My Improv Tour Diary

I really don't want every entry to be about improv since I'm fairly certain that's it's about as interesting a topic to most of my friends as me writing about the roster of the Muir Island X-Men.

But this weekend has been crazy and, after what inspired the previous blog, relieving. Friday night I attended a practice session at Katey's place, coached by Nate Smith of UCB team T.R.U.C.K.S. There were five of us present and we all got equal amounts of extensive scene time. It was crazy informative and I left feeling super refreshed, a feeling that was completely put to the test during UCB's Jammin' With Ralph at midnight.

Jammin' With Ralph is a free 'improv jam' where anyone who wishes to perform puts their name in a bucket. Teams are then formed by drawing the names from the bucket and each group gets to perform for ten minutes. The jam is hosted by Fwand, which is the team my teacher (Shannon O'Neill) is on.

The jam was a lot of fun but completely bonkers since pretty much every rule flies out the window; scenes were about 30 seconds long, tag outs were happening left and right, arguments arguments arguments (!!!), and a performer who drank four beers and smelt like pot during Death By Roo Roo's show an hour earlier. He couldn't form a sentence.

I attended Rob Riggle's (The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live) two-day workshop on Saturday and Sunday morning, and it was really one of the most rewarding experiences in my improv career (yes, all six months of it). Rob was great at helping us get comfortable in scenes, find the game of scenes, listen, all that essential stuff. I had my absolute best 301 class that night, maybe because things are starting to come naturally now that I'm doing this more often. I performed two Harolds just because the class had an odd number and I didn't make it to my chair quick enough. Still, I thought both games I did were great and heightened well.

I also learned more about Rob's career history, the audition process for SNL being one of the more interesting tidbits. I'm glad I'm doing all this, I'm glad I'm finally getting better again after a brief period of nasty, and I hope to be more immersed in this in more aspects of my life by the end of the year.

I also had three good friends come up and visit me this weekend. It's been almost five months since I've seen Nicole, Renee or Rick, but goshdarnit if it never feels like it. Maybe it's because I keep so busy up here or talk to everyone from home so much, but time goes by so quickly and it never feels like it's been more than a week. I guess that's a sign of great friendships, when you can just keep going despite being on opposite sides of the country (up and down, not left and right). We got to hear insane train banter (including the possible dissolution of a relationship between a wannabe heiress and the world's most annoying/drunk underage rugby player), mosey around Central Park, and sleep in a hotel that had the best ice bucket I've ever ate. Good times.

So I guess things are fine. I have enough positive stuff in my life to keep going, despite how incredibly disappointed and saddened I am at other things. But things work out for the best, apparently, and there's no use being upset about things I can't change, like my grocer's lack of fulfilling personal pizzas.

I need some time in the sunshine

I wore a t-shirt this weekend. A different one both days, but a lone t-shirt nonetheless. No sweater, no long sleeve shirt, no multiple jackets. Just a t-shirt with a light jacket brought along (just in case). First time this has happened all year and I am glad. Walking to 301 class on Sunday was some sort of crazy joy, listening to my iPod while walking in the sun. I was even smiling at tourists, feeling really happy for their obvious vacation as they wrangled their anxious children. I remember what it was like to be in NYC in the summer on vacation and I'm glad other people are experiencing it.

This is now, the first real weekend of spring. I'll have another tune to yodel in a month, I'm sure.

I spent Friday night watching the entire first season of The Real World, set in New York in 1992. Much like last Friday's viewing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I got to see NYC in all it's turn-of-the-decade grime as well as be shocked at how well the show stands up today. So many early 90s stereotypes are in the show and they all voice their beliefs so well! So many important issues are touched on (gayness, abortion, drug dealing, racism racism racism, homelessness, ticks on dogs) that I really regret loving the current Real World as much as I do. The show, when it started, was really important and it's turned into a nasty-fest. Not even the later-early seasons (Miami-Seattle) were as aware as the first three seasons.

I watched United 93 on Saturday and had my day thoroughly brought down. Really good movie but, geez, not a movie to watch in the middle of the day. Thankfully Louie came over and we watched an episode of Buffy and Hairspray. Two things that brought my mood up greatly and another two films in my 100 Film Initiative (I'm at 27, I think). I went to the final rooftop party with my friends from Late Show, but we cut out after a little while to go on an adventure.

A karaoke adventure.

Here. At SpotLightLive on Broadway.

The restaurant is at least three stories with a stage complete with lights and real instruments for the back up singers to incompetently strum during songs that "rock." The song selection for such a fancy establishment was appalling, but they made up for it in wild interactive features. Each table had a touch screen (because those are always efficient) computer that let you search for songs (all 38 of them), send messages to other tables, rate people performing, and watch past performances.

I was ready to sign up, the large stage, lights, and MTV reject backup singers did not frighten me. I came up with a list of songs to do on the way there. Knowing this was a fancy place, I thought they'd have a wider array of songs than the dinky sushi bar we normally go to (which has four Strokes songs and a couple Arctic Monkeys songs too, to show how random that place is). I planned on doing REM's "It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)", anything by The Decemberists (a risk, but about as random as Arctic Monkeys), any B-52's song (preferably "Private Idaho" or one I haven't done), and "Ho" by Ludacris. But this place had none, not even "Love Shack." Somehow, they had "All Day and All Of The Night" by the Kinks, a staple of mine. I requested it, got on the list, all that. My turn got skipped, so I asked what the deal was. Apparently they didn't have it in their computer so it didn't show up on their thing, and there wasn't anything they could do about it. They had never heard of the song and wanted to know how it went, which I refused to enlighten them by singing. Whatever.

The rest of my party went and demanded it be found, and it was. I went on stage and rocked out with those gosh darn back up singers. These singers, let me tell you, sing the entire song on top of you in order to make every performance bearable, I guess. I don't need this. So I made sure to pump up the energy, pick up my mic stand, and do my best rock and roll screams. I showed them what's what.

The rest of my group had equally awesome experiences. Todd jumped on stage and broke it down whiteboy style to "Pump Up The Jam" (the most random song for karaoke ever, I'd say) and later did a paralyzing rendition of No Mercy's "Where Do You Go" after a mishap similar to mine. Ryan did "Sweet Caroline" which really brought the place to its knees, the backup singers looking confused at his crooning, and Reagan poured all of his sass into "Faith" and truly touched the audience.

We owned that karaoke bar, the only person coming close to us being the lady who looked like Kevin Sorbo who sang "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree." She was awesome.

Sunday was a lot quieter, but I had a nice 301 class. I have discovered that my gift is bringing opening games back around, full circle, to the suggestion. We did monologue hotspot, suggestion being tennis, and it got way far away from tennis for about 5 minutes. Most people had forgotten the suggestion, but I managed to link photographs to my time at yearbook and the awkward pictures of tennis players we had to go through. Yes, I was thinking of Nicole. I did this a couple more times during the organic openings we started learning. I only wish I could apply this confidence to my scenes, which seem to be okay. I don't think anyone is afraid to be in scenes with me, I just have noticed that I freeze up a lot and play the same character over and over again, mostly out of that same freezed-up-fear. Oy.

I saw Louie's form, Hotboard, done at the Magnet after class. It was really enjoyable and Louie did a great job of putting the cast together. The form itself was really cool, very quick and lots of song references (which I'm a fan of). I hope it's successful, since it deserves to be, and he gets to do it more often.

I start my 202 class with Joe Wengert on Wednesday. This is going to be a busy week.

Professor Jalopy

I've become very familiar with the term "nor'easter" over the past 24 hours. Being from the south, I wasn't at all sure what this silly term meant until I looked it up. Yes, it applies. It has been raining since Saturday night, the worst of it all being yesterday. I had to leave the house to go to my second 301 class, which meant a ten minute walk in a nor'easter (I'm using the word!). My umbrella protected me somewhat, but my Adidas and Bad Jeans were still fairly damp. The trek home was even worse. My 301 went okay. It was a lot of fun but my mood (hunger + soak) got in the way a bit. The rain had let up in Manhattan when I got out of class at 9:30 PM, but after finally making it home (the R train has some hilarious kinks late at night) it had picked up worse than ever. The umbrella was fine for keeping my head and face dry, but I was soaked up to my thighs. Mmmm...good times.

That was the only bad thing about this weekend. Steph and Kim came over Friday night and we watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Empire Records in a half-hearted attempt to relive the 90s. Re-watching Turtles, I realized that the film is spectacular. Directing, writing, acting, turtle acting, it's all top notch and highly enjoyable. So much glee from this movie! Empire doesn't hold up as well but goshdarnit if it wasn't one of the most important movies of my teenage years.

I went to Roger's Time Machine with Louie and some friends on Saturday. My request for back issues was heartily met, all for insanely low prices. I did buy a second copy of Alpha Flight #2 because I hadn't updated my Need List, oops. I also bought Avengers #200, the issue where Ms. Marvel is impregnated and gives birth to the man who impregnated her, all at an accelerated rate. Needless to say, it's a doozy of an issue. Between this and Ms. Marvel losing her powers to Rogue a year later, the 80s were a craptacular decade for her.

Saturday night was the Magnet Theater's birthday party and I can't think of a more fun time in recent memory. I got my doses of dancing and conversing, two things I've missed so. The Magnet is filled with nice people, by the way, and I like spending time with them. It's not as intimidating as UCB, definitely.

And Professor Jalopy is a name I made up to describe how I'm dressed today, due to the nor'easter (I used it again). My tan trench coat, my brown newsboy cap, my brown corduroy pants, and a brown argyle sweater. It's the 1940s, it's London, and I'm teaching you literature, Russian literature. Bring me my pipe, lad.

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.