This is the end.
For me, anyway. This is my last issue at the helm of DigBoston, everyone’s favorite (and only) weekly alternative media outlet in the Hub, filled as much with a legacy of rabble-rousing as with a brash history of editorial turnover in these turbulent times.
When news came down the pike a little over a week ago that the company was restructuring and I was being let go, all manner of plausible reactions naturally sprung to mind. Fierce opposition to the bench ruling by the gods. Wild wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Or, just lighting the house on fire and walking away in slow motion. I’m happy to report none of that came to pass.
Which is good. Not only because DigBoston ditched the office back in March and has been assembling the paper remotely (so I’d be homeless as well as unemployed had I carried through with that last one), but because going through one’s working life with some semblance of grace under pressure and confidence without ego is as good a guiding compass as any. Helps minimize temporary lapses in judgement. And, as HL Mencken once noted: “A man who has throttled a bad impulse has at least some consolation in his agonies, but a man who has throttled a good one is in a bad way indeed.”
It’s with that in mind that I depart from the good ship Dig knowing that my two year tenure here has left the paper in better standing than when I was handed it, with numerous high-water marks. Among them: our booming contrarian voice from the get-go within the schadenfreude-chorus rallying against a Boston Olympics; our aggressive anti-pot-prohibition writings; revamped local theater, dining, music, and film coverage; and a series of high-profile national scoops, including the times we exposed mass surveillance activities affecting everyone from Boston Calling attendees to the average person getting a ticket from BTD. Not bad for one short lifetime.
Thus, I shuffle on, head held high, with lessons learned, friends made, and an avoidance of all saccharine sentiment and the piling up of moist tissues, soggy with the tears of the newest member of the “Laid Off From DigBoston Club.”
I’ll still accept all beer-related charity offers, though.
So long.
Dan is a freelance journalist and has written for publications including Vice, Esquire, the Daily Beast, Fast Company, Pacific Standard, MEL, Leafly, Thrillist, and DigBoston.
