COLUMN
By: Riley Zipper
When I entered high school three years ago, I had lived much of my life trying to go with the grain, per say. I was a painfully normal boy. I was into all the “boy” things like sports, bad rap music, acting like I was interested in cars, sports, wearing athletic clothing when I wasn’t doing anything athletic, sports, being really uncultured, Nike shoes and sports.
You may have noticed that I said “sports” four times. I always wanted to be a jock, but we’ll get to that later. Sure, I guess I always had a couple quirks, but there was nothing about me that really made me stand out from the crowd. This was especially true in middle school when I tried to be even more painstakingly normal. It was fun, for a short while. I have some good memories of middle school, and some bad ones, but this ultimate normalcy was starting to wear on me.
My entire life, I wanted to be good at something, more particularly, and let’s face it, really all I wanted to be good at was, a sport. From a young age, I began playing basketball. It was my dream, like many other boys out there, was to be a college star (for me it was UK) and then play in the NBA. That’s a pretty generic dream, right? But, I was not good at basketball. I tried so hard and wanted to be good so badly, but I wasn’t. I quit playing in sixth grade, and by then, the smell of a gym floor, truly made me nauseous. I tried golf after this. I whacked a golf ball around until my sophomore year when I quit that after years of frustration. My years playing golf were the happiest/worst years of my life. When I was playing well, and I actually did for a while, it was fantastic. It was an incredible feeling to be good at something. My mind would be emptied of all thoughts; I would strut with unbelievable amounts of swagger and egotism to the tee and drive a golf ball upwards of 250 yards. Unfortunately, this feeling of confidence did not last long. I grew worse as I began thinking too much about the game. I quit, like I said before, in sophomore year. I have not picked up a golf club since August of 2010, and the thought of playing golf again, especially competitively, makes me nauseous as well.
Upon entering high school, after those long years of being meticulously normal, I was getting bored. I knew I wanted to do something different, but I didn’t know how to do it. In addition to being normal, I was a coward. I was an everyday, disgustingly generic, excruciatingly normal coward.
Finally, my junior year, the opportunity arose to do something different, and I grabbed it by the horns. I became one of the sports broadcasters for the school radio station, 88.1 WNAS. Mr. Kelly mentioned that he needed another member for the broadcasting team, and one of my friends, kind of, you know who you are, said my name. Now, I know he said it as a joke, because I’ve always had a stuttering “problem,” (like in The King’s Speech, except I’m no king) and this particular person wasn’t the nicest person on earth, but nonetheless, I thank him for making that insincere suggestion, because it’s done a lot for my life.
My first game was the Jennings County football game at Jennings County, I believe, and I was never more nervous in my entire life. It didn’t seem real until I heard the click in my headphones and I heard Stefan Jensen’s (the head announcer from last year who graduated) voice say, or at least say something along the lines of “Welcome to WNAS coverage of Bulldog football.” I probably said close to six words the first half. The entire game was a blur, but I do remember that I really enjoyed it. As the year went on, I grew very close to Stefan and I began to really, at the risk of using a very trite expression “come into my own.” By the end of basketball season, I was basically Kirk Herbstreit.
Also during junior year, I began writing for The Blotter for the entertainment section. Before then, I had never thought about writing for the school newspaper. But I was an expert on film, one of the few things that set me apart from the rest in my younger years, and I was approached to write for the entertainment section without even taking journalism, because they were in need of staff and I was a good writer already. The Blotter was in a rebuilding year. We had just gotten a new adviser (the utterly fantastic Mrs. Christina Faulkner) and we had many strong personalities on staff. Many times I felt the editors were teaching Mrs. Faulkner instead of the other way around. But now, everything flows perfectly between the editors and Mrs. Faulkner. We understand each other.
Another event happened this year in my life; I auditioned for the school musical. One of my best friends persuaded me and another one of my friends to do it, and we accepted. I thought, “It’s my senior year, no regrets, right?” So I did it. Mind you, I sang in the choir in middle school, but I did not have a gorgeous voice by any means. My audition (for the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol, one of the leads) went… decently. But, this was my first time ever singing alone in front of someone. Most of my singing is along to Radiohead or Nirvana (okay, the occasional Coldplay, I won’t deny it) or some other hip band in my car, but this time, it was by myself, in front of a panel of “judges”, from sheet music, with piano accompaniment from the most intimidating lady I have ever met, even though she is also one of the most awesome ladies I have ever met. So basically, I was trying out for “American Idol”. Did I get the part? Nope. I got the fantastic role of… **drum roll** a chorus member! Did I care? Nope. I was going to have fun anyway.
Cut to the first day of rehearsal. It was nerve-racking. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It was a complete and utter mess. Mrs. Hampton (the really intimidating but awesome Floyd Central choir director that I mentioned before) played through the entire musical while we sang from our packets of music, basically blindly, sight-reading as it’s called. People sang the solos that they were previously assigned, and I was thanking God that I did not have a solo, because the entire cast was there; watching and listening intently. But something amazing happened. Someone made a mistake. My heart sank in pity for them. But something even more amazing happened after that, absolutely no one made fun of them or even acknowledged that a mistake was made. You see, when playing a sport, it seems as if mistakes cannot be made, or at least that’s how I felt. I was always petrified of making even the tiniest mistake; constantly I worried about it, whether it is athletics, academics, or anything else. Maybe that’s just me, I don’t know, but this still amazed me. The singer just tried again. Obviously, with a week, from the date that I’m writing this, to go until opening night, the directors are a little more worried about mistakes, but still, I’m not so scared to make them anymore.
One would think that I would be upset not having a principle role in the musical, but I’m not at all. I’m making the most of being a chorus member. I am determined to be the most energetic chorus member in the entire play. Sure, I’m only in about four scenes, but those four scenes are going to be the best scenes you’ve ever seen. I’m just feigning arrogance, I really don’t feel that way, but I am working as hard as I possibly can at making this experience be the best it can possibly be. The directors tell us to overact to the point that it feels ridiculous to us, and I take the advice to heart. “It’s musical theatre” they say, and that means that it should be overly entertaining. Every single movement on stage should be absolutely huge and vivacious, and that’s what I do. Sure, I come home exhausted to the point that I can barely stand every night, but it’s all worth it.
I think of this different experience as an experiment. An experiment in trying something out of your comfort zone, an experiment in fun, but most of all, an experiment in living. I regret that I’ve never done musical theatre before my senior year, but that’s okay. We all have regrets, but I guess I try to have as little as possible. So learn from both my mistakes and triumphs. Don’t have any regrets. Ever thought about trying out for a musical? It’s never too late, we’re doing Singin’ in the Rain this spring, which I of course will be a part of, so try out. Maybe you always wanted to try out for the step team or the tennis team or, I don’t know, anything else. My advice: Try it. You may like it, you may not, but it never hurts to try. Whenever you think of whether or not you should try something new, just think of me, that weird stuttering kid turned almost-cool turned back to weird. Don’t be a high school coward, like I- oh wait, guess I’m not one anymore.
*looks like the label of “coward” should be removed from my name, especially after reading my next column “Part II” which will be coming soon.
