Housekeeping: D'You Think I Could Call Myself A Yazuka If... Edition

This is a sequel to the previous housekeeping post, intended to answer a few questions and provide additional information.
Start with this: As of two weeks ago I am no longer affiliated with Hagerty in any capacity. It's going to be a while, maybe a year, before I can discuss exactly why -- and it's possible that I'll never be able to talk about it. Those of you who are grownups will perhaps be able to guess as to the reasons for that. I will say this: It had nothing to do with the multiple attempts made by people in the autojourno circlejerk to "doxx" or otherwise harass my employer into terminating me over the past 40 months. Sorry about that, folks. Had you been better and more persuasive writers, you might have put me out of a job in 2020 or 2021... but if you were better and more persuasive writers, you wouldn't be where you are now, would you?
As previously discussed, my Substack will launch on July 15th. It would have been sooner but my son and I have been on another one of those cross-country trips where we ride bikes and one of us gets hurt. This time it was my turn, thankfully, but I'm still standing. (With difficulty, haha.) We visited a number of interesting places including the famed "Slab City", where we rode the skatepark and talked to the locals. More on that to come later.
Everyone who has commented in previous posts, and/or who comments under this thread, will get a discount link in the week to come, plus a slightly early preview of the site.
This site will continue with posts from all of our existing contributors plus the occasional new post from me.
Aside from the Substack and the occasional freelance piece, I won't be writing about cars any more. (EDIT: I will ABSOLUTELY be writing about cars on Substack, including vehicle reviews. I didnt make that clear.) This is the truest thing I can tell you right now: In my opinion, there is no corner of autowriting that is not deeply corrupted by the tendrils of the manufacturers and their PR machine. I took my last job because I figured that a self-sufficient billion-dollar company that is almost exclusively dedicated to old cars would be immune to manufacturer pressure. That's what I was promised, anyway. I thought it would be a chance to be even more ethical and reader-focused than TTAC was twelve years ago. Oh no! Anyway...
There's only one person in the business who can say or do whatever he wants, and that's Doug DeMuro. He's been fabulously successful as a result, spending over 5.2 milllion dollars on gorgeous homes since going to YouTube. Dozens of people have told me to try a similar path: Do videos! Do podcasts! That's where all the money is! Look at Doug!
Here's the problem. I can't do what Doug does, or what the podcasters do, because I'm not that kind of person. I did a few videos and podcasts a long time ago and I hated it. I'm no good at it, either. I'm not an actor, not in love with the mirror or the camera, not excited about clowning around for the public. My goal has always been to follow in the footsteps of Setright and Baxter. Maybe Yates and Bedard, too. I'm going to stick to my knitting, with your help.
Something else that I want to re-address: Most of you know that I'm not "right-wing" or "left-wing" as much as I am what SlateStar called a "Grey Tribe" person. If you sign up for the Substack thinking I'm going to spend every week crucifying our poor befuddled Teleprompter-In-Chief then you'll be disappointed. Similarly, I have none of the generic automedia fondness for blaming everything on Donald Trump years after his departure. I am hoping that we can use this platform to have genuine and thoughtful discussions about everything from data science to gerrymandering. The idea of vigorous debate on these topics was once held to be an essential feature of American society. Obviously we're no longer doing that on a grand scale in this country, but perhaps we can do it on Substack.
Last but not least, I want to thank all of you for your readership, your interest, and your kind words. Quite a few people have reached out to me personally, offering help ranging from emotional to financial. I want to assure all of you that I'm still building my house, still racing my cars, still doing everything I was doing a month ago. A month from now I'll be running my little Radical at Mid-Ohio and a month after that I'll be debuting the SR8 in SCCA Prototype X.
Between now and July 15th I'll publish a few stories here just to keep my hand in. Again, thanks to all of you. Between this site and social media I'm closing in on a thousand people who have gotten in line for the Substack. I don't think there are five people in autowriting who could command this kind of support if they went out on their own -- and I flatter myself that my readers are significantly brighter and more perceptive than the norm. You'd have to be, really, to get through some of this stuff.
Sincerely, JB
--and yeah, the title of this post is a nod to Junichi Saga and Bob Dylan. I'm hoping I finally found something too obscure for any of you to pick up on, but I doubt it!