Introductions are always a little awkward, I think. Especially for columnists.
Because I know what you’re thinking. Who is this guy? What is this thing he’s written, and why did he do it? Why am I reading it? What’s with the photo of his face?
All questions I’d be asking too, were I you.
So, to start, my name is Kelly. I’m a lifelong North Dakotan, born and raised in the Bismarck area. I went to school in Wilton, a small town 22 miles north of Bismarck. Graduated from Bismarck State College, then got a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. I worked as a copy editor at The Forum in Fargo, then spent five years at the Bismarck Tribune as a copy editor, columnist and special sections editor.
I’m married, for the past 12 years, to my sweetest Annette, and together we have two incredible kids and one less-incredible corgi. I’m a Leo. I like long walks on the beach, so I can collect weird, exotic Pokemons on that Pokemon Go app.
Any other questions about me, I’m happy to answer. I kind of consider myself the world’s foremost expert on myself, not just because I think a lot of myself but because almost nobody else spends much of any time thinking about me.
Second question: What is this and why is it?
This, reader, is a weekly column I’m calling NDistinct Chatter for reasons I’ll explain later. A “column” is a feature of newspapers from way, way back. I can’t really explain what qualifies something, like this, as a column, or someone, such as I, as a columnist. What I can do is share with you the Merriam-Webster definition, because that’s what us columnists do when we can’t think of any better way to define words than using a dictionary.
col·umn | \ ˈkä-ləm
: one in a usually regular series of newspaper or magazine articles
// the gossip column
// advice columns
You, of course, are not reading this column in a newspaper or magazine. You’re reading it on a website, called The Dakotan. For that, I am deeply appreciative. Not only to you, for reading these words, but to The Dakotan editors, for allowing me the opportunity to write this weekly column, again called NDistinct Chatter for reasons I still intend to get into, later.
That doesn’t answer why, though. Why is this chucklehead writing a column?
Once again, I don’t have a solid answer for you, but I’ll take a stab at it. As I mentioned before, I was at one time a columnist for the Tribune and did a decent job of it. Originally, the purpose of my column was to fill space in a stubbornly empty column on the cover of the arts & entertainment section of the Friday print edition. Sixteen long years ago, the editors of our state’s oldest newspaper were looking to fill that spot with a writer who was (a) somewhat entertaining, (b) somewhat local, (c) somewhat coherent and (d) mostwhat inexpensive.
They found most of those qualities in a shaggy-haired kid in his 20s who was already working for them on their copy desk, and I went to work filling space.
Cut to 16 years later. I’m not working at the Tribune anymore. I left my job there 10 years ago, with no ill will. The media landscape had changed dramatically in the five years I’d spent in journalism, and has changed even more since then. All forms of media have had to adapt to the rise of the internet and social media. All of the daily newspapers in our state have moved on from printing newspapers seven days per week and adopted hybrid models of print editions and electronic formats. I get my e-edition of the paper e-mailed to me each day instead of finding it bundled in a plastic bag somewhere on my front yard, these days.
Everything changes, and that’s OK. You can’t stop progress, they say, nor should you want to, I think. It’s led to the rise of news websites like this one, featuring local news written by local writers. I think that’s a really, really good thing.
One thing that hasn’t changed, for me, anyhow, was my method of writing columns.
In order to put out a new column each week, I developed a habit of writing commentary in my head throughout the week, so when I sat down to write and meet a deadline, I had something ready to build upon. Even after I left journalism and didn’t have that weekly deadline hanging over me, I continued this habit. There’s always a typewriter clacking away in the back of my mind, writing these columns as I brush my teeth, walk the dog or scour the Internet to build on my collection of collectible ’90s Dream Team cups from McDonald’s.
It's driven me quite mad, as you might have noticed.
You know how every crowd scene in movies starts with a closed-captioning note, something like: [indistinct chatter]? In my mind, that’s what I intend this column to be like. It’s the indistinct mutterings going on in the back of my head. Hopefully they make sense, but at the end of the day, it’s just Indistinct Chatter.
Except I dropped the first “I” and capitalized the “ND” because I live in North Dakota, and you probably do too, if you’re reading this. Cute, right?
Which leads me into the last two questions I asked rhetorically at the start. Why are you reading this? I don’t know. That’s on you. I’m glad you did.
And, finally, what’s going on with my face? Columns require photos of the columnist’s face always, for some reason. I think it’s so pharmacists can recognize us from our pictures in the paper and tell us they disagree with our opinions, but I could be wrong.
So that’s why there’s a photo of my face with this column, not because I think it’s an especially nice face to look at.
Good columns deserve good endings. And vague ones ought end on a vague note, like this. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you back here again next Saturday for more indistinct mutterings. Or don’t.
No pressure; I’m breezy.
