Onward/Upward

It was both a long weekend and the last weekend without internet. The wonderful (?) people of RCN should be arriving on Saturday to give me the hook up, thus bringing back my immediate Lost reviews and weekend musings.

My 201 class show was on Saturday and I have nothing but huge grin-filled hugs and high fives for the peeps that came to see me. Really, did not expect that much of a showing. I'm glad that I also didn't suck totally; I had a good first beat and a Looney Toons second beat that was grounded since Ulla and I kept playing our game, not letting crazy groundskeepers and moving corpses completely derail us. It was a manic scene. I was proud of the montage we did.

The rest of the day was spent having lunch with my awesome class, going to Bryant park with Katey and Jessica, and then seeing the entire Saturday night lineup at UCB (Let's Have A Ball, Mother, Reuben Williams, CageMatch: Wrestleslamania 2). Mother (pictured above) was the best I've probably ever seen them and ReuWi was with all 8 members for the first time this year. It was a magical night. Plus I got to see my teacher shoot her pussy cheese at a giant rat during CageMatch. I was out til 5 AM that night.

My improv 301 class started Sunday and it was, maybe, the best first day I've had. It's a smaller class (only 10 of us) with some familiar faces and lots of new ones. I got one good scene out of the class as a new hire at a recycling plant just looking for a father figure. I also got a compliment on my pattern game skills, so that will be something I use to inflate my ego at every possible moment.

Now I'm back at work. Gnarly.

Mexican Angel Demon

It's hard to remember what I have and haven't blogged about with no internet at home. I'm going to have to fix this problem...at some point. It involves calling the landlord, and I'm always paranoid about that. I think it's post-traumatic-stress from the previous one.

I saw improv at Gotham on Friday night, all really solid and enjoyable. I've discovered seeing improv at other places, although I've lost touch with some of my favorite UCB shows in the process. That and I'm starting to get really tired lately; I think it's all catching up with me.

I started not feeling well late Saturday night, an unpleasant happening alongside lots of merry events from that night. It was a good night, but my throat was hurting by Sunday morning. After watching a 201 class show at noon, hanging around at Chelsea Piers, and arriving in Hoboken for the improv group practice I organized...not feeling so well. The sore throat gave way to a bit of fatigue (the night after night of 4-5 hours of sleep probably helped this) and my improv was really affected. I usually am very loud and boisterous and sucky; I was instead uncooperative, lazy, tired, and sucky. I did learn a lot, mainly that I need to focus on forming a real connection with my scene partner instead of just going ca-razy right off the bat. The only thing I was really proud of was me and Katey's subway-breakup-scene. Class was more of the same, too tired and now hungry to do anything worth while. I rushed home, ate lots of food (nachos, chips and salsa, and pop tarts) and read comics.

I read Uncanny X-Men #236 (pictured above) and discovered that it is a surprisingly solid issue. Issues #235-238 introduce Genosha, the prosperous island of mutant slavery. The story as a whole is good, #236 being the best of the bunch. There are decent supporting characters who have interesting motives and, for this story only, Genosha seems like a decent story idea. Genosha then became a war-torn country where no writer could ever really figure out who was fighting who until Magneto was given free reign over it and the entire place was obliterated by Sentinels. Still, the concept got off to a nice start.

The fatigue and sore throat led some to believe I could have mono, although I don't know where I would have caught that since the symptoms started popping up well after I was around anyone who has/had mono. Plus, I looked it up on webmd and I'm not showing signs of the yellow skin or mouth sores. I'm hoping this is just due to my lack of sleep or eating three meals a day, plus my constant contact with people in various stages of cold-dom.

The office is half empty today and I thorougly enjoy it. There's a nice sense of calm around here...a calm that was disrupted when I ran across the video posted below. Watch it. It's freaky. The fun starts around 41 seconds in.

Please someone verify if this is real or a hoax. I can't find any info on it.

Slippery People

Awesome picture from Spider-Man 3. Too excited. Good comics this week that, yeah, I'm not going to review. Okay, I should write an entry dedicated to the last issue of the Vaughan/Alphona Runaways. Yeah, I'm sure I'll do that at some point...

Saturday afternoon I went to improv practice in a short sleeve shirt and my corduroy suit coat. Today, right now, there's a whole mess o' snow blowin' outside the window. This insane shift in weather reminds me of Tennessee. How I miss home.

The new apartment is going well. I have it all to myself and will have it all to myself for the forseeable future. I'm acting like this is a good thing even though I still have absolutely no, no, no nonono way of paying for it. Okay, I can pay for it and will but the eating is now becoming optional. Oh, and don't expect pictures anytime soon since Thuggy McRobberson took my camera. But the framed pictures of my favorite bands/tv shows have started going up and now that I know I'm roommateless, I can conquer the living room.

I've been having a great 2007 (is the beast dead?) this past week and a half. It's crazy how meeting someone can change your outlook and whatever; I finally feel like I'm meeting people and all that...like I have a social life. It helps to have a person to be social with (no way I'd go to a birthday party in the Bronx alone). I've gone record shopping too, thanks to being with someone who knows their way around. I found actual Squeeze CDs, albums, not the greatest hits...but the money problem from the previous paragraph keeps these things from coming home with me. That's fine.

This has been a great couple days for improv. I saw TJ & Dave on Friday night, which was mighty inspiring. I can only hope to one day be that intelligent and dedicated; until then I'll keep playing creepy clowns and imposter astronauts from the USSR. Which is what I did this weekend during my two practice sessions and 201 class. It's nice to see myself improving, although a couple times this weekend I pretty much blanked out during some scenes because I really had no clue what was going on, which is a problem I haven't had before. So I guess when one problem disappears a new one hops on.

I got to see Davis and his wife Amanda last night, extremely randomly. I didn't even know they were up here for spring break, so it was a pleasant surprise. Make note: I enjoy visitors and now have a pretty gnarly place for people to stay at. Yes, gnarly.

I'm extremely exhausted (another aspect of being social and wanting to spend time with someone) which is both well worth it and, um, tiring. I'm exhausted which is tiring. I just typed that, albeit with a big ol parenthetical statement in there.

I don't have internet at home yet. That'll be fixed at some point.

Boring blog, but things are going well.

Bad/Good

It's hard coming up with pictures, so here's a cool Talking Heads one.

This weekend has been one of the most turbulent of my life, in both good and bad ways.

BAD: I actually had a near violent altercation with my current landlord. A month ago when it was decided I would be not renewing my lease, he said he would always call me when he was going to show the apartment. I said that would be fine since I wouldn't be home most of the time. Whatever. The less time I have to deal with him, the better. I find out on Saturday that yes, he has been showing the apartment without telling me from my ex-roommate who was home for just such a pop-in. WTF mate? So on Saturday, the doorbell rings furiously for a couple minutes. A couple minutes because I always try to wait it out and see if he'll just go away (this should not be etiquette with a landlord; in this case it's necessary). He wouldn't so I went downstairs to find him with a trio of Asian men. He's showing the apartment. I let him in and ask, "oh, is this the first time you've shown the apartment?" "Yes! Yes! First time, of course!" "Oh, well, I just heard from Jon that you showed it yesterday, and you didn't let me know." "F***! I don't have to let you know s***! It's in the lease, I have 60 day! 60 day, I can show whenever I want!" "That's fine, you just said you'd call me as a common courtesy."

This back and forth continues until we get to the apartment. Upon reaching the top of the stairs I say "Just show the apartment, I don't want to talk about anything else." This makes him really mad but it's necessary to say since every time he enters my life, he veers off topic and ends up spending 15 minutes telling me why I should leave the toilet seat down.

We enter and he says "You know what, I don't like you so much, and I tell your mother this." Whatever, I go back to my room and sit there while he shows the apartment. He gets to my room and says, "Here's bedroom, this guy lives like this. Filthy." He then starts telling me how horrible a tenant I've been, how I have "a shitty face" and how I need to learn to respect people. The Asian men are pretty speechless. "Don't rent from him, he's a horrible landlord," I calmly tell them. I then tell the landlord "You don't respect me. Might I remind you of the time that you instructed me about answering the phone for 10 minutes? Or when you busted into my apartment the morning after I was broken into and interrogated my sleeping guests? And how you think I should call you everytime I leave the apartment or have anyone over? If I should have that courtesy, you should have the courtesy to call me and let me know when you're showing my apartment." "F*** you! You respect me, I could be your grandfather! You need to learn respect!" "If you're so mature, then why are you yelling at me and telling me I have a shitty face?"

Note that I was remaining calm and seated and saying all of this passively, to further illustrate how insane he is.

"F*** you! You are done and I am glad to never see you again! Horrible!" All 3 Asian men peek their head into my line of sight, smile awkwardly and say "Sorry!" I say, "No, that's okay! You guys seem great and I hope you find a great place. Have a nice day!"

They all leave. I'm infuriated. But I know I totally got the better of that altercation.

Then today the real estate broker we're using, who is an incredibly nice and gracious guy, calls and says that just in case the apartment falls through he has a small two-bedroom/kitchen/bathroom apartment for us for significantly cheaper. Okay...but, you know, Hal has an apartment full of furniture that won't fit into an apartment that doesn't include a LIVING ROOM. I'm not going to be homeless on Tuesday, but things are stressful and...ugh.

GOOD: I had my first practice session at UCB this morning (noon-3, so afternoon I guess) and it went great. I was working with 12 new people and being instructed by Gavin Speiller, one of my UCB heroes. So, you know, joyful joyful. I got some nice notes and I'm starting to learn more about game (Bill Bellamy?). I got all the apartment news in between and, due to my lack of sleep and general grunginess, I felt horrible going into class. Somehow, though, I managed to have what I thought was my best class so far. I took Shannon's notes and only played characters of either high status or overblown confidence, and it was a ball. I got to do my Jon Daly (of Mother) impersonation twice; he's the default guy for cocky confident improv in my warped mind. So much fun and I really felt myself starting to learn more about game and second beats and how to interact to back line support and tag outs and whatnot. Back line support is something that, while I'm nowhere near sure if I'm really good at it, I really enjoy. I like actively listening to a scene and then trying to figure out what I can do to toss something new in or help out my teammates. This is what I want to do: I want to be the guy that comes in, moves the scene along (with or without laugh) and gets out before it gets all clustery. I'm learning how to do this while also learning how to diversify my characters. NERD ALERT.

I also got to know someone a lot better this weekend, which definitely goes into the good pile. Seeing this person made the nasty of Saturday tolerable and forgettable. No matter what, come Tuesday I will be entering a new and long-lasting phase of my life in New York City and it's one that, judging by this weekend, I'm both ready for and looking forward to.

201: General Jackson

I've been getting reports from people further along in 201 about how soul crushing and complicated it can be. The first two weeks of 201 went along without a hitch; sure I messed up a bit but nothing colossal and the concepts weren't so hard. I was not a fan of this. I wanted to experience pain, humiliation, I wanted to be completely destroyed as an improviser so I could then start building myself back up. This happened yesterday. And it happened in front of Eric Scott of Reuben Williams.

Backstory: ReuWi has easily become my favorite improv group in all of improv history (and my history goes back six months today when I first saw Mother) and I've seen them 10 times since returning to NYC on January 8th. Right now, they have no peer with me. They're The Strokes of improv (and yeah, that's a good thing).

Backstory: I'm waaaaaay intimidated and have low requirements for the term "celebrity." If I first see you perform anything anywhere, you are automatically above me on the social ladder. You're not a person, but a performing god who is infinitely more talented than I and, unless I am contacted, I will most likely always be too nervous to talk to you. I'm starting to get over this; I mean, I initiated talks with Robert Schneider.

So couple my love for Reuben Williams with my crazy intimidation and divide it by having the first trying 201 class, yeah, that equals "uh oh." The first half of class was disastrous for me. I got into scenes, didn't find game, didn't really do anything except talk in accents. I felt totally defeated. I think my main problem is that I'm a showboat. Seriously, get on the General Jackson, because I'm the star tonight. Like, I'm trying to do supportive work but I can't do a scene without being in character, thus making it seem like I'm hogging attention. I was a trashy high school girl, a mentally unstable 6 year old, a health obsessed former fat guy, a skeezy guy who liked to get oiled up by Mexican women, an effeminate bra salesman, etc. I want to do a scene where I'm just Brett or I'm just the straight man setting up for the other person's crazy character, but it seems like my initiations are always insane characters (thus stealing thunder from my partner before their cloud...ever...forms...?) or my partner naturally plays the straight man.

So after showboating in front of Eric (who was auditing my teacher), I felt pretty low. The second half of class went a little better, I felt. We learned swinging door, sweep edits, time dashes, supporting from the back row, lots of stuff. I feel a lot more comfortable with support work; I like getting into a scene, helping, and getting out. I feel like in those instances I'm the utility player that I so want to be and not The Star which is what I fear I come across like. I got another big laugh from Shannon tonight; the game was that Ula fixed Mitch's trumpet just by fiddling with it. I tagged Mitch out and started freaking out (showboat). I said "My car's been burning for five days!" Big laugh that I wasn't expecting. She fixed the car, by the way. I've also been trying to prove (?) that I'm fearless when it comes to improvising. Ari's big thing was "f*** your fear" and I do agree that it has no place in improv. This led me to do a greased up human slip and slide over a class mate who I have now known for 9 hours. Twice. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

The last half hour of class was superb. Shannon had us all do two-person scenes that were completely realistic with no intention of being funny. The point of this being that we don't have to think about being funny to be funny. Every scene got cut off as soon as someone laughed, and every scene did. I held the record for quickest cut. Our suggestion was Africa, Melanie and I stepped out, I said "This is a lovely continent" in a deadpan tone, and I lost it along with everyone else. Oops. This was a refreshing exercise that I'm going to put into practice next time. I feel that too often I go for the joke or funny character when I really just need to be honest.

Afterwards, the three of us in 201 that had 101 together went out with our other 101 classmate and his 201 peeps. We talked about starting a practice group and I think it's going to happen. A dream come true indeed.

Weekender: Sonny Ain't A Lady

What a weekend! I actually managed to be social three nights in a row which has left me insanely tired this cold Monday morning. Totally worth it all, though, since getting out and trying to strengthen my social skills is part of 2007: Kill The Beast. And this plan also involves dancing very vigorously to "Free Your Mind" by En Vogue. Any party atmosphere with me in it involves this.

I went to Under St. Mark's for the first time to see improv. Three groups, all excellent. A heckler, not excellent. Well, the improv that sprang from being heckled was excellent. A scene involving a book reading, the book being a memoir about how the lowest part of the author's life was when he would get drunk and yell things in comedy clubs; the audience of the reading then heckled him and had brutish sex. Highlight of the night: Jeffrey going into the audience (in character?) and demanding the heckler take his picture. It was an explosive night which ended with me actually going to a bar and talking to people. Trust me, going to a bar by myself with the intent of talking to new people has never happened. I usually go home and make new playlists for my iPod.

My day didn't get started until 9 PM on Saturday when I hopped on the D-train to take me to Astoria. Yay 75 minutes on a subway! Becky and Ryan's divorce party was grand; everyone was in fine attire and dancing to Talking Heads and Robbie Williams, watching TV carnage, and having a grand old time. I love hanging out with my former "co-workers" (I don't know if that's the term since intern is not on the same level).

Sunday was my second 201 class and it went better than last week. It feels like our class is coming together and some of our scenes were really exceptional. I was in a coal mining scene with my granddaughter; I said "Now hesh up....and tell me a story." Shannon, instructor, burst out laughing and this totally caught me off guard; I think it was the first time I'd made her laugh. I really fell out of character for a bit after that. We learned about tag outs and heightening game, which I picked up on better than I thought I would. My favorite scene that I was in involved a diner in which everything took way too long, which I named the Slow 'n' Easy Diner. I screwed up by forgetting the gender of a character when I tagged in, changing "sonny" to "mother." But this opened up a dialogue about what to do when things are contradicted, so I feel we all learned something. And I felt skraight up dum. Good things are happening in this class. Afterwards I went to see a show at the Pit, bringing my New Improv Venue Count to 3 (including Magnet).

Whirlwind weekend. Things are shaping up for next weekend as well.

201: Nausea is not an emotion

It has been too long since I last did improv (December, but too long) so today was glorious. My 201 class started today at 6:30 PM and re-entering the 30th street classroom area was pretty much a 2007 highlight (the Beast lost a pinky toe today). It was like old times; my former classmate Matt Mayer was there along with my former and current classmates, Jessi-ka-ka and Healy-Wu. We all caught up and had a nice chat. Ari, the old prof himself, saw us and talked with us a bit. It was fun.

Class with Shannon O'Neill is going to be great. She's different from Ari, mainly because she isn't as fast a talker and uses profanity less. I enjoy both teaching style thoroughly. But she is relaxing and gives great advice, so good stuff. I volunteered to do the first scene which was with a guy I've never met before. The suggestion was driveway, he was raking something, I commented on how I love to watch him rake, and he told me to go away. Remembering Ari's advice ("If someone yells at you or disagrees with you in a scene, just be even nicer"), I replied with "I love it when you scold me!" It went on from there, good times. I also did a second date at an Applebee's with a really touchy feely girl and me as the guy who enthusiastically agrees to everything.

201 is all about game, finding the quirky moments in a scene and then coming up with new ideas in the same vein to flesh out the characters and situation and take the scene in different directions. If this, then what else. I had a problem with this in 101 and, after one class, I can kinda feel myself picking up on it. I made a really stupid move and picked nausea when Shannon told us to pick an emotion. I think I thought "uneasy" and that just went to nausea...or screw it, I just had a brain fart.

Things went well. This is what I needed. The connections I'm making at work coupled with the connections, skills and experience I'm getting at class are a great combo. Makes me happy.

And I have a student ID again so free shows, here I come. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.