the kids at the show will have kids of their own, their sing along songs will be our scriptures

holy crap it's been a long time since I wrote a real blog -

the attention-span pendulum swung way to the Twitter side of things for quite a while now so I haven't had much to sit down and craft a real blog from, which is not to say that there's nothing going on. There's plenty I don't feel like writing about anymore, lots of stuff I don't want to say too much about but mostly just the little things and crazy travels that eat up whole days and weeks a couple minutes at a time.
Hopefully the photos have been a nice placeholder.
At least I can be counted on to use Twitter - if you want regular updates on what the hell I'm thinking, follow me on Twitter but be warned, you might get more than you bargained for.

What can I say...shit's been busy.

I've been all over the place lately since the travel kicked back in - hung out in San Diego with the crew, made good use of the 'buy the client drinks' policy, hung out with Mr Hetzel a couple times, both of them spent trying to keep my eyes open since it was the beginning and the end of a rough week.
Flew home, did the Mix Tape with Dessa, finished some TCIF graphics and caught up on emails by 3am, grabbed exactly 45 minutes of sleep and got the boys out of bed at 4am to leave for the airport to go to DisneyWorld - if you've been reading you might have noticed the sudden influx of really cute photos. Spent a few exhausting days in the Magical Memory Insertion Machine.

The Disney trip was nothing short of wonderful, I spent the entire time just staring at my boys with a permanent "Awwwww" look on my face. You can knock Disney as a giant corporation all you want but none of that matters to 5 year olds. They got to meet Winnie the Pooh and the "Magical Moments", manufactured as they may be, are fucking magical to the little ones.
Watching the fireworks over Cinderella's castle I was holding Owen and he gasped and literally shook all the way down to his legs and this huge "WOW!!!!!" escaped him with more force than I've ever seen from the boy. When the scientifically-designed-to-illicit-feelings-of-wonder-music came down he burst into applause of sheer and total happiness. Thanks, Walt. That was cool.

We made the trip with my wife's aunt, who is craz-y about DisneyWorld but knew all the tricks to make sure we found all the great stuff for the boys, as a result they had a much better time that they would have with just their parents. They had breakfast with Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie and Pluto and then got to ride in the cockpit of the monorail into the Magic Kingdom and generally did it right.

Everyone came back happy and I think a little exhausted.
No rest since the boys were on Florida time and back to the office then off to Ka-Baam!! last night at the BLB. Shows are going well and that one is still one of the more challenging ones for me, it's a lot to juggle but not more than normal - it's a much different style though, and that's the trick. Last night was even more stylized (or maybe it was just from missing a week) and felt hard to find a groove in for me but in general I feel like everything is just starting to really push what is possible just as the run of the show winds down and word on more shows is still coming.
Ain't that how it always goes?

Our final show is next Thursday at 10pm - you should not miss it.
As usual I will be just be landing since I leave again tomorrow (can't...think....about it....yet) for Philly on the job. But before that we get to do Mix Tape with one of my favorite giant brains of the improv-world - Matt Donnelly!
Matt is flying in today and somewhere in this giant mess I'm picking him up from the airport (Matt, if you're reading this, I'll be there. I swear). I know plenty of improvisers read this blog - if you've NOT taken a class from Matt you're missing something. Talking him for 2 minutes it becomes clear he's got his head around things in an entirely different, and very cool, way. He teaches this weekend and you should do yourself a favor and check it out.

But first he performs with HUGE at Mix Tape - tonight at ComedySportz, 10:30, $10.

You know what? You'd know all this already if you bookmarked the new improv a go-go website. Our calendar of awesomeness is right there.

There's no IAGG shows for the next 2 weeks and in meantime I've given myself a crapload of stuff to do (because I obviously suffer from way too much free time. Is this really just a blog to excuse the lack of blogs lately?? Maybe) in the meantime.
When the IAGG returns on the 15th we will have our first round of TCIF merch ready as well as announce the performance selections for the 3rd annual improv festival.
Holy Crazy Shit.

Which means that I need to get a bunch of graphics done before the trial versions of my software expire....tomorrow. Hooray for the stupid things that enforce deadlines for me.

Whew. What else? I know there's more. More? Yes.

The teenager is still living with my parents for now and is enrolled in a more normal program and as far as I know he's doing much better. It's tough to swallow that staying away from him helps him focus on doing better but that seems to be the case, he'll have plenty of time for me to be his dad after fixing the mess he got himself into with high school credits. Nothing to report. All quite on the angst-y front.

The Actual project is moving forward. I don't want to say too much but it's moving and the time for the Big Jump is coming closer. That's something that terrifies my wife and wakes me up in the middle of the night alternating between excitement and total self-doubt. But it's coming and I think it's going to be great, maybe one of the best things ever. Optimism? That's right.
It's the only growth industry in these shitty times.

Alright - gotta cut it off now as my fingers are getting too stiff to type. Woke up with no heat in the house this morning and I'm bundled up waiting for the furnace guy to show up. I'm told we take priority since we have no heat but I talked to the guy 2.5 hours ago and it's pretty fucking cold in here. As a side effect I've been hitting the coffee a little harder than usual to stay warm. Hence the blog.

Thanks for reading. I hope to have more soon.

You lit the fire in us - and we play on in your trust

Friday morning blog -

Between doctors appointments, days spent working from home in recovery from the weekend and the wife departing for Los Angeles late last night - this week feels a bit off. I managed to spend all of 2 days in the office and I am once again back home trying to squeeze productive time out of my home office in between breaking up fights between two Wii-obsessed 5 year olds and kicking the teenager out of bed for physicals and other fun stuff he needs to attend to before the start of the school year.

But I still find time to blog. Priorities.

I still can't accept the fact that we're already coming to the end of the summer, the beginning of which gets taken over by Improv Festival madness and the end is marked by the Renaissance Festival taking my weekends for several months - but already the sun is going down earlier, the nights are getting cooler (or I start noticing it more because I'm sleeping in a tent on the weekends) and soon the kids will be in school and the Improv Festival will be open for submissions for next summer and we're right back into it until next July (which has become officially known as "the time I can rest").
It's the perfect schedule for making the time blur together.

Speaking of time becoming a blur, I cannot get my brain around the fact that my little boys are starting school already. Weren't they just in incubators?? Didn't they just learn how to walk?? They still don't even sleep through the night (just like their dad)!!
They did just learn column addition (adding tens and hundreds and how to carry-the-one and so on) the other night, which also tells me they don't really NEED the public school system anyway - but they've got cool backpacks and are excited for this new thing to begin.

I don't know how it's possible that we've arrived at this point already but I'll be in the other room, dying my grey hair back to bright red, thanks. Sheesh.

Things on the improv front are weird but good - I end up performing a very different kind of show on the weekends at the end of summer and missing the IAGG entirely the entire time but it finally feels like the two have struck a nice balance, like I'm working on different kind of improv instead of being removed from improv completely for two months.

Got our paperwork back from the State of MN yesterday - making the Actual Theater Project an official corporation, which I'm extremely excited about as it marks tangible progress and we're getting closer to being done with the tedious process of doing everything on paper and closer to the time when we get to the real business of the business.

More news as it happens.

back to the ever daily day, little to do and less to say - minds would wander and thoughts astray

Saturday morning blog -

I have been playing catch-up constantly these days and found myself emailing a friend saying "yeah, I blog everyday" and realized that was completely untrue lately and that when I do blog I keep promising more info on more interesting things "soon" so I'm trying to rectify that.... gradually.

Of course, most of what I've been "working on" isn't work at all but improv or performance stuff, for those of you interested, here's the scoop lately:

Stare Down - I got to run tech for this show the last several Fridays at the Bryant Lake Bowl and I feel like I've done a less-than-stellar job of promoting it but that's what happens when you don't get out and only communicate through scattered blogs. It reminded me of when I used to work at the BNW and in the weeks before opening they would give the cast bags of posters to help get the word out - even though the cast was essentially locked in the building until it was too late, making them the absolute worst street team in the world.
Anyway, I dig this show in a big way, it's improvised but doesn't feel like your normal, wacky improv show - instead it comes off with a clear style that sets it apart as a "theater" show and the fact that the banter and action are made up becomes secondary to creating something with a specific feel. Kudos to Stare Down - one of my favorite shows.

Things with the Actual Theater Project have stalled and that's totally my doing - I have the next set of papers to file sitting on my desk and I will be working on them today - I swear. I can't really express how much I want the paperwork part of things to be done with but it's somewhere right around how much I want to stop being the person that always talks about this thing I going to do "someday".

I've been trying to stay on track writing down my thoughts for a training document for technicians in the weird area that is improvised tech and I find it exciting even when I have to wonder if there's even people out there that want to care about it besides me. Jill has been bravely nudging me to stay on the project, which is easy to put on the back burner (which is pretty full of other things since you can move an infinite amount of things to the back of this magical stovetop without having to shuffle something else to the front..... perhaps a new metaphor is needed) and I'm stoked about the direction it's taking and regardless of any impact it may have I'll be glad to get it out of my system.
Jill - keep on me.
People that want to learn what I'm trying to teach - ask where it is.

In the meantime - Nels' return has put some fire under some other improv projects (improjects?) that need time and attention - including starting talks of Creature Feature as well as our NEW show, currently on the baord to start this winter. Trying to give shows enough time, effort and eneergy to launch them right is a new process for us and I think we'll be much happier with the results.

At the same time we're also getting workshop/class offerings ready to go so this organization can start to take on a more complete and cohesive plan of attack. While this isn't exactly the specifics of what we're doing know that once we have concrete details to announce, everyone will hear about them.

and, HOLY SHIT - the message boards at Minneapolisimprov.com have come back to life!!
Long before we had weekly gatherings or even regular shows this was the place where people that improvise in the Twin Cities would hang out online and where our community grew for a long time - it's back and you should join in, performer, audience member or otherwise.
Go to www.minneapolisimprov.com and waste work-hours with us!

The other end of business is the quickly approaching, almost upon us monster that is the Renaissance Festival - which is following the typical patterns the Festival always follows of being poorly (or at best extremely loosely) organized, governed by insane whims of a guy that doesn't understand, or give one warm crap about, things like "entertainment" and the communication one gets from the office as a performer is something like talking to a coma patient - you know they're in there somewhere but you're going to do all the talking and you should get used to that.

After some wondering how it was going to turn out George and I did get our contracts and I'm very much looking forward to just getting out there and playing on the street and getting face to face with that audience again. All the rest is bullshit - some of it deliberate and malicious, some of it thoughtless and accidental, but bullshit all the same.

I'm going to play.
Because, clearly, I don't have any work to do.

Clenched fists, Black Eyes

Friday evening blog ??

After the work travels I spent yesterday "officing" from home, which meant a pretty full day of the wife and I taking turns with the boys, who are in a pretty exhausting phase right now and need to revisit naptimes in the middle of the day, so the other could get some work done. My wife totally got more of the "work" end of the deal and I spent the day mostly wrangling boys, throwing NERF airplanes, chasing frogs off the mini-golf hole and acting like it was a weekend.

Which is to say I wasn't really stoked for the office this morning, even though it was my one day in this week. I decided to make up for 25 years of negligence (holy shit) and FINALLY purchase The Crew by 7 Seconds on iTunes so i spent the afternoon and evening listening to punk rock that I should have been listening to all along and kicking myself.

This morning was spent listening to a client completely destroy them meeting they paid us to put together as I was sitting in the tech-support chair for an eMeeting and the client decided to ignore ALL of our instructions for making the whole thing actually "work". Oh well - it's their dime and you can only hold your clients' hands for them for so long, you can't care about their event for them.

I was alerted to the fact that my teenager is still being a teenage idiot when his grandmother called when she should have been at work and had me call to authorize a UA for him. As it turns out he was actually caught smoking in her porch and still tried to cop attitude the entire way to his UA about how it was going to come out negative and he had done nothing wrong.
Ah, if only teenage attitiude was actually powerful enough to bend space, time and reality like they apparently think it is - we'd be using them as fuel and travelling to distant stars right now and they'd be where they belong - in deep space.

Tonight was Stare Down and I have to say I was pretty damn happy with this one - my last one was a big ball of stress since I was figuring out the show while it was happening, this time I had a grip on it and was able to have fun and be more on top of my work and I think my part of the show was noticably better for it. Bullets galore. Yay for Stare Down for being my kind of improv show.

There's something very very fun for me in Stare Down when everything goes right and I think it probably reveals a little too much about my brain but I love adding a little window to the characters by how they shoot people. Some people pull their guns and talk and shoot when they have to or when it makes the most sense, some people pull them out and just fucking kill people without pause and I think it makes a difference in the vibe of the show. Whatever, if I can make a single mother character seem like the most cold blooded person on that stage it makes a difference for me. It's fun and I think the audience had fun as well.

I'm still trying to figure out when I'm going to see Hellboy and now I have to figure out when to see Dark Knight. Crap. My un-watched DVD of There Will Be Blood upstairs tells you how current my media intake is.

the New Five Man Job perform this Sunday, bitches.

After that I'll worry about the next work trip (the next day), my total lack of a contract for the Renaissance festival, when I'm going to wait in line for an iPhone and a few other things.

You've been my friend through thick and thin, where do I begin to say what we've seen?

Friday already blog -

well kids, the week totally got away from me despite medical intervention and every intention of writing on a regular basis. Same old story, things are busy and blogging either gets pushed off or I find myself having boring days with nothing worth taking up time and server space over.

If you read my wife's blog (and why wouldn't you? of the two of us, she's the writer) you already know that we had to put down one of our cats this week, and when I say "we" had to I mean that she had to make the decision and I had to be the one to actually do it. Because I'm the guy, that is my job.

Sure, women complain about men being un-emotional until they need someone killed.
I see how it is.

I don't mean to be flippant about it but that's what I do. It was sad and thankfully everyone in the house is handling it alright. Cliche as it always sounds, it was for the best and all. Pets don't live forever and the boys have since decided to prove it by switching from cats to hamsters (their mother helped, although she would've preferred a rat) for their next lesson in short-term attachment that will end in tragedy. I'm not excited but I'm not opposed.

Hamsters are a great idea but less great as actual pets - all the benefits of having to feed them and clean up their waste without all the hassle of a pet that will ever show emotional attachment to you or play with you in any way.

Hamsters compared to Pleos (which I would much rather have and completely reverses the above equation of play-to-responsibility) are a creepy indicator of how nature is losing out to virtual intelligence. If you looked at the attributes of each on paper you'd guess that the hamster was about as great a pet as the virtual fishtank on the Finding Nemo DVD and the robot was a perfect companion for kids. Take that, Imaginary God!!

I've also neglected to dutifully plug away for Stare Down: An Improvised Tarantino Film, which I'm super excited for given my love of Resevior Dogs, improvisation and getting to shoot people at random from the tech booth.

I'm running sound and lights for the show, which takes place TONIGHT at the Bryant Lake Bowl. You should come see it. There will be snappy dialogue, there will be bullets and if I had my way there would be Uma Thurman. I'm working on it.

and if you're testing God right to his face you're gonna catch hell

Tuesday blog - 

So the saga with the teenager continues, and what a long, stupid saga it is.

In case you're just tuning in the boy is being a teenager boy, he got into some trouble with his drug use and now is subject to periodic UA's to keep his driving privileges, which he went without for quite a while as we watched his THC levels go down on paper.  He got his keys back and is now driving and getting re-checked to make sure he doesn't slide.  I think that about sums it up for this story...

So yesterday I'm sitting at my desk getting ready to head home for the day and I get a call from the Lab where Anthony was sent for his weekly oppression.  

"Mr. Roy?"

"Yes"

"Anthony was just here...to drop off a urine sample"

"That's not normal"  - obviously "dropping off" urine instead of giving a sample there raises some flags.

"Right.....it's WATER."

at this point I just started laughing.

"Yeah.....it's actually ice cold, straight out of the tap, water.  So we're not going to bother processing it and thought you should know"  and that was that.

Yes, obviously the boy trying to circumvent the testing isn't what we want but it isn't exactly unexpected either but he's so laughably BAD at getting away with things like that it's hard not to just chuckle at him. Combine that with the fact that his dad is actually a pretty sharp fellow that used to actually get away with quite a bit and it gets even more absurd.  You almost feel bad for the kid being so comically unable to pull off his schemes.  Poor guy.

Of course, being a teenager, he denied everything and will continue to deny everything even if someone produces a lab analysis saying his urine is alarmingly high in flouride and lead and video showing him pouring tap water into a sample cup and then smiling for the camera.  Rest assured we will get to the bottom of what motivated this busy and unbiased medical professional to take time out of her day to call me up and lie about my son, who has been nothing but unflinchingly honest these days.  I don't know why she hates him but that's the only explanation I can think of for this.

oh, or he was getting high this weekend. 

I'll find out what that nurse's problem is.

Combine that with the worried email I got from my mother this morning (he's staying there for the summer - another part of the story that has some bearing) about his recent changes in behavior.  

Apparently he attended a punk show at the high school and decided to shave his hair into a mohawk (dad's note - FINALLY!).  Either that or he's competing with George's oldest boy, who just got his first mohawk as well at age 6 (?) and has already been insulted by an adult in public for it (tell her she's part of an ignorant segment of society is shrinking because it is getting old and dying - tell Charlie to get used to taking shit for now and enjoy watching them shrink in horror at being sent to nursing homes staffed by kids with mohawks and tattoos. - just my advice for the day)  Where the hell was I....?

Right.  

He apparently shaved the rest of his hair off and my mother found a baseball bat and a copy of Mein Kampf in his truck.  No shit.  His stupidity apparently knows no bounds or he's determined to head straight for whatever behavior is completely unacceptable no matter how accepting people are to his normal stupidity.

My gut feeling is that he:

A) cut the rest of his hair off to try and outwit the drug tests at any jobs he's applying for, many of which do the hair testing

B) took some shit for having a mohawk and decided being bald was a little easier to blend in with no matter how shocking he thinks he wants to be.

C) he's growing into this whole 'bad kid' persona he's found himself in, failing a couple classes, being forced to take UA's and living outside of the home.  He probably is the "bad kid" where he goes to school and he's filling the part.  He just happens to be doing it wrong.

at no point do I actually believe that my son is an ignorant, racist moron.

An ignorant, privileged white kid hanging out in an affluent suburb that has no concept of the consequences of stepping over the line between 'bad kid character' and 'racist skinhead character' in the real world?

Yes.  I think that is exactly it.  I think he's found a persona that gets a reaction out of people and he's running with it and has no idea what will happen when he runs too far with it and either gets labeled as a racist for a very long time or steps out of his little bubble of rich white kids that laugh about shit like that and right into somebody that will reacquaint him the idea of consequences.

I told my mother (who was also worried about a number of other things, including the lyrics of the music he's listening to....namely The Misfits, which he got from me) he's trying to fill up his bad-ass punk rock role and just doing it poorly because he's dumb.  I'm also sending a good Skinhead friend over to have more than a few words with him tonight.  Don't let the flippant nature of the blog fool you - this isn't going on without something being done.  

Oh no it is not.

Oh yeah - Five Man Job performs at the Six Ring Circus tonight as well.

I've been extremely lax about talking that up but as you can see, there's been a lot going on.

I'm hoping to have a fun set with FMJ, which is our last set before the TCIF (making this the second-to-last set with Dan) and just be silly and have a good fun time on stage.  Or at least I was.

Now I'm just hoping not to inflict an inordinate amount of darkness on some poor, unsuspecting audience.  Either way it should be entertaining for the informed reader to watch so come check it out.

a city full of people and my favorite is that waitress...

monday morning recap - 

holy crap, that was a little crazy, now it's time to catch up a little and get back to business.

Wednesday - my wonderful wife's birthday:  

the boys and I tried to make everything perfect for mom for her birthday, they spent Tuesday night saying they were going to sleep in the next day so she could rest on her birthday and I spent time trying to find a second to sneak out to pick up her gift. 

We did have a very nice dinner and a quiet evening out before the madness that was....

Thursday - the twins' birthday:

Our little miracle kids turned five on Thursday and I still cannot grasp that they are almost kindergartners.  That seems like saying they're almost centaurs at this point.  Can't be.

They are so excited to be five and because they're crazy geniuses they were looking forward to 'growing up' more than presents and parties.  They do everything they can independently now and will take any opportunity to tell you that they're five now and can do it themselves.  They have been looking forward to chores and all the exciting benefits that taking one small step closer to adulthood had to offer.  Also....toys.

Their birthday was a mad dash toward the party and most of it spent racing the weather.

I got up early, finished digging my trench for the new garden as the bouncy castle arrived, the boys bounced until they were exhausted, we ran to play mini-golf at the science museum before the rain and picked up snacks and birthday cake on the way home to decorate.  whew.

then, of course, just before party time the rain rolled in.  The bouncy castle was unplugged and deflated to keep it from tearing loose in the wind and the guests took over the house instead.  No plan B but it was all very fun.

At the "end" of the party we decided that the rain had lightened up enough and plugged the muddy bouncy castle back in and let the kids in to play.  Everyone got completely soaked and dirty, hence the manufactured "end" to the party.  Your kids are sugared up, covered in mud and completely wiped out.  Now go home.  You're welcome.

My boys are five.  that is crazy.

Friday - the Chicago trip:

got up early in the still-birthday-decorated house and prepped to hit the road to Chicago for the Chicago Improv Festival.  Got underway early and made the trip in good time, rolling up to the Playground Theater about 10 minutes before my tech rehearsal thanks to my genius plan to arrive on the Kennedy Expressway right in the middle of Friday rush hour.  Anyway.

Loaded in, killed time, saw some great sets.  Jill was terrific, of course.

Went to the Annoyance Theater for the Friday party and saw lots of people that I wanted to catch up with but, since it was a festival party, couldn't because it's a little bit looney.  Still a great time.  Got to talk to Pitts, Jon from Dirty Water, Jesse Parent and a few others I hadn't seen in a long time. About halfway through the night I realized I don't enjoy the weird social aspect of social time also being work time that comes with now being a festival producer. I'll have plenty of time to worry about our festival starting today and it was nice to be at someone else's festival on their work time and just hang out and be social.  Ah.

Saturday - Chicago continues:

HUGE was invited to perform Saturday night so the day was spent connecting and hanging out with Mike and Joe (Jill was busy being everywhere, as she does for festivals) and fighting off the insane heat and crushing humidity of Chicago.  Had some good food, hung out in the Clark/Belmont area for the day, ate pizza with Mike's family and new nephew and then made our way to the space to wait to go on for the 12-20 people that showed up for HUGE.  The big drawback to being invited to perform on a Saturday at a festival (which feels like a really sweet time slot and a big compliment, I'm not complaining about that) is that you're also up against the mainstage Saturday night entertainment - which in Chicago means people from MadTv and the Colbert Report performing at the Lakeshore Theater down the street from you at the same time.  I remembered this as we paced in the Playground waiting to go on and hoping there would be people there watching.

Our set was fun.  Improv sets aren't worth belaboring in hindsight or funny to read about so I'll leave it at that.  i had fun (even though I have a giant bruise the size grapefruit that I picked up mid-set) and the energy was groovy and silly and we had a good time.  On top of that I think it was "good improv" so in all the ways that matter I think our set was a success.

Afterward we had some good Thai food and exhaustion set in.  The old men of HUGE ended up skipping the big CIF party and turning in for the night.  I know.  We know how to party.

Caught a good amount of sleep before...

Sunday - the trip home:

Woke up early on a couch and headed for Dunkin Donuts, collected Jill and hit the expressway.  Then realized our mistake, backtracked and hit the expressway again headed toward home.  There's not much to say about the drive from Chicago to Minneapolis beyond the fact that Jill and I had more time to sit and talk about future plans than we ever do so some emails were sent from the road and things were hammered out more clearly and in general I couldn't wait to get home to Minneapolis, see my kids and my wife and get back to the task of putting up our festival and planning for our theater.  

the biggest thing I miss about going out to other cities, as well as one of things I make sure to tell other performers that plan on coming to Minneapolis about is our audiences.  I think our improv audiences are the best anywhere and not only are they going to enjoy the hell out of what we're bringing to the stage in 17 short days but I know everyone that comes here to perform is going to have one hell of a time as well.  Building a place for that to happen all the time, that's fun to work toward.  More on that tomorrow when I can start thinking again.

for now I'm at the office working toward.....something else.

Waiting for the webcast of the WWDC keynote to unveil all sorts of techno-goodness for me to lust after, even though it'll mostly by iPhone stuff I already know about and I'm already sold on the iPhone so much that I'm trying to save up for buying out of my plan and getting one.  It is the rare device that I really want, not because the impossible-to-satisfy modern man's problem of needing to have the latest and fastest gadget.  I just really want to get my hands on an iPhone to centralize some of my communication and take one more device out of the ridiculous arsenal of devices I have to use on a daily basis.  As I sit at a desk with 3 computers, 1 iPod and 4 phones on it that seems to make only too much sense, with or without the expected Slingbox features they're adding..... 

on other fronts - the teenager is out of school for the summer, living at grandma's house and has a mohawk.  he's really rebelling now.  I'm glad he's doing better, I have my doubts he's doing as well as his grandmother believes (but she's a grandmother and has a probably normal level of difficulty with the concept that her grandson is lying to her) but happy he's doing better.  We're moving his room to the basement where all teenager boys dwell and I'm getting an office out of the deal.  

too much for one blog.  More easily digestible tomorrow.

I'm a busy man, no free hand to hold a grudge

this is insane blog - 

June is both the most stressful and the most fun month of the year.

Today is my last day in the office for the week, took the rest off since I needed to spend my PTO before end of June or lose it forever and this week is packed completely full of festivities and leaves no room for things like "work"

Yesterday was another fun-filled eMeeting, this one was all mine and I get to spend today dealing with the client demanding that I somehow bridge the gap between her wanting to give the thumbs up on every little thing that goes into the meeting and her wanting to blame someone else when she doesn't like the end result.  I understand the compulsion that leads people to micro-manage but I can't relate to the psychotic break required to take credit for the good results and place blame on everyone else for the negative.  I'm so the wrong guy for that conversation.

the meeting didn't even go poorly.  it actually went very very well and there were no major bumps.  So now we're down to passive aggressive second-guessing and crap like that.  Also, not my area.  My favorite....the client came back with an issue over some of the text.  Rather than say "I think that text was wrong" this is what I got:

"I know the type was really small so I could have missed something but is that the text we agreed on?"

Yes, rather than just have direct discussion on wether the copy was right or wrong we're going to entertain the idea that the typeface was so small that is ACTUALLY BECAME DIFFERENT WORDS.  This is my day today.  

anyway - it's the last day before the week takes off

tomorrow is the wife's birthday and she's pretty awesome and deserves complete and undivided attention even though her birthday has totally been eclipsed by the twins' birthday being the very next day for five years now (and it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon).  

That means that the boys turn 5 on the 5th and their golden birthday is going to be an insanely cute celebration of our crazy little geniuses, inflatable bouncy houses and gold birthday cupcakes.

almost as soon as the candles are blown out (ok - not really, actually the next day) I depart for Chicago to perform with HUGE in the Chicago Improv Festival. Things with the TCIF have been heating up and most days my brain has completely jumped over CIF, which used to have me all freaked out for at least a week prior.  I'm sure it'll hit me once I arrive Friday afternoon or I'll spend CIF trying to get TCIF work done from the road and miss the fun entirely.

CIF kicked off on a sad note yesterday with the death of  Paul Sills

All I know directly of the man is that he once ripped a notebook out of former Five Man Job member Nick Condon's hands during one of his classes and scolded him that "This is just PLAY!  You don't take notes on how to PLAY!"

I think that's a pretty awesome take from someone that made pretty incredible contributions.

There's more - so much more.  But I've got ruffled feathers to go tend to.  

the savage mutilation of the human race is set on course

it's Metal Friday blog - 

there is just some weird kind of anarchy in the air today, woke up to the maniacal laughter of the twins down the hall, which was unsettling.  I'm glad they wake up happy and all, if only I knew it wasn't because they get each other so riled up that someone or something is going to get slammed in a door, tossed down the stairs or otherwise broken.

Turns out they were playing in their bathroom, filling up bath toys in the sink and spraying water all over the place.  That was a nice way to start today.

Little fucking Hellions.

I was pondering taking a home office day until I realized that there was no coffee in the house.  There is, however, coffee in the office so the office won.....for now.  Once I'm more caffeinated I may have the energy to break free and thanks to it being METAL FRIDAY in our office again I can guarantee I'll be in the mood to sit at a desk very very little today.

Ah, Rocket Queen.  

I'm pouring a cup of coffee, doing imaginary work long enough for it to kick in, rocking out and then heading home to play with the kids before Punch Out.

Mustache Rangers vs Family Night (Hannah and Doug N from CSZ) - are you kidding me!! - it's going to be completely awesome.

11pm | $10 | Brave New Workshop

Amid the heat and the wrack, hot boots invested and cracked

alright here's the full download on everything - 

Vegas trip:

Vegas was super fun and much needed time away, even though the teenager insisted on exporting his stress to us in the middle of the desert, it was still a great time.

We ate great food, laid around the pool in the 110 degree heat (which I love), I lost money and the wife won it all back and more on penny slots (seriously, she won more then $100 on penny slot machines more than once, which statistically has to be like me walking away from a craps table with $300,000....only this actually happened) and we got to see the Dropkick Murphys poolside at the Hard Rock.  I spent the time sweating in the heat, riddled with bruises, sunburned and stuffed.  Happy happy.

the IAGG Anniversary show:

I landed Sunday at 4:45pm, rushed home, hugged the twins once and ran off to one of my favorite things of the year, the IAGG Anniversary show.  Sadly I was still sunburned and beaten and exhausted so I wasn't exactly running at 100% for the evening but damn was it a great time.

Eric, Mike and Jill headed up a video project on the occasion (and looking ahead to the Actual Improv Theater), which was super kick-ass of them to do, Ryan Haro has been taking awesome pics of the shows and captures the coolest images and deserves some thanks and generally the night is just spent enjoying this cool thing we all have because of one another.

I always make a point of thanking the audience and I hope that they hear it, I know that we say 'thank you' at the end of every night and every set so it's easy for it to just become noise and I want them to really know how much I appreciate it as much as I want them to feel they have some ownership over the fate of future projects by their continued energy and support for this thing we all have fun doing.  the IAGG and the environment in the Twin Cities for improvisers is pretty unique and I love it, so it's cool to be able to say thank you at least once a year as we officially turn the corner into TCIF season.

I have to thank all the groups that perform as well as my gratitude to Mike, Joe, Jill, Lauren and Dan for all the help over the last 6 years, I get to be the face of the whole thing most weeks so I think people get the mistaken impression that I do anything more than everyone else or that it's even something that feels like "work" to keep doing  but that's just not the case.  the IAGG stands because of everyone that performs, helps spread the word and comes through the door to have a few laughs and that's pretty special.

Thanks again, everyone.

I mean it.

Punch Out:

this Friday is another one I'm looking forward to in a big way.

Stare Down is playing (which I will miss but you should NOT, it's fucking awesome) and then haul ass over to Punch Out to catch the Mustache Rangers take on Family Night (Hannah and Doug from CSZ - surprise, bitches!), which is guaranteed to be funny as hell.

Sci-Fi Jingoism vs. Wholesome Antics gone wrong.

the Punch Out comes to a close at the end of May and has been a fun time even though I'm bummed more people didn't see it.  It's been cool to be able to put more people onstage (which is always my/our goal) as well as get the ball rolling a bit for the TCIF.

11pm  |  $10  |  Brave New Workshop

Twin Cities Improv Festival:

it is just over one month away and if my brain finds out something is going to snap so we'll just keep having fun and pretending we know what we're doing.

Actually I have nothing but confidence in the TCIF, the shows are going to be unbelievable and I hope they're well attended for the sake of the people in the Twin Cities, which is usually my stance.  If you miss it you're missing out.

Speaking of missing out, workshops are filling fast.

If you're an improviser (or not, we have a beginner workshop with Charna that you should not miss) you need to get enrolled.  I know there are a couple workshops already that have less than a dozen spots left and we're still a month out.  Do yourself a favor and plan ahead.  It's very un-improvier-y but you will be kicking yourself if you miss it.  And then I will kick you.

Sign Up Here.

T-Shirts are still available but going pretty quickly as well.

We are running far fewer than last year since that is one of the areas we (which means "I")  lost an arm and a leg, so get them while they're here and cry if you miss out.  Much as I would love the means to make sure everyone that wants one gets one without having to sell plasma, I don't have that so instead we have scarcity.

even scarcer will be the tank-tops - which are coming...hopefully tomorrow.  

ladies, you're welcome.

Actual Improv Theater:

things for the Actual took their first official baby steps and I'm both nervous and excited.

I think everyone entertains the idea of 'accidentally' capturing the energy of an audience (I blame the rise of "fame" for bloggers and "reality" shows that follow people doing their jobs) by just doing your thing and becoming a bigger deal but it's a very different feeling to put it out there and say you're going to try and intentionally make something a big deal.

That's what we're going to do.

the "we" has taken a little more shape - the Board for the Actual has been formed and we're filing all the papers that go with that very very soon.  I don't know why I've decided a month before TCIF is a great time to make progress but it seems to be working.

Once we get through the paperwork and hit the ground in earnest you will all know.  It will be impossible to miss.

Thank you to everyone that has volunteered time and support for this project already, it's touching and tells us that we're doing some things right.  When the time comes we will take you all up on your offers and I'm nothing but optimistic about what everyone can get done together.

oh yes.

Family stuff:

things with the teenager are hard and distract from the immense surplus of happiness I take from all of the things above.  it's amazing, really....an energy in/energy out relationship that would make Stephen Hawking scratch his head if he could.

He's staying with my mother for now (the teenager, not Stephen Hawking) in the interests of seeing if getting the daily fighting out of the way helps him do any better for himself.  As much as he spits in everyone's faces we're all still pulling to help him and that's the most frustrating thing to deal with.  

Somedays I'd like to tell him he doesn't deserve the understanding of the people around him since most days he doesn't based on his actions, but I guess that's the very nature of the whole stupid "family" thing.  You get 'em wether you deserve them or not.  

Interestingly that's also the root cause of his emotional problems, getting a mother he didn't deserve.  You'd think in a cosmos with any sort of balance at all she'd be the target of (or at least the victim of) his anger and abuse but no, I'll do.  Maybe we'll send the boy to live with Stephen Hawking and instead of tension and unhappiness the by-product of his presence can be a Nobel Prize.

Technology:

Finally ditched the second smart-phone in favor of a really dumb phone after the job issued us our official work phones.  Walking around with two Blackberrys and paying for all the data services for one of them seemed (and is) pretty stupid.  So I posted the personal handset on craigslist and it sold in two minutes.  Literally, two minutes.

by the end of the day I was down to just a flip phone that sucks to type on, still stuck with two phones and now neither of them has all my contacts despite being dilligent about transferring all my phonebook entries to the SIM card.  It seems the Blackberry contacts don't transfer to the flip-phone OR the new work device.  Super dumb.

So my communication has taken a big leap backwards as far as ease of use, and as you can tell by everything going on, it's a great time for it.

I still managed to get a casting call today, which I have mixed feelings about since I'm never actually cast, only get called to be a 'criminal' and I find the whole process to be slightly more gross than, say, being the guys that hand out flyers for hookers on the Strip in Vegas.

that's another blog.  this one is too long already.

outside of society is where I wanna be

Monday and time to wind-down blog -

this weekend was good and crazy and sometimes crazy-good.
Friday night's Punch Out was a good time and it was fun to be onstage as HUGE again even if i was the only person in the group that hadn't already been improvising all night and was stiff and it showed. The membership of HUGE seems to be set up to guarantee that we get together and perform only rarely but we need to step that up as we prepare to head to the Chicago Improv Festival to represent.

Chicago? Yes, HUGE is in the Chicago Improv Festival this year and if we had a regular outlet or coalesced as a group more often you'd hear about it more, I think.

Anyway, the set was fun and I think it was very much the HUGE style but felt rusty, like a bunch of people that are never all in the same place at the same time. 123 Improv had the same issue in their set but managed to turn it into the cornerstone of their form and it was pretty damn fun for the handful of people that were in attendance.

Punch Out has become the super-fun show that fills me with doubts about what I've decided to devote lots of time and energy (and probably money) to in my near future, even though it's also full of really encouraging moments and really solid performances it's hard not to get weighed down by the difficulty in drawing a gi-normous crowd on a Friday night.
On one hand we've been spoiled at IAGG into forgetting that shows don't normally start out with close to a hundred people in attendance and have to grow into a regular thing for audiences to find. On the other hand I know we're running a show with essentially a staff and marketing crew of almost none, and the people that are in charge of promoting the show are also up to their eyes doing other shows so I have to take credit for setting up a show for a tough road to less-than-overwhelming success.

I can tell myself these things all I want, I'm still spoiled by IAGG and performing in front of 25 people feels weird.   Boo Hoo.

This Friday MITCH takes on (what could be the final performance of) Sir Laffs A Lot
11pm | $10 | Brave New Workshop - Proceeds go to the Twin Cities Improv Festival

the IAGG Anniversary show is upon us. Holy Shit.
Why did I not remind myself to freak out about this sooner?!
I love this show every year just for the strangeness of it all - typically what happens is Five Man Job does a normal set and everyone else some something really insane for the occasion and the whole thing feels somehow more like playtime than the rest of the year.  It's nice to get up and really enjoy the thing that is spoiling us as performers the rest of the year.

Seriously, if you want any chance of getting a seat for the show you need to get there early.  Our audience usually arrives en masse five minutes to show time every week (from the very first show on, they're amazingly consistent) but this show is going to be big and we'll end up squeezing everyone we can into the room (often on the anniversary show we pack the hallways and even have people watching through the doorway in the lobby) and then turning people away with apologies.  I really would like it if everyone that showed up could get in but we all know that isn't possible. 

I will stammer on and on about this during plug-time at the show Sunday but this thing we have in the Twin Cities is pretty remarkable and I'm going to spend the week stressing about how best to say thank you for it and for 6 really incredible years. 

alright - time to do my "job"

keep your lip stiff, keep you fists clenched

home from the road and spending the day at the house blog -

the trip was good and overall I like being on the road with a crew better than being a crew of one, more hands make for light work and more brains make for more interesting evenings than sitting in front of HBO in a hotel room during all the dead hours.
This trip was nothing but early mornings, long days of sitting in place, HORRIBLE medical photos of penises in various states of bloody damage.......catch a nice meal and turn in early to do it again.
Our cab driver on the way to the airport drove then entire way in either 1st or 2nd gear, including on the freeway, and tried yelling at us for our luggage being too heavy when his Check Engine light went on. We all looked at each other trying to figure out whose nightmare we'd fallen into. it was weird.
In any case I made it home.

things with the teenager are still no fun
He's been banking on the very-teenager-y idea that he can skate by on just saying the things he's supposed to say even though he knows full well that we're going to get empirical evidence that proves he hasn't done anything differently in the form of grades and UA results. Still he wonders (loudly, which usually fills the vacuum left by logic) why we won't just start giving him his driving rights and internet access back based on his "improvement".
The fact that his "improvement" is a work of fiction matters very little and when presented with that fact, like this morning, he still manages to blow up as if he's in the right and how-dare-we-disprove-his-bullshit arrogance. So it was a fun ride to school this morning.

the Twin Cities Improv Festival is 2 months away as of yesterday - someday that little countdown timer on my computer is going to be the thing that sparks a total breakdown instead of just slowly growing stress and dread.
Things are actually in a good place for the Festival, shows are nailed down, workshops are booking fast (seriously, get in now. People that want to complain during the Festival that they couldn't get into the workshops as if we should've done something different will find me unsympathetic, just like last year) and in general we're in one of those drifting periods between panicky times. All you can do is make yourself as ready as possible and I'm pretty sure we've done that unless I've missed something.
Judging from the size of my to-do list I have not missed anything.

Chicago Improv Festival is even closer and HUGE is going to perform, in case you hadn't heard because we do a shitty job of promoting our successes. We're going to tear the roof off the windy city (who probably have pretty secure roofs considering how windy it is) regardless of the fact that we'll be performing during the big Saturday party. We're on June 7th at 10:30 in the soon-to-be-roofless Playground Theater.

CIF moved from late April into June this year, the ripples from which have yet to hit the TCIF but I'm still on edge about it for next year. We shall see. I think people that have to choose between going to CIF to perform or learn versus going to TCIF to perform or learn are going to have a tough decision and that sucks for them. I am fully confident that our Festival is going to keep on being the best it can be, and one of the best there is. I'm a little biased but I'm also waiting for empirical evidence to prove me wrong.

it seems the arrogance is spreading.... meaning I probably gave it to the teenager. oops.

The extended family is the crowd and they're here, You're skeptical at first but I'm glad that you cheer

Tuesdays blog is full of something -

I swear this won't be the ordeal that yesterday's was, and apparently someone read yesterday's and decided to take me up on the offer of telling horrible hospital stories at the Bullshit show last night. Or it was total coincidence, either way...

Total Bullshit performed last night at the Beat as part of the Monday Night Comedy Show and I think it was one of our best, and I love doing this show so having a really strong performance of one of my favorite formats was a nice way to end a long Monday. I've belabored the fact that there's something very fun about the Bullshit thing but last night I think it was finally clear what that is - on a purely mechanical level the show is a cool change of pace because it is not really "improv" outside of the fact that we have no idea what the show content will be until somebody yells something at us - it isn't exactly "stand up" or "spoken word" either but some combination of all three things. But that's not it either.

It is this:
Last night I got to launch into a story about the day the twins were born, which is a pretty harrowing thing by any measure.
We get to inflict these things on the audience, to perform these stories (and it is definitely a performance) which aren't "funny" but the show is a really fantastic build-and-release of tension that is the textbook definition of comedy. Case in point: Horrible Hospital Story*
There's nothing "funny" about thinking that one of your babies is teetering on the brink of death, or talking about the real emotional moment that was contained in that story but the build of that much tension (and there was a fucking lot of it - I love hearing the gasps and 'oh no's build up as things get going) up to that moment of resolution, followed by the huge release of laughter (nervous, sheer relief or otherwise) was super cool. It totally is a non-comedy example of what makes us laugh and I think last night we did it really, really well.

we had stories of near-death babies, crazy homeless people covered in blood, shitty jobs, random violence by people with guns and women getting their asses kicked. None of it falls into the "funny" category but when you get to perform it like that you get that other kind of laughs out of the audience - and that is what I love about that show. We will MAKE you laugh. Forcibly.

another thing that will make you laugh is the Brave New Workshop softball team - but I will let Fotis cover that



* for the record I have truly horrible hospital stories that don't end happily at all - if our real purpose was to just to freak people out we could do that and ruin their nights at the drop of a hat. we'd rather not.

Punch-Drunk but I'm still sober. Fourteen years, a whole lot bolder and I don't flinch

Monday morning blog -  stuff from all over the place

the weekend in quick review:

Friday night - we lost, that was inevitable.  But we had fun and I think for the most part had a really strong set, it settled down in a couple spots where you realize later on there could've been some really cool stuff but retrospect is both great and shitty that way.  I had a really good time both onstage and in the booth, Adorable is one of my favorite groups of people to play with and Drum Machine might be my favorite thing to tech for.

Saturday was spent relaxing around the house as we were able and had a nice date with the wife

Sunday afternoon was the NICU reunion - we saw the boys' neonatoligist and Aidan's primary nurse and they both remembered our boys and were happy to see them.  the whole thing made me all misty-eyed and choked up a few times - those people saw our kids the sickest they will ever be in their entire lives and knew us while we were going through the hardest things a parent can do and you don't realize how thankful you are or how much that means all the time.

Sunday night was a total high point - not only did the afternoon shape up to be totally beautiful outside so I got to hang out with the boys in the yard and watch them "work" in the garden and play with the new puppy but then I was reminded of a bunch of things I love about the IAGG and doing silly shit with Five Man Job.

I was totally convinced there was going to be nobody at the show last night, since it was wonderful out and the streets and rooftops were packed with people just wanting to hang outside and we do our show in a dark, often hot, windowless room.  We were all shocked by the number of people that poured into our windowless room to see our show, and that's when I remembered - unlike the rest of the shows I know, our attendance actually jumps up in the summer!  I think we're just the right combination of feeling like a groovy, funny little party and the show hits at the right time of night when people are out enjoying the weather for the weather's sake and then decide they need something to "do".  Either way, I love spring/summer at the IAGG.

then I got to kick off the show running tech for the Survivors of the Undead Plague, which may also be my favorite thing to tech for.  I love that they didn't freak out at me for fucking with them early on and now it's become part of the show.  I want to do that show everywhere, I think it's one of the coolest examples of the fucking madness that sets should be.  All the characters can die, nobody is safe, the plot barely matters, everyone is having so much weird fun that they're getting exhausted and it's funny as hell.  

On the Five Man Job front - I thought last night was a return to form for us, stupid as that may feel and sound.

FMJ has been in a weird rut for a while as a group and all three of us individually with our improv-junk, me especially.  I was bitching and moaning about it to Jill and she pointed out that I 'don't get my hands dirty' anymore and it was one of those clouds-parting, lightbulb-clicking-on moments that made clear what I had been doing wrong for a long time.  We used to do the goofy, super artsy, organic-as-shit Transformer thing all the time and I think we all got uncomfortable with just being that stupid onstage - so we (meaning I, I wont speak for Dan and Lauren) backed off of it in favor of trying to put on a good show without getting into the super-abstract, often silly-looking bullshit (read: want to be funny onstage without looking stupid.  let's be honest).  And then we wondered why we weren't doing sets "like we used to" - we were lacking energy, variety and things generally just felt harder.  As a result we would come offstage feeling further and further from what Five Man Job used to do and couldn't figure out why, and kept stiffening up and getting less 'out there' to try to fix it.

It didn't make any sense given that the artsy-physical bullshit actually produced cooler results and we were backing off of it because we all felt awkward just being that silly and not worrying about what it "was" - which is exactly what we teach people to do - because it works better.

stupid retrospect.

Anyway, we got up and said Fuck It and got back to being noodly, organic, freaky dumbasses onstage (and were waiting for the improv-set-destroying laughter of Jimmy D in judgement of our arty-ness) and got back to the silly, super dark goofy fun that we hadn't had in a while.  

Outside doing our post-set notes everyone felt really good and I couldn't be happier with what came out last night.   the end of our set, which was all three of us doing this weird replay of an earlier scene on the floor with 'finger people' in the role of either puppeteers or seeing it from space was a perfect example of just how fucking silly we can be and just sitting there not giving a fuck with Dan and Lauren felt awesome.

footnote:  even though the set was fun we should probably frame it better than 'we're going to do some faggity shit' - which is totally a quote from a Susan Messing workshop in which she called us all cunts and made us do all this super physical nonsense with great results - but still probably isn't how we should define it to our audience.

anyway - happy as hell.  

Tonight Dan and I are doing Total Bullshit at the Beat and I'm excited.

I love doing this show, it's not always "funny" in the same way that improv is and can swing from being super weird and hilarious to all touching and sweet and deep or just angry and strange.  it makes me want to book a run of 'spoken word' performances somewhere and just scare the living crap out of people or make them laugh at things they didn't expect anyone could ever find funny.

8PM - at the Beat - $3

at the office today, getting ready to leave on the first work trip in a little while (going to Philly for the first time) and I think the trips being less frequent actually makes it harder to leave and be gone.  When I'm in and out all the time everyone can adjust to it and you fall into patterns that make it work, but when I'm home for a month and then gone for most of a week it seems to sneak up and jar everything out of place.

This trip is going to be interesting since I'm part of a crew and not just a lone operator, which helps fill all the dead hours in between work on the road but also puts me a little more out of touch with home and stuff since I'll have other people and projects to attend to than just the normal tech duties.  This is not what I need just over 2 months out from TCIF.  

I finally set a date for deleting my Myspace account so I can stop using that annoying fucking site.  May 1st my account will self-destruct.

I just have to track the blogs I had been reading on myspace differently and as soon as I can find a working solution to the IAGG web needs I can get our shows off of Myspace as well, it served a purpose at one point but if the site never works it doesn't make a difference (I know the calendar says April 13th twice, I can't get in to edit it) so we'll shift some of it to Facebook, mostly for the performers and find a good public place for the calendars and such for the public.

I asked the teenager if it was even worth giving him his UA the day after 420 to try and get his driving rights back and he said 'probably not' so he's still being stupid even though he wants the results to change.  I don't expect the boy to be squeaky-clean by ANY stretch of the imagination (and if you have ever seen Total Bullshit you know that he's still being way better than I was at his age) but if he wants to have it both ways he needs to at least get better at getting away with it.  I can't catch him doing the shit I've caught him doing and NOT do something as a parent but on the other hand we aren't exactly trying to catch him doing all of it - he just sucks at not getting caught.

I don't think any parent needs or wants to know everything their teenager is doing when they're out of the house.  it's not good for the kid and it certainly isn't healthy for the parents but I can't exactly coach him on how to pull one over on his dad, that's one skill he's going to have to figure out on his own.

enough time wasted - I have to get some work done in the 2 short days I'm in the office before hitting the road.

did I say this blog was going to be 'quick'?  

I meant I was typing really fast.

that's way too long, if you made it this far, kudos to you, dedicated reader.

Though his pride was wounded his ego was strong, yeah that was his trouble and this is his song...

Holy Friday blog -

If you haven't noticed already that Punch Out is tonight and that it's between Adorable and Drum Machine in what is sure to be an awesome spectacle of blood, guts, circuits and comedy - you are illiterate, legally dead or a big jerk. If you fall into one of those three categories (someone read this to the illiterates, please) do not come to our show. Everyone else - see you there.
Punch Out at 11pm
$10 bucks

Jill goes to the morgue, money goes to the Twin Cities Improv Festival


****
Twin Cities Improv Festival Workshops are open for registration
AND GOING FAST. Last year demand was high and these will fill up. 

Please do yourself a favor and get on it.

It will make a fitting tribute to Jill, as she has worked her ass off on everything educational and then some for the TCIF.   it will be a shame to have to destroy her.


****
Things on the teenager front got a little boost from punk-rock!

Told the boy last night that Rancid was coming in concert and asked if he wanted to go, which got the most enthusiastic response that didn't involve punching walls that I've seen from him in a long time and he was actually talkative and nice to be a round for a little while, he was even talking about it this morning during the car ride, until he put on his headphones and turned on some Rancid (even though I was playing some over the car's sound system...whatever).

ah, punk-rock: bringing families together.
my mother had the same reaction to Suicidal Tendencies' I Saw Your Mommy and your Mommy's Dead so this really takes me back.  Wait....no.  This is the opposite of that.

Either way, today is a good day.

I'm not fighting with the teenager, instead I'm fighting with Jill

At least she can take an improv-punch.

Now I just have to figure out where I'm gonna mount the Drum Machine on my wall....

a bloody war on the boardwalk and the kid from Lowell rises to the bell

Thursday blog and I'm glad to be in the office -

Things with the teenager are no good right now and he's doing that teenagery thing of making them as bad as possible, complaining about how much he hates it all the while because - clearly - it's everyone else's fault. This is all pretty normal stuff, doesn't make it fun...just normal. We're having our Tyler Durden moment in the household and on the blog.

Hung out on Sunday night talking parenting madness with Jason and a couple guys and it was good to just get some of it out there, talk to someone that can relate to being stuck in this position - my friend Little Joe used to say it was like having your hand tied to a hot stove, I'm going to go with the Fight Club thing. Any sane and thinking person would stop doing something like this but you can't.
"This is your pain, this is your burning hand. It will hurt more than you've ever been burned, and you will have a scar."

Some days it feels like I'm just propped up, some days it seems like things are better and lots of them feel like everything you do is like making it worse.

and of course, since I haven't yet managed to compartmentalize totally, the mixed emotions that go into just dealing with the teenager extend well outside the house. Even though I feel like I don't have any energy left to do other things I am so glad to do them - just because they're something else. It makes it seem like I'm really into my job or really 'letting go' when I get to improvise but a big chunk of it is just the relief of a change of pace.
"No...what you're feeling is premature enlightenment."

It feels stupid to go to work and spend time on theories on 'how people learn and can use interactive technology' when my boy is self-destructing and I don't have any energy or attention left to spend on helping corporations train their employees better (or, honestly, give a fuck if they do), it feels odd to think about getting onstage to make other people laugh when the teenager is unhappy enough to eclipse everything funny and trying to act energetic, happy and carefree seems at best hypocritical and at worst completely acting happy and carefree instead of being that way, even for a few hours. But at the same time I'm glad I have all these things to inject some fun (the shows), maybe distract a little (the job) and remind me, just like we keep telling the teenager and ourselves - this isn't all there is. Everyone uses the phrase (and I have) "this too shall pass" as if it will just wash over us and be done, the truth is nowhere near that gentle.
"The first soap was made from the ashes of heros, like the first monkey shot into space. Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing"

So one hand is tied to the stove but the other hand can still juggle a little bit to keep the mind off the stove. But everyday you go back home and put your hand back on the stove (or under the chemicals to keep the Fight Club thing going) again, because you can't just quit.  that isn't part of the deal.
"Shut up. Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed on us, what does that tell you about God?"

it's not all without positive revelations as well - Having the boy early in life as I did, I have often thought about time that was "lost" of my teenage years, and thoughts about getting that time "back". Even though I still got to do most things and had a good amount of latitude to be childish during that time there's still the big ripples that come from something like that. It's come up many times when I've spoken to therapists and counselors and all sorts of professionals. It's obviously a major thing that anyone in the field (or with a brain) would expect to cause some emotional issues. Strangely, having a teenager has been the best treatment for the conflicted feelings that come from loving your kid and feeling like you missed some time as a teenager because of having a kid. Standing where I am now it's pretty clear - As much as it sucks being the parent of a teenager I wouldn't choose to BE a teenager again for anything. As unhappy as he makes everyone around him, he is less happy. Nevermind that he causes a lot of it. He has to go through this and make it out the other side and even though it sucks it's gotten me closer to the other side of some things that have weighed on me for a long time.


"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything"


Congratulations, you're one step closer to hitting bottom.

just like every light you see might be the one that sets you free

total improv bullshit theory today - I have to warn you that reading anything below might only be of interest to and good for my brain. I can't vouch for yours but hey, it's my blog. Tune in tomorrow and I'm sure I'll have a cute kid story or angry observational rant about the world at large.

still here? you were warned.
While having this same exchange last night it was pointed out that I probably spend way too much time thinking about stuff like this and I can't exactly argue the point, but allow me to nerd-out for a few minutes as a result of way too much thought about things that were meant to just be enjoyed and probably not picked apart.

I have been pushing a bunch of people around me to go and read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (because I love it way too much but also) because the way he uses language is super interesting to me from an improv standpoint. He creates this whole environment...not world, because the world he's talking about is actually this one, only different...but it's not different to the people that inhabit it of course because it's just "the world" so that's how he describes it, the characters interact with it and how it comes across to the reader....as the everyday, even though it couldn't be more unfamiliar in places.

He describes an environment that is essentially very foreign as if you already know about it, and instead of stopping to wedge in explanations of the things in that environment he makes reference to them repeatedly in context so the reader starts to gradually understand not only "what" is being described but also how it fits into the world, how it affects people around it and so on. The whole thing makes the world feel more familiar and comfortable since he doesn't break the idea that it's actually a place you'd recognize. He describes it the same way you would describe something you pass every day on your way to work.

which brings me to full-on theater dorkery.
it's the same set of actions that goes into establishing a really cool improv scene or larger environment. On stage you rarely (unless the form calls for it) just stop and describe the backdrop or environment or people in it ("hello, recently ex-girlfriend and welcome back to the office in which we both work".....no. not unless you're doing that to be meta-funny to other improvisers. You have become Galaxy Quest. Sometimes that can be super funny) to the audience, explain what a new random element "is" or who the people you're seeing "are" in this world you're creating on the fly. You do it by showing how the people on the stage relate to each other given their place and status in it, demonstrating the impact things in the world have on the people you're seeing and vice versa and the audience develops a textured and comfortable, if more or less complete, understanding of what might be a really very altered world that stretches way beyond just what is happening on stage. You create history and action at the same time, and at an alarming speed.

and I think that is unique to both forms of narrative - science fiction being one of the only literary genre's purposely grounded (until it crosses into pure fiction/fantasy) in reality or projections of possible outcomes of reality and creates THIS world with a simple "what if" applied to it, as opposed to a new world (in the case of fantasy) which bears explanation to make sense on some level or (in the case of "regular" fiction) simply uses the world we're in as a backdrop and plays out a scenario inside it.

Whereas, in improvisation, the rules and methods are largely the same - you create a 'world' in which the rules are changed (to steal completely from Tim Uren - you establish rules for the universe and run with it....a world in which all newspapers are missing the Sports section and GO) enough to make it unique and unpredictable but it's still inhabited by humans or things that we understand as 'real'. Of course, in scripted theater you hit the same marks as literature, either the story is one of fantasy or a scenario set "here", which both take some explaining to the audience as something they wouldn't necessarily understand, find familiar or relate to (in the case of fantasy) or they get it and you're not creating anything "new" in terms of the context.

Sure, there are people out there doing super-abstract work that goes to the other extreme for some insane amount of grant money that deal in neither, where the actors don't represent anything that currently exists and the context is removed entirely and can't be understood via normal vocabulary - that's called "contemporary dance" but as theater goes i think we're it.

We are totally the "Science Fiction" of "Theater"
no wonder we attract all the weirdos and can't get taken seriously.




whew. brain is tired.
glad I got that out of the way so I can go back to just digging Sci-fi for being entertaining and improv for just being fun.

it takes a lot to not take from you

Sunday morning business - 

well after the two day show I did Thursday and Friday I was all set to relax and enjoy the weekend and not look at anymore close up medical photos and was pretty successful on most counts.

Friday night was a really fun show - and pretty poorly attended, which was too bad.

Vaudeville With A Pig did some fun stuff but were no match for the singing weightlifters known as the Gay/Straight Alliance and the show was a really solid one that totally falls into the 'your loss if you missed it' category.

Afterward everyone loves to discuss why there's less audience in the house, and there are lots of good reasons as well as lots of reasons that make us feel good, people pointed out to me a few times that we lost a lot of the Six Ring people since they were downstairs getting ready for their midnight show as well as people that were at Last Laugh that night.  Great.

That only accounts for people we already know and (for the most part) have sold on improv as entertainment.  We shouldn't be trying to sell shows to those people unless this is all the bigger we want the local improv world to be and we're happy at this point with the number of shows we have to choose from.  Some people might be.  I think we can do better.

If we want it to grow we can't just ask the same people that already see our shows for ten more bucks a week, we have to find new people and let them know we've got something cool they need to see and I'm far more interested in finding ways to get them to the shows.  That's one of the strangest and most frustrating things about improv in Minneapolis, knowing that the shows you can see here are some of the best in the country (and people in other parts of the country knowing it as well) and the people that live here don't even realize it and many of them haven't heard anything about it and would probably love to see it if they did.  It feels surreal, like if the people in Minneapolis didn't realize the Guthrie was here.  Maybe we need an ugly building with a huge, lighted phallus sticking into the air.  I'll work on it.

To be fair, Punch Out hasn't been set up the best to let those people know there's a kick ass show happening and I take the blame on that one - we have no poster yet, no website, no press, etc etc etc so we HAVE been selling just to the people that are already in the doors seeing improv already and we need to go further.

So I'm trying to improve our efforts where I can (getting posters and print materials made finally.  If I didn't have this stupid job I would be all over this stuff all the time) and feel like I should extend an apology to the performers so far, they've put their energy into getting the show off the ground and did their part and did it very well.

this week is going to be massive, btw - if you miss Adorable vs Drum Machine you will be put on suicide watch because your life will be devoid of meaning and joy over what could have been the best night of bloodthirsty improv comedy you will ever see.  Seriously, the beating we are going to lay down on Jill is going to be something worthy of a Frank Miller graphic novel.

I hope whoever they get to play me in the movie version is comfortable with the sheer volume of blood they're going to have to work with.

Friday.  11pm.  $10.  

You should show up.  

Don't back down like Jill is likely to.

you're better than that

***

TCIF junk

on the other side of things - things are going well on the Twin Cities Improv Festival production.

Plane tickets have been booked, hotel sponsorships are signed, the new site is launched, press releases went out and gotten got response so far and we're generally getting into place to do exactly what I'm bitching about above.  There are only so many hours.  To increase those hours Jill sent me a TCIF coffee mug to caffeinate myself out of.  Hooray!

we have shifted from preparation on the production side to fielding requests and questions from performers for the time being, having just posted the schedule and booked peoples' travel and so far so good.  We have to tone down our eager-to-please Minnesotan instincts as we are quickly turning into the Fantasy Island Improv Festival*

***

Total Bullshit - tomorrow night at 8pm at the Beat 

Mike, Dan and I are going to freak. people. out.

* side note - "Actual Island" was a far less popular spinoff and took years to catch on in the form of Survivor.  I would like to go back to having fantasies, thank you.

for those of Us....Us of lesser Gods

Happy Birthday to Lauren Anderson - 

Yesterday was a strange day on all sides, beginning with the grey, crappy weather that seemed to be weighing everyone down and the completely surreal experience of having to take my kiddo in for drug testing and ending with a pretty damn awesome show.  In between all that my mother-in-law (who is also my next door neighbor) got a brand new 9 week old German Shepard puppy named Gracie that should just be names "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, Who's a cutie??" because that's all she's going to hear for a while.

Had an alright rehearsal with Adorable and Five Man Job, which we've doing for awhile together and everyone was in that same funk and just unable to shake up any sort of energy to really throw into things, except for Josh, who uses the fact that we're all low energy to just go over the top (as if we're usually getting in his way).  

The line "it is the Cow Of Demons, as there is no Spanish word for 'steed'" was just too much for me.

Five Man Job things are funky, both exciting and kind of a downer with Dan's departure and the addition of a new member.  We've got a few weeks at the IAGG coming up to get ready for TCIF and then the Festival itself to really rock the paint off the walls with Dan and I'm stoked.

Sex & Aggression had a super fun set last night followed by Aric and Corey doing what may have been the funniest thing I have seen in years.  After their set my ribcage hurt from laughing so hard and I seriously couldn't watch the end of the show because I think I blew that fuse, I was just done laughing for a while.  It was awesome and I wont belabor it (since reading about comedy is like listening to ballet) beyond pointing out that is what I love about improv - if you were there you got the biggest laugh in a long long time and if you missed out it will never happen again, which makes it even cooler for the people that saw it.  or it should.

but the big news is the confirmation I got from the BNW on Punch Out - if it does well we can look forward to more of them.  So it's on you now, people.  If you want to have another show which gives more stage to more improvisers ( I know I do ) - it's time to step up.  that's the deal.

Vaudeville With A Pig vs. The Gay Straight Alliance.  

Friday at 11pm |  $10  |

In other show news - Mike, Dan and I are performing Total Bullshit at the Monday Night Comedy Show on the 14th and 21st and I'm both very excited and kind of nervous to see how our crap flies with a different audience.  I really like that show.  Those of you that have spent more than 2 minutes with me know I like telling a good story and even though I've never thought of myself doing "spoken word" or "stand-up" this is a really comfortable cross between the two and I enjoy the hell out of it.  

time to work.

I'm told it's everything a man could want and I shouldn't complain

Sunday morning blog - Stuff from all over

First, let me back all the way up to Friday night.  The show, for me at least, was a blast and I would say it was a super-positive way to kick off the series and a very funny show to boot.  I have been playing catch-up on this show more than any other, which sucks if we are using it as an indicator for future improv plans (see previous posts).

With everything going on this show more than snuck up on me (still no poster!!) but everyone was very cool just playing fast and loose and having a good time.  Come check it out this Friday and we'll keep the ball rolling.  Everyone was great about telling friends and bringing people to the show but I think Brandt's mom wins the award for that, apparently she's been telling all her friends and customers in her store about the show and some of them showed on Friday.  

New Audience Exposed to Great Improv = Victory!

On that note - I find myself still stuck using Myspace just for shows and just plain dispersing information.  I don't know how effective it is but I don't see being able to cut that cord any time soon.  However, I have started using Facebook, which I had avoided because I really don't need another online outlet but other people have been cool enough to promote shows on Facebook for me so I figured I should join in. 

Seriously, if I was doing this for a living I could spend all kinds of time online making sure everyone with a computer had access to information about every show but for now it's all hustle.

In the little free time I find I have now tried 5 times to watch Southland Tales to no avail - which is not to say that the movie isn't good, in fact I really like it in that really creepy what-the-fuck-is-going-on way but it's SO strange that it keeps putting me to sleep.  There are chunks of dialogue that don't connect or make sense, people just say things that are completely out of place or conversations take a hard left turn for no real reason and I think it's supposed to be unsettling and make you feel like you're on the same drug trip the characters are and  don't know what's real and what isn't but the effect it has on me is SLEEP.  Like, hard sleep too.  I can sit down and watch it when the sun is up and I'm wide awake, doesn't make a bit of difference.

I actually have the same reaction to almost all non-linear media, I couldn't keep my eyes open through Un Chien Andalou (or the abstract minutes of Matriculated or the ending of 2001 for that matter) to save my life and I had to watch it a few dozen times in my art school career (I hear may of them are genius but I have to take your word for it), but every single time .....  ZZZzzzzz.

I think my brain just detects the lack of narrative and the futility of trying to follow along and just disengages or just plain hits the surreality and interprets the missing chunks of logic to mean that I must have dozed off and just gives in and goes to sleep.  Either way it's like a giant OFF switch in my brain, which probably says something about the way I'm wired that I don't care to examine.

Things on the homestead are both crazy and encouraging, depending on who happens to be home at any given time.  The boys and I spent all day yesterday playing outside, went to the park and generally had a great day.  I'm looking forward to working in the yard and getting things done around the house even if that makes me an old man.

Looking at a day to have a little grill-warming get together during the day.  between the weather, the travel and the teenager it's hard to plan.

The teenager is coming home for a trip to the Dr's for a urinalysis, part of his driving rights being revoked (once again, by me...not the state) and his general descent into teenage doom.  I'm hoping it goes well, he's actually been puffing out his chest and daring us to test him for a long time any time we mention his drug use (which he will fail and he knows it but his daring us to do so may have diffused any arguing me might have tried about going to do it today, I hope) and he's got to pass a series of them to get his keys back after twice driving home too high to function.

He's doing the teenage kamikaze thing and we're hoping he pulls out of it soon.  He hates it around the house almost as much as we do right now and I'm sure sees it all as us being totally unfair but we're just trying to frame everything in terms of "Yes, this DOES suck.  Any time you want to fix it you know what to do" and keeping our fingers crossed that wanting-things-to-get-better wins out against stupid rebellion and screwing-up-his-life-because-he-knows-we-don't-want-him-to and his decisions get even a little bit smarter.

he should be here anytime in the next hour.

when did the typing-everything-with-hyphens thing take over my writing??

Sunday Funnies!

No narrative linearity!!

ZZZzzzzzz