Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with David Chapman

We’re looking forward to introducing you to David Chapman. Check out our conversation below.

Good morning David, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
The world has become increasingly toxic in the last few years. So, I’m very proud of my new monthly show, Happiness Patrol, in which my friends and I talk about something that makes us HAPPY. In season one, we are talking about Star Wars movies. (YouTube.com/@HappinessPatrolShow). In future seasons we’ll be broadening our topics. The same mentality spun off into the upcoming bi-weekly show, debuting Oct 13, Horses on Film, talking about the IndieWire Top 100 westerns. (YouTube.com/@HorsesOnFilm).

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is David Chapman. I am an award-winning photographer, writer, and entertainer.

My primary home on the internet is TheRatHole.ca and YouTube.com/@TheRatHoleDOTca, where I review and stream tabletop gaming content. I’m also the host of the Orlando-based show The Legend of the Traveling TARDIS (YouTube.com/@THeLegendoftheTravelingTARDIS), as well as two new shows Happiness Patrol (YouTube.com/@HappinessPatrolShow) and Horses on Film (YouTube.com/@HorsesOnFilm). My photography can also be found at Facebook.com/PapaRazzo.Library.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Growing up I was an actor, singer, and dancer. Growing up as a creative in a small town made me an outcast. I was different in a place where different was frowned upon.

As I got older, I had trouble in school, barely passing classes like English. I had a teacher once tell me I’d never graduate. But I did. I was many years before I’d find editors who liked my writing and before I found a place in front of a camera as well as behind it.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
As I got older I found myself in post secondary doing Theatre Technology and then Arts & Cultural Management. I got married. I worked jobs in and out of my chosen field. I moved closer to my inlaws at the request of my wife but at the expence of any sort of career in the arts.

The closest to art I had was an eventual job working in and later managing a retail photography studio. But that job was as much corporate as it was artistic, and eventually I had a full breakdown. I struggled to find myself amidst divorce and a new diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder.

It took years to stabilize my life, and I very nearly didn’t make it through the Darkness. While I still struggle, I am trying to live more authentically myself.

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
I live a large part of my life in the public view. I don’t think anyone can do that without putting the real you front and centre. Me on camera is me. Some days it’s not the me of the moment, it’s the me I have to put on. But I’d like to think that the public version of me is more real than the me I live as when I’m alone. The issues people face alone aren’t who they are. It doesn’t define them. It informs them, it challenges them, but it is not who they are.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I don’t know that I would “stop” doing anything. Rather, I would hope to do more. Do more to shine light on others. Take more photos of people. Write about more things. Talk about happiness more. Turn up my life to 11.

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