.Indie Yoyo: Declaration of Codependence

Due to some strange alignment of the stars, this happens to be the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence as well as the 249th edition of the North Bay Bohemian that I’ve overseen as editor.

The whimsical side of me can’t help but find this somehow significant. As Galileo once opined, “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” I personally believe, however, that the universe was written with heaps of irony—hence Galileo praising the deity, then ending up under house arrest for a little heliocentrism.

Likewise, the notion of independence in media—especially a printed tabloid like this one—is itself ironic. I am inherently and absolutely dependent on you, dear readers. There is no independence here. Any armchair psychologist would rightly observe that I’m codependent on you. You complete me—at least to the extent that I rely on you to render meaning from these inkblots on wood pulp.

“Declarations” and “independence” are contradictory concepts for someone like me, who pivots and reinvents constantly. And not because I’m especially dynamic—but because I’m possessed by a compulsion to chase the next idea, and the next, without fully declaring allegiance to any of them. Beneath this cool exterior is a roiling mass of anxiety that avoids declarations because they imply commitment—which, again, sounds like the opposite of independence to me.

Of course, I came of age in the ’90s, when corporations co-opted the term “independent” from the DIY movement to sell us movies, music and, eventually, the internet bubble. “Indie” became a marketing concept—no longer an ethos but a pre-distressed aesthetic pushed by an algorithm. Independence got monetized, then quietly deprecated. Record stores used to run “Declaration of Independents” promos on the Fourth of July; now they sell vinyl reissues to millennial dads looking to relive a youth they never actually had.

Incidentally, this Fourth of July marks my kid brother’s 50th birthday. That he managed to be born in 1975 rather than the more auspicious bicentennial year of 1976 only proves he’s always been ahead of the curve—or the universe dealt him a rounding error. (Happy birthday, brother.)

My own birthday falls between Bastille Day and the anniversary of the moon landing. And if you subtract the year of the French Revolution (1789) from the year of the moon landing (1969), you get an even 180—colloquially, the degrees one turns when reversing direction, behavior or belief. So, in that spirit, here goes my 180:

I used to think independence meant freedom from obligation and the tyranny of other people’s taste. But now, I realize real independence might mean choosing one’s dependencies with care. Like choosing to show up, week after week, for this gig that sometimes feels like therapy, sometimes like performance art. To keep pivoting, remixing, rewriting the terms of engagement until something true emerges—or at least something publishable by deadline.

It’s about finding meaning in the absurd alignment of anniversaries and edition numbers, and maybe believing, just for today, that coincidence is a kind of cosmic wink. That we’re, somehow, on the right page.

So yes—249 issues under my belt. Two hundred forty-nine years since a gaggle of powdered wigs declared themselves free. Divide one by the other and you get one. Which is how many of me there are writing this and how many of you are required to make it worth it.

More at dhowell.com.