Even A Doctor Can Fall Ill

Tis true!

In fact, that’s pretty much the whole reason for this post: to give you an update as to where the hell it is I’ve been these last few weeks. Anyway, I’ll try to keep the boring shit to a minimum and just deliver on the points that matter as far you and I are concerned. Seeing as how this is the day after my birthday, and I’m feeling all ‘rebirthy,’ let’s magic-erase those crummy clouds this morning with a tale.

Long story short, I came home, had a great couple of weeks of gushing creative productivity and then about two-three weeks ago (just a little bit after I spent the all-weekender launching our sorry excuse for the Underground) I broke down. And I mean like…hardcore. It happens to a lot of us. Probably more than you know. Anxiety/Depression is a nasty little devil and in its peak, there’s just no way to get shit done. But like millions and millions of Americans who suffer like myself each day, I’m rising above. Or at least certainly trying to. I got my work schedule down to something more manageable, starting to take the reality of my soon-to-be baby girl more seriously, and just trying to maintain a healthier state of mind. I have to! It’s crucial that a serious creative claw out above the unwanted haze that was simply brought on by genes, circumstances, or what have you. As I was telling my boy, Greeny, from around town, “Shit happens, man. Let’s dig out.”

So that’s where I’m at now, pretty much: digging out. A lot of things are going on right now on all types of fronts that it’s kind of hard to keep up with it all. First off, I’ll let you all know straight up with what’s going on with TWP. Me falling ill just happened to coincide with the time in which the entire team fell apart. And when I say fell apart, I don’t mean that we couldn’t make moves. We could have. The problem is for most of the current team members, all excellent people in my book, is that they have too much shit going on in their lives that, sadly, takes precedence over the project. You can’t fight that, man. In a completely self-funded project, you just can’t unless you’re able to afford to live at home (with a working connection, mind you) all day and just work. So my first goal as far as that goes is rebuilding a team. A real team that is dedicated to the unique philosophy and ideology that drives The Warlords Projects. Some people like @JMNelis, a guy who has been a rock for me during the launch and prior, I know will stick around as I get my shit together, but the others I don’t know about. They may come back, they may not, they may just float around as they can – it’s fine with me, but I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m looking to rebuild that serious core of veteran and rising creatives in a multitude of fields that truly believe in the essence of the project. We’ll see how that goes. From there it would simply be about reorganizing and getting the ball rolling again.I think there’s still a lot of interest in what we’re doing and our ideology of doing so. But we just don’t have the outreach, nor the manpower to get something of that magnitude working the way it should be, flawlessly, 24/7. I believe we’ll get there, but it will take time.

And as that all rolls around in my noggin like a rubber band ball crossed with nails, I can’t help but think of all these other ideas, projects, and movements I’d love to start brewing, on top of the mountain of work I’ve been putting off since I got home. Remember that ‘internship’ I mentioned a while back? Yeah, I’ve hit zero deadlines and duder is definitely breathing down my neck. I’ll most certainly deliver, but too be honest I forgot about that commitment amidst all the other things on my mind. But it’s all good. I’m setting him up with a basic WordPress setup and he’ll be able to maintain the site on his own as he pleases. Just got to get his outreach started and I’m pretty much done on that one. Now that the haze has begun to lift, getting these simple things done should be more efficiently accomplished.

Intriguing too, on top of all that I got an email recently from an old colleague about an opportunity to get involved with some kind of project I had worked on for a bit a while back. The conversation hasn’t evolved into much, so who knows where it’ll go. I’ll keep you abreast if it proves to be interesting. But on the whole, from here on out is all about taking it one step at a time and figuring out how I can make my next move and prove that I can offer the creative world something that no other being can. Just gotta take one day at a time, and that’s what I keeping telling myself.

Okay so last thing for this post before I wrap up, and if the content doesn’t fancy you well, then my apologies. Thanks for hanging out until here 🙂 Anyway, my brother @JakeFrequency turned me on to this kid from Pitt who has just got the nastiest flows. I know we haven’t gotten into this much yet on this blog, but I’m a huge fan of hip-hop and debating the classic “where is the line between hip-hop and rap?” argument. Since I’m feeling better maybe I’ll post some of my August Wilson musings. Ah, ramblings, so what this kid turned me on to is Mac Miller from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m not a biographer so Google him yourself, but, I have got to tell ya – this kid gets me fired up and listening to his jams has really helped me to just ‘feel better’ lately. Why? Because for the most part, and from what I’ve been listening to, the kid just talks real shit. Funny, ridiculous, and sometimes even boastful shit, but for all intents and purposes it’s totally relateable to our generation. I mean here I am stuck at home with my in-laws, a normal dude that no one knows full-scale, and all I’m trying to do is live life, have fun, and do something big; be someone and achieve greatness in my own respective frequency of life. I dig this vibe and it gets me pumped up about doing work again. Just thought I’d share.

Well, seeing as how I’m still feeling in the birthday mode, I’m going to head back to my beautiful deck with my new tablet and just listen to music and enjoy the day. I hope you enjoy the day today, too. I hope that if you’re someone like me, an aspiring creative, or just a grinder, that you’re dealing with trials and tribulations well. Much love for checking me out today and dealing with my rambles. I’m always down to chat and connect with people if you want to block out the time. Just hit me up with a PM or a comment.

As always, thanks so much for reading,

– DrShure

Origins Of A Name

So I thought this would be fun to share…

The people who have known me since ‘Patches’ would say that I’ve undergone quite the extended identity crisis over the last ten years. But I feel like a majority of long-time gamers do or do so to a certain extent – change their name that is. Not so much the crisis part.

Now, I’m sure there are some out there that have stuck it out with the same alias year after year. But, I find it to be common to see those aliases modified or changed all together as time passes.

As we grow as gamers and individuals we become influenced by a myriad of different experiences, and as people we evolve as our aliases do. Some use numbers, symbols, and all types of crazy ways to trick their name out; while I’ve always been a fan of the ‘short & sweet’ for voice chat purposes. So here is my story on how I eventually became known as DrShure. Enjoy!

I didn’t start seriously getting into multiplayer games until I was in middle school. Our mall in Exton housed a Wizards of The Coast and in the back there was a small (talking like, maybe seven-station) LAN hub to rent game hours at. My old friend ,Chris, and my younger brother, Ian, would go to the mall every day we could after school and just switch back and forth between rounds of Unreal Tournament and the original Counter-Strike. I had played online before, but I never really started having fun with it until we had a place to play with other people. I was hooked on gaming from there on out.

After our hours were up and our stomachs demanded attention, the only place to go to fill that post-gaming hunger was Cinnabon. Oh man! I would kill for a legit Cinnabon bun right now. Anyway, my order was always an original bun, extra icing, and a milk to wash all that glory down. The time before, I had asked for this usual order and was given a chocolate milk – which when needing a good ‘wash down’ beverage, is not the prime choice. So, to avoid this mistake again I made it clear that what I wanted was a white milk. I’m not sure why I couldn’t have just said regular, but of course Chris had to jump all over me for saying it, and embarrass me in front of the poor lady.

He said, “White milk?!? What’s the matter with you? You some kind of milk racist?” I sighed as even the counter lady laughed at me and handed me the bottle. There was no way I was letting them yank my chain over this each time we came back so, I decided to embrace it. We went back to some more rounds of cs_office at Wizards and the White Milk Warrior was born! So absurd…

A few months later and the store at the mall was shut down, forcing us to actually upgrade our PCs to play the games we wanted to, online. During this terrible wait, I did something different…I read! Imagine that. Specifically, I read Richard Marcinko’s Rogue Warrior. Still to this day, it’s one of my favorite books. One of Dick’s early team mates in the SEALs was a man they referred to as Patches. Not sure why, but I really liked this name. It was short, it was sweet, and it seemed pretty bad ass at the time. As me and Chris joined the BMC, a CS gaming club in the DJO, Patches was my original call sign and an alias that I’d adorn proudly for the next few years.

Okay so I just checked my profile over at the Org. I joined the Corps in early 2002, still as Patches. Going on almost a solid ten years ago, it get’s tough sometimes to remember. Crazy. Anyway, I stuck with that one until about late 2005 or 2006. Truth is, I wasn’t really gaming that much online anymore. I didn’t have time! See, I was too busy trying to make state qualifying times in the 400 Free Relay, oh…and…spraying paint on walls. Talk about a meta identity crisis. First it was Beast, Henny(dumb choice, ha), and then finally it was Cure. I really liked the ring of that and writing it on walls was pretty easy. Seriously, I wasn’t a little Main Line Dondi, but I did, and still do, appreciate the philosophy that fuels Street Art. So for me, painting my name was like healing a disease, or curing a mass, socio-epidemic on a killing spree, if you will. Do you know the Main Line?

Regardless, my revolutionary flame was about to be pissed on. After a strong showing of poor decision-making skills, I was pinched. I hate to be cliche but, it really did feel like a pinch – a removal of identity. It hurt. I was forced to hand over all my books, all my cans, and the right to write – so to speak. Cure was dead. RIP, brotherman…

Instead of sulking over the loss, I embraced it. Whole-heartedly too, in fact! I knew that everything coming at that moment was uncertain; graduation, sand-time in Georgia, and starting school at IUP – there was so much to wrap my head around. Heading downrange, two days after my last day of high school, with pen and pad in my duffel, the one thing I was certain about was me. I knew what I was then, what I wanted to achieve, and the man I wanted to become; I was Shure.

Now, this guy, this new guy that was born from the fumy paint drips of the Main Line and the harsh rays of the Georgia Sun, who is in no way related to the microphone company, was all about gaming. With a total of four hours of undergraduate classes per day, total freedom, and a new PC, who wouldn’t be?! I went back to the Org, primarily, under this new name to play a number of different games from Maple Story, to Jedi Academy, to Combat Arms, to Call of Duty. During my collegiate career I was also starting to branch out into new communities and endeavors. I even ran a few mid-sized gaming communities in my day. The only notable one was FAM, in my opinion, but truly, another story for another day.

So, fast forward towards the end of college; we’re in late 2010, and I just got back from an amazing trip to Idlewild, Michigan. Quite frankly, it may very well be the most amazing place on Earth! Okay, maybe just for me. Moving on though, it was during this week-trip that I was really able to focus and actually start working on the Warlords Universe. And I mean really, really work at it too. The trip was so that we could help E’s grandparents move back into their cottage and every moment not spent opening boxes was used to work on the foundation. But we weren’t all alone in the quest to unpack their stuff. We had Charles! This guy? Totally, the man. Charles hangs around the neighborhood doing handy work for people and he helped us with latter parts of the move. Any time that I’d be out on the porch, scribing in my comp book, he’d come out and ask me, “Professor! What are we working on today?” I asked him why he called me a professor, and he said that’s what I looked like with my head buried in my book. “Aren’t most professors doctors? I think I’d rather be called a doctor,” I said. He laughed, went inside, but, for me it stuck.

And as I pondered it some more on my 11 hour drive back home, and considered the notion of what is now the project, the idea of adjusting my online alias sat well. For me, the funny story to share wasn’t the highlight, but more so the idea, or notion of approaching a new creative stage in my life with a more professional tone. The Dr prefix reminds me to keep it that way, in all that I do.

So what experiences have shaped your alias? Or even your outlook on gaming? And what kind of styles do you lean towards? Is it all about going wild,wacky, and unique? Or is short, sweet, and style that define a good alias?

Thanks for reading,

-The only, DrShure