenth anniversary of one of the most massive and widespread grassroots uprisings in recent American history, the Tax Day TEA Party of 2009 on April 15. I was at the one here in Salisbury, and five months later I was at the unforgettable 9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington. (I posted on that event in two parts the next two days, and the posts reminded me I had even more photos on my then-relatively nascent Facebook page. Revisiting this with the new WordPress block setup allowed me to add the captions I wrote originally, too.) As they say, the rest was history.

And to think: how many people just thought February 19, 2009 was just going to be another humdrum winter’s day?

Coming attractions

Thank goodness the election is over, notwithstanding events in Georgia and Florida. I even got around to tossing out the political mailings.

So now we get a little break, although there’s one recent piece of interesting Maryland political news: an announcement in the wake of the Fourth Circuit’s edict that Maryland redraw two of its Congressional districts to re-enfranchise Republican voters who were gerrymandered out of the Sixth Congressional District, a district that became much less compact and contiguous because Martin O’Malley and Maryland Democrats wanted to create a Congressional seat for onetime State Senator Rob “Gas Tax” Garagiola. To achieve that goal, they shifted the district southward to cover a large portion of Montgomery County – the fact that it covered Rob’s State Senate district was just a coinkydink, of course – excising Republican-rich swaths of Frederick and Carroll counties from the Sixth District and placing them in the MoCo-dominated Eighth Congressional District. By next March the districts are supposed to be redrawn, presumably back close to their pre-2012 configuration.

Seeing that, an opportunity has arose for my two-time monoblogue Accountability Project Legislator of the Year Neil Parrott to run from cover by forming an exploratory committee, perhaps doubling the mAP LoY delegation in Congress as he would presumably join Andy Harris in the House. Add to that, in an unrelated story, reigning and two-time mAP Top (Blue) Dog Jim Brochin trying to pay off campaign debt with a “bipartisan” fundraiser, and you can tell it’s the silly season of politics.

Aside from those above diversions, politics tends to slow down quite a bit. Sure, there may be an issue or two that emanates from the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress, but for the most part things are buttoned up during the holidays only to be ramped up as we return to normal after the new year.

As it works out, this post-election hiatus provides for me a chance to catch up on a couple other things. One (which is really sort of a navel-gazing set) is contemplating my annual Thanksgiving message for personal thanks and the “state of the blog” anniversary post as monoblogue becomes a teenager this year, with all the moodiness and angst to go with it – although the last couple years have foreshadowed that to a great degree.

The second is updating my Shorebird of the Week Hall of Fame. Fortunately or not, the early Thanksgiving gives me a little extra time to do it as I generally take the page down on that day so I can update it in time for the first Thursday in December, which falls a full two weeks after Thanksgiving this year. I have five players to add, but with a number of trades made I also have some photos to update. I can’t keep using the Zach Britton, Manny Machado, and Jonathan Schoop photos I’ve had for years because they’ve suited up elsewhere.

So I may not be posting much before Thanksgiving, in part because I also want to work on a different website: the one I’m creating for my book. (I’ve had the domain name for a few months now, so it’s time to make it active.) Maybe my anniversary here will also be the debut there.

It’s time for a few mental health days.

A brief return

Because I thought you might be tired of music reviews…just a couple things on the agenda you might want to look out for:

Governor Larry Hogan is basically all that is standing in the way between you and getting your hot little hands (or cold, big hands – it really doesn’t matter to me) on the 2018 monoblogue Accountability Project for Maryland. He has until May 31 to decide what he will do with a few bills that I used which have not been dealt with yet – chances are none of them will be vetoed, but I prefer having things all official-like when I put the mAP out. So the target date for release is June 4.

That’s one thing which has been taking up my time. The other is doing some editing of my book, which is coming along a little more slowly than I thought it would – however, it’s to (hopefully) impress a particular literary agent a new acquaintance of mine recommended. I’m still hoping to go that route with the book even though I could probably do a fair job self-publishing it as it is. But this gentleman was intrigued by the concept of a TEA Party history written from a right-leaning perspective as most prior books have looked at it from the Left – however, I think he has a slightly different take on it that I do so I also want to make sure my arguments are sharp. Thus, I’ve added a handful of resources here and there.

The bad news (if you don’t like my music reviews) is that I have a couple more lined up, just needing to actually listen to the album in question a couple times and write the review. Since the client makes it worth my time, though, I don’t mind too much (especially when the songs are good.)

I know that I’ve really let this blog go over the last couple years, but the book and my other projects just keep finding their way to the front of the priority list. Maybe as the election draws closer I’ll have more to say, but frankly this primary is boring and I’m ready for it to be over. When it takes the sudden demise of one of the candidates on the ballot to move the news needle, the primary season isn’t very newsworthy.

That, my friends and readers, is your quick update.