A conversation with an interesting Portlander

BY PETER KORN
The Portland Tribune, Jan 5, 2012

In two weeks, auGi Garred (along with writer Slash Coleman) will premiere his latest autobiographical show, “Big Plastic Heroes,” at the local Fertile Ground Festival. It’s about Garred’s teenage decision to become Rambo. At last year’s festival, Southwest Portland resident Garred performed another autobiographical show, SexyNurd. There seems to be a theme here.

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Read  article on Portland Tribune

That’s the premise I explore in Teenage Commando...part of the banner show, Big Plastic Heroes, which premieres during the Fertile Ground ’12 festival alongside Slash Coleman in his own hero-gone-awry story, Last American Gladiator.

Come to the show and find out what happens when a “nurd” tries to be Rambo”and a kid  idolizes Evel Knievel.

As the tagline says, “Warning: Trying to be your idol is dangerous.”

Indeed.

Learn more and get tickets

It was the first time I’ve ever performed for a domesticated farm animal. And if Dixie Pickle’s reaction was any indication, probably my last.

I hope human audiences react more positively. If not, I may consider changing that line to read, “Mom…she was offended by Gilligan’s nipples.”

Yeah. I’m sure that will work much better.

Learn more about Big Plastic Heroes

Well, that’s the beauty of radio: you are seen and not heard. So I could have shown up in a pair of plastic underpants and nobody (except Dmae) would have cared. OK. Maybe the producer would have, too. But I’m a mature adult who has long given up my Devo wig and matching shorts.

Here’s the interview in its full glory, including a truncated performance of a song I wrote when I was 14–about my deep, deep understanding of the opposite sex. Let’s just say I thought they wore wigs, too. And shaved their legs alot.

LISTEN HERE

About Stage ‘n Studio

Each week, host and producer Dmae Roberts features performing, literary, and media artists from the Portland Metro area as well as around the Northwest.

As a two-time Peabody award-winning radio producer and writer, Roberts brings national quality to the local arts scene. Dmae often features her national radio work on Stage and Studio.

auGi

In 2006 Andy Miller was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Now he shares his reaction to Superuckus 2011, a MS fundraiser featuring a storytelling performance by Portland comedian and rocker, auGi. Enjoy his truth.

As a good friend and a selfless individual I am there for my friends. When a buddy had just split up with his girlfriend of two years I did what any good friend would do and I took him to a “Gentleman’s Club”.

As we sat and admired the skilled dancers we decided to go to the porch and have a cigarette. There we met a woman who clearly liked us more than the other men that were around and was looking for good conversation. During the course of our banter, we somehow got to the topic of Multiple Sclerosis.

I explained that I had MS, and that is was progressive. She went on to tell us that her Mom had MS and was a comedian until she could no longer perform due to her disability. The dancer said, “She was a sucker for a man in glasses, but she is also a sucker for a man in a wheelchair”. I fell in love with her instantly, but she broke my heart when no more than an hour went by and I saw her with another man.

In 1993 I was having severe headaches, and sensations that went through my legs that felt like electrical currents. I noticed that behind my thigh, down my left leg and to my calf I was having some numbness. I did what any normal twenty-three year old would do and I ignored it until it was obvious that something was wrong. I went in for a series of tests and they found that I had four lesions in an unspecified portion of my brain. I remember feeling a sense of impending doom for a good hour and then moved on to other mind occupiers for seven years. When I moved to Seattle in 2001 to go to school the symptoms returned, but this time with much greater severity.

I did what any normal twenty-three year old would do and I ignored it until it was obvious that something was wrong.

I found myself unable to get out of bed some days. At the age of thirty I felt like I was fifty. I went to countless doctors who ran endless batteries of tests, ony to come up with nothing. I went in for another MRI and the four lesions had jumped to eleven. The strange thing about Multiple Sclerosis is that you can have many symptoms, but doctors are afraid to label it. This is not just my experience, but that of many other MS sufferers I have met.

By  2006 it was clear that something was very wrong with my body. I was recently married and as much as I would have liked to pretend nothing was wrong, my wife did not support my plan of rigorous inaction. My health insurance was a large HMO, and when they wanted to send me to an out of network provider – it was the first time I felt genuine concern.

After being told by a specialist that he felt my problem was anxiety, I had another MRI. In a shocking development, I was anxious. The neurologist told me, with possibly the worst bed side manner ever, that I had Multiple Sclerosis. It is amazing to me with how many people die each year from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even car accidents, but most people don’t believe it will ever happen to them. That is to say, I never dreamt that I would have MS.

In 2007 I found out that I was having a child. I was ecstatic and terrified. I thought of all the beautiful moments I was sure to have. But I also thought, “Will I be able to coach my child’s soccer team?” I wanted her life to be easy and I didn’t want my child to have to explain why her father was in a wheelchair.

But I also thought, “Will I be able to coach my child’s soccer team?”

I had a rare opportunity to hear what it feels like to be the child of someone who has Multiple Sclerosis. At The Woods rocker/comic auGi performed SexyNurd at a benefit show to raise money for the Oregon Chapter of the National MS Society.

auGi’s mother was diagnosed with MS when he was ten, and lived with the disease until she passed away on her birthday in 2009. She lived with not only the physical pain, but the emotional and psychological pain that comes with your body turning against you.

Honestly, I had mentally prepared myself for a sappy tearjerker. There are some things that come along with benefits that I find very off-putting. I dislike the pity that is sometimes put on others out of some sort of guilt. I didn’t feel that in SexyNurd.

What I did feel is a connection with auGi. Although it was a tribute to auGi’s mother, it was his story. He painted a picture through music, humor and images of what his life was like growing up in Middle America and being different.

This is a subject that we can all relate to in one form or another. None of us are left unscathed by adolescence, and his visions of rock stardom brought back thoughts of me singing to Led Zeppelin with a brush in my hand screaming into the mirror.

As I was watched him perform, there really was no way for me to separate my life from his mother’s. I gained an admiration for her even though I only heard bits and pieces of her life. What I admired is that auGi did not seem bitter nor was it a story of a childhood lost. She was supportive of his dream to be the next Ted Nugent or Neal Peart.

Being the giant sap that I am, I did get choked up as he recalled pushing his mother through the mall in a wheelchair and having people stare at them. I have often feared those moments when I peer into the future for my daughter. However, auGi wasn’t telling it as an embarrassing story. He was describing his sadness that this once active woman had been ravaged by this disease.

There was no intentional happy ending to SexyNurd. His mother was not cured, nor did she walk again. She died at the age of 74 with her family surrounding her. auGi said that on her deathbed she spoke in the voice of her younger years, and the last words out of her mouth were, “I love you.”  I could feel how much auGi loved his mother through his performance.

Only until recently did I realize that we all have our own currency, for me it is being a good father. When I take my last breath, if I am surrounded by the people I love and my daughter has the love for me that auGi has for his mother, then my life will have been a success.

Only until recently did I realize that we all have our own currency, for me it is being a good father.

If there are any readers who have Multiple Sclerosis please remember that your life is not defined by your disease, yet by how you live your life. I left SexyNurd feeling like I heard the story of a woman who lived a meaningful life and ready to live mine.

Andy Miller

See original post here.

A quick synopses of the stories my guest performers will share at Superuckus ’11:

• Erin Ergenbright: It was love at first email…then they met.
• Jimmy Radosta: He learned that being unemployed is both frightening and awesome.
• Molly Norton: What’s it like to obsessively gauge your life against Renee Zelwegger?
• B. Frayn Masters: She took an unusual route to deal with the age old problem—puberty.
• Meagan Kate: She always wanted to be a comedic writer but got sidetracked down a dangerous path.
• Karol Collymore: Why does having a certain kind of hair have to be such torture?
• Ry Stroud: He was innocent…until he moved in with a bad influence.
• Brad Fortier: What if you smuggled drugs to the right person?
• Dina Glassman: Does having a disease mean you can’t live big?

What especially struck me was Meagan Kate’s courage to talk about a very, very dangerous moment in her life and how she worked through it…ultimately by recognizing that comedy had been, and always was, one of her closest friends.

And that’s really what this benefit event is about: how we use humor to cope through difficult times.

I know I have. Like the time I got fired from my own agency. Or when I was in the middle of my private audition for NBC’s Last Comic Standing (doing terribly, I might add) and the Simon Cowel-y co-host said, “That’s enough!” Even the days following my mom’s death. What I needed during those moments wasn’t sympathy or “My thoughts are with you.” What I needed (and what I told people) was to laugh. That’s what helped me through all of those really hard moments in my life, and so many more.

I hope you will come to Superuckus and see how humor has helped some of my friends keep going, too. Heck, you will be laughing so much, you’ll forget about whatever crappy thing you might be going through, too. That ain’t so bad, is it?

auGi

Superuckus ’11: Get info and tickets

Either way, it was a pretty horrifying experience. I was pummeled, blitzed upon, crushed by a line of three giant guys in a single row, and one game after throwing an interception, the only thing between the goal line and Rusty Caltrider’s charging helmet were my Kool-aid abs.

After each disappointing game, I would sprint to Assistant Coach McCurdy’s truck and secretly cry beneath my helmet. I hated losing but I didn’t give up. Even though we had lost every single game that season, one still remained that would give me a shot at redemption.

Fast forward thirty years. I was attending class orientation at The Second City. The artistic director said something that has stuck with me ever since–and is something that I wish our coaches had told us back in my Peewee days–”I give you permission to fail.”

What? Fail? Are you kidding me? Since when is it acceptable in this culture to screw up?

At The Second City–where people like Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and John Belushi had gone from unknown actors trying to find their voice to full-blown stars–we were told that it was OK to screw up. “If you’re onstage and something goes awry, run with it.” Or “There are no accidents…only gifts.” SC taught me how to keep moving even when the shit hit the fan. And, by knowing I had permission to flub, I felt the freedom to fully commit to each moment onstage. That’s something I’ve taken with me everywhere in life–from the office, to relationships, to guest coaching a bunch of great kids on a junior league football team (Go Beavers!).

Did my team win that last game of the season? Yes. It was a sweet little victory. One that took a lot of mistakes, tears and punishment to find. We stuck it out and beat those little f-ers. That felt good. For once, I didn’t have to sneak away to Coach McCurdy’s truck and hide my tears. This time, I ran around the field like a hyperspaz, reveling in the moment.

Oh, I almost forgot. To celebrate our one and only win, we went to Tasty Freez and ate ice cream turtles.

I must admit, I’ve really been hoping to regain my “confidence smile,” too. Perfect timing. Just perfect.

I don’t know about you, but my teeth can’t play guitar…and a Les Paul can’t chew on a hunk of gouda cheese.

What would you do?