General

Previously:

In which I interview myself (part 1 of 2)
In which I interview myself (part 2 of 2)

Dopple: Here we are again.

Me: I wish I could quit you.

Dopple: Wouldn’t that be impossible, since we’re the same person? Or is it a metaphor?

Me: It just seemed like a good place for a funny quote.

Dopple: We were previously talking about your writing but I’d like to touch on your acting.

Me: My acting was touched, yes.

Dopple: You took drama in school.

Me: I yearned to be dramatic so it was a good fit. In elementary school it was just dumb skits and variety shows and it was all goofy fun. In junior high we started doing more demanding material, like Puss in Boots. Wait, that’s not a good example. We did stuff like The Boy Comes Home, a drama about a young solider returning after fighting in World War I. I played the boy. It wasn’t much of a stretch.

Dopple: Talk about the inevitable drama off-stage.

Me: The drama teacher in junior high liked me, so I typically got cast for most of the lead parts. I was the cat in Puss in Boots and Androcles in Androcles and the Lion. A friend of mine was not well-liked by the teacher because he was…a scamp, let’s say. Yes. Very scampy. Most of the drama students were female, so she was forced to cast him in each production because there were so few guys (and several couldn’t act, they apparently just wanted to hang around with the girls), usually as some kind of comic relief. This friend would commit subtle acts of sabotage and generally drive her crazy. To be fair, she was very open to being driven crazy by him. But in terms of off-stage drama, there really wasn’t a lot, mostly just the usual anxiety about how nothing seemed to be pulling together and opening night was only days away. Oh, and all the girls kept pulling on my tail when I was Puss in Boots. I hated that. But I still remember the line, “Unlike humans, cats only speak when they have something important to say.” Which is pretty much true.

Dopple: You continued on acting in high school?

Me: Yes. In high school it was no longer Drama, it was Acting. I don’t know why. My friend and I switched roles (ho ho) in high school because the acting teacher liked him and seemed indifferent to me. I got to be supporting characters while he got the leads. We did a pretty good run on Dark of the Moon in which I played Floyd Allen, the brother (supporting character) of Barbara Allen (one of the leads). My friend played the brimstone and fire Preacher Haggler. I don’t know if the casting was meant to be ironic or not. We had a great moment during one performance when four of us were on stage and one of the others missed a line, causing a large and vital part of the scene to be skipped over. We had to somehow get back to it. For a few terrifying moments we stood there in silence wondering what to do. I then blurted out an improvised line: “I bet you want to get Barbara married.” He grabbed onto it like a shark snacking on a harp seal. “That’s EXACTLY what I want to do!” And then we covered the missing material and it was all good. I sort of miss the excitement of that, a live performance where things can go wrong and you have to think on your feet.

Dopple: And you continued acting into college?

Me: Yes. I went to Malaspina College straight from high school but dropped out in the second year, filled with self-doubt and greasy hamburgers. While I was there I took part in Oh What a Lovely War, a World War I musical. It was a sprawling ensemble piece and I got to play seven parts, ranging from a Belgian general wearing an extremely tall and silly hat to a Scottish gillie to a soldier singing “Silent Night” in German during a lull in the fighting. I also made a duck from a rubber chicken to use during a hunting bit. Pamphlets were handed out onstage during a town square scene where Emily Pankhurst, a political activist, protests the war. The pamphlets were all handmade and had authentic anti-war slogans on them, except for one which read: “What did you do in The Great War, Daddy?” “I died from eating a McRib!” You never knew if you would get the McRib pamphlet. The intent was to cause the receiving actor to crack up and fall out of character. Theater is a bit strange that way. The McRib was pretty new at the time. I liked it, proving I had no taste when I was young.

Dopple: Since you’re now in tech support, you obviously decided not to pursue acting as a career.

Me: I last acted in the 1988 Vancouver Fringe Festival. I played a nut who died tragically at the end. It was a fun part but the review in the SFU paper was not kind. It unfavorably compared the play to Happy Days. I did one more play the next year but wrote and co-directed and didn’t act. Oh, I did some roleplay in a course this year where I was apparently very convincing as an indifferent tech support person. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Dopple: With your dreams of acting left behind, what did you do next?

Me: Went to school, then got jobs. The End.

Dopple: The End?

Me: Well, there’s a few details here and there, but those are the broad strokes.

Dopple: Those strokes aren’t broad, they’re planet-spanning.

Me: I think big.

Dopple: What’s the worst job you ever had?

Me: Making pizzas at Mrs. Vanelli’s. I can’t say why, exactly, but I just really hated making pizzas. It was like making them destroyed the magic of eating them. Pizza was my favorite food.

Dopple: Mmm, pizza.

Me: Exactly. I also found working as a TSR at Shaw to be soul-draining.

Dopple: You were a Terminate and Stay Resident program?

Me: The only people who will get that joke are old and wearing adult diapers. As a Technical Support Representative, I logged into the phones at the start of my shift, took calls all day, then logged out and went home. It was strangely wearying to sit there and just take call after call. I felt like my mind was getting sucked out through the headset. I quit after six months, which is five months and 20 days longer than I lasted making pizzas. There was also a cull of 500 employees while I was there. As you might guess, it doesn’t do a lot for morale or your feelings of job security. The people were nice, though.

Dopple: Any funny stories?

Me: No.

Dopple: What’s the zaniest place you’ve worked at?

Me: I have not worked at any place I would call zany. My first job in Vancouver was working at Expo 86, but it was in a souvenir store and was actually pretty dull. It was comparable to making pizzas, though not as messy. It might have been zany if I was dressed as some kind of Expo mascot but I just wore pants.

Dopple: What career advice would you give today’s youth?

Me: Avoid retail at all costs. And call centers. And especially retail call centers, if they exist.

Dopple: You worked retail and didn’t like it?

Me: Let’s just say yes and multiply that by a thousand. I am not a salesperson. I’m not even much of a people person. This is not a good thing in retail. After my last retail job I vowed never again and I’ve stayed true to my word. I think I would prefer going feral and live off wild berries in the woods to working in retail again. However, I worked at Starbucks many years ago, which may technically be considered more of a service job, and it was not that bad, other than smelling like coffee all the time. I had some good times there. It was still generally terrible, but definitely less terrible.

Dopple: I have a lot more questions but I see it’s getting late again.

Me: Part 4 of 2, then?

Dopple: It’s a date. That reminds me, you totally kiss on the first date.

Me: I do, sometimes. Well, not now because I’m not dating anymore.

Dopple: Do you have colorful dating stories to share?

Me: Perhaps. But as you said, it’s getting late. We need to get some sleep so we can run in the morning.

Dopple: We’ll talk about running, too. And more on writing and a bunch of other stuff.

Me: This is pretty narcissistic, don’t you think?

Dopple: Absolutely. Is that an issue?

Me: Not at all. Just wondering.

Dopple: All right, then. Off we go.

Stay tuned (in as much as one can tune into a blog) for Part 4 of this apparently never-ending interview in which I quiz myself about dating, writing, running and ugly feet.

When last we left me, I was promising that the second part of the interview with myself would feature “growing up in Duncan, writing, singing and UFOs.” On we go.

Note: As before, the interviewer (me) has been named Dopple for short.

Dopple: Welcome to the second part of the interview.

Me: Thanks, it’s great to be here on the internet. This new carpeting is very nice.

Dopple: Let’s start with some sports talk.

Me: If you insist.

Dopple: I do. How do you feel about none of the Canadian teams making it into the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year?

Me: I already thanked the Canucks for another year without riots. Overall I am nonplussed. I know in some way I should be at least somewhat outraged but I just don’t care that much. Players and teams themselves move around so much it makes the whole exercise of loyalty kind of silly. Last year a co-worker was pumped over the Blue Jays during their playoff run. I pointed out that only three players on the roster were Canadian citizens. He didn’t seem to like that.

Dopple: Tell me about your singing.

Me: Usually done in the shower or with the headphones on when no one else is at home. I’ve been told that I have a great voice (by a roommate coming home early and listening to me wail away before entering the apartment) and more or less been told to never open my mouth again. Realistically, my voice has a fairly limited range and if I stay within those limits, it’s acceptable. I can do a decent Elvis or Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is actually a lot of fun to imitate. If I try to imitate someone like Billy Joel or Jeff Lynne (can you tell I’m old?) my vocal cords start aching almost immediately. Trying Geddy Lee would likely result in permanent damage to my singing and speaking abilities.

Dopple: Have you ever sung professionally?

Me: I sang in a few plays. I soloed “Down in the Valley” in grade 11 for “Dark of the Moon.” I even learned to play guitar but really I just learned where to put my fingers on the guitar in order to produce sounds reminiscent of the song “Down in the Valley.” I didn’t know a chord from a strut. I didn’t get paid for any of this, so the answer is no. My only reward were all the accolades I made up in my head.

Dopple: What was it like growing up in Duncan?

Me: The actual city limits, for reasons unclear to me, are very small, so the population has always hovered around 5,000. This makes it fairly tiny by city standards, though with the outlying area it’s actually more like 43,000 (according to Wikipedia). For growing up it was fine. I didn’t get in any fights, I had a bunch of good friends, my family got along relatively well, I did fine in school. I grew up in the 70s and early 80s so it goes without saying I had bad hair. But we all did, so it was a bonding thing. A horribly hideous bonding thing, but one all the same. I remember when our first McDonald’s opened in 1978. It was a major cultural event. If you wanted a Big Mac before then (I didn’t, I had a thing for the Filet-o-fish) you had to drive all the way to Victoria. Two years later we got our first Wendy’s. It was fast food but the way you ordered was completely different than McDonald’s. Someone would come by while you stood in line and took your order down on a pad of paper (because you could customize everything), then you worked your way to the counter to pay and collect your food. It seems very quaint now.

Dopple: That sounds very bucolic but surely there was a dark side to Duncan.

Me: It was more beige than dark. There were bad kids. A lot of people drank too much, including my dad. There were drugs and we had a weird family that lived at the end of the street for awhile and the RCMP would visit semi-regularly. A nine year old kid got run over by a cement truck on the Island Highway a block from my house, prompting the installation of the third traffic light as you pass through the city. Even today there are still only three lights when you drive through on the Island Highway. Also, I’m pretty sure I was kind of addicted to arcade games for awhile. It was mild as addictions go because I didn’t have an endless supply of cash, but I spent enough time in the three arcades (I remember The Saucy Dragon downtown but have forgotten the names of the others) that I got my first full-time job at age 19 working in an arcade. Handing out quarters was not a particularly challenging task so I helped kill the time by writing my first novel, using a pencil and six notebooks. I still have the notebooks today. The novel is bad and unfinished, but I had incredibly neat handwriting, which was actually printing.

Dopple: What do you think of UFOs? Do they exist?

Me: You don’t want to know more about Duncan? I can go on.

Dopple: Maybe later. Unless you have a Duncan UFO story.

Me: In fact, I do. My grandfather–my mom’s dad–owned a Texaco station outside town on the Island Highway (south of town, on the way to Victoria and until 1978, the McDonald’s in Victoria). He and his wife lived in a small home in a large yard behind the station. As I recall, the area around the station was mostly woods and fields of wild grass. One night they heard something outside and when my grandfather went to look he saw a UFO hovering above their house. His response was to get a shotgun and shoot at it. It flew away and as far as I know, never returned. Could you blame it? I guess my grandfather really didn’t like trespassers, regardless of what planet they came from.

Dopple: So you believe in UFOs?

Me: I don’t know what he saw but a UFO is an Unidentified Flying Object and there are thousands of reported cases. I don’t think the question is whether they exist or not–they clearly do–but what are they? Many are just a case of mistaken identity. Some may even be swamp gas. But the number of truly unknown cases is enough to confirm we don’t know everything that’s going on up in the sky. If you ask me if UFOs are extraterrestrials visiting from other galaxies, I would say I don’t know. It seems like a long way to travel to mostly just watch us.

Dopple: What about abductions, cattle mutilations and all that?

Me: Again, I don’t know. I don’t have any cattle. I’ve never been abducted, either, unless you count being made to go shopping with my mom when I really wanted to stay home and play video games.

Dopple: Moving on. Let’s talk about writing.

Me: Okay.

Dopple: You write.

Me: Yes.

Dopple: Don’t be difficult.

Me: You can’t stop me.

Dopple: I think I can.

Me: Fine. Yes, I write. I’ve written since I knew how. That sounds like stating the obvious but what I mean is I’ve written creatively since first learning how to write. My grade three teacher (one of them, actually–I had four because grade three was an experimental “open area” learning experience) read this silly stream of conscious story I wrote and the comment she put down, the only comment from a teacher I can clearly remember, was “Kid, you’re a scream!” It was truly inspiring to me.

Dopple: So you kept writing through school.

Me: Yes. In grade five a bunch of us wrote stories that would be shot with a single black and white camera as “movies”, which seemed incredibly exciting, even futuristic, at the time. The class voted for several and mine was one of the winners because I included vampires. You can never go wrong with vampires. I kept writing short stories and plays and things and that first unfinished novel when I was 19. When I moved to Vancouver I started writing more sporadically and sometimes went years without writing at all. I did keep a journal for a year or so, around 1987. It was mostly filled with sarcasm.

Dopple: Why did the writing become intermittent?

Me: Some people are born to write. Stephen King cranks out books like I crank out CO₂. James Patterson writes a new book every two seconds. These people are obsessed, compelled. They can’t stop. I am not like that. I am easily distracted. I don’t get passionate about my writing (or my reading). I read a lot but I don’t try to educate myself, particularly. I keep writing in the passive voice and have to go back and fix it all the time. I write stories that go nowhere and peter out. I put it off. I make excuses. I doubt my ability. The list goes on and on, like a roll of toilet paper that never fully unravels.

Dopple: A colorful metaphor.

Me: I’m full of ’em.

Dopple: Do you still write?

Me: Yes. I made a vow to write every day, mostly on this blog if nowhere else, and I’ve stuck to it reasonably well. It enforces discipline, which is a key thing I’ve always struggled with.

Dopple: How is it going now?

Me: Okay. It could be better but it could be much worse, too, or non-existent. I’ve got a number of projects so I try to rotate between them so I’m always working on something. But it is slow-going. I still struggle with focusing, with putting butt in chair and just doing it, Nike-style.

Dopple: I’d like to know more but it’s getting late. Can we continue this later?

Me: You mean do a Part 3 of 2?

Dopple: Yes, exactly.

Me: It’s a date. But no kissing on the first date.

Dopple: Liar. Like, super liar.

Me: Quiet, you.

Tune in next time in which we find out if I do kiss on first dates, more about writing and other creative pursuits and who knows what else. Probably something dumb.

I find myself sitting at the computer. I am relaxed and at ease after a nice walk out on an early spring afternoon. I’m also a bit stinky because I walk like a hurricane and my deodorant apparently can’t keep up. My interview doppelganger will be called Dopple for short.

Dopple: Introduce yourself to the audience.

Me: I’m Creole Ned, just like it says in the title of this blog.

Dopple: That’s not your real name, though, is it?

Me: No. It’s all explained here.

Dopple: Can you provide a brief summary for people averse to clicking links?

Me: It’s a random name I made up for a gaming lobby back in the early-ish days of the Internet. I don’t have a particular love for creole food, it just seemed like a funny title to go with a nerdy-sounding name like Ned. The combination is also pretty rare. There aren’t a lot of Creole Neds out there.

Dopple: Does that make you feel special?

Me: Not really.

Dopple: Tell me a little about this blog.

Me: I started this blog back in February 2005 because it seemed like an interesting way to collect my thoughts into a journal that could be read by anyone with an Internet connection. In retrospect I’m not sure it was a good idea but fortunately very few people actually read it.

Dopple: Does it bother you that you don’t get many hits or views or whatever they call it when someone looks at your site?

Me: Sometimes it bugs me a little, but the blog has no real focus, so there’s no “hook” to lure people back, like funny pictures, a serialized story or high-quality porn. I mean, 462 posts are about jogging. Jogging is not interesting to read about (though I try to spice things up by swallowing bugs and injuring myself when I run). Do you know how many hits the site got on March 19th? None! There are about five hundred billion people on the Internet and no one came to this site on March 19th, not even by accident. Sometimes it gets a little depressing but the blog gives me a place to write lists, so there’s that.

Dopple: Tell me about lists.

Me: I love lists. I bought all those Book of Lists books when I was a kid. I used to devour the Guinness Book of World Records, which was really just a giant set of lists. Lists are easy and fun, two of my favorite things. However, lists don’t make for good discussion, which is why I don’t like lists on forums.

Dopple: Go on.

Me: Someone starts a thread, “Name your ten favorite movies featuring blimps” and every post is just a list like this:

• Black Sunday
• Hindenburg
• The Island at the Top of the World
• Around the World in 80 Days

There’s no actual discussion, it’s all just lists. You might get someone disputing Around the World in 80 Days because they used balloons, not blimps, but that’s about it. By the way, The Island at the Top of the World is one of those bonkers early 70s movies that came out of Disney when they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. It’s great. Or at least that’s the way my nine-year old self remembers it.

Dopple: Let’s talk about some of your other favorite things. What’s your favorite color?

Me: I used to say red but I’m partial to pink now, which is really just a lighter version of red. My favorite shade is probably deep pink, which has a solid sturdiness to it.

Dopple: Gay.

Me: Complete coincidence! Besides, assigning colors to gender or sexual orientation is dumb, so I’m doing my bit to help change that.

Dopple: That’s very progressive of you. What’s your favorite food?

Me: Anything with melted cheese on it.

Dopple: So liver with melted cheese?

Me: Yuck, no.

Dopple: So anything you like with melted cheese on it?

Me: Yes please.

Dopple: Who is your favorite author and why?

Me: This sounds lazy because he’s sold a trillion books, but Stephen King. Why? Because he writes so effortlessly. Even his bad stuff just rolls along. He doesn’t put up barriers, he invites the reader along for a ride. It may be a trip in a sedan along a quiet country road, it may be on a roller coaster that threatens to fly off the tracks on every corner. His characters breathe and feel real. He’s even managed a few good endings. I’ve almost forgiven him for It. Almost. But I also like a certain level of absurdity because in many ways I think life is absurd, and for that I find Douglas Adams scratched that itch. Then he died. David Wong (Jason Pargin) is pretty good at capturing an Americanized take on that absurdity, though.

Dopple: Do you read a lot?

Me: I’m not a fast reader but with my longish commute I manage around 32-36 books a year. I mostly read trash.

Dopple: Why do you read trash?

Me: Because I want, above all else, to be entertained. I’m not averse to learning about the human condition, man’s inhumanity to man and all that, but wrap it up in something that’s enjoyable to plow through. Plus I have always had a fondness for things like Bigfoot, UFOs, conspiracy theories and so on.

Dopple: Do you believe in all that nutty stuff?

Me: No. The conspiracy theory stuff, in particular, fascinates me because it shows how otherwise sane people can be led to believe ridiculous things. Look up “chemtrails” or “jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams.” I’ll wait here.

Dopple: I’ll look them up later. What about Bigfoot?

Me: I think Bigfoot or something like it could be real. Woods are scary. And then there’s the ocean. We hardly know what’s going on way down there at points that are deeper than Mt. Everest is high. Sure, maybe it’s just a bunch of blind glow-in-the-dark shrimp, but it could also be The Great Old Ones biding their time before wiping us out, for all we know.

Dopple: Let’s shift gears a bit. Tell me about your hobbies.

Me: I like to draw. Well, I used to.

Dopple: Why did you stop?

Me: I’m not very good at it.

Dopple: Practice makes perfect!

Me: Lazy.

Dopple: I know you have a Wacom tablet…

Me: It’s gathering dust. I mean that literally. I found it the other day while looking for something. Caked with dust. This place is very dusty.

Dopple: You used to draw a lot as a kid.

Me: Yes, I did a lot of drawing through my teens and twenties. I made comics like The Ever Continuing Saga of the Round Balls, Bablee Duck, Angry Carrot and so on. I started scrawling with pencil crayons and ballpoint pens (tip: not the best tool for drawing), then moved to a Koalapad on a Commodore 64 and eventually a Wacom Bamboo tablet on PC. The tablets always felt awkward, like I was drawing by remote control. I can see why tablets with built-in screens like the Cintiq are popular with artists, even if most artists can’t actually afford them.

Dopple: You see the iPad Pro and it tempts you, doesn’t it?

Me: Maybe. Yes. Yes, it does. But I’m looking at something like $1500 to doodle for half an hour and then give up forever. It’s not a good investment. And I already have a Surface Pro 3 with pen. I’ve tried doodling on that and it didn’t take.

Dopple: But the iPad Pro is so much sexier…

Me: I’m not listening! This interview is over!

Dopple: Aw, come on, just a few more questions. We haven’t even talked about your writing or sexual preferences.

Me: Ho ho.

Dopple: So tell me about–

Me: Two more questions. Then I have to do something important, like check my garrison in World of Warcraft.

Dopple: That doesn’t sound important.

Me: Don’t judge me.

Dopple: Can we continue this interview later, then?

Me: I will permit that, yes.

Dopple: Very generous of you.

Me: I’m a generous guy, as you know.

Dopple: What’s the most private thing you’re willing to admit?

Me: Isn’t that a profile question from OK Cupid?

Dopple: Yes.

Me: It’s a dumb question.

Dopple: Indulge me.

Me: I wear socks when having sex.

Dopple: Ew.

Me: You asked.

Dopple: All the time?

Me: Is that the second question?

Dopple: No. How about this: Is the Apple Watch worth it?

Me: Not really. But I would hate to forget to put it on.

Dopple: How seemingly contradictory!

Me: That’s my motto.

That’s all we have time for today. Check out the second part of the interview where we learn more about growing up in Duncan, writing, singing and UFOs.