Divine

The BYU alumni readership I have will know of BYUs sketch comedy group, Divine Comedy (I think the video "Halo" is by far the funniest). Thursday night I was perusing YouTube videos instead of doing homework, mainly watching old Divine Comedy sketches. This led me to their website which led me to see their latest post. "Divine Comedy Auditions!" Thursday/Friday, 8-10pm. 2 minutes of original comedic material. I thought for about 30 seconds then decided, "What the heck? At the very worst, I look like a completely fool and failure in front of a few dozen people that are hilarious that I actually admire." ...Luckily, I'm resilient and that thought didn't phase me too bad. Actually, it didn't phase me because the one unequivocal belief I have in myself is that I am an inherently funny person. You're welcome.

I don't know what I was thinking but I didn't think that 8pm on a Friday night, there would be a packed auditorium in the Tanner building on BYU campus. But, alas, it was and I started getting ridiculously nervous. But, no one I knew was there, I couldn't be a loser and cop out now. I was the 25th person to go. It didn't help that the first two people to audition were absolutely hilarious. Within the first 24 people, it was clear that I would not make the cut, but again, couldn't leave at this point.

My sketch was pretty funny, I had the "PDA Blues" and sang about all the ridiculous PDA you see on campus. But, I accompanied myself on my RockBand guitar, for utmost comedic effect. I got laughs after all my punchlines, and my intro, so I guess it was successful. It didn't go as well as I hoped it would because I was so nervous, I think my deliveries came out a little rushed. After all the auditions (which ended around 10:20pm) they announced call backs would be the next morning and you'd get a call that night if you were going to be invited back.

I knew I wouldn't get in the troupe, but I don't think anyone could've helped it. I couldn't let go of a smidgen of hope that maybe I'd at least get to go to callbacks. There were a lot of hilarious people, but there were a lot of train wrecks (everyone got at least a few laughs though, so nothing heartbreaking to the infinite amount of freshmen that tried out). I like to believe I was closer to "hilarious" on the spectrum, and farther away from "train wreck". I also didn't know how long it would take for them to review all the "maybes". I forced my eyes to stay open for two hours, watching mindless TV with one and keeping the other on my phone. At 12:30am, I had to admit it, I wasn't going to call backs.

This morning, while I was lethargically eating Marshmallow Mateys, I was thinking about my slight melancholy, and how I had convinced myself the day before, there was no way I was going to get in, so what was the problem? The indefatigable nature of hope. The reason why most of the time we love it, and the reason this particular weekend, I'm a little bummed. I tried to think of a more profound follow up to that revelation but I think that might be all I got. I'm glad I hope for things, small or big. I'm glad I I don't listen to my pessimistic side all of the time, and that I couldn't just shake off not getting into call backs. I'm glad I have enough positivity in my life that I have hope.