Stacy had the ideal family life. His parents never divorced and they all lived quite happily and comfortably in a small rented townhouse. What I most admired though was his devout yet pragmatic faith. He was the type of Christian that didn’t make my skin crawl. His faith wasn’t based on emotion and constantly telling people (insincerely) he was praying for them or how excited he was about what God was doing, or that if something bad happened it was part of God’s master plan. Stacy was more what I call an intellectual Christian. Or perhaps “academic” is a better term. Young, philosophical Christians who believe they balance their faith with some degree of logic. Of course, turned on its head faith is completely illogical. That’s the point of course, that faith is what you turn to after science and reason fail to comfort (and there’s no bourbon readily available.)
Christian colleges are full of these types. They are young Christian idealists who believe themselves better than the secular world but also above other Evangelicals who rely on the emotional side of faith. They say they respect the elder generations, yet look down on them with contempt for their antiquated “old-time religion.” Many of these types are running mega-churches. The ones that more resemble arenas (dare I say coliseums?) Sunday morning services looks more like a rock concert and a Broadway production rolled into one super sensory explosion. The messages are very “up with people” and “out with the wallets please!” At the time I appreciated his well-thought out enthusiasm for the “new” Christianity as much as his ability to converse at length about Tim Burton movies and pop music of the 80’s.
Stacy and I would be in two more high school productions before he graduated. The next fall we did this awful musical melodrama in which I had to split the villain role with this bloated turd named Jiminy Rollbendover (perhaps by now you’ve guessed I’m changing a few names!) He was a sneering, greased-up rhinoceros with a pink stucco complexion. But he could sing. He’d never been in one play, but he was a member of the school’s exclusive choral group Highland Singers, our own highly-sanitized Glee. He was also a senior, coupled with a good voice scored him a lead. So he got two performances in the part while I only got one. The other two nights I was just background, and I got to do a little warm-up comedy before the show.
That fall we did another drama (thank God) Flowers for Algernon. Stacy was cast as Charlie, the simpleton turned genius by way of experimental surgery. I played the professor who dreamed up the procedure, and suffered from an acute God Complex after its initial success. Once again the closest thing to a villain in the show. It’s also one of the parts I most loved playing. Well, that and the dog!
Kelly graduated that spring. We hung out as much as possible that summer along with most of our little gang from HCHS drama. That fall he left Wisconsin and began attending Euphegenia Christian College in Northern Illinois. Starting to understand the extraneous backstory now???
There was no email back then but we’d talk on the phone semi-regularly. He came back to see the fall show, in which I was the lead. Another melodrama, this one was a murder mystery spoof but thankfully not a musical. I played a bumbling private detective in a hotel full of crackpots; all based on famous mystery characters. I wore the beige overcoat and fedora through the whole show, and did a terrible Bogart impression. The best thing I can say about that particular show, aside from having so much stage time, was I watched every Bogie movie I could get my hands on. The man truly was the best. He was barely moving his lips, let alone his shoulders, but he was so damn good at it.
That winter Stacy called and told me I should come down to Euphegenia and hang out for a weekend. For months he’d been telling me all these funny stories about his roommate, new friends he was making, the theater department, and his campus radio show. That captured my imagination. I have always been in love with radio. At that time I had no idea who Howard Stern was, but didn’t need to. I grew up outside Chicago. This was a rock/talk radio Mecca! We had WLS, Z95, and the down and dirty coolest talk station ever, WLUP . . . The Loop. There was always a voice in my head saying “you could do this.” So when Stacy told me he was doing a night time talk show on the college radio station, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. You could just do your own show, on a real radio stations. I was shaking to get down there and check it out.
The weird thing is I don’t remember much of that first visit. It didn’t have a very profound effect on me. I know it was snowy out. I remember Stacy’s dorm room which I noted was small but still the kind of room I’d be comfortable in. Hell, they had bunk beds! Who doesn’t love bunk beds, even at 19 years-old?! Funny what you remember but it was also the first place I ever tasted Crystal Pepsi. In the mid 90’s some genius at PepsiCo decided it would be a good idea to come out with a clear cola. I believe they tried passing it off as healthier. They licensed Van Halen’s Right Now which played over all the commercials, so I definitely wanted to try it (score one for the Mad Men!) It was still loaded with sugar of course and didn’t taste anything like Pepsi, or any cola. It was a bigger blunder than New Coke.
Anyway, we also went out with a big group of students for pizza at Chicago landmark Gino’s East. It’s a famous deep dish joint in Chicagoland famous for allowing customers to scribble their names (and other various and sundry messages) on the walls and any other surface in the place. Sad that I remember pizza and trying shitty clear soda but couldn’t tell you much else we did that weekend.
The one thing that does stand out, beyond those momentous occasions was walking into my first radio studio. Admittedly that’s being kind, but I didn’t know any better at the time. Stacy and his roommate Tim led me to the studio which was a tiny closet with windows in the basement of Valhalla Hall, a three story building with student apartments on the top two levels, and classrooms and offices in the basement. The frequency was so weak that it didn’t even cover the entire campus, and this was a small school! But I didn’t know that either. It didn’t matter. I walked into the booth, which is a very appropriate description, with its Smithsonian quality equipment which smelled very much like my grandfather’s old television and radio repair shop. There was the big console with nobs and dials and three boom microphones hanging from adjustable armatures. There was nothing digital. This looked like something out of M*A*S*H. There were rows of what looked like 8-tracks, drops for station id’s and sound clips, etc. It now makes me chuckle that we actually did station identification breaks, as if the 3 people listening at any given time weren’t sure!
I listened to their show for a while in silence. They were relatively boring, talking about school issues and then talking about the Big 10, of which as you can clearly guess Euphegenia was not part of. It there was a Big 13,627 they might have had a shot at consideration. But halfway through the show they introduced me and invited me to come sit behind a mic. I wanted to open my mouth and be clever and witty and sound like a real polished radio man. In stead they threw it to me and I let out the lamest, loudest Pauly Shore weasel call. I buried the needles on the board. They both had to pull their headphones back. I was 17, what can I say?
That is my first memory of Euphegenia College. I left on Sunday and went back to Wisconsin and high school and daily life. To be honest I had no plans for the following year. I never gave it a moment of thought. My only plan if you dare call it that, was that I was going to be an actor. That’s it. Didn’t know how, didn’t know what it would take. It was just going to be, and that was that. If I had to map it out then, I’d have said I’m graduating in June (hopefully) and I’ll start auditioning for shows in Milwaukee at one of the repertory theaters, and within a year I’d probably be doing shows in Chicago. From there the last thing left would be head to Hollywood. Although I might have just skipped Chicago and filled out that Hollywood application a little sooner, if I felt like it. That was about it, as far as plans.
College was not even a blip on the radar. I hated school. I wanted out. The way I was going, I’d be graduating by the skin of my teeth. But when our second semester began, all my classmates were talking about this ACT test they were all preparing to take. Apparently if you didn’t take it, you had no shot of going to college. It was more important even than the SAT. My folks had mentioned it to me too, and Dad basically just asked me to take it “just in case.” If I didn’t do so well, then the college thing wouldn’t be something he’d push. He wasn’t a college graduate so he didn’t have much room to say anything. He’d knocked up my mom his Senior year so that threw a wrench in his university plans. But I agreed to take the damned ACT anyway, even though you had to go in on a fucking Saturday morning to take it. It got him to quit bringing up the ARMY.
There were books as thick as the yellow pages for preparing to take the ACT. I’m sure there still are. People I knew took classes to prep for it. Their parents hired tutors to help them get ready. I did . . . nothing. I got up on a shitty cold and gray Saturday in Milwaukee and went to some school I’d never been to, found the classroom, and prepared to waste a few hours taking a test. Part of the reason I hated school in general was I hated taking tests. I was terrible at it. Even tests for subjects I liked or was good at were difficult for me. I asked myself numerous times what I was doing volunteering for this one. I actually made one request of God right before the proctor told us to begin.
“Lord, this is stupid. I’m going to do my best on the reading comprehension and English portions of the test. You guide my hand on the math and science because I’m just going to color in the first circle my eyes land on. I might even make patterns with the dots. I’m not even going to read the problems.”
That’s a hell of a strategy, I know. When it was finally over, I was pretty certain I’d just wasted a Saturday. I turned it in and went on with life. In the meantime, Stacy had been talking to me (and my parents) about actually applying to Euphegenia. There was going to be some admissions open house weekend and I should just come hang out for the weekend and hear what they had to say. Not considering the admissions portion, I just said yeah I’d like to come down and see my buddy.
When the weekend came, I had an appointment to take a tour with an admissions counselor named Ben Timm (real first name Tim, as in Tim Timm, hence “Ben.”) He was nice guy and a former actor himself, but looked like an emaciated game show host. I also had an audition for the Director of the Drama department. I had to prepare a monologue and submit to an interview. To this day I have no idea what monologue I did for him that day. I know I was going to do something from Shakespeare, which seemed like an obvious choice, but Stacy hipped me to the fact that this Director, Lane was way into Shakespeare. This dude would chew me up if I chose something from the Bard. If Lane K. Gabriel didn’t like it, I was toast. So I quickly figured out a Plan B.
I do recall being struck by how beautiful the small campus really was. The last time I’d been there was in the winter and it was dark. Now it was early spring and there were signs of life all around. The whole place was wooded with a tranquil creek running peacefully throughout the campus. It was easy to be romanced by the natural setting that framed the school. It was also easy to be romanced by the notion of romancing some of the college girls walking around. I’m certain now that was all part of an Admissions ploy. Slowly I turned. The notion of going to college didn’t seem so unpleasant after all. Dorm life seemed fun. Guys were up all night talking, playing music, and during the day there were pretty girls all over the place. And no parents. Best of all, it was a school but I could major in Theatre. I could spend every day working on my plays, studying different styles, just overall improving my craft (ugh that term!)
I remember meeting Lane, the Director and immediately felt at ease with him. I didn’t know quite what to expect but Stacy had scared me a little. He seemed like a very likeable guy. The size of a leprechaun (well, when compared a Yeti such as myself) but all smiles from the minute he saw you. His so-called Shakespearean obsession was apparent as soon as you laid eyes on him. His balding pate gave way to thick auburn sides and collar length locks in the back. And his well-sculpted beard made him very much resemble the old bard himself. I remember him sitting in the back row of the theater watching my audition. The interview was short. He asked why I wanted to come to Euphegenia. Why I wanted to act. He laughed every time I said something meant to be funny. He had a great laugh too. He gave no notes; just thanked me in his lilting voice, and that was it. No real feedback, no instruction as to what would come next. Just thank you. I remember feeling completely unsatisfied, not only in my performance, but in the fact that I had no idea how it had been received. I was in limbo. I left the theater and met up with Stacy and then back over to the admissions building.
Tim Benjamin Timm (not actually his name, but the truth is actually worse) basically laid out for the three major hurdles that had to be cleared for me to begin there in the fall. First off, I needed to pass the ACT with a good score. The national average was 21. Euphegenia required a minimum score of 22. After the ACT, I had to be accepted. Ben basically said if I got that 22, I had a really good shot. The final and perhaps biggest hurdle was financing. This was a private college. I believe my freshman year Euphegenia was running between $6 – 8,000 per semester with room and board. That was going to be the hard part. My dad and stepmom didn’t have it, and my mom and stepdad were not thrilled that I was even considering a religious college. I wasn’t counting on contributions from them. They didn’t even believe it was a real college. In retrospect, they might have been right in their suspicions.
No comments:
Post a Comment