All right, let's give this a shot. I haven't done a GoFundMe for the TCA tour since 2016, and I may never do one again after this, but what the hell. If it fails to turn into enough to make it financially viable, then so it goes.
LINK: https://gofund.me/d8aed85c
And here’s what you’ll see if you click on it, but I’ll include the link again at the bottom, just so you don’t forget to actually click on it!
And now for a little question-and-answer session...
Q: Who are you?
A: I'm just this guy, you know? But more specifically, I'm a full-time freelance pop culture writer. The last time I did one of these things, I was regularly contributing to the AV Club, Looper, Rhino.com (the website for Rhino Records), TV Week in Vancouver, BC, and The Virginian-Pilot, the daily newspaper for the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
These days, I’m still writing regularly for Rhino (although in a different capacity) and TV Week in Vancouver, BC (although less than I was six years ago because the magazine has shrunk in size). I stopped writing for the A.V. Club in solidarity with my longtime cohorts who got the shaft by their corporate overlords, Looper opted out of my services after I found myself struggling to come up with mind-numbing listicles, and The Virginian-Pilot barely even exists anymore, and I got weary of coming up with dozens of pitches and not having any of them accepted, so I just stopped pitching. Now I write for Decider with as much regularity as their budget allows, I’ve been doing lists for EW’s website (the only option, since they discontinued the print edition), and I continue to pitch other outlets, albeit with considerably less success than I’d prefer.
That said, I now have a Substack newsletter (as you know), and I’ve been doing several pieces for that, including both print and video interviews. In fact, that’s one of the biggest reasons that brings us together today...
Q: What are you raising money for?
A: I'm raising money to pay for my trip to the TCA winter press tour.
Q: Yeah, I don't know what that is.
A: That's not actually a question, but I've got you covered, chief. "TCA" is an acronym utilized by many organizations, but in this instance, it stands for "Television Critics Association," and I've been a proud, dedicated member since 2007. As to the TCA press tour, the best way I've found to describe it is as a bi-annual dog-and-pony show held by the broadcast, cable, and streaming networks in order to trot out the majority of their new and returning programming for the next six months. But this doesn't really give you an idea of everything that goes on, so let me give you the most succinct nutshell summary I can manage.
There’s a summer tour and a winter tour. The winter tour tends to be shorter than the summer tour, and this time around it’s as short as it’s ever been, at least in my personal experience. It starts on January 9 and wraps up on January 18, so you’re looking at 10 days. (I’ve attended tours that extended well beyond the two-week mark.)
During the days, the casts and creative teams of these programs hold court for panels of approximately 40 minutes in length, answering whatever questions the assembled critics throw at them. There are also opportunities for one-on-one interviews with the casts and creative teams, sometimes during the day, but there are also evening events which are often less formal but still serve to provide further interview opportunities.
In addition, the members of the TCA generally visit the sets of a few shows during the course of the tour. But that was in the glorious pre-pandemic days. This is the first in-person tour since 2020, and as of this writing, it looks like there won’t be any set visits, there may not be events every evening, and the one-on-one interviews are almost certainly going to be limited because of COVID concerns.
It's far too late to make this a long-story-short situation, and I apologize for that, but this hopefully gives you an idea of just how many interview opportunities present themselves during the course of these two to three weeks. As a full-time freelance pop culture writer based on the other side of the country, the TCA tour provides me with unparalleled access not only with the casts and creative teams of the programs I'm writing about, but it also allows me to interact with the publicity teams for the various networks as well as the personal publicists for the actors. As you might imagine, it has proven invaluable for my career. I mean, seriously, there's just nothing else quite like it.
To get a sense of what it's like, you may want to give this a read - my post-tour wrap-up piece from summer 2010 - and to answer the question that you'll probably ask after you finish reading it, yes, they're all like that. You never know what you're going to see, you never know who you're going to meet, and you always walk away from it with the sensation that your life is pretty damned cool...and if I ever lose that sensation, then it's time for me to stop going to the tour, and it's time for you to start asking me, "Jesus, when did you turn into such a jaded prick?"
Q: How will the money be used?
A: It will be used to pay for my flight to and from Los Angeles and my lodging during the tour. Believe me, this is as low as I can get the figure, since the people with whom I might’ve shared a room in the past aren’t going to be attending this time around.
Q: How soon do you need the funds?
A: Sooner than I would like, frankly: as noted, the summer tour kicks off on January 9, and - as you might've guessed - I haven't even bought my plane ticket yet. If I don't end up being able to meet my goal for the winter tour in time to make it work, then the funds will remain in my GoFundMe account until I can utilize them for the summer tour, which takes place in July 2017. And if I somehow manage to go over my goal for the winter tour - because I'm just enough of a cockeyed optimist to feel like I should consider that possibility - then the excess will be held and utilized for the summer tour. Either way, this campaign only exists to help me get to the TCA tour. Period.
Q: Why does this mean so much to you?
A: Because it took me a very long time to find my self-confidence and admit that I'm very good at doing interviews, and there is no greater opportunity for me to utilize my skill as an interviewer than the TCA tour.
Q: How thankful will you be?
A: I'll probably cry. But I also cried when Spock died at the end of "Wrath of Khan" and when Snoopy came home at the end of "Snoopy Come Home," so maybe don't put too much stock in being able to make the tears start flowing.
Look, the truth of the matter is that I don't want to do this campaign. I don't want my friends and readers to have to pay my way to the TCA tour. What I want is for an outlet to say, "You do good work, we want more of it, and we'd like to send you out there so that you can do that good work for us." That has not happened. But whenever I go out to the tour, everyone seems to love the end results, be it the social media updates, the photos, or the many, many resulting interviews. As such, as soon as I start saying aloud or typing out the words, "I don't think I'll be able to make it to the TCA tour this time around," the immediate response from those aforementioned friends and readers is for them to start asking me if there's anything they can do to assist or if I've thought about doing a campaign like this, so...I mean, what the hell, right? I might as well try.
The worst that can happen is that I still don't get to go, and I was pretty well resigned to that, anyway. But if you do donate, and I do end up being able to go, I will be happier than you can imagine, and although I will fail to put into words exactly how grateful I am, I will damned sure try, you can bet on that.
GoFundMe Link: https://gofund.me/d8aed85c
I was a little late, I guess, but I still wanted to donate. Hope you get some great material from the TCA!
"it took me a very long time to find my self-confidence and admit that I'm very good at doing interviews"
Glad to know you got there.
Your stuff should be on bigger mastheads, frankly, instead of so much of the piffle that takes up page space: puff pieces, self-involving drivel, self-involved *snark (*there is a time, and a place and professional ways to demo this, if called for, such justified occasions being rare, but hardly non-existent).
The video interviews I've had time to watch I found to be particularly illuminating and enjoyable. Some subjects delightfully go off on their own lark, others need a little more gentle encouragement/knowledgeable prodding. Figuring out the chemistry PDQ to set them up for a fun ride is the litmus test.