Saturday, November 26, 2005

Somehow The Campus Talent Shows Matter Less Now...

There is nothing like having to recount your possibly cruel actions while watching a possible victim on the big screen.

I am sitting in the theatre, ready to be engrossed in Walk The Line. I am fully into the present, in the moment, when the opening credits take me to my presumably bitchy past.

Waylon Malloy Payne.

Waylon plays Jerry Lee Lewis in the film and, strangely enough, attended Oklahoma Baptist University for a year--he was a freshman when I was a sophomore. Waylon Payne, not Jerry Lee Lewis. After seeing Waylon/Jerry Lee on screen and confirming that it was the guy I vaguely knew that year, I remembered the joke a friend made, "His middle name is excruciating.". I remember him involved in very little, but somehow always around. He auditioned for every show, was never cast, but hung out at rehearsal quite a bit. I don't remember him in either of the select choirs, but was somehow on the heels of all my music major friends as they would come to the cafeteria after rehearsal. He floated around the edges of my world and was gone the next year. Some interviews (because, yes, if you are in a major motion picture and I know you, you shall be Googled.) state that he made it two years and then was expelled, but I don't recall that. I just recall a guy that tried to find a place to belong, but never found it. The only memories I have of him was rolling our eyes at him--not that I am terribly proud of that.

What a unreal reminder of my bitchy past.

2 comments:

The Crib Chick said...

Think of it this way; it could've been another alum of yours playing Jerry Lee Lewis (or just plain ol' Jerry Lewis...but that would have been a much different film, no?)...

Someone with the initials DW. :o)

What I would've given to see your reaction had *that* been the case.

Remember, I rejected the man who would go on to sing with a major R&B band. Superstars have to have a certain amount of conflict in their lives to overcome, in order to achieve; you and I, dear, have our own part to play in this drama we call life...as instruments of that conflict.

Okay, I'm not really being serious, just trying for a laugh. Let me know if it works.

educat said...

Dear me, mon petit Crib, the eye roll that one got nearly raised the roof.

And yes, he would be Jerry Lewis. Or Jim Carrey. Or Don Knotts (how well do you remember the Don Knottzi Lazzi?). Face it, "The Killer" is broad but DW? A barn. A silo even.

And yes, I have placated myself through this time with the knowledge that my HS friends refused jewlery from and taped to a pole a future two hit wonder.

I wish you'd been there with me. My sister didn't appreciate the sock in the arm with the "Good God, that guy went to OBU!!!" like you would have.

Happy late fall, friend.