...tune in, turn on...

I started dr0pping 0ut when I was in 3rd grade.

I had Miss Blue that year. Miss Blue was very pretty. She was tall, (well, she looked tall to me. You know, I was like nine). She was blond and she was skinny. I was in love with Miss Blue. I would do anything for her. I brought her apples for her desk. (Don't call me a liar, I did). It was hard for me to concentrate on school work. I just couldn't take my eyes off her....

And I wanted to believe that, deep down, Miss Blue loved me too.

All I wanted in the third grade was to be a good kid. I wanted to be smart (like John Donoghue), because good kids get good grades. Plus, there was Miss Blue. I wanted to make her happy. Apples only go so far. Even a third grader knows that.

But it wasn't working out. I couldn't keep up with the other kids. It was so... embarrassing. I didn't want to be different. Not like that! I wanted to be loved.

And I thought, oh my god! What if I'm...dumb? If I was dumb, I could never be a good kid. And Miss Blue's gonna know! How could I hide it?

What I needed was, like, a diversion!

But I didn't know from diversion!!

Then one day, early in the year, something happened, and it changed the course of my academic career.

I had watched the Jackie Gleason Show with my mom and dad and my sister Dawn over the weekend. There was this guy, Frank Fontaine, who played this character Crazy Guggenheim, (go here to see a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGPCHT_NAus), with his hat all backwards and this really dopey laugh. He made me laugh so hard I cried! And I found out that I could sound just like him!
I was hilarious!! Even my sister said I was funny!

So the next day, for show and tell, I got up in front of the class and did Crazy Guggenheim.

Dude. I killed those nine year olds!

John Donoghue said I was so funny I should be on TV!

ON TV?? Really???

That was the begining of the end.

It wasn't long before I was on the hard stuff: Red Skelton's Klem Kaddilhopper. Gertrude and Heathcliff, the talking magpies. The effing Bowery Boys!
A slippery slope, for sure.... Next thing I knew I was stealing from Rocky and Bullwinkle, ('Nothin' up my sleeve!', 'FAN MAIL from some Flounder?').
I was Manfred,(UH! The Wonder Dog!), Maynard G. Krebbs!! (Work. WORK!??)
I couldn't Stop!
I WAS STRUNG OUT, MAN!
I was all funny, all the time.
Math? Sorry. Didn't get it.
Science? Uh uh.
That was English? What was that?

(Reading? Well, reading was different. I could read like a mother. Out loud, especially. And the other kids liked it. It was like I was lost in those stories. I didn't even know I was using different voices in the narrative. The classroom didn't exist. Only the words coming off the page and the world I saw inside my head...)
Yeah. I wasn't right...

See, there was no A.D.D. when I was in third grade. There were good kids and there were bad kids. I fought it. I did! But over time it became more and more obvious that I was not going to be a good student.

But was I funny. You know. For nine years old.

And you know what that meant....Bad kid on the horizon.

The point of no return came a few weeks later when Miss Blue decided on a competition.
The game? Multiplication problems on the blackboard.
Students up, one at a time, to solve the equations.
The prize?

Oh man! Screw the prize!! The prize didn't matter!!! I didn't have a clue how to do this stuff. IT HURT MY BRAIN!
(Oh god...sleepy now. Soo sleepy...).
This was bad.
This was real bad.

Please oh please don't call on me. Maybe I'll be sick. If I'm sick, I won't have to do it. Can I throw up? Diarrhea in front of the whole class? Ok, man, if that's what it takes. Oh please, Miss Blue. Mercy, Miss Blue! OH GOD MISS BLUE NOT ME!! I'M SORRY I'M FUNNY!! I WON'T BE FUNNY OR OBNOXIOUS OR INAPPROPRIATE ANY MORE, MISS BLUE!! PLEASE OH PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME....
Um.Yes Miss Blue? But I don't feel good, Miss Blue. I ....
Oh.
Okay, Miss Blue.

There was no mercy in Miss Blue. She was there to teach and I, by GOD, was going to learn my lesson. I don't know how long I stood there, chalk clutched tightly in my sweaty little hand. My back to the classroom. My neck and my ears red from shame. My eyes overflowing in embarrassment. An hour? A day? I didn't solve a single problem.
Miss Blue?
You broke my heart, Miss Blue...

That was the model I followed all the way through 12th grade. I wanted to quit every day I went to school. I was loud. I was obnoxious. (I know, some of you are thinking, "What do you mean was"??). I hung with a bad crowd. (God forgive you, Mike Pierce).
I was a straight D student.
I was miserable. I got in trouble in the public school so my folks moved me to the Catholic school my sophomore year. It helped, but it didn't change my scholarly progress.
I almost fit in.
But I wasn't really good at anything.

Then, when I was a junior, this woman Kate Veihl, just graduated from Western Michigan University with a theater major and a teaching certificate, took the only job she could find. Teaching drama at Lansing Gabriel's.
And my friends Pat Cain and Andy Froh, (a couple of funny guys in their own right), told me I should try out for the spring musical, "Guy's and Dolls".

I dusted off my best "Bowery Boys" imitation and, script in hand, I auditioned. People laughed! It was like... they wanted me to be funny!

Theatre, Catholic schoolgirls, psychedelic enhancement, rock n' roll and Kate Veil got me through the rest of high school.

Thanks, Kate.

And Miss Blue?
Screw Miss Blue.
By the end of my 3rd grade year, she became Mrs. Howlet and retired from teaching to ruin her own kids.

But I'm not bitter!
Hell, man. Except for the money, I'm The Happiest Man In America!

dA