Interview With Rod McCullom

AE: Is blogging more important to the gay community than the straight community?
RM: Absolutely! You know about the whole digital divide, that gay people spend more time online and shop more online and things like that. I think blogging is just another facet of gay culture. In terms of importance, a lot of news about gay culture, gay news and gay rights — the gay blogs are breaking those stories.

AE: Rod 2.0 is a great mix of hard news, infotainment and attractive men. What do you see your blog's primary role as being?
RM: Thank you. The primary role of the blog is to inform and entertain. I don't hope to do any more than that.

I look at it from my background in television. I want things to be tight, concise and readable, with interesting visuals and good headlines, and copy people can read while they're drinking their coffee, or on their lunch hours, or when they're home at night surfing the web. I hope people will be informed and entertained.

There is some activism there, but it's not meant to be overwhelming. There are already bloggers who are activists, Wayne Besen or Keith Boykin, who do so much more of a better job.

AE: What's the biggest story you've broken on the blog?
RM: The biggest story I had was something I didn't think would be that big, but remember the Tim Hardaway story? I had a heads up from a contact at the NBA that they were going to announce sanctions against him, reprimand him, ban him or whatever.

So I just put up a simple item about how Dwayne Wade and Shaq had jumped to the defense of gay men. … I included that information along with the tip. It was information that was already out there, and it was just a two-paragraph story, but it was one of my biggest traffic days ever. It wasn't that big of a deal, I didn't think, but it went across the entire blogosphere and mainstream media and even some TV stations, and somebody from NBA publicity. I guess they just appreciate that people in the gay blogosphere were saying that not all NBA players were homophobic.

AE: What's the most controversial story?
RM: The day before New Year's last year, in December of 2006, there was a shooting in Chicago at a house party of black gay men, and five black gay men were shot at the party. It went across the blogosphere like a tidal wave, because the original theory was that it was a homophobe or some gang bangers who came inside and shot up the house.

That turned out to not be true. It turns out it was another unfortunate example of black-on-black violence. I think many activists were disappointed because that was the case, but it was a huge story nonetheless, because it was a reminder to black gay men that this is something we need to address.

AE: What's your proudest moment as a blogger?
RM: My proudest moment on the blog doesn't have anything to do with traffic or numbers or advertising.

It happened about two months ago. I was at a Starbucks in New York , working on my laptop, and there was a celebrity there, an actor, and he was cute — but anyway, I conducted a little interview. There were these two guys looking through the window watching me talking to the actor, acting excited.

After the interview, I'm walking through the door, and the two guys ran up to me. I thought they were going to say, "Isn't that so-and-so from Noah's Arc ?" And they said, "Aren't you Rod McCullom from Rod 2.0?" And I was just shocked for a moment. Being a producer, I'm used to being behind the scenes.

I say, "Yeah, I'm Rod McCullom ." And the one guy said, "I just want to thank you so much." I said, "For what?" He said, "I'm from Virginia , and I came up here to live because life was so hard for me after I came out. The only thing I had to keep me in touch with the world, and knowing that there were other men who were black and gay and who could be a role model, was through your blog."

He was almost crying, and it was just so touching. I'm so glad he came up and talked to me, because it made me feel so good about myself and about the blog. You know, there are days when I don't want to do the blog. I don't want to update five or six times a day. I don't want to do that all the time. It reminded me why I was doing it in the first place. I didn't have those resources when I was young. It was just so uplifting.

AE: You're also an aspiring novelist, right? Can you tell us about the books you're working on?
RM: Yeah! It's interesting you would ask me about that. I just had a meeting with an agent and a publisher just last week, so you might be hearing some news about that soon. It's a coming-out story with a twist.

AE: You also have a teleplay in the works. What's it about?
RM: One of the producers at an NBC crime drama had talked to me about doing some writing for them. I'll probably be writing something for them later this year.

AE: Congratulations on your new projects! It sounds like you have a lot of oars in the water, and you're doing well on all of them.
RM: Thank you!