DECEMBER 10th, 2015
By LANA CARBON & JOHN LILIES
[John] Well here we are with Part 3 of our interview with paranerd Patrick Keller – our last installment of this great experience.
In Part 2, we learned more about the Big Séance Podcast, how Patrick started podcasting and the importance of being a nerd. You can click here to read Part 1 if you haven’t had a chance to yet!
Join us now for Part 3, as we look deeper into what makes Patrick the fantastic nerd he is and what might be coming up in the future.
Begin Part 3 - pour yourself a big relaxing drink, grab your most comfortable blanket, get really cozy and join us in Patrick’s parlour for the last part of our wee chat.
November 22, 2015
[Lana] Can you think back over the whole year of podcasting and tell us your favourite interview, or your favourite episode if they’re not the same?
[Patrick] I can definitely tell you that the easiest interview that I’ve done has probably been Karen A. Dahlman and that’s probably why she’s been back on about three or four times. If there’s any point where I have a brain fart or just stumble, she takes it up and she goes to something – she’s so smart. She is that intellectual [person] that I am not. She’s been a really good friend and she knows a lot about what I’m fascinated with.
The Hallowe’en shows in general were really fun. My interview with Lesley Bannatyne was really fun. That was actually one of the first episodes I ever listened to on the Paranormal Podcast – it was one of his early ones, that Hallowe’en. I was thinking, that many years later, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m interviewing Lesley!’ and it was just so cool and Hallowe’en is such a big thing that I’m nerdy about and you can tell when she talks about it. I mean, someone who talks Hallowe’en every year on a thousand different interviews, on different shows, you can’t tell she would ever get tired of it. She just loves talking about it. That was probably a really fun one to do.
[John] So if you had the opportunity, excluding the great guests you’ve already had on the show, who would you really love to invite into the parlour to interview?
[Patrick] It would be really cool if I can get to the point where I could have a conversation with some of our most famous paranormal TV personalities. Some of the TV paranormal investigators, because they aren’t easy I don’t think. Whether it’s something their contract says with studios, you don’t ever hear from them. Nowadays there’s a lot of speculation about what happens behind the cameras and how much those shows are produced and they’re accused of a lot of things that I don’t know are necessarily true or not. I haven’t really tried too hard to reach out to those people because I just assume that a little puny show like mine would have no chance but that would be really cool.
I’ve had a few listeners suggest some paranormal personalities, some who I’ve not even been aware of, so I’ve kind of investigated a little bit into them. There’s a psychic from a show [The Dead Files] – Amy Allan – and I’d never heard of her until someone suggested it and so I’m researching her. I don’t know if she would or how hard it would be to reach her but since that’s one of the biggest reasons why I got into the whole paranormal thing - that would be pretty cool.
I think a lot of people would love to peek behind the curtain a little bit, of the whole paranormal reality show. You know, is there stuff that shouldn’t go on behind the scenes? Is it all really real? How much of it is editing? How much of it is the fact that it’s produced? Sometimes I wonder, when I watch some of those shows, ‘are you still into this? Are you into it or are you just happy to have this cool gig with cameras following you?’ If you take away the cameras, would they still be out there getting no sleep, sitting in the dark all night long doing it? I really do think we’re in a heightened (it’s been a little over a decade now) paranormal craze and I really do think that eventually we’re gonna kinda come off of this craze; and the real paranerds are gonna still be there and I hope I’m still there. I don’t know, whether it’s 10, 15, 20 years from now when all the ghost hunters are retired or old, I want to be able to get that interview - [imitates older voice] ‘What was it like back in the day when you were on TV and what was really real and how was that?’ Maybe they’ll talk then. They’ll tell us all, when it’s all over.
[John] That’s awesome.
[Patrick] Yeah, the Ghost Hunter Retirement Centre. We’ll visit them all – see if we can get them all to talk. Ghost Hunter Manor.
[John] Could you imagine all of the supposed hauntings that would then happen as everybody is losing it as they get older? That could be a TV show in and of itself!
[Patrick] It also makes me think of when I die and cross over, and you know a lot of spiritual people will say ‘oh my gosh I can’t believe you would say that’ but I might not want to cross over immediately. I might want to go hang out at the Stanley for a while.
I might want to go to the creepiest location that has just been famous for being haunted and check it out. How do we know that Trans-Allegheny Asylum – how do we know that all those people haunting that place are really old patients? Maybe they’re just former ghost hunters that think, ‘Hey that was a cool place man!’?
[John] I have been saying, since I was probably about 13 or 14 years old, that when I die I want to hang out for a bit. I want to haunt people - not to scare anybody, legitimately; I just want to have a little bit of fun.
[Patrick] Experience it. Be on the other side of it.
[John] Exactly. If I go before you Patrick, I’m going to do my best to come by and play some tricks on you.
[Patrick] Oh will you please?
[John] Oh yeah!
[Lana] John will actually get your Ouija to work!
[John] Oh!
[Patrick] It’s funny because my mom and I definitely have a plan. I think probably my sister has a plan too. My mom, when she dies, she is going to come over to my house and write in the dust because I tend to not like dusting. That’s kind of a thing with us because growing up she used to always make me dust. She didn’t like dusting either so I always had to dust. Now that I’m an adult and have my own place, the place looks awesome – the place looks fabulous and everything is in its place – but don’t lick any of the surfaces because everything is dusty. So she knows that she can come somewhere and write in the dust, something like ‘Hi, it’s Mom’ or something. With her, she knows to be looking somewhere on her nightstand. I’m going to be messing with things that are on the nightstand definitely. That’s gonna be my calling card right there.
[John] I keep saying I’m going to be the one who, as you put your coffee cup down and you turn away to do something, when you come back your coffee cup is going to be on the other side of the room.
[Patrick] I’m going to write that down. I’m going to remember that. Of course, hopefully by the time you die, we will both be very old and the question will then be, am I senile? ‘The coffee cup didn’t just move over there. I’m just crazy.’
[John] So in that case, I’ll do it to everyone else around as well so they don’t think you’re the only crazy one.
[Patrick] There will be no question.
[John] It will be a collective crazy.
You have sort of indirectly answered the next question but I’m now going to go for the direct answer. What tips would you have for anybody who is really interested in getting into podcasting?
[Patrick] I would say if you are going to search for how-to stuff, try to get it from one source so that you get everything in context; because there is a lot of suggestions about mics, a lot of suggestions about little techy things that you might not necessarily need yet. Don’t get the whole, entire podcaster package from the beginning because there are a lot of people that start - I think they say episode seven is the magic episode where people either decide they can’t do it and they give up or they keep going. So maybe you get some cheaper equipment. There are some cheaper USB microphones you can get and do a couple episodes and see what you think. Even before you invest in getting the server space, like I have libsyn (libsyn is the most popular), just go to one place so that you can get accurate information from that one person. If you get pieces from here and there, that could be kind of dangerous - you could be missing something. You know, Jim Harold’s course was really good too and it was a course that I feel like I could trust with the information I was getting; but technology keeps changing. You can do it for free - there is not anything really that you have to pay for. There is enough information out there - just be careful getting information from a lot of different sources.
Know what you are going to podcast about. I think that is a big thing in podcasting. Some people get fascinated with the whole speaking on the mic thing and then they get their podcast and it is like `Oh what was I going to talk about? What do we have that we can talk about?’ Know your passion first. Pick your niche and go with that. Is that nerdy enough?
[Lana] That was good, yeah.
Going to try to get you to go out on a limb now. As of when we recorded this interview, you will have 48 episodes. What do you have planned for number 50? It is a landmark – it’s a milestone.
[Patrick] Oh my gosh! Like I said earlier, I really don’t have anything planned. [Episode] 49 is you guys. It might be something that I mention, maybe. When I think of 50, I’ve heard a lot of people celebrate huge on episode 100 and 200 so it seems kinda silly for me to celebrate on 50. To me, it’s more of a big deal once I hit that two-year mark. Probably that will be more of a celebration for me than the number 50. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it actually. At the beginning of every episode when I say ‘this is episode whatever’ that’s really the first time I think of it. I have to look back to see what number it is and by that point the episode is already done so I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it until you said that. No pressure.
[John] Okay, well I’m challenging you now to think about it because 100 is huge and your two-year mark is huge. We just realized we never acknowledged our one-year mark of the blog but I’m going to challenge you to make 50 something special for you. Not for your listeners but make it special for you.
[Patrick] Okay. There is plenty of nerdiness for me. I can really be selfish. I’m good at being selfish. I can bust out some nerdiness.
[John] Go for it.
[Lana] Maybe the next question could lead into something you could do for the 50th then. Do you have any plans of doing anymore Live and Interactive video podcasts?
[Patrick] Karen, who was in my first Live and Interactive Video, she definitely is trying to get me to do another one. That was kind of a big step for me. Like I said at the beginning, as someone who is not incredibly social - someone who wants to be the best recluse ever when I grow up, I am very reclusive and proud of it usually. So being on camera, like hiding behind a mic is cool but being on camera, I was a little nervous. Plus, you know, I edit. Nothing I ever did was live. You can plan out what you’re going to say and edit out those stumbles and dorky things you say (like plenty of them that I’ve said tonight). It was a little nerve-wracking to be live on camera and not knowing what’s going to happen but I think there’s probably another one coming. I would probably need to investigate some tech things to make it sound better and it is getting better. Now there’s a thing called Blab that I guess everyone is doing. Blab.im - I think a lot of podcasters are doing that. People can chat and be interactive. There’s a couple different platforms, just in the last six months, have come up on the scene. So I know the sound quality and things are getting better. I was not super excited about the sound quality of that whole experience. It was cool to have the video. It was cool to have live interaction, which I had never done, that whole radio show kind of feel. So I think that will probably happen again. I’m hoping I can get it to sound better. That’s my hang up with it but it was fun and Karen is an awesome person to experiment on things like that with because she can just go on for like four hours without me being there.
[John] She also seems like an incredibly supportive person too, and that makes a really big difference.
[Patrick] Oh yeah. She’s very much like a coach. She is very busy too. There is sometimes when - well with me too - there are some parts of the year where I’m just non-existent because there’s so many things going on at school and concert season as a music teacher. But when she’s available, oh my gosh she helps so much – she’s been there for me in many ways. Not even just with the Ouija board. She is good for inspiration and very approachable. I think that’s probably the case with anybody who has tried to reach out to Karen. She’s really a cool lady.
[John’s note: At the time of publishing this article, Patrick has released Episode #50 – please go and check it out! Um… maybe after you’re done reading this article though.]
[John’s note: As we moved forward with our interview, Lana and I really pushed to try to get some more podcast news out of Patrick. We were clearly making Patrick think hard about his future…]
[Lana] Is there any other podcast-related news you’d like to share?
[Patrick] [John’s note: Patrick had to pause and think for a while before answering this one.] I’m trying a new windscreen on my microphone to keep me from popping my p’s.
[Lana] Sounds like it is working.
[Patrick] I’m actually doubling up. I’ve had a pop filter from the very beginning but apparently my p’s are so incredibly massive. Usually you only use a windscreen when you are outside in the elements and I was like ‘maybe I need to combine a windscreen with the pop filter’ and I think it has helped a little bit.
That’s probably not the exciting news you wanted.
[John] We’ll make it flashy for you. Maybe you could throw in a little song there. Maybe you could sing it for us.
[Patrick] WHAAAAT?!?
[Lana] A very small audio clip.
[John’s note: This suggestion clearly did not jive with Patrick, though I maybe haven’t stopped thinking about it and I maybe am wondering if I can eventually get Patrick to agree to a wee ditty.]
[Patrick] No you will not be getting me singing.
It is probably embarrassing how much I don’t have a plan right now. I was really worried right before Hallowe’en because last year I remember I had a lot more time to plan ahead and there were some weeks when I did have two episodes ready to go. This has been a busier year and I haven’t been able to put as much focus as I did before. I was kinda bummed for a while because I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do for the Hallowe’en season, which is the biggest time paranormal nerds are out there looking for content. So I feel I kinda just squeaked by that Hallowe’en season. I tried to do as many episodes as I could. I went weekly for about three weeks I guess, four weeks maybe. Usually every other week is it during the normal part of the year – I’m doing good if I can do every other week. I think part of that is I’ve learned to produce better and that might not necessarily be a good thing. That has maybe taken away from the more natural ‘whatever comes out’ kind of thing. There is a fine line between over-produced and there is a lot of things I take out and tweak that I can make sound better. Maybe I need to scale down some of that so I’m not spending 15 hours on one episode. If I cut that down, maybe I can have an episode every week. It just depends on what people like. Do people listen because - it is kinda the trend with podcasts nowadays is to have them be more produced. This American Life and Serial, you know everything is so produced (even though they’ve got a team of 20 doing it). Did that answer any question there?
[John] It did.
[Patrick] I’m usually pretty okay with there not being a plan. I would like there to be a plan. I’m more likely to have a plan when summer hits and I’m on a break, you know, when I can sit down with an old fashioned pen and paper and brainstorm on some things. Kind of like [John] said when you come home from work and you think of writing and it’s just not there. Sometimes you just don’t have any energy left for it. Although I will say I’m a late-night person and you’ve seen that, when I’m online. When I come back from school, that’s when I start falling asleep - before dinner. If I sit down before dinner I’m [snoring] in the chair but once eight o’clock hits, BOOM! I [eventually] have to remind myself that it’s probably time to go and get about four hours of sleep before I have to get up and do this whole thing all over again. That’s when the creative juices happen, so sometimes I get to planning then.
[Lana] So we did the interview too early today!
[Patrick] Well you probably noticed I tried to push it off a little longer than probably you would have liked to do.
[John] Oh it’s cool. I’m just going to make Lana stay up all night to start working on [transcribing] while I go to sleep.
[Patrick] It doesn’t matter how early I have to get up, I’m always gonna be a late-nighter. Summer is bad - it will sometimes stretch to four in the morning.
[Lana] Yeah, me too. We’ve probably talked around that time.
[Patrick] This morning, I woke up at 9:30. I could have easily woken up at 10:00 and most people can’t do that because they’re used to waking up at 6:30 so they naturally wake up at 6:30. Uh-uh. When school gets out, it takes me only a day to get into summer mode.
I know people say that you can’t stock up on sleep but, man, weekends - don’t mess around with my sleep. I hate the process of winding down and going to sleep on the weekends but once I’m asleep it’s nice. If I don’t have to be up, I am sleeping in. When you don’t have kids, you can be selfish. It’s a lot easier to do it that way.
[John] Although I’m sure Meril keeps you busy in the morning.
[Patrick] He does but my partner is usually the early morning person and I am not; there are times when we go to bed three or four hours apart so actually that allows for it. He can be up first thing in the morning, because I’ll take [Meril] out at 2:00 in the morning and he enjoys his late night walks. He’s kind of a night dog too. He generally likes when things are quiet. That’s when he eats. When things are really quiet and you’re trying to sleep you’ll hear [chomping sounds] at two in the morning. That’s when I guess he’s more comfortable, when things are quiet. From the time he was a puppy. He was better walking down the street – [where we lived] there were a lot town homes and so there were a lot people walking down the street, a lot of cars and everything – and I could tell that when it was dark and later at night he could relax more. He’s just like ‘This whole street is mine!’ Maybe I’ve rubbed off on him a little bit with some of my anxieties.
[John] We’re going to get you to really dig deep now.
[Patrick] Okay. Oh God I thought that was deep.
[John] What one thing would you like our readers to know about Patrick Keller?
[Patrick] I think it would probably be kind of along the lines of what I’ve already said - you’ve got to be two or three different kinds of nerd, like what I would tell my kids. Find something that even if everyone around you thinks it’s incredibly dorky or doesn’t matter or is silly, find some passions and try them out for a while, even if they don’t last very long - try researching it a little bit, pick up a book. If I would have known when I was in high school how much I would love reading now, you know I embarrassingly never read the books I was supposed to, growing up. Pick up a book and force yourself to try it. And I want people to know, and I hope people get this; I don’t want them to think that I am trying to be some expert on something. Does that make sense?
[Lana] Totally.
[Patrick] I’m going to bounce from one topic to another. I’m gonna bounce from E.V.P. to Ouija board to something else and I’m not trying to be an expert and I don’t think anybody probably is an expert. Just go out and try things. Don’t be afraid. That would be another good one. Don’t be afraid.
Of course people have their experiences and I can only talk about my experiences but I think a lot of people read into other people’s experiences and develop this fear of the paranormal. At least from my experiences I can tell you that I don’t think there is anything - yes be cautious, yes be wise - but you have to be cautious and wise when you go get your mail out of the mailbox on the street too. You have to be cautious and wise with everything. If it is something that you are curious about, I really do think that sometimes there are people or spirits on the other side that are reaching out and it’s not always a demon and it’s not always something that accompanies a sound effect from TV. It might just be someone reaching out just letting you know that they’re there. So don’t fear so much, don’t let other people’s fears influence you. That was kind of a mixed bag of responses right there.
[John] Did you even know you had so much to say about it?
[Patrick] On a roll!
[John] Okay so we are going to keep it going. We’ve got three more questions for you.
What inspires you?
[Patrick] What inspires me? [Thinking…]
So I have always been a music nerd; from the very beginning I was a music nerd. I have even blogged about this I think a few years ago. There would be times growing up when I would be in the corner of my room just kinda huddled listening to my walkman. Listening to either film score music (John Williams - I was really into Jurassic Park, E.T., just the film scores of it) even when it had words that went along with it - I’m not a lyrics person, I’m not a words person; sometimes just the right music, the right notes that happen in a pattern, the right harmonies that happen at one time – I really do think can really set off a meditative state or just send me to this other world. My parents, a few times, would catch me crying listening to music and think ‘Oh my God, is he okay? Do we need to get him some help?’ No, it was just that I was being moved by whatever music that I was listening to. It could have been a song about pizza but I was moved because the right notes and harmonies happened at the right time and something clicked in my head.
Every now and then I go back to that and if I have my earbuds in and I listen to the right song, even if it’s – like, oh my God there’s this Sheena Easton song I was listening to the other day and I don’t even know – don’t ask me how; you know sometimes you get in these YouTube rabbit holes where you just go from one to the next and you’re like ‘how in the world did I get here?’ I downloaded one of Sheena Easton’s best-of albums and it had been such a long time since I had heard some of her songs and I’m just jammin’ out to this Sheena Easton song. That’s shameful, right? That’s shameful and I listened to it like 20 times. I listened to it for three days straight and I got so much out of that and now, not so much. It did what it needed to do; it put me in a happy place. It probably gave me some good vibes.
Every now and then something will, whether it be some current song that’s out or - film scores tend to do it for me. Broadway music tends to do it for me. Completely not paranormal but I can’t deny that I was originally a music nerd. That’s probably where I get, even if I don’t realize it, that whole meditative state. Now I think that probably, even if it is unconscious stuff going on, hopefully I get some inspiration from that. That’s my deep answer.
[Lana] So in short, Sheena Easton.
[Patrick] Sheena Easton, Debbi Gibson, ABBA…
[Lana] A little Tiffany?
[Patrick] Michael Jackson. I have been a fan of a lot of shameful artists like that.
[John] Okay, I’m going to get you to dig even more.
[Patrick] Oh gosh, I’m going to need some therapy after this one. Maybe this is my therapy.
[John] What is your intention in this life?
[Patrick] [Thought-filled sigh] Oh my God, this is like Oprah.
[Lana] These are [John’s] questions by the way.
[Patrick] My intention in this life… [Thinking]…
I don’t necessarily think I’ve succeeded yet but I think about this with my kids. I teach at such a large school and have had a gajillion students especially when I first started. At the end of a three-year rotation I would have had every single student in the building; and I still have a lot of kids now but I don’t necessarily see as many now but it is thousands and thousands of kids whose faces I almost always remember (I don’t always remember their names). I guess sometimes, because everybody will have a stressful day and with any job you have frustrating days or you wonder if what you are doing is working; I guess I want people to feel valued.
I want to know that I made a difference in a student’s life even if it’s just that they saw that I was a giant big nerd and so it was okay for them to be a giant big nerd. I guess probably the same thing with the podcast and anything I’m lending my voice to. I don’t want to be doing it for no reason. I hope that there’s, in some tiny way, something that I’ve done for each kid that has gone through my classroom. Sometimes I get little hints and little pieces of evidence when kids come back and talk to me. Little things they remembered or little stories or something that we did that I don’t even remember and I’m like ‘okay cool, I’m creating memories’. Yeah. If I could just know that – I guess I just want to make a difference and contribute. Did that sound good? I’m channelling my inner Oprah.
[Lana] Yeah, very good. The last one is going to be a lot lighter. This might even sound a little familiar to you.
[Patrick] Oh okay.
[Lana] Other than a paranerd, other than a music nerd, what kind of nerd are you?
[Patrick] I am a puppy dog nerd. I love puppy dogs. My dog actually just came over and gave me a lick on the foot right now. I don’t know if he’s dropping hints to me, or what.
Oh gosh, I’m a book nerd. I’m a photography nerd. I haven’t done a lot of cemetery photography lately but there for a while I was really heavy into the cemetery photography and I feel like I learned a lot with that. I’d like to have time to do more of that. I wanted to do some this fall with all the pretty colours and everything but things were so busy it didn’t really happen. God, there’s all kinds of things I’m nerdy about why can’t I think about it? I really do subject people to pain when I ask them this question, don’t I? Oh my God, I don’t know what else to say.
I have a few random collections. I have my old yearbook collection. I thought I would take that further than it ended up going but I couldn’t find any more yearbooks. I was collecting yearbooks from my high school from my hometown from as old as I could get. I have this one from 1910 and then several from the 1920’s. I was hoping to keep going with that but I haven’t done a search for a while. That was kinda nerdy.
I get really into decorating for Christmas and I’m thinking about that in my head now. Being in a new house, a bigger house, and we have two giant bay windows. I’m like ‘Ugh, God that’s all I need are giant bay windows. Now I’ll have to put two giant trees up in the bay windows.’ I guess some people would say I’m pretty nerdy with that. I go in and out in phases with that.
I’m a candle nerd. I like to light candles a lot especially in the fall and the winter. I guess that’s it. I guess there is a limit to how nerdy one can get. Get back to me in two years when I shift into something new.
END PART 3 – OUR FINAL INSTALLMENT
[John] Well dear readers and friends, with that we had exhausted Patrick’s brain and needed to give both Patrick and Meril a break to refocus for our turn at answering questions. (Meril really is an incredibly cute and sweet puppy dog!)
Following our interview of Patrick, he turned the mic on us and recorded an interview with us for his Big Séance Podcast (holy nerve-wracking, Batman!). Many of you have likely heard that episode already but if you’d like to listen again or listen for the first time, please click here.
We wish to sincerely thank Patrick Keller for his time, friendship and incredible support of Lana and I and of Carbon Lilies. We truly are appreciative for our relationship with you, Patrick. You have given us so much that words cannot express the depth of our gratitude.
In honour of Patrick and the Big Séance Podcast, if you read through Part 3 then please tweet us @carbonlilies and Patrick @BigSeance with the two hashtags #paranerdalexperience and #puppydognerd.
Have a wonderful life experience lovelies and remember what Patrick said… don’t let other people’s fears influence you!
