Cole Walliser, BA’05

The Last Word

Cole Walliser, BA’05

From the Pit Pub to the red carpet.

Photo by David Suh

What was your nickname at school?
People called me Coleone (a play on Don Corleone of The Godfather) and it stuck. At UBC, my b-boy dance name and my DJ name were both Coleone.

What was the last thing you read?
A Wikipedia article on the millennial pause. (I got accused of doing a millennial pause, and I had to know what it was.)

What is the most important lesson you ever learned?
To work hard and be nice.

What is your idea of the perfect day?
Start with coffee, go for a good little surf, have good conversations with friends and a day filled with laughter.

What is your most prized possession?
A gold bracelet I got when I was 17. It’s broken, and I keep it in a little jewellery box.

What item have you owned for the longest time?
Does my birth certificate count? 

Whom do you most admire (living or dead) and why?
Taika Waititi, because he’s an amazing writer, director, and performer. He is my inspo.

What would you like your epitaph to say?
“He tried,” because I did.

If you could invent something, what would it be?
A hamper that also washes your clothes: Take off your shirt, throw it in the hamper, and then it comes out at the bottom all clean. That would solve my life’s greatest pains.

In which era would you most like to have lived, and why? 
I think that this is a really good era – like the dawn of the digital age. It’s as if simulation theory is a real thing, we are living in a futuristic computer world, and I’ve come back to see where it all started.

What is your latest purchase?
A hand-held microphone for man-on-the-street interviews that I probably will never do.

What is your pet peeve?
People who do not reply-all.

What is the secret to a good life?
I think you need to be both happy and sad. A good life is one that is full of both.

Do you have a personal motto?
“We out here,” because we are.

What are your UBC Highlights?
Sleeping in the Aquatic Centre and DJing on Wednesday nights at the Pit. If I could go back to any era, actually, it would be those years DJing at the Pit Pub. My friend I DJed with lives out here in California, and whenever we go out and hear a song from that era, we yell out to each other: “WHAT’S GOOD? PIT PUB!”