[Despanan]

I graduated college with a BA in theatre in Dec. of 2006. At my father's request I ended up moving back in with my parents immediately after that. For the next few months I did odd-jobs around the house and a took a part-time position as a substitute teacher at the local elementary school. During this period It's important to note that I was terrified. I had a worthless degree, no useful skills (or so I thought) and no job prospects and was living in a bum-fuck town with no economy. My family started pushing me to work at a local company called "Bruss" or something...I had no idea what they did, and neither did my parents, and to this day I have no idea what they do. I was scared shitless.

I didn't apply. Instead I took to working towards my blackbelt and sending out a play that I had written in college to random theatres to see if they'd produce it. None of them did.

In March (I think it was March) I jumped in my car and drove to a theatre audition in St. Louis, where I totally expected to be completely passed over for all job possibilities...instead I got 3 job offers. Excited by this prospect, I informed my father of the new job on the horizon.

He listened and when I was done excitedly describing what would become my first job he looked me right in the eye and told me to join the navy. He said I didn't even have to join as an officer (If you have a degree you're supposed to start off as one) and that I could wave that and go-in as an enlisted.

I remember being shocked and hurt...I turned him down, and instead took the temporary seasonal job working for an outdoor drama for housing and $215 a week. I remember going back to my college for my graduation ceremony, then immediately afterwards jumping in the car to drive to this job 10 hours away.

From May to September I worked this job with a great deal of frustration and terror...I was moderately good at it, but had some difficulties getting along with management and my co-workers. After that I had some money saved and was unemployed/staying with friends for about a month, at which time I managed to get hired by a dinner theater on a year contract, doing a little bit of acting, and alot of telemarketing, linecooking, waiting, and cleaning bathrooms...I worked something like, 60-80 hours a week (with no benefits and no overtime) for what management assured me was "just above minimum wage" for like 8 months. I was encouraged to accept tips from the patrons, but was not allowed to keep any for myself, instead I was required to turn them in to management because "If we let you keep tips, we would not be able to pay you a salary".

Then a buddy of mine dropped dead in his sleep at age 25, just 5 days before my own 25th birthday.

I freaked out. I had some money saved, mostly what was left for me in my grandmother's will (she had passed away the year before). With that money, I left my job and hiked the Appalachian Trial from Maine to Georgia. While hiking through Pennsylvania I got an email from one of the theatres that I’d submitted my play to, they wanted to read it. I called home and had my Mom mail them a copy and continued north. After 5.5 months in the woods I summited Katahdin.

After the trail, I went home just as The Gas Crisis was tapering off and the Mortgage Crisis was about ready to hit. I remember my parents freaking out. I also remember not having the money to drive to the county where I was registered to vote. The theatre that had agreed to read my script rejected it, but somehow never bothered to send me a rejection letter.

At this point, I had decided to move to NYC. I was terrified of going there on my own so I applied for graduate school to nearly every college in the city, and then took my last thousand dollars and moved to Louisville, KY where I got a crappy apartment across the road from a pig slaughterhouse. Every morning I could smell this overpowering stench of burnt bacon and ass, and every evening I could hear the pigs crying from their boxcars. I’m frankly surprised I didn’t become a vegetarian right then and there.

I worked 2 jobs, first as a part-time telesalesman for the local regional theatre, and then also as a part-time host for a fine-dining restaurant. Later, I was fired from the hosting job, laid off from the telesales one, then rehired as a host by the same company at another restaurant, and rehired by a different company to do the same telesales job I had been laid off of. I also took a job leading Ghost Tours in downtown Louisville, had a massive fight with my best friend that almost left us going our separate ways, and lived in a bunch of different apartments with different roommates of varying levels of sanity, drug-abuse and violence.

It is also important to note that beginning with my move to Louisville my parents were also giving me $200 a month. After college they had offered to buy me a car as a graduation gift, but as I planned to move to NYC, I instead asked if they could give me what they’d be paying out in lease payments every month instead, so that I could save money.

I was rejected from all 5 graduate programs I had applied to. One was kind enough to send me a handwritten note with its rejection letter, which suggested I apply next year (when I did, I was rejected again.)

[CON'T]