Goodbye for Now

There’s no point in delaying the inevitable, so I’ll put the headline up front. This is the final “Special Interests” in its current form.

Why? Well…

I’ll answer that question by explaining what I’d hoped to get out of this project, versus where I’m at now, about a year later.

My reasons for starting Dan McCoy’s Special Interests, in vaguely decreasing order of importance, were:

GOAL 1 - To not only write regularly, but put that writing in front of an audience regularly.

From 2011 to 2021 I was a writer for The Daily Show, meaning that not only did I write… well… daily, but that material went out into the world almost immediately. You’d get an assignment in the morning, and your script would be on TV that evening. Well, not your script – some version of your script that had been heavily re-written by the head writer, producers, and host – but I’m already digressing. The point is, there was a lot of variety, a lot of instant feedback, and you always knew an audience was there.

That didn’t totally go away. My podcast, The Flop House, is an unscripted chat show, but our live shows (whether in person or streaming) always have written components, and one of the great joys of doing them is getting those laughs from the audience – that immediate connection. 

But our live shows are a small part of the podcast, and most of my work time since leaving The Daily Show has been me, alone, in a room, working on long projects, be they TV scripts, screenplays, or a novel. It’s lonely work and it gets disheartening, especially when I know that no one has asked me to do this writing. It’s writing I do because I want to do it. It’s writing I do because it’s what I’ve always done. It’s writing I do with an (increasingly quixotic, in the current landscape) enduring faith that someone will want it someday. 

It’s not writing that I can guarantee will ever have an audience, though. So I wanted a way to connect more directly, more quickly, more often.

These days, however? It feels like an interruption to those longer projects more than a respite. It feels like an obligation that’s taking me away from work that may get less immediate response, but has the potential to be more enduring or rewarding. 

On top of that – when I started Special Interests, it was the only newsletter I was responsible for. Now I’m also writing Flop Secrets, the newsletter for our podcast, and I’m a contributing editor for Deathbed, which publishes short horror stories by comedy writers. That’s a condition that medical doctors call “too many newsletters.” 

Meanwhile, the world has gone to hell, and my optimistic GET UP AND GO ZAZZ has reduced with it. If any writing is gonna get done, I need to conserve my energy.

GOAL 2 - To talk about my later-in-life ADHD diagnosis through the frame of pop culture

Remember that? A lot of the early essays on this site were related to my newly-discovered neurodivergence. But that stuff fell away pretty quickly, for a couple of reasons:

• When it was new, I needed to put a lot more energy into processing it, for myself. But pretty quickly I decided it both mattered and didn’t matter. Why am I how I am? Partly ADHD. Partly nature. Partly nurture. Partly noeture, which is a word I just made up. We’re all the product of all sorts of influences. Why should ADHD get all the attention? I’m not saying it’s not important to examine yourself – quite the opposite. But there’s less value in getting hung up on any one thing. My diagnosis has taught me some stuff about the ways I need to manage my life and emotions, and it’s allowed me to be a little more forgiving about stuff I’d always considered character flaws, but it’s not something I have a lot to say about in perpetuity. 
• There’s nothing more fascinating to oneself than one’s afflictions and quirks and nothing more boring to other people. (Okay, this isn’t ENTIRELY true – I got a lot of kind messages from people going through similar things. I’m sorry I won’t be there for those people in the future, but I’m glad I was able to help ease their own burden, even briefly.)

GOAL 3 - To use up a bunch of material I’d already written for an unpublished book.

I never totally recycled old material without changing it – everything on this site was edited and improved for newsletter publication, but early on I wanted a clearinghouse for some finished material I’d worked out for a book proposal. That’s all long been used up. I’m glad that it found an audience, even if it wasn’t via the originally intended form.

GOAL 4 - Maybe I’ll make some money?

I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone to discover that free newsletters aren’t a wellspring of cash, especially for someone with my (minimal) level of hyper-specific fame, but thank you to everyone who subscribed at the “hey maybe tip me a couple of bucks out of the kindness of your heart” level. The money may not have been huge, but the love and support I felt was, so thank you. I’ve been honored by your generosity. 

So is this the END?

Well…

I’m not willing to say that. At least not yet. I’m gonna keep the site around for the foreseeable future, and I may publish more! It just won’t be on a regular “every other week” schedule. It’ll be on a “does Dan actually have something he wants to say” schedule. So those of you who stick around will probably get erratic missives from me. Hopefully the lack of any pressure to make it an ongoing concern will mean that when I DO pop in, the essays will be sharper, funnier, more passionate, and (god willing) shorter.

Until then, my love to you all. Be kind. The world needs it.