Phil Keeling
PART 1:
Comedian, Games Critic, Conquistadork
http://www.twitter.com/ElConquistadork
https://www.facebook.com/ElConquistadorkPlays/
http://www.youtube.com/user/ElConquistadork
Let’s start off with the obvious place to start, please tell us a little about yourself:
I was born into a southern, military family in West Germany (when there was a West Germany). My father was an officer in the US Army, and my mother was an elementary school teacher turned stay-at-home mom. I am the eldest (and least mature) of three kids: the only one with brown hair, and the only one to have voted for Barack Obama. I was a bookish kid. Some mothers would punish their kids by forcing them to stay in their room. My mom punished me by forcing me outside, a place I generally avoided unless I was looking for bugs (which was not infrequent). As a family we moved constantly: from Europe to the Deep South to New York to Central Pennsylvania. We’ve been all over the damn place, and I blame that for just about everything in my makeup as a person.
So, because you’re a bit of a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy, I’m going to break the questions out into sections based on project. We'll cover part one here and part two in another segment. Sound good?
Sounds terrifying. Let’s do it.
First up, why video games? How did you get into gaming and reviewing in the first place?
Video games were sort of a constant I had in a life of inconsistencies. I liked the stories and the challenges. And as I got older, I got to watch as the medium of video games matured at around the same rate I did. When I was a kid, it was pretty straightforward. Games were fairy tales and fables, mostly. Now, games deal with topics like identity, death, grief, and love. And they do it in a way that films, books, and any other art form cannot.
Talk about that some more. What do video games offer as a storytelling platform that other mediums don’t or can’t?
You’re a part of it, you know? There’s a visceral reaction to what’s happening because you’re engaging with it on a level that’s more personal than a film or a book.
The Game Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons is an exceptional example. It uses the actual game controls to convey the story: you control one boy with one thumbstick, and his brother with the second thumbstick. And when something happens to one of them, and the thumbstick no longer works: you feel that. It lurches something in your guts.
Papers, Please is another game like that. You play a border guard at a fictional communist dictatorship, and you have to decide who gets through and who doesn’t. It’s an absolute drudgery of paperwork and deciding your own morality. It’s engaging, and it’s very effective.
What makes a video game really good in your opinion? What are some of your favorites?
It’s just like any art form (and yes, I consider games to be an art form). It resonates with something inside of you. It’s a personal experience. Last year I played a game about a family losing their son to cancer (That Dragon, Cancer), and it hit me right in the guts. I wept and drank some gin to make myself feel better. My friend and fellow YouTuber SpoilerKevin, on the other hand, played it and was completely devastated. He’s a father. So it hit some very real places in his mind and in his life. I like games that catch me like that, whether it’s through the story, the subject matter, or the game play itself.
Games like Bioshock Infinite, Night In The Woods, and Papers, Please are magnificent examples of telling a story through games. Games like Civilization I’ve been playing since I was a kid, simply because I love the gameplay itself. Building cities, founding cultures, and trying not to be crushed by everyone else? Fun. Contrary to what many gamers and gaming journos think, you can heavily analyze a game and still have fun with it. That’s what I aim for.
There’s an episode of Reply All that covers The Dragon, Cancer. The story is both incredibly moving and devastating all at once. It's a good example of the point you were making earlier. Given how immersive and emotionally rooted some of these games can be, it's easy to see how this medium can be an effective, if not cathartic, outlet for both the player and the creator.
I think I know which podcast you mean. Games are very much like movies, these days. There are still your standard popcorn fare that you play and rack up a high score and don’t really give much thought to. And then there are massive, self-indulgent space operas, high school dramas, and sad, introspective indie pieces.
Take Pony Island. I love Pony Island. It starts out as a very simple running game. Hop over fences: that sort of thing. And then, as the game progresses, the system starts to shut down. Something’s wrong with the game, and it starts to break the 4th wall to fuck with you. It’s deeply troubling and scary in a way that films aren’t.
And that’s not to suggest I don’t like big, dumb explody games. One of my top ten games of 2016 was the remake of DOOM, which is simply a big, beautiful run and gun where you kill demons. There’s a feeling among a lot of your average gamers that you have to be one or the other: an art house gamer, or a hardcore gamer. And that just isn’t so.
The production for your online reviews seems fairly involved (in a good way). What does it entail to produce one video/review? How did you learn all the ins and outs of putting something like this together?
My YouTube channel is a lot like my car: anything I know how to fix or arrange, I learned out of desperation and necessity. If I’m making a review, the steps generally go like this: as I play the game, I capture footage of it. I finish the game, and write a review. I record myself reading the review, and edit it into the footage, which I cut up to make it appropriate to what I’m saying in the audio track. I add some music, the intro and outro, and we’re finished. Generally takes a few hours.
Where did the name Conquistadork come from? Is there a personal connection or inspiration?
I was writing essays for a website called Classy Hands, but I was also looking for work. This was just around the time that employers started getting really friendly with the notion of googling your name when they decide whether or not they’d bring you on board. Everyone needed to be real respectable: no Facebook pictures of yourself in a bikini sitting on some stranger’s lap, you know? So I figured my weird essays with their four letters words wouldn’t be helpful. Long story short, I needed a pen name, and I liked Conquistadork. A conqueror among dorks. Far more confident than I generally feel, which helps.
Now, to switch gears completely... Why stand up? What made you want to take a leap and try your hand at it?
I’ve always loved stand up comedy. I was listening to my dad’s Steve Martin records when I was a kid. I didn’t try my hand at it until I was 27, which is pretty old for a brand new comedian. I blame Lee Keeler. He was working with one of Savannah’s first open mics when we were at grad school together and literally told me: “We need comedians. Prep 10 minutes.”
So I did. Blame Keeler.
What’s your stand up style? Do you pull from real life or is it more of a persona?
I am delighted by inappropriate jokes. I think it comes from being raised in a traditional southern home where etiquette and saying “ma’am” and “sir” and “please” are so important. The people who always impressed me the most growing up were people who could think and speak in a profound way while also appreciating the sillier things in life. For that reason, I like to think I’m a fairly thoughtful comic, but I never have and never will shy away from four letter words and explicit imagery.
I’d like to point out here that my mom raised me to be a perfect southern gentleman. She did a great job. Mama tried. That’s how strong my urge to talk about sex and grim imagery is. I love sex and grim imagery. I try to keep the two separate, though.
What was your first gig like?
It went great. Which is a problem. A ton of baby comedians have an amazing first show. It’s because everyone knows it’s your first show, and maybe you’ve invited supportive friends. You do a great five or ten minutes, everyone tells you how wonderful you are. And then you spend the next two or five or ten years eating shit. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I ate shit immediately afterwards, but the more I performed for people who didn’t know me and think I was adorable, the more I realized how much work went into the craftsmanship of the jokes.
For many people, public speaking, let alone performing, is a worst fear. No doubt your background in Theatre helps here. Can you explain the preparation it takes to do stand up and put a set together?
Theatre helped a lot. Not just in alleviating the fear, but knowing how to own the stage. Actors, musicians, dancers, comedians: we’re all doing the same thing. We’re all just satyrs saying the same things in different languages. I do a lot of the same things I did as an actor: I mutter my jokes to myself in the shower. I recite the punchlines when I’m washing my hair. I practice in my bathroom mirror and see what sort of face I make when I use a specific adjective to describe a specific location on the body. To the outside world, it looks like world-class narcissism. Maybe it is. But it masks the little gremlins inside trying to sabotage our every move. Comedians are egomaniacs with terrible self-esteem.
Talk a little more about that. How can you have a massive ego with very little self esteem?
I’m hesitant to reinforce a stereotype, but comedians tend to be broken dolls. The motivation behind getting onstage to tell jokes comes from so many odd places, and those places often have something to do with coping with pain: whether it’s in your life or others. At worst, it creates performers who are onstage begging to be loved, if only for a few minutes.
At best, it creates raw, exquisite art. Just look at Tig Notaro’s 30 minute special “Live” which she performed literal days after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Or Doug Stanhope’s “Farewell, Mother” which is about him assisting in his mother’s suicide.
And both are some of the funniest material you’ll ever hear. And also painful. I love that. It’s not a normal person who shares that sort of experience to strangers while simultaneously trying to make them laugh. I think that’s beautiful.
Who are some comedians you really admire?
People like George Carlin, Patton Oswalt, Louis CK, Dana Gould, Marc Maron, Doug Stanhope, Jackie Kashian, Kyle Kinane, Rachel Bloom, Emo Philips, Tig Notaro, and Maria Bamford are among my favorites. I appreciate comedians who are able to talk about the dark and real while keeping it funny. I also have a great big place in my heart for the weirdos of the world.
I also adore Mike Birbiglia, but I have a grudge against him, because I suffer from night terrors, and his masterpiece is “Sleepwalk With Me”, which is a one man show entirely about his own sleeping disorder. Bastard cornered the market.
What’s the most challenging and rewarding thing about doing stand up?
It’s personal. Birbiglia said it very well: in one of his sets he describes the idea of people seeing a movie they hate, and they say, “I didn’t like the script” or “I didn’t like that casting choice”. But if someone doesn’t like a comedian, it’s essentially them saying: “We don’t like you. As a person.”
A crowd booing you will always be better than one that is silent. I’ve had beer bottles thrown at my head, and I’ll take that over polite, tepid laughter.
The rewards… Occasionally you get free beer from the bartender?
Who or what inspires you? (in your business or otherwise)
Music, art, and literature. A brand new notebook. My family. Those late, 3am sessions of washing the dishes because you’re drunker than hell and it just seems like a good idea. Moments like that are when you can solve problems. It’s like singing in the shower. Good for you.
What scares you?
Overly confident 22-year-olds in shorts. They don’t have to be wearing boat shoes, but if they are it only makes things worse.
What motivates you?
The fact that one day, I will die. It’s a very cheerful time stamp to put on everything, you know? “Well, better get a thousand words in today: I might be worm food this time tomorrow.”
What brings you the greatest joy?
Cleverness. A bottle of something intoxicating. People who are intoxicating. A woman’s fingers in my hair. Worthwhile conversation and good food. Worthwhile conversation and lousy food. The smell of the ocean. The smell of burning leaves.
What brings you the greatest satisfaction?
A finished piece of work that I’d almost convinced myself I’d never finish.
What is an experience that you would want to experience again?
Maybe reliving college again. Go back to all of those warm memories and see if they hold up to nostalgia’s magnifying glass. Hmm. On second thought maybe I wouldn’t want to do that.
What would you like to do that you haven’t done yet?
I have a dream of emceeing a burlesque show. It just feels like a good fit.
What should everyone do at least once in their life?
Just go ahead and flirt with that guy or girl at the bar. Give it a shot. Fuck it.
What advice would you give to your teenage or younger self?
Just do the damn thing. Don’t get precious. But don’t give up hope, either. Clean your goddamn room.
Read PART 2 of this interview.
Read stories by Phil Keeling on the All Roads Magazine website here:
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