11.30.2005

This is MY House!

From Big Dave Wave on how he got the name "Big Dave Wave"

"Mark Reed [Rants & Cigs] at college in Santa Cruz (University of California, Santa Cruz) used to call me "Dave Wave" (I guess because of that clothing store Big Wave Dave's downtown) and Ty's called me that since then, keeping the "big." The next year when Ty was an RA and I was in his dorm he was in charge of putting everyone's name on their doors (which, from what I witnessed, was the job in its entirety). On my door he put "Dave Wave" and I guess people thought that was really my name because almost a year latter McKenzie asked "who's this Dave Blair guy" once and I was surprised he didn't know my name! In that dorm, there was also a "Crazy Dave" for a while and a "Crazy Dave, Jr." We were lousy with Daves.

Once when we were at a hardware store in town I asked Ty for his dorm master key and I brought it up to the key making booth. The woman stared at it for a little bit - I thought she might be contemplating the "DO NOT DUPLICATE - UCSC" imprinted on it and wasn't going to make a copy for me, but apparently she just thought that was a political statement and finally said "hmmm, I think I have a blank for that." People would ask both of us (and later Phil, and maybe McKenzie had a master too) to unlock their doors if they got locked out. That seems strange now. I guess Ty's job was completed once he put up name tags at the beginning of the year.

The year before (my first year, Ty's first there), we shared an on-campus apartment with a guy named "Lua" (a large [crazy] Samoan guy who tried to strangle me and once tackled Ty), "RJ" (who always was yelling at his girlfriend "This is MY house!" and left a sticky spot on the wall by the chair he always sat in - from his Jheri Curl) and "Scott", another freshman who I shared a room with (who, thankfully, was never around because he was always at his girlfriend's place (I feel sorry for her roommates if she had any), and who also had one of the sharpest noses I've ever encountered). Scott, was a blonde haired optimist. Didn't share the sense of humor Ty and I. In fact, I think I'm the only roommate who got the humor to "who drank my fucking orange juice?!" Or, the Whoopie (Goldberg) cave, or the milk crate train, or "greased up coffee cup." There's so much...

The university was organized into eight colleges at the time, ours, Oakes, had apartments and most people cooked and ate in their kitchens. Ty and I were on the meal plan though (too busy studying to cook), so we both would walk to the Porter College dining hall where we would usually sit alone and drink lots of coffee, spin glasses, and break a spoon or two (once a woman who worked there told Ty he should act his age and he said "Oh, so it's supposed to be an ACT?"). Sometimes we would sit with other Porter students, but they usually would get up for something and mysteriously never return. Once, we video taped our meal. The funny thing is, the following year, there was a standing room crowd at our table (maybe McKenzie was the funny stooge).

Once, back at Porter, we sat next to the "Monk Guy" (although now that I think about it he may have been some kind of Druid). He can be seen in the beginning of the Lost Boys as one of the local town freaks. I think he lived in the woods behind campus. Or taught sociology, I'm not sure. But he dressed like a monk (or Druid?) and could be sighted around campus talking to (?) we don't know who. So he sat at our table one day and we were about to get up and change tables when we both decided to give him a chance, maybe he wasn't really crazy, maybe it would be ok to sit next to him (a consideration the Porter students apparently never gave us). He started talking (loudly) to God I think it was - Ty and I looked at each other and both got up quickly and went to another table. Later I almost knocked him over when jumping off a campus shuttle as he appeared from nowhere when the doors opened and I shrieked and ran off.

The "Color Guy" (and dutiful sidekick) is too hard to describe."