The Artsaypunk: Explained...

I've been coming across a few questions lately as to the origins of the "Artsaypunk." And by that, I guess I mean, that every once and a while, someone says, "What the hell is an Artsaypunk anyway?"

Well, I've never been the kind of guy that held down a nickname. They just never seem to stick. People have tried to make it work, but for some reason, I am just simply "Dave." I am referred to in a number of different ways, by a number of different people, but I wouldn't class them as actual nicknames. For example, I would currently list the following lexicon of Dave references: David, Dave, Daud, Daud Yusef Garriwalla, Sheikh Bin Daud, Ford, Fordy, Big-Dave-Ford, the Davistani, Desi-David.

For a long time, my mother was adamant that I remain a pure "David." She would insist that she had named me David, not Dave, and she did it for a reason. In fact, she's given up on it in recent years, but for a long time, if you called my house and asked for "Dave" my mother would say, "No, no Dave's here, but you can speak to David if you like."

In residence, during my undergrad, our house gives a nickname to every single new resident. By the time I got mine, they were fresh out of ideas and I was left with "Schmooze's Bitch." The idea was that I had to carry a bar of soap with me during frosh week, and anytime that Schmooze, an upperclassman, yelled, "Drop the soap, Bitch!" I was to do so, ideally with a certain amount of ass-waggling. Entertaining, certainly, in the minds of some, but not a nickname that would ever stick.

My university campus was one of those ones where the Engineers face off against the Artsies in a friendly (or not so) rivalry. One of the Engineers in my residence, a guy named Vern from a town even smaller than mine, would see a typical Arts student and say, in his hick-drawl, "Would ya look at that Arrt-Saay Punk!" Often, all it would take to incur such wrath was wearing a nice sweater, but what can you do, Vern was set in his ways. In the years following Vern's departure, my Engineer buddies decided that I was one Art's Student who was cool, so my new house name became "The Artsaypunk."

Over the years, I started using the term because it was convenient on the Internet. I could be DaveFord72 or I could be the one and only Artsaypunk. And I grew to like it. I am an Artsy type of guy, but I wouldn't consider myself a typical Artsy. So I guess "Artsaypunk" for me, has morphed into its own definition. It's just me. Not your typical artsy. A little left of centre. Plus, that random phoenetic "a" in the middle throws everyone off, and I like that. I like throwing people off (especially sleigh-rides). So when it came time to name a blog... Hey, what'r ya gonna do?

So there you have it. There's no real explanation, it just happened. I know it was bothering all of you immensely. I'm sure you were thinking to yourself, I wish I had a really lengthy, useless explanation as to where that name came from. Well, I aim to please.