Road trips
Over the years, Za has taken a number of road trips. Road trip shows, for a variety of reasons, create a wealth of stories. The best one I recall is Randy walking home one snowy evening from Northhampton with no coat heavier than a blazer.
That story and others should be related in the comments section.
That story and others should be related in the comments section.
posted by (d)avid at 12/12/2004 10:04:00 AM
11 Comments:
Well, that wasn't a Za story and he hitchhiked most of the way, but it did happen - I'll let him tell it.
We came shockingly close to running out of gas coming back from Yale Spring '92. I remember the silence driving through Savoy and Florida, as much to do with somehow saving gas as anything. There was also the palpable relief of getting over the hill leading to the hairpin turn as we knew we could at least coast into North Adams from there. It took 10 minutes of continuous pumping at Cumberland Farms (what a great phrase!) to fill it up -- that was just before the Phantom Valet of Dodd if I'm not mistaken.
A classic Felipe and Rich interaction occured during Skimore one year (1996?). At the party, Rich is macking on a person with two X chromosomes. Felipe is guzzling Rolling Rock like it was water. The group decides to head back to our accomodations (someone's room -- can't remember the name). Felipe refuses to leave and Rich is otherwise occupied with the aforementioned neatly packaged two X chromosomes.
Eventually, Felipe decides he needs to get some sleep, but he can't remember where we are staying. So he taps Rich on the shoulder, "Rich ... Rich ... I know you're busy, but I don't know where we are staying. Can you walk me home?"
Rich waved off Felipe, so Felipe headed out into the great blue yonder. Apparently he wandered around asking people if they knew where the host lived, but was mangling the name so badly who knew if anyone could understand him. Felipe falls over at some point breaking his glasses and lightly bruising himself. He finds his way back to the now more or less empty party room with Rich still attending to the needs of the young woman.
"Rich, Rich, yout gotta help me. I know you're hooking up, but I broke my glasses, I am bleeding, and I don't know where we are staying."
At that, being the loyal friend that he is, Rich excused himself and walked Felipe back to the room where Goose was feigning not to kick someone's ass. Dave Taylor was appalled that Rich wouldn't help out Felipe in favor of playing tonsil hockey with "big and floppy." Thus, the legend of "big and floppy" was born.
And if it ain't completely true, one of the principles in the story should correct any details.
I had somehow conflated the prayer mat and Randy walking home stories. Good to know Tim was the one cock blocked by Allah. Now what is the Randy story?
I was impressionable youth when I traveled to Brown with Za (my sophomore year?). Somehow we were asked to go, so we piled into Dave's Suburban and another car (there were 11 of us, so maybe there were two other cars). My lasting impressions of the drive there:
1) Sean bought a copy of Swank and I had never seen a magazine any racier than my father's Playboys from the 70s. I didn't find it in the least bit titilating, but I was rather appalled at the nature of the pictures. Fast forward a couple of years when I live with Paul-jon Benson senior year. I can no longer be shocked by any image in the print media because PJ has shown me twenty times worse on the internet, "Hey David will you proofread this paper?" My eyes! My eyes!
2) We drove through a town on the Rhode Island / Massachusetts border. We drive through miles after mile of businesses. There are three types of establishments: used car dealerships; strip clubs; and donut shops. If you separate the strip clubs that serve lunch from the ones that don't, then there were four types of establishments. A depressing town to say the least.
So we get to Brown. Eventually park the Suburban and find our way to the Brown comedy troupe. They are relatively friendly, but clearly sizing us up and we aren't measuring up. Of course, we'd show them that night. Yup, we'd show them that we stink to high Heaven.
The room for the performance was a big lecture hall. Not a good setting because the audience is separated from the performers. We started with First Line, which was good other than the LOOONG wait for the prop. Then we got into the improv. Disaster all round. I don't remember specifics, I just remember the sound of the audience not laughing (and the audience not laughing is a deafening sound). Super Funny Bombed, despite Goose's streaking. Part of the problem was that the female participant was a member of the Brown troupe, who decided to upstage us. World's Worst was our closing -- strangely apropos. John Fagan was about the only person who extracted laughs from the audience.
The Brown group performed and were good. They were clever and extremely sharp in all technical capacities. In short, our ass was kicked. There wasn't much of a party after the show. I'm sure we hung out and drank a bit. Walked to some restaurant to grab a bite to eat (randomly passing a girl named Amy that I knew in high school -- once I mentioned it, Rich flagged her down, good to have loud New Yorkers around every once in a while).
We drove home that night. For some reason, Goose had me drive the Suburban back. The roads were icy and that Suburban was big. Kinda like sailing a boat, only you could crash to your death. I complained to Goose about the handling, so he looked down at the spedometer and suggested that I not take the curves at 60. He was right, it was much easier to stay in the lane at lower speeds.
To recap: David's first brush with pornography; Bomb; Curves at 60.
Thank you.
Winch, that is the most unredeemably depressing road trip story I've ever heard. Let's see... moral outrage at the degradation of women, a sobering gimpse of economic decay, and a crushing comic defeat. I'm surprised Pixar isn't optioning it for an animated feature.
The least you can do is spice up the ending with a good buddy movie cliche:
Winch: Goose, this thing handles like a tank!
Goose: How fast are you going, anyway?
(Both squint at the speedometer. Simultaneously, their mouths pop open and eyes bug out.)
(beat)
(Both heads snap around to stare at one another)
(beat)
(Both heads snap around to stare through the windshield)
Both: AAAAAAAAUUUUGHHHH!!!!
(Both men shield their faces with crossed arms as they shout. Cut to exterior of Suburban as it crashes through an orange-and-white striped wooden barrier, nimbly leaps a small ditch, and comes to a quiverring halt on the far side.)
Anyway, about Smith- I find when I tell it myself, it actually comes out slightly smaller than life. Besides, am I the only one that's picked up on the recent trend?
1) Someone starts an interesting thread.
2) Someone else (possibly myself) relates a tale centering on me.
3) All commentary dries up and the thread suffers a slow, painful death by starvation.
Randy, I gotta admit that not too many of Za roadtrips ended in triumph. Skidmore -- well, we were never booed off-stage. A trip to Cambridge, MA was okay, but no memorable stories. Our one big triumph was at Hamilton college, but you might find it more depressing.
The Hamilton College group (which was named after some random dude) got college council money to invite in many comedy troupes and pony up $500 in prize money (I remember Harvard, Yale, and Wesleyan were three of the other groups -- anyone remember the other(s)?). Each group had something like 45 minutes to perform. Trip there was uneventful. Got to campus and was put up in an empty frat house. Hamilton had made it illegal for students to live out of the dorms in an effort to be rid of fraternities and make the campus friendlier for women. All but one fraternity decided to sell its building to the college. We stayed in that one (since we weren't students, it was okay). We found a copy of an old Penthouse that led to the Smurf skit at Basement Tapes. Staying in a big empty house was kind of creepy.
The show starts, we perform in the middle of the show. We watch the first few groups. Kind of funny, but not "Wow!" funny. Between groups, the Hamilton group is performing strange sketches centered entirely upon bizarre characters performing mundane activities like eating popcorn. Our set consists of:
1) Three Jeeter and Cleetus scenes
2) Three sock puppet story times: All the children gather around Emily, who is going to tell a story using sock puppets (and did an excellent job of acting and sounding like a talented kindergarten teacher with sock puppets).
2a) Jack and Diane (Hi, Jack!) two American kids growing up in the heartland, Jackie is gonna be a football star and Diane is the debutante in the backseat of Jackie's car. Now, who knows what a debutante is? (My sister was a debutante) And did she get dressed up (Uh-huh) and go dancing (uh-huh) and I bet she got a kiss (yeeeeeeeeeeew!)
2b) Are you ready for story time? Billy Ray was a preacher's son (Ms. Christiansen, if this story is about God, I have to leave) No, Peter, this song is about a young girl's sexual awakening. Billy Rae was a preacher's son and when he daddy came over, he'd come along. And when the grown up started talking, that's when Billy would take me walking. And the only one who could ever teach me, was the son of a preacher man. The only one who could ever reach me, was the son of a preacher man. Yes, Steve. (I thought we could reach you, too). You can, dear, but not like the Preacher's son.
2c) This next story is called closer. You let me violate you. You let me desecrate you. You let me penetrate you. Yes, dear? (What does penetrate mean? Steve rushes over as the over eager student and whispers in the ear, thereby traumatizing the student). You let my complicate you. Help me, I broke apart my insides. Help me, I've got no soul to sell. Yes dear? (What does penetrate mean?) Steven. (Steve rushes over again and causes the student to go into the fetal position). Help me, the only thing that works for me. Help me, get away from myself. I want to fuck you like an animal. I want to feel you from the inside. I want to fuck you like an animal. Now ... who knows what their favorite animal is. (Crying wail for Jeff McMahon).
What made it work is we acted like a bunch of retarded/hyperactive kids and Emily did a masterful job of sounding like a kindergarten teacher and let the sock puppets tell the story.
We also performed our favorite improv (I imagine that 60-30-15-5-1 was part of it, maybe Movie Review or Concussion).
The audience loved all the sketch comedy and was luke warm towards our improv. But six rabble rousing segment made up for our mediocrity.
Of the next two groups, Yale was okay, but Harvard was great. Seriously, they whooped our asses. Funny characters, funny jokes, and really tight technically.
So it comes time to decide the winner. Harvard takes second and we win -- defying all expectations. All we could figure is that Hamilton group performed more sketch, so perhaps that was what people were into.
Big party after the show (and it is fairly late now because each group performed -- the audience got their money's worth). There were probably 500 people at the party. How many kegs would you need for a 500 person party? At Williams, you were allowed 4 kegs for 250 people, so maybe 8? Well, at Hamilton they needed 18 kegs. And from what we saw, they probably bought about the right amount of beer. Lots of dancing, but no good hook ups that I can remember.
So then we drove home in triumph, promising to invite the Hamilton group to campus later that spring or next year. Obviously, we didn't do any such thing.
Combo Za, taking your money and reneging on our promises. [Hey, Rich, where is Faigin and my t-shirts?]
Is that a better story, Randy? Triumph of the human spirit and all. I have some good stories about road trips by myself (five days clubbing in Montreal with 4 chain smoking lesbians -- ah yeah) or taking a car full of eager young men to Smith, but most of the roadtrips with Za didn't end well. I started the thread to get the Tim Hanes story and the Randy walking home story.
W'Ball, how the hell did you learn that about Wheaton? And why are we just learning about it now? Feel like I'm only just beginning to learn about Norton, let alone all about it...
Mount Holyoke in Winter '91 was a huge success - never felt more like a rock star than J-Ice and I doing Argument in front of 100's of Holyokers who ate up every joke we cracked.
J-Ice: We switched up when we stopped for gas (which is when Scoop bought the magazine).
Toby, care to fill in the details on the Holyoke trip? Surely there must be some story to tell. The few times I ventured past Northhampton to South Hadley were frickin' epic. Seriously, I had never seen anything like it. A room full of 200 women dancing -- odds are good, right? Well, the Amherst and UMass boys knew the drill better than I did. They didn't even bother dancing, they just walked around scoping out the dancing women. If they liked what they saw, they would make eye contact with the woman. There would be a subtle nodding of the heads and the two would leave the dance floor hand-in-hand. If the woman wasn't interested, she wouldn't nod back and the man would move onto the next dancer. It made the Quad parties at Smith (a meat market if ever there was one -- I tended to stay away) seem positively Victorian by comparison.
Thanks to your prodding, I do vaguely remember:
a) The smoking -- yeah, it was nasty;
b) The poor woman we picked for Dysfunctional Family. Honestly folks, it was just sad. When the alcoholic father calls the wife something outrageous and the audience member says it is right out of resignation rather than "wouldn't it be funny if," it makes you want to give her a hug. The biggest laugh of the skit was when we picked her ... Steve is right, they knew her reputation.
c) Steve's stoned friends at Brown. Those two nitwits sat in the center of the lecture hall about five rows back. They laughed heartily at Dave's nudity making the gasps from the rest of the audience all the more palpable.
Combo Za, we can make stoned people laugh.
Wow, Hamilton. Unlike Skidmore, that was a comedy competition for money, and WE WON! I seem to recall that while we were there, and after our routine, we were feeling kind of pissed off and were feeling a lot of attitude from the snotty smoking Hamilton kids, so when we unexpectedly won the damn thing it was queasily sweet. I think we then spent most of the money that we won on props, wigs, and desk lights.
I also recall not really wanting to mix much with the Hamilton kids. Did you guys notice that Williams smoked a lot less than other colleges?
Somebody confirm .357's point -- could such a thing have happened!? -- we only fantasized about staging a bench-clearing brawl -- did it really occur?
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