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Monday, July 25, 2016

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.