Knickers

A prank gone wrong

Me & some of my good pals/filmmakers at SUNY Purchase in the early 90s

I had no intention of going to college after high school.

As a teenager, I had a bitter taste for fine art ever since my beloved comix were wholly rejected by most institutions. I couldn’t afford the School of Visual Arts and I didn’t wanna transit back and forth to New Jersey for the Joe Kubert School. Besides, I’d basically learned a lot about making comix by assisting masters of the field, Bill Sienkiewicz, Howard Chaykin and Walter Simonson during my senior year at La Guardia High school. And I was gonna try to get paid comic book work. My first portfolio reviews were at Heavy Metal and MAD magazines. Both met with kind tips to “keep up the good work and come back in six months.”

I continued to live in my upper west side apartment/home with my father (Mom and my late brother, Mike, split to Brooklyn when my parents broke up) and it was a quiet, albeit sad and lonely time.

Most of my good friends got into SUNY Purchase college for film and art and I wound up visiting them a lot over the next two years while I took part-time gigs working in restaurants and other jobs I had no real interest in with the occasional drawing work. Regular weekend visits to SUNY Purchase meant I could co-star in their films and become a known quantity among student peers and teachers. Within that two year hiatus from studying, I convinced my parents to pay for college if I got in. Or maybe it was the other way around. My parents noticed how much time (and fun) I was having away from home, collaborating on projects, and convinced ME to go to SUNY Purchase.

The semester before I was going to become a freshman, a few senior filmmakers wanted to pull a prank at their graduation ceremony. They’d recruited some of my good friends who were also filmmakers and somehow I got involved. Back then I had no shame. I was an open book and an open wound. Nothing and everything hurt me but I didn’t care. I wasn’t a narcissist but I might’ve felt a little nihilistic. My own worst enemy with a comic book-sized chip on his shoulder! (Later on I would discover a small community of cartoonists who contributed to The Load, the college newspaper)

The prank was gonna involve one of the filmmakers who looked a lot like Jesus Christ to storm the stage with a thick, four foot long cock, strapped around his waist and spew some kind of message that, to be honest, I was not privy to nor did I ever find out what he was supposed to say. But before they could storm the stage, a stage that sat prominent staff members and the likes of singer/actor/civil rights activist Harry Belafonte (”Day-O”), me and another student (who I’d basically met on the spot) were supposed to distract the students, families and audience while the pranksters ran to take over the microphones on stage.

The signal was given. I took a swig of whiskey and went to hand it to my partner-in-crime but he was no where to be seen. Abandoned, I knew I had a job to do and kept my word as I screamed (as scripted), “Jesus is back and he’s bigger than ever before!” Over and over. For some reason, hardly anyone noticed me as the crowd was clapping for someone or something (I can’t remember who or what) and the rebel filmmakers took the stage hostage.

There I was, a lone perpetrator trying to distract everyone while the four foot long cocksure Jesus started his speech and suddenly everything went dead. A frozen moment in time. It took a second to realize that some genius pulled the plugs on the microphones, killing the broadcast and making the stunt moot. The rebel filmmakers looked at each other and scattered off stage in defeat. Their prank had fizzled. Their message unheard.

Suffice it to say there was a lot of anger and upset. There was a tribunal. The seniors lost their diplomas, even though they went on to make movies, and my good friends, the ones who still had to show their faces in school the next year or two, were put on suspension.

And so was I.

How? I wasn’t a student there. Yet.

But there was a video.

During the tribunal, one of the film teachers kept pointing out this guy who was waving his hands and shouting and kept wondering who that was. My friends didn’t rat me out but, eventually, the film teacher remembered I was the subject of a faux-documentary my good friend made and he put two-and-two together.

Busted! I got a letter. Or was it a phone call? I don’t remember. Alerting me to the fact that I was going to enter SUNY Purchase college as a freshman under suspension. Did I make the Guinness book of World Records? Perhaps. But I walked in already a bad ass with a reputation. A reputation that was instantly squandered when I found out what my punishment was going to be as per my suspension duties.

See, The New York Knicks basketball team had just signed on to use the SUNY Purchase gym facilities as their practice space. Which meant we got to see the Knicks play or wander around the food court. My job was to work one of the reception desks in the gym but also wash and dry the NY Knicks hammocks. Or, at least that’s what I thought I was washing and drying. Those NY Knicks hammocks turned out to be NY Knicks jock straps. Much more intimate than a hammock and drenched in sweat. I remember feeling pissed off. Just because I was lightly involved in a dumb prank gone wrong didn’t mean I should be humiliated into washing and drying giant jock straps (not that there’s anything wring with that).

When I told my friends what I’d been subjected to they could barely pick themselves off the floor from laughing. Those giant jock straps got a lot of mileage and my once semi-nihilistic feelings turned an inner frown upside down and I felt less lonely. I found the humor.

My suspension didn’t last too long as I elected to quit and never go back to that gym even though the NY Knicks used it for practice for the next ten years. Luckily, no one on staff was checking my attendance and I walked away with a funny story to tell.

Go New York KNICKS!

--Dean

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