Doug PollardFollow That Star
(Apologies for cross-posting - this also appears on The Rainbow Reporter)
For the first time in many years I didn’t have to write a column this weekend. The good ship Southern Star is undergoing a refit and the Grumpy Old Poufs stateroom has been demolished to make way for expanded clubbing facilities.
I leave with mixed feelings. On the one hand it’s a relief – any journo will tell you how much they hate deadlines and the treadmill of having to come up with copy, week after week. Not to mention the pain of crafting a beautiful sparkling piece of prose, which you then have to spend hours pruning to fit within the miserly word limit imposed by your mean and heartless editor.
(Actually, for the last three years I’ve been blessed with a very accommodating editor, but he has to be mean and heartless or the story doesn’t make sense.)
Never mind that if there wasn’t a deadline most of us would never finish anything, being so addicted to words that the simple act of looking up one in a dictionary can see us lost for hours exploring derivations and cross-references.
Yes, I’m one of those tragics who actually READS dictionaries for fun!. Say it out loud, I’m logophiliac and proud!
And if it wasn’t for word limits, we would waffle on interminably – just look at the Saturday Age.
On the other hand, I’ve been writing for the gay press on and off since 1972 or thereabouts, so it feels a little strange to be deprived of my soapbox.
There have been times before when I walked away to devote myself to earning real money, or times when I’ve been shown the door after a fiery disagreement, but this is my first amicable separation, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
Friends have been indignant on my behalf, but I don’t feel that way. Oh, I could easily be indignant – it isn’t nice to get a call out of the blue to say you have already written your last column, with no chance to write a farewell piece like this, or to learn that the modest payments you’d factored into your future plans have disappeared without warning – but frankly, I can’t be arsed.
It may be because I wasn’t all that surprised: I have of late felt increasingly out of place, the old fella sitting uncomfortably in the corner of a very loud cruise bar, between a group of earnest communitarian activists and a herd of waxed buffed retail therapists and squawking gossips.
It may be that age has mellowed me, it may be that the financial blow is not, in the overall scheme of things, terribly significant (you don’t write for gay media for the money), it may be because I still have another soapbox over at Joy 94.9.
It may be that it was the right time to unfold the collapsible cane, take out the earplugs, and gratefully totter off home for a mug of Horlicks in my well-worn recliner, and a good rant on Facebook. Obviously the Star thinks so.
But I think it’s time to look for a new perch, in the journalistic equivalent of a hushed, well carpeted gentleman’s club with comfortable leather wingback armchairs set beside a roaring fire, and discreet, well-trained (and handsome) staff who know exactly when to bring me another gin and tonic.
I may be looking for a while.
In the meantime I will continue to post here for those who are still interested in what I have to say. And you can follow The Rainbow Reporter on Facebook and @rainbowreporter on Twitter.
And if I ramble a bit more than I have in the past, that’s because I only have to please myself now, instead of the aforementioned (and wholly fictional) heartless editor.
I want to say a special thank you to the real editor, Scott Abrahams, who has put up with me for almost the whole journey: we have had remarkably few disagreements - mostly over that woman from Camberwell who can just about carry a tune, but not for very long or very far - and many more warm and friendly conversations. Scott will always be a friend.
And a very very special thank you to all of you who read and commented on the column, especially the many who wrote to me personally. You didn’t all agree with me, but you did care enough to write, and you paid me the supreme compliment of taking me seriously. For that I cannot thank you enough.
I wish everyone at the Star well: may whatever gods you believe in, if any, bless her and all who sail in her. Follow that Star!
