WELCOME TO KADS’ KORNER. I have no idea what this is, or what it will be; I just hope that it ends up being at least a little funny. If it’s not, you can just send me hate mail and I’ll never do it again. Or I’ll do it every month and dedicate it to you.
I haven’t decided yet.
When Chadwick initially urged me to write this column, my first thought was, are you crazy?! No one wants to listen to me blabber on every month! Then I thought about it. What a perfect idea! No one ever pays attention to my one sided conversations in #gryffindor, so I can post them here instead! ...of course I still don't know whether anyone will care, but as they say, yoyo or something. (I don’t really know who “they” is. Hipsters?)
But more to the point, I suppose I should get to why Chadwick approached me. She wanted desperately to laugh at me. Well. No. Okay I'm sure that's true too, but it was actually because if a quote that I posted in a chat late one night. Alright, I post quotes just about every night. Usually several of them. Regardless, that’s what brought all of this about (and I’m actually really sorry about it now because this column is probably not going to be funny at all). This was the quote in question:
There are two kinds of people in this world:
After posting it, I naturally tried to deflect the idea that I, a musical connoisseur, would ever have watched, let alone enjoyed, High School Musical. Boy, did that sentence have a lot of commas. Editors, did I use them right? Anyway, moving on. It’s true, dear reader. I’m just going to come right out and say it.
I went through a High School Musical phase.
My love affair for Disney channel movies was hardly a new thing. I mean, I was a child of the 90s! When there was a new movie premiering, you bet your behind that my behind was sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream or something ready to relish every moment of it. I used my VCR (yes, no DVDs or blu-ray) to record them. I would watch them almost every. single. day. When I thought I’d grown out of them, I got sucked right back in. I remember watching the premiere of The Cheetah Girls one night while babysitting my cousin.
Suffice to say, I was always going to watch High School Musicals. I’m sure that Nostradamus predicted it in the stars, thousands or millions of years ago. For Merlin’s sake, it came at the perfect time for my ~obsession~ to take root.
I’d always fancied myself a theatre kid. In elementary school, I saw a production of Bye Bye Birdie at my local middle school and even though I fell asleep during act two (probably for the best if you know anything about the show…), I came to love the idea of being a performer.
…Then I remembered that I was really shy and didn’t do the musical once I actually got to middle school. I pretended that I forgot the parental permission slip needed to audition, but the truth was, I could have forged my mother’s signature and gone (Merlin knows I’d done it before. I was a bit of a rule breaker at 11, wasn’t I?). Consequently, I didn’t actually do a play until my last year of middle school, and that wasn’t even in front of an audience. Well, we recorded it on an old camcorder (again! VHS!), but I don’t think it will ever haunt my on youtube when I get super rich and famous. I’m pretty sure someone destroyed it because we were that bad.
In high school, I vowed to break my shell and become a serious actor! I actually did okay. Sort of. Well, I auditioned for a really badly written play called Date With a Vampire and got understudy for the part I wanted (She was a serious vampire vixen and had the BEST ONE-LINERS EVER. If I knew where my script was, I’d seriously type some of them out). I was also cast in a smaller role… I didn’t really have an actual part though. The teacher directing the show believed herself a fantastic playwright and wanted to add me in as comic relief.
That never happened.
However, I did eventually make it in the play. One of the girls originally cast didn’t show up and I, the ever-faithful understudy ready to take the stage, got her part. YES! Only downfall? I was the chaperone chastising the students. Every other line was me yelling at one of the other actors. Thus began my typecasted life as the cranky authority figure.
Not even joking. I played a principal in Footloose two years later, a bossy housewife the year after that, and never got that big break I was hoping for. I suppose it didn’t help that until I got voice lessons some time later, I sounded a bit like a horse at the opera. I like to think I’ve improved since then. I sound a little less like a horse at the opera, and more like… well this analogy is going nowhere. Suffice to say, I’ve improved and no longer give headaches. Most of the time.
Where was I going with this? Oh right, High School Musical. The absolute peak of my obsession happened not long after I gave up High School Musical. But I still loved it when it came out. I was due to visit New York City for the first time a month after it came out. I’m pretty sure I tripped down Broadway singing something from the movie. It was either that or Wicked; I’m not really sure which. I just know I tripped.
In my defense, it was the middle of February and I’ve never been good at ice.
Suffice to say, you’ve not only learned a lot of embarrassing things about me, but I’ve come out at a High School Musical fan. Or, well, former fan. I don’t really watch the film much anymore. Or listen to the soundtrack. (No, really! I’m being honest this time!) I’m just going to go stand in the hole I dug for myself though. And embrace the nerd that I was; I’ve already embraced the one that I’ve become.
But for what it’s worth, I went swinging in the park last week and had to sing Breaking Free when I got really high. (Yes, I still remember every word. Go on, laugh. It’s okay)
We’re soaring, flying. There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach if we’re trying…
I haven’t decided yet.
When Chadwick initially urged me to write this column, my first thought was, are you crazy?! No one wants to listen to me blabber on every month! Then I thought about it. What a perfect idea! No one ever pays attention to my one sided conversations in #gryffindor, so I can post them here instead! ...of course I still don't know whether anyone will care, but as they say, yoyo or something. (I don’t really know who “they” is. Hipsters?)
But more to the point, I suppose I should get to why Chadwick approached me. She wanted desperately to laugh at me. Well. No. Okay I'm sure that's true too, but it was actually because if a quote that I posted in a chat late one night. Alright, I post quotes just about every night. Usually several of them. Regardless, that’s what brought all of this about (and I’m actually really sorry about it now because this column is probably not going to be funny at all). This was the quote in question:
There are two kinds of people in this world:
- people who had a high school musical phase
- liars
After posting it, I naturally tried to deflect the idea that I, a musical connoisseur, would ever have watched, let alone enjoyed, High School Musical. Boy, did that sentence have a lot of commas. Editors, did I use them right? Anyway, moving on. It’s true, dear reader. I’m just going to come right out and say it.
I went through a High School Musical phase.
My love affair for Disney channel movies was hardly a new thing. I mean, I was a child of the 90s! When there was a new movie premiering, you bet your behind that my behind was sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream or something ready to relish every moment of it. I used my VCR (yes, no DVDs or blu-ray) to record them. I would watch them almost every. single. day. When I thought I’d grown out of them, I got sucked right back in. I remember watching the premiere of The Cheetah Girls one night while babysitting my cousin.
Suffice to say, I was always going to watch High School Musicals. I’m sure that Nostradamus predicted it in the stars, thousands or millions of years ago. For Merlin’s sake, it came at the perfect time for my ~obsession~ to take root.
I’d always fancied myself a theatre kid. In elementary school, I saw a production of Bye Bye Birdie at my local middle school and even though I fell asleep during act two (probably for the best if you know anything about the show…), I came to love the idea of being a performer.
…Then I remembered that I was really shy and didn’t do the musical once I actually got to middle school. I pretended that I forgot the parental permission slip needed to audition, but the truth was, I could have forged my mother’s signature and gone (Merlin knows I’d done it before. I was a bit of a rule breaker at 11, wasn’t I?). Consequently, I didn’t actually do a play until my last year of middle school, and that wasn’t even in front of an audience. Well, we recorded it on an old camcorder (again! VHS!), but I don’t think it will ever haunt my on youtube when I get super rich and famous. I’m pretty sure someone destroyed it because we were that bad.
In high school, I vowed to break my shell and become a serious actor! I actually did okay. Sort of. Well, I auditioned for a really badly written play called Date With a Vampire and got understudy for the part I wanted (She was a serious vampire vixen and had the BEST ONE-LINERS EVER. If I knew where my script was, I’d seriously type some of them out). I was also cast in a smaller role… I didn’t really have an actual part though. The teacher directing the show believed herself a fantastic playwright and wanted to add me in as comic relief.
That never happened.
However, I did eventually make it in the play. One of the girls originally cast didn’t show up and I, the ever-faithful understudy ready to take the stage, got her part. YES! Only downfall? I was the chaperone chastising the students. Every other line was me yelling at one of the other actors. Thus began my typecasted life as the cranky authority figure.
Not even joking. I played a principal in Footloose two years later, a bossy housewife the year after that, and never got that big break I was hoping for. I suppose it didn’t help that until I got voice lessons some time later, I sounded a bit like a horse at the opera. I like to think I’ve improved since then. I sound a little less like a horse at the opera, and more like… well this analogy is going nowhere. Suffice to say, I’ve improved and no longer give headaches. Most of the time.
Where was I going with this? Oh right, High School Musical. The absolute peak of my obsession happened not long after I gave up High School Musical. But I still loved it when it came out. I was due to visit New York City for the first time a month after it came out. I’m pretty sure I tripped down Broadway singing something from the movie. It was either that or Wicked; I’m not really sure which. I just know I tripped.
In my defense, it was the middle of February and I’ve never been good at ice.
Suffice to say, you’ve not only learned a lot of embarrassing things about me, but I’ve come out at a High School Musical fan. Or, well, former fan. I don’t really watch the film much anymore. Or listen to the soundtrack. (No, really! I’m being honest this time!) I’m just going to go stand in the hole I dug for myself though. And embrace the nerd that I was; I’ve already embraced the one that I’ve become.
But for what it’s worth, I went swinging in the park last week and had to sing Breaking Free when I got really high. (Yes, I still remember every word. Go on, laugh. It’s okay)
We’re soaring, flying. There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach if we’re trying…