A Living Memorial to Earl Ma
Ironies, ironies...
Found out today that I won what may be my last AARWBA contest award - a second-place award for Online Column Writing.
Ironies abound... earlier this week, I finally shut down Racing Press, the web-zine that Earl and I had run for 10 years together. It had been more or less totally dormant since Earl died - I didn't have the money or the heart to keep it going. But the article I won with was a Racing Press article.
The article, as it turns out, was the extended unofficial eulogy that I wrote immediately after Earl died. At some point I may upload it here for posterity; suffice to say it was six pages' worth of introspection and recollection. So you might say that it was one of Earl's parting gifts to me - my final award for my final comments about a great friend.
But the final irony is that it was a second-place award. That seems to define Racing Press pretty well. Earl and I worked harder on Racing Press with less money than probably anybody in racing journalism. When I think of the money Earl spent out of his pocket to travel to races... it was probably an astounding figure. And while we won awards that we probably had no business winning (Earl's Catlin being the apex), we never quite got over that last hump of legitimacy... we never got that financial backing, we never quite got the recognition, we came up just short of the peer acceptance that would have been the next step in our publishing evolution.
But shutting down Racing Press isn't like losing Earl. For RP it was time for it to go... I couldn't take it any further without Earl and keeping it going any longer would have been a disservice to a decade of beating the journalistic odds for both of us.
I'm about to watch the Indy 500 for the 36th consecutive year and, ironically, all I can think of is Earl.
Ironies abound... earlier this week, I finally shut down Racing Press, the web-zine that Earl and I had run for 10 years together. It had been more or less totally dormant since Earl died - I didn't have the money or the heart to keep it going. But the article I won with was a Racing Press article.
The article, as it turns out, was the extended unofficial eulogy that I wrote immediately after Earl died. At some point I may upload it here for posterity; suffice to say it was six pages' worth of introspection and recollection. So you might say that it was one of Earl's parting gifts to me - my final award for my final comments about a great friend.
But the final irony is that it was a second-place award. That seems to define Racing Press pretty well. Earl and I worked harder on Racing Press with less money than probably anybody in racing journalism. When I think of the money Earl spent out of his pocket to travel to races... it was probably an astounding figure. And while we won awards that we probably had no business winning (Earl's Catlin being the apex), we never quite got over that last hump of legitimacy... we never got that financial backing, we never quite got the recognition, we came up just short of the peer acceptance that would have been the next step in our publishing evolution.
But shutting down Racing Press isn't like losing Earl. For RP it was time for it to go... I couldn't take it any further without Earl and keeping it going any longer would have been a disservice to a decade of beating the journalistic odds for both of us.
I'm about to watch the Indy 500 for the 36th consecutive year and, ironically, all I can think of is Earl.
Comment
-
Comment by Thunderbird Creative Media, LLC on July 8, 2008 at 6:37pm - I'll see what I can do - I have it around here somewhere.
-
Comment by Vic on June 25, 2008 at 4:35pm - Can you post the article?
About
Badge
© 2009 Created by Thunderbird Creative Media, LLC on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of Friends of Earl Ma to add comments!
Join this Ning Network