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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 2000)
£^ Pa & e 4A AGGIELIFE Wednesday, September 6,2000 THE BATTALION \ A Welcome Pack Co-ops! Free Food! Door Prizes! 4 . ie Fome o Welcome Back Party ♦ All current and former co-ops invited! Former Freudian Slipper makes it big By Brooke Holbert Cooperative Education Evolve into y° ur ca^eek 1 ! Thursday, September 7 5:30 PM ♦ 209 Koldus Career Center Lobby / Still Lttkint ftrJbi Apirimenf? fm it Hunnine Ouf But We Cm Help! FREE UmI Phone FREE Standard (able FREE Waiher i Dryer FREE Ethernet* FREE 24-hour Monitored Alarm * I |M}|jy| liiMA +fi*t* «iJiftiy Tlw% ¥**%»« HvJTi UTiVw fljrjrlf* 601 Luliier Ifreet W * Colbe lution, TK. 079-680-3660 ♦ unuw.melroie.com The Battalion Imagine a good-looking high school guy in his trusty Polo jeans, shocked and thrilled to notice hordes of female classmates fight ing to get their hands in his pock ets ... after all, pop the top and look under the cap of a Sprite bot tle, and you could win a $1,000 in a pair of Polo jeans. Sound famil iar? Unknown to most, however, the surprised young man appear ing in the latest Sprite commercial is class of ’97 Eric Pargac. “It is not as strange as I thought it would be,” Pargac said of his acting debut. “I knew the first time it would air, between "Titus” and “Ally McBeal” on the Fourth of July. It was weird, especially when people started calling me.” Pargac always felt he had the blood of a thespian pulsing through his veins, but it was not until a high school teacher recruit ed him into theater arts that being in the limelight became infectious. “I was in this little English skit, and the drama teacher saw it and insisted I rearrange my schedule and take his Drama II class,” Par gac said. “I acted in the one-act play which went to regionals and started to win awards.” The ever-involved Aggie, Par gac exposed his go-getter person ality as a Fish Camp counselor and Aggieland editor, but most no tably, as a founding member of the group that would become his tour de force — the improv comedy troupe Freudian Slip. In Freudian Slip, Pargac found an outlet for his love of the stage, and his peers’ ambition gave him the drive to succeed. “It’s amazing how Freudian Slip affects your life,” Pargac said. “Everyone there has such desire and this will to be great, this in tense work ethic. We were all full time students, working long hours on the side to prepare for a show.” So connected with his fellow Freudian Slip members, Pargac found it difficult to work with any other improv performers and left the Improv Olympics, an elite im provisation forum that boasts the beginning of comedians like the late Chris Farley. “I just could not find the same bond I have with Freudian Slip, that confidence you get perform ing with them,” he said. “We used to have the ‘group mind,’ the idea that we fed off one another, pre dicted each other’s moves and ad justed when things went wrong. It is a unit, and I couldn’t find that anywhere else.” Current Freudian Slip director Nick Cernoch recently collaborat ed with Pargac in a workshop to keep the old and new members of Freudian Slip in touch and learn ing from one another. INTERVIEW SAVVY Interact with corporate recruiters and get the facts about employer expectations during an interview. Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. MSC 224 featured companies: Universal Computer Systems, KPMG Andersen Consulting, Central Intelligence Agency TAMU Career Center 845-5139 209 Koldus http://careercenter.tamu.edu A place to meet your next employer “It is a very unique thing when, in its first few years, an improv group can sell out a 750-seat house, like at Rudder Theater,” Cernoch said. “It is all student-run, and mem bers have gone from Freudian Slip to Chicago and New York, as well as L.A. Freudian Slip is taking over the U.S.” Pargac credits much of his climb to stardom to hard work, drive and a little strategic networking. Through a few connections, he landed a job as a receptionist at Avenue Edit in Los Angeles, a production company where he now edits commercial footage. In this job Pargac made an impression on the right casting agent to launch his acting aspira tions. “Acting is a real catch-22 situ ation,” Pargac said. “You need an agent to get work, and you need work to get an agent. You need to be in a union to get an agent, and you need to have done union work to be in a union. Basically you have to get lucky. It is all about the people you meet.” General Manager of Student Me dia Robert Wegener worked w Pargac on the yearbook in 1997 and recalls him being less flamboyant than one might expect. ”1 think it is a characteristic ofac tors to turn it on while on stage then be very quiet and unassuming offstage,” Wegener said. "When you are talented like that, you can pursue so many avenues. He is just an all around good kid.” Perhaps like other notables Robeit Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett. Pargac is destined to set his audience aflameb\ way of the silver screen. For today, he is content with editing commer cials and booking auditions. “You always have a plan, bm things change, and. suddenly, you’re going another way,” “I do not fee! successful yet. 1 could never mab another step. I have no idea — there are so many factors.” But Pargac has made anotherstep He has already committed toanotii er commercial for Maxwell Hou* coffee. No release date has beenar nounced for this one — in the mean time, pass the Sprite. Wednesday, Sep In h< r Ryan Kna| the names DALLAS commuters on ed streets and: after a constn tally severed ; in this drought Members o als team mus merged autom garage and oil lions of gallon mated to have day's break. 1 F At Th AVIATIOF 'CAREER TRACKS Eric Pargac, '97 Aggieland editor, poses in front of the Reec McDonald building in the days before his commercial fame The Texas A&M Career Center and The Business Student Council present... Career Fall Networking i While workir on your college degree, accomplish your pilot’s certificates a the same tirr Upon finishir your college career, you can secure s job as an airline pilot. THE A seminar on how to make the most out of a Career Fair Learn insider tips on how to effectively network with recruiters and make great impressions at career fairs and at employer receptions. Thursday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. 159 Wehner Join representatives from JC Penney, Ferguson, and Cintas who will present the seminar. Great door prizes will be given away! Texas A&M Career Center 209 Koldus 845-5139 littp://careercenter. tamu.edu ?Th U Co 754 T Frid
