The Bad Blogger: The Normalcy of an Improv Festival.

I have been touring on the road so much (Chicago, Los Angeles, and now Minneapolis) along with the upcoming San Francisco Improv Festival, I feel I have left the Redroom in the corner crying Why don't you love me.

Well, I do. I love you Redroom. So this is a full on excerpt of my blog of The Minneapolis Improv Festival. Pictures included. The names have not not been changed to protect noone and to wonder who in the world they are.

The Normalcy of an Improv Festival -

It was the most normal improv festival I have ever been to. When someone would say that, you would think that is not a compliment. From the years of finding myself hurling up purple...or unnecessary drama...or other "bad behavioral patterns" that I have fallen into on a festival tour?

This was wonderfully normal

And that means it was awesome!

I think the best move I could have ever done was taken McShane up on staying with his aunt Margy and his uncle Pat in the beautiful confines of Apple Valley Minnesota (about 30 minutes out of the theater and surrounded by albino squirrels and a family of rabbits. At one point I was waiting for Edward Scissor hands to come walking down the street). I can only imagine me staying in the hostel around the corner of The Brave New Workshop. Just bad, bad behavioral patterns in the confines of a hostel.

Thank god for a beautiful comfortable room in a spectacular home with all plush white carpets a kitchen and two real bathrooms and a wooded porch with a professional electric grill and yards and yards of...well....yard. We had the entire "Romp Room" of the basement. When I squealed "Oh my god! What a beautiful Romp Room!" I showed exactly how old I was to Margy.

Kevin's extended family (unlike the scariness of him meeting my sister) are possibly the nicest people to walk on the face of the earth. They take the words Minnesota Nice and make it beyond a lifestyle.

It makes me weep a little "There are really people like this"

I get into town on Thursday early. The plane literally arrived thirty minutes early. We head back to the house and they feed me (something they do all weekend long sans the BBQ) and we all split a bottle of wine and beer. It was almost midnight when I realized we were missing the TCIF Opening Night Party. But, we an improviser at a festival: I know they are still there.

The Brave New Workshop
It is older than the Second City. Dudley Riggs is the man who started it. Unassuming and doing comedy for over 50 years in the heart of Minneapolis in pretty much the same building.

We get to the theater without a hitch and sure as hell there is everyone standing outside. Mark from Pimprov. Dave from BNW. Jay Star is there! And there is Jilly and Joe Bill basking in the glory of a great show they just did with SCRAM. (Sometimes you can never see an improv show. You just see how hard it is to get to the people performing and can tell how well they have done). I hug Jill long and hard. She see McShane up the street. She starts running towards him. He stops, looks horrified and starts RUNNING AWAY.

Jill Bernard chasing after Kevin McShane screaming I LOVE YOU and him screaming HELP! What an Ass. It was hilarious.

We get a tour of The Brave New Workshop by Dave and Butch. An actor/producers wet dream. A real stage. A real booth. A real dressing room...A REAL TECH ROOM FULL OF TOOLS! A full on coffee shop/bar to be open during the DAYS!

I think in my head as a San Francisco person renting space: "Boy...they probably have a real theater license too. I can almost be certain nobody is living here to pretend it is a residence instead of a theater. Goddamn...it is on the first floor. Shit...I bet the next door places don't bounce to mashes of Depeche Mode and Donna Summers"

We drink. We laugh. We meet new people and old friends.
Mental Note: I GOT TO REMEMBER NAMES OF THE PEOPLE I MET TEN YEARS AGO AT FESTIVALS. I have come to the point with people (male or female) going "I'm sorry. I was probably stoned or drunk. Did we have sex?"

There are some people though you never forget. Joe Bill is one. Jill Bernard is one. Butch and Dave are more...and I will never forget the Pimprov men and now Jay Star. It's nice not being fucked up for a change so I can now remember these incredible people.

Friday Day: Tech and Enclosed America:
Kevin sleeps for extended periods of time. Good reason I assume as the space we are in is so comfortable you just want to rest the entire time. I start feeling like his mom fully dressed and awake at seven in the morning. I mean, the sun is up...so now I'm up...sipping coffee and working on the computer and watching golf with Pat (as he also gets up early too)

I do the unpacking to get my Irish Mutts outfit pressed. I dig through my bag. I have packed everything EXCEPT a pair of dress pants. Great. Excellent. McShane's an ass....and I'm an idiot.

We end up heading off to tech rehearsal at BNW. Butch is there and he is doing tech.

Here is the thing:

There is nothing sexier to an actor/producer when you pass off a CD and it gets loaded into a computer!
There is nothing sexier when the god mic is also connected to a system that can fuck around with your voice.
There is nothing sexier when you are ON THE STAGE and the OVERHEAD MICS CAN DO THE SAME THING.
There is nothing sexier than looking up in the ceiling and seeing real light patch work.

Butch Roy is one of the main tech people

Rehearsal equation: Butch Roy is SEXY.

Our tech was so short it was stupid. We head out to find me a pair of pants. We hit the unbelievably surreal Mall of America.

I start counting the Black People the moment I walk in. This does not include the black people who work there. Total head count of Black People (outside of myself and employees): Thirteen. If Pimprov came with us? The number would have been better for the Mall.

I find pants at the Gap. We take pictures of a gaggle of baby strollers penned off in front of the Rainforest and that amusement park.

I want an Orange Julius. They still have it in this mall. Very tiny and small. Overtaken by the fake Orange Julius of our day serving Smoothies. I get a brain freeze. We try to find "Hot Dog on a Stick" and cannot seem to locate it where the map pointing us past the Bubba Gump's (The place where people working there end up wanting to machete Tom Hanks, they see him so often everyday) So we head back to the mall and eat a place called American Food (I believe) McShane has a chili dog smothered in yellow cheese. I have this chicken sandwich that is actually a greasy chicken finger cooked good and hard...with some slimy bacon on a strange hamburger bun slathered in some fucked up sauce and one un melted piece of yellow cheese. We sit across from Johnny Rockets where the loop of 50's music is all fucked up and sounds like a dying Merry Go Round. The sounds of screaming children off in the distance on machines built to have them hurl this food to keep people working.

And that one kid with the giant Mohawk styling 1986. This kid don't give a shit as the rest of the Mall Kids are styling the latest and greatest of whatever current pop/soul/rock singer is wearing. A kid that just don't give a shit.

God. I loved it. This is America. The part I barely ever see as some sort of whacked Urban Hipster. I enjoy this horrible food with GLEE. I'm GLAD I got my pants there.

Friday Night: The Show
We get back to the house to change. We get all in our Irish Mutts outfits. Margy is so tickled by how we look and says "I want to take a picture before you go!"

The inflection? Just like she was Kevin's mom and we were going to prom. So that is what we did. We posed like it was a prom picture. The horrified "Over smiling" because you want this picture to be good and the underlying of what most prom pictures are saying:

Me: Oh my god! I hope she doesn't know that I hope to lose my virginity to this guy in the back of the car! We will get married. I know it. If I only put out!
McShane: Come on MOM! There is precious time here on me getting drunk and boinking this girl! I'm looking forward to ditching her at the prom...getting so drunk with my buddies and then trying to boink this girl...but just too drunk to get it up.
Me: Gee. I cannot wait to try to get this fellow off for three hours to no avail and blame myself for not being able to do that and carry that with me for the rest of my life!

That is what this picture is for me.

We get back to the theater and actually throw a ball around downstairs. I actually put on makeup. Kevin takes pictures of that. I now have two pictures of myself where someone has taken a picture of a mirror of me doing something with my hair or makeup. We listen to Rampleseed KILL upstairs. I mean KILL. At one point there was such a wave a screaming laughter, I turn to Kevin and said: Bet you ten dollars there are two men making out with each other onstage. He did not bet me. Because yeah. I was sort of right. :)

I'm nervous. Bernard's ringing of "Destroy this stage" and Roy's "Don't fuck up" actually got me nervous (accidentally) for the first time in almost six years.

McShane and I kiss each other and say good show. And we are introduced by Rampleseed:

Tom Reed: One is very talented and the other is black, you figure out which one it is!

YAY! He used what we asked him to do and did not get lynched!

The show was solid. The problem with both Myself and Kevin (because he is an ass...and I'm an idiot) is we have a tendency to overanalyze our stuff to the point of not feeling very good about a solid show. There was some grand moments in that show in retrospect: The Mars scene. The second callback of the two friends (he is gay...and I'm enamored by him). First scene I got dumped by someone he introduced me to. Second scene he got dumped by his boyfriend right in the middle of The San Francisco Gay Pride Parade (topical because both Minneapolis and SF were having Gay Pride this weekend) and Kevin said something really powerful when I said we should just date each other:

McShane: (paraphrased) Us being together was just not meant to be.
Me: I'm sorry I keep hitting up on you.
McShane: I'm sorry I'm not that interested.
Me: Me too. I'm sorry you got dumped at the parade.
McShane. Yeah. And I'm sorry that I had sex with your boyfriend in High School
Me: (long pause) WHAT?
(Black out)

Did I mention how sexy Butch Roy is on tech? The plates. Oh the plates.

People seemed to enjoy it. I'm never a good judge of my shit. But the nice things people said afterwards was well...nice. Kevin's entire extended family was there. And they seemed really happy. And my extended improv family (god love you Jill Bernard) said nice things as well. That was worth the plane ride alone.

The Other shows were unbelievable. Just the most amazing improv from the Minneapolis crew coming out of that town. People better recognize Twin Cities. They are blowing the rest of the National Improv Community out of the water.

It makes you wanna move to Minneapolis.

Saturday: I'm an idiot and McShane and David are asses.
This is where I start paying back. Margy and Pat are going to get my BBQ love on Sunday..so McShane and myself decide to go to the Cub Foods and buy stuff. Get some booze and a gift too. All on my flush dime.

We are both a little hungry and there is fast food there. There is a KFC. McShane says "Hey Shaun look a KFC! I know how you people like...(grips his mouth) WHY CAN'T I STOP THIS??" It becomes the running joke for the rest of the weekend. He then passes the flame of "Stupid quiet racism" to Dave from BNW. They are both have the same body build and literally the same mannerisms. So now there are TWO jackasses later on in the night doing the "WHY CAN'T I STOP TALKING" bit. McShane has brought bits to Minneapolis. It's passing the torch bit of love.

He's an ass. We sit at KFC and we create a zodiac for improvisers. The archetypes of improvisers and how they are mixed (or for those into the zodiac...on a cusp)... Hopefully he will have time in his copious schedule to create this gem of a piece suitable for wall framing by every improviser in the world.

We get to the grocery store and we buy food. I pull out my wallet and my credit card is not there. I don't panic, because I know EXACTLY where it is: At the bar of Brave New Workshop where I had started a tab to not only drink myself and McShane...but to buy one for Mr. Mark Sutton of Bassprov, as it was his birthday.

I'm an idiot. I don't even have my phone on me to get the text from Jill Bernard saying that my Debit card is there. They make an announcement after the Saturday show onstage to remind patrons to CLOSE OUT THEIR BAR TABS.

Yup. I set the stupidity level and pass the savings on to other people who are not as stupid as I am.

We get home and I start a monster marinade "soak" of the things that we (and Margy...because they are super nice) bought.

Pork Loin in a 24 hour soak of beer, basil, garlic, salt and pepper with hickory smoke
Chicken in a 24 hour soak of Jack Daniel's, fresh squeezed lime, garlic, salt and pepper, cilantro and a touch of chili powder.
Strawberries in a 24 hour soak of sugar, orange juice, lime zest and fresh cinnamon sticks.

I also pre-pre the BBQ Skewers and make sure everything is together for the Potato Salad.

I'm not playing here. I have eaten so far at KFC and Mall of America. We are really eating on Sunday.

In between all of this we attend the wedding of Mr. Nate Melcher and his new lovely wife. We head to the church and see bits of the Muppets singing we are going to get married! and listen to John Williams music completely taken out of context. It was beautiful. We got our church in and seeing an improviser get married all at once. How often do I go to a wedding where the words "Improv" are actually said by the pastor? Never. We both got our churching in for the trip. We do not attend the Reception. Off to see more improv at TCIF.

Which was wonderful. I listen to Bassprov like radio. The Armando with Bernard at the end of the night was fucking hilarious. The dirge to Sutton by Bill "IT'S YOUR CELL PHONE. IT'S YOUR CELL PHONE" made me cry little tears of joy.

Guns and Zombies. Are you kidding me? Where is this genius COMING FROM. What is in the water in Minneapolis?!?

We head to the Onion Party and start drinking there. Everyone is reminding me to hold on to my Credit Card. I'm an idiot. I leave McShane's expensive camera behind under the table for the wait staff to pick up and to freak both of us out. I'M AN IDIOT.

I'm good and drunk when I leave. I'm now going into "Old Behavior Pattern" Finding a place to relieve myself. Going to White Castle and ordering too much food. Seeing White Castle magically disappear from the car but not in my tummy. Wanting more booze at the house.

Nope. It's all normal the moment I step in the house. I'm not going to wake these kind dear people being loud. I'm not going to hurl in this room. Nope. I turn on the Persuasions (not the Zappa album...the GOSPEL album) and fall asleep to Black Baptist music.

It's so nice and normal.

And wonderful.

Sunday The BBQ: - I could do this. I really could.
McShane said to me at some point that I would probably kill myself if I lived in an area like this. At that point I retorted true:

Me: Yeah. I would find myself never being here and in a car in Minneapolis...or sleeping with neighbors for drama.

After the Sunday BBQ? No. I could DO THIS. No. I could seriously honestly DO THIS.

I had so much fun cooking for Kevin's family it was silly. All of the kids...all of the casual beer and wine. Little six year old Ana and her being so sassy. She is a lovely Miss Thing. We hit it off immediately. She wishes to be a vet. We talk about animals as she had just come back from the zoo.

I break out in hives (I do this when my body overheats) and sure enough one of the parents has meds for it (her son is allergic to stuff) So there I am at a party with two glasses of wine, a beer and Benadryl in me. It was GOOD TIMES. I play tag with the kids. and run for a bit and find myself out of breath. I do Heart Attack Ron for Kevin.

(Bending over) OH JEESH. (breathing heavy) DO I TASTE COPPER?

They name the Potato Salad I mad after me: Landry's Potato Salad. I had a sliver of chicken on the grill and I asked for a plate for it. One of the younger boys piped up quick: No, I'll take it! Cool by me.

I guess this kid never eats chicken. Well Good on HIM!

Improv. Cooking. Sex. All (if done right) should have other people feeling good at the end of it all. Especially guys: A big belly laugh from a guy. Guys with their belts undone sleeping on the couch smiling.

Guys with no clothes on sleeping next to you smiling. Best thing in the world.

The silence that shuts down a conversation right in the middle from a good meal. I love that silence as much as I love the wave of laughter rushing over the stage as much as I love the deep throttle groan of my own name in bed.

My day was made with that shut down conversational silence. That is all the thanks I need when I cook.

Sunday: The Last shows. The Doggy. Goodbye
We head full on food to catch Arthur and his dog perform. We were also lucky enough to catch the Mustache Rangers. That show made me chuckle. Two guys in the same clothes with big fake mustaches. Droll. Dry. Funny. WHAT IS IN THE WATER HERE?

Then we see Arthur from Austin. I don't kiss ass that often, but goddamn it..after the show I sat on the ground with his dog and scratched a dog like he has never been scratched. That is the only way I could communicate to that dog that he is one hell of an improviser. And Arthur is quiet genius.

We go to the Green Mill for drinks. And I sit full, exhausted and happy. But not like regular festival tired where I feel like I have been hit with a truck full of ugly.

I still had my voice. I still had my integrity in tact even with the left behind credit card. I felt happy and full and joyous.

Jill Bernard comes up to the window of the place with a sign that says Thank You For Everything from an improviser who left it behind in her dishes. I wish I had a million signs like this one that I could have left behind at her place, Butch's Place, all of the staff at BNW, Dave home, Margy and Pat's Home (instead of the SOMA bottle we bought)