David McElroy

When I launched this website 12 years ago, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with it. As I’m going through another startup — a YouTube show called David McElroy Live — I remember how lost I felt when I started here.

Tom Briscoe had done political cartoons — very good ones — for a newspaper I had owned many moons ago. In early 2011, we got together for lunch to catch up after not seeing each other for a long time. Tom told me that I really needed to start a website to put my writing online.

I was intrigued, but the idea also scared me. What would I write about? What if nobody ever read what I wrote? Would I be humiliated if I failed?

With Tom’s help, I got my site set up. The first things I wrote were awful. I had no audience. I had no concept for what I was trying to do. I averaged 66 page views a day during that month. I was afraid I’d never find an audience or a niche that made sense.

Now I’m starting a live YouTube show and I have the same fears.

I don’t have a clear concept of what I’m going to do. I’m afraid I won’t be interesting. I’m afraid I won’t be able to attract an audience. For the first time in a long time, I’m a clueless beginner once more.

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Nothing is more certain than death — so why does the approach of death always surprise me?

People die of cancer every day. The disease is so common that most of us don’t even think much about it. I certainly don’t. Even though I had breast cancer more than 10 years ago, I still don’t think about getting cancer and dying from it. And I don’t think about it happening to my friends.

I have a friend who had a routine cancer screening — a lung scan — about a year ago. He was a smoker, so it was supposed to give an early warning if there was anything wrong.

The scan showed what could be a couple of small tumors on his lung. After a biopsy confirmed it was cancer, those two small nodules were removed through surgery. Then he went through months of chemotherapy. And now he’s had another scan to see whether it worked.

He found out this evening that the cancer has metastasized — to his lymph nodes and his liver. And now that I fear death might be coming for him, I don’t know what to feel. In the end, nobody cheats death.

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It was an honor recently when writer Aya Katz asked me to record the narration for one of her short stories. We expect the production to be available for download on Audible, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes Store soon. While we wait, we’ve been talking about science fiction.

On her YouTube livestream tonight, we had a wide-ranging conversation about science fiction and more, starting with a discussion of Robert Heinlein’s 1963 novel, “Podkayne of Mars.” We also discuss our collaboration on her short story — called “F” — which reminds me of Heinlein’s work, at least in spirit.

Tap or click below to watch and listen. Or go here to view Katz’s YouTube channel, much of which centers around her fascinating relationship with a chimpanzee named Bow who lives with her.

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