85 things
typed for your pleasure on 4 December 2006, at 5.05 pm85 semi-random things about Your Humble Narrator
2. Apart from my middle name, I have the exact same name as my father, who, apart from his middle name, has the exact same name as his father. Not only is that wildly unimaginative, I find my ‘real’ name to be entirely boring, not even mentioning the fact that most people can’t spell my surname properly, and I quickly grew tired of correcting folks on it.
3. ‘Davecat’ comes from two sources. One, I think cats are the best quadrupeds ever made; and two, back when I was first beginning to get addicted to playing videogames, one of my favourites was a side-scrolling shooter called ‘R-type’. On most videogames, when you get a high enough score when you finish, you have three spaces to input your initials; ‘R-type’ provided seven spaces. So the first time I did well enough to enter my name, I was like D. A. V. E. *pauses* C. A. T. This was back in 1987, and it pretty much snowballed from that point onward.
4. Technically, it’s supposed to be spelt with a ‘†’ instead of the ‘t’ at the end, but I’m easy.
5. To my knowledge, there’s at least four other Davecats out there — two of which look like me, the other two merely share my name — which weirds me out. I should probably go kill them before they get to me first.
6. I was born 14 November, and an only child. No siblings + Scorpio = child with issues..
7. My favourite colours are jet black, Factory grey, snow white, chrome, emerald green, and various shades of purple, depending on my mood at the time.
8. I also really dig transparent and translucent objects. That was a big thing in the Sixties: see-thru raincoats, see-thru chairs, see-thru objets d’art. Very Space-age..
9. My favourite aromas are bubblegum, old typewriter, new car, pine, silicone, and, fighting for last place, clove cigarettes and lavender. My ideal olfactory fantasy would be a RealDoll chewing bubblegum, who is driving me around in a brand-new car with a couple of pine air fresheners hanging off the rearview mirror, and a just-extinguished Djarum in the ashtray. She mentions that she’s just washed her hair with a nice lavender conditioner, when I notice the backseat is filled with old Smith-Coronas.
10. My four heroes are Oscar Wilde, Ian Curtis, William S. Burroughs, and Andy Warhol. I am drawn to witty, desolate, and creative iconoclasts.
11. I have an aversion to nuts, as I’m allergic to them -– they’ll make my throat close. Almonds, cashews, pecans, walnuts, etc etc. The only exception would be peanuts, which are actually not nuts; they’re legumes. I just don’t like the way they taste. So it all works out!
12. Also, I hate ham and pork chops, yet I love bacon. No, I don’t understand it, either.
13. I used to love chocolate milkshakes, until one day when I was like ten or twelve years old, I simply switched to vanilla shakes, and I’ve been on the vanilla tip ever since. However, the only flavour that tops vanilla would be the highly coveted limited edition Shamrock shakes that McDonald’s releases a few weeks before St. Patrick’s Day. Minty green love, in a cup!
14. Ironically enough, I’m also lactose-intolerant.
15. When I was in second grade, I spazzed out for no particular reason during gym class and ran into a wall, chipping one of my front teeth. I’d get the bastard redone, as it’s been several years, but I’m currently without dental insurance.. (EDIT, 08 Sept 08: That was fixed last year, thankfully.)
16. Despite being born and raised in a state surrounded by water on three sides, I never learned how to swim. When I was in third grade, I went on a class trip to a recreational centre that featured a swimming pool. Having never attempted swimming before, I figured it’d be dead easy — I mean, all you do is move your arms and legs right? Heh. After the lifeguard (and everyone else) caught sight of me flailing and screaming, I was duly rescued. To this day, I can still remember that distinctive smell of chlorinated water. Yeah. It goes without saying that I stay far, far away from bodies of water now.
17. When I was younger (circa 2nd or 3rd grade), I had to see a shrink. Y’see, I wouldn’t eat my lunch at school cos germs were constantly falling from the ceiling onto my food. So for a couple of months, I was taken to a psychiatrist. It wasn’t all that bad, really; at least from what I remember. He looked like Carl Sagan, his office had wood panelling (always a sign of Sensible Decor), and he took me for a ride on his motorcycle. So I guess the therapy worked..
18. What really made sense to me, though, was years later, when my best friend Sean & I were hanging out and eating lunch round at his. He’d picked up a french fry that had fallen on the floor, and remarked, ‘If more people died from eating food that had been on the floor, then more people would be dead.’ And then he ate the fry.
19. I once wanted to be a psychiatrist when I was younger, as I wanted to know what made people act the way that they do. I even took a couple of years of Latin in high school, to prepare me for medical term usage. Eventually I realised that 1) there was no way I was going to take an additional four years of medical school after four years of college after four years of high school, and 2) psychiatrists are probably pretty fucked in the head themselves, and if they don’t start out that way, then years and years of listening to other peoples’ problems would potentially make them mental.
20. One of the few things that genuinely makes me feel alive is driving fast, especially if there’s a good soundtrack to accompany it. I regularly drive about 10mph over the speed limit wherever I go, and practically every motorway is an Autobahn to me. For the most part, I don’t see the point in driving slowly. The less time I spend driving to point B, the more time I can enjoy being at point B. I suppose it’s a basic adrenalin rush, but gods, I love driving fast..
21. I once reached 100 mph in my first car, which was a 1988 Isuzu I-mark, and I hit 95 several times in that car as well. Good times!
22. FYI, I’ve only received three speeding tickets in my life, and out of two auto accidents where I’ve been behind the wheel, neither was speed-related. So ride with confidence when you ride with me! And stop whimpering, you’re breaking my concentration!
23. I was into Hello Kitty before everyone else stormed the barricades. I liked Hello Kitty cos it was such annoying crap kitsch that it was funny in an satirical way, but with the advent of Hot Topic (what’s that you say? ‘Not Gothic’?), seeing Mansonites and ravers sporting Hello Kitty paraphernalia really deadened my enthusiasm.
24. I hate it when the things I like become popular. If there’s a small group of people that enjoy ‘it’, that’s alright, but if everyone’s suddenly into ‘it’, it’s no longer mine.
25. I used to smoke rather habitually during my high school years. I started with Salem; which, all told, if you’re gonna start smoking, it’s not a bad idea to start with menthol cigarettes. I’d never buy my own, so I was always bumming them off my mates, which is what helped me quit, cos they were like, ‘Either you need to start buying your own smokes, or quit.’ Easy peasy!
26. For around four to six months, I was a pothead. Before, I would see my friends getting monumentally stupid after some spliff inhalation, and call them idiots for doing so. As time passed, I said to myself, ‘How can I even call myself experimental or open-minded if I haven’t even tried pot?’ So I tried it, and liked it. My first roommate Steve even let me have free samples whenever he bought nickelbags. Eventually I saw what an incredible time-waster it was –- and Odhinn knows I do plenty of that without a J-bone in my hand — so I stopped that, too.
27. Now, the only thing I smoke is clove cigarettes — Djarum Specials, if you’re buying. But even still, I only partake of that maybe four times a year. It’s like, I’ll buy a pack, smoke one or two of them right there, get a headache, and say ‘Why did I buy these again??’
28. I’ve only ever gotten drunk once in my life as well. Perhaps it was the environment, perhaps it was who I was amongst (the Slag and one of her pig-ignorant friends), or whatever, but when I found myself gripping the walls for support cos I couldn’t properly walk the twenty feet back to my bedroom, I decided right then and there that I would never drink again. Drinking is for other people to do, so I can laugh at how stupid they’re acting, and possibly molest them and/or rifle thru their wallets while they’re shitfaced. (Only kidding.) (Maybe.)
29. I’ll willingly admit I’m a control freak. But I’m sure you’ve sussed that a while ago..
30. Over the years, I’ve had eleven pets. Two hamsters (Traurig and Rodney), a guinea pig whose name I can’t recall, a hermit crab, three snakes, three goldfish (Jack, Janet and Chrissy), and one cat, by the name of Star*Dust. I had Star*Dust when I was living with my parents years ago. My father hates cats, and made me keep him down in the basement when we went to bed at night.
31. Because of my father (and probably also due to the really poofy name I gave him, upon retrospect), eventually Star*Dust said fuck it, and ran away one day. He ended up leaving about a decade before I did. This is why I’ve always said that cats are smarter than dogs.
32. Due in part to the fact that I attended catholic school for nine years, I am now a proud atheist. I very rarely discuss my stance on christianity with people I don’t know, mainly because I’ve never met a sane and objective person who follows any one of christianity’s hundreds of sects, so we’ll leave it at that.
33. However, I will say that christianity has inspired some of the most beautiful works of art, music, and architecture in recorded history, so I suppose it’s not entirely useless..
34. Fun fact: I cannot walk and drink out of a glass or bottle at the same time. I can pull it off if I have a straw, but otherwise I can’t down a drink and walk simultaneously. Assassins, take note!
35. I also have a really bendy right thumb.
36. You will never see me with intentional facial hair. I once tried to grow a moustache -– one of those Charlie Chaplin hair-square things -– but I soon discovered that nothing will grow on my philtrum. (Look it up, bunky.) Plus, it took so excruciatingly long for anything decent and non-patchy to develop, that I was like ‘Forget it’, as I didn’t want that whole dodgy ‘young man’s moustache’ thing going on.
37. You’ll probably see a moustache on me long before you ever see a beard, as well. Simply take a photograph of my face, and a Sharpie, and draw one on! A Vandyke, a soulpatch, whatever strikes your fancy, cos it ain’t happening in this lifetime.
38. Speaking of follicles, I’m looking forward to getting grey hair. I used to have a tube of silver hair mascara, and I’d run some streaks through my fringe every so often. I currently have a couple of grey hairs cleverly hidden up on top, but I’d really love it if I were to go grey on the lower sides, much like Reed Richards. Then I’d dye the rest jet black (like I’ve been saying I want to do for close to a decade now), so that the grey stood out more.
39. Incidentally, I only wish my hair was black. It’s actually a very dark brown. I learned this one day when I was at one of my old jobs, in the washroom where the lighting was really good. That realisation was like a downpour on my parade.
40. I’ve never liked the colour brown. Ever.
41. My job history is pretty uninspiring, as I’ve only ever had six ‘real’ jobs in my entire life. (I don’t like pulling up stakes and changing things around in my life too often, as it’s a giant bore.) In order, I worked at Children’s Palace for four months, then as a movie theatre usher/concessionist, then as a telephone market research cog (1994 – 1998), then as a medical specimen processor for almost four years, after that I was a medical transcription proofreader –- which actually was my favourite job, but I was fired on my thirtieth birthday after four months of being there, then I worked as a ‘fundraiser’ for CFA Support services for two years until they fired me.
42. ‘Work is the curse of the drinking classes’ – Oscar Wilde
43. My academic career can be largely described as ‘meh’. Like most kids, I started out promisingly enough, but as I got older, I lacked motivation. Which, as far as I could see, is pretty understandable. When you’re in an environment where your ‘fellow classmates’ are going round, saying that you read the dictionary for fun cos your vocabulary is too large for them to get their tiny minds round, you tend to become disillusioned rather quickly.
44. I did manage to finish highschool, just not at the same time as the rest of my graduating class. I did so badly in Math and Religion (cos I just didn’t give a shit anymore; see No.32) that I had to make up two classes in summer school. I walked down the aisle with everyone else, but instead of a diploma, I was given a piece of paper that was blank, save for my name dead centre in Olde English script.
45. Summer school was fun, though. I breezed through my makeup classes. The one for Religion was basically a series of essay papers handed in once a week, that I cribbed 90% of the content from a different religious textbook. It was a class about christianity; I had absolutely no compunction regarding cheating.
46. My math skills are still dreadful, however. If there is an equivalent term to illiteracy, but for math, then that’s me. But against all odds, I’ve somehow managed to get through day-to-day living avoiding large amounts of mathematics quite well so far. Besides, that’s why God made calculators!
47. My favourite directors are, in no particular order, Stanley Kubrick, Tim Burton, Guy Ritchie, Yasuhiro Imagawa, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and The Brothers Quay.
48. I used to want to be a film director; I got the idea in my head probably round 8th grade. I had bought a Fisher-Price PXL 2000 (yes, one of those), and my best mate Sean & I would run around filming ourselves, in a two-man unit we called ‘S/D films’ (that slash is pronounced as ‘and’, btw). Our efforts were ‘more than home movies, but less than films’, which basically meant that they were home movies, only not as dramatically dull as the average persons’ home movies.
49. Every Friday for a couple of months in 1989, I used to screen them down in the counseling centre of my high school, for our circle of friends. My other best friend Monti & I pretty much had free reign over the counseling centre during our Junior & Senior years, so we could get away with stuff like that.
50. Later on, I ended up upgrading to a Hi-8 camcorder; part of the proceeds were obtained from when I sold the PXL 2000 to a wanna-be hipster named Adam. To this day, I still regret ever having sold that fucking camera. Next time you’re on eBay, look up ‘Fisher-Price PXL 2000 camera’ and you’ll see what I mean.
51. S/D films ran out of steam when Sean & I ended up hooking up with Adam thru a local anime club, and subsequently forming a band, but we’d cranked out over 12 hours of cinema verité. I’ve really gotta get those VHS tapes converted to DVD soon..
52. I got another shot at directing when during the mid-Nineties, I became a technical director of a Detroit-area public access television show called ‘Half mask’, which I rather happily worked on for about three years. I need to get the footage I have of that transferred to DVD as well..
53. And that pretty much wrapped up my directorial (dictatorial?) efforts. Although I still have delusions of making film versions of three of my favourite books, ‘Catcher in the rye’ by J.D Salinger, Albert Camus’ ‘The stranger’, and Flann O’Brien’s ‘The third policeman’..
54. Back to the band thang: Sean, Adam, Sherillee (Adam’s classmate & Sean’s future wife) and I called ourselves Dole age, after a line from a Smiths song. We sounded like a cross between Throbbing gristle and My bloody valentine, and over the course of eight months in 1993, we recorded around 60 songs, and played two concerts, one of which was on the television show that I was working as a TD on.
55. After Dole age imploded, I started my own Anti-music project called Necrosphere 442. About a month later, I changed the name to Wreath (simpler, more effective), and a few years after that, I added ‘.VCA’ to the end, after I’d heard a rumour that there was one of those goddamned boy bands sporting the same name.
56. To date, Wreath.VCA has created just under 100 pieces, and released one 7inch. A Cd is forthcoming, sometime before the sun burns out.
57. ‘VCA’ stands for ‘Voltage Controlled Amplifier’, which is something that can be found on most analogue keyboards.
58. Also, during 1993, I started a group with my mates Tim (who had his own musical project called Trench knife) and Mike (who was working on a side project from a band that had just dissolved), called Lathe. I had originally come up with the name, seeing as that I’d confused a lathe with an industrial smelting oven, cos I was equating the group as a combination of Wreath.VCA, Trench Knife and Mike’s project. Later Mike renamed the band Ane’amo. Ane’amo was active from 1993 – 1998.
59. I am largely apolitical. As far as I’m concerned, 95% of them are all lying twats, no matter what party they happen to be with. I don’t really keep up with it at all because of rampant disinterest, so I don’t discuss politics with others, and I’m the sort of person who believes that the basic human rights — namely food, clothing and shelter — should be either free or fantastically inexpensive, so we’ll leave it at that.
60. The furthest west I’ve ever been on this shining planet called Earth would be San Marcos, California. The furthest south would be Montgomery, Alabama; north would be Montreal, and east would be Pittsburgh.
61. Actually, I think I might’ve been in Pensacola once a long time ago, for some sort of family reunion, but I can’t remember. I probably hallucinated that, cos really; who would willingly go to Pensacola?
62. One of my other favourite pastimes would be sleeping. Gods, I love sleep. It’s free, you can do it pretty much anywhere, and when your dreams are as interesting as mine usually are, it’s something to be anticipated. Funny thing is though; although I love sleep so much I’d marry it if I could, I usually end up staying up rather late if I don’t have to wake up at any specific time the next morn. It’s like; I hate waking up, and I’m loath to actually go to bed, but I love sleeping. *shrugs* I dunno.
63. During my formative years, I watched far too much English television, and as a result, I am a rabid Anglophile. You can also chalk it up with a continual dissatisfaction with this country’s culture (or lack thereof), but I am totally in love with the UK, as if that wasn’t already apparent. If it weren’t so expensive, I’d move there.
64. Thanks to years and years of their television and music, I can fake a reasonably good couple of accents, mainly Mancunian and Londoner, and I’m working on a southern Scots burr by watching ‘Trainspotting’ over and over. One of my finest moments was when I was working at a film theatre years ago as an usher. I was tearing tickets, and out of sheer boredom, I did it for a couple of hours in a Manc accent. Apparently, I was doing it well enough that I managed to fool a bloke who was actually from Manchester, as he asked me about my accent! We talked for a minute or two as to how Man Utd was doing at the time as well! Absolutely brilliant, that was…
65. And since 1987, I’ve been an equally frothing Japanophile. You can place the blame squarely upon the shoulders on anime. It started out with anime, but thankfully, my interest spread to the culture in general, the language, the food -– o, the food... Japan is also a definite place that I’d move to if it weren’t so bloody expensive, and if I knew more of the language.
66. The Japanese language isn’t that difficult; since Sean and I were both getting into anime at the same time, we bought a bunch of Japanese language books, and pretty much taught ourselves. I can read & write all 48 katakana, I can read all 48 hiragana, and out of the 1850 kanji, I know about twenty off the top of my head. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
67. Japanese (the language) is a lot less complicated than, say, Chinese. I always admired my second Latin teacher in highschool, Dr Forstieri. He was in his mid-forties, but the man knew three dialects of Chinese, Latin, French, German, Spanish and Italian. He was telling me one day that a lot of the Chinese dialects share the same words and characters, but depending on which dialect you’re speaking, the meaning might radically change. Hm. That’s how fights get started..
68. Dr Forstieri also had a Goth daughter who was a student at our highschool. She was a bit too tall & bulky for my tastes, but still..
69. Even though I (kinda) dress like one, I’m not actually a Goth. I don’t think I’ve ever really been a Goth. I mean, I love the aesthetics, the dress sense, and certain aspects of the ‘dark’ mentality, but I’d also have to say that for the most part, I hate the music, and a lot of Goths that I’ve encountered are shallow, petty, backstabbing, and clique-y. True, not all Goths are like that — I’ve met a few happy exceptions — but most of the ones I meet have something seriously wrong with them.
70. And I can’t really say that I hate all Goth music either, but I prefer the classics — Joy division (technically not Goth, btw, but responsible for it), the Cure (not Goth, just ask Robert), Siouxsie (also not Goth when they started), Death in June (not really Goth, either), Strawberry switchblade (about as Goth as the Cure), Danielle Dax, and like one or two others. Note how pretty much all of these artists are from the Eighties, or the dying end of Punk in the late Seventies, as my interest tapers off before the Nineties started. Trent Reznor is a brilliant producer but a whiny prissy primadonna, Marilyn Manson is a ugly fuckwit who is way overdue for a heroin overdose, and the rest of what comprises contemporary Goth music all sounds exactly alike to me.
71. However, since I dress Gothy — I prefer to call it ‘Bohemian Industro-Goth’, thankyou very much — and have a ‘dark’ mindset, I usually end up being the token Goth at whatever workplace I’m at. ‘What is the whole Goth thing about anyway?’ ‘Do you like Marilyn Manson?’ ‘What’s with the fingernail polish?’ etc etc. *puts hand up to forehead* It’s such a hideous — yet hideously familiar — cross that I have to bear. They’re Philistines, the lot of them! No-one understands me!!
72. The best answer that I came up with in response to one of my old bosses asking what Goth is about was ‘Well-dressed people sitting around in dark rooms, drinking wine & writing bad poetry’. So there you go!
73. I really don’t fit in completely anywhere, which is both a plus and a minus. I love Japanese Noize music, yet I dress like a Goth; I’m Gothy, yet I love Mod culture and the 20th century Modern aesthetic; there’s parts of the Sixties that I enjoy, but I love contemporary Artifice, etc etc. There were no such things as RealDolls back in the Sixties, as an example! (Horrible segueway, I know; please bear with me.)
74. Not only am I a proud iDollator (another term for a Doll lover), but you can trace my robot fetishism (we like to be called ‘technosexuals’) to way back. I distinctly remember one occasion when I was very young, where I was with mum at a Winkleman’s downtown, and she had gone into the dressing room to try on some clothes. When she finished up, she apparently found me several feet away, happily chatting with a Mannequin lass in a tennis skirt. You never forget your first!
75. When S/D films was in full swing, we had a mascot by the name of ‘Sandy’ — S-and-D, geddit? Sean came up with that — who was a perky redheaded Mannequin that I’d bought from Mario’s Mannequins for $175. Mannequins are completely ace, but that side of my fetish rapidly went south when Monti showed me the Abyss creations website back in 1998. Upon first seeing the pics of that Leah-type RealDoll with the long black hair, pale skin, and the mild bondage, I was like ‘Holy crap, I must have one!!’ which quickly became ‘Holy crap, there’s no way I can afford one!!’ about a minute later.
76. Not soon after that, I spoke with my mate Tim, who at the time wanted his own RealDoll as well, and he mentioned that we could do what he did for his truck, and take out personal loans. After being rejected (twice! And I didn’t even mention what the loan was for), I just started scrimping and saving. It took about eighteen months to come up with $5,999.
77. It’s been almost six years now that I’ve had Sidore Brigitte Kuroneko, and every day, she still brings me untold amounts of joy, as well as a bit of notoriety. In 2001, she & I, as well as our friend Mari, were interviewed by a French film crew about the RealDoll phenomena; two months later, a professional photographer did a shoot with us, which has been exhibited in several cities and will be part of an upcoming book; in October, I flew to Abyss creations in San Marcos for the second RealDoll owners convention (Shi-chan stayed home for that one, unfortunately); in 2004, we were filmed again, this time by a television crew from Toronto, and as of this writing, I’m in the midst of yet another interview via Email and telephone, that should appear in print hopefully soon. I’ve been a long-standing member of The Doll Forum, an online community that discusses Synthetik companions, and I can honestly say that I’ve met a lot of cool people because of Shi-chan. Because of my distinctive personality, and her distinctive appearance, everyone knows who we are.
78. She makes me happy cos she’s beautiful to look at, fun to photograph, an extraordinary listener, and o-so-nice to snuggle with. And, might I add, the sex is stunning as well. 😉 Seeing as that it’ll probably be a long time until fully-autonomous, fully-functional Gynoids are available for purchase, in the meantime, I’ll simply enjoy the company of my little RealGoth -– she makes sure I’m never lonely.
79. I’ve been an admirer of female feet since probably about 6th grade. Wow, that sounded like crap. ‘Female feet, I really love the work that you’ve done.’ Right, I’ve been a foot fetishist since probably about 6th grade. I remember sitting in homeroom one day, and Beth K., the cute brunette whose seat was behind mine, was slipping off her penny loafers for some reason or other. I had turned round just as she had taken off her other shoe, and I found myself thinking, ‘wow, she really has cute feet.’ Fortunately, I caught myself before she noticed my stare, as well as the drooling. It pretty much snowballed from that point onward.
80. I’m continually thrilled with the way womens’ feet look, feel and taste. The experience of having a lass slide her clean, smooth, size 6 soles all round my face really is heaven on earth. I only have two fetishes, and I’m completely unrepentant about both of them. The only reason I don’t mind Summertime as much is due to women nationwide breaking out their sandals and open-toed shoes..
81. It’s important for me to add at this point that although I’m a foot fetishist, I’ve never been into ‘crush’ videos, or the ‘giantess’ aspect. (Look it up, bunky.) And unlike one of my heroes, Andy Warhol, I’ve never had a thing for womens’ shoes. I don’t mind the frame, but, well, I’m kinda staring at the picture.
82. Shi-chan has great little feet. 😉
83. Qualities I dislike most in humans: idle/incessant chatter, lack of manners, lack of courtesy, bad spelling, bad grammar, inattentiveness, close-mindedness, and a lack of a sense of humour. I’m certain there’s more, but I can’t come up with them right now, sorry.
84. Now that I’m at the end of this mighty list, I believe that I bollocked the whole thing up. Upon looking over other peoples’ ‘100 things’ lists, I note that their entries usually don’t go past three sentences max, whereas I’m sportin’ whole paragraphs here. That’s why I went with ’85 things’! It’s a new and different idea, goddamnit.
85. Das ist alles, Leute! (18.Feb 2005)
