Okay, today marks the 8th year anniversary of the morning I first hit, “publish” on the very first Meanwhile, Back In Peoria blog post. I remember wondering what would happen in the upcoming months, if people would start following the blog and of course I was terrified that it might fail.
I know what it’s like when a blog fails, because my very first blog that I started failed miserably back in 2009. But it did lead me to discover a blogging style that really works with me and I feel like I have carved out my own little corner of the blogosphere in the last eleven years.
The last eleven years? Holy shitballs, how the fuck did that happen?
I thought since this is the 8th MBIP anniversary, it would be fun to go back to the past and remember the blogs that eventually led up to MBIP.
This is kind of an epic tale, so it’s going to be told in two parts. Here’s part one!
Oh Sherman, you know what to do…
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Natalie Word (2009)
Sometime in February of 2009, I was having lunch with my friend Dan Efram. Dan’s an interesting guy and he has his own business called Tractor Beam which produces albums, films, printed materials and more. You can read his accomplishments by clicking here.
I can’t remember why we met for lunch that fateful day, but I do remember it was at one of my favorite diners, The Chat ’n Chew which was located about two blocks from where I lived on 16th Street.
At the time I was working on a one-man magazine I was publishing through Lulu called Natalie Word. Natalie Word was a goofy project I was doing just for the hell of it. Lulu is a print on demand website, so you can publish a book or magazine through the site and just order some to hand out and see what happens.
I had just come out with my second issue of Natalie Word and I was excited because the issue had just got written up in the NY Observer, which was a popular weekly newspaper in New York at the time.
I proudly showed the clipping and magazine to Dan and he looked at them and then at me and said, “Why aren’t you blogging?”
“I don’t know, I’m not a technical guy and I have no idea how to do that,” I responded.
He thought for a minute and then said, “You have seen all of those blogs out there, right?”
“Yeah, there’s a ton of them,” I shot back.
“Do you really think they’re all smarter than you?” He asked with a grin.
That nine word question sent my life in a new direction.
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The Marty Wombacher Show (2009-2010)
After I had lunch with Dan I started thinking about ideas for a blog and I decided I could do a blog like it was a TV variety show. It would have different departments that are updated all day long and that would lure people to keep coming back to the blog. I decided to call it “The Marty Wombacher Show” and I figured I could brand my name with the blog.
All I had to do now was figure out how to do a blog because I didn’t have the slightest clue how to do that! After some research I found out that the first thing you needed was a hosting site for your blog. I looked at some of them and just got a headache trying to figure that shit out.
The next day at work, I asked my friend John Thompson if he knew of any easy-to-use hosting sites because I wanted to start a blog.
John’s a real smart guy and he worked in the IT department and he said he’d look into it for me. The next day he told me he found one called Squarespace that looked like it was fairly easy to navigate and they also let you try it for free for 15 days to see if you liked it. I thanked John, went home and started tinkering with it.
John was right, it wasn’t hard to operate at all, so I signed up, paid for a year of hosting and soon, I could add, “Blogger” to my resume! I was really excited about this new direction in life!
I got hold of my friend, “Boris,” who is a graphics genius and he agreed to help me out with the Home Page art and other graphics for the blog. (Check out his work for the blog here and “Boris” also has a fun and entertaining online radio show called, The Secret Weapon. Follow The Secret Weapon on Twitter and facecrack.)
Boris designed a fantastic Home Page graphic and I started writing material for different departments on the blog. I had eight different departments that I was planning on updating at different times through the day. The links to these were located at the top of the Home Page.
I figured updating it like that would give the appearance of an actual show happening and people would love coming back to see new stuff throughout the day. I thought this would really build a loyal audience for the blog.
I spent a few weeks writing and collecting material for the upcoming blog and on Monday, May 4, 2009, I launched The Marty Wombacher Show!
Here’s a link to the first blog post from my apartment in New York City!
By this time I had lived in New York City for 16 years and through freelance writing, publishing my magazine fishwrap and other projects I had gotten to know a lot of people and I had a huge mailing list. So after I put up the first post, I emailed a link to my massive email list with a clickable link and soon I was getting all kinds of hits at the blog! It was so exciting! All in all I got over 3,000 unique hits that day!
I couldn’t believe it! After only one day I had a popular blog in New York City!
And then I didn’t.
After the first day, I started noticing a disturbing trend, the number of hits started shrinking. At first I tried not to let it bother me, but every day the unique hits count dwindled and I couldn’t figure it out! I thought I was doing really great work and didn’t know why people weren’t coming back.
I sent out some more emails and actually had people respond by telling me that they didn’t need me to keep sending them emails about the blog. That was embarrassing and I felt like I was looking desperate.
After about a month, I was lucky to get 50 hits in a day and some days I only got a couple. It was bugging the shit out of me and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I thought I had some really good material and photos I was putting up. I was mystified why no one was coming to look at it.
I went through several emotional phases while doing The Marty Wombacher Show, the first was anger. I thought everyone was fucking stupid and that nobody got or understood what I was doing with the blog.
And then…depression set in.
Finally, I realized I must be doing something wrong and I asked another friend at work, Chris, if he had any ideas as to why The Marty Wombacher Show wasn’t attracting people.
He asked if I really wanted him to be honest and I said that I did. Well, I got an earful!
He told me I was updating it too much and that you never knew where to look for a new post. One of the things he hammered home was that people prefer just one post a day.
He showed me a blog he liked that featured a different album cover every day. Chris told me it was always updated at noon every day with a new album cover, the back cover and information and trivia about the album. He said he liked the fact that you just went there every day at noon, looked at it and then you knew you didn’t have to go back till the next day.
That amazed me and I realized I was approaching blogging like it was a magazine with different departments. I had to get my mind out of the print world and into the online world of publishing.
I went home and thought about it and while looking at the blog, I did realize that one department did work. That was the department called the Photoblog. I didn’t update this every day and sometimes I didn’t even update it every month, because these posts were a ton of work.
The Photoblog section was way different than the other departments on the blog. Basically I would go somewhere and take pictures of something happening in New York City. The very first one I did was from the annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash that happened on May 19th that year. I took a ton of photos and put them up on the blog the day after the show.
I told a lot of people at the show about the blog and that post got a lot of hits, but then the next day, crickets. A couple other Photoblogs that got a lot of hits was the record release party for singer Bebe Buell’s new record that came out at the time and a post on a book signing by Vera Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone’s ex-wife.
I didn’t do them all the time, because they were a ton of work. You had to go somewhere and it was uncomfortable taking strangers photos, but they always got a lot of hits.
I decided that this should be the format for a new blog, but I wanted a singular focus for this blog.
What could I do every day and take pictures and have a new post? I thought about doing New York tourist sites, then thought about hotels and then it hit me: I could do a blog about bars in New York City! New York has more bars than any other city in America, plus there’s Brooklyn and the outer boroughs. I would never run out of material.
I also thought that everyone I took a picture of would look at the blog the next day and tell their friends and it could get a decent word-of-mouth buzz going.
Then a light bulb went off! What about going to a bar every single day for a year? And if I missed a day, I’d have to start all over! That would build intrigue and I might even be able to get some press out of it.
At first I was going to call this new blog, “A Guy Walks Into A Bar,” but of course that url was taken. Then anther light bulb went off and I knew my electric bill was going to go through the roof!
The title for the blog hit me right between the eyes: “A Guy Walks Into 365 Bars!” I checked GoDaddy and it was available. I bought it and then called “Boris” and told him my new idea. He loved it and started working on original banner art for my new blog!
I started work on designing a brand new blog and hoped that this one wouldn’t fail like The Marty Wombacher Show had.
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A Guy Walks Into 365 Bars (2010-2011)
On January 11th, 2010, I started a new decade by shutting down The Marty Wombacher Show and launching A Guy Walks Into 365 Bars. Once again, “Boris” did a great job designing the banner art and I was happy with the layout of the blog.
I went to one of my favorite New York bars on Sunday, January 10th which is a punk rock tiki bar on 14th Street in the East Village called, Otto’s Shrunken Head. The bar has a lot of character and is always filled with characters as well. I went and posted the photos and text the next day. Here’s a link to the maiden post of the 365 bars blog.
Right away I realized was that this was going to be a nerve-wracking experience doing this blog. I was terrified walking into Otto’s knowing I was going to have to approach total strangers and try to see if they would let me take their photo and play along. To my surprise, everyone did and everyone I told about the blog loved the idea!
One thing I did, which ended up paying off was to make a business card for the blog. I gave one to everyone I took a photo of and told them that their photo would be on the blog the next day.
I tried an experiment for the start of this blog, I didn’t send out an email about it. I wanted to see if handing out the business cards at bars would translate into an organic word of mouth audience and it appeared to be working. After a week of doing this I was getting over 500 unique hits a day and it kept slowly growing.
Everyone seemed excited about the idea and loved the fact that I was doing this every single day without a break. And if I missed a day I’d have to start it all over. I thought that would add an exciting and challenging element to the blog and it did!
Doing the blog was more work than I could have ever imagined. Every night I’d have to go to a bar and try to engage with people and get them to play along. Some nights didn’t work at all and I’d put up an angry post, but I found people liked these just as well. I think it showed a human side of the blog that not every night was going to work.
I realized that doing this every night was a little like doing improv comedy. You never knew what was going to happen, but you had to try and just go with the flow and get as many pictures as you could. And I was handing out business cards like crazy all over New York City.
And it was paying off. After a couple months I was averaging about two thousand hits a day and the blog was generating comments from observers. It was exciting, nerve-wracking and exhausting!
I was working a full-time job at a graphics service bureau and when it was busy there it was nothing to work a twelve-hour shift. Then I would have to clock out and go to a bar and be the socially out-going 365 bars guy. Some nights I really dreaded it but I kept moving along and the audience kept growing.
Pretty soon it would explode.
On the 52nd night I went to a bar near Chinatown called, Fontana’s. By now I had it down to a routine. I’d give the bartender a card, explain to him or her what I was doing and then get a beer and run around and take as many photos of people and the bar as I could.
But something happened that night that would altar the course of the blog and make it go viral before I even knew what viral meant!
After I got all my photos done for that night’s post, I was sitting at the bar drinking cans of Rolling Rock and chatting with Dan the bartender. He was a painter and we were talking about art in New York City.
As we were chatting an attractive woman came up and started asking Dan questions about beer.
I looked at her and asked in a smart-ass fashion, “What are you, some kind of beer connoisseur?”
“Yeah I am,” she shot back, “you got a problem with that?”
“Yeah, I do, I’m drinking Rolling Rock over here and you’re making me look like some sort of a cheap-ass,” I replied.
She made a face and said, “Well I wouldn’t drink that rat piss if you paid me!”
I laughed, pulled out a business card and told her I needed to drink cheap because I was going to 365 bars in a row.
She looked at the card and asked if I was really doing this.
I told her I was and explained that this was my 52nd night in a row.
She laughed and said, “You know this would make a great feature story for the NY Daily News.”
I told her I had written a freelance article for them in the past and was going to pitch the idea to them to try and get some publicity for the blog after I had done over a hundred bars.
“I might be able to help you get an article in there quicker than that,” She said with a sly smile.
“Oh yeah? How could you do that?” I asked.
“I’m a feature writer with the NY Daily News,” she told me.
My eyes widened and I shot back, “Uh…can I buy you that beer?”
The next day she called me and said her editor had approved the story and we agreed to meet that Sunday at the White Horse Tavern, which is a legendary New York bar.
I didn’t have much time to think about this sudden turn of events because I had to keep going to bars and updating the blog every day. The pace of doing this was maddening, but it was about to reach levels of madness I could never have imagined!
On March 10th, 2010, the feature article about the blog came out and things went sideways after that and my life became an ocean of madness! In addition to being in the NY Daily News, the U.P.I. Wire Service picked up the story and put it on an International wire! The story went all over the world and my life became something like an insane reality show!
All of a sudden I was getting more attention than I could process. I was being written up in local NY blogs, I was invited to Cleveland to do the bar crawl thing there, the blog was written up on websites outside of the country and I appeared on the Australian version of the Today Show. I did hundreds of radio interviews and every day flew by like greased lightening. It seemed like I never had a spare moment.
I was also getting hundreds of emails every day from all over the world. And I still had to go out every night and be the 365 bars guy and put up a post the next day.
There was times in that year I really wanted to quit the blog because working a full-time job, trying to deal with all of the emails and attention sometimes got to be too much.
But when I’d get down, I’d think back to The Marty Wombacher Show and remember the horrible feeling of working my ass off just to find out that eight people had visited the blog that day. Now I was getting over 40,000 unique hits a day from all over the world.
Everyone wanted to know what bar I was going to end the blog at. I kept it a secret. Most people thought it would be some cool and hip bar in New York City. Fuck that, I decided to end it at one of my favorite bars right here in Peoria, Illinois: Mike’s Tavern!
Mike’s Tavern is a legendary West Peoria bar and I had gone there in April for the bar crawl when I visited Peoria on my birthday. I called the owner, Tony Ward and he was thrilled that I wanted to end the whole adventure at Mike’s Tavern.
I flew back home and met “Boris” in Pontiac for the second to last post. We toasted to the success of the blog and I thanked him for his wonderful graphic work on it.
Then it was time to end this crazy-ass year!
I was staying at my parents house and they were going to drive me to Mike’s and join me for this last day of the 365 day bar crawl.
I remember my mom saying, “Do you think there will be many people there?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, “wouldn’t it be funny if no one was there?”
Well, we drove to Mike’s and there was a sign outside and the place was packed! It was a fun day and the best part of it all was my parents seemed really happy that such a crowd had gathered in Peoria for the final day of this crazy-ass adventure and blog! I was really happy that they were proud of what I had done.
Here’s a link to the final post on my 365th day of going to bars for my second blog.
I flew back to New York City the next day and went back to work the following night.
I thought it would be great to finally have a night where I could just go home and relax. Instead I ended up climbing the walls because I had nothing I had to do and no deadline for the next day.
I immediately started working on an idea for a new blog!
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Stay tuned for Part II, tomorrow!
Oh, and Happy Anniversary to MBIP and thanks to all of you for reading through the years. I’ll have a bigger thanks tomorrow when we finish this epic tale off!
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Related Post: MBIP One Year Anniversary Party At Mike’s Tavern!