February 29, 2008 was the day Travalanche was launched, making this erstwhile offspring of mine 16 years old, but having had only four birthdays. A Leap Year Baby.
I launched the blog while I was the marketing person for Brooklyn's public access cable TV station. Though I was only there for a short time, and I was hoping to get much more out of the experience, in retrospect it was a significant place for me to be at the time. Part of my job was managing the station's social media presence, and in doing so, I improved my own. Frustrated with the dwindling pay and wordcount allowed me when I wrote for print media, I decided to launch a platform where I would have total freedom, and which I would promote with social media. (Yes, as I frequently indicate, I hate social media. But hating a necessity doesn't make it less of a necessity.) In 2007, 2008 I was very much ahead of the curve on social media; nowadays I have catching up to do. What I'm proudest of though is the many people who find the blog through search engines, and those who now subscribe directly.
Some stats: over 8,000 posts; over 3 million unique readers, over 7 million views.
I started out with local theatre reviews, then began a content stream based around my first book No Applause, posts related to vaudeville. With close to 2,500 posts on the topic, Travalanche is easily the internet's greatest resource on that subject, at least in terms of volume and breadth. But because I'm easily bored, and hated being "defined", the scope of the content has never ceased growing. From vaudeville it went to burlesque, circus, sideshow, legit theatre and so forth. And then silent movies, classic comedy, classic cinema, in general, and then lots of classic tv and old time radio. But I also write about books, art, music, history, and culture in general. I'd begun calling it a show biz blog, or even a culture blog, because it is useful to me for people to get a handle on what the site is about. But really, the content of Travalanche is reflected best by the name, as it was intended to. It is an avalanche of me, my likes, dislikes, thoughts, opinions.
Still, themes do emerge. A look at our top 16 posts (out of over 8,000) does reveal that show business -- WEIRD show business -- does remain the heart of Travalanche:
I have years' worth of potential new posts identified and laid out on my calendar, but I confess that I have been mulling over an exit strategy. This is not what I set out to do in life, I have other, much more ambitious goals for myself that I have never left off pursuing and want to restore as the main focus of my life. That is ALWAYS on my mind. Those who think of me primarily as a blogger have it backwards -- this thing is just what I do as a discipline, a side hustle, when I'm not pursuing my real goals. What are my real goals? I prefer to show you rather than tell you. Those who've known me for a long time know what they are.
At any rate, it'll probably be some years before some other undertaking of mine convinces me I can abandon the usefulness of this one. Until that glorious day arrives...I (and this blog) sure could use your help. My Patreon page is a boon to both my spiritual and material happiness. I've got about a hundred subscribers there; and my Patreon page, launched during the Covid Pandemic, has become fully a second blog to me. That's where I share a daily clip, and write about what I've shared. Sometimes I also offer exclusive original media content as well (documentary podcasts, zoom talks etc). I have recently opened up the bulk of the clips to the public. Subscribers get exclusive access for a month. I do hope you'll join. Thanks for reading!
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