As I previously mentioned, I was in Eldorado’s Show Choir Gold Rush. I spent literally all four years of High School in that choir in addition to just regular Concert Choir. That’s right. I’m just that cool. I made amazing friends in that choir, learned a lot about music, myself, life, blah, blah… blah. This was the same group where I meet Jean-Lousie, Katie Walker (technically I meet her in middle school), Taylor Bonino, Adrielle Itaii, and a lot of other cool people.
In my freshmen year we placed in 3rd at showfest and 4th place the following year, but ever since then the group has won first place ever year. We traveled every spring break to either compete in competitions or perform for different audiences. Honestly, I think we were just looking for excuses to go on fancy vacations. Our first year we went on a cruise to Mexico and we did perform for a very small audience. I mean small… Still though, we had a blast.
The second year we went on a slightly less glamorous trip to Colorado on a bus. That was interesting to say the least, but we got to go to six flags for one day, which was great. In our junior year we went to Disney land and won the Heritage festival and in my senior year we went to Chicago and this time we participated in the most important show choir competition in the country, The Fame Festvial. I don’t remember how we did. I only know that we didn’t make finals, but we came close. I think overall we placed in either 5th or 6th.
Do I miss show choir? No. I had a blast, but it was a very high school activity. What I do miss though is hanging out with the friends from the music room who have since moved on. Since high school Taylor has had an on again off relationship with New Mexico and currently is living in Arizona with his mother for the first time in a very long time and that has been something he has always been wanting to do.
Adrielle has moved to NY city and to me is the definition of free. She has worked very hard and gone through of a lot shit. She is doing very well in NY and is totally deserving of all of that.
Jean-Louise and Katie (my two Frienemies, remember them?) are currently living together in a cute house a couple blocks from UNM and are very happy together. They aren’t lesbians I promise.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Does anyone remember this? For those of you who don't know this is a press release photo of the show Broadway Your Way! a show that debuted nearly one year ago in the X. February of 2009. Things seemed much simpler just less than a year ago. Things weren't so serious as they are now. Maybe things have always been serious though and I just didn't see it. Anyway, this is hardly chapter 3. I wanted to write about my recent trip to Denver as opposed to posting chapter 3 of my memoir/narrative/life story whatever you want to call it, but finals have been kicking my ass and I just haven't had the time to do either, but I did want to post this at the very least before I elaborate on my recent events.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Chapter 2: Another Gay
So until my freshmen year of high school I genuinely thought that I was the only gay person in the entire world. Something was so terribly wrong with me deep inside and I couldn’t control it. I was determined to squash out whatever gay tendencies were in me. No one else in the world was like me and I had to conform to the standards of everyone else.
That was how I lived my life until my Freshmen English class. A woman, who was in her forties or late thirties at least named Mrs. Royce, taught the class. She was nice just a little weird. Anyway, I sat down at a desk near the back of the room and a few seats behind me was a boy named Josh. I noticed Josh looking at me and smiling at me after a couple of minutes and I honestly had no clue what was going on. I was so confused and so I completely ignored him. After a couple more days past I caught him smiling at me again and I smiled back this time. That was when I was sure that there was at least one other queer in this big world.
Josh was and is about as gay as it gets, especially at 14 years old. Josh was on cheerleading squad. In fact he was the only boy on the cheer leading team in our big giant school. And he wasn’t just on the freshmen C squad. He was on the varsity team and was the star performer. It didn’t take even hearing his voice to know that he liked boys.
About four weeks into the semester a girl named Danielle came up to me and asked if I was gay, because her friend wanted to know. I couldn’t speak. It was the first time in my life that anyone had ever said anything about me being gay. That’s when I became totally paranoid that people could tell. After staring at her for what felt like an hour I finally said, “Um, no.” She took that and went back to Josh. Of course neither of them believed me. Josh went on to become a better and better cheerleader and what’s worse, he got HOT. Along with that it turned out he was a gifted artist. You know, hot and artistic aren’t two things I look for in a man of course….
Josh kept smiling at me from across the classroom for the length of his high school career. I could never tell if he had a crush on me or if he was just really nice, but once he finally started talking to me he told me on several occasion that I was cute and really needed to just come out of the closet. I was always so threatened when he brought up the fact that I was gay and I completely shut off and might have even been a dick to him from time to time just so he would leave me alone, even though I developed a crush on him as he continued to get hotter and hotter.
Josh graduated a year early and moved to Texas. I still kind of wonder what would have happened if I said that I was gay that day when Danielle asked me. I don’t think I would have gotten a boyfriend out of it or anything, but maybe an awesome gay friend who could have helped me figure out the whole gay thing as apposed to having three horrible years of high school in a closet.
That was how I lived my life until my Freshmen English class. A woman, who was in her forties or late thirties at least named Mrs. Royce, taught the class. She was nice just a little weird. Anyway, I sat down at a desk near the back of the room and a few seats behind me was a boy named Josh. I noticed Josh looking at me and smiling at me after a couple of minutes and I honestly had no clue what was going on. I was so confused and so I completely ignored him. After a couple more days past I caught him smiling at me again and I smiled back this time. That was when I was sure that there was at least one other queer in this big world.
Josh was and is about as gay as it gets, especially at 14 years old. Josh was on cheerleading squad. In fact he was the only boy on the cheer leading team in our big giant school. And he wasn’t just on the freshmen C squad. He was on the varsity team and was the star performer. It didn’t take even hearing his voice to know that he liked boys.
About four weeks into the semester a girl named Danielle came up to me and asked if I was gay, because her friend wanted to know. I couldn’t speak. It was the first time in my life that anyone had ever said anything about me being gay. That’s when I became totally paranoid that people could tell. After staring at her for what felt like an hour I finally said, “Um, no.” She took that and went back to Josh. Of course neither of them believed me. Josh went on to become a better and better cheerleader and what’s worse, he got HOT. Along with that it turned out he was a gifted artist. You know, hot and artistic aren’t two things I look for in a man of course….
Josh kept smiling at me from across the classroom for the length of his high school career. I could never tell if he had a crush on me or if he was just really nice, but once he finally started talking to me he told me on several occasion that I was cute and really needed to just come out of the closet. I was always so threatened when he brought up the fact that I was gay and I completely shut off and might have even been a dick to him from time to time just so he would leave me alone, even though I developed a crush on him as he continued to get hotter and hotter.
Josh graduated a year early and moved to Texas. I still kind of wonder what would have happened if I said that I was gay that day when Danielle asked me. I don’t think I would have gotten a boyfriend out of it or anything, but maybe an awesome gay friend who could have helped me figure out the whole gay thing as apposed to having three horrible years of high school in a closet.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Chapter 1: Radical Christian Conservative
In the 8th grade I went to the 8th grade social with my friend Ashley. I guess this was back when I was pretending to be a heterosexual. So at the end of the night I went home to discover that my house has been toilet papered. My house had never once been toilet papered in my entire life and I was simply confused as to who could have possibly done this. It was the Eldorado High School Show Choir “Gold Rush” who had TP’d my house. It was their way of telling me that I had made it into their show choir. I had auditioned for the group the week before and was probably the first thing that I had ever auditioned for in my life. At the same time I was just a 14-year-old closet case whose ultimate dream was to be in a boy band and win and Oscar at the same time, so you can imagine I was very excited about this. This show choir led to four years of exciting times in a dinky high school choir room and some amazing friends. And some pretty interesting Frienemies.
There were two girls in Gold Rush who I spent my first semester of high school believing that they had to be the teenage incarnations of the devil. Their names were Jean-Louise Zancanella and Katie Walker. These two were apparently best friends. The three of us were all freshmen and were the new kids in Gold Rush. That wasn’t saying much tough, that year more than half the group was made up of freshmen.
Anyway, those two girls had, at the time, a very different political and spiritual look on life than my own. Oh and it probably didn’t help that I was crazy annoying, or maybe just plain crazy. I was a 14-year-old closet case who was convinced that he could make himself like girls somehow, I believed that George Bush was doing a wonderful job as president and probably most annoying of all, I felt that it was my responsibility to… wait for it… wait for it… bring non-believers to Christ. So safe to say, as a freshmen in high school I was a radical christian conservative. Jean-Louise and Katie were… not. It was easy for them to make fun of me and at the time I felt very wronged. Looking back though can you blame them? I can’t.
There was a girl in the choir, who will remain nameless because it’s weird, which I had a “crush” on. Really I was just hoping that if I could get a girl to date me I would become normal. None the less Katie and Jeanie caught wind of my crush. They intervened and said “She totally has a crush on you too. If you ask her out she’ll totally say yes.” ... She didn’t.
I asked her out, she said no. It was weird and when I picture the memory of me asking out this girl I can almost hear the laughter of two evil girls floating into the room.
There were two girls in Gold Rush who I spent my first semester of high school believing that they had to be the teenage incarnations of the devil. Their names were Jean-Louise Zancanella and Katie Walker. These two were apparently best friends. The three of us were all freshmen and were the new kids in Gold Rush. That wasn’t saying much tough, that year more than half the group was made up of freshmen.
Anyway, those two girls had, at the time, a very different political and spiritual look on life than my own. Oh and it probably didn’t help that I was crazy annoying, or maybe just plain crazy. I was a 14-year-old closet case who was convinced that he could make himself like girls somehow, I believed that George Bush was doing a wonderful job as president and probably most annoying of all, I felt that it was my responsibility to… wait for it… wait for it… bring non-believers to Christ. So safe to say, as a freshmen in high school I was a radical christian conservative. Jean-Louise and Katie were… not. It was easy for them to make fun of me and at the time I felt very wronged. Looking back though can you blame them? I can’t.
There was a girl in the choir, who will remain nameless because it’s weird, which I had a “crush” on. Really I was just hoping that if I could get a girl to date me I would become normal. None the less Katie and Jeanie caught wind of my crush. They intervened and said “She totally has a crush on you too. If you ask her out she’ll totally say yes.” ... She didn’t.
I asked her out, she said no. It was weird and when I picture the memory of me asking out this girl I can almost hear the laughter of two evil girls floating into the room.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Prologue?
So this is Blogging. Hi, I'm Michael-Ray Carter. Odds are if you're reading this you know me. Still though an introduction seems fitting. Well my name is out of the way I guess. I'm a Junior at the University of New Mexico and majoring in Musical Theatre (thrilling I know). I'm 20 years old and sort of a loser. Let's be honest. I'm single, living with my parents, and I have only worked in retail situations and once for my school as an orientation leader. That being said I think I'm a nice guy though. I have the best friends in the world and I'm getting an education and I'm pretty active in education (I hope). Currently I'm the UNM cast of RENT and that has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. In fact as I'm writing this I'm feeling less and less like a Loser which I guess is a good thing.
So lately most of my life has been taken up by RENT. For a few months I was in rehearsal nearly everyday after school and now the show has opened so I've been given my week nights back with the sacrifice of my weekends. That's cool though. I can't think of a better way to spend my time. If you haven't seen RENT in Rodey Theatre you should totally go. There is a part of me that is ready to move on from this show. RENT has been a very long chapter of my life that began in the summer of 2008 when I first began my life in the Theatre community here in Albuquerque. I was in a show called As Thousands Cheer and the director of Musical Theatre program at UNM came to see the show. Her name is Kathy Clawson. I love her. That is an important detail.
I'm getting ahead of myself though. Lets back this up a little more. This is my blog and my story. It's gonna be a good one. I'm going to start from the beginning and tell you what happened even though you probably already know. Anyway I'll write chapter one soon. See you next time.
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