Meet the Chefs: Keith Cagney

Say hello to another Salad sprout! Keith Cagney joined us as a brand copywriter at the start of the new year. We got the chance to chat about the things that stick with you from a life behind bars.

You used to work in the liquor industry. Still sleeping that one off?

I worked for different brands in marketing roles — a few major ones, and a lot of smaller, “boutique” labels. Most times I was under contract, meaning months of pretty constant work, followed by a lot of snoozing and scrambling for the next thing. I got kind of addicted to the mayhem.

There’s a lot of that “hired gun” mentality, at least in New York. Everybody gets into it somewhat by accident. Most people sling drinks for a few years and then go corporate. I kind of did it backwards. I cut my teeth working for whiskey brands, and then ended up spending longer and longer stretches behind the bar when I got worn out on it.

What did you like about working as a bartender?

The asymptotic approach to tax fraud? I don’t know, really. I think I just loved talking to people. It was great having free time to work on creative projects, but that can be digging yourself a hole. You really need to have a purpose to your days.

I read too many Animorphs as a kid, so I always wanted to be a writer. I studied English and French in college, and only realized what a mistake it was later on. Studying lit just softens your head. You forget how to really read.

Bartending was a nice thing to have between bigger projects, but you do get a lot of people asking you what your “real job” is. It gets harder to field that one when you hear it every day. You start to think, “Man, I don’t come down to your job…” Imagine if there was someone at work who just clucked their teeth at your cubicle, like, “Yeah, but what’s your passion?”

Not really a fair question. Everyone has those twists and turns.

Oh, gosh. I never really knew where I was going next. I guess it’s the old “everything happens for a reason” idea. It looks planned in hindsight. Some of the best things couldn’t have happened any other way, right?

It reminds me of something that happened while working at an Irish pub for a stretch after college. One of my high school English teachers comes in for a drink— one of those legendary teachers you reminisce about with your buddies. When he sees me he goes, “Get out of here.” Looks me dead in the eye and says, “I used to be a poet who sometimes taught. Now I’m a teacher who occasionally writes a poem.”

It doesn’t rock me the way it did, but it still rattles around my head. I guess it took me a while to really understand what he meant. My dad once called me “a quick study, but a slow learner.” He’s like a gachapon of Zen Reaganisms.

Did it give you any perspective on things?

Sure lit a fire under my ass. But the perspective came later. I found a gig selling lingerie bows for a company based in France. For a few months, I found myself stuck in this dowdy little office straight out of The Science of Sleep. It didn’t take long to realize I’m just not built for sales.

That’s how I got into writing brand copy — that always seemed more like having a conversation. It’s funny, though. I don’t really buy myself anything, so I’m not sure how much it works on me. Maybe I’m just cheap.

How’d you find yourself working at Rockstar Games?

Pure luck, I suppose. Before I got hired at Rockstar, I had just come back from a year outside the country, and I needed a job. I had written a good deal of marketing copy for liquor brands — social media and events stuff, sales sheets, the little, paper table toppers — but I never bothered to put together much of a portfolio because so much of that world happens by word of mouth.

When I saw that Rockstar was looking for a community manager, the kid in me was stoked. Who doesn’t remember that negotiation with your mom to get GTA III? So I dashed off this really kind of flippant email and figured that was that. Probably four months or so after I’d applied, I got a call from this terrific, very sweet dude in H.R., like, “What’s up? It’s Rockstar Games.” It was one of those moments where you hang up and high five a stranger.

Little kid Keith must have been thrilled. What was it like to work there?

It was amazing! What an electric time to be there, too. Red Dead 2 was coming, everything was super “hush hush.” Even I didn’t know a lot before it came out. I mean, I saw plenty I probably shouldn’t have. But there’s a diehard culture of trust there. You probably get more leaks at the NSA. Nobody wants to be shady and go spilling secrets, because you all just want to blow minds.

Most of what I did involved the new stuff coming out every week in GTA Online. I wrote a ton of web copy — a lot which gets put through the thresher, you know? But it was always rewarding to see a car tagline or a deathmatch description you helped write show up on a load-in screen.

Did you find a lot of time to play Red Dead Redemption?

Sadly, no — far too much to do at the time! My dirty secret is that I’ve never actually finished it. After the game launched, I watched every minute and every possible scene of the story on live streams. On my save, I choose to let Arthur bask in the endless summer of Act Three, where Dutch has a plan and everybody at camp just wants you to pick up more grits while you’re in town.

I did used to love jumping into GTA Online to build stunt courses on my lunch break. Nice way to “sharpen the ax,” to crib another phrase from the old man.

Playing anything fun right now?

My girlfriend and I are about halfway through The Witcher. We played the rest of the series together backwards, starting with Wild Hunt — which I totally ruined for her. She loves to spend long hours looting and disappearing into a world. Meanwhile, I’ve got Geralt getting hammered, swimming hundreds of meters instead of fast traveling, and fist fighting 90% of the enemies. Guess that’s the GTA in my blood. But we had lots of laughs doing it.

Now that I’m saying it, I guess we’re huge nerds. We’ve even gone as Geralt and Ciri for Halloween. Never thought I’d be checking a plastic sword in at the hotel lobby at thirty. Pretty sure I even tipped the guy at coat check for it.

Thanks for sharing with us, Chef. A weird fact for people at home?

When I was a kid, I had a pet frog named Hungry. You can probably guess why I called him that. He was fascinating to me. I loved that guy to death — maybe literally. I couldn’t get enough of watching him eat bugs, so I used to just dump crickets in there.

One day I found him dead beneath his little basking log. For the longest time, I carried this weird guilt that I’d over-fed him, and he’d gotten too fat to wriggle his way out. It’s one of those things you only say aloud twenty years later and go, “Wow, that’s not what happened at all.”

It’s the Chefs who make the Salad. If you’ve enjoyed meeting the new team members, look out for more good people to grow the Salad Kitchen in the weeks and months ahead. Thanks for reading!