When I first started the BryonySeries blog in 2011, I posted this Q&A with the real Ed Calkins in several installments. We did this interview months before the release of the first book, and it has never again been published.
Now for the first time, in living black and purple, is the entire interview with the man that ficionalized himself and allowed me to fictionalize him further for the series.
Just to clarify: Ed Calkins is a real person. He really lives somewhere Chicago-ish and was a supervisor for one of the agents when The Herald-News circulation passed from The Sun Times to the Chicago Tribune. I reported to Ed for my Marycrest route.
Having missed his Ed Calkins parade several years in a row, I offered, as consolation, a one-page monthly newsletter for his imaginary world or a spot in my series as a vampire. His response was, "Immortality, of course."
My attorney drew up the necessary paperwork for Ed to sign off himself. Seriously.
No Ed, is not insane, but wonderfully creative. If you want to know Ed, read the novels, for I dutifully scrawled on brown paper wrapping snatches of conversation overheard in passing at the distribution center while Ed handed out papers or in longer conversations by phone to weave in real dialogue with the imaginary dialogue and overall character arc.
I also spent much time with him, getting to know his "ruthless dictator" persona, as to accurately portray it. In a wonderful and truly humbling act of trust, Ed did not want to read any drafts; rather, he wanted the experience of his fictional self however I chose to write it, a very literary and legally-bound, "Do with me as you will."
It was marvelously empowering.
PS: I did such a good writerly job with Ed that one day, after Timothy had been out of the distribution center for a year attending Joliet Junior College and working at the Renaissance Center, he offered to help us roll papers one night and ran into Ed.
Ed said something to the effect of, "Wow, I haven't see you in a long time." Timothy blinked, yes, literally blinked, in surprise, for he had been reading drafts of Staked! as I had chaptered it off and felt as if he'd seen Ed every day.
Any blog post on this series attributed to Ed was really written by Ed. Just so you know.
And now, the interview:
1) Who
is the ruthless dictator?
“My son was doing a lot of role
playing games, and he was trying to come up with a bard and give him magical
powers. I told him there was no need coming up with magical items, because
bards are already too powerful, providing they’re not trying to seek notoriety
for themselves. Ruthless dictators are not afraid to die. They’re just afraid
of how they’ll be remembered. It’s not effective to compose a song or a
limerick or an epic poem glorifying yourself. You’ve got to have other people
saying it about you. Why not cut the military in half and invent some really
good limericks? You can really insult someone into submission.”
2) Why
did you invent him?
“I was bullied as a boy, so it came
from the way I would get back at bullies. I would think something negative
about them, because verbalizing it wouldn’t go well. In my mind, I called it
even. The ruthless dictator really started when I got a ticket running a stop
sign when I was delivering newspapers on a really snowy day. If I had stopped,
I would never have gotten going again. I really thought the ticket was unfair.
As revenge, I picked ten people out f the phone book and thought bad things
about them. My wife thought that was pretty corny. Later, I took over the entire
town. I didn’t have to conquer a nation. It just had to be a place, at least
metaphorically. It had to have its own identity.”
3) What
was your reaction when asked to become part of a vampire novel?
“I was nervous at revealing my ignorance
about vampires. I didn’t know a lot about it. I worked quickly to remedy it.”
4) Why
did you accept?
“Immortality, of course. I can’t
think about myself in everything. I have to think about 1,000 years from now,
and if there’s going to be a three-day holiday in my name or not. There’s a
side of me that thinks this could be goofy enough to think this could actually
happen.”
5) Weren’t
you afraid of how you might be portrayed?
“No, and a lot of that comes from
my survival mechanism as a kid. I learned to play along with the bullies rather
than fight them. Part of my comedic outreach is self-deprecating, so it didn’t
really seem that anything negative could hurt me. The ruthless dictator would
say, ‘Look, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.’ King Midas is much better
off than King Midas the Second, even though he was portrayed in a bad light,
because nobody remembers King Midas the Second.”
.
6) What
if fans expect the real Ed Calkins to be similar to the fictional Ed Calkins?
“He is like him. There’s just that
side of him. He’s significant in an offbeat way, enough to where he can claim
the stewardship of Tara without blushing.”
7) The
Irish have no solid vampire legends. How do you feel about being the first,
real Irish vampire?
“I think other people will make
more of that than I will. Being known as the Steward of Tara is more of a
crowing achievement in my mind.”
8) Where
did your love of Irish lore and history begin?
“It started with my love of
history. Then I looked into mythology, and I used to tell my son a lot of tales
and legends. When he reached high school and heard the same thing, my
credibility rose in his eyes. One thing I had told him that wasn’t really true
is that Ireland
was always a backwash of European history, unless your interest is war. Then,
it is probably true. There were many Irish warriors. It’s just they tended to
be fodder; they were never fighting for Ireland . Ireland
is probably the only place where you get a sense of what pre-Christianity was
about, so if you want to know Ireland ,
just study its myth. Even before I was really into being Irish, I had a disdain
for the Roman Empire , which, I think, gave me
a bias toward the Irish. In all honesty, I’m American, but my heritage is
Irish. It only takes going to Ireland
to know that.”
9) How
did you research your Irish heritage?
“I’ve read a lot of books. Also, as
a college freshman, I got put into an Irish literature course, which I wasn’t
very interested in it at the time. I’m not one of those people who have
forgotten much of what they learned in college. So it stayed with all these
years in a recessive way. The problem is that I’m very bad with names. The
proper study of Irish mythology involves heroes, kings, and saints, in that
order. They are alive today through the last names. I just don’t know who these
people are.”
10) When did you begin writing?
“I started with poetry. In the
eighth grade I wrote poem that resonated a little bit. So,
throughout high school, I wrote poetry. I was an editor of the literary
magazine and the editor in chief the last year. Something bizarre about me is
that I can’t finish anything. I have these really organized fantasies, but I’m
not a wordsmith. I just lost my hard drive, which means I lost everything I’ve
written for the last twenty years. I should be beside myself, but I’m not,
because none of the pieces were really finished
11) What have you written?
“I actually wrote a historical
fiction novel when I was in high school. I had a fascination for Hannibal ,
so I put myself on the other side facing Hannibal ’s
army. I didn’t really know how to handle it, but I did write it.”
12) How had you shared your writings in the
past?
“I posted them. When I was working
on my trilogy, someone would send me an e-mail that said, “Send me your story,”
and I’d send them a few chapters. Then I’d get another email saying, ‘That was
great. Send me some more.’ So, a lot of it was praise-driven. The problem is
that twenty years have passed. The protagonist has become darker and the
eroticism is no longer interesting, I hate to admit. In my mind, I’ve reduced
the second book to a single, short story. Also, every novel I’ve written was
also an idea for a game. I had done a really good job of writing the games,
again not finished. The smallest details completely derail a project for me. ”
13)
How do you overcome writer’s block?
“The truth is I
don’t. My writing block is fear. By the time I do write, it’s only because the
ideas have been spilling out over and over and over again through my mind, to where
it’s enough already. The details have become an irritant, so I just sit down
and write.”
14) What motivates you to compose
a limerick?
“I get ticked off, and my mind starts putting lines together. It’s different
with limericks because I don’t have to actually write them. A limerick is not
fine art. Because of its structure, a kindergartener is just as good as
composing limericks as an adult.”
15) Why is legacy important to you?
“I think it’s fascinating to me in
the same way history is. Think of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, which lived
approximately 25 million years ago and compare that to the 6,000 years of
civilization. In the eyes of God, dinosaurs must be a statement of
survivability. Humanity is still an experiment in its infancy. When all is said
and done, the history of humans is going to be a lot more significant than the
bones of a creature, but we’re not there yet. We’re gong to have to start with
many things, including being a lot older than 6,000 years. Maybe there won’t be
an Ed Calkins parade that 6,000 years old, but maybe there will a 1,000 years
old Ed Calkins Day parade, which will create the much larger tradition of there
still being parades.”
16) How did the idea for Ed Calkins
day parade originate?
“I discovered that my birthday and
Valentines Day had a little conflict when I started dating my wife. The first
year I was dating her, we went out and celebrated my February 13th
birthday. Guess what happened on the fourteenth? I didn’t have Valentine for her. That offended
her at the time. My defense was, ‘Come on, it was my birthday.’ I guess where
started. Then I started joking with other people that my birthday should be a
national holiday. When you couple that with Lincoln ’s birthday and the stars aligned in
the sky, you can see it was meant to be.”
17) You’re
famous for cookouts, Queen of Christmas contests, candy canes and Santa hat
distribution and palette jack races. Why host these things?
“Have fun, of course. Distribution
centers can be so dreary. If everyday is like the last, no one wants to get up.
18) Do you own a kilt?
“I used to, but I gave it away to
my brother. It no longer fit, at the waistline. So, currently, I do not have a
kilt. They’re not cheap. They can cost a couple hundred dollars.”
19) For what
occasions did you wear it?
“Initially I wore it St. Paddy’s
day. I wore it the whole day. I was I
in newspapers and, yeah, I went to work with it. My wife wouldn’t let me do it
after I married her. It happened this way. I have a way of not taking care of
garments. When I was starting to date her, most of my jeans had holes in them. She
takes care of her possessions. That how I knew we were serious when she started
washing my clothes. But when a woman starts washing your clothes, she gets to
say what get discarded and what gets kept. You know my striped shirts? Those
were her idea. My wife now dresses me. I used to dress differently.
20) What are
your plans for this blog?
“I’d like make some myths of my
own, but that won’t start until the book comes out. I’m thinking it might be
fun to add different side stories of the character into the blog, but maybe,
too, I might be able to introduce some of the traditional Irish myths. I’ve
been wanting write something about the interplay of state fairs in Ireland . There
were laws concerning them, such as you couldn’t arrest anyone during a fair and
you could not engage in war. All combat had to be resolved before a fair was
scheduled to start. I’d also like to write about the Knights of the Red Branch
and maybe some adventure that happens to some of the knights. That’s the neat
thing about a blog. Speaking from the character, if something doesn’t fit, or
if there is something else I want to say, I can always come back with, ‘I was
just joking. Here’s what really happened.’ I’m very excited about this. I feel
I’m getting closer to that three-day holiday.”
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