Behind The Curtain (24 March, 2023)
NEW SITE, WHO DIS?
Hello, I am Jason, son of William and Louise of House McLean. I’m an actor, Concordia Journalism graduate, lifelong Montrealer, haunted tour guide, teller of cheesy dad jokes, transit aficionado, sometimes accurate predictor of byelection results, and one other thing: over a decade ago, I founded this very site along with four other people. It was a fun project to accompany a comedy video series we were producing. At the same time, it was a way to take the awesome power of media into our own hands and shine a spotlight on members of our community and ideas not reported on, or voiced.
The former objective soon fell by the wayside (Google “JC Sunshine’s Fireside Chat” and make it a cult hit, please) as it became apparent that the latter was what people really wanted. Our team grew rapidly and exponentially. We were out covering shows, we were covering the efforts to save Cafe Cleopatre from developers and city bureaucrats, we were talking politics and social issues. We had weekly columns, a lot of weekly columns. Green Bean Tuesdays talked environment, We Heart Music was all about the music, and the musicians that we hearted, Laurence Rants was a guy named Laurence ranting about things, and Friday Film Reviews was…well, you get the picture. In fact, I had my own called The Soapbox, which was usually about politics, but really about what I wanted to talk about that week.
Over the years, the columns faded away as we covered festivals big and small, events like the Maple Spring, the pandemic, Occupy Montreal, elections and even floods. We had a podcast, a video series, and a handful of sister sites. New people came and left, some after a few posts, some after a few years. Some returned, others went on to work for outlets like CBC/Radio-Canada, The Gazette, and even to found Ricochet! Through it all, I remained. I’m the Keenan Thompson of FTB.. still funny but why is he still here? Moving on is something you do in traffic, and I don’t even own a car (or a bike)! I’m really trying to make this sound cool, is it working? Seriously, though, when your passion becomes your daily rut, it’s a pretty good rut to be in.
But is it possible to break out of the rut but keep the passion, or better yet reinvigorate that passion? Apparently, yes?! That’s not the answer I was expecting, but I always hoped it might be the case. If you’re reading this now, you may have noticed that this is a completely different site. Literally. It has a new domain name. We’ve got a sexy new look. It’s something called SquareSpace, and now that I’ve mentioned their name, I think they owe us money. Is that how this works? (Editor's Note: This is not how it works at all, those interested in sponsorship opportunities should contact forgetthebox@forgetthebox.ca, not Jason.)
Beyond the visual differences, you might have noticed something else. These paragraphs I’m typing are kinda long. In fact, as I’m sure several former contributors I have edited over the years will attest to, this is the exact type of writing I would have chopped into easily digestible nuggets. Many times I said, “We’re not The New Yorker, we don’t write essays here!” …until we did. I’ve also been using the Oxford Comma, something I had sworn off doing years ago. Who am I to argue with the AP Style Guide when it fits perfectly into my worldview in this particular instance? And I would have kept getting away with it, too, if it wasn’t for these damn millennials with their long format writing and proper punctuation proclivities!
We have a new editorial team, led by Andrew Jamieson and Dawn McSweeney. Andrew called me a boomer once , despite me being an XENNIAL, and I’ve never seen him and Conor Blaine in the same room at the same time. As for McSweeney, I knew her before she had a list. They are accompanied by a slew of new and talented contributors in the arts and culture sections with more joining each week. Together, they, or rather we (cause I’m a part of this, too) are injecting new life into the site. We’ve also refocused FTB back to its original goal of shining a spotlight on members of our community, and the ideas they have, while at the same time building a community centre of our own. The energy in the proverbial room is palpable.
As Montreal heads into spring and FTB heads into its own new beginning, it’s time to figure out what my role will be in all of this. Dawn’s now our Editor-in-Chief, my job since the site started, and Andrew remains our Creative Director. And me? Well, I am one of the founders and the only one who’s still involved with FTB on a regular basis, so capital-F “Founder” works, which is what people are calling me now. I’m also an active contributor, so I think I’ll start calling myself Contributing Founder, at least in email signatures and social media bios (I might even log into Linkedin to update it, I think I still have one of those). And speaking of contributing, I’ll still be writing in the Culture section (mostly political pieces) and maybe in the Arts section a bit too, but, as you can see, I now have a column again! (Editor’s Note: We call them “series” now I’m told, but I’ve made enough changes for the time being!)
This is my new weekly soapbox. We’re calling it Behind the Curtain because each week I’ll be pulling back the curtain and showing you what I think about what’s going on in our city, what we’re doing on our site, and whatever else interests me (and hopefully you as well). Sometimes I’ll talk about a bunch of things, whereas other weeks I’ll fill this space with one deserving topic. Expect everything from serious political and cultural discussions to tips on getting around Montreal quicker using secret bus routes only a lifelong Montrealer and transit obsessive like me would know. Expect the cliche…I mean expect the unexpected!
This promises to be quite the fun ride, Oxford commas and all (if you see a semicolon in my writing, though, it was put there by an editor). I’m excited to have my soapbox back. I am Jason, son of William and Louise of House McLean, and I am inviting you to peer behind the curtain with me again next Friday.
FTB Founder Jason C. McLean will return every Friday for another installment in his series, Behind The Curtain.
