This is the longest I have gone without updating the 'ol comedy blog. Well, here's a rundown of what I'm about to go on and on about. Apes, a musical, and evolutionary psychology.

First of all, impress these apes. This is such a wonderful show to be a part of. If you have an opportunity to do it, do it. It's way harder than you think. I went into the last week two point in the lead and then left after the last week 4 points behind Seth Dodson. Second place.

Here is my absolutely honest feelings about this. I was angry at first. For about two days, I was kicking myself and mad about "blowing it". I thought I was a sucky suckabunch mcsuckalot, and I was angry about that. Seth and every other member of the cast is a genius and hilarious, the people involved with the show are not only incredibly funny, but supportive and very very nice. I never stopped thinking that. But I thought I was a suck factory that created suck and sold it on the internet for used tampons. Two days. Yes, I know. I am a little too hard on myself sometimes. But just keep reading.

Then, two days later (I believe I may have been drunk) I really thought about the entire run of the show. For eight weeks I set my mind on doing something, and I did it. For eight weeks in a row, I did things I have either none before, or barely done, and I did them pretty damn good. And I did that 8 weeks in a row. I'm even proud of my lowest scoring week. I satisfied myself. And for what might be the first time in my life (no really, it might really be the first. Remember the part where I said I'm really hard on myself? That shit is fo'realz) I was really proud of what I pulled off. It was hard to do and I did it. At the end of the day it was a creativity/comedy boot camp that I grew a bunch from and made me believe that I really could do anything I set my mind to creatively. It was a fantastic show to be a part of. Challenging. Fun. Challenging. Hilarious. And I even became a better performer (person?) because of it.

So what am I doing with that new found confidence? I am writing a musical. I shit thee not. That musical is called "You're a huge faggot, Charlie Brown" and as of this writing, the story is written from start to finish. The opening scene is scripted, and even a few of the songs are written, lyrics and all. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I just think I will be able to put it up. Never written a play. Never written a musical. I don't give a fuck. I can do this. Watch for updates on this ridiculous fucking play.

I'm also still improvising. Wow, come to think of it, it's been so long since my last post that I haven't even talked about Hindenburg getting cut. So that was the first team I was on that got cut at iO (I'm sure it won't be the last) and I still get to keep playing there, which is really cool. I love iO and I love playing there, so any opportunity to continue that is very very nice. My new team is called fat kid. Come watch us. I am also doing a two man show with Nick Hausman right now called "Rage and The Rage", which after the new year will be doing a run at iO with two other two man shows (Neal Dandade & Adam Schwartz, Mort Burke & Forrest Hynes) and we're going to call it "The Six Pack". We're hoping it will be 3 great 2-man shows with a bar special on six packs of beer. So get drunk and watch improv, what's better than that? That's right, only a few things, but not many. I'm looking for other opportunities to prov prov it up. We'll see if it happens.

SO, I have contended for a long time that good improv is something that arises from the proper psychological state. So, much of my energies in becoming a better improviser have been dedicating towards understanding the psychology involved in performance where you just make it up as you go, and hope that it's funny along the way. In that pursuit I have read a lot about sports psychology, which is all about being in the moment, and not trying to be anything. I have written in the past that if you are in your head it is a natural mind response to a scary situation, you are trying to protect yourself, and the more you try to resist that the stronger that will be, because if history has taught us some things then one of those things must certainly be that resisting human nature is seldom a profitable exercise. So let yourself be in your head, it's natural. Do it. Play in your head. Play a bunch and realize that it isn't so scary, and that 'in your head' thing will have less power. Anyways, I just finished a book about evolutionary psychology (research for the Charlie Brown play, I'll explain why later) and it posits that the brain is a series of "modules" which were evolved and helped us survive. There are as many as hundreds of these, each with their own purpose. For example, there is a module for predator detection. So when you see a saber tooth tiger, you fucking run. At the same time, we have a module for evaluating what is a non-predator. Now here is where I start to get into the improv part. These two modules conflict, and we see this happen all the time. We have all been surprised and then a few seconds later said "Augh! You scared the hell out of me." when it was just a person you knew. One kicks in, and then the next kicks in and overrides it. So, we also see this happen all the time in improv. Your "modules" conflict while you're on stage. When? I will tell you an example. We have one module that exists to help ourselves socially. And that entails knowing who to trust and who not to trust, etc. This makes evolutionary sense in light of the types of social groups we see in most primates and in early humans (nomads). So how we go about this differs. We can give (as in food, which builds our reputation socially, or as in give gifts, make others look good as an improviser) or we can make displays or our worth (as in selling our friends for a laugh, we all love laughs, and we all love the supposed social feedback it entails. Notice I said "supposed"). I'm sure there are better examples. Ah, here's one. The module to keep us safe in a scary situation (like stepping on a stage and just making shit up and hoping it's entertaining). That "safe" response usually keeps us in our heads, makes us obsessed with "rules" while performing to give us a (false) sense of control. And so on. Then of course there is the conflict where we just want to step on stage and kick ass, which everybody performer knows is decidely UN-safe. And by that I mean, it involves taking risks and being bold. So how do we solve this little inter-brain conflict brought on by billions of years of evolution? Keep performing and perform as much as you can. Learn that it really is not scary. That will render the safe response null, and it will kick in less and less. Get this into your subconscious and your body, and it will gradually know that it does not need to turn on in this situation. I plan on doing that with more improv teams, and doing stand up. Hooray for work and play being the same thing.

Happy to be back, blog. Happy thanksgiving.

Here's some highlights from last night's Chicago Underground Comedy Showcase. It includes me. My bits are dispersed throughout. I was first and it was packed. Kinda scary cause I'm like, ya know, a rookie in this scene.



Enjoy!

Hey.

Man. I'm tired. Apes is a super hard but super duper fun show. This week we were supposed to do a short scene with a pre-assigned broadway musical song, and we were given a partner to work with. It was a hard hard challenge. We put tons of work into it, and finally on SUNDAY decided that we'd do Lewis and Clark telling the story of Lewis and Clark while being really loose with the facts. We got very good scores, and after they were all tallied up I took a 4 point lead into first place! Hooray! But there are still 6 weeks left in show, and that's plenty of time to loose stuff and stuff. And stuff. Anyways, next week's challenge is to do a historical reenactment. I have 1 idea, and it's very very bad. I'll have to think real hard about it. I have been thinking real hard about it. I am thinking real hard about it.

At any rate, here's the video of that...



Super fun times.

In other news, I was asked to do a set at Chicago Underground comedy last night, and that was super fun. And a pretty neat 'ol deal considering it's only the second time I've done stand up in Chicago. Once apes wraps up I'm going to start getting into stand up more often again. It's more immediate and helps my improv, and I think it's harder to do than improv in many ways, but obviously not all ways. There is a video being made of that to, so I'll put that up, but it's basically the same set I did for apes.

I am exhausted. I'm going to take a nap nap. That's what I want.

-Peter

Yo yo...

Here's a funny thing that I've observed about myself lately, and probably in others as well. I've mentioned "too cool" disease in improv before. I totally get that. I think it's automatic almost, when you are trying to make less of a big deal about things so you aren't in your head or tight or whatever. One of the dangerous side effects is I can become this flippant "I don't give a fuck" improviser on a stage, rather than a character in a scene. Worth thinking about...work thinking about...worth remembering the potential side effects of that mental switch.

Hey! The first impress these apes was last night, what a fun fun time it was! The challenge was stand up comedy, and I had spent tons of time on my set the previous week. I was awarded the first 10 of the season! Yay! It was totally blue and totally political, which is right up my alley I suppose. It hit hard and I was a mere ONE POINT from tying for first. Still 7 weeks to go. Can I do it?

I really don't know. The more I think about results and what people will think the worse off I probably am. I'll just keep doing my best and having as much fun as I can, I really can't ask for more than that now can I?

Anyways, here is that video of me saying all sorts of obscenities...

Well, I'm 26 now.

My birthday was two days ago, and now I am 26. I actually feel younger than I did at this time last year. For some reason, even numbers sound younger than odd ones. Or maybe it's the other way around. I'm not really sure, I just know that for the time being I still feel young. In my professional/creative life I'm very happy with where I am, but in terms of relationships I guess I'm not where I thought I'd be. I wish somebody would have told me when I was younger that by the time you turn 26, all the good girls are taken. Whatever, half of them will be divorced soon, I'll wait for that boon of single women.

Don't get me wrong, I meet girls and kiss their faces, and doing this isn't a problem in my life. What is a problem is finding someone who I feel an actual connection with, something that would be nice at some point, but I'm not stressing about it. And when I actually stop and think about it, it's not what I need right now. Being single for a while, a long while, is very good, and has been good for me. As long as I still get to kiss the occasional face. But none the less, I find myself feeling lonely from time to time. Oh well.

Let's talk about what's good right now. The last Best Church of God show is this Sunday morning, and it's been such a great run. The press has been fantastic for the show, and it's been a great success that we are all very proud of. It's looking like it's going to be a packed house this Sunday, and we're all super excited to see how it lands for the last service.

Exactly one week later, I start Impress These Apes. I am totally psyched to do that show. It will be so challenging and fun. I can't wait. I really can't say much more without the challenge, I really don't know what to expect. I will continue to do Harolds while I do Apes, but I will keep my obligations to a minimum so I can focus most of my energies on that. And WIN! Or just have the most fun. I will totally be posting my videos here in tha blawg every week.

In the prov prov world, I have been playing with more confidence for the past several months, this has been in almost direct proportion with how well therapy has been working for me. I'm telling you, the best improv teacher I ever had was my therapist. My biggest improv blocks are psychological, the way I hold myself back, I think that's true for a lot of people. The fear of looking dumb, trying very hard to control things in order to do them "right". The past two years have been a gradual letting go of that attachment to approval, and thus a slow incline towards more I suppose. huh. Confidence, at least this type of confidence, is a slow process of building, and there really is no substitute for time and experience for it's creation. This really makes me optimistic for the future, because I know that I will continue to get better and better, and that I still have a long way to go. That's very encouraging. I've enjoyed a fair amount of success as it is, so I get optimistic. I really, truly believe that I have what it takes to go as far as one can in this art/business/world, or, at the very least, I believe that I WILL have it or will continue to have more of it. And I don't think there's any shame in saying that out loud. A little arrogance can go a long way in this world, as long as you're still a nice guy. If anybody ever catches me sticking up my nose at some other performer of any experience level, or acting like I'm some sort of improv/comedy expert and talking down to people, please PLEASE punch me in the dick as hard as you can. All I'm saying is that I'm confident, and I deserve to be, and anybody who has a problem with me saying that is a cock hole.

Okay, I'm going to take a dump and head to work.

Show on Wednesday night and a show last night. Let's talk about this. This is the place where we talk about this.

Point of note, this little blog turned 2 recently. We are now entering season 3 of Peter's Chicago improv escapades. Time flies.

Both shows were fun. I'm finding that there is a lot of power in really not giving much of a fuck. And I think, given the art form, that one really does pay the due respect improv deserves by saying "fuck it". After all, the house of improv was built on "fuck it." As in "Fuck it, we're just going to make this shit up." That's balls. That's cares to the wind. I've made this metaphor before, but Improv is a lot like a woman. It is much nicer to you when you just don't care about it.

Remote remote does a really fun form where at any point in the scenes we can implement a short form game. Like "new choice" or "oscar winning moment". I had bunches of fun. We played fast and hard, which is how I like to play. I have the most trouble in improv shows that take themselves very seriously. Harolds have a tendency for this, because of the pressure some players feel, especially new players, myself included, to live up to the ideals of the theatre that they love so much. It gives the show a high stakes feel. I have been able to shed this self made pressure recently, self judgment and all that, and let loose a little more. But I don't think I'll ever be fully immersed in 'the fuck it'. Which is good, because that means I will always have something to strive for. The abandon and fun of the remote remote show as super fun.

Hindenburg's show last night was solid. Not awesome, not our best, but solid. We definitely tend upwards over time in our show quality. The polish is showing, we are making less "rookie mistakes". It's cool. We still work really well together and things are fun. We are cutting loose a little more each time. The chemistry that we had going into things has laid a great foundation for us as a Harold team. Allowed us to focus on the details instead of waiting for us to get comfortable, since we already were comfortable. What a good group of characters.

I think that growth as an improviser for me, once again, has engendered my growth as a person. I think that I'm not only saying "fuck it" on stage, but I'm letting go of the need or inclination to control on stage and off. Flow with what's happening, don't try to flow what's happening, if you get my meaning.

Last Thursday Hindenburg got to play in the Cabaret, opening for The Cougars and The Reckoning. It was awesome. It was probably our most complete and consistent Harold. The suggestion was "unicycle" and we explored solitude through our group work in various fashions. I went so far as to do an improvised poem/song about how I live alone with my cat in my apartment in Roger's Park. Which was cool without necessarily being funny. Things that are cool and personal sprinkled about funny is always a nice thing to have. Comedy with heart. Hey, theatre of the heart!

We brought things together, had callbacks, solid scenework, great group work, it was smart and consistent and probably my favorite showe we've done as an ensemble. Everybody on the team had a chance to shine during the show at one point or another. Always a positive thing. It was a packed house (like extra chairs packed) and we had a rocking good time. It was magically wonderful yes. All the things I like about good ensemble work happened. Here's hoping that happens more and more and more. And more.

In other news, I have been selected as a contestant on 'Impress These Apes!', which will run Monday nights at 8pm at the Lakeshore Theatre starting on September 22nd. If you don't already know the format of the show, you are issued a challenge every week to perform. So you have one week to come up with, say, a reenactment of your favorite movie, or a stand up set, or choreograph a dance. Anything. It's all about being creative and funny, and it's something that I always thought couldn't possibly be more fun, so I'm really excited to be doing it. The video of my callback is right below. Our challenge was to write a song about ourselves that had to involve playing an instrument. Yay!



Before this I had to send in a video which I will also post if they put it on you tube.

Last night was another very good annoyance class. I will probably have to take a session off because I couldn't get into level 4 on time (it sold out in under 2 hours), and I need to save the money anyways. At any rate, we got into a discussion about improv at the beginning of class that was very interesting. Even though I tend to agree with 99 percent of the improv community on what constitutes good improv, I also believe that these value judgments are completely and totally subjective, as are evaluations of any and all art. In all movies, poems, songs, plays, circuses, paintings, and anything else you can think of as entertainment, people watch it, they get a feeling, and then they rationalize that feeling soon there after. We do this in our everyday lives, too. And this makes biological and psychological sense, seeing as what a large part of our decisions are made from feelings rather than rationally thinking through them. People who make advertisements understand this, and instead of giving you a good, rational reason to buy their product, they know they will be much more successful if they can just get you to associate a certain feeling with their product. Bush ran for president not on issues, but on the idea that you just felt like you could have a beer with him. And so it is with art. This is hardly ever admitted, because the people who talk about and enjoy art are usually very smart people and this is an opprotunity for them to be very smart and weave their personal whims feelings into grand (verbose?) narratives, explaining as well as they can why they feel the way they did, and furthermore why you should too. It's as if we have to make people understand that the way we feel is the right way to feel, and if we could just convince you of that we would have our own feelings validated. And so people start to agree with each other on what feels good and bad, because it feels good to know that what you feel is good and bad is a feeling shared by many others. It makes you right. And everybody loves to be right. I sometimes believe that there is a basic biological need to be right in some way.

And so it is with improv. I like to think of myself as an independent thinker, whether or not I like something has very little to do (but probably not nothing to do) with whether something is popular or unpopular. I think what I think, and I say it, which has gotten me into trouble in the past. Anyways, keep in mind that I'm going to hold my opinion pretty much (not totally) no matter what other people think, I still agree with what most of the improv community believes constitutes "good improv". However, I don't think that The Truth (capital 'T') is subject to the whims of even the most overwhelming democracy. These are still only preferences, and I think we should keep that in mind as performers to give ourselves more room to break "rules" (there are none) and give ourselves permission to do whatever we want and see what happens.

One of my least favorite notes is admonishing people for doing "transaction scenes" or "teaching scenes". What bullshit. That's a real relationship that people have many times through the course of their lives that is worthy of exploration. It's a dumb and easy note to give. I've seen so many good transaction/teaching scenes that I'm actually surprised that there are still people who care about them. As if that one single circumstance can prevent you from doing something entertaining, smart, or funny. Does it make it harder? Well, Maybe. Does doing scenes where the two people (or more) in the scene know each other make it easier? Yes, I think so. But it doesn't follow from either of these that transaction/teaching scenes are AUTOMATICALLY bad. And I think it's ignorant to suggest otherwise. So there.

Anyways, on to my annoyance class, and my current mini-conundrum.

I feel more in my skin when I play wackado characters. I like to play weird people and then play them honestly. With emotion. I still listen, of course. I still taken in what my partner is saying and respond emotionally. But I find it so much easier to do things when I can do them through the filter of this strange eccentric person. I have more fun, and I find the scenes more interesting. I don't do this all the time, of course, largely (but not only) because of my obsession with being versatile as a player. I never want to be a "one note" player. You know who you are. I like to start from a weird place and then go "what if this was real" and run from that. That's the closest approximation I guess. But some people would complain because it wouldn't I wouldn't be playing "real" or whatever. But what you call "real" is "boring" to me. So why should I do it? Are you hip to some truth about this particular art form that I'm not? That type of playing probably works very well for you, but my voice is different than yours. Respect that. And no, I am not talking to anybody in particular, just a general feeling I get from certain types.

I could elaborate (pontificate?) more, but I should be working. Goodbye.

s mentioned in the last post, I have decided to start pounding away after a good long period of getting my proverbial shit together. And that hit hard this week, harder still by random bumps in the road like being cut from Hindenburg only to be put back on 19 hours later. Long story. Ends well. It involves confusion and me just doing what I was told. I'm way to self conscious to go up to people I look up to as artists and barely know on my knees hat in hands. But anyways, that worked out fine, but I wasn't a happy person for approximately 19 hours earlier this week, and it put a dent in my plans to prepare for this short film that begins shooting this weekend, and preparing a performance for my impress these apes callback. Right now I'm sleepy. Very sleepy. But I'm also excited about all the things I'm doing. Impress These Apes would be a really fun show to do, and I've never done on camera work before, so that should be fun too. This is all on top of the regular classes, rehearsals, performances, and so on and so forth. So I've kept satisfyingly busy this past week and am now in a state of rewarding fatigue.

A few other things of note...

Go see 'The Dark Knight'. It's the best movie I've seen all year. 'Wall-e' is a very close second. I can't say much more without spoiling either of them, but I will say they are both great great movies. Do this. Do this now.

So while I was "coasting intead of climbing", I stopped keeping logs of my classes and what I learned in them and what not. So TODAY in my level 3 annoyance class with Rebecca Sohn, we worked with kinetic energy, and how physicality can inform scene work. We would do exercises where we either had to be near each other for far from each other, and different variations with space, and explore how that informed what we did. it was interesting how giving yourself something as simple as "I want to close to this person." or "I want to be far from this person." or "I am sitting here doing this." can give you so much to work with, and really pull you into a place of play. We also played around with emotions, which gave self-gifts as well. That's something that I think many people could use more of in their scene work, self-gifts. And, since it's my blog and I'll pontificate as much as I want, I think this is something that once again translates to learning about life via learning about improv. Basically, be good to yourself.

Hindenburg had a very fun rehearsal last night. We did lots of memorization stuff where we would have to repeat a scene that just occured as closely as we could, word for word. That's a part of improv that I think gets very little emphasis, being really really sharp on stage. It's the part of improv that's like neat mental acrobatics. I remember when i first moved here and I saw baby wants candy at iO, a player was able to list a series of "rules" at the end of the show that were first listed in one of first scenes. One time I saw 3033 play a show where at the end they did a 1 minute version of the entire show backwards. It's so cool to watch stuff like that. The audience goes "Wow, they're funny AND smart." I think a lot of people can be funny, but it takes more to be able to stack multiple mental skill sets like that. It takes a certain level of focus, so I'm going to be paying attention to that focus-y, memory-y muscle for awhile.

And otherwise, pretty much.

I've put the improv/comedy stuff on relative cruise control lately. That is to say that I was still busy, but only in so far as I was trying to maintain a certain level activity and quality instead of focusing so much on improving as a performer as I usually do. Instead, I have taken the time to get introspective, and pretty much just get my shit together in ways I never took the time to do. Hence the lower number of blog posts and what not. I just got back from a week long vacation in Michigan at my parent's cabin. It was nice and quiet, lots of time to read and to think. And it was really really good for me. It was exactly the cap to the months of Peter time that I needed. I'm glad I took the time to sort my shit out while still taking classes, writing, and improvising. If I had left those things all together, I would have fallen way behind and that's something I'd never want.

Anyways, I've realized that I've put a lot of premium on the product, in life and on stage. On stage I've really focused on the laughs I've gotten or not gotten and in life I've focused on the things I have or don't have. I took the time to think and realized how much more fun and ultimately rewarding it is to just enjoy what your doing instead of waiting to enjoy what you're trying to be doing. To put it another way, life is not fulfilled in the achievement of goals, but is rather lived in the pursuit of them. I don't want it to sound like that I had some big ah ha moment and then everything suddenly became so clear. I'm still just as confused as anybody else is, the only difference is now I'm really okay with it and am just going to enjoy myself anyway.

So, I'm picking up the proverbial slack again. I got a callback for impress these apes, so yay me for that. Best Church is doing great and going through some super secret changes that will rock your face. I've started writing my musical again. And I will continue prov prov-ing all over the place. I will write about all that here, and you will read it. It will be great. The angels sing. Amen.

So...

Last night I did two shows. It was pretty exhausting to work all day, then do an 8 o'clock show with a 7 o'clock call, then do a 10:30 show. The first was at Comedy Sportz with a new team I'm playing with called Remote Remote, the second was at iO with Hindenburg.

I started the night what I considered a very good show at Csz. The scene work was good and the laughs were landing. It was nice. Then I went to iO. God damnit. I had a fucking horrible show individually, and as a whole it was a difficult Harold to watch. It was so fucking tight and hesitant and blah. Boring. I contributed nothing to that show at iO. I was completely in my head. I was completely too tired even though I did everything to get my energy up before hand and be tired later. I just went into scenes and had NOTHING.

I don't know what it was that mad my iO show suck so bad after having such a good show at comedy sportz just two hours earlier. Maybe it was an energy thing, maybe I was just due. There's one person in particular at iO who was watching the show that I'm convinced just hates me and everything about how I play, which is disappointing to me because he's one of those "improv luminaries" and I actually really look up to the guy and have a lot of respect for him, so his approval means a lot to me. I won't name names, because this is the internet. Anyways, having that feeling in the back of my head, in addition to the fatigue, really made my mind a blank slate most of the show. It made me much less playful, and a lot more hesitant. It made it difficult to just focus on the scene I was in because I felt like I was being watched and hated the whole time. Maybe it was a self fulfilling prophecy, who knows. I hate doing shows where I get no laughs, it's such a drag. And an even bigger drag because I know I was fishing for laughs, and letting my actual good scenework suffer as a result. But at least I got to start the night with a show where I landed several of those whole room sustained laughs with applause last night, and comedy sportz had a packed house! So it's not ALL bad. I just regret that I couldn't bring that same energy to iO and my team mates on Hindenburg.

On another note, I get the feeling lately that I'm "finding my voice", which has taken a while. I think learning to play with that understanding of what my voice is may take a bit, and honestly, I have had some pretty good shows, classes, and rehearsals lately, so I was do for a clunker. No worries, I will bounce back. And it's comforting to know that even my sucky shows are better than they used to be.

I realize that I have packed this post with very little analysis for what I need to be doing better and specific problem areas (I know that I need to commit emotionally to my scenes more, for example) and littered it with vague value assessments like "it sucked" and "it was good", but I guess learning to move in this art is such an internal process that it's hard to describe exactly what needs to change.

Oh well, even Barry Sanders had bad games. I'll continue to get my notes, take my classes (I start level 3 at annoyance on Monday), go to my rehearsals, and reflecting in this 'ol blog. I will have been here only 2 years come August, so there's a lot of growth still going on until I will be at the level that I think I'm capable of being at on a consistent basis. If you were to look at a graph of the quality of my play over time, it would trend upward, even though there are dips and plummets within, so that from that perspective there is reason to be positive. But that doesn't make the sucky shows suck any less.

As always, I'll keep on pounding away at it.

Hindenburg did our first show for a packed cabaret audience last night. We have played in the cabaret before, but it was for a smaller house. Whether it was because of the cubs night game that was just getting out or the fact that the lottery is closing soon (the lottery, for the unaware, was the show we were opening for and features current students playing with vets), it was a totally packed house. It was fun to play in front of a big house again. With all the shows in Chicago, and the availability of venues, and the opportunities to perform, it's hard to get to play in front of large crowds for a lot of people. So when it happens, I always appreciate it a whole bunch. In college, I took triple digit houses for granted. My old improv troupe in college played for a 700+ person house a handful of times. Man, those were some super rewarding laughs. So it was good to feel that pressure and to ultimately rise to the occasion.

Unfortunately Hindenburg had a tanker of a show. It was gross. We had just come off one of our best shows ever, if not our very best ever. We were in a space we were unaccustomed to. And we had just got done with a 2.5 hour workshop with Bill Arnett on the Harold, which probably sapped energy and made our show pretty sloppy and perhaps even a little lethargic, and also made the show way to left brain. It was a show of people trying very hard to improvise correctly, which is something that makes me bonkers, and happens to absolutely everybody. To my credit, I was able to have a good show. I had fun and got some good rewarding laughs, but the same can't be said for the show as a whole, which I absolutely and completely bear my share of responsibility for. It's Hindenburg, not the peter kremidas show. Although, that being said, I was happy how my individual performances went.

That just goes to show that in prov-prov, you can have all the ingredients and follow all the rules and adhere to all the things that people say you should do to build a good improv set and please the improv gods, but if you aren't having fun and making fun choices, the audience probably doesn't care. The good doctor Stonelake made a great metaphor post show, he said that we stress relationships and names and details and all these things so that you have a jungle gym to play on. But it's no fun if you don't play on it. The guidelines to good improv are ways for you to ultimately have more fun and rewarding work. I think so, anyway.

The audience was full of muggles, which I was really happy to see. Since so much of improv is playing for other improvisers. And I was really happy to be able to make the muggles laugh as well as the improv folks. This relates to above because, at the end of the day, you can do all the improv classes you want, you can think about improv all day, you can write about improv forever in your stupid little blog, but it doesn't necessarily translate into humor. Muggles (or "non-improvisers" for you people who aren't complete nerds) don't give a good god damn about improv credos, and have no concept about what constitutes good improv other than does it entertain them. Now, that may or may not matter to you depending on what your particular artistic goals are.

All I'm saying is, I think classes, workshops, rehearsals, improv books, and dorky pontificating on your improv blog is very very helpful and makes you a better improviser in the long run. It's a craft like anything else, and that means you take the time to hone it. Different people have different growth rates and all that. But I also believe that there are things that you can't really teach. And that thing you can't teach is how to let yourself show on stage. How to let your own personal sense of humor and artistic voice to build upon the lessons you've learned in your improv travels.

That's why trying very hard to do good improv doesn't really work. It makes sense that we get in our heads and think about our improv lessons. In just about every other thing in our lives, utilizing information gives us a sense of control, and therefore keeps us safe. Our mental brain bugs we get in improv are a natural protection mechanism, and so we shouldn't admonish ourselves for having them. In fact, I was on the sidelines last night and I noticed I was thinking real hard, then I thought to myself "Okay, you're in your head right now. That's cool. It's a protective response. Thank you, that part of me that needs to feel that way to feel safe. Thank you for doing your best to protect me." And, in doing so it took away its power, and I went on to have a good show. Resistance to your own thoughts just makes them push back harder. Trying to do good improv is like trying to not think of something.

In other news, I finished my impress these apes audition DVD and sent it in. I've always wanted to do that show. I can't imagine a more fun show to be apart of, that utilizes creativity and stage performance in such a fun way. I was lucky enough to help Jenny Staben with two of her performances last season, and even though one of them got a low score it was a very fun time. My DVD is very strange and hopefully even funny, so we shall see what happens there. It was weird making it because part of the DVD is you telling them why you should be on the show. I felt weird tooting my own horn. I'd rather have just shown them, which I tried to do. I did both. Now that I think about it, there are a million ways to tell them why I'd be good for the show that don't necessarily involve me telling them how great I am. In fact, I think I did that within this paragraph. Even though I'm generally happy with how it turned out, if that video is shown to a bunch of people I might feel weird about parts of it. Something about a video of me calling myself talented is...weird. I didn't know what else to say at the time.

That paragraph was longer than it needed to be so I stopped it immediately. I hope the feedback on the video is good, and doing the show would be super super fun. I'll keep you all updated. Obviously I want to do it, otherwise I wouldn't have written so damn much about it.

Peter out.

Somebody posted a comment in what I'm assuming was tongue, or a bot of some sort, and that is all the initiative it took to get me to post again. God, it's been over a month. Longest gap in posting ever. Truth be told, I just haven't had that much to talk about. I've been coasting in the comedy world, and that's what this blog is all about, coasting because there has been more important stuff for me to sort out. I'm having what I call "Peter time", which is pretty self explanatory, and no it isn't chronic masturbation.

I just stopped to send a mass email which you probably got about the best church of god being in the chicago tribune today. Here is a scan of that article....



Cool huh? That's page three of the Tempo section for today. Neato.

Anyways, I am no longer on Mort, and I'm on a Comedy Sports Rec league team now. Still cruisin' with Hindenburg, still doing the best church stuff.

Let's wax improvosophical. That's a word I just now made up.

The more I do the Harold the more appreciation I get for it. You would be hard pressed to find a person who hates group games more than I have in my life time. But I've learned to love them. Most of the group games I see are boring, dumb, self indulgent, ugh. God, don't get me started. But Hindenburg started doing workshops with Bill Arnett, and I've gone out to watch some Harolds to get a better idea of what it is exactly we're shooting for artistically, and I think it's cool how much potential that particular long form tool has, even though it tends to fall flat on its face quite a bit. One of the things I love seeing in any entertainment medium, books, TV, movies, and of course improv, just name a few, is to be able to a range of human responses out of me. Laughing and thinking, among other things, you know? And the potential to do something very smart and hilarious that comes together in a cohesive way is real exciting. I'm really trying to write this without sounding like I was paid by Charna to do so.

I have talked in the past about confidence, and how it drives good imrpov. I think that earned confidence is more valuable and useful than learned confidence. The difference being that earned confidence comes through honest self criticism and even doubt, through which you learn and make mistakes and all the things that growth entails. While learned confidence is kind of...I dunno...more "fake it till you make it", though not exactly. It's confidence that runs less deep, as real as it can be. It's like the difference between cocky and confidence. Cocky only goes so far, after awhile it's probably covering something up. Anyways, I've been having real earned confidence builds lately, and I think a lot of this has to do with my own personal growth outside improv that I've experience with "Peter time". This next sentence deserves it's own line...

The most valuable teacher for an improviser is a therapist.

Well, at least that's been true for me. I really hate making absolute, all-encompassing statements for improv, or anything evaluated so subjectively for that matter. Anyways, I really think that the short comings of improvisers, and performers in general, and easily be linked to very real deed seeded personal insecurities or some such thing. In "Guru" by Jeff Griggs, (It's a book about Jeff Griggs taking care of Del Close at the end of his life. If you don't know who Del Close is, why are you reading this? If you don't know who Jeff Griggs is, he wrote a book about Del. He's also a hilarious and fantastic improviser.) he tells the story about doing a workshop at the University of Wisconsin with Del. At one point Del has Jeff get onstage and do a scene with a girl, and within what was a great scene, Jeff and the girl almost kiss several times but never do. Later that evening, Del tells Jeff to hurry up and have sex with her. Jeff resists, calling it disrespectful, and finding reasons why he shouldn't do it. Del points out that he's finding reasons not to fuck her just like he found reasons not to kiss her in the scene. He says improv is life, life is improv. Jeff fucks her.

That passage stuck with me, it jibes so much with what I like about improv, which is that you see people's personalities in such a fun way when they're forced to make it all up as they go in front of people. Using the same muscle we use to just be ourselves from day to day, then we get up on stage and can't help for ourselves to show through while using that same mental muscle. I've been reading this book by Michael Shertleff (I just spelled that wrong, I know) called "audition". And within he talks about how actors spend so much time trying to be something they aren't. And one of the many things I find so cool about improv is you just can't HELP but be yourself to some degree on stage. And the less you allow yourself to show through ("wear your characters like a thin veil." -Del Close), the less likely it is that your performance will be the type of success you want it to be. Although, that of course depends on how you define "success" in improvisation. If it's just getting laughs (and by that I don't mean to imply 'merely getting laughs'), then there are a number of ways to accomplish that. But if you want to do a good Harold, I suppose it takes more than that. And if you want to write what sounds like gratuitous ass kissery, just follow my lead. Don't be ashamed.

I really am being honest.

It says, among other things...

"Best Church of God is one of the most exciting, ambitious endeavors in Chicago comedy today."

"The best thing to happen in town since the late night late show."

"Nuanced dialog and damned earnest conviction, this is the real deal."

More to come!

-Peter

I never like to say that I am completely sold and certain and committed to one way of thinking, or that I am absolutely sure of anything. So instead of saying that I have made up my mind and I'm convinced that there are no rules in improv, I will just say that it will be very hard for somebody to convince me otherwise. Commence elaboration...

It's comedy. And the more I do improv the more I believe that just like comedy is completely subjective, what is funny to one person or group of people is ridiculous and perhaps even scary to another (see below regarding drunken text messaging). And I think the same holds true for many improv truisms and notes. What will make one person a better improviser (whatever 'better' means to you in your mind), will hinder another person. This is because we are working with such a confluence of things where the value and interpretation thereof is so very subjective. We are dealing with humor, which is completely subjective. We are dealing with art, which is completely subjective. But most of all we are dealing individuals, with different individual stories, needs, histories, habits, tendencies, propensities, values, loves, hates, idiosyncrasies, ideas, and DNA codes just to name a very small fraction of the whole. Your own unique voice is what we want to see anyway, and I think that finding that is more sensory motor than it is cognitive. Which is to say, just doing improv a lot will get you there more efficiently, more completely, and faster than writing a blog about it. So what then, is the value of improv classes? To an improviser, I think they are invaluable. Just like most things in life, there are things that you can have said to you over and over again by an improv coach or teacher, but until you have a basic UNDERSTANDING of it, something that is in your gut and you feel more than you think about it, you really don't get it completely. But having it to think about helps. Having the guide helps. And there are admittedly many "common" and easily diagnosed problems to the trained eye in prov prov that a good teacher or coach will break you of. And when you are in your improviser infancy, these are always good things to think about. And since humans are more alike than we sometimes care to admit, there are improv truisms and perhaps even "rules" that ring true with enough people and help their game enough that they are valuable. For me, one of these is "effort is ugly". That is a way of expressing something I always had a basic understanding and value for that I had never really translated from gut to brain. And I think that's what the best teachers can do, they can translate the things that they and others (maybe even you!) have come to understand on a very basic language-less level and translate it into our agreed auditory symbols of vowels and consonants in a way that makes the student believe that they understand the same wordless feeling. Take that artistic understanding and express it verbally, think about it, mull it around, chew it up, critique it, think about it, be skeptical about, understand it. Ok, now DO it. Just simply do what you were just thinking about. Don't think about it, understand it. Go. Frolic. Play. Good prov prov-er.

Speaking of "thinking about it" I want to talk about being in one's head, a favorite subject of mine, and a remedy to that, which is really not a "remedy" at all, which is really a "remedy" to any thing that takes place in your skull that you don't want there. You might have sadness or anger you don't want, or perhaps you are on the sidelines thinking "edit here...no...here's a good idea...no that character isn't grounded enough...that goes against 'x' rule I learned...that's not funny...I'm a big dumb jerk...stuff," and you want that to stop. I have come to believe (understand) that our thoughts and emotions arise for a reason, and actually very good ones at that. The way we hold back on stage, the way we try to think our way through scenes, these mental inclinations are all there to protect us. Anger and sadness exist for good reasons, too. Ones that I don't completely understand. Anyways, I think that the key to "beating" these things in our mind, is by not beating them at all. I have come to believe (understand?) that your mental state is like quicksand, the more you fight against it, the stronger it becomes. Like when you were trying so hard not to laugh...makes it harder not to laugh doesn't it? That emotion is going to come out one way or another, and it's best just to give yourself permission to have it. Don't be so angry about your anger, or so sad about your sadness, or so angry about your sadness, or sad about your anger, or sad, angry, and farty about being in your head on stage. Just let it happen, let yourself feel it and just be as kind to yourself as you can while it's happening. Let yourself be in your head, give yourself permission to be in your head and thank that inclination for protecting you. Putting your own mental states, all of them, because they are you, within the realm to compassionate acceptance really takes the power away from them in a peaceful way. Just say "right now I'm sad, and I'm allowed to be that, and as long as I am I'll just do what I can to make the best of it for this person that is me." Or, "right now I'm in my head, and I'm just going to let that happen because there's a reason for it." It's useless to fight mental states that have billions or years of evolution behind them making us hard wired for stage fright and other such things. There's no use fighting mother nature, doing that just makes it stronger. Let it happen. Obviously it's in your nature to react that way, to feel that way in that moment, so feel it. It's cool, man. You have permission. It's called being a living human, not weakness. Let those brain wires shoot the things they were built to shoot, whether it be sadness, happiness, or thinky thoughts.

On a wholly different note:

I drink. And when I drink, I'm silly. Here's a story from last weekend...

So it's Friday at work, and when it's Friday at work, one of the lawyers from an office we share always says, "Peter...this weekend...you have to get drunk and party and fuck random women...because we can't. Once you're married and have a kid your life is over...just take advantage of what you still have right now." I'm paraphrasing, but not exaggerating. Knowing married people with kids makes me never want to do either. I have yet to hear ONE person say "Man...being married is SO cool." The most positive adjective I've heard is it's "weird...the weirdest thing I've ever done." It just doesn't sound like it makes anybody happier. So when this man told me that last Friday, it scared the bejesus out of me, and I really took it to heart. I decided that on that weekend, there was no room for hesitation. I was going to do whatever I wanted, and I deserved it. I left work and went to a friend of mine's apartment. I won't say what her name is or what happened, but I will say she is a very nice girl, mom. I went with this same very upstanding young lady with some other friends to a Russian restaurant down town. Guess what Russians like? Vodka. Guess what I like? Beer. Guess what I had? Both. Not a ton, but enough for my small girlish figure to get dizzy on. I had a bunch of Russian food with it, which has the strange tendency to make one drunker. I think it's the salt. At any rate, midnight crawled around it was time to go to the Flip Cup tournament at the Playground with Mort. Here is what the playground looked like...



Asshole to elbow and flowing with beer. So I did want any red blooded American with the fear of youth slipping away would do, I drank like a flounder, the drunkest of all fish. When we were lined up against team blewt, I remember pointing at them and yelling "Hey, Blewt! Don't spit the beer!" (Blewt produces a very funny and successful show called "don't spit the water". What I had to say was way funnier if you were there...and also drinking...which is to say it wasn't that funny at all.) Much other stuff was shouted. But my favorite happened when we played flip cut against the girls of Tucker Max. Look at this picture...



The girl in the middle is named Molly. She is a very funny and talented young lady in the Chicago improv circuit. And, as you can see, she purdy. And, as you can also see, she is not Dorrie. I'm not saying Dorrie ain't nice looking lady, in fact...Dorrie certainly is. But what I am saying in a very straight forward way is that Molly is not Dorrie. For further evidence of this, scroll down in this blog to find a picture of Dorrie somewhere on here. She's there, keep looking. Or just take my word for it.

Dorrie is 30 and we give her crap for this in a way we could never do if Dorrie was actually old and actually unattractive. Molly's name, to the rest of Mort, for months has been "Young, Hot, Dorrie." Now, under normal circumstances, this isn't something you would tell the "Younger, Hotter" woman in question. And even under duress, you probably wouldn't point at the woman in question and yell it. And only an idiot would do this for about 10 minutes. Guess what I did? The entire flip cup game I pointed at Molly while looking at Dorrie, yelling "DORRIE! IT'S YOUNG HOT DORRIE! GUYS GUYS GUYS! WE'RE PLAYING AGAINST YOUNG HOT DORRIE! HEY! HEY! GUYS! YOUNG HOT DORRIE!" And so on and so forth, pointing and yelling at poor Molly, talking about her as if she wasn't right across the fucking table from me. Whether or not Molly was amused by this or not escapes me completely.

The rest of the weekend was a lot like that.

Then this past weekend happened. It as tamer, but not tame enough for me not to send the following text messages to somewhere between 30-40 random people in my phone on Saturday night. Honestly, I think these are pretty funny, and so did my friends at the time. But if you got these with absolutely no contextual background, what they fuck would you think? Keep in mind that I sent these to both men and women, with no regard for the last time I actually spoke to them. Here they are, in order...

1.) "Greetings. How does yon vagina fare. Well? Pleased is yonder cock. you are the untamed animal caught in the bear trap of my dick boner. this is the future."

2.) "Ho ho, my lady. i have only begun the voyage de tu cervix. is this not pleasure? is. you have won the grand prize of my man penis. bullseye supreme."

3.) "Sperm is the goal of our wack ass game of 'fuck my penis'. can you ingest the best? my pubes await your hungry gaze. i am the shepard of your woman flower cunt."

4.) "Try as you might, your baby will be conceived in the glowing love of my MAN MILK. Can you dig it? I am promising guido, your son. He will be king of all fuck."

5.) "Does thou remember the stink of mine HOPE STICK?! Aye. You know me well. our love abortion shall commence thusly."

I'm so happy these days.

So after over six months of work, Best Church of God opened this morning. And it was awesome. A great big hit. Packed house and things were landing hard. It was super awesome to be a part of and I'm juiced as fuck for the future of this show.

Want to hear some insider info? The critic from the reader that was there told the director right after the show that we're going to be critic's choice, and he's going to submit us to do a feature on us. So keep an eye on the reader, folks.

Give me a high five when you see me. I earned it.

I haven't posted for awhile. I have been busy, as usual.

I just realized that I start a lot of posts out with "I haven't posted in awhile", as if that excuses my indiscretion.

Some people have told me I'm a good writer, and that makes me self conscious about my writing and makes me think too much about it. Thanks a lot, you people who say nice things, you have ruined me. Not really.

I'm going to talk about performance stuff in a bit, but I want to talk about something that I finally decided to face head on in the past couple weeks. That is, depression.

There's these stigmas about depression that are just silly. People think you get sad and then name a sickness after it. People think that only weak people get depressed. People who think like this have obviously never been depressed, and really make it worse for those who are going through it.

I have had depression on and off, mostly on, for years. And it isn't just feeling down in the dumps, it's feeling extremely fucking sad to the point where you have no energy to do anything. It's being at work all day wanting to cry for no reason, and then going home to cry for no reason. It's a box cutter in your arm because you want to feel pain somewhere else besides in your heart. It's paranoia to the point that every time you hear someone laughing in public you get suspicious that they're laughing at you. It's finding evidence in every interaction for the smallest reasons that people who are really your friends don't like you, and in fact even hate you. Everything is filtered through lenses that distort everything you see into dread. It's thinking that you will always feel this way. Hopelessness, sadness, rage, despair, and all your other favorite emo themes wrap themselves in a neat little ball in your heart and tell you that it's all your fault. Am I hammering home this very heavy handed point strong enough? It hurts really fucking bad. The thoughts are really fucking dark. All this because your brain is wired a certain way, and maybe your parents smacked you around a bit as a kid.

The way this pain manifests itself ruins relationships and hurts people other than me. It's amazing how much hating yourself can make other people think you hate them. There have been many times in my life when I have been a real god damn prick because of all this brain sad. I'm not using it as an excuse, and I take full responsibility for all the fucked up things I've said and done in my life, but I would not have done them if I had dedicated myself to being whole earlier.

Okay, there's good news. After literally years of this being a vice in my life, I had another lapse and decided to do whatever it took to solve this for good. I was given a book that used to belong to Del Close called "The Depression Book" (because he really kicked that habit...). And I've read it twice in the last week and a half. And what I've come to realize is that I'm allowed to be angry, and I'm allowed to be sad. And feeling those things doesn't entail weakness in any way. I have spent so much energy believing that there was something wrong with me, because I was supposed to be stronger than to feel that. I expended so much energy pushing those feelings down until I exploded, and searching for the answer to what was wrong with me.

And after all these years, at the very end of it, it turns out that the very thing that I was seeking was what was causing me to seek.

There was never anything wrong with me. I'm a reasonable human being, and I have reasons, good ones, for being angry or sad. I have good reasons for holding back in ways to protect myself, because I learned lessons that I need to unlearn so I can feel expressed. Those things that hold me back should be thanked, they are there for my protection, after all. Fighting them only makes it worse. I finally gave myself permission to feel whatever it is that I'm feeling, and react however my body wants to react. Because I allow myself, give myself permission, to feel depressed, I don't feel depressed.

For the first time in my life, I've taken some serious "me time" and started treating myself like a person who I actually like. I never realized how hard I was on myself. How much pressure I was putting on myself constantly to be the best at everything. There was so much pressure to be so many things that no person could ever live up to. I was so concerned with satisfying other people and never learned how to satisfy myself, and find that space in myself where there is peace and strength. Where I can provide my own food, so to speak. I never took the time to find that before, and it was there the whole time.

This whole time I thought that my worst vices where also the fuel for my best talents. That simply isn't true. Last night I had one of the best shows I've had, with Mort at the playground. Everybody in Mort was kickin' last night. It was awesome. In fact, all three shows last night were really good. Which, in improv, almost never happens. I was good because I'm happy. Because I finally saw the pressure I put on myself for what it really is.

And you know what really kicks ass about this? I did it without finding Jesus. Thank Christ. Speaking of which, Best Church of God opens with weekend. We've been writing and ironing out that stuff since November, and we're finally going to put it in front of an audience and press on Sunday. For the invite only preview last Sunday, for which we expected only maybe 15 people, 55 showed up and the feedback we've been getting is great. We're looking to pack the house for opening. So please come. Get offended.

If I can work a plug into a short essay about me not being suicidal anymore, I can probably work a plug into most places.

But that's it, but it's not the end. But, and I'm saying this at the risk of sounding like a car commercial, it is a brand new beginning. I'll still be in therapy like I have been for most of the past year, and I'll still take the pills, there's still lots of me to improve. There's still lots of things I want to experience and be.

But for what might be the first time in my life, I have an enduring happiness that comes from me, and nobody else. I found it. I have a peace that comes from me, and I actually love myself for who I am.

And that, friends, is totally gay in a really great way.

Good lord.

So, as you might imagine, things have been pretty hectic since that last entry. Here is a brief run down of everything that has happened of note.

- Moved into a new apartment. It's nice one bedroom in roger's park. A place of my very own. There is still stuff all over the place, but once it gets cleaned up and fully loaded with amenities (I just got internet last night) it's gonna be one helluva pad.

- I have had three annoyance classes. I am relying too much on my wit to drive my scenes. My body and emotional intelligence are being ignored.

- I auditioned for battleprov at comedy sportz and didn't get it, mostly due to short comings described immediately above.

- I showed up to work yesterday and puked a bunch, and now I'm home sick.

- Hindenburg had our best show so far. It was a rockin' good harold. Smart, connections, worked well as a group, came back around, and what's more it was funny. Nice nice nice.

- Best Church of God had our first preview. It was fun. The show is really different than what people are used to, so I think there was a lot of stuff that people don't know how to react to. There's no blackouts or clapping, so the timing it weird for people. There was at least one guy who sat in the back, arms crossed, very angry. Nice.

Pictures will be posted, to be sure.

I moved to Chicago in August of 2006 with big dreams. But I almost didn't make it here. I had an apartment all lined up in Old Town. Nice, affordable, great location. I was set. I was really looking forward to it. Just two short weeks before moving here, that same Old Town apartment got taken out right from under me! I was desperate. I scoured craigslist, searching for an affordable home base from which to wage my operations of dream chasing. I came upon what has been my home for, as of March 1st, 1 year and 7 months. It was good. Cheap. Nice room mates. Well...most of the time (we'll get to that). 475 dollars a month. And that's for everything. internet, cable, heat, water, you name it. It is covered in that low rent. But there was a catch. One weekend every month, they throw an event in the apartment, where hippies show up, do drugs, and do performance art, among other hilariously annoying and noisey things. Fine. I will tolerate this. I myself have dabbled in drug use. No big deal, right? Well. Wrong. If you scroll down this page just a bit you will see an actual picture of a drum circle, right outside my door, at 4AM when I had rehearsal at 10AM. This is just the tip of the hippie iceberg, which I won't lengthen this already lengthy story with. So there is one weekend a month where I need to be out of my home. Whatever. Well, then there's Emily. Emily is the wife of the roomie I pay rent to. Emily, to put it lightly, has a short fuse. Despite being the organizer for events like "give peace a dance!" and "818, circus of the spirit!", emily had a very low tolerance for things like jackets left on chairs in the corner in the main room, or other things she deems unsightly. There were several times when Emily would scream, face contorted, raging over a door left unlocked, a dish left unclean, or, in tonight's case, a jacket left on a chair in the corner of the main room. After many interactions with Emily, tonight was the last straw. When I told her I wanted to be in my room, and that I was not willing to deal with her in this state, she forced my door open with her foot and hand, screaming all the while. Tonight, I finally fought back. I hung my jackets, shirts, and underwear all over the main room on hangers from fixtures. And, for good measure, I hung up a picture on my door a friend made of a pirate rowing down a river to "Dick Town", which was a town that was all dicks. It was a picture of a bunch of dicks. Dicks, by the way, are almost ALWAYS hilarious. I can think of very few things that would defuse a tense situation than a picture of a bunch of dicks. A town of dicks! Imagine you are in a rage, and the object of your rage said "Hey, look at these dicks some guy drew." I would stop, shake that person's hand, and that would be that. She would have none of this. She started the inevitable rage, I tried to take it down a notch, twice. I told her I appreciate the things she does, she is very kind, but she cannot treat me like this. She was not having it. She wanted to rage. I was an asshole, and she was screaming it as loud as a hippie screaming at the chair that just turned into a thousand snakes. Obviously there would be no peaceful solution to this that we could dance to. I resorted to my greatest weapon, my sarcastic wit. I finally stood up for myself, but letting every attack bounce of me by feigning it's effect on me in an exaggerated manner, coupled with some witty remark about the situation. And, at the end of the day, Emily is just willing to push harder than me.

Emily responded to my sarcasm by punching me in the face.

"Give peace a dance", indeed.

I need a new home.