THE INSIDERS

At this point I want to address a fundamental problem of writing a blog of this nature. I am traveling the world with a cast of extremely funny people. People whose genius derives from a need to entertain, shock, express themselves, and defend themselves through comedy. Although I’ve been told by many an instructor improv is not competitive by nature, that is in fact the work of a group all struggling together to create honest moments on stage that result in humor, I disagree partly with that statement. Yes, it is a group activity that requires you to follow as much as lead, to sublimate certain impulses for the greater good of the scene, yet to say it’s not competitive in my opinion is bullshit.

I believe a competitive drive is at work in a lot of improv scenes, or at least really good ones. First and foremost I think most improv groups try to amaze each other and the audience almost becomes an afterthought. Since, lets face it, the majority of improv shows that we do is usually for our peers within a theatre or the larger comedy community. I speak only from my experiences in LA. Although I would wager a guess that the same could be said of Chicago and maybe New York. This spirit is bred from the beginning of our experiences in this art form. We all start in an ugly little classroom trying desperately to make our classmates and instructors laugh. We watch our classmates in wonder as they have a particular moment of brilliance and want to recreate that brilliance albeit in our own voice or style. We go through levels where we are judged, and told we can either move on or we have to repeat and some in cases the institution bids us adieu. So as much as we like to cling to this lofty ideal that improv is above such a crude driving factor as competition, I say we compete until we have become fully formed in our voice and presence that we no longer need to compete. Then we can wax poetic on the art form that is improv, and feel sort of confident that it may be more than a masturbatory exercise that exorcises our demons, and is a very useful tool in becoming a better writer and actor.

So where am I going with all of this? The six of us are trapped on a boat (please, take no negative connotation in the word trapped. It’s a fucking bitchin prison I’m living on) for some of us this is the first time away from the comfort zone of our usual communities. At the best of times being here can only be described as slightly surreal. So how do we make sense of this and cope? We do bits. All the time we are doing bits. There is so much time on this boat that the ratio between us entertaining each other and us entertaining the audience is about 90/10. We seem to have endless stores of energy for trying to make each other laugh. This is where competition comes into play and not in the sense of there being a winner and a loser, but a subconscious group consensus to bring out the best in each others abilities to create humor. Someone creates something and immediately we all absorb and to try to improve upon it. We have are running a marathon of bits, and its not to find a winner, its to get through this Norwegian spirit race with our sanity in tact. So over the course of two months we have created in a way our own language, with its own very distinct dialect and customs to go with it. So in trying to tell you the stories of what has happened on this voyage I find myself in the difficult position of having to translate from inside joke to English. The problem with the language of the inside joke is that Sanskrit is probably a little easier to make people understand what the hell you’re talking about or its relevance. Although I think if I tried to decipher Sanskrit I would at some point say “ You would’ve had to have been there, to get it.”

Wow. As I read back on these paragraphs its so abundantly clear how full of shit I am. Man, I am an arrogant prick when it comes to this stuff. I could’ve just said we get bored and we act silly. Oh but if I did that I couldn’t open the door for my father to lament my lack of editing in my prose, or for my cast mates to read this and tell me what an arrogant prick I am and how full of shit I sound.

At which point the following would happen:

I would be told nice narrative flow in my blog. Then tapeworm that has been living in my belly since I had a chile relleno in Guatemala would pop out of my mouth and scream ‘Wilkomen, eich ach ein eiber vas, ga ga ga” which in turn would signal the monkeys to go back to work on their polio vaccines. “That guy” would then walk in and shred hard on his guitar and ask for more juice, as Chachee oiled up and Jackie O stayed brave. Heeeey, hey Baby! I wanna know? Will you be my girl? Oooh ahhh! Black tar heroine is good but its expensive and we’re going to need a bigger dish for the Ice cream. Explosive vomiting (bit credit: La Fontaine players, IO West Originators: Ryan Gaul/Nick Armstrong used with their permission) Oh, Chi Chi. Brrrt brrt! TJ be quiet! Guys if you’re going to buy it do it in small quanties off the ship. You know be smart about it.

TRANSLATION

NATALIE: Peter you’re an arrogant prick, you’re full of shit.

PETER: How dare you! I’m sorry no, you’re right.

JAMES/NATALIE: Nothing to be sorry for. Everything is fine.

EMPLOYEE OF SHIP: Hey are you guys going to the crew show?

PETER: When is it?

KATY/NATALIE: After the NCL production company show of Radio Radio. The show that takes you on a tour of popular music from the sixties all the way to 1998.

PETER: Are we going to the beer festival? Do we know if Tito is working?

JAMES: We were going to wait to talk to Shawn he’s in raffles enjoying desert.

PETER: Watch me do my exploding vomit bit that I do with my La Fontaine cast back in LA. I’m funny right? Right? Please tell me I’m funny. I am very insecure.

KATY/JAMES/NATALIE: Peter you are such a lesbian.

TABETHA: Second City sent us an e-mail, hoping we are doing well.

See pictures of men with dog heads bringing wheat to a pyramid is easier to understand