I promise we'll get on the boat very soon.....but here are a slew of pictures
ENTER MA-CHINE or 0111000011001111000
So after a night of drinking at the bar across the street from the Second City we returned to the apartment. I made my way to my room, my brain on fire with plans of sitting on that magical bench, when I noticed the door to the room was closed. I assumed our roommate Shawn had arrived and had gone straight to bed. What seemed weird to me though, was the fact he must have seen my stuff in the small room and yet had chosen to sleep there anyway. I wondered what kind of odd man would choose a small room with a single bed over a larger room with a queen size. Also, who chooses a room with stuff in it over an empty room? Was he doing something to my stuff? I wanted to go in and just grab my stuff, but as I am terrible at meeting new people in the best of situations. The last thing I want to do is meet someone at almost two oclock in the morning by waking him up because I’m worried he might be violating my bags. Best to just deal with it in the morning. Less akward then.
The next morning I had the most akward introduction to another human being in my entire life. I got up early as we were going to do an improv rehersal at the theatre and get to know our cast a little bit better. I quietly made my way to the small room. I figured I could probably get in and out quick and quiet and then formally meet Shawn later after we had both woken up a little more.. I crept into the room. Shawn was crashed out on the bed. He was of avearage height, average build completely unremarkable at first glance. Almost a little too unremarkable if you have read as much sci-fi that involves robots taking over from the humans. At the time though, that thought didn’t even cross my mind. I slowly began to pick up my bags. I should have slowly zipped them up first, because as I was lifting them things immediately started falling out and I woke him up. We stared at each other for the a very long minute, at which point he said “Hey, bub.” The ball was now in my court, and I had to make this introduction count I was going to be on a boat for four months with this guy. I certainly didn’t want his first impression of me to be that of a complete fucking idiot. So I decided I would force myself to be an extrovert, force myself to act like a human being who has interactions with people all the time. I replied “Peter…I’m Peter. Did you know there is a bench at Second City.?” Now imagine what it would be like to actually have to live a billion years and you get a fraction of the sense of the length of time that the akward silence that followed seemed to last. I decided it was time to do some damage control. “Hey what time did you get in last night?” he shrugged. “I don’t know I got to the apartment around eleven, and then went out and got home by four.” I didn’t know what to say he had gotten in AFTER we had. So now instead of him being some weird guy who sleeps in a room where someone has already left his bags, I was now the dick who throws his bags in one room but then sleeps in another with a larger bed. I wasn’t sure what to do or say so I just walked out without saying anything. As soon as I hit the kitchen an immediate wave of anxiety hit me. I had just woken him up after taking his room the night before, then I had babbled like an idiot, and then instead of saying “ well nice to meet you can’t wait to work with you.” I had just walked out and said nothing like some complete weirdo. I had to make this right, so I immediately walked back in the room and wished I had planned a little more what I was going to say. My brain does not work well first thing in the morning and I sometimes have trouble finding words like “nice to meet you, can’t wait to work with you.” So I barged back into the room and said “Hey” followed by a long pause “James and I are from LA, he’s cool.” I felt like Napoleon invading Russia I had gone to far and now things were just a mess. So I decided to retreat. I gave Shawn a nod and walked out again. I then went and took a shower to wipe the stink of ineptitude and social akwardness off my body.
Me and James took the train to Second City that morning. We went directly to the ETC stage. Now the ETC stage is on the other side of the main stage and the shows I saw growing up on that stage still remain some of my favorite. A lot of great edgy material was performed there. So being able to be up on that stage for even an improv rehersal was great. Shawn somehow beat us there and he was sitting talking to another one of our cast mates Natalie. I decided after the train wreck that meeting Shawn had become I would stick to my usual greeting. I shook her hand, barely making eye contact and mumbled a hello. A fun guy with the last name of O’Brien was in charge of the rehersal as we would not be meeting out actual director T.J. Shanoff until the next day. Now the weird thing about the cruise line, besides living on a boat for four months is that the improv shows that we do are all game orientated. Which was how I started many years ago at a theatre called the LA Connection. After doing long form and more scenic stuff for so many years, the thought of stand, sit, lean and new choice seemed daunting. Plus, having never improvised with any of these people before I have to admit I entered the rehersal with some trepidation. What if they were terrible? Or worse what if they were way, way better than me and I ended up being the weak one in the cast. The Bryce if you will. (Don’t worry about getting the Bryce reference, it is truly meant for about seven people who are hopefully laughing right now)
Thankfully while feeling rusty on the games I handled myself just fine and had a good time. We were invited by O’Brian back to the show that night. James and I gave each other a look. We were both thinking one thing….BENCH.
While the rest of the cast stuck around the theatre for a tour I went off into the city and had a great dinner with my older brother, who I hadn’t seen in awhile and hadn’t spent time alone with in years. It was really fun to reconnect and enjoy the city with him. We had Gino’s East pizza and he demanded that he let me buy me birthday presents. Since I would be at sea for my birthday. He took me to an apple store and got me a game called Warcraft. He informed me that any hope of being productive on the boat would be destroyed by this game. I have not opened the game yet but at night I hear it whispering to me “ Come on nerd, you want to kill orcs and be an elfin lord. Just give me a try.” I’m sure by the end of the trip I will have to find a volcano to throw it into, and then share a homosexual moment with a hobbit before being saved from lava by giant eagles.
My brother Steven is working out a lot lately so he suggested we walk back to the theatre. Having forgotten where everything in Chicago is in relation to everything else I agreed. An hour and a half later and drenched in sweat I found myself back at the theatre with no time to go back to the apartment take a shower and change. I was now very worried that I would sit on that bench and be informed that I was too smelly to play. It would be like third grade all over again.
I soon found James and Shawn. For someone who had gotten in so late and informed me he had, had no nap. He seemed fine and energetic. Where was he getting his energy from. Once again if I had been thinking like a nerd I would have figured it out. I found out he was from Detroit and had been on Second City’s mainstage there and as well as an instructor. He had been doing the cruises on and off for the last couple of years.. It was comforting to know that there would be someone on the boat who we could go to, to help guide us a little bit. Of course my assumption at the time was that his opinion of me was that of a fucking moron, and I felt bad because I guessed that his thoughts on what our relationship would be, would be more akin to Sgt. Dan and Forrest Gump.
We then took our seats on the bench and waited for the show to begin.
THE BENCH, THE STAGE, AND THE MOTHERLOAD
Barrack and a hard place was better the second time I saw it. I think the first night I came in with a weird attitude of I do shows in LA, and our shows are as good. Second City Chicago isn’t all that. That attitude though I firmly believe stemmed completely from my own feelings of inadequacy, that I still couldn’t quite believed I had been hired by the company that had such a large hand in shaping my formative years. My favorite sketch in the show is a black out and concerns smokers. It goes like this….
A man and a woman are smoking. Another man passes them and starts making a big show of how much the smoke is bothering him. He starts coughing up a storm, and making retching noises. The smokers pay him no mind, which annoys him. He walks up to them and asks “ Why? Why do you do it? You know its bad for you why do you smoke?” and the woman replies “I’m trying to keep the birth weight of my baby low so it doesn’t hurt as much when it comes out.” And the man replies “My job has a really shitty 401k so I want to die, before I retire.” The man who was coughing walks away and them comes walking back in and says “Give me one of those.”
Finally the regular sketch portion of the show had ended and they had a brief intermission before the improv set was to begin. My stomach immediately started churning. What the fuck was I thinking? What the hell gave me the right to sit on this bench and expect to be asked to play. These talented performers didn’t know me, plus they probably hated people from LA, and plus I was one of the cruse ship people, I assumed they really hated those. Now my feelings had no basis on fact, just on my near panic that there was a chance that one of my childhood dreams would come true and I might not be up to the task.
Then one of the members of the cast came walking up to the bench. I could feel my heart rate quicken and I looked to James to see how he was doing. He was so stiff, so still he looked like he had been carved from marble. Neither of us seemed to know how to proceed forward. What is the etiquette of the bench? Do you ask or do they ask you? And what if they don’t ask? Then you’re just a jerkoff who sat on an uncomfortable bench all night instead of a real seat. Or what if we asked and they were like “Sorry real performers only, or someone who as at least spent 7 months in Groundlings Sunday company.” I was now heavily engaging my mind in worst case scenarios, when suddenly the cast member’s face brightened and he moved with a real sense of purpose and recognition toward the bench. The cast member knew Shawn. He immediately came over and shook his hand. Now if me and James looked like we were ready to puke and the thought of performing/not performing on the mainstage Shawn was the complete opposite. He looked as a cool as a guy on a morphine drip who had just been given a hand job by an asian woman trained from birth to give hand jobs.
Shawn talked with the guy briefely, explaining he had just gotten off of one cruise and was about to go on another. The cast member then asked Shawn if he wanted to play. If me and James were tense before now we were so stiff we could have been shattered by a small breeze. I silently cursed myself for being such an asshole that morning. Shawn absorbed the request as if he had just been asked if he wanted to play Frisbee. He then looked magnamiously over at James and I and said” Yeah, maybe if its no trouble, Oh hey these are my cast mates James and Peter.” We then shook hands and the cast member looked to Shawn. Shawn gave the most imperceptible of nods, the type a Godfather of a mafia family gives a trusted lieutenant and then the cast member said the words I have waited twenty-two years to hear. “Hey do you guys want to play with us?” James handled it like a true pro. To be fair though he is young and handsome, and didn’t grow up with this theatre company. James turned to him and said “ Sure, okay. It might be fun.” All I could do was heavily breathe out the word “Yes.’ And then when everybody’s backs were turned I quietly threw up into my shirt pocket.
The next part gets a little strange for I found myself surrounded by Cheribum and Serraphim. Tumpets rang loud, long, clear, and golden above my head, The Cheribum lifted my heavy frames as though I was the merest ant on a thumbnail and escorted me back into the Second City green room. I felt my first epleptic seizure caused by joy coming on and I fought hard and pushed that thunderstorm in my brain back down into my spine. The greenroom was like any green room I’ve been in. For the uninitiated its just a room. Some props, some costumes a few beat up couches nothing special. For those who have been called to the COMEDY, because they had no other safe port to turn too. To save them from the hurts and trials of homes, school, and one’s own inability to fit into the social norms, the Greenroom is a place of wonder. A room where ghosts walk freely, telling you stories of times past, they hold a nuclear reactors woth of energy and ideas that have yet to find a home and are looking to take root in the right performers brain. The worst of times happen in these rooms, the best of times happen in these rooms, men and women turn into Gods on theses battered couches. These rooms are the stuff of myth and the ambrosia that fills young men and women’s dreams of one day being God’s themselves. Plus, they get their own tv. Pretty fucking sweet.
I was introduced to the cast and I am ashamed to say I don’t remember their true names. All I heard was Zeus, Odin, Aphrodite, Kali, Thor, Ares, and Artemis. As far as Gods go, they were very sweet and accomadating. Then Zeus clapped his hands and said “Well let’s go have some fun.” The next thing I knew I was being ushered to the wings of the stage. I couldn’t see James or Shawn all I was aware of was that I was there, that every time I had said what I was doing was a huge mistake, a waste of time, a stupid dream was absolutely and completely wrong. They then called my name and I quickly had explosive diaherrea into a coke can, and stepped onto the stage of my childhood dreams, hopes, and wants for the first time.
I wish I could describe what happened in the show but I somehow doubt that improv is going to translate well into the written form like this. Suffice to say I did fine. I did not embarres myself or the institutions from which I learned from back home. I did a euglogy for Marceau Marceau, I played a man who loses the woman he loves to the Mayor of Mt. Prospect and I played a little kid who didn’t want his dad to go to war. So things went well, the audience laughed, and I got compliments from both the cast and audience after the show. The funny thing was that James and I were approached by an LA Casting Director after the show, which never seems to happen to me in LA. She just wanted to know when the cruise would be over and we would be back in LA, She gave us her card and left me and James to go across the street to the bar, to relive the night like a couple of twelve year olds. We then went home, and Shawn followed us in about five hours later.
WE GAIN A CANADIAN, WE LEARN BLOW IS BAD, AND I’M ONE STEP CLOSER TO MEETING MY BLOGGER HERO….
The next morning I got up to find out from James how late Shawn had come in. Apparently he had been hanging out with another “friend” that night No sooner had he given me the information, and I calculated Shawn had been asleep for maybe two hours when Shawn emerged from his room energetic and ready to get to rehersal. It was at this time I realized that Shawn was not human but a machine. Since I’ve never met a 38 year old human who needs as little rest as he does. I suppose he runs off of a nuclear fission core somewhere in his chest cavity. So James and I have christened him MA-CHINE blatantly stealing from Being John Malkovitch.
We got to the theatre and met our director T.J. Shanoff. A very nice guy with an overabundance of love for the Beatles. He comes from a musical background and whenever the oppritunity arose he would play Beatles songs on the piano. We learned that the last of our cast Tabetha would be arriving later in the afternoon. She was flying in from Toronto that day and coming straight to the theatre from O’Hare. Thankfully, T.J. wasn’t being a stickler for us being competley off book. Most of the stuff I knew but there is one sketch that we do called Pictionary (Written by Stephen Colbert) that is fifteen pages long. I wondered how this sketch would work since all my comic life I’ve been told to make sure my sketches were never more than five pages. Just goes to show why Colbert is a genius because the sketch a. works great b. never feels long.
We found out that Natalie has a boyfriend named Aaron whom she loves very much. I watched as James quietly cursed the Gods. Since due to our new status as passengers we have been told that now relationships with crew as well as passengers was frowned upon. I did not care one way or the other but I could see that both James and MA-CHINE were very worried about this. In fact James had been talking about it incessantly since we left LA. How he was 23 in his prime, and was not looking forward to forced celibacy for four months. I tried to think back to when I was 23 and the idea of not having sex. Then I remembered the fact that I was and am a tremendous nerd and even at 23 wouldn’t have cared one way or the other, just as long as there was a comic book store in Belize.
Tabetha our import from Canada soon turned up. She seemed very nice and like Shawn had done a whole bunch of these cruises before and was very familiar with a lot of the material. We went over some more sketches and then went to lunch.
Lunch while pleasant and very good turned into a contest of bits and one liners, which always seems to happen when a cast is in its very early stages of getting to know each other. It was during lunch that I mentioned that almost everything I knew about these cruises was from a blog called daveonacruise.com. Turns out Tabetha had been on the same cruise with Dave of daveonacruise.com. I was flabbergasted since I had read almost his entire blog in one night, and had really found it funny, informative and entertaining. Tabetha was surprised I had found it any of those things. She was amazed I had read the whole thing. It turned out she has known Dave for a very long time, and asked me if I would write a stalkerish e-mail to Dave, where I pretended to know him very well and would just get creepier and creepier as the e-mail continued. I knew immediately that I was going to really enjoy Tabetha as a cast member.
We returned to the theatre to find we had to meet with a Second City representative who was going to go over what our contract entailed and what was expected from us. I’ve never been in a meeting quite like this. We were informed that after some negotiations between the Second City and Norwegian Cruise Line, we were not to be drug tested. I assumed a speech to follow telling us we shouldn’t do drugs period, instead we were informed if we were going to do them just to be smart. Not to do it in our rooms, don’t bring pound of weed aboard the ship. In fact if we could try to stick to just weed, because blow is bad for your health. James then broached the subject of who Second city could fuck on the boat. The Second City rep explained that they were aware of how this could be a problem and were working very hard to come to an agreement with Norwegian on which people single Second City members could bone. This talk really hit home what an amazing job I have.
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