Confessions of a Fauxstalgia Bro

I wasn’t going to write the column I’m about to write. It’s going to cause me more of the trouble I’ve lately been experiencing, but the subject and the thoughts it occasions seem to have pushed everything else out of my mind. I don’t mean to prolong my headache, which is considerable. It could be that writing about it will offer some relief. Or maybe it will just make people mad at me all over again. When I started The Syncopated Times fifty issues ago I might have intuited that I would be getting on a tightrope that probably wouldn’t hold me. My sense of balance has never been good, and here it turns out I’d have to maintain a state of equilibrium between reporting the facts (and generally calling them as I see them) and supporting artists and projects I admire without resorting to puffery. What I didn’t bargain for was that my best intentions would often result in the worst reactions. It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that Jazz is a wing of Show Business, however distantly removed from its main currents. Journalists (or those who style themselves such) forget that at their dire peril. Personalities and egos are operatic. If one holds up the mirror to a star at the wrong angle, one is likely to be ripped to shreds—at least psychologically. The repercussions of casting an untoward reflection are not confined to explosions of verbal abuse by image-conscious