Festivals: Celebrating Passions

Impronol at Trill Comedy Festival

I adore going to improv festivals.  It's a chance to show your wares and depending on the caliber of the improv festival, a good way to raise your stock in the community, make connections, and hopefully get invited to perform or teach elsewhere.  Improv festivals require a certain mindset from the people who apply:

• Festivals Are Full of Fawkery
  Festivals are large, living organisms comprised of a lot of individual, independent cells, i.e., volunteers ,staff, and talent; they evolve in a blink of an eye and you have to be ready to accept that change. Anticipate that your time slot, venue, line-up, and/or living accommodations will change multiple times and will little to no warning.  Many processes, promises, and practices are put into place to give festival talent a showcase with a viewing audience.  You as an attendee just have to roll with it or otherwise lose your mind with disappointment, bitterness, and outright contempt.
  
• Everything Is An Audition
  The application process is an audition to get into the festival.  Upon arrival, you begin interacting with the staff and volunteers of the festival who are working hard to execute what's needed; they are judging you to see if you're easy to work with or a pain in the ass to ignore.  Your show itself is being judged by not only the people who brought you in as they only saw a 5-15 minute part of a full show to determine if you were worth bringing in; they want to make sure they didn't make a mistake; but by as the other teams on your slot and the festival.  Those teams are asking themselves, "Why does this team deserve to be here in this slot over my team?"  Assuming you did a good show, you are being watched to see how gracious and humble you are about your performance and whether or not you showed respect by staying and watching other teams. 
  
  All of these things sum up to whether or not you get invited/accepted back to the festival, whether or not you get a teaching/coaching gig somewhere down the road, and whether or not the word gets around that you should be considered to work with in the future elsewhere.
  
• You Must REALLY Want Go
  In order to be successful at anything, you must have a passion for it.  You should be willing to deal with anything that stand in the way of pursuing your passions.  Festivals test that passion for the reasons mentioned above.   If you want to showcase your art outside of your city/town and get better at your craft by seeing different style, disciplines, and approaches, you must put in the time to do so.

With those things said, I recommend the following the following rules of thumb when considering going to an improv festival:

• Ask Yourself Why You're Going
  Are you going to see something new?  Enhance your skills by taking a workshop or watching a hot team you've heard about?  Should you better go as a patron or as talent to achieve what you want?  Is your team so awesome that you have no choice but to showcase it?  Answering these questions should tell you whether or not to apply. 
  
• Commit To The Dates
  Back in the day there were only handful of festivals going on and they were peppered through the calendar year.  Now there are so many festivals, that it's inevitable you will double-book yourself or you'll forget about the dates adn forget to ask off of work, or some other preventable issue will arise blocking you from going.  If you plan to go a festival, put the dates in your calendar as to when you applied, when you expect to hear back, and when the actual festival dates are planned.  Don't book anything else for those weekends.
  
  I must admit this is the hardest thing for me to do personally.  I've double booked myself during festivals by either hedging the bets that things will work out in my favor or by performing marathon runs heading between 3 festivals in just a weekend.  I need to follow my own advice and honor what I'm committing to by applying somewhere and avoiding the temptation to "do it all".
  
• The Road Is Ruthless
  Traveling, living out of a suitcase or backpack, getting little no sleep and or exercise, eating like crap, and spending way too much money are the side effects of going to and performing at a festival.  The vast majority of festivals do not pay their performers so expect to pay your way to be there.  If you're not built to deal with these challenges, you probably shouldn't go.

What do you think about improv festivals?  Have you gone to any?  What was your experience?  Comment down below!

10 Down - 5 More To Go: A Weight-Loss Journey

Over the 6 months or so, I've been working out seriously.  99% of it is cardio-based, i.e., walking, but it's exercise nonetheless.  I'm currently at 220 lbs and am excited to reach my goal of 215 lbs in the next few months.  I've been losing a pound or so here and there roughly every 1.5-2.5 weeks.  I haven't weighed 215 in almost 10 years!

What kicked off the need to get fit was getting pregnant again.  It'd been 7 years since the last child was born and now I'm a bit older.  The idea of having to run after a kid at middle-age and being unable to keep up with them seemed very unappealing to me.   Also, my body was starting to have inexplicable pains here and there; it must've been the years of doing improv that took it's toll 😉.  I had a very acute pain literally in my rear end; I pulled a muscle roller-skating and it hurt no matter what position I was in.  I couldn't get in and out of the car, sleep too long on my side, sit too long in a chair, or stand too long without it hurting.  The only thing that seemed to help it was walking for 30 minutes or more to get blood going into my muscle.

So, I began walking just to avoid the pain. I also figured that I should probably shed a few pounds just in case the added weight to my frame was complicating things in a way unbeknownst to me.  I've had my Fitbit for a while and at first was really into it; I lost weight in the past by tracking my food intake, counting my steps, and feeling good about "taking charge of my health".   Then I got complacent and bored and went back to all of my bad habits of eating too much, not exercising enough, and sleeping too little or too much.  Thanks to this pain in my ass, I was motivated to get that under control.

I've also joined a group of improvisers who also have Fitbits and we have weekly competitions to see who can walk the most during the work week and on weekends.  One of the participants is a professional dog walker.  She average 30K+ steps a day when the weather is good and the holidays aren't around.  She consistently beats us; which keeps me motivated; however, there are times where conditions favor me maybe winning and I go full-bore into exercising.  I've actually won a few weeks here and there.  Everyone in the group is supportive of each other and we do our best to motivate each other to move.

The weather lately has not been cooperating with me.  I was contemplating during the spring/summer when I started all of this to try to get into enough shape where I could run a 5K non-stop.  When the brutally cold weather came in, it really put a damper on my willingness to train for it outside.  I have a treadmill that cooperates with me roughly 70% of the time but it has issues so running consistently on it is hard. So, I've been relegated back to just walking.  Hopefully when it warms up a bit I can get back to hating myself and wanting to pass out and die behind someone's tool shed when I get back to jogging :)

Current soda of choice.

I've recently began cutting out non-diet soda out of my diet.  Cot damn that is hard.  I'm an avid soda drinker but lately the amount of sugar I've been taking has been just way too much.  I can feel it hampering me from losing more weight.  I've switched over to diet drinks to ween myself off them completely over the next few weeks.  I've been drinking more water as well (if they could just make water compliment my meals better, I'd be done with soda!).

So, here's to losing the last 5 pounds.  My reward for doing so will be the new headshots I've wanted for a while.  I have been featured in a lot of pictures recently and I can truly say I feel like I look good in them.  It's nice not wanting/needing to Photoshop yourself to enjoy  a picture anymore :)

Time to go for a walk!

Overdoing It with A Smile

Hosting one of the Coach Ensemble Shows

I met up with an actor who participated in my first Coached Ensemble at Second City recently. The Coached Ensembles(CE) are teams put together from auditions culled from current and past Training Center students and coached by a current faculty member for a 4 week run in one of the Training Center theaters.  I decided to do it because I had always wanted to be a part of those ensembles as an actor in the past and I wanted to establish my "mark" on the Training Center as more than just a Level A teacher :)

It was such a blast to be able to take what I have amassed as a performer and teacher and apply it to a 15 minute long-form showcase.  I scheduled multiple rehearsals, found a unique form for us to play with, and handled the technical specifications of the show.  I could truly say that our show was unique among the other talented teams during our run and I felt I had a very wide and varied level of experience among the actors involved.

Along the way, I had heard rumors about the other teams' approaches to their shows and felt like I had over-prepared/achieved for my first time out.  I had heard that some groups rehearsed a lot less than we did or didn't really decide on a form until the week of opening.  The shows didn't really reflect that any of our approaches hurt their respective teams' shows and since everyone on staff is talented and a good instructor, there were no obvious "clunker" teams.  We all held out own in our own way.  However, that feeling of over doing the process kept nagging at me.

We met up to for dinner and began discussing logistics around an unrelated performance opportunity.  Eventually the conversation drifted to their current involvement in CE and I was told, "I'm so glad that I had you for Coached Ensembles.  I felt ready for the current round of auditions. I was much more confident and felt I had something to show."  We also compared and contrasted my instruction style with their current coach.  I felt pretty damn good about being so overbearing in my execution of getting my team ready for their show. 

I walked away from sensing that there's something special about these CE opportunities and I should use these encounters to explore my voice and artistic vision as a coach moving forward.

Heights By Claire

Back in the '90s, I had a friend Claire in San Antonio going through a rough time.  I was trying to write a new song for my band Sphere of Influence and asked her what I should write about.  She looked at me and huffed out, "Heights".

We both went to Alamo Heights High School.  At the time, it was one of the more affluent schools in San Antonio with upper middle class families owning upscale homes providing the generous tax-base to properly fund their children's schools.  It, like any high school, had it's cliques - band nerds, the smokers, the goths, the jocks, etc.  There was also a socio-economic class ranking as well - the preppies, the poor kids, the outsiders, etc.  Fitting in with any group was difficult to navigate because many of us felt that you can never quite have EVERYTHING in your Cool Kids utility belt to just be accepted.  So, it caused a lot of pain and confusion growing up by never really getting answer to the life-long teenage question, "Who Am I?".  So, I wrote this song called "Heights (By Claire)" to express those feelings.  I was 17 at the time - not nearly the "wordsmith" I am today 😂.

I lost contact with Claire after she moved during the summer of my junior year.  We all grew up, got jobs, started families, found ourselves in some form or manner.  Then, through a mutual friend, it turned out that both Claire and I were both doing improv.  Small world!  So, we reconnected via social media and have been catching up for lost time.  I reminded her about the song I wrote for her a few days and asked if she remembered it.  She did and I informed her that I had gone back a while ago and remixed the original track by keeping some key components of the original four track tape (vocals, guitar overdubs, solos, etc) and recreating all of the other instruments with modern recording techniques.  I shared the track with her and to my surprised, she liked it.  I don't remember if I showed her the original version so to have the song come back 20 years later and still make someone smile is an accomplishment.  She asked me for the lyrics and so I present them here.

Thanks Claire for making me appreciate this song even more now.  I'm glad we've reconnected and happy you enjoy the song.

Heights By Claire

Preppy youth sing along without a clue
Cheese is abundant with methane as a toxic goo
3 chords to a song and riff to match
Flannel to be burned and a rift to catch
I have no talent or brains and more
Take me out for what I'm looking for

With a burning tempest of hate and pain
Spittin' out gibberish and my screams for fame
They all find your song they say they really like
But you know they're not even the song-liking type
Rich ideas flow out but not from them
They will take you for all they can

And I don't need to lie
For something I don't deserve
My friendships mean more to me
Than what you can reserve

I'm the object of everyone's hate
But who's the scapegoat?  Now, tell me, baby
They're using my identity as the bait!
I don't need all of this but I know you do still
Your ignorance is strong - too strong to kill
I am not violent. Just the eye of the storm
Leaving this place so I don't conform...

And I don't need to lie
For something I don't deserve
My friendships mean more to me
Than what you can reserve
And if I can keep on staring
At the sea that is blaring
Of thoughts of not caring
My nails start scratching at you!

"Whataboutism" Is A Weak Person's Weapon

KellyAnne Conway: the poster child for Whataboutism.

There's this disturbing trend that has been amplified since the 2016 election cycle - Whataboutism.  Instead of discussing the true issue at hand, people have begun bringing in outside, kind-of related issues into the argument, muddying the water so that no real definitive points can be made.

It especially happens when speaking to ardent Trump supporters.  If someone says, "President Trump said XYZ", then the supporter won't necessarily disavow Trump said it; however they will respond with "Well, what about when Hillary Clinton did ABC!" Then the discussion devolves into people defending their own side instead of talking about the central issue.  I've seen it on TV time and time again and it's exhausting because you're not getting any real insight into what's supposed to be discussed.

Can We Agree To Disagree?
I recently learned about the difference between having a "debate" and a "dialectic".  A "debate" is an argument in which two parties are trying to "win" by having the other person conceded they are "right".  A "dialectic" is a discussion to parties are having where they mutually agree to find a unifying truth between them.  It feels like in America we're more concerned about winning than finding the truth.

What About A Debate?
Whataboutism is a tactic deployed when you are going to lose an argument in debate.  For example:

Person 1: "You killed your dog with your car. I saw you do it."

Person 2:"What about the millions of pets left in hot vehicles with the windows rolled up.?  I don't see you caring about those.  So, why do you care about this?"

Person 1:"Because you left the carcass on my lawn and sped off."

Person 2:"Millions of carcass-i are left on the road.   You're spending tax dollars on their removal and it ain't happening.  You should take it up with the city!"

Person 1:"What are you going to do about the one you left on my lawn?"

Person 2:"What about the time you left your rake on my lawn???  You never came by to pick it up and I had to remove it.  I still have it on my garage. I suggest you do the same."

Person 1:"That wasn't my rake..."

Person 2:"You don't know that!"
...

I could go on and on with this but I'm getting angry at Person 2 already even though I'm writing the dialog!  This debate will never get anywhere because Person 2 refuses to accept responsibility for their side of the argument.  Until they do, they are basically just taking potshots on the assertion Person 1 has made and wasting time.  Hence, this is why a person who's weak in supporting their position uses it - they can "win" the argument by not really arguing about the original subject at all; it'll allow them to keep their argument intact while allowing them to attack their opponent's viewpoint.

Delectable Dialectics
I much more prefer a dialectic.  Let's revisit the scenario above:

Person 1: "You killed your dog with your car. I saw you do it."

Person 2: "I disagree.  I released my dog's soul from its body."

Person 1:"Well, your dog's body's on my front lawn. Can you remove it?"

Person 2:"Yes.  After the proper period of mourning has been observed."

Person 1:"How about...right now?"

Person 2:"OK. Sure."

The central truth that Person 2 killed their dog was achieved.  The manner in which the dog died is up for debate a bit.  They can keep their viewpoints, still have a disagreement but achieve a truth between them.

What Do Now?
If someone engages you in whataboutism, point it out to them.  Instead frame the ground rules for which you'd be willing to discuss the matter with them further (mainly "You can't bring in unrelated facts/opinions into the argument").  If they refuse the ground rules, walk away. You won't get anywhere with anyone who engages in whataboutism.  They don't respect you enough to listen to your viewpoints and care much more about winning an argument than having a healthy discussion.