1. What is your name?
Keith
2. Tell us something about you, your background, and what you've been up to lately?
Over
the last few years I've been over some choppy water. My contributions
here have lessened in part due to this, but also because over that same
period of time people have been finding me here. I've always been
uplifted by strangers who come across my writing here and sign in to
message me or send me an email, but people I've known have started
finding me. Since I write a lot of true stories from my life, some
people from my past and present have had issues with how they've been
portrayed and that has led to some tension. In addition to this I work
in the behavioral health field, which has become very sensitive to
information broadcast via online media. I was asked to pull a series of
writeups by a former employer even though nothing was written and posted
that violated privacy laws or guidelines. They found the writeups due
to terminology I used and requested (in strong terms) that I not post
stories with characters derived from clients I worked with. Because of
all this I find myself not posting a lot that I write because I don't
want people yelling at me and forcing me to defend myself. I think the
point is the web has become a lot less impersonal and anonymous. I think
I liked it a lot better when you could be the anonymous stranger.
3. How did you discover Everything, and how did you become a noder?
Back
in 2001 I was working second shift for a company that didn't need a
second shift, so I had a lot of free time on my hands. I was looking for
all sorts of crazy stuff on the web. I enjoy reading bizarre stories
and writing them, and something I searched for led me to a story here. I
signed up for an account that night (under a different name than this
one) and started posting crazy stuff I pulled out of my ass and wrote
and posted in ten minutes. I started taking a lot of abuse that I
considered unnecessary while a few people tried to steer me in the right
direction and explain why crazy stuff you just pulled out of your ass
doesn't fly here. So I decided to outwit the naysayers and started
posting a lot of factuals until they left me alone. Then I went back to
posting crazy shit I pulled out of my ass, but spent more time crafting
it so it didn't look like crazy shit I pulled out of my ass.
4. What are your favorite writeups -- both your own and from other noders?
Every
once and a while I find a writeup I posted that I completely forgot
about and read it with much surprise, sort of like a present from a past
life. Those are my favorite writeups of my own, different each time. As
far as other noders, I'd rather not single out any noders as I'm bound
to forget some, although I've always been somewhat partial to
Interstellar Scrotum's works.
5. What are your favorite and least favorite memories from E2's history?
Two
memories in particular stand out. The first was when iceowl showed up
on the scene. Some of us were convinced he was cutting and pasting from
somewhere because his writing outclassed most of what was on the site
and he was posting with great frequency these excellent works. So I took
it upon myself to challenge him, believing that if I chose a title with
a somewhat defined topic he'd be unable to cut and paste something from
the library I imagined he was abusing. The title of that writeup was
Simple methods for conversing with those suffering from death. He
filled it admirably and put me in my place. We've been dating ever
since.
The second was during a quest I sponsored, the "Quest for
the Mundane" in which users were challenged to concoct interesting
writeups on mundane topics, filling nodeshells and boring nodes for
simple titles. As part of the quest I recruited some of our top noders
to contribute to a collectively written piece I pieced together to
create the everyone account writeup under "Toaster."
Least
favorite moment? The day one of my favorite writeups, a poem of some
note, was removed by a noder who left here after telling me he would
leave it here for me. I cannot publicly reveal the title of this work or
the name of the author, but it was the end of a long and somewhat sad
story.
6. What keeps you coming back?
There
is a certain sense of commitment, in part to the site itself, but more
to the people who have come to follow me here. When I get emails and
messages about whether or not I am "okay" and whether I am going to post
anything ever again I get this buzz and know I need to start pulling
something out of my ass again. What most of these people who reach out
to me want always falls into two categories. They either want something
of my continuing story of my life experiences or some of the weird,
wacky stuff I write, which isn't really just weird and wacky. I've
always been driven to write about the kinds of people who fall outside
of the mainstream, those who exist just outside the acceptable
boundaries of society. I have a personal need to understand and relate
to them, but these sorts of stories are usually inspired by something I
witness. So those aren't the kinds of things I can drum up on demand.
So,
I guess writing for an audience is what keeps me coming back. I think
more noders should message their favorite writers here when they haven't
seen something from them for a while and tell them they miss their
work. There is a sense here that when we stop posting no one cares one
way or another. It is good to let people know we care.
7. What do you hope for E2's future?
That it continues to ride the wave of what it is, which is something different to everyone who has a perception of it.
8. What does E2 mean to you?
It means I no longer have to leave manuscripts in bars for people to read.
9. Who are your favorite noders? Which ones do you miss the most?
I
miss a number of people who are no longer here, and they aren't the
same people the rest of you miss. Not by a long shot. I've had a number
of interesting relationships with strange and unique beautiful people
who have wandering onto this site for relatively brief periods of time.
10. Who would play you in the Everything2 movie?
I
used to want Jeff Bridges to play me in a film, mostly due to his
work in "The Fisher King" and "Fearless", two of my favorite movies
featuring two characters he plays I relate very well to, but he's gotten
old and grizzled looking and no longer looks the part. There is Sharon
Stone, who looks exactly like me, but I now have to go with Henry Ian
Cusick. I've been saying, "See you in another life, brother" before
"Lost" was on television and I am The Constant. As you can tell I've
given a great deal of thought to this question, although usually not in
relation to this site. For some reason people are always asking me, "Who
would play you in a movie about this place?" wherever the heck I am in
life.
11. Please fill in the blank: "E2 is to the Internet as ___ is to the world."
Atlantis
12. Any questions that I didn't ask that I should've?
The unasked question is always the most valuable question.
Everything2 Decaversary Interviews
If you have questions or comments, please contact TheDeadGuy or Jet-Poop.