Cast of ‘The Buried Life’ inspires students

By Sam Krassenstein

Contributing Writer

The men from MTV’s “The Buried Life” encouraged that anyone can and should start going after their dreams whenever they have the opportunity. They laid out a simple plan for any person that wants to start working on their dreams: “make a list, go after it, help others and most importantly, don’t give up.”

On Thursday, March 10, the cast from the Buried Life attracted the University community into the Weis Center for Performing Arts to share their inspirational stories. The show is based on four friends named Ben, Jonnie, Duncan and Dave who travel across the country in a purple transit bus named “Penelope” to complete their bucket list and the lists of others.

Jonnie said the inspiration for the name of the show came from this line from Matthew Arnold’s poem entitled “The Buried Life”: “There rises an unspeakable desire after the knowledge of our buried life.”

The show promotes helping others achieve their dreams and giving people the chance to be a hero in someone’s life.  Unlike much of the television that American culture has become used to, this show started as a true inspirational project rather than just another entertainment reality show. The guys emphasized that, “you don’t have to move mountains, just give a little push in the right direction.”

The infamous designer-clad young quartet of the Buried Life entered the stage by breakdancing for the eager fans. The Canadian wonder gave some insight into their inspiration for the show sharing embarrassing and comical stories of things ranging from dressing up as Oompa-Loompas and getting scolded by Hugh Hefner for crashing the Playboy Mansion.

They also told about their experience when they helped out kids with terminal illnesses by giving them donated toy shopping sprees. “It was really cool seeing them on campus, I think they are doing really great things and helping a lot of people, not to mention they are pretty cute,” Johanna Moyer ’12 said.

Towards the end of The Buried Life’s visit, the group encouraged students to get up and share their own dreams with the audience. Some included Kiersten Wakemen ’11, who said she wanted to win an Academy Award for Costume Design, Jessica Maguire ’14 hopes to travel to Antarctica to build a snowman and Erica White ’13 aspires to help orphans in Africa. The cast emphasized that all anyone needs is a little push in the right direction and that you never know who can help you achieve your dreams and aspirations.