Providence Daily Dose Comes To An End

It is time. And I want to make it clear that there really isn’t much of a story behind this decision; all the original players get along just fine to the extent that we see each other at all anymore. Regular readers know that I have been writing everything for quite a while now; blogging turned out to be a good fit for my superficial writing style. Having this blog allowed me to go barging around town, forcing myself on people I found interesting, and making them talk to me. And that has been a lot of fun.

In 2017 we celebrated The Dose’s tenth anniversary at the E&O Tap (now Deadbeats) where the guys first came up with the idea. At that time I wrote a fairly comprehensive memoir of The Dose (“Daily Dose Turns Ten!”) so I don’t have to go over that again. That post features a wonderful picture of founders Dave Segal, Tim Blankenship, and Eric Smith holding the original ProJo article announcing the arrival of this new thing called a blog!

This final post will be number 13,520. The first post was published by Dave on 9/5/2007 (a Jobs for Justice fundraiser, natch). I didn’t join until December when one of my first posts was “Mi Casa e Su Casa” about an installation created and occupied by artists Michael Townsend and then-wife Adriana Yoto in a storefront behind City Hall, a few months following the discovery of their mall apartment. The installation was called “The Apartment at the Mall: A Reprise and Presentation” and that link still works! They are swell people and I continued to cover some of their tape art installations around town.

Side bar: If you haven’t seen “Secret Mall Apartment” yet please go. They keep extending the schedule at the mall. It will lift your spirits immensely. (Jimmy Fallon was raving about it the other night.)

Since I joined I have used the site to advocate in favor of marijuana reform and against the Fain Tower, occasionally addressing the goings-on at City Hall and the State House, but mostly I wrote about anything that I thought was fun or interesting, with a focus on events that were cheap or free. And yes, over the years, I frequently used the royal “we” to make it sound like there was still a big lively crew behind the scenes, with a lunchroom and lockers, none of which reflected reality. As the younger cohort started pealing off to start families, go to grad school, or move for new jobs, I was trying to sustain the illusion that this was still the cool kids table.

So I would like to thank Dave, Tim and Eric for inviting me to that original cool kids table. And special thanks to Tim who has been responsible for hosting and maintaining the site all these years!

And big thanks to our loyal readers.