(intro) Spooky Nerdy Brooding Punks and the NYC Sketch Comedy Troupes That Love Them

I refuse to shorten this title.

Consider the following two meetings:

Manhattan, September 1988. Maybe even early October.

You're fresh meat at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. You got here on a scholarship, so you can't help but feel like everyone else looks so put together. Wealthy. Probably even fake, like a beatnik-themed costume party. Who are you kidding? You're all theater kids still thinking about high school hierarchies. Weirdos cosplaying as legitimately interesting people.

Spike Lee's shockingly casual commencement speech echoes in your mind and it makes you feel a little better. So many of your classmates will soon regret having spent so much money for courses that won't serve you much purpose in your future as a... filmmaker? Screenwriter? Stage performer, screen actor? You've got your first year or two to figure it out. No, what Spike said is what matters most at the moment: the connections you make during your time at Tisch will be where your parents' money's worth will shine through. There's no time to waste, so you put yourself out there and watch others do the same.

One of them is a kid who looks like a further emaciated Sid Vicious, but with light green hair and a serious obsession with the Joker and Travis Bickle. Someone who totally looks like he'd carry a switchblade wherever he goes - naturally, he has one.

Ah. This must be the drama department and of fucking course, this guy's gonna be one of your closest friends for a very long time. Drink up! This is New York.

~

Manhattan, September 2001.

You're beginning your first year of study at the School of Visual Arts. Wouldn't it be so great to create student films? Well, you weren't really paying attention to all that much except for all the new friends you'd make. The semester's only recently begun. Who knows what'll happen?

Certainly not someone who one of your new friends is presently describing to you as "a guy sitting out and drinking in the hallway with a Locust T-shirt on". (This guy would later go on to say that he was more or less being obnoxious in advertising his then-obscure music taste in this manner.) He's on your floor and your friend thinks you should see him up close.

Were you expecting him to marvel at your rumored strength and violent streak? Your answer doesn't matter, because this is exactly what happens. He joins your party, just like that.

One thing leads to another, then you, him, his tall friend and some ska nerd you just met are watching the Twin Towers fall via that nerd's dorm window.

Well, fuck.

Drink up. This is New York.

The first story is how several future members of The State ended up meeting Robert Ben Garant, their resident moody tattooed writing workhorse with a dark streak, a love of horror and a difficult, solitary life that began to brighten somewhat the more time he spent with his new comedy troupe. The second story is how future Whitest Kids U' Know member Sam Brown ended up meeting Zach Cregger, the group's resident moody tattooed writing workhorse with a dark streak, a love of horror and--

Yeah, you can tell where this shit is going. The space-time continuum spat up variants of the same guy in the same circumstances for the Gen X and millennial eras.

Granted, I say this but it's also a bit of a disservice to just how much these two influenced their respective sketch comedy projects. Their similarities don't stop at how they both played strange takes on Abraham Lincoln on TV.  Hell, their differences aren't even restricted to their favorite bands or their brief misadventures in sitcom country.

All of this, however, starts from both Ben and Zach being their troupes' designated punk homies with the good looks.

There's way more to dive into and I'd be happy if you decide to bear witness to how I plot it all out in future posts. Hopefully, I can compile all of these into a master post on Medium or Substack or Wordpress. Even though I technically just talked shit about these sites like last week. I've only been on FriendRewind for two weeks. What is actually the matter with me?

Look, stop reading this shit and consider checking out the next post to come in this series. Thank you.

Sources for this "chapter" are The Union of The State by Corey Stulce (oral history book of The State) and WKUK: How We All Met

There may or may not be a Bruce McCulloch bonus chapter. We'll see.