Interview With a Diva

Being a total control freak and fiercely protective of the content on my blog, I rarely participate in online group blogging activities. But Neil Kramer of Citizen of the Month gets me every year. One of his virtual events during the holidays is called the Great Interview Experiment. You sign up for it on his blog and send ten interview questions to the person above you. You then receive ten questions from the person after you. I enjoy participating in this random exercise and talking to new people I probably never would have known about otherwise. This year I was interviewed by a woman named NeCole who has a newer blog called Eclectic Ecstasy (love that name!). You can see my answers to her interesting questions here.

I got a chance to interview longtime blogger Laura of I Am the Diva. Laura lives in Saskatchewan with her hipster husband B-rad and their cute baby she calls Chewie. I was excited to talk to someone from “the Skatch,” a first for me.

1. You’ve had your blog for seven years. That makes you a true pioneer since blogging didn’t really hit in a big way until several years after that. Has your blog been a consistent passion of yours or have you been tempted to quit from time to time? Have you ever had an experience with blogging that made you think, “That’s it, I’m done!”

Y’know, I never really thought of myself as a blogging pioneer, mostly because – while I was *blogging* seven years ago, I had very little in the way of regular readers. I really feel that I didn’t ‘come into my own’ until a few years ago – when my blog posts began being more than just the run down of my day; when I actually attempted to write. Blogging in itself has not always been a passion, but I’d say it was safe to say that writing was.  I have been an avid journal writer and really loved every moment of English classes – from elementary school all the way up to University, with creative writing being my strong suit. In fact, when I told my parents I was going to go to college and be a Music Major, my mother was shocked. She told me years later she always thought I’d end up a writer, and here we are… an almost finished music degree/college drop-out later… am I doing music currently? Nope. But writing all the time. Dang. I should have been an English major.

Have I ever been tempted to quit? There was a time when I stopped writing regularly, when I moved to Calgary  We had no computer and I worked at Staples, so the only computer access I had was at the local library, which was – like – a stupid amount of bus transfers away. But then I got an office job, with a desk, and eventually we got a computer… and now I feel this ache – for lack of a better word, if I don’t blog regularly.

I’ve never really had a moment where I thought of shutting down for good… too much good in my life has come from me blogging. I have met some amazing people online and in real life through the magic of this blogging world.  And the times when I’ve posted something personal, or painful, and wondered whether or not it was the wisest thing to do – I would get bombarded with comments and emails from people giving their encouragement or their support. So, in this increasingly isolated world, I’ve found a real home and community among the bloggers of the interweb. I couldn’t leave it behind. It’s in my blood now.  I do, sometimes, question where to draw the line between sharing and over sharing with regards to my child or my husband. With B-rad, most times if it’s something serious or sensitive, I will ask him if I can post it first, but generally he’s pretty laid back and sometimes thinks it’s funny when I post our conversations. As for Chewie, I try to limit posting about him to things that won’t come back to haunt him, or bite me in the a$$, y’know?

2. I was surprised to learn that your insanely adorable son was born prematurely last year and spent some time in the neonatal intensive care unit. Surprised because we just finished an almost five-month stint in the NICU with our baby Charlie who was born at 24 weeks. We had an amazing experience there filled with incredible highs and miserable lows. What’s the most important thing you learned in the NICU? Aren’t the nurses there amazing?

Oh my God. First of all, I can’t imagine what you and your family must have gone through. Five months! The eighteen days that Chewie spent in NICU were the longest, most exhausting and difficult days of my life. That being said, we had a mix of amazing nurses/staff and not so amazing nurses and staff. The day he was born, we had a nurse tell us we were not allowed to hold him, but we could look at him through the isolette. After just having an emergency labour and only seeing him for a few moments before they whisked him away, I was dying to hold him and being told I couldn’t was heartbreaking. When we went back down later that evening, a very kind older nurse told us in no uncertain terms that “you are the parents, and the nurses here like to think they have the control, but they don’t. If you want to hold him, you can.” That was the first time that I realized that, as his parents, WE are the ones that are responsible for looking out for his best interest. So that was a big thing, but probably the most important thing I learned was that babies, while fragile, are not made of glass. The first time I helped the nurse change his diaper, I was amazed at how they handled him. Strong hands, but not so gingerly, the way I was doing it. They flopped him around (safely J) and he took it. It really helped me not to be so afraid of holding him, or moving him around. It was a big shiny lesson for me and B-rad.

3. I love the cool pin-up graphics on your blog and I know as a child you fantasized about being a stripper. If you were a stripper in the 1940s and had to have a “gimmick” (I assume you’ve seen “Gypsy?”), what would it be? Describe your act as Queen of the Burlesque.

I should clarify that when I had that fantasy about being a stripper – I was, like, 6 and completely naive and it was very innocent, I just wanted to be able to dance around naked. That being said – I did just finish a burlesque class a few weeks ago. I’ve always had a love for the music of the 40s… and the pin-up thing is kinda new, but I’m totally lovin’ it. If I was a stripper in the 40s, I’d probably end up being one of those cutesy adorable type strippers, y’know, with the whole “OH my GOSH! My stockings come RIGHT OFF!!” kind of play… I really thought that I’d lean toward the smoldering seductress, but in my Burlesque classes this cutesy-playful tease just showed up outta nowhere. I’m thinking my gimmick would be something along the lines of a lollipop and pigtails? It still needs some ‘fleshing out’ (pun intended)…

4. Speaking of musicals, I love that you were checking them out at the library as a kid and that you loved “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Would it impress you to know that I received an email from actress Julie Newmar (the unfortunately named Dorcas from that film, one of the seven brides) yesterday? She thanked me for talking about her on my blog and for showing her favorite clip from her TV show “My Living Doll.” She also gave me the URL for her own blog (julienewmarwrites.com). Describe a celebrity encounter you’ve had. Have you ever been reluctant to talk about famous people on your blog for fear they might Google themselves and see what you wrote?

Actually, I AM impressed. That’s pretty sweet! (Who would name their child Dorcas on purpose? I can only assume it was a popular name at the time the film portrayed…but still…Dork-us? Puh-lease!) As far as celebrity encounters, there’s not really a whole lot of opportunity up here in the Skatch. I did hang out with the guitar player (Mark Tremonti) for the band CREED for an hour in the summer of 1998 after being kicked in the back of the head by a crowd surfer wearing steel-toed boots (SERIOUSLY!?) at a summer music festival. He was pretty cool – he signed my T-shirt and gave my friend and I a play-by-play of how Green Day would end their set: a dude in a Bee costume would play some trumpet, then Green Day would smash their guitars, and in the end the drummer would light his kit on fire. He was pretty cool guy. The only other ‘celebrity’ encounter was running into one of the kids from Home Improvement while waiting to get on a ride at Disneyland. See? Pretty boring.

As for fear of famous people googling themselves and finding my blog… I never had that fear…until now!! But maybe my boyfriend Maynard from TOOL will google himself and find out how much I love him and we’ll become pen-pals or something. The only person I’d ever be concerned about would me T-om Cruuze… cuz his people are scary. Not that I write about him or his ‘religion’ very often, but when I do… I try to make the name less googleable… like I just did. 

5. I’ve always admired Canadians and might have been one if my Toronto grandfather hadn’t moved to Chicago in the late 1920s. You were born in Alberta , lived in lots of places, and moved back to Saskatchewan 15 years ago. I’m afraid most ugly Americans wouldn’t be able to place that province on a map if there life depended on it. How did you end up in the Skatch? What one thing would you want us ignoramuses to know about the Land of Living Skies?

I ended up living in the Skatch because my dad decided to go to college when I was 14. We were living in B.C. at the time, and when he shopped around, the Skatch was the most affordable place in terms of cost of living, and housing, and tuition. So, off we went. I hated it at first, because I used to live nestled into this gorgeous valley filled with fruit trees and forests… but now I’m a die-hard prairie girl.  There are a few weird quirks that I’ve discovered about the people while living in the Skatch… here’s one that took me YEARS to adapt to, and I still struggle to this day:  In the Skatch, what the rest of the world calls LUNCH, they call DINNER. What the rest of the world calls DINNER they call SUPPER. You can imagine how confusing trying to make meal plans with a Saskatchewanian. “I’ll meet you at Taco Joe’s for dinner!” do you go at noon or at 7:00? Tricky. Also, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone wearing a ‘hoodie’ in the Skatch. Here those bad boys are known as Bunny Hugs, and they are DAMN protective of that term.  

People in the Skatch, generally, are bad drivers… and I never felt this way until I lived in an actual metropolis. In a city such as Calgary, the only way to survive is to drive by the Golden Rule and let people into your lane when they need in, or to signal when you’re turning, etc. etc. etc. If you don’t – you have crazy accidents and traffic jams and general mayhem. When we moved back to the Skatch I developed a bad case of road rage that I never had before. People speed up when you want to get into their lane, because you being in FRONT of them just CANNOT happen… and people don’t signal, they just turn whenever the hell they fell like it… they roll through stop signs, they lane change all willy nilly… my theory is that they’re small town/farm drivers that have moved into the city… news flash – the city is NOT Elbow, Saskatchewan (yes, a real place!). 

Having said all that, you will never in your life find a province filled with friendlier people… I have never seen a more beautiful sunset than the ones you get on the prairies…and the food, my GOD the food… living a province that was essentially filled with Mennonites, Ukrainians, Poles, and Russians, etc… a ‘home cooked’ meal by someone from a small town (like my mother-in -aw, or my husband’s grandmother) is absolutely to DIE for. Mmm… nothing makes something more delicious than cream gravy (which consists of meat drippings, fat, cream, more cream, more meaty drippings, salt and pepper and a bit of flour for thickening). 

Oh, and also? It’s bloody cold in the winter and scorching hot in the summer… we folks from the Skatch are tough.

6. I share your reaction to “Puff the Magic Dragon” and always sob when Jackie Paper comes no more. (I take it you don’t buy that the song was really a coded parable about drug use?) What’s another popular song that always makes you cry like a little girl?

I’m not sure how I feel about the drug use in that song, it certainly is possible… I think that may be why it affected me so much that day was because I stopped thinking about weed and started listening to the story, in the innocent way. 

Popular songs that make me cry? Listen, I’m a woman. Depending on the day, a television commercial will make me cry! But there are definitely some songs that move me each time I hear them… some examples being “The Great Gig in the Sky” “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” and “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd … “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera… “Fix You” by Coldplay… “Snuff” by Slipknot… “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon… if I can find the story in the lyrics and the emotion in the music, I’m a goner, really.

7. I was once living with a family in France and was served one of their pet rabbits for dinner—with the head still on it, teeth and all! Also tripe, the stomach lining of a cow, which made we want to hurl. What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?

Rabbit, probably, and really it was only disgusting cuz it used to be my pet. I don’t know, I’m pretty open about food – but I also have a few allergies which help me get out of having to try things that look gross… I don’t like fish, but I don’t mind sushi – it’s the taste of the seaweed that gets me every time… OOH wait! Actually, I remember something that’s gross! When I was in the 5th grade, my elementary school had an exchange program but for teachers… so we had a Japanese teacher for a couple of months, and when she went back home she gave us all “Delicious Japanese Candies” which were seaweed flavoured, and also teeny tiny dehydrated fish – which were salty like potato chips… but they were WHOLE fish, eyes, scales, bones, everything. THAT was probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. Bleh.

8. Hey, your wedding anniversary (September 4^th) is my birthday! I like the tattoos you and B-rad got to mark the day. I know you have a fondness for tattoos and piercings. If you could design a full-color tatt for your son Chewie, what would it look like?

Actually, I have a design in the works with my tattoo artist – who I really should call for an appointment… the Tattoo I’ve ‘designed’ will work the Star on my arm into it. I have a strong fondness and fascination with astrology – not as far as basing my life on my horoscope, but more the personality traits that seem to come with each sign. I’m a Taurus, oh what an earthy sign, and you are too – you earthy Virgo, you! That’s what Chewie was supposed to be had he been full term, which would have made us all earth signs as B-rad’s a Capricorn… but I digress. In the end, Chewie was born in July, making him a cancer. I don’t know if I have a photo on my blog of my wrist tattoo, but I have the glyph for Taurus on the inside of my right wrist. I wanted to get the Glyph for “Cancer”, but that’s the sideways 69. And the animal associated with “Cancer” is the crab. So – not exactly wanting a 69 or a crab permanently etched on my body, I decided on the constellation of cancer. So, hopefully soon, I will have Chewie’s constellation on my left shoulder, with the spiral from my Star working into the shoulder piece… the stars of the constellation tatt will be smaller but the same as the large one on my arm.

9. Let’s say Samantha Stevens from “Bewitched” rides her broom to Saskatchewan and agrees to transport you to one historical time period for a year. When and where are you going? What will you do there?

This is a really good but difficult question! Part of me wants to pick times like provincial France in the 1500s, or Ancient Egypt, or even Chicago in the 20s… but being female, I think i’d really miss all the rights and equality that I enjoy today… so I guess, maybe I’d like to live in California in the late 60s or early 70s! Women’s Libbers, crazy drugs and love ins (with the sweet bliss of ignorance towards acid flashbacks or STDs)… and the Music… the music would be worth the historical trip… maybe I’d live in a hippy commune or start a rock band, or maybe I’d just ‘trip’ for an entire year? 

10. Diva is a great word that I feel has started to take on more of a negative connotation in recent years. List some of the positive aspects of diva-hood. Name a few people that you consider to be the world’s all-time greatest divas.

I’ve been meaning to write a post about this very thing for ages. It really makes me crazy when the term “Diva” is lumped in with “Princess” or “Drama Queen” or whatever the Hot Pink bedazzled t-shirts are saying these days. It bothers me when Beyonce says things like: “A diva is the female version of a male hustler” WTF? 

Actually, Beyonce, a diva is: a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and by extension in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna”.

The word entered the English language in the late 19th century. It is derived from the Italian noun diva, a female deity. The basic sense of the term is "goddess”. (Thank you Wikipedia)

And wouldn’t the female version of a hustler just be a hustler who’s a girl? Why do you add “male” to the word hustler in the first place? Would you say A Pilot is the Female Version of a Male Doctor?? No, you wouldn’t. Because a) a pilot and a doctor are different things entirely. PLUS, you would never say a “Hello, I’m Male Doctor Jones, how are you feeling today?” it’s just plain dumb. Shame, Beyonce! Shame.

In my opinion, a diva is someone who has worked hard and practiced and through determination and the sheer joy and love of music has found success in her field (of course, by my own definition, I am NOT the diva… no success here, except for in my shower…for now….) When I was in University I practiced anywhere from 1 – 2 hours a day… for FOUR years…. To be a diva means you have enough love and passion for the music that you have made a commitment to yourself and the world to give the gift! To be a diva is SO MUCH more than being a self absorbed brat who wears too much makeup, dresses too trampy and is, essentially, a bitch.  Now, I know that sometimes a real honest to goodness diva can get a little on the full of-herself side, but so can a surgeon… but we don’t go around saying: “Look at that guy driving around in his Mercedes, what a surgeon!” 

I see it as the very unfortunate hijacking of a once empowering term for a successful female, and it’s been cheapened and dragged through the oversexed mud. Bleh. 

As for world class divas: I would say that any woman, or girl, who feels the music – who is moved by it, who is completely and utterly passionate about singing and the way singing makes them feel, who tries and fails and tries again… I think THEY are the world class divas. Live people, real life musicians, on the stage, in the clubs… without auto tuners, and over produced albums, and so much dancing that they can’t even perform without the aide of a backing track (I’m looking at YOU Britney Spears).  

 

Thanks so much, Laura! I will be checking back at your blog regularly. Stay warm this winter!

Comments

[iamthediva]

You gave me such great questions!! it was super fun!

[Silvia]

Julie is a marvelous woman besides she's very beautiful and good actress.
I live in Buenos Aires and I've always admired her since Bataman started here in 1967 and when I saw her e-mail address I wrote to her and she sent me her signed photo and her Catwoman's t-shirt.
I hope all her fans know what kind and human she's.
Now I'd like to know is there's a book about her and what happened with the book with her photographies.
Thanks!!!

[NeCole@Eclectic Ecstasy]

Excellent interview and thanks for the link!

[Jack]

This was cool. Thanks.

[witchypoo]

Great questions, and well-thought out and written answers to them. Kudos to you both!