The Prequel
In coordination with my #starwarsszn article, I found an old essay of mine originally written for a narrative writing class. I’ve never been one to hold out on details of a good story, so here is the supplemental piece to my article, hence it’s name. With slight editing, this essay recalls how I became quasi-famous on Kansas City’s now defunct radio station, 97.3 The Planet. The prompt of the essay was to take the classic writing structure known as The Hero’s Journey and apply it to our own lives. In this case, living out my childhood dream of being a Jedi.
Confusion was beginning to set in. I was, ironically, trying to figure out what this assignment was meant to convey. More importantly, I was trying to figure out what to write about. Is the writing prompt just too vague? Am I reading the wrong book? What page number is that? These are the questions I asked myself as I stared blankly at the computer screen before me, trying to analyse the assignment that would be due tomorrow before class.
I have always considered myself to be a good writer. It was my highest subject when I took the SAT, and it’s always been a hobby of mine to read and write. Yet in my more recent college years, I have found it more and more difficult to write and express myself. I’ve been in a perpetual state of “writer’s block” for close to a year now, affecting nearly everything I have written. It’s hard for me to understand and pinpoint when my affliction first began, but I can tell you tonight it will not end anytime soon.
It’s become so difficult to let my mind wander freely and find inspiration that I sometimes find myself taking on the Hemingway approach to writing. That is to say; I will drink until I overcome my inability to write, stop when I approach my inability to stay awake, and edit in the morning, when I’m sober and dealing with my inability to deal with a pounding headache.
Those pounding headaches, along with the looming potential future of liver failure, serve as good deterrents to remind myself to never take the Hemingway approach any time soon. Therefore I find myself sitting in front of my computer. Sober, bored, and attempting to write a narrative story about my lack of finding inspiration in writing narrative stories. How did I get to this point?
When I was growing up, I was always delighted by the thought of being famous. I think this is a nearly universal trait in most children. We want to be remembered, and famous people we look up to are always remembered. At least, that is how my young mind would always perceive it. My one and only taste of “fame” was also the spark of inspiration that would ignite the desire to become a journalist. First, I need to explain a few smaller details.
I love Star Wars. My grandpa first introduced me to Star Wars around the age of two, and throughout my childhood, my collection of Star Wars memorabilia and toys has grown. When I was younger, in the golden age of free-flowing imagination and what seemed like eons of free time, I would often grab a toy lightsaber and pretend to be fighting the evil of the galaxies as Earth’s very last Jedi. It was nerdy, and I knew it was back then at the age of eight, but I didn’t care. To me, it was the coolest way to spend an afternoon.
On a late-June afternoon, after being scolded by my mother for running through the tiny cape cod-styled home I grew up in, I took my ongoing imaginative battle to the front yard. My opponent was a large oak tree, delimbed and slowly dying from storms of years past. It was a tough enemy, and it wouldn’t go down without a fight. It was my duty as a Jedi to wage intergalactic war against the tree, and I was determined to win. Garbed in a bathrobe comically too large for me, I ran straight for the tree, waving my colorful weapon wildly, striking with ferocity, pretending to be in the throws of the greatest battle Merriam, Kansas has ever seen. Unbeknownst to me, I had an audience. Though I wouldn’t learn about it until days later, when my mom came home from work crying with laughter.
Kansas City has a very rich music scene. I largely credit my love for music and diverse taste to the radio stations the city had to offer. Kansas City radio stations also has a rich talk show scene. A few late-June afternoons after my bout with the giant oak tree in my front yard, my mom was driving home from work listening to one such talk show on 97.9 The Planet. Now off the air, 97.3 The Planet was the central hub for alternative rock in the early and mid 2000’s. In the afternoons, DJ Brian Truda would take over, and on this occasion as my mom was beginning her commute home from work, Brian Truda was telling a story on air about one of his neighbor’s kid:
While enjoying coffee in his home, Brian peered out his front window. He was presented with a delightful view. Bright blue skies, green grass, birds flying to and fro, and across the street, he witnessed a child wearing an oversized bathroom beating an oak tree with a toy lightsaber. The scene was enough to make him choke on his coffee, and the resulting combination of laughter and pain caused Brian to remember the scene and tell it at a later date on his radio show.
My mom, listening in to Brian’s radio show at the very moment he was recounting his own tale, at first found it amusing and encouraging to know she was not the only one in town with a weird child obsessed with tree-beating. Yet as his story continued and more details revealed themselves, her amusement turned to curiosity, and she decided to call into the show during the commercial break. After inquiring about Brian’s story, my mom proclaimed, “That’s my son!”
Fast-forward twenty minutes to my mom pulling into the driveway, crying from laughter, calling for me when she entered the house to tell me about what had just happened. This brush with fame was both embarrassing and exciting to me. On one hand, a large portion of Kansas City now knew about my Star Wars antics. On the other hand, by association, I was on the radio. To my young mind, this was very cool and outweighed the embarrassment.
This event would spark an interest in me. First, I needed to ditch the bathrobe and up my costume. If I was going to be seen in public as a Jedi, I needed to do it right. Years have passed, and now I have “professional-grade” Jedi robes in my closet, waiting for the next Star Wars movie to be released. Second, and more importantly, I wanted to know more about what Brian Truda did. Somehow, him telling a story about me on air got me thinking about the whole process of radio production. I was intrigued by getting paid to tell people’s stories. It was something that would follow me and grow in my mind as I grew up.
