You’ve probably seen his face before, even if you didn’t remember it. As an employee in the Media and Microtext basement area of Green Library, Ben “Bollox” Cortes ’11 is one of the many mild-mannered guys who waits patiently for you to hand them a call number before heading into the back and fetching your DVD.

Today, though, there are some hints to his new identity.

His neck and his arms are tinged green with remnants of paint from his initiation, “Sprout Night,” the night before. His left forearm is blotted with a huge bruise near the crook of his elbow–a watercolor of purple and dark green.

“Yeah…it does not look good,” Cortes admitted, speaking slowly and deliberately as he glanced down at the wound. It bears witness to the stunt he pulled last week during which he drew his own blood and drank it–mixed with vodka and lemon juice–as a “bloody” Mary.

This stunt, a handful of others, and a couple interviews–all of which happened in the past two weeks–have raised Cortes from a member of the Band’s drum-line to the illustrious status of the Band’s mascot, the Tree.

But despite his new claim to fame–there’s even a Wikipedia list of Trees past and present–Cortes remains humble. A few students filed into the Media center to check out DVDs and after finding out that Cortes clinched the title, made little bows and said jokingly, “We’re in the presence of royalty.” Cortes just laughed quietly.

“I don’t even know exactly what it was that made me win,” he said later. The selection process, he admits, is still mostly unknown to him. The process, officially led by the current Tree and a few select Band managers, is and has always been shrouded in mystery.

“I really just tried to show that I was ready to bleed for Tree,” he said with a laugh. “Have fun–that’s my modus operandi. I’m just gonna enjoy it.”

For Cortes, “having fun” included a wide variety of stunts throughout Tree Week. He turned himself into a human piñata and hung, with packs of candy on his body, from the birdcage in White Plaza. Another stunt included friends dressed up as zombies and another who hid raw meat under his shirt, later to be ripped out in a gruesome attack. He also had planned a wrestling match between Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but that fell through–which, as he noted, stunts sometimes do.

A good stunt, Cortes said, should have “a degree of theatricality and a sense of humor,” but more importantly, a quality of “irreverence.” He expressed admiration for stunts that required intense preparation–such as current Tree Jonathan “Shu-Fry” Strange ’11 and the human bowling ball he built last year–as well as those that were handled on the fly. He jokingly noted that Tree hopeful Robbie Zimbroff ’12 and his covered wagon had unintentionally confused the Native American community at Stanford from the wagon’s close proximity to their cultural center at Old Union.

Cortes, who joined the Band in fall quarter of his freshman year, attributed much of his desire to be Tree from his experiences with the group.

“I really liked playing drums in the band, and now I can take that further,” he said. “I don’t have to be worried about playing–it’s just pure rocking out in front of the band now.”

He also made an unsuccessful Tree bid last year, and admitted that he was “pretty unprepared.” But, he added, the experience was a good warm-up run for his eventual success. Tree hopefuls, he said, can sometimes pull things off last-minute, but usually need the help of some friends and some good planning–this year, he started around Christmas.

But there’s also a quality essential to those who want to carry the burden of the Tree’s costume–often quite heavy–and of the mascot’s history.

“You just need to be willing to be ‘that guy’ in a lot of senses of the word,” Cortes said. “If you ever see Trees after rallies or games, they’re sweating their balls off.”

Usually, the new Tree takes over in spring quarter, but Cortes, who will be in Florence in next quarter, will have to wait before assuming the role. In the meantime, Strange and former Tree John Whipple ’10 will assume Tree duties. During the summer, Cortes will–as all Trees do–build his own Tree costume for next year.

As for the future, Cortes joked, he’s looking forward to the modeling gigs he’ll receive after his appearances on national television. He also expressed his excitement to be leading a small pack against a hostile crowd, especially at away games.

“I’m really looking forward to going to UCLA and having a bunch of people just really pissed at me,” he said. “As much as it sucks that Big Game is at Cal this year, at the same time, that just means more haters.”