Encounters of the make-em ups.

Whew. Its early and I just made Kraft macaroni and cheese in the microwave without milk and butter. I have always been a avid believer that those two ingredients, mild and butter, are essential to the mix. That’s a high brow lie. It tastes almost the same. I know I know, it is much more creamy and sweet with those things but I actually loved it. I also have a Vault. That was kinda gross and only was refreshing for about a minute out of the fridge (as with all sugary citrusy dewey drinks). Needless to say my stomach feels like all my intestines are playing ring around the rosy. I’ll be OK.

I just got done with a project for an education course I am taking for apparently the fun of it. I thought it would be great fun to be a teacher at one point. I thought about it a lot and that profession takes sooo much passion that I was afraid I would fit the ticket and let far too many kids down. I couldn’t live with that on my conscious. So now I am yet another blob of a mid real life encountering adult. It is not one of my favorite things to be so unsure of what my life holds and how I am going to support it. I know I am supposed to get a job eventually but I can’t think of many things I could do for more than ten years. I am hoping I get to work in nature the rest of my life, and if luck permits possibly comedy.

I have recently gone to another improv gathering. I usually run Paperback Rhino and it fills almost every hole in my life, but of course I had to jump on another opportunity at improv. This new group is a very talented, energetic, and most importantly positive group to be around. There is somewhat of a guru that teaches us the art there as well. It is something of an experience and I didn’t think I would encounter it until I left Iowa City. For me it isn’t much about another performance opportunity but rather an extension of everything I love about life and its coexistence with the art of improv. I enjoy it more than almost anything. The idea that this new group of people could eventually turn in to a performance opportunity came up and it was a little unsettling. I didn’t think I would have to encounter that kind of stress till Chicago… but it have crept up on me. I don’t even know if it is fair for me to want to be involved because I am already running another group. I want to give everyone the opportunity to perform this art and if that means I have to turn my back to a great experience… well… i don’t know. I don’t know what to think.

Oh and Paperback Rhino has our last show of the season. Mike and Kevin are leaving. My heart trembles. They are amazing.

The Dive

When do I dive.

You can see the fear in the child’s eyes, yet behind them there is a desire to make the jump. The father can see the fear as well but for the sake of the child takes advantage of this moment. He encourages the child make the jump. After standing for what seems like an eternity at the edge of the dock with his toes hanging over the edge and the fear of a spontaneous loss of balance the child stops thinking. The child, out of complete loss of control of his motor functions, makes the leap and immediately after his feet leave the ground he is unsure as to why he is off the ground. He sees the water approaching quickly but can do anything as he has lost control again, but fully aware this time. His body slams on the surface that does not resemble the water he was swimming through before but a harsh unforgiving slate that encloses him with all his fears over his skin and if he tries to breathe it will flow down his throat and into his lungs. The threat of danger is now more real than it was before. It is all around him and if he doesn’t make a move quick it will kill him. He regains his control and makes the way to the surface. The child made the leap and failed. He swims to the surface and is afraid to look in his fathers eyes for fear of a look of failure and disappointment. The father is not to the child’s surprise. Rather he is ecstatic and ready for the child to make another attempt and be right next to him the whole time to help the child relinquish his fear of the water and the stinging pain it inflicts.

I want to dive. I want to leap into the world of comedy head first. I want to go to pack up my things, stop going to school and dive into Chicago. I want to get a shitty job and eat shitty meals and watch tv on a shitty floor and smell nasty carpet and sleep in a small bed in a room that consists of only this small bed. I want to wake up everyday and be happier than I ever have because I know I get to create laughter today. I love it more than anything in the entire world. More than a desk in my room to place this computer on, more than stopping at a coffee place to get coffee, more than driving in a nice car to work. I want to wake up in an efficiency apartment with my bed, a tv stand, milk, a spoon (maybe clean), a bowl and a coffee mug with nasty watery coffee in it. Then run to the subway to catch a ride to work and think about what I get to do after work. Make people laugh… what is better than that.

I want to dive… but I have nobody to encourage me to jump. I have to gain the courage myself but I can’t. I can’t because I have the opposite of encouragement. Who wants a child who is riding on this fancy ass boat to jump off at full speed and smack the water harder than anyone can imagine. Not my parents thats for sure. Its not that they wouldn’t pull me out of the water after I jump and place me on a dock to practice, but they won’t push me off the boat. They don’t want to see me hurt and fail. I want to, I have to. I need to dive but I don’t know how.

This isn’t science

Improv practices are the best thing in the entire world. They take of all my energy in my body and make me sore for the rest of the night. I can’t see, I can’t act, I can’t respond to people. I can’t make my brain think and analyze things. I want to look back and see what I did at this practice how I tried to teach some very important theories of improv but I can’t recall what I did. I think I talked about things, I think I was there. I know I had a terrible scene where I could clearly see a road, trees on both sides and I had my ambulance.  From that point on I don’t know what happened. I forgot too listen. I was trying to side coach all the scenes and I was trying to fix this one because I couldn’t see where it went wrong and someone called the ambulance so I had to deliver. It was horrible. I had a great scene where I got to play with a robot and his head in a living room. I don’t think I have ever seen someone attempt to react to his head as if it were not on and to move his body around as if it didn’t have a head. Darin rocked it because that would be tough and possibly the first time it was ever done (I know it wasn’t). 

I don’t care about me though. What happened with the group? I saw a few breakthroughs tonight and that makes me feel amazing. I was able to side coach a few scenes and point out why they were not working well and what needed to be done to improve them. I only wish I can pull all of my acting training from my theater minor. I started to get better and see when I could interject and why, but trying to do lots of characterization in an improv scene is hard. I feel it should be done but it takes time. I am excited for when everything I have said finally settles into the brains of the group members that still can’t see it. For some it will be a while, and for some it is already there. I love how every single person can always seek improvement in improv. I love having an absolutely terrible scene so that I can look back and see why it sucked so much and know that it will happen again except maybe next time I will notice it sooner and be more prepared to counter act the evil.

sckuS vorpmI

When I am not complaining about the real world I don’t annoy you with complaints. That seems to make sense to me and so does this book I just read, or at least just read parts of it. Don’t worry it will be finished later. This book is the amazing compilation of what I think to be a mad mans ramblings that seem to make strange sense at times due to the odd combination of words that I am sure seem perfectly fine to him but do not come across the paper as he thinks they should, is genius. This book is  Improvise by Mick Napier. He talks in his head in the book which is hard because who listens to what someone says in their head. Luckily improvisers do lots of thinking in their head, most of it being somewhat automatic and the rest in depth thought about why something made someone laugh. And that is some in depth thinking because many Harvard scientists have done studies and nobody knows why we laugh at things. Although in this book Mick hit, what I believe to be, the staple thing that improvisers rely upon to get laughs. This is taking things out of context. He says everyday life has its contexts, everything we do, hear, see and say are usually in some way shaped to the context of our life so as to not stick out. In improv we blow that context away or out of proportion because this is not expected. You see this was good for me because it reminded me that my elitist view of long form as a superior art form than to just get laughs is meant to entertain and this is one way we do it. I hate being elitist about it, but I truly am. I am like that guy in the coffee shop who scoffs at you for pouring cream into your coffee and sweetening it up. FUCK YOU I ENJOY MY LIFE THE WAY I WANT I DON’T CARE THAT YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF BURNT DIRT I LIKE SUGAR! We then walk away as if nothing happened (nothing did happen). So I have learned to be more ok with those coffee house snobs because I am an improv snob, and I don’t know if that is more ridiculous or not.

So tonight at practice I am going to attempt to show the group how to start a scene. We have been practicing for 3 or 4 weeks now and no we have not learned how to start a scene. Is this right? I don’t know. Darin(captain) and I decided to let the group play with each other before we got down and dirty and fucked each other. I hate seeing people fuck each other on stage but it happens a lot and I am there to back them up and give them support so they know its ok and that they can come back to practice without feeling bad, or at least thats what I tell myself. So, yes, starting a scene is where I think an entire improv scene relies upon. If you have a bad start your scene sucks. If you have a good one it will be at least moderately good or turn out to be better than sex with all the disney princes’ at once. Or princes’ if you have a vagina. Why does it go wrong? People are scared shitless of making decisions. They decide I am going to support my scene partner by letting them dictate and I will say yes to everything and disney will take its pants down. This is why scenes suck and instead that scary ass octopus lady from the little mermaid starts hitting on you. So how then do you have the exact same attitude as I will support my scene partner. You support yourself like crazy at the beginning. You make sure everything you do is powerful and with meaning. That way your scene partner can go off you and vice versa. It is on the individuals in the scene to come up with very strong characters so that each can react off each other through their character. This is the most important step in improv and if not done, the audience, players and mother nature feels this disturbance.

Improv Sucks

I live in Iowa and go to the University of Iowa. In Iowa there is a thing called speech contest. This breeds thinkers, not improvisers. It also puts an exclamation point on being funny, and while being funny is important and innate in improv, it is not the focus. It is great for people who are really interested I just think it puts out the wrong idea of what real improv is. Trying to be a semi-professional group in a place where this is what improv is, is challenging and extremely annoying.

Our group puts on shows that include long form and short form improv, but for most people in Iowa City this is gibberish. They just expect to end up in this performance space with a bunch of crazy do-anything improvisers. Instead we show them lots of harnessed energy in this story made up in front of them that is intelligent and insightful.

I will continue on this later I am sure, but for now I should really be writing a lab report on Sordaria the awesomely genetic dung fungus.

Hello

This is my first blog post ever. I am one of those young-ins who is aware that the future lies in the hands of the internet so I am trying to get involved with it. I figure since I have to have a blog I should have one that deals with my passion for improv. So we’ll see how it goes and whether people want to know what I think.