We need every able assh*le, every assh*le you can spare

Monday blog -

Long weekend, week spent out of town and a one-day weekend and I now feel thoroughly out of sync with time - all I need now is a polar bear and Evangeline Lily. Or maybe skip the polar bear. Whichever.

Owen was supposed to make his Festival debut yesterday morning but the weather was not cooperating, I woke up to rainy skies and told him it would have to be another day. He took it well since we talked about it the night before but as I drove closer to site the skies got clearer and I was feeling stupid for listening to things like "forecasts" by "experts" that get paid to "predict" the weather - it did end up being a rainy morning but cleared up into a gorgeous day later (which would have been after he left anyway, so I guess it was for the better) and a super fun day to perform and things clicked really well for the most part.

Our stage show was bizarre and felt really fun, if not off by about 2 seconds.
I usually tell people that ask what our show is that you can come see us do a lot of "bad improv" - which never seems fair to the show, it's not that's we're doing improv badly, we're doing a show that happens to be improvised but we don't follow a lot of things that you would to create a "good" traditional "improv show" - which I don't think any audience out there would come sit through.
We've found some cool stuff that helps it feel more like a cohesive show using straightup longform improv tools and yesterday was probably the best example of that. The audience doesn't have to know or care about "good improv" to have a good time with the fact that we're winging the show or that we're also making long callbacks to tie the whole thing together, but I do and I think it really worked well yesterday. After show we were happy and feeling that fun combination of really enjoying the show and feeling like the audience really enjoyed it for the same reasons we did.

Better known as "Passion Sauce" after yesterday's performance.
You sick bastards.

Festival in general has been exponentially better now that I'm not closely tied to the internal workings of the Festival itself any more than any performer needs to be - though it has given me something to think about considering our future endeavors. The show is one that people (myself included) love doing to the point that they're willing to take less money than they should and do more than is reasonable for the show or generally make decisions that a normal person would not, something that management is well aware of and uses to exploit the people in their employ.

An especially shitty bargain when you see that the people that love the show most and could be nutured and put to best use are instead taken advantage of the worst. It's like punishing people for being willing to give 110% and really caring about the end-product and the only way to have any sort of longevity is to get used to getting screwed or stop giving a shit (because asking for changes to be made will get you labelled as "toxic" - shit you not. if you could write a book on the most callous way to run a business with complete disregard to human beings they would make a fantastic case study) or some mix of the two that works for you but doesn't involve just not giving a shit about being screwed.

In any case, a great long-term business model if you want to ensure really high turnover and long periods of prevailing mediocrity. But it will keep your operating costs low.

We're hoping to do exactly the opposite with the improv venture but there certainly will come a time when we need to call upon everyone (and I mean everyone) that has told us that they want to help out and really mobilize our supporters to help us make the big leap and it's pretty certain that we wont have the funds to pay people for everything we will ask of them. Just a good reminder of how not to treat the people that could be our greatest resource and our biggest advocates. It has been noted in the "things NOT to do" list.

Went in for physical therapy this morning and I'm already completely disillusioned by the process. The short version is that the doctors aren't able to find something concrete on my x-rays they can nail down as the problem or something they can "fix" so instead they'd like me to make more than a half dozen appointments for them to try stuff and promise no results for either my time or money.

Fuck that.

I'm starting to accept that I've done some good, lasting damage to my body and I'm going to have to live with a certain amount of pain and maybe even a little vertigo - but if that's the case I might as well accept it for free (or just drop some cash on a massage here and there) and spend my time doing anything other than sitting in one doctor's office after another.