{"id":6740,"date":"2015-10-09T01:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T05:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=6740"},"modified":"2015-10-09T01:18:07","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T05:18:07","slug":"chasing-starkid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2015\/10\/09\/chasing-starkid\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Starkid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah. The sweet smell of disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the morning of October 8th, I woke up, bound and determined to meet Starkid. My plan was this: get up, eat (since I probably wouldn\u2019t get another chance for a while), get dressed, put on make-up\/straighten my hair if I so desired (this dependent on the whole waking up thing), and go to class. After class, I\u2019d book it to my apartment, maybe apply more make-up, then take the first bus to the Walgreen Drama Center. Starkid was holding a panel from 2-3, and I had to be there. I even emailed my professor ahead of time; I\u2019d be missing class for this; this is important, duh.<\/span><\/p>\n

My plan went flawlessly. I wanted to leave my apartment around 1:30, and that I did, right on the nose. On the bus to North, I pulled up the event on my phone to double check the location. <\/span><\/p>\n

12:30-1:30, the website proclaimed. I could almost read the Ha! You fool! underneath it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it was a change in time or I had read it wrong (thought my mind rebels against this idea; I couldn\u2019t be wrong, how could I?), as I walked towards the Walgreen Drama Center I saw Starkid shimmer before me, going up into smoke before my very eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wondered to myself if this was fate putting pieces together. Hearing no word back after getting a polite \u201cWe\u2019ll see\u201d about an interview, I\u2019d been stressing, almost panicking about when and where I needed to be to get a golden 30 minutes to conduct my interview. Maybe this would be serendipity, and Darren Criss would walk out, laughing at something incredibly funny, then stop, pointing me out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re that girl, right? Who wants to interview Starkid, yeah?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d bat my eyes coquettishly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gave me away?\u201d I wouldn\u2019t be hyperventilating; cool as a cucumber. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just knew. Hey, come to rehearsal with us – we\u2019ll be done in 30. Then we can chat.\u201d (I\u2019m not sure what my fascination with 30 is; just a solid number I guess).<\/span><\/p>\n

A younger me would have been mad crying screaming – whatever made me feel slightly vindicated for being stupid and missing this. But senior year Jeannie decided to just sit and write. So I did.<\/span><\/p>\n

I continued my day waiting for the email that never came. I think some small part of me is still waiting, like I\u2019ll get the email tomorrow or Saturday and I\u2019ll leave the football game to interview Starkid. <\/span><\/p>\n

But finally, the time came – showtime. I had my ticket in hand, and me and my friend dressed to the nines. I felt good. Maybe not amazing – I didn\u2019t get that interview, but good. <\/span><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t spoil the concert (review forthcoming by yours truly), but I had a blast – we went back to Hogwarts, but more importantly I went back to Starkid. Nostalgia had a big part of it, but in reality my memory had failed me – I had forgotten how fun Starkid was. The concert ended, and my friends begged me to try and get an interview somehow, someway with the Theatre 100 press pass I had. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tyler Brunsman, bless his heart, was in the reception room talking to his parents. I waited a good distance away; I wanted to talk to him but I wasn\u2019t about to be so pushy that I interrupt. <\/span><\/p>\n

After he finished, I stopped him, introduced myself. I was slightly shaking – I\u2019d only ever seen him on screens and now here he was in front of me. Maybe he noticed, but hopefully he didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

The conversation? Well\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Me: *oh gosh oh gosh be cool* How was it to come back to Michigan? *good job Jeannie you got this*<\/span><\/p>\n

Tyler: It was, like, out of this world…everywhere you walk on campus is, there\u2019s so many memories associated with this campus, so coming back here, it\u2019s really been a magical couple of days. It was like second nature, just being back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

hoMe. I know the feeling. We kept talking, I asked about his favorite memories, and got an amazing anecdote involving ranch, Pizza House, and a late night mix up (moral of the story – always buy Pizza House. Always.). <\/span><\/p>\n

For a moment, I slipped back into my old days – I used to be big in the Starkid fandom, talking to girls thousands of miles away from me who bonded over this silly, fantastic group of people. Embarrassingly, I told Tyler that he responded to a Facebook post of mine one time, and little high-school Jeannie died. High School Jeannie died again, shaking hands with Tyler, hearing him say he would stop and talk to me when I thought the closest I\u2019d get to Starkid was the view from Row K in the Power Center.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though it was embarrassing, even though it was super unprofessional, in that moment, it was okay. Everything was okay. I left the show, two friends beside me, one freaking out over taking a picture with Eric Kahn Gale, the other begging to stalk Darren Criss (sorry Darren – I tried to curb them as much as possible). <\/span><\/p>\n

All that mattered right then was I was fresh off the high of an amazing concert, and I had my friends beside me. And I\u2019m sure, walking off the Power Center stage tonight, Starkid felt the exact same way.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah. The sweet smell of disappointment. On the morning of October 8th, I woke up, bound and determined to meet Starkid. My plan was this: get up, eat (since I probably wouldn\u2019t get another chance for a while), get dressed, put on make-up\/straighten my hair if I so desired (this dependent on the whole waking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[789,788,614],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6740"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6746,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6740\/revisions\/6746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}