Tag: Frankenstein Roast

The Interview with A Dylan

At last! Complete, Full, version!

https://youtu.be/gHAQichYRG0
Credit goes to Bill Ockam

Finally, on some whim, Bill Ockham decided to post the long awaited, full “Dylan Behind Blackjack Pizza interview” complete with Brooks Brown asking Dylan questions. Yes, folks, now we no longer have to string together pixelated video snippets of the interview and imagine (or attempt lip reading to suss out) exactly what Dylan was saying. And now we don’t have to resort to merging the incomplete audio version of Brooks and Dylan’s Q and A with those disjointed, fuzzy, video clips as was done a few months back to arrive at semi-complete satisfaction at seeing this interview. Yes, now, finally, we have the entire thing in all it’s near HD crystal clearness (well for 90s quality) with Dylan finishing his tale of how he and Zack precociously pranked their favorite theatre teacher Mrs. Caruthers (affectionately known as “Mrs. C”) while prepping the stage and got her to utter a variety of expletives in her frustration.

Speaking of expletives, I was thoroughly amused at when Brooks asked Dylan what swear words Mrs. C used “exactly” while “bitching out the entire cast in the dressing room”, Dylan’s voice goes up a slight octave as he looks a way in thought and considers his words carefully “Umm m… (long pause)….I don’t exactly remember. She didn’t use all the cuss words”. To me, it’s so obvious that Dylan was a tad to sheepishly embarrassed to flat out offer up this information since he knew Mrs. C was eventually going to see him repeating back her swears on the final Frankenstein Roast video to her – that is until Brooks interrupts him and starts blatantly flings out a variety of swear words at him “DAMN” “HELL” “SHIT” and ah, yes! now it’s all coming back to him (as if it was ever that vague in the first place hahaha!) – Dylan (suddenly) remembers in agreement and – ah, well, the hell – repeats back said swear words directly at Brooks and deadpan to the camera). “And… (Dylan muses a tad.. no. definitely no “F*CK” was said) …you..you could hear it from the auditorium.” Brooks laughs amusedly “that was good” he comments. Dylan smiles and smiles and rejoins “so…that was pretty dumb”.
Admittedly, I’m so pleased that we got to see this entire interview (Ockham mentioned to me that this is it for the Blackjack Interview; there aren’t any more questions in this snippet). Glimpsing the bashfulness of Dylan as just an ordinary boy is so bittersweet. It is even more abundantly apparent to me how difficult it has been for his close friends and family to reconcile how he ended up committing the atrocity that chose to partaken in…And it’s hard to fathom that it was merely only roughly 6+ months after this interview.

Ockham also stated in his YT Live last evening that there are other snippets of Dylan on the video tape. Including an innocuous, mundane snippet of Dylan killin’ it eating some Chile’s food. And of course, we all would want to see all of this stuff, wouldn’t we? Not really because it’s gratuitous but because we have to see this extraordinarily ordinary stuff simply because it helps us to process the banality that is evil. That if even someone like Dylan is capable of doing such a horrible thing – then, really, we all are capable, aren’t we? We are all one and the same. It’s important to understand this, to own Dylan and Eric as ourselves, as we all have our own personal, private, dark struggles in life. And ultimately it is all about choices that is the difference. In my opinion, this ‘in the trenches’ approach of identification and relatability is key to prevention.

Can you post the link to the video where Dylan and Brooks are in the theatre

That would be the Frankenstein Roast video.  Brooks played Frankenstein’s monster, Dylan did sound and collaborated on FX with Brooks and Zack did lighting for that production which I believe took place fall/winter of ‘98.  They video taped their experience making the play which is basically making jokes and insults about the cast and crew participating in a “Roast” style of commentary for their beloved drama teacher, Sue Carruthers.  Even Dyl seemed to be fond of “Mrs C.” and made jokes on the Roast about having beers ready and waiting at the after party to which they all knew their sweetheart of a teacher didn’t condone that type of thing.  This video clip is mostly silent because the authorities masked out the audio of them chatting since the three mention various people from theatre production to pick on them in a joking fashion. The only part that you can hear that was slapped into this video clip was from a documentary called “The Lost Boys” where you can hear Dylan and Brooks bantering and Dylan jokingly insulting Brooks about how his Frankenstein makeup was a ‘damn good job and he looked uglier than shit’ to which Brooks goes ‘uglier than I usually am”.  Then Dylan apologizes profusely. (This is genuine Dylan who is polite and mannerly to a fault who regularly said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ without thought and also knee-jerk apologized to people like this on a regular bases.) Obviously, the documentary allows us to hear this bit because they want to skew Dylan as that nasty, swearing, insulting killer when the reality of the context is just two old friends having a good time recalling hilarious moments between them from participating in the play.  

Dah Hands in Dah Hair.

p.s. His hand size beats out Brooks Brown who is taller than Dylan. Also.. I have this theory that Dylan grew his hair to lose the natural curl and if he rubbed his hands through it enough times in a day, it would look completely straight which is the look he was going for.

The seniors in our theatre troupe decided to produce a special video for Frankenstein.  Not only was it a farewell project for the drama students, it was a farewell to Mrs. Caruthers, who had been one of our favorite teachers over the past four years.

For the first part of the tape, we did interviews with the cast and crew about their favorite memories of Mrs. Caruthers.  We then added in footage from rehearsal, along with scenes from the movie Young Frankenstein.

Dylan,  Zach Heckler and I were the three people who did “commentary” for the tape.  The three of us sat down in the front row of the Columbine auditorium and set the camera down on the stage.  Our job was to review all of the people in the Frankenstein program and offer both compliments and “inside jokes” that only those involved in the department would understand.  Later we would inter-cut the footage with scenes from Young Frankenstein and show the finished version to other people in the drama club.

It was a lot of fun to make, and the camera caught a few moments of Dylan coming out of his quiet shell.  We went backwards through the program, reading each name and offering a few observations.  The first name Zach read off was Principal DeAngelis.

Dylan leaned in toward the camera. “Ha ha ha,” he said.

The three of us roasted each other as much as we could. Dylan, who had sat quietly through some of the early jokes, happily came out of his shell for ribbing on me.

Dylan gave special mention to the makeup crew. “Damn good job,“  he said.  “Brooks, you were ugly as shit. And that’s hard to beat, with the way you look normally.”

“I was uglier than I even am usually.” I agreed.

“Don’t get fire within twenty feet of the pants,”  Dylan warned, referring to my ‘Frankenstein monster” costume.  “There were about thirty different chemicals put into that.” (This was true, actually.  Dylan and I made the pants using an old pair of jeans that we soaked in gasoline and paint thinner to make them look as horrible as possible.  After the final performance, we took them out to a field and flicked a cigarette at them.  They immediately burst into flames.)

“Zach, how did this guy do on sound?” I asked, referring to Dylan.

“Oh, he sucked,” Zach replied.

Dylan threw his hands up. “Thank you!”

“And everybody was crying about it, because it was late,” Zach added.  Dylan hadn’t finished preparing the sound cues by Mrs. C’s original deadline.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dylan said. “I’d like to bring forth attention to this, actually – for three years now, I’ve been doing this job.  Just a guess here, but I think I know what I’m doing—“

“Okay, shut up,” I said.  We all laughed.

That was how the video went.  We picked out names, made a few good-natured jokes, then complimented the person and moved on.  We had especially kind words for Mrs. Caruthers, whom all three of us were going to miss.

“You’re losing your entire sound and light crew,” I said to the camera.  “This will be the last play we get to do with you.”

The three of us asked for bribes in exchange for passing along our knowledge to the next crop of students.  “Hey, Mrs. C, next Saturday – big ol’ party,” Dylan said. “Heineken, Miller… We need you.”  It was a running joke for theatre students to try and get Mrs. Caruthers to buy booze for us, because we knew she never would.

We offered our thanks to Mrs. Caruthers for her inspiration.  “From the people who have been working with you the longest, we want to say, very beautiful job with all the plays,” I said.

“Very well done,” Dylan added.  “All of these kids over the years – I don’t know how, but … you put the whole thing together.”

“You’ve taught us how to work on our own,” I said.  “We really did this play on our own, and it was fantastic.  And we owe it to you, Mrs. C.”

After the final performance that night, everyone from the show watched the video.  My mom took pictures.  There was Dylan, laughing and having a good time.  Just like everyone else.

–Brooks Brown, No Easy Answers, Chapter 9, Suburban Life