Sleepwalk With Me_ And Other Painfully True Stories - Mike Birbiglia [40]
I didn’t go into show business with the intention of performing in hundreds of cafeterias, auditoriums, and multipurpose centers at colleges across the country. But in 2002, about a year into my move to New York, I was introduced to Jill McGee, who books college gigs exclusively and submits comedians to the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) conferences. These are held seven times a year in hotel conference centers across America and they consist of live shows and then conference room “marketplaces” filled with booths where live comedy is just one of the offerings. At a regional NACA in Reno, I walked around to see some of the other booths. There was Karges the Mentalist, who bends not only spoons but also forks. There was Sailesh, the “World’s Best Uncensored Hypnotist.” There were lecture events like Gail Hand’s lecture “The Power of Laughter.” Gail and I could be a duo, I thought. I could make the audiences laugh and then she could explain why they were laughing. Perhaps my favorite booth was “The Mystical Arts of Tibet,” where students are encouraged to participate in some kind of eastern philosophy equivalent of Lite-Brite. All the booths tended to have some kind of gimmick. They hook you with something like free cookies—which worked on me. Another popular gimmick was the use of an air-filled fat suit and huge boxing gloves. One booth just had a gigantic chair, which students would sit on and have their photos taken, in an effort to appear tiny. I asked them what they sold and they said, “This is what we sell.”
The reason this wide variety of talented people is assembled in one place is that college activity booking is a pretty lucrative industry. Because the number of drinking-related deaths has skyrocketed in recent years, college administrations have no choice but to book as many non-drinking-related activities as possible. Drinking really is an issue. When I performed in the multipurpose center at Penn State, they were celebrating a made-up holiday called “State Patty’s Day.” Apparently Saint Patrick’s Day usually falls during spring break, and the students at Penn State felt totally ripped off by this gross calendar injustice. So, not wanting to miss out on a holiday dedicated to binge drinking, they invented another one. Penn State students are nothing if not inventive (and drunk).
However, one year St. Patrick’s Day didn’t fall during their spring break, so when I arrived on campus to perform, they were celebrating both State Patty’s Day and Saint Paddy’s Day. I knew this fake holiday should be red-flagged when I picked up the college newspaper and read the headline “Victim Takes Partial Blame.” I thought, Are the Penn State headline writers also drinking? Because that headline seems like it was written by someone who had just knocked down several mojitos.
Intrigued by the slurred headline, I continued. The story covered a widely discussed event on campus in which a drunk driver hit a drunk walker. I thought, Hey, maybe these people shouldn’t be making up holidays to drink more. Maybe if they drank less they might be able to title their newspaper articles more specifically. For example, I would title this last article “Drunk Driver Hits Drunk Walker Drunkety-Drunk I’m So Drunk.”
With all this drunkenness, these colleges needed to book mentalists, lecturers, and, sometimes, me.
I’ve performed at Maryland, Merrimack, Marymount, Marietta, William & Mary, Mary Washington, George Washington, and Georgetown.
I’ve played the Big East, the Pac-10, and the PacWest.
I’ve played Washington, Western Washington, and Eastern Washington.
I’ve played orientations, homecomings, Halloweens, senior balls, frat parties, student centers, common rooms, cafeterias, chapels, hockey rinks, basketball arenas, and the Sun Dome.
I’ve played UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UCLA, SUNY Cobleskill, SUNY Binghamton, and SUNY Albany.
Let’s see . . . Chapman, Curry, Bowdoin, Bates, Bentley, Bradley, Babson . . .
Of course there was Middle Tennessee State. And yes, I said Middle. And they do get offended if you