Vol.
2, Issue 5
December 6, 1999
aul
Steed: the Man, the Myth, the Legend. We couldnt let issue
2.5 pass without taking another shot at our beloved modeler/animator/writer
from that little black cube down in Mesquite, home of id Software.
Stephanie Bobbi Bergman was lucky enough to interview
him last year (at QuakeCon ´98, no less), but this year
was my turn. I caught him on the phone (after 8 tries on 3 different
nights), and heres how it went:
So.
Howre you doing?
Good.
Tell
me, whats the strangest thing that happened to you in the
last week?
Strangest
thing thats happened to me in the last week? Um.
Put
you on the spot, eh?
The strangest
thing, uh, would be...Oh, okay, well its not really a strange
thing, its something I just had the urge to do. I was driving
to work the other day, I missed my exit, so, I kept going south.
I decided that I didnt feel like hitting the next exit,
or the next one. So I just kept driving for 300 miles, until I
hit the golf coast. I eventually drove to the end of Texas.
300
miles!
I drove
300 miles to the end of Texas, got out of my truck, walked around
on the beach, checked out the ocean. I kicked around some surf,
talked to some really cute girl in a really small bikini.
Is
this burnout at work?
No, no,
no. Its one of those minute crisis situations that I solved.
You know when you get in that kind of mode, well I dont
really feel like doing something, like playing hooky, basically.
So I drove to the coast, had a bite to eat, turned around and
came to work.
300
miles that must have been
I put
650 miles on my truck in a matter of 10 or 11 hours.
Okay,
yeah, thats pretty strange.
I guess
you could qualify that as strange.
Yeah,
I would. From past conversations with you, I know that you had
somewhat of a troubled youth in your family, in that you jumped
around about a half dozen states, and in and out of about 20 high
schools.
I went
to like, 22 public schools before I graduated high school.
How
do you think that has affected the way you are today with people?
Its
easier for me to meet people.
So
you think its made you more open to
Its
made me more extraverted I guess, because, I really dont
care. Im probably going to be gone tomorrow, so what does
it matter what you think? <chuckles>
Ok.
Heh. I read in a Kenneth Scott interview a little while back that
he was really into plastecine modeling when he was young. Hed
sit there and model, like comic book figures. What was your creative
outlet when you were a kid?
I was
big into comics. And I drew. I got into art and I wanted to be
a comic book artist for a long time.
You
wanted to go to Kuberts School, was that it?
I was
accepted to the Kubert School and I bailed on that. I wanted to
be a dietician for a while, but thats a whole other story.
So, I basically did the model thing, not plastecine models because
those were too expensive, but I built car models and I would build
them then blow them up with firecrackers so theyd look like
car wrecks.
That
sounds like fun. How old were you when you applied to Kubert?
That was
about 11 years ago.
So
how come you didnt go in if you were accepted?
Well I
was in Germany at the time
Oh
you were in the Air Force at the time?
Yeah I
was still in the Air Force right. I was going to go to Kubert
School, but then I wanted to be a dietician, because I didnt
want to do art for a living. Art was one of those things that,
no matter how crappy I felt about life, I figured if I did for
a living and I started hating it, then I wouldnt have that
outlet. You know what I mean? So I decided I didnt want
to be an artist for a living. I wanted to be something in the
medical field. I worked out, I was into bodybuilding, and I knew
a lot about nutrition because Im interested in it. So I
started studying to be a dietician and I volunteered at a hospital
back in Germany. And after about 3 months of volunteer work, I
decided I didnt want to be a dietician anymore, because,
it sucks. Theres a reason why 90 percent of all dieticians
are women. Its because you have to have that level of patience,
perseverance, understanding, compassion. And I would tell people,
Hey youre fat. Stop eating. And that wasnt
a very good approach as a dietician. It wasnt very, I guess,
nurturing.
I can
understand that. And Ive heard a few people say that you
dont want to make your lifes work something you really,
really enjoy because youll end up hating it.
Right.
Yeah. And the thing is, professionals; dieticians and psychologists,
they become that because its something theyre trying
to overcome with themselves, so they help understand it by studying
it. So anyway, I took some classes after that. Somehow I ended
up doing computer games for a living, I dont understand
how that quite worked out.