How to feel like an ass without even trying: A way of life

Sometimes I am terrible at being a person. This is an email I wrote to a friend immediately after I got back to my apartment last night in a freak-out. Some details you should know first:

-D.L. stands for Diamond Lion, a musical improv group I go to every Friday with two of my improv friends, one of whom this email was sent to.
-This night I went alone to the show.
-Mike is our improv team coach and member of D.L.
-Eliza is a founder/member of D.L. and someone I have a mind-crush on because she's so friggin' hilarious and good at being funny/witty.

The email as it was sent:

GAH! So I am not allowed to go to a D.L. show alone, nor can I sit in the front row ever again. This is the long story of why:

After the show I left and started to head back to my apartment, but as I crossed the street I remembered Mike's words that I (meaning you, Chris and I) should hang out with all of them after the show sometime. I stopped and let my phone decide my fate for the night . Afterall, it is a SMART phone, so it should know best. I used the dice app, which three out of three times said I should go be brave and be social. That was bad choice #1.

Everything that follows is bad choice #2.

I turned around and waited outside the theater where I saw a few people I recognized from different shows. There were more performers watching D.L. than usual. The guest was some comedian I remember from somewhere as well, but I forget exactly. There was one of the cast members of the office hanging out there too. Mike wasn't out yet and I didn't want to embarrass myself so I went into that new bar right next door, waited outside the bathroom for a few minutes until I realized it was free and I'm just an idiot. Afterward I waited nearish the bar pretending like I was thinking of what I wanted to order.

I then went back outside and saw Mike (yay) with a couple other people. I greeted him, he introduced me to one of his friends, we talked for a minute before they all started migrating to La Poubelle. Mike's friend went to go check on his car so I followed Mike (the only person who knew me) who was talking to the other lady from D.L. The one that's not Eliza. At La Poubelle I held the door open for a few other people, one of which was a great improv guy I've seen in a bunch of shows and he teaches at Second City, he asked if we'd met before and I made some lame, awkward response, we shook hands before he scurried away from me.

This is where shit gets real!

La Poubelle is standing room only and full of real comedians. Like ones I've seen on TV, they must have been from that comedy show earlier in the evening. Moving my way through the crowd I brush past Stephen Merchant. Stephen Merchant! Co-creator of the original Office, and every other thing Ricky Gervais has done! Wow!

I basically moved slowly and awkwardly by groups of overwhelmingly talented people towards the back of the restaurant. There in a semi circle, next to Eugene who was talking to some guy, there was a people-sized space and--you guessed it--Eliza Skinner was talking to another improv guy, one of the people who I kind of "met" at the cafe the other day with Mike.

I thought that was the perfect set-up. I knew Mike was in line for the restroom and I couldn't stand creepily alone any longer...so I sauntered over to the group that I had the best shot with and incorporated myself into that circle. I couldn't have been creepier if I tried. Eugene was too deep in conversation with the other guy to notice me and Eliza had her back to me...but the people she was talking to gave me strong looks of "um...why are you creeping here you creeper?" It didn't help that I was doing and saying nothing. Their conversation stopped and Eliza turned around and smiled at me...an awkward smile of "what are you?" I smiled and said "I liked the show." She thanked me. We stared. I continued with "I go to a lot of them, I really enjoy it, it's one of my favorites." She smiled and thanked me politely. I kept standing there feeling the awkwardness compound uncontrollably. Staring. Pressure. I blurted "I know Mike, he's my coach...and Eugene is my...uh...my 301 teacher."

Eliza's smile was even more forcibly polite, "yep, there's a lot of teachers in the group." I continued to stand as painfully awkward as anyone can.

I thought I'd name my thought, so I said "I'm feeling really awkward I don't know how to end this conversation."

Eliza said we could say our names, so we shook hands and said our names. Then continued to smile politely. In silence. I could not stop my brain or my mouth. "Yeah, I enjoy the stuff, this is really awkward. I don't know how to make it stop, so....yep...I should go now. Bye." At this point my brain hit the abort button and I just walked straight through the bar, past Stephen Merchant, the guy from the American Office and all the other people from TV and back into the night air where I mentally beat myself up all the way back to my apartment.

So yeah, from now on I'm not operating without wingmen...and I can no longer sit in the front row. Ever.

--
Vinnie Duyck

If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough

I am happy. I had a terrible improv night. And I am happy about it. It started out sucking, got a little better, had a couple small moments, never really rose to something more. I am mostly happy because I stayed in it and pushed through, found some nice discoveries and had help from my fellow improvisers. This is a failure I'm happy about because I didn't give up on it. I think I learned something...I wonder what it is.

Time and compulsion

Still trying to figure out how I can say yes to one thing and not say no to another. For a while there I said yes to most everything, but that burned me out, so now I am more selective. This gives me more "free" time, but I also feel like I am missing out on things, which is true. I think I even felt that before, but I have more time to feel it now.

I watched a program on savants on the Science channel. They have this compulsion in their brain that they cannot turn off. I do sometimes wish I had that so I would be compelled to write and create, but I am very glad I have the ability to turn it off. An uncontrollable obsession is not something I desire...that much.

I want to take a few more classes in different things, but I am focusing myself (instead of saying limiting myself) to two things outside of work; writing and improv. Other acting is mildly on hold...or at least limited, and though I see workshops on producing and other things I would like to learn, I have to say no to them if I want to keep my sanity.

Yep. I'm complaining about wanting to do more things. In all honesty, I think this blog is an excuse to not write, which is really what the rest of life is for writers. Even for Russel T. Davies (former showrunner for the new Doctor Who). At least I'm in good company. The question for me now is: how do I up the pressure to write without overtaxing myself? That's my next lesson in self control/motivation. I am open to suggestion (and threats if necessary).

Apparently specific

Crap, I forgot I committed myself to doing this every day. I think that was only one or two blogs ago. Life happens. I just need to deal with that fact...no, I just need to accept that as fact. The two might look the same from the outside but make all the difference inside. The point is, I'm here saying things when I have nothing to say, but so much I want to say.

I want to talk about my first improv show at the Brody (level 3 class), and compare the art form to Hopi sand painting. Etherial, temporal. You have to be there to see them, because they are not built to last, they are built as a brief experience alone, like life itself. I want to talk about how I am happy to have gotten an email from the Brody people saying I am invited into level 4 performance lab, which means more chances to to this in front of people, but also means new people, which is what it is.

I want to talk about how I'll miss some of the people I've worked with, knowing that even if we all move on to 4, it will be about 16 people strong vs the 5 people intimacy of level 3. I want to talk about the past classes, how through all of them people have come and gone, with only, what, 3 or 4 of us that went through levels 1, 2a, 2b and 3 together? I want to talk about how my life has had wonderful moments with people flitting in and out of it, and that the moment is really all you have...or maybe that's just the song from the recent 30 Rock episode fumbling through my thoughts.

What I really want to talk about is life itself; the mystery. Though I guess I did, looking up at what I wrote. The more specific I am, the more people can relate to it. That's one of my favorite paradoxes in writing, or creating. The sheer volumetric power of specificity.

A much greater reward

Daily commitments are difficult for, and I bet for a lot of other people too. I can commit to something every day if I know it's only for a week or a month, but I have a hard time committing to something if I know I will have to do it every single day until I die. That seems like a lot, too much to really fathom sometimes. With a blog, I'm just not sure I have something to say, but improv has taught me that even if I don't know what I'm doing or what I am going to say, I will have something to do and say when I need to. I find this true at this moment of time. I'm still not certain if I've committed myself to this every day. I would like to, and maybe I will. This must be the same reason some people live together for decades and never get married. It's the fulfillment of the commitment without making it. Perhaps I should bite the bullet and say I will do this. It would mean I might feel like I've failed if I miss a day, but I guess you can't really succeed if you can't fail. So here I am, opening myself to failure, and to a much greater reward.

Birds of a feather...swim together?

Last night I hung out with some good friends I haven't had time to spend with for a while, so that was nice. I was talking about how I'm taking the tortoise approach with my webseries Set Theory, because I'd found that more satisfying of a process than the hare's method and madness. After I said this, one of them told me he almost always takes the tortoise route and admired me for pretty much always going for whatever it was I wanted and diving right in.

I thought about that.

I like it. I think what keeps me taking chances is that I don't give myself too much time to look over the edge before I jump. If I do, I know I would get caught in a loop inside my head that would stop me from taking the next small, but vital step. I generally don't jump completely blind, though. I talk with other people about the fall and what's on the other side, so I have a general idea, but I do tend to jump no matter what. Though I think what really frees me to let go and live, is that I know that the fall on the other side won't really kill me (it's actually very serene, I learned from my skydiving experience), and the landing won't kill me either. It may break me, but I always heal. More importantly, I know that I will always have friends and family there, not just at the bottom, but along the way to guide me to safe ground. As long as I stay open to them and listen.

As in life, so it is in improv. A great team working together as one unit, a school of fish sensing when to turn and not only avoid collision, but create forward momentum.

...how did that falling metaphor turn into a swimming metaphor?....meh. I'll take it.

Extreme moderation

Improv is a lot more instant than wine. I make wine and I take improv classes. Some of my wine takes two or more years to really start to be enjoyable. Improv however, is fairly instant. Saw the level above me perform last night, and I'm amazed at how differently I watched it than other people, even other people in my class. It's the perspective, I think. A general audience watches it and sees a show, whereas I am in the category of people who watch it for the structure; how all the stories interconnect, how much the players are listening to each other and how important they make gifts they receive.

One of my things, is that my mind fairly instantly goes to an extreme, or at least to the absurd. I saw more than a few scenes go in this direction last night, which nailed down the note I got to make things more real. Basically, to keep the character and the scene grounded. When I first got this note I saw it as being grounded, but now I see it's not a restriction to what I can do, instead it's a note to help keep the audience involved and interested in the show. I can still be in space, but I still have to be grounded in space. Absurdity is still allowable, but only in extreme moderation.