| When
fellow footnote columnist Tadd Branum and I were
into the performing arts during college some seventeen years
ago, we became claustrophobic in the walled confines of traditional
theatre, with it's blase "characters" and "stories."
In our booze and smoke-induced haze, we were attracted, as
many before us, to the plotless and nigh-pointless possibilities
of the "avant garde." Not sure what the "avant
garde" really was, we perhaps confused or combined it
with our own interpretation of the "dada' movement. Still
having never taken the time to actually "learn,"
I neither know nor care if "avant garde" was a part
of the "dada" movement or vice versa or not or whatever.
I never did and neither, I suspect, did Tadd Branum. We merely
wanted to do something we imagined was the "new."
New to us, anyway. If others had done it, we had no knowledge
or, in fact, desire to learn about such goings on. We had
no want for learning. We were in college, after all, and rarely
sober or coherent of thought enough to retain "knowledge."
Our debut (and final) piece of "dada-esque avant garde"
was entitled "Dancing/Graceful--Gorilla/Man." The
not-a-play consisted of myself in gray sweat pants, a Batman
Returns tee shirt (one of twelve given to me as gifts
from various family members), big ol' Elton John sunglasses,
and a towel for a cape, pounding senselessly and rhythmlessly
on bongos stolen--I mean "borrowed" from the music
department while occasionally shattering ceramic mugs with
a hammer to my own beatless beat. Meanwhile, Tadd--in a gorilla
mask, adult diapers (which we both, at the time, wore anyway
for the sake of convenience), and nothing more--did a mostly
squatted, occasionally gymnastic interpretive dance while
chanting "Ut!" in his deep baritone.
Unable to gain access to the theatre stage and, arguably,
not wanting or needing it, we performed our opening/closing
happening in the parking lot of a local hot dog and ice cream
stand called The Jumbo. We received mixed reviews from the
footlong and milkshake connoisseurs in line for their tasty
snacks and fried meals. The words "hippie" and "retard"
were thrown out, though, mistakenly the diapered Tadd seemed
to bear the brunt of the "retard" remarks while
I was mysteriously called "hippie." I hadn't showered
that day and was, to be fair, playing bongos with glassy eyes,
but, the truth is, in those days, Tadd was the hippie while
many doctors and former friends have suspected me of being
a retard. At least emotionally.
So it was to a smattering of light applause (from Tadd and
myself) and groans and thrown onion rings or pickles (from
The Jumbo customers) that we closed our one and only "not-a-show"
either a raging success or a complete failure. Neither of
us would dare to hazard a guess.
It was, after we packed up and headed to our sloppy dorm room,
that we came upon an old man being robbed of his half eaten
Jumbo corn dog by some drunken hoodlum as part of his sorry-ass
fraternity (Kappa Theta Chi) initiation. Tadd, still only
in his gorilla mask and diapers, looked to me, still towel-caped.
I nodded.
Without a verbal exchange, we sprung into action. I hurtled
my bongo between them, accidentally hitting the old man instead
(who later assured me he "didn't give a hoot") while
the majestically gorilla-masked Tadd tackled the wannabe frat
boy, who was no mach for the burliest of Branums. As I helped
the old man up and handed him back his almost-stolen corn
dog, Tadd kicked the whimpering, sandals wearing fratboy in
the ass, yelling a muffled, "Git on outta here, ya' dang
brainwashed fool! Git!" through his store-bought King
Kong Halloween mask.
When the old man asked if we were superheroes, we answered,
"No, we're arteestes." But the next day, our school
newspaper told a tale of the old man being saved by a mysterious
new superheroic duo they dubbed "The Avant Guardians."
Tadd and I were shocked and briefly considered totally immersing
ourselves in a life of the action-packed by becoming full-fledged
superheroes. We'd always wanted to save the world through
flashy costumes and self-righteous physical violence, and
now here was perhaps our chance. Immediately after pondering
that for a full twenty-five seconds, we got hungry. So we
went to The Jumbo. After three chili dogs and two milkshakes
each, we decided that being superheroes would give us chest
pains, so we drank some cheap hooch and smoked it up a bit
while watching Blue's Clues in our repugnant dorm
room instead of going to class, putting the whole damn thing
behind us. |
