I'm Dyin' Here: A Life in the Paper

by Tim Grobaty

Overview

Long Beach Press-Telegram writer Tim Grobaty was promoted to columnist at his newspaper back when it was still a glamorous and coveted job. In I’m Dyin’ Here, the author means two things: He’ll likely die at the job that he’s spent nearly four decades doing, and at the same time his profession, too, is seeing its last days. Weaving together personal history and a selection of columns written over the course of his storied career, Grobaty offers readers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a dying breed: the local columnist. With everyday life — fatherhood, holidays, suburbia, and random encounters with animals — serving as fodder for his column, Grobaty reveals his sources of motivation and vulnerability, all the while struggling to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing industry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941932070
Publisher:	Brown Paper Press
Publication date:	01/16/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	236
File size:	346 KB

About the Author

Tim Grobaty, a daily humor columnist at the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram, has won numerous awards, including being named the Best Columnist in the Western United States by Best in the West. He also has authored three books on local history: Growing Up in Long Beach: Boomer Memories from Autoettes to Los Altos Drive-In; Location Filming in Long Beach; and Long Beach Chronicles: From Pioneers to the 1933 Earthquake (History Press). A native of Long Beach, Grobaty lives (he still lives!) in the city with his wife, daughter, and two pups.

Read an Excerpt

I am. I am dying here. Ask my doctor. "Tim," he says to me, after first asking if I'm still working for that rag of a newspaper, which I am and at which admission he shakes his head slowly and doctorly. He says, "You're at the age where your body is going to be changing in many ways. All of them bad."
Jesus, Doc, break it to me gently. How about, "Grandma's on the roof," or "While some people die quickly and painlessly . . . "
Ah, but who cares? Doesn't bother me. I cleave to the childlike notion that death isn't a law of nature; it's merely a theory. Everyone dies? You got proof of that? There are more than 7 billion people right now who haven't died. My inner oddsmaker tells me that even if 99.9 percent of these people die, more than 7 million of them will continue to feel fine forever. So there's that I have going for me.
On the downside, I am a journalist. Specifically, a newspaper columnist. And it's not a theory that all newspapers will die. It's a law. It can't not happen. I'm at the stage of a long career where my job is going to be changing in many ways. All of them bad. We don't buy ink by the barrel these days. We pick up a half-gallon on the way to work.
So, yeah, as a print journalist? Dead as a bobbin boy, dead as a scrivener, dead as a whorehouse pianna-player–so many occupations that once sustained this glorious world.

Editorial Reviews

"A humorous love letter to a dying vocation." — Kirkus Reviews


"A truly wonderful book. Both the fascinating history of a man, and the radical shifts in the newspaper world. It's beautifully written—by turns both humorous and equally moving. I wish I could give it a higher rating [than five stars]."
— Robert Roberge, author of Liar

"There is a lot to lament about the folding of newspapers like the one Grobaty still writes for.The worst is the loss one day of funny, humane, and unpretentious voices like his."
— D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir


"Tim Grobaty, one of these great city-side columnists [has written] a book-length meditation on the current 'optimistic' state of the print journalism industry in which he works."
— David Kipen, founder of Libros Schmibros and book critic for KPCC's Take Two

"Over the years, a newspaper columnist develops a very special relationship with their readers: They become a favorite neighbor, a good friend,maybe even a family member. They don't deliver news; they tell us about life. Long Beach is lucky to have had Tim Grobaty in that role all these many years. He is the Bard of Big Town."
— Russ Parsons, author of How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table


"One wanders through the passages of Grobaty's book like an accidental tourist in the town you thought you already knew. Often, discovering things a self-preservationist type wouldn't even think to investigate
without a 'cop across the street' by his side."
— Thomas Wasper, author of Famous Killers for Early Learners

From the Publisher

2016-03-01
Grobaty's (Growing Up in Long Beach, 2013, etc.) memoir chronicles a four-decade career as a Southern California newspaperman. In 1976, the author, armed with only his brief experience on a community college newspaper, applied for employment with his hometown paper, the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Over the following decades, he worked his way up from copyboy to veteran journalist, holding a wide range of reporting and columnist positions. His book is a personal and professional memoir as well as a good-natured testament to the decline of print journalism: "We don't buy ink by the barrel these days," Grobaty writes, commenting on declining circulation. "We pick up a half-gallon on the way to work." As a journeyman reporter, he observed the last days of highflying, hard-drinking, mid-20th-century newspaper culture. His establishment as a daily columnist coincided with the slow decline of the industry, and in middle age, he witnessed the capitulation of daily print media to the Internet. Eventually, Grobaty makes a sort of reluctant peace with the digital era, confident that his calling of columnist transcends the medium of print. At times, he ventures into the content of his columns—such as one on the relative danger of local fleabag highway motels—which meander away from the narrative arc; some chapters include reprints of entire columns. But for the author, there's little separation between those columns and his life: "You write columns for a certain number of years and the daily snippets start to weave together as your sprawling memoirs." For the reader, Grobaty's quick, clever prose—honed over decades of deadlines—is a pleasure to follow wherever it leads. The loose biographical structure and distinct chapters allow readers to enjoy the volume straight through or as an anthology that one may pick up at different points. Overall, this book will make a pleasant Sunday read for anyone looking to return to the pre-blog joys of opening a freshly delivered morning paper, pouring a cup of coffee, and reading the musings of a favorite local columnist. A humorous love letter to a dying vocation.

Kirkus Reviews