Day 10 - Going Away to College
Blink 182
1999
Disclaimer: All perspectives, opinions, and memories in this entry are mine and mine alone. Some content is rugged, raw, and - sometimes - NSFW, but it's all authentic and included with purpose.
Why It’s On The List:
I will never forget that day in my senior year of high school.
There was an announcement that we could skip lunch if we wanted to attend an exploratory meeting about starting a sketch comedy show with our drama teacher, Colin Castelow. I grew up with comedy. Dinners with my family were spent watching Andy Griffith, Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, and Carol Burnett, so I was intrigued by this proposition.
I remember that meeting vividly. While all my classmates were barely paying attention, Colin was basically talking directly to me as I asked a million questions. We never got the show off the ground that year but the idea got embedded in my brain like a disease.
I stayed at home and did community college for my freshman year but decided to go to a small local school called Christopher Newport University (CNU) for my sophomore year. My high school friend Matt had already started at CNU and our other friend Jon was going to transfer in as well.
I went to both of them and pitched the idea of that comedy show that summer before sophomore year.
I don’t know if it was ignorance or arrogance (probably a healthy dose of both), but we were all in. I have no idea how we were this smart for being so dumb. Our goal was get as many popular people in the cast as possible to make the show a draw and then advertise the hell out of it.
Early in the semester, Jon, Matt, and I went to the Dean of Student Life and said we wanted to put on a show. She legit laughed out loud. She said to go for it and she would give us whatever we wanted BUT to not be disappointed. CNU was still largely a commuter school at that time and she warned us that they never got more than 20 or so people to any event they ever put on.
Again. Ignorance + Arrogance is a beautiful thing.
We decided to call our show “CNU Tonight” with the obvious “seein’ you tonight” as our money line. Now we needed a cast and then we needed to actually get people out to see it.
Matt got his roommate Jesse on board. Jesse was a real honest to God actor so he would help with quality and content. Also was able to add Kristina - another insanely talented actress. We landed Kona and Sam. Two massively popular guys with large circles of influence. Tracey never met a stranger, so she was huge in getting crowds to the show. And then we got Maggie. To this day, I’m still pissed Maggie isn’t famous. She had the most explosive combination of talent AND likability that I’ve ever witnessed.
I’m still most proud of our advertising campaign.
About a month out from the show, we got a stack of bright orange poster board and printer paper. We started slow. The first week we only posted funny bumper sticker type jokes on the orange posters and papers with the shows date, “10.28.99” on the bottom. No other context. We would go out in the middle of the night and hang those posters EVERYWHERE on campus. The next week, more jokes. The 3rd week we start writing “Who will you be seeing on 10.28.99?” and then the final week we posted “CNU Tonight. Live Sketch Comedy Show. 10.28.99” There was actual buzz around the campus. The day before the show we had the entire cast stand outside of strategic locations and hand out “tickets” we created. We felt like that was an exclusive invite. You had something that not everyone had. The night before show, Jon and I went to EVERY dorm room in the building and put the show’s details on a post-it-note on each door.
We had no idea what to expect as our cast gathered backstage the night of October 28, 1999. Was anyone going to show? We heard some commotion in the theater, but had no clue if it was only 20 people or so.
Room went black. Stage manager told me I was up. I had the first line.
I walked out as the light came on and I couldn’t see anything, but I will never forget the sound. THE ABSOLUTE ROAR. There was so much noise and cheering that I couldn’t get my line out for over a full minute. I looked back and Jon had snuck his head out of the curtain. We looked at each other with a “we actually did it” nod to each other.
Over 300 people came that night.
When the show was over the dean of students asked if I would meet her at her office the next day. She asked me to become the “president of campus life” and we took off from there. We started doing dodgeball nights and video game nights and we did “CNU Tonight” spin-offs like “Whose Line is it Anyway?” and “Who Wants to be Hundred-aire?”
Blink-182’s “Enema of the State” album sums up that time of life for me. We had that record on repeat as we wrote skits and planned out events. Can’t hear a song from that album today without getting goosebumps remembering that roar.
Listen to "Going Away to College" here:
Favorite Line:
I know my favorite line SHOULD be:
"I haven't been this scared in a long time
And I'm so unprepared so here's your valentine
Bouquet of clumsy words, a simple melody
This world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me"
But I'm ashamed and/or proud to say that my favorite line has actually always been:
"I'll think about the times
She kissed me after class
She put up with my friends
I acted like an ass
I'd ditch my lecture to watch the girls play soccer
Is my picture still hanging in her locker?"
While We're Here:
There was an announcement that we could skip lunch if we wanted to attend an exploratory meeting about starting a sketch comedy show with our drama teacher, Colin Castelow. I grew up with comedy. Dinners with my family were spent watching Andy Griffith, Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, and Carol Burnett, so I was intrigued by this proposition.
I remember that meeting vividly. While all my classmates were barely paying attention, Colin was basically talking directly to me as I asked a million questions. We never got the show off the ground that year but the idea got embedded in my brain like a disease.
I stayed at home and did community college for my freshman year but decided to go to a small local school called Christopher Newport University (CNU) for my sophomore year. My high school friend Matt had already started at CNU and our other friend Jon was going to transfer in as well.
I went to both of them and pitched the idea of that comedy show that summer before sophomore year.
I don’t know if it was ignorance or arrogance (probably a healthy dose of both), but we were all in. I have no idea how we were this smart for being so dumb. Our goal was get as many popular people in the cast as possible to make the show a draw and then advertise the hell out of it.
Early in the semester, Jon, Matt, and I went to the Dean of Student Life and said we wanted to put on a show. She legit laughed out loud. She said to go for it and she would give us whatever we wanted BUT to not be disappointed. CNU was still largely a commuter school at that time and she warned us that they never got more than 20 or so people to any event they ever put on.
Again. Ignorance + Arrogance is a beautiful thing.
We decided to call our show “CNU Tonight” with the obvious “seein’ you tonight” as our money line. Now we needed a cast and then we needed to actually get people out to see it.
Matt got his roommate Jesse on board. Jesse was a real honest to God actor so he would help with quality and content. Also was able to add Kristina - another insanely talented actress. We landed Kona and Sam. Two massively popular guys with large circles of influence. Tracey never met a stranger, so she was huge in getting crowds to the show. And then we got Maggie. To this day, I’m still pissed Maggie isn’t famous. She had the most explosive combination of talent AND likability that I’ve ever witnessed.
I’m still most proud of our advertising campaign.
About a month out from the show, we got a stack of bright orange poster board and printer paper. We started slow. The first week we only posted funny bumper sticker type jokes on the orange posters and papers with the shows date, “10.28.99” on the bottom. No other context. We would go out in the middle of the night and hang those posters EVERYWHERE on campus. The next week, more jokes. The 3rd week we start writing “Who will you be seeing on 10.28.99?” and then the final week we posted “CNU Tonight. Live Sketch Comedy Show. 10.28.99” There was actual buzz around the campus. The day before the show we had the entire cast stand outside of strategic locations and hand out “tickets” we created. We felt like that was an exclusive invite. You had something that not everyone had. The night before show, Jon and I went to EVERY dorm room in the building and put the show’s details on a post-it-note on each door.
We had no idea what to expect as our cast gathered backstage the night of October 28, 1999. Was anyone going to show? We heard some commotion in the theater, but had no clue if it was only 20 people or so.
Room went black. Stage manager told me I was up. I had the first line.
I walked out as the light came on and I couldn’t see anything, but I will never forget the sound. THE ABSOLUTE ROAR. There was so much noise and cheering that I couldn’t get my line out for over a full minute. I looked back and Jon had snuck his head out of the curtain. We looked at each other with a “we actually did it” nod to each other.
Over 300 people came that night.
When the show was over the dean of students asked if I would meet her at her office the next day. She asked me to become the “president of campus life” and we took off from there. We started doing dodgeball nights and video game nights and we did “CNU Tonight” spin-offs like “Whose Line is it Anyway?” and “Who Wants to be Hundred-aire?”
Blink-182’s “Enema of the State” album sums up that time of life for me. We had that record on repeat as we wrote skits and planned out events. Can’t hear a song from that album today without getting goosebumps remembering that roar.
Listen to "Going Away to College" here:
Favorite Line:
I know my favorite line SHOULD be:
"I haven't been this scared in a long time
And I'm so unprepared so here's your valentine
Bouquet of clumsy words, a simple melody
This world's an ugly place, but you're so beautiful to me"
But I'm ashamed and/or proud to say that my favorite line has actually always been:
"I'll think about the times
She kissed me after class
She put up with my friends
I acted like an ass
I'd ditch my lecture to watch the girls play soccer
Is my picture still hanging in her locker?"
While We're Here:
Didn't really talk about the song above so I will here. "What's My Age" and "Small Things" were definitely the more popular tracks from "Enema" but I've always been partial to "Going Away to College." I've always thought of it to be like a little love note passed on a piece of notebook paper. It's self aware about being clumsy and still a bit misguided at time (see my favorite line above) but considering the source of a punk rock band, it's actually a very sweet sentiment to me.
Also - back in the early 2000's, my buddy Dan was in a local band and they surprised me by playing it unexpectedly at one of their shows because they knew I loved it so much. Awesome memory.
Also - back in the early 2000's, my buddy Dan was in a local band and they surprised me by playing it unexpectedly at one of their shows because they knew I loved it so much. Awesome memory.
If You Liked This Song...
Here are some other of my favorite punk rock hits of the late 90s/early 2000s:
- What's My Age Again
- All The Small Things
- Adam's Song
- First Date
- Fatlip
- Santeria
- What's My Age Again
- All The Small Things
- Adam's Song
- First Date
- Fatlip
- Santeria
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