BS: Mudcat Alter Egos

Subject: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Lorne M.
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:24 AM

Just curious.

How many 'Catters have used other names in order to create different personalities here?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:29 AM

Oh definitely...I'm really a prudish drag queen with a penchant for ant racing on Sundays after church.

Spaw-about who he is and what you get

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Michael K.
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:36 AM

Bond. James Bond.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: vampire
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:37 AM

I used this once...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: anonymously
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:38 AM

... and this but only in fun and I have made it clear in both cases who I am.

Jon Freeman

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: sophocleese
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:38 AM

but you broke your teeth on a bad byte? Sorry sorry sorry..

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:16 AM

Sad to say I used another name on several occasions. Problem is, that it was "Duckboots", 'cause I didn't know what a "cookie" was, let alone how to change one.(the kindly Peter T, and Tony Burns have tried to help my computer literacy at times, but it ain't working very fast) I'm not sure if anyone found it odd that someone who's only posts up til that time had been about growing (and not growing) roses, was giving advice on how to construct flat fives, and diminished chords.

Actually my musical life used to be a succession of alter-egos...depending on what weird places I was working in. Strongly suspect there's a few here. Who cares though? s'posed to be fun ain't it?

Rick (I think)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:25 AM

G'day,
I posted twice as 'Alan', & then after a discussion where I found myself defending 'Waltzing Matilda' I lengthened my er... handle. The only exceptions have been when my cookie's crumbled without me noticing.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:40 AM

Could'a been worse Alan. You could have been defending "Waltzing With Bears". It usually isn't too hard to figure out anon. or name change postings though. You can write or spell "dumber", but you can't write or spell "smarter". Punctuation is like a fingerprint as well. I oughta know, cause I've been the "bracket king" all my life. BUT, BUT...where I'd really like to have an alter-ego is when I'm first singing a song I've just written. Still a little nervous about sayin' "here's one I wrote". Never goes away.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:46 AM

Maybe true Rick, but what I know of your own stuff is just great. I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass, and I understand what you mean, but seriously??? Nice songs man.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:01 AM

Jeez Paw, thanks. What the hell are you doin' up at this time? Actually I'm in the process of writing a song right now. (God bless the word processor, 'cause for years a manual typewriter was hi-tech to me) It's a re-working of the old "Gypsy Davy" ballad. Like Bob Coltman (my hero) I love to take old ballad themes and write new songs from the "other characters'" points of view. It's the re-writing that takes the time though. I try to put myself into the protagonist's shoes and really "live" the song, while I work on it....just occurred to me (cause I was gonna apologise for thread creep) that my process actually IS a form of "alter-ego" although not what Lorne (if you really ARE Lorne) probably meant in his original post.

As you see however, it's too damn tempting to be on the computer and NOT keep checking back with Mudcat! I'm a sick puppy.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: emily rain
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 04:10 AM

i once posted on behalf of my father, The Heat Nazi.

No Heat For You!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 08:54 AM

I posted anon a couple of times and under another name for a few days when I didn't feel like taking anymore fire.

Oh, and like Cletus, Ditzee Lee shows up from time to time.

Don't think it really matters whether we do or not, though. Max wants us to have fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: AlistairUK
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 09:02 AM

I once posted as possum but spaw started coming on to me so I stopped that...yeeuch.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 09:08 AM

G'day,
Yeah Rick, I suppose everyone has their own style, humour (& spelling). I reckon if I posted anonymously my accent would give me away.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Chet W.
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 09:17 AM

I have considered an alter ego, sort of an evil twin kind of thing. You'll never know when it happens, unless of course somebody is blowing smoke up your ass.

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Dani
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 09:26 AM

'Spaw, would that be drag racing? Are you racing the ants or are they racing each other? And don't the pearls get in the way?

Dani, who doesn't know enough to hide behind a nom de plume

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Margo
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 10:00 AM

Emily, what on earth is a "heat nazi"? Rick, is that gypsy "Black Jack Davy"? I never had a nom de plume, but I started out as Margarita. Margo is much easier to type. If anyone here has an evil twin it's gargoyle! Except he is his twin. (That's like that old joke, "Do you go to school or by bus? no answer...)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: JedMarum
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 11:13 AM

I have never posted under another name ... once lost my cookie, and didn't realize my post was anon ... but have figured that out pretty quick and fixed it, so it only happened once.

Liam already is an alter ego for me. When I first posted here, I was pretty new to the personal functions of the web - and newer still to Mudcat. It seemed appropriate to use a 'handle' as opposed to my name. I've since discovered, at Mudcat, at least, this level of anonymity was unnecessary.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 11:14 AM

Hey Rick, now I gotta defend "Waltzing With Bears" or my daughter will torture me......ouch! okay I think he likes the song dear, ouch! ... I know I won't let tem dis bears okay! Yes especially polar bears. Yours, (The bear keepers slave) Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: JedMarum
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 11:47 AM

Please forgive the thread creep, but Rick, I understand the feeling of playing new songs ... I struggle a bit with my new songs, for seveal public playings ... I have never been able to loose this feeling, either. I have found two tricks that help me; 1) I tape the song and play it over and over to myself as I drive (usually singing, sometimes refining lyrics or even rearranging) 2) I just jump in and 'damn the torpedos' - but usually at a safe place, like a small club or jam session. I find that it takes a bit of time to learn to perform my own songs!

In fact, of a bit more thread creep can be allowed; as I age I find I take much longer with new songs 'off-line' before they appear in my performances. Not just my own songs, but when I learn a new song, I spend more time with it then I used to ... before I add it to my repertoire. I like to think I'm just more careful, but it might just be that I'm a slower learner! I also think that the several years I spent out of the performance world has left some 'scar' in my performance abilities.

Sorry for the continued creep ....

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:11 PM

Liam, following your thread creep, it is a while since I have done any singing in my local folk clubs but I always found that the first time of airing a song that I had never sung in public before was guaranteed to go wrong regardless of how long I'd practised it or even in some cases, how many years I'd known the song. I just reached the point where I'd say to myself "this is going to screw up but it's over with then and it will be OK next time"...

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: kendall
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:24 PM

WHY NOT JUST DO THE THING WITHOUT SAYING YOU WROTE IT..THEN, IF IT BOMBS..DROP IT. iF IT FLIES, THEN TAKE CREDIT. sorry about the caps...fat fingers you know.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: JedMarum
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:35 PM

Jon, me too! That's why I don't do new songs at higher profile 'gigs' - and Kendall, I'm talkin' about any new song ... not just one's I write ... but I have played my own songs without introduction ... just for that reason ... BTW Kendall ... are you at home now? I would still like to call about Casey's Hat??

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: emily rain
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:39 PM

Margo,

it's a Seinfeld reference. everybody loved the food at this particular soup counter, but the guy who ran it was "the Soup Nazi". if you didn't place your order in exactly the right way, he would become enraged and yell "no soup for you!"

my dad parallels the sketch not so much in character as in declaration. he's one of those guys who's constantly turning down the thermostat and delivering lectures about how the "comfort zone" is a fiction devised by the utility companies to bleed your wallet. he's started turning down the heat in the car now, too. so i told him he was the heat nazi and gave him his line, and he promptly went out and bought me a polartec sweater. : )

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Áine
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:39 PM

Nope, don't have an alter ego; wouldn't know what to do with her if she ever showed up either. With me, what ya see is what ya git -- and if that ain't good enough for ya -- well, may fire ants and chiggers invade your britches and never leave. ;-)

-- Áine

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: JedMarum
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:42 PM

Áine - we like what we see!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Áine
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 12:54 PM

Yea, yea, yea, liam -- But, I know that you know what awful little critters they are! (hahaha) Who needs to wish a 'pox' on anyone when we've got these little charmers, huh?

-- Á.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:20 PM

On my first visit to the Mudcat Tavern, I entered the place as a hulking, schizophrenic, beached whale. After three weeks at Mudcat, as an excited, overzealous, self conscious computer illiterate with an inability to strike up a conversation with anyone, I was feeling rather lonely and confused. I got so engrossed in "composing" my entrance to the tavern, that I had myself in stitches of laughter and tears and by the time I pushed the "submit message button", I had learned something about myself and this wonderful place and that was: quite often just the doing itself is its own reward, stop looking for feedback and if you want someone to talk to you, sometimes you have to bite the bullet of your own awkward, shyness and be the first one to reach out to others. Quite the learning experience, when something you've known on an intellectual level all your life, finally becomes visceral. Oh yeah, the schizophrenia was the result of my husband's occasional posts, regarding his own technical areas of passion. Also, like others, I have sent the occasional anonymous post, until I finally understood what a "cookie" was.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From:
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:41 PM

Yeah, okay, this is not my real name. It's one that I've used for about twentyfive years as a stage persona. I've had a number of them but this was the one that seems to have stuck. My first choice was Reggie Mason which is what I had intended to use for a gig at a club in Tulsa where I was about to schedule some shows. The university I was attending at the time would not have approved if they knew that I was performing off campus at such dens of iniquity so I needed some cover. When I told the club manager my name he looked at me kind of funny and told me about another performer who played at his place who was about ten years older. Apparently this guy looked and dressed like me, (standard folk apparel), played the same sort of music and his name was (you guessed it). So I changed it right then and there. Besides I found using my real name was too much of a challenge for most places. They always had trouble spelling it. So I figured something a little easier to spell might help when it came time to making promo. I'm not clever enough with this computer of mine to create multiple personalities yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: reggie miles
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:45 PM

Oops speakin' of lost cookies, that post with no name was me.

Reggie Miles

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:51 PM

I've made a few posts as Blake Madison PI just for grins. I think most participants here are pretty comfortable with being themselves. This isn't like the typical chatroom where pretense and lying rule- people here are genuine, I believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: CLETUS
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 01:52 PM

See now I thinx its gud thang havin an External Gas Outlet an I caint rightly sayz az ta whether ur not ya needz an alternet wun. Thairs bin atime ur two when Paw wuz reel ripe that sum uv us wuzza wishin whut he had wun whut wuz longer. Kinda extended like soaz ta keep them air biscuitz uv hisns off away from us mor reefind folks. I think Paw cud reely put one ta gud uze too cuz heez alwayz flarin em off an a extendid kinda external gas outlet fur him wud be sorta like wunna them flames whutz allus lit whair thair burnin off that natcherl gas stuff. Senz summa yall seemz ta got em now, cudja gimmee sum idee on az ta how I might git holt uv wun fer Paw?

CLETUS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 02:48 PM

Well since this is about Altar Egos, let me tell you about this preacher I knew. What an ego he had, and...and...ohhhh, you meant ALTER egos....never mind.

Emily Litella

(apologies to those who are too young for this reference)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Chet W.
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 03:30 PM

Ok, I haven't used it here before, but my blues persona is the Rev. Willie Chester Junior. If I do use it here, don't remember it's me.

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Mbo
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 05:15 PM

I used an alter ego twice! As appeared once as the CLETUS-like character I invented some years ago named "Hick Bob." Also, if anyone remembers the "Deer Sandy Claws" thread, I was Santa Claus. And poor ol' 'Spaw never suspected a thing (neither did Liz the Squeak & Terri & kat)! Well, then again, there was the character Mbo Rua in the Mudcat Castle, a Highland Clan cheif...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From:
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 05:48 PM

After a set and before my last song I would sometimes say, "It was great being here. Thanks to y'all. If you like what I did, I'm Art Thieme. If not, I'm Sandy Paton !!"

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 05:59 PM

LOL!!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 06:11 PM

Is that all? Dubito!

Who else was I?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Big Mick
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 09:42 PM

All right, I admit it...........I am really The Shambles.

Big Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Susan A-R
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 10:32 PM

I once posted as songs/food or some such thing, because I couldn't get at my real name, but I'm not sure I know HOW to set up an alter ego, and besides, I yam who I yam.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 16 Jan 00 - 09:31 AM

No... Only Eric the viking cos thats what everyone calls me..(Well to my face, what they say I don't hear I don't care about) I could be called Eric the half half Bee. Eric

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Ali_UK
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 09:18 AM

Mick...dis you mean to say The Shambles or did you really mean to say you are a shambles...I mean all this running around you do after the Fair Alison I can imagine that with your tongue dragging on the ground after all this time you're in a bit of a state.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Roger the skiffler
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 09:28 AM

The psychiatr...psychol...neurol..., the nut doctor here at the NYCFTTS has been trying to alter my ego for months. He doesn't believe in Invisible Fast Eddie or Hiroshi and he was beginning to think I'd imagined AlistairUK as well. He doesn't believe I'm the Croakin' Bullfrog when I sing the blues, Donnie Lonnigan when I sing filkish and Mal Canto the rest of the time. Still I'm the only one here whose microphone has a sign on saying "Nil by Voice or kazoo".
I have been known to post under another "amusing" soubriquet for the sake of a "joke" but usually remember to sign myself:
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Barry Finn
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 12:24 PM

At first I posted as Barry, it took awhile till I could remember my last name. So I posted my full name just in case anyone wanted to find out who & where I was so'sthey could slap me for whatever it was I said. For the same reason I couldn't bare the thought of a second altered egoed me running lose & getting me slapped all the more often.
Art, I may just take back all I just said & follow your lead saying I was you & you can get slapped instead of me, cause I was tempted to post once as the Red-Faced-Kid. Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: BK
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 09:31 PM

Always been BK - cuz I'm too clutzy to type the whole thing as easily; not that "Buzz" is difficult. I'm just always & forever a klutz -'n I can't spell thet gud eethur.

But seriously: WHY DIS WWB?? No soul? Worse yet, grown-up? Lost contact w/tinker bell? How sad... I refuse to grow up - 'n that also means I'll probably always like Waltzin' With Bears & other silly, improbable, implausable songs.

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Alter Egos
From: Willie-O
Date: 17 Jan 00 - 11:30 PM

I became Willie-O not too long ago...because I was tired of being YET ANOTHER BILL. I've been one all my life and I'm bored with it even when not liable to be mixed up with someone else.

Besides, Willie-O and his brother Johnnie-O are well known to be notorious womanizers, seldom sober, the rambling kind, quick with a knife, and never fight fair...true role models. Nineties guys. (Sixteen nineties.)

W-O