Missed Opportunities

I haven't written in a while, which is probably a missed opportunity in and of itself. All successful (and mostly likely unsuccessful writers) say that you have to write every day. Your life should never be without you recording your thoughts (or editing them down) so on that front I've been sorely missing. I've been in Chicago for four months now, and "missed opportunities" has become a theme of my life and thoughts ever since I made the choice to come here. Missed opportunities back in San Diego, where I've gotten to watch my friends (via the ruby lens of Facebook) open theaters, perform shows, teach classes, and live life.

 Ultimately, the decision to move here was also one of choice - Chicago, despite its faults, is still the unparalleled, uncontested champ for improv. The quantity is staggering (which is not always a good thing - more on that in another post, perhaps), and the quality of the performers and educators is remarkable. This is a city that is very forgiving, and highly welcoming of an adventurous spirit and an experimenter's mind. Every night that I get home and just "don't really feel like it", I remind myself that this is why I'm here. I left behind my friends and a (modestly) successful "career" in improv in San Diego to come and take in the new and bold. The great and the terrible. The predictable and the unknown. 

This post is really about missed opportunities - a phrase whose un-necessary length I'm only just now beginning to appreciate - and what they mean for us as artists. On one hand, we may look at improv communities and not see that. San Diego, as Chicago (and I strongly suspect a lot of places) is a player's market. Too much stage time to fill, too many teams, a variety of stages, and a glut of shows to watch. It makes it hard on producers, but great for content creators with a relatively lower barrier to entry. Even so-so teams are virtually guaranteed a slot, and great teams have a blank check. Same goes with players: person A graduates class, starts a team, gets noticed, and is instantly on twenty teams. It's wonderful to be asked, of course. We are all broken people, and getting attention in this way triggers the monkey part of our brains that desperately wants group attention.

"Oh, so this is another 'stretching ourselves too thin' post"? Yes and no. When you say "yes" to everything, you can't truly say yes to anything. As improvisers we consistently overlook the power of editing, which truly is our (and pretty much any artist's) greatest tool. What we choose to show other people, when, and for how long, is nearly more important that the content itself. At the very least, poor presentation can kill a great show just as well as slick polish can make a turd shine. What we choose to put our energy in to is an enormous strength, one that should not be taken likely.

 Now back to (Ctrl+V) missed opportunities - we also get burned the other way by making light demands on what we want to work on. Netflix is always calling, just inside the range of human hearing, beckoning: "Up next" and "If you liked every episode 'Elementary' you just watched, you may also enjoy another 80 hours of binging something vaguely similar". When I left SD, I had multiple students tell me "you were the best class I ever had", which is nice, but probably an equal number saying "I always heard you were good, but I never made the time to take you", which sucks. And not just because I didn't convert them into the first camp, but because it means they never understood what is meant in the conversion of intent to doing (or they were being nice). (I should point out not everyone falls into these camps - there is a minority camp that responded in seconds by saying how they were going to break up my teams and give away my classes. Can't win them all.)

 By this I mean the dead celebrity effect - artists of all kinds, whose work is seldom (or never) discussed is suddenly elevated to high status when they pass. I couldn't name anyone who really talked about Bowie in 2014, but when he passed everyone suddenly had a deep memory to share on Facebook. This isn't meant to demean anyone who shared a feeling, all of which are completely valid and I can only assume genuine. It's meant to highlight that our monkey brains also can't connect with the idea of something being exhausted until it is. No one wanted Atari ET cartridges until they were dumped in the desert, and then they became collectible, rare, and valuable. Everyone wanted Beanie Babies until there were too many of them and the bubble burst. We inherently tie value into availability (supply/demand) and connect our own motivation to this worth.

Basically, what I'm saying is: don't wait. Don't skip the teacher you want to take, the show you want to do, or the place you want to be, while also considering what it is you really want. Anyway, that's my long way of saying I'll be back in SD teaching in February. My good friend Elisa is putting the whole thing together with a workshop, some social time, and a show. I hope (if this is something you truly want to do), you'll come: http://improvsuperpac.com/ska/

Leave No Trace

So first things first:

I'm moving to Chicago.

The first big question is 'why?' (though that's probably just ahead of 'why now?'); I've had countless students and fellow performers ask me why I'm not in Chicago (or LA or NYC), and I even came close (damn close) to moving to LA about three years ago.  My answer was always that I liked San Diego: the weather is hard as hell to beat, it's comfortable and all my friends are here.  But most importantly, I was doing the things in San Diego that I wanted to do: perform weekly, teach and coach regularly, and the job I had afforded enough income and time off for me to do those things as well as travel around the US and Canada and do shows and festivals (at time of writing, I've been to 15 festivals, and am scheduled for another 5 in 2016).  Now, about that job.

I moved to San Diego in 2008 from Chicago because I got a job working for the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory, which has been my sole employer since then.  The lab tests urine specimens for illicit drugs (e.g. marijuana, cocaine), and my job there has often had people refer to me as "pee guy", "chemist", "drug guy", "piss tester", and a variety of other colorful monikers that lack nuance, to say the least.  That lab is closing, effective 1 February 2017.

The lab is over 30 years old at this point, and in desperate need of renovation and expansion, and the most recent survey assessed that the lab space only has 1-2 more years, maximum, before the physical plant fails and the lab can no longer operate.  That same survey also asked every Navy and Marine Corps installation from Mexico to Orange County if they can spare some space, and we have been flatly informed that there is "no room at the inn".  That, coupled with a $30-50 million price tag for updating has put the NDSL on the chopping block.  Some 60 employees will scatter to the wind next spring, which seems appropriate.  I'm lucky in that I've been offered a job at the sister lab outside of Chicago, and save getting my final orders in the next week or so, I start there on September 6.

I've been telling people that I've got a range of emotions: fear, trepidation, terror, nervousness, excitement, regret, sadness, stress, frustration - which are all true.  Certainly this will be a new chapter in my life, one that must be taken.  Sometimes you make the choice, and sometimes the choice makes you.  'Why not just stay in San Diego?' you may ask, and well, the answer has mostly to do with employment.  At present, I would make nowhere near enough to support myself doing improv, and I would rather not take a chemistry job in San Diego that may require an hour commute everyday to the outer rim (where most biotech is located).  Also, despite having helped found FCI and being employee number 1, I have been gradually phased out, which leaves me with very little invested in it.  Mike and Charles have been very successful running Sidestage, but I have even less invested in that enterprise.  And The Local, which Dino and I have been running for the last year or so is very nascent, so if ever there was a time to leave, this would be it.

In Boy Scouts, one of the principles we camp by is "Leave No Trace" - a concept that we should always endeavor to leave environments better than we found them.  This may sound ghostly - that Boy Scouts are Forest Phantoms, disappearing into the night in a puff of campfire smoke and merit badges.  This isn't truly the case - instead, when we go to places where we are guests or visitors, places that we do not own but that we only get to participate in, that we should exercise good ethics and stewardship in maintaining that space so that others may get to enjoy them.

It is hard to overstate how barren and non-existent the improv community was in San Diego when I moved here in September 2008.  There was one shortform theater, and their improv community engagement was more "private club" than "welcoming party".  There were a few shortform teams that would play about once a month - the Hinges and ROAR - but that was about it.  When I decided to start the Stage Monkeys as a long form team, we became instantly the first Harold team and only the second longform team the city had ever seen (RIP #1, The Ugly Truth).  This was at a time when the only improv training center didn't run classes regularly and one of my first coaches there said "some people try to break off and start their own thing, but it never works out so you shouldn't even bother".

I was the one who created the show Buddy System, taught the first longform class, started the first two-man team (Mike and Chris), and the first monoscene (Fourth Date), and took the first team to an improv festival (The Stage Monkeys).  Now these things don't seem so pioneering or groundbreaking (and to be fair, they didn't feel that way at the time).  There was a time when I used to know every improviser in San Diego, and now I go to a show and recognize barely half the audience.  Our city has become filled with hungry and passionate artists who just want to improvise, baby.  That we can even have hate-filled invective arguments and diatribes over Facebook was unthinkable 8 years ago.  And getting to see people I first taught and worked along side now become teachers and leaders of their own can only be viewed as an unanticipated benefit.

I think we as a culture are obsessed with apocalyptic tales and origin stories because we want to believe that we are either there for the beginning or the end of adventures (probably ideally both).  We are enchanted by ends and beginnings and want to say "I was there", but even I can't say I was there "at the start".  There were people here before I was, doing the work, and there will be people here after I'm gone doing same.  The only downside of having a large dynamic community (and one that records things so poorly) is that we have very short organizational memory.  Just as we little remember the people who began the journey 8 years ago, so too will I eventually wash away, only to be replaced by someone newer, smarter, and better.

There will probably be some people very happy to see me go.  To them, I say "you're welcome".  Hate and fear are powerful motivators, and if that gets you moving, then at least you're moving.  To the teams I coach and play with, and told in person over the last week, thanks for keeping my secret so that I could venture to talk to people in person and thank you for all work we've done together.  To the students I've taught, thank you for listening, for trying, and for being brave to do this ridiculous, ridiculous art on stage.  To the theater owners and staff, thank you for making beacons for like-minded people to find each other - I expect only good things from Mike, Amy, Gary, and the next person who hasn't come to the party yet as they make homes for people here.   To the community, thank you for letting a kid who didn't know any better and wasn't very good and who just wanted to do give me the opportunity to work and grow as a player and performer and person.

My only hope is that I was able to give some small amount of good deeds back, and that if I've left a trace, that it at least is a good one.

The Death and Life of Great American Improv Teams

In a previous post, I spoke briefly about the writing Jane Jacobs did in her “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”. This book, published in 1961, was a critique of urban planning measures of the time and flew directly in the face of what was then modern dogma (an example: belief that parks cure social ills.) The book rejects simplification in favor of an understanding of the need for layered complexity, which can at times seem like chaos. She identifies four basic concepts of neighborhoods that must be maximized in order for them to be thriving, lively places to live, which I will attempt to translate into terms for an improv team.

1. “The district, and indeed as many of its internal parts as possible, must serve more than one primary function, preferably more than two...”

In city terms, this is an admonishment against districts too tightly focused on a single purpose (i.e. warehouse districts) because it means there will be times when those areas will be empty. (Just think about how many times the Highlander traded blades with immortals in abandoned factories and car parks.) Sometimes people see success in one area (say, banks) and pile a bunch of other things in the same area (sometimes even the same intersection (hello, Subway and Starbucks)) in an effort to duplicate success. (Same thing happens when TV shows or movies are successful.) Translate to improv: teams need diversity of players. Different ideas, candors, tempos, energies, ways of playing. Everyone is working in different ways, but still towards the same goal. We never know what solution will be the one that works in a particular case, so we have to able to pursue all of these avenues simultaneously. Additionally, teams can't just do one thing; they have to be able to do many things well to be successful. (One way to read this is that they must specialize in one type of show, but one of my favorite teams, The Improvised Shakespeare Company, is very successful despite doing one very particular show – but if you've ever seen them, you know that they are dramatic, funny, tell great stories, inventive, bold, and also can act. It's also done in the style of Shakespeare, which they also succeed at. It's also exceptionally well done.)

2. Most blocks must be short; that is, streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent.

In a neighborhood, there must be a variety of ways for residents to interact with each other, in a complicated and myriad network of contact. Long streets limit the routes people can take, which minimizes contact and observation. People on teams cannot be isolated from each other they must be able to, regularly do, make meaningful contact with each other. Time spent with each individual person must be (roughly) equal. I think this is why two person groups are most commonly the long-term successful ones; easier to maintain contact.

3. “The district must mingle old buildings that vary in age and condition, including a good proportion of old ones so that they vary in economic yield they must produce. This mingling must be fairly closely grained.”

Too many new buildings makes it too expensive for some businesses to operate, and they stay empty. A variety of uses (business, living arrangements) necessitates a variety of places for them to occupy. Variety breeds success. This holds especially in terms of experience and function. What each person brings to the group (the funny one, the serious one, the one who initiates) and how they provide it are critical to its ability to operate.

4. “There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for whatever purposes they may be there...”

This doesn't mean all groups have to be huge, it means they all have to be close enough to each other that their interactions are meaningful. The level of engagement and responsibility everyone has for each other keeps people needing each other. This isn't a bad thing; we can't forget that the basic un-written underlying premise of “yes, and...” is cooperation. Best thing about using the word “need” is the connotation the word has of being “active” in what we do with and for each other. Low density neighborhoods feel empty and unoccupied, the same way that sparsely populated teams do. Teams with high density feel busy.

I get asked by people all the time about teams; which they should join, should they take this person or that, or should they quit this one or that one. They are equivalent to “should I move?” in terms of cities. Ms. Jacobs would probably say that moving only furthers the collapse of neighborhoods; that moving people around only lessens their capacity and drive. I think its very easy to get distracted by the offer of new teams as being the offer of better (improv) lives, when those things are not always mathematically equal. We can't fix things if we're always just on our way to the next place.

“We expect too much of new buildings, and too little of ourselves.” - Jane Jacobs