Welcome to College. (a Farewell)

So just the other day, something incredulous happened. I graduated from college. We were all surprised. I certainly was. But anyways, the finality of the entire experience was really kicking my psyche around for a while before I shook the funk off. Now, free, as a bird, I reflect. I look back on the last play I worked on, assistant directing Last Easter, and drawing lines between it and my first theatrical experience at USM, realize I should probably record this tale. My first Awakening moments as a undergraduate theatre major:

My first cast party.

Through happenstance circumstances the first few weeks of living in my lovely residence hall, I was stopped by a pretty girl asking me if I was auditioning for the second play of the year. My 18 year old Self was not me today, and easily dodged this opportunity with nervous fear and shyness. She persisted, but even then, the feminine wiles of pretty girls could not break me from my angsty fortress. What it took was an older, more masculine and authoritative and physically larger theatre major to pass by at the same time. She asked the same question to him, and he said ofcourse. She told him to bring me playfully and he was like "What? You're not? Are you a freshmen?" I said yes, and that was all he needed "Come on, Travis. We're going." And with that I found myself surrounded by eccentric loud artistic dramatic students in a too-well-lit dance room. The audition. Wesley Cianchette, I can never thank you enough for your peer pressure.

The play was a Greek classic. Lysistrata, by Aristophanes. It was a student director, hereby referred to as Allie. I did not read very well, and was outclassed by all the actors and actresses who had prepared so very well for this audition. This was one of the first few times I saw Dr. Malkav and the Reverend at work, as well as a young NFC. I felt defeated by the end of it, auditions will never be a strong point for me, but I recalled something Allie had said about wanting musicians as well and felt inclined to offer up my skills. So I approached her after it was over outside and told her I could play guitar and very limited hand drums and she seemed enthused and told me she'd be in touch.

It wasn't long before the cast list went up. A nice girl codenamed Junebug I had befriended a bit in a class almost knocked me over she was so excited. "We're cast together!! Aren't you excited??!!" she exclaimed. I replied with a very confused eyebrow furrow, unable to believe the truth of the situation. I was cast. In a mainstage show my freshmen year. On the mainstage. Freshmen. Baffled.

So no guitar playing for me, I was Male Slave. A bit role with two lines but some stage time and comedic moments. I won't go into the run of the show too much, that can be it's own thing someday in the future. Let's just stick with: I had to dance, pull the Female Slave offstage intimately, and the whole time wear a phallus made of coiled rope that hung eight inches down. All the other male characters had phalli of other materials that stood up straight and tall, the largest honored to NFC at a whopping 18 inches complete with light-up blue balls. (read a synopsis of Lysistrata here for a decent explanation why we were phallused.)

It was a fun show, to say the least. A wonderful footstep into USM's theater department.

Anyways, the party.

One of the cast members, a nontraditional student who lived off-campus (clutch), hosted the party. The directions were written on the chalkboard in the dressing room and everbody, cast, crew, and basically everyone in the department, was buzzing about the party. I was still a youngun' and shy was wasn't sure exactly what my plan of action was until the guitarist Allie ended up hiring came up to me, some music major, I'm calling him Thom for now, and asked me if I needed a lift.

"Sure, I need a ride."

"Do you need beer?"

"Are you 21?"

"Yes."

"Sure, I need beer."

A short car ride, some forced awkward smalltalk, a sixer of Guinness and a sixer of Magic Hat later, and we had arrived at the location of the party. But the party had beaten us over there. There were rooms filled with people, alcohol sitting out on nearly every counter surface, hors d'oeuvres, snacks and treats piled in penis shaped party bowls, a backroom for cannabis partakers, a huge cooler outside on the porch sprouting beer bottles of ice like flowers, and out back, a bonfire.

I first found NFC, my closest freshmen friend, and we remarked at how many people had showed and how cool it was to be at our first cast party and so on. Our boss in the Scene Shop, hereby referred to as Meat Loaf, walked up to us, drinking a beer. This was the first shocker. A faculty member. A beer. Off campus. Totally legal and legitimate. Wow. I'd heard he supplied the bonfire and asked what it was that was burning and he just said "The Laramie set" and burst out with a cackling laughter we couldn't help but joining. The Laramie Project was the first play of the season, about the murder of Matthew Shepard, a homosexual boy in Laramie, Wyoming. He had been abducted, beaten, humiliated and left for dead tied to a fence by two schoolmates of his. This fence was part of the set of the play, I'd helped build it in the shop, and was now burning brilliantly in the fire. I know. Yikes.

Allie's mother was the guest of honor, and by Allie's side the entire night. It's at this point I should mention Allie was approximately 22, a gorgeous brunette who made it very clear how sexual the play was and as a director kept a playful friendly relationship with the cast while also being in charge and maintaining order. So. We, the dudes of the cast, conspire to publicly embarrass her, and do our best to accrue as many folks as possible around the bonfire for a "toast." A good man who needs no codename named Anthony Texiera calls for all our attention, raises his drink and speaks beautiful praise to Allie and her directing and making this great time for us all, and then he declared in her honor the men of the party raise their glasses, and their asses. So we all drop trou'. And there's like a twenty dude Full Mooning of Allie. Mission successful, Allie's mother later remarked "why couldn't we see their fronts?"

So I've got some drinks in me now. No more quiet-hide-behing-emo-hair Travis, I'm moving and meeting and greeting and yucking it up. The Reverend, who I should mention played the crossdressed lead role of Lysistrata, finds me and asks me if I'd like some whiskey. Why ofcourse! He pours me some and I top it off with some Barq's Root Beer, which he dismays at. I ask him why he likes it raw, to which he replies "Because I like to know it's poison." Solid answer.

NFC and I surreptitiously slip into the back room where we here oh so much laughter and giggling. Boom. A haze everywhere, squinty eyes and sidesplitting chortling. Right off the bat, I'm standing next to a To Be Unnamed faculty member, who passes me the joint. I'm a young buck at this party, but with the 'juana, I'm no novice, so I toke, toke and pass it right along, feeling welcome and mature and accepted by all. I later brag about this exchange of contraband between off-duty professor and student for years onward.

In the kitchen, Rev has commandeered the music selection and throws on the Violent Femmes, to which we rock extensively to the delight of the more sober freshmen who think drunk men dancing like fools is entertaining for the first time. I sniff out some Grey Goose vodka, and recalling a classic strip from my favorite webcomic Achewood, I mix some with orange juice. The vanilla...it tastes just like an orange creamsicle icecream pop from the Shaner's truck. Delectable. So I'm getting a bit topsy turvy now.

Then another cast member, let's call him Cuervo for reasons to be explained in this same sentence, breaks out some tequila and announced body shots are to be done here and now in the kitchen. This is apparently his "Thing." He asks for volunteers...and no one says anything. The larger part of the kitchen crowd are freshmen much like myself and are frightened at this new concept and idea. I, having my Blood Courage Content level pushing right past 0.8, step up to the plate. And I declare I've never done a shot of tequila before. Cuervo's eyes light up like jack'o'lanterns. He scans the audience for the subject material of this little educational lesson...and finds her.

It's Allie. My director. And she boldly steps up to help show me how this is done. The kitchen is suddenly crowded to the maximum capacity of people ready to see this freshmen do a body shot off Allie. Allie's mother promptly steps out for a cigarette. I'm embarrassed, Allie's embarrassed, but we're both ready. Cuervo explains the premise here and the motions to go through. First, I lick her neck, then apply salt. She puts a slice of lime in her mouth. My goal here becomes clear: I must lick the salt, take the shot, and suck on the lime. Staggering.

So a little countdown is initiated by Cuervo, probably to pump me up for this deal. I lick, I shoot down the José, and go for the lime. And she puts up a fight, much to the delight of the audience. She eventually gives, and I've got the lime, so I remove it from my mouth, my eyes watering from the golden fire coursing down into my core, and before I can even make a sour face from the limejuice running down my chin, Allie grabs my jaw and starts making out with me.

The crowd goes wild. Welcome to college, Travis H. Curran. You're Superman.

A few more body shots are taken off some other ladies, one of the volunteers being Allie's ex-boyfriend. I'm totally oblivious to this until much later when he guest-teaches a stage combat lesson in my acting class and asks to demonstrate on me. Dicey business, but no real harm or foul done. I take two more body shots off some chicks but with no follow through like Allie's. No big deal.

I step out for some fresh holy shit I'm trashed air, and realize quickly, holy shit I'm trashed. Tequila, whiskey, and vodka sitting in jacuzzi of dark beer in my tummy. Helloooo. Did you bring your party pants?

I stumble out into the woods and lean over for a long time asking a snowbank a very serious question about my activities this evening. The snowbank tells me to man up and get back to the party. I agree with the snowbank. My stomach deals.

I'm welcomed into the kitchen by a great meeting of the minds, Malkav, Rev, and some other older faces. Despite he only being a half a year my elder in the department, the Reverend takes me by my shoulders as a prodigal son and declares his sermon before the meeting of the minds.

"Travis, you entering a great world, following in the footsteps of myself and Dr. Malkavian. You will find that comedy is more human than drama."

he then went on about my comic mask and having a face for it or something or other, I was simply nonplussed by the comparison between the great minds, and later to become my greatest friends and peers as time went on. His words stuck with me though, and it still weighs heavily whenever I write or create artistically.

The party went on. I got higher. Thom puked, and a lovely responsible sober lady drove in a designated fashion a couple of shuttles of folks back to campus, myself included. She wouldn't even let me in her car till I'd drank two glasses of water. And the next day, there was no hangover to be found. Whiskey, tequila, and vodka all played nice and got along within me and helped turn this frail meager boy into a tougher, rougher, more mature man.

The first college party. In the bag, under the belt, to be remembered with delight and cheer forever. And now, with college as a whole also done and done... probably one of the better times I'll look back on.

Good day.

On The 10 Spot: Death from Above.

This. Just. Happened.

On the 10 Spot is a entry I write in ten minutes streaming immediately after an event.

A large wooden construction almost fell on my head.

I came into the shop to day because I heard NFC and Justice Train discussing having a lot of work to do, so why the fuck not, I've got nothing to do until rehearsal, I haven't worked tech in forever, I should lend a hand.

I run some cable, twofer some instruments, circuit the striplights, hardpatch and softpatch some dimmers, then Meeds, the boss, asks to help lift this roof unit up to the top of the house. We've run a rope securely all around it and then up over one of the batons on the ceiling. These are stable poles of metal that hold all kinds of weight constantly when lights are hung on them. Very stable. Very secure.

We pick up this doghouse-sized roof unit and Matt takes the weight on the rope. The other carpenter helping me moves over to the rope and helps him heave it up, away from me, out of my hands.

I stand under it briefly, holding my hands up, and yes, this is the truth, crack a joke about catching it if it falls.

Meeds suggests I move out from under which I do and stand about ten feet away. They pull up, and up, and it gets to where it needs to be. I ask if they're going to tie it off to something, and look away, out into the audience towards NFC at the lightboard.

I don't know what the noise sounded like, but it made me instinctively propel myself like a jackrabbit in the opposite direction of it and brace myself.

I turn around and the whole roof unit is splintered and destroyed exactly where I was standing.

The baton the rope was looped over had come apart at some coupling point, which isn't really supposed to happen, and the unit fell.

So here I am, soaked in adrenaline, and I'm sorting of thinking about stuff. The big questions, you know?

I believe it has stopped snowing. I'm going to treat myself to the cafeteria.

Peace and love, folks. Stay happy. It's all we can try to do in this irrelevant and mysterious time we're given.

Good day.

The Festival. The Final Night.

It was the final night of the Festival. The Finals. My friend Speckman was in the Finals, he did very well. After an hour break, we watch the 10 Minute Plays that had gone on. There was a large Awards Ceremony after. Some folks from my school won Awards. It was very Happy, but when we returned to the Super 8 Motel...we were very sad. It was a difficult morose to describe. There was a still a night to be had, but we knew it was the last one. A dance was scheduled to go on right after, in celebration, but we were in no hurry. Stuff was on our minds. We fell back on simple activities, to take our minds off this. Beer.

Our stocks had depleted, and it was time to kill off what was left. Looking over the amount of beer and amount of us, we feared the night would not last long. Bones and I made a run for the Liquor Market across the street, but arrived seven minutes past Eleven, their closing time. Further saddened, we returned, and funneled down the rest of the Blue Ribbon. I wanted to go to the dance, to revive our spirits and add some adventure outside of the Super 8 to spice up our last night in this ugly, ugly place. Justice Train wasn’t down, neither was NFC, but I found a similar interest in adventure in Bones.

Bones had met a Pretty Goth Girl, who wasn’t really goth, just played one in Columbinus, and had left his sunglasses in her room. She was at the Dance and had his sunglasses there. So feeling a bit tipsy, we once again crossed the busy Mass street to the Sheraton for the last time.

And Thank God we did. Pretty Goth Girl was right through the doors, and Bones went up to her with some coaxing. I located another group of friends from my school who were breaking it on down to some tunes. Typical school dance material: whatever hip-hop is popular at the time, Love Shack, Pour Some Sugar on Me, yadda yadda yadda. I shook my groove thang with them for a fair bit, as well some other people from the Festival I’d met, before I came across the Nine Parts of Desire kids from the night before.. They recognized me, and I relearned all their names.

“What are you doing after?” this one girl asked.

“Drinking heavily?” I postured.

This was their goal as well. I neglected to mention our lack of booze, but it was irrelevant at this point. I noticed Bones dancing with Pretty Goth Girl, and this pleased me as I was sure it was pleasing him. I learned Empathy was one of my strong points this week. As well as my Libido. The Pretty Lady from the Elevator a few nights before was at the dance, and I watched her leave, and decided to maaaaaybe see what my friends were up to at the Super 8 before partying with these kids. So I peaced right on out.

Called up Justice Train, said he and NFC were tired and headed on their way out but could use a GNB. I didn’t know exactly what he meant. He meant good night bowl. I complied. After the sess, I roamed the first floor but could not hear my friends. The dance was going on much longer than scheduled so I traveled around some rooms before I heard their partying through the door (I had forgotten their room).

Apparently they breed beautiful people in Connecticut, and they all go to Central Connecticut State University. This room was full of beautiful people. Not just the girls from the dance, but the dudes playing beer bong. They were all fashion magazine worthy, but strangely familiar, with nice friendly eyes that looked at me and talked to me with an invested interest. I felt like each one of them looked like someone I knew, just glossed, prettier and richer. They were definitely rich. They had an odd way of looking at you, and talking to you. Could just be my libido at play but it appeared every one of them was hinting slightly at hitting on me. Maybe they were just tired of each other, I don’t know, but they were very down with Bones and I. I mean, we’re pretty men, but I just found their sole communicating with me flattering.

One dude, looking like Arj Barker, asked us to play. We accepted, and played this dude who looked David Love Joy and his partner, dude who looked like Nick Cyr. Except Lovejoy was a bit more of a jock, and Cyr was way more of a douchebag. Think the most smarmy shit-eatting talkative douchebag and put him in Nick Cyr’s body. Lovejoy broke down some of the rules for us while Douchebag Cyr corrected him and they debated over technicalities. They played oldschool with beer in the cups instead of water. My lack of drink was solved the more I lost.

Pretend with me for a moment, that Penelope Cruz was a real person, somebody you could meet. Stunning, gorgeous, but real, there, in front of you. Now double them. Twins. These two twins of realistic Penelope Cruz look-a-likes sitting there in front of you. And they’re talking to you. With an interest.

I had found Heaven on the first floor of the Super 8 Motel.

Another girl, looking a bit more like Michelle Rodriguez, with less attitude, touched my chin at one point during conversation. I asked her why and she said I had a very nice defined face, and I looked like someone she knew. I asked if it was her boyfriend, which made her laugh a lot and kind of slap my chest.

“Why? What if I was like ‘Oh my god,” she leaned in close to me with these eyes...damn those eyes. “‘You look just like my boyfriend’ What would you do?”

“I’d...” think of words think of words “ be...a bad man.” This made her laugh even more and told me she used to be a bad girl that “didn’t draw lines.” She then asked me how I was a bad man, and I could have gone into it, but the topic changed as the game went on.

They kept getting phone calls from the front desk, right down the hall, telling them(us) to be quiet. This happened about three times before there were some knocks on the door. The loud bad kinds of knocks. The closest guy went over and peeked through, and turned around pale as a sheet. “It’s the fucking cops” he mouthwhispered. Douchebag said “Shut up” but the look this guy gave back was like “No, you shut up. That’s the cops.”

In every situation like I’ve been in, people either run to hide all the booze or run to hide themselves. Here, different story. No one moved, except Lovejoy and Douchebag, behind the corner, out of view. Douchebag said “Hide the beers” to no one. I wasn’t closest but I couldn’t move all the glass bottles lined up on the table without the clinking that would tell the cops exactly what I was doing. The two owners of the room just sat there, motionless with fear.

“Someone open the door” was also whispered. No one moved, except this one blonde chick. Bones was standing at the end of the table closest to the door, he widened his stance to try and block as much of the table as possible. This blond chick went down the hallway to the door. About to open it.

I’ve narrowly escaped the police many times, by either fractions of a second or just by turning, fleeing and eventually exiting out a window. But I didn’t want to do that this time, with all these beautiful nice people. I’m of legal drinking age. I wasn’t too drunk. I did have two eighths of grass on me, with a bowl, but these guys couldn’t search me. I moved in between Bones and the Blonde. I widened my chest. Game time. She opened the door.

Tweedle-Cop-Dee and Tweedle-Cop-Dum stood on the other side, both fat, both police, both with hats saying in big white letters “POLICE.” They were leaning into the doorframe, ready for action.

“This the party room, huh?” Dee didn’t really ask. “What’s the deal, you bother this guy (motioning down the hall) three times already. It’s early in the morning...”

It was 4:05 in the morning.

Douchebag then decided to make his appearance, wheedling around the corner: “Hey, hey, we’re really sorry, yeah, we’re disbanding right now. This girl here is sober, she’s driving people home.”

“Well where are you going?” Cop Dee interrogated, Cop Dum just stood there looking big fat and menacing.

“Oh...I’m, I’m staying here...” he trailed off, dodging the fact he was staying in the room. He slipped back around the corner.

“We’re disbanding,” Blonde girl affirmed.

“Really? So if I have to come back here in ten, twenty minutes, what then, huh?!” Cop Dee postulated.

“Look.” I spoke up, my voice a deeper register than usual. “You basically just scared the shit out of us and we’re all leaving now.”

Cop Dee liked this, sp he and his butt buddy marched off down the hall.

Douchebag was at the door, watched them leave, shut it quickly, turned directly to me and shook my hand. Expecting a thanks, instead I received:

“Hey, I hate to kick you out, but yeah. Peace.”

I was fine with that, said goodbye and nice to meet you to Lovejoy and all the pretty, pretty girls who in my own mind I totally impressed with my honest bravado in the face of the Man. It hurt to leave them like that. So Bones and I left, no beer, no tail, but not in jail. And that was okay with us.

Our last night of the Festival was memorable. And that was all we could have asked for. Besides more beer.