Splotchy: What is your blog?

Joe: My blog, which is still floating out there in the ether, is Sprawling Ramshackle Compound. I grabbed that name from a random line in the book Wigfield–which I listened to with you on our trip to gut houses in St Bernard Parish after Katrina in early 2006.

S: When and why did you start blogging?

J: I started blogging in May, 2006. I always liked talking and sharing stories, and my then-teenage daughters told me I should start a blog. I can’t remember how I settled on Blogger as a platform, but it was easy to use. I enjoyed writing about, and linking to, offbeat stories that interested me, but at the start I didn’t really give much thought to being part of a larger community, or of connecting with other bloggers. Two things about blogging between 2006-2010 were pleasant surprises: becoming friends with people I never would have otherwise met, and getting an opportunity to be paid for blogging with the Chicago Tribune’s (now-extinct) ChicagoNow blog network. From May 2009 until October 2010 I was lucky to be able to write about crime and policing in a blog called Arresting Tales. Met a ton of wonderful people, was invited to make quite a few appearances on WGN radio, and really enjoyed myself–for a while I even had delusions of becoming a real writer.

S: When did you stop blogging? What were any factors that contributed to stopping?

J: I stopped blogging on Arresting Tales as a condition of being promoted to an exempt rank at the department I worked for. My posting on Sprawling Ramshackle Compound really dropped off after that. I posted one essay in 2013, My First Prostitute, that I wrote for the Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP) “First Time” reading series. The last post on SRC is from June 2015, My Confederate Flag, written after the Charleston church massacre. I have not written since. I’m not sure why I stopped, but I realized that at some point my desire to communicate with the public at large, or really to communicate with anyone beyond my friends and family, had completely disappeared.

S: Do you ever miss it? Do you think you’ll ever pick it up again?  Why or why not?

J: There are things that I miss–sharing music, book and movie recommendations, learning new things, meeting so many truly witty and interesting people, “Tweetups” with ChicagoNow, the sense of everything being new, and I loved the rush I got from feeling like I entertained people to some degree. I’ve thought about dusting off SRC and blogging again, but honestly I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze.

S: How do you feel about social media? Does it give you the same feelings as blogging? Why or why not?

J: Social media…man. I’m not exaggerating when I say I think it’s one of the worst developments in recent human history. Social media gives the loudest megaphones to the worst voices and keeps everyone anxious and on edge. We think we’re being entertained, but really we’re only being distracted. I keep Facebook for now; I live in a rural area, and there are so many local businesses for which their Facebook page is their only internet presence. It also keeps me up to date on local events. Instagram is essentially a fun photo diary. I’m still on Twitter, watching it circle the drain. It’s funny watching the emergence of platforms like Medium, or Substack, even the “thread roll” apps on Twitter–it really reminds me of a return to long-form blogging from the mid-2000’s.

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Thanks a lot for these thoughtful answers, Joe. As you know, but maybe others don’t, I only got into blogging after seeing your posts from the Compound and thinking it would be a fun thing to try myself.