So, my folks just gave me my high school yearbooks...

There's nothing to show you the trail of wreckage you and your peers have made out of your lives like sifting through the high school yearbook.  My folks are moving to Austin this fall, and so they are in the process of clearing out the old homestead back in Spring, TX.

The yearbook is full of faces and names I haven't thought about in the 18 years since me and good 'ol Klein Oak High parted ways.  Old friends, old flames, lovely well-wishes from people I don't remember, pictures of people who I don't recall, people who I only remember horrible and/ or embarrassing things about, etc...

But as this site is 90% comics and superheroes and 10% confessional, I thought I'd post a few photos.

Some context...

These are all from my Senior Year (Class of '93 RULES!!!!   WHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!).  That year I was in drama club where I did about three plays, I had a great little red '83 Honda Accord named The Badger, and had some pretty great friends, some of whom pop up here from time to time.  I did not post their pictures here, but totally would if they gave me permission.

The Drama Club thing is important, because it'll help explain a bit about why I popped up doing silly things.

I have carried my shame long enough, and now I share it with you.

Let's see here.  Dancing?  Check.  Gold hat?  Check.  Singing showtunes?  Check.  Wearing bootleg Jane's Addiction concert shirt?  Check.


That more or less sums it up for high school for me in a lot of ways.  This pic was at the Freshman Welcome Assembly that took place a week or so before the start of the year.  As VP of the Drama Club, I was required to take part, and our director came up with this skit that incorporated several recognizable Broadway hits.  The plus side is that sitting through run throughs was not only when I found out we had a school fight song, I still know all the words (and its to the tune of Michigan fight song, so Jamie hears it a few times every football season).

Also as VP of the Drama Club, we hosted the annual talent show.  As different acts set up, we had to perform skits inbetween so the audience wouldn't just get up and leave.  I believe this was our take on Steve Martin's "What the Hell is That?"

Man, what ever happened to Stephanie there on my left?  She was super nice.

I worried a little bit about people giving us a hard time for doing an old Steve Martin bit from 1979, which I'd suggested we do (which I would have copped to and we all agreed was okay), but apparently of the 400 people in the auditorium, I was the only one who stayed up late watching old Steve Martin bits.

Look, you try to come up with 15 different skits in two weeks.  The main lesson here, however, was:  never keep asking an auditorium full of teen-agers "what is that?"  They have all kinds of answers they are willing to offer in the anonymous darkness of a theater.

I assume I'm miming a cup here, or else I'm about to grab Shannon's nose

This is a picture from rehearsals for a (God help me) dinner theater production of Rumors by Neil Simon we did in the cafeteria, even though we had an amazing auditorium (damn choir used that auditorium every year for their stupid Christmas concert).  I enjoyed working on the show as I got to play someone not all that with it, and my "wife" in the picture here was a lot of fun.  Shannon, by the way, would be Jamie's roommate their freshman year at college, and is why Jamie and I met.

Those who know me now will be stunned to see me in the above picture in a plaid shirt, jeans and a dark t-shirt underneath.  This is an outfit I never wore, ever, ever again.

I have no recollection of the medallion.  No idea what's going on there.

have you seen this man..?

Ah, yes.  The Senior Yearbook official photo.  We're all so full of promise.

My hair was always a trainwreck in high school, but during this particular day, I had been responsible for getting myself to the studio and my car's AC went out in Houston in August.  So I drove all the way with my hair blowing around, and that was what ended up in the picture.  Its not quite as bad as I remember it, but...

Flashforward 18 years, and I haven't aged a day.

chicks still dig me, right?

I hope you have enjoyed this somewhat mortifying walk down memory lane.