001 - Write Here, Write Now

or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Publishing

I’m a writer.

Or at least, that’s what I put down on government forms under OCCUPATION and how I reply to new acquaintances when arises that most inescapable of inquiries: “What do you do?” I’ve found it saves me from unpleasant beseechings to tell a joke if I slip and say “I’m a comedian,” and it’s far easier than trying to define exactly what it is I do do these days… a combination content marketer/product consultant/host-for-hire/vintage clothing & sports card slinger.

But a writer is supposed to write, and the truth is, I have not been writing.

I certainly have written. In high school I wrote and edited an Onion-esque humor magazine that I founded with my goofball friends. named it The Roar, because our school’s mascot was the Lion, and I thought there was a clever word play in there somewhere between the “roar” of laughter and the “roar” of a lion. Still hits.

Freshman year of college I wrote for the campus humor magazine, and senior year I re-founded it in my image (aka The Onion’s image) after publication had lapsed due to apathetic editorship.

This article was nominated for “Worst Possible Way to Open a Feel Good Story About the Resurrection of a Campus Humor Magazine” at the 2007 Newsie Awards

Following graduation I landed an internship at — would you believe it? — The Onion. Technically the internship was with The Onion News Network, their startup video arm, after I was initially denied a spot in the editorial department. Nevertheless it was my adolescent dream come true, and as fate would have it, my position with ONN allowed me an even better opportunity to learn and grow within the organization than I would have had as an intern on the paper side. What was supposed to be a three-month stint stretched into a full year of service as writers’ assistant to the small but brilliant staff headed by Carol Kolb, who had been with “America’s Finest News Source” since its humble days as a local alt-weekly in Madison, WI.

I was able to submit jokes and story headlines to our weekly pool that included a dozen or so contributing writers (some of whom went on to Emmy-winning careers, and one of whom later became my roommate -

I started getting headlines published in the “crawl” of ONN’s broadcast, earning $10 per published joke. Sometimes my headline was deemed meaty enough to be fleshed out into a script, which earned me $50 and the chance to see my idea produced as a full-fledged internet video (mind-blowing stuff in 2008).

Eventually I worked my way into submitting for the paper as well. Their staff was a more protective sort, holding themselves to the standards established over 20 years of satirical exceptionalism, and stingier with their approvals, which made it all the more earth-shattering that one morning I walked into the writers room to see a tossed-off headline of mine slotted into the coveted A1 square on the whiteboard, to be written up as the above-the-fold ‘cover story’ for the following issue. It was the second* moment in my life when I thought to myself, with utter earnestness, “I can die happy now.”

That them right there is a ginuwine $150 headline, son!

After the conclusion of my internship I hung on as a contributor to The Onion’s short-lived television properties: ONN on IFC and Onion SportsDome on Comedy Central. These earned me my first IMDb credits — LOOK MOM, NO LAW SCHOOL! — albeit not enough money to afford late aughts Brooklyn rent, so I sustained myself with odd jobs that I justified as writing adjacent: transcribing for a documentary filmmaker, copywriting for a temp agency, freelancing for ESPN the Magazine’s front-of-book (shoutout Neil Janowitz). In another adolescent dream come true, I worked at the Topps Company* at the turn of 2010s, in a position called “Editor” which — while sitting comfortably at the lowest rung of the corporate ladder — was in my mind the numero uno job at a company that sells baseball cards: I was making the baseball cards.

Somewhere in the mix was a one-week trial as a ‘Customer Service Ninja’ for what at the time was a startup men’s pants brand operating out of a 1000 sq ft walkup called Bonobos. Apparently I impressed enough to be offered a full-time position, but deeming too far a deviation from my entertainment path, I politely declined and collected my $500 and two pairs of fancy pants for my five days’ labor — what at the time was a more than satisfactory compensation, but upon future developments compared rather unfavorably to whatever equity stake would have been assigned to employee No. 14.

This proved to be merely the first* of several instances in my life in which I sacrificed MILLIONS by choosing show business over the shmatte business…

In 2011-12 I blogged and produced silly videos for jockular.com, a sports-focused spin-off of the avant-garde meme machine someecards.com, to which I had also been contributing with occasional success (you no doubt recognize their trademark pastels from peak Facebook).

If you don’t recognize these ecards YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK!

In 2013 I wrote a one-act play inspired by my friend Marc Moishe’s orthodox Jewish wedding in Israel, which was accepted into The Midtown International Theatre Festival and staged as part of the Third Annual Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival at the Roy Arias Studios. I also acted in the damn thing, making my off-off-off-Broadway debut in the role of “Thinly Veiled Scott.”

Art by Brian Reddy

All along I was writing and re-writing my stand-up act, which had evolved from a sophomoric college try reeking of Mitch Hedberg to a neurotic schlemiel derivative of Woody Allen’s early stand-up, most often repurposed into the opening monologues for my live ‘late night’ talk show Running Late with Scott Rogowsky (RIP: 2011-2019). Before that I co-hosted & co-produced the sports-comedy variety show 12 Angry Mascots (RIP: 2008-2011) with the previously mentioned Neil Janowitz. I wrote interstitial bits for these shows. I wrote questions for my guest interviews. I wrote video sketches, a couple of which were long enough to be considered “Short Films” and gained entry into festivals, and another which was compelling enough to be adapted into the ESPN/Comedy Central-produced web series NFL Writers Room (AS SEEN RIPPED OFF ON TV!).

Who needs Japan when you’re BIG IN CANADA!??

I held stints as a segment producer (like a staff writer, but with more work and less pay) on multiple shows, most memorably FS1’s iconic live, daily talk show anchored by 82 year-old Regis Philbin* and supported by a panel of five co-hosts, the name of which I need not remind you because OF COURSE you tuned into FS1 daily from 4-5pm ET in 2013 and OF COURSE you fondly remember… (RIP: 2013-2013)

If you’re reading this — and you are! Look at you reading! — it’s likely because you became aware of my existence on Planet Earth from my time hosting HQ Trivia (RIP: 2017-2019). While hired to launch the show as its primary host, I was quickly conscripted into also writing the trivia questions that appeared on screen. This arrangement lasted until a couple of my questions got past the fact-checker (also me) with the wrong “correct” answer attached. Turns out Tucson is not the capital of Arizona, as I had been led to believe. A proper writing & research team was soon assembled to help carry HQ to its dizzying heights, yet I remained fully involved in the shaping of each day’s quizzes and wrote thousands of intros and question commentaries across hundreds of shows.

I provide you with the above backstory/annotated resume all to drop this shocking personal truth bomb: despite my many validating writing experiences, despite my many years of paid writing work, I’ve never truly felt like a writer. Without that ‘Staff Writer’ stamp of approval that I so desperately sought with packet after packet of submissions to shows like Late Show, Late Night, Saturday Night Live, Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show, The Nightly Show (subscribe for the fun story there!), Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Real Time with Bill Maher, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper — as recently as Game Theory with Bomani Jones — I always thought of myself as a fringe player in the game, riding the pine while my friends and peers got their PT and hustled their way toward Hall of Fame careers. Would you even believe that one of the interns who came up after me at The Onion — whose weekly assignment and release form wrangling emails I used to receive as a contributing writer — is today one of Hollywood’s most accomplished and respected writers/creators/showrunners?? It’s true! And I couldn’t be happier for her.

But I also couldn’t be more down on myself.

OR AT LEAST, I WAS. UNTIL NOW. THIS VERY SECOND.

Because now I have a newsletter. Now I’m going to be writing every day, whether you like it or not. Because if I’m writing, I’m a writer.

And I am a writer.

Always have been.*

With my sincerest thanks,
Rogo

*Government, if you’re reading this, I swear I’ve been truthful on all your forms.

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