Out Of The Stretch

Yesterday was the third day in a row that I was feeling good. That's a rare streak, and it's notable that this stretch hit a Sunday, a Monday and a Tuesday.The Sunday is no surprise. Sundays are often pretty good, or at least they finish well. Lately they've been really good, of course, on account of the sketch stuff I've been getting to do. Actually, that has been spilling over, so I guess this Sunday was really very good. I don't mind that.

Monday often is good if Sunday was great. There's a lot of congratulations and thanks going back and forth between different people. It never was enormous when I was just doing two line jokes for the medley portion of Top Story Weekly. There would be a little, especially if I got several jokes in and I was very enthusiastic about it. Doing sketches is different. You don't have to tell people which ones are yours, and you get the boost of all the actors who are in the sketches. That's nice.

More on Moron Process

Writing a sketch provokes particular feelings. When it's going well, I'm really cruising. There is, hopefully not a lot of labor in it. It just sort of happens, and it seems like it just happens to be my fingers on the keyboard as the sketch assumes shape. I stop and look at it and feel really good about it. I don't know how others will see it, but I see it in a positive light. Sometimes, but not always, it's like the ball leaving your bat and you already know it's going all the way out.

The best sketches write themselves in my head so long as I get out of the way. I live my life and ideas occur to me. Wherever I am, I put them down. Later maybe, I actually write them, but not aggressively. In a very casual sense, I decide that I am now writing but permit my mind to wander. It goes far afield and comes back, looking at the idea from different angles like it's a Jenga tower and sees parts of the sketch form up. It is, again, more like I'm watching it happen than that I'm doing it.

Writer Rider Right Here

The past few weeks have seen me do more writing of significance than I've ever done before in my life. As I write this, I am buoyed by the knowledge that I have been accepted to be a writer on a sketch team at iO West. You might consider us a humble little "Saturday Night Live". I submitted a writing sample and it was liked, so I will get to write more stuff like that and talented people will breath life into it on a stage once a month.

Other sketch writing got me to that point. I had been futilely writing sketches for no outlet the couple of years before this one, and got to where some 80 or so of my sketches were just piled up doing nothing. By chance I saw half of a show called "Top Story! Weekly" at iO a year ago because I was at a festival with an improv team. I shortly after submitted a writing packet, but it was not accepted. I have spent the year since writing two line jokes for them, watching lots of live sketch shows, and getting good enough that they have accepted and run a number of my sketches. That has been an intensely gratifying experience.

Put To Bed

I have in recent days addressed aspects of the leadup to my fifth sketch with iO West's "Top Story Weekly" news-based sketch show. The sketch has happened and I am glad to, without having even been asked, say just how it went. The whole thing began rather inauspiciously when everyone I invited had to pull out due to one conflict or another. That was quite disappointing (for everyone involved I'm sure). I managed to not be very lonely thanks to the friends I've made through the show and other endeavors there at the theater.

After chatting with friends, securing my ticket and dropping off a wig needed for another sketch (worthy of being written up here itself), it was time for the show. I though of sitting with friends from the show in the balcony where I often do, but decided I wanted to sit down on the floor where I'd better be able to feel how the crowd was, and better be able to see my sketch and the rest of the show as well. That is just how the order of things was, as my sketch was first. I'd never gotten to see my stuff without waiting before, so that was gratifying.

Another Sketch

With yet another day passing without any post, it becomes more evident than ever how diminished my ability to follow through on planned goals has become, but why dwell on that? No one is interested in hearing any such thing, and anyway there are more useful ways of filling this post even in such a dire moment. As we speak, after all, I am eagerly anticipating the staging of my fifth sketch at iO West's "Top Story Weekly!" here in Los Angeles.

It came about in interesting fashion. I'd had some idea about a news story that would make a good sketch. I passive aggressively pitched it to a friend I know would be on staff (since I myself am not), and she encouraged me to send it out to the whole of the show's writing apparatus, or even better to inquire whether my services as a writer might be helpful given that the show had slightly fewer writers on hand this particular week than is usually the case.

To Get It Right

I was reminded again yesterday of how difficult it is to do what "The Onion" does. It is, of course, a satirical news site- something that didn't really exist before it did, so far as I know- and it's fantastic. Whether it's as good now as it has been in the past is debatable, but they are still very good at doing the critical things that all imitators I've seen so far fail at. Someone eventually will manage it, but for one reason or another, they all fail catastrophically somehow.

A big thing is that you have to have some kind of real world grounding. You can get crazy, but it has to fit into some kind of realistic framework, if that makes any sense. The Onion had an article where Obama is an Anti-Christ figure bringing about a dark age of hell on Earth, but it worked because it was playing on an incredibly heightened version of how some people see him. Obama was not acting or sound like he would, but since the joke was not on him, it worked.

Standards

I find myself very impatient with people. As flawed as I am, I can't take it for one second when people display the few frailties I don't have, and also the ones that I do have. Writing is one area that I like to consider a strength, and so when I see it done poorly, that really gets me. I don't happen to be perfect at writing. Lots of people are better at it, and even those who aren't have often made more of their gifts in that area than I, but I still am harsh in my judgment.

When I read scripts, it often bugs me to find that the grammar, spelling and formatting are all in terrible shape. Sometimes this is from people who aren't writing any better than I would expect them to speak, but sometimes it's people who I'd never guess write so poorly. I could find myself reading something that has some real promise to it (from a person who could express the idea verbally and leave me sensing no trouble) but get waylaid by the unfortunate manner in which it's expressed on the page.

Year's Journey

Today is the start of the LA Improv Fest. It's been going on for something like 12 years, and it amounts to a festival celebrating iO West specifically. That's a comedy theater in Hollywood. I've been around for a little of it a few years, but last year was the first time I experienced it very fully. That's because my one of my improv teams was accepted to perform. It was a wonderful experience in which I saw more live improv and sketch in a week than I'd seen before in my life.

I was anxious to return to the festival the following year, but the team that had taken me there hit the skids in the intervening period, and by the time submissions were being accepted, it had folded. I despaired that I would manage the festival this year, and wondered even whether I would be able to afford supporting friends in various contests that the festival holds. It was much more unpleasant to think of being left out after having been in.

Riding High Writing

A few days ago, I was invited to fill in on the writing staff of "Top Story! Weekly:", the show for which I have written jokes and some sketches over the course of the last year. Each time I've gotten to do something more for them, it's been a thrill, and for all of that time what I've wanted is to be a proper member of the writing staff. That hasn't happened yet, but getting to effectively be one for even a week is a good step. I'm only partway through the experience, but so far it's been great.

Last night, there was the pitch session (which began in inauspicious if amusing fashion when the neighbors mistook me for a criminal as I approached the house hosting it and made an alarmed phone call to the host). There were only a few of us there, but fuelled by white grape juice (which, the oenephile host informed us, is made with green grapes), we proceeded and came up with no shortage of fine ideas. It really was a blast, I'll say.

Job... Done

I was very happy yesterday to see a sketch I'd co-written staged at iO West. In the middle of last week. I'd read an item about a Yankees pitcher being caught again using pine tar on the mound. This is technically not allowed, although it's commonly done. The key is that you be discrete about it. That was the only thing that anyone had against the pitcher in question. He did not do anything to hide his crime. The pine tar was slathered on his neck, and quite visible. Worse, he was again doing it against the Red Sox.

I showed this story to a friend who's also into baseball. She happens to write for the show I submit to, and expressed a desire to write a sketch based on the incident, and invited me to collaborate with her on it. I was eager to do so, but found a day later that she hadn't managed to get a handle on it. She suggested that I could try if I wanted, and I did so. An hour or so later, I'd banged out what I considered to be a passable script. She agreed, and took her pass at it. It was largely an improvement on my sketch.

In Vino A Better Writer

I don't drink all that much. I drink a fair amount on occasion, but in daily life, it's one drink here and one drink there. Certainly I make sure to curtail it when I need to be sharp, although needing to create and needing to be sharp do not necessarily coincide. Performing is a time when I can't drink. I know many who can, but I find that any gains that I make in loosened inhibitions are outweighed by simple biological problems like a dry mouth or a need for the restroom.

Writing is another story, and if I've said anything about this in the past, let's hope that something has changed or that I have some kind of fresh perspective. Interesting things happen when I drink and write. It's actually easier to focus. The alcohol slows me down, but I think it may be something like putting a wild horse in a harness. It maybe can't go as fast as it would otherwise, but its speed now can be directed to a purpose. Putting one hundred percent of reduced thinking power towards a goal is a net gain.

A Second Triumph

I am by now in Jamaica, and probably very tired from the traveling to this point. Here is something I had on my mind before the trip. On Sunday, I had my second sketch in iO West's Top Story Weekly. I have written of it a few time in the past to report my progress in writing and submitting two line jokes based on the news. I have gotten fairly good at it, and most weeks get at least one into the show. That soon was not enough.

When the show announced an open submission week (in which someone like me not on the writing staff could submit sketches), I jumped at the chance and succeeded at getting a sketch about the State of the Union in. That was a success, and I was eager for another chance. That came last week with another open submission week. The last time had been due to the Super Bowl, and this time was on account of the Oscars.

All Access

Something that has always been a special and cherished experience to me in live has been when I was granted access to someplace exclusive. That's a natural thing, I think. Maybe people are perhaps eager to get into someplace like a nightclub where they are rather discriminating. For me, it need not be such a spectacular example of an exclusive place. I like just being able to be in the back room of a store, which employees of the store will probably tell you is not special.

The other day, I had a reasonable excuse to enter one of these protected realms. I had that sketch in the show on Sunday night, and I had props and costume items that people needed. My friend and I went into the bar area of iO West, which is how you get to the main theater where the show was to be. The guy checking IDs tells me that props have to go around back. I was not at all sure how to handle that, but I did know the way to the main stage and green room from the back.

Aftermath

Yesterday, in the course of describing the Super Bowl party I was to attend, I also mentioned the comedy sketch I'd written that was to be staged that evening at iO West in Hollywood. I was optimistic about its prospects for success, and somewhat fixated on the practical consideration of acquiring some props for it. I was giddy about being at least temporarily in the number of those hardy professionals who write and act in the show weekly.

The show is now over, and my sketch has come and gone. Tomorrow, the video of it will be made available, but for now it lives only in my memory, as do my impressions. The idea of the sketch was about the one member of the president's cabinet who each year must skip the State of the Union speech as a precaution in case tragedy were to strike and wipe out the federal government wholesale. I imagined that person might feel left out, and I related the whole thing to being an unpopular high schooler.

Gift Of Patience

I recently received a typewriter for my birthday. I had expressed an interest in having one recently, eager as I was to adopt the tools of writing idols in hopes that I might be influenced in content. The typewriter is a "Generation 3000" manual typewriter, and seemingly a fine model for someone who's never really used one before, not that I know much about it all. I knew what a Smith Corona was, and beyond that I didn't really know anything.

A day or so after I got the thing home, I was anxious to try it out. I took it out of its bag, moved my laptop to set it on the desk, and got out some blank sheets of paper. I keenly felt my ignorance as I struggled to so much as load the paper into the machine. I managed after a fashion to get it in there and type a little, at which point I ascertained that the ribbon was perhaps a little past its prime. I resolved to buy a fresh one where and when I could.

Just For Me

Sunday night's Top Story! Weekly (the news-based sketch show hosted by iO West in Hollywood) was a bit of an odd one for me. It was something like the tenth show out of 11 which featured one or more of my submitted jokes, but for a time I thought they had not taken any of mine. By the time I had come to terms with that, I found I was wrong. That was a pleasant enough way to wake up on Sunday morning.

The show was also novel for being only the second time I had a friend along expressly at my invitation. I think I will try to avoid that, because I feel added stress over the idea that my jokes and the show must live up not only to my hopes, but to the expectations of someone else. That's just too much for me to take. My part of the show is maybe thirty seconds long, which isn't much for someone who's there to see your thing.

Expiration Date

I'm just not ever going to be like other people, and they're not ever going to be like me. They and I are just going to live out our respective lives annoyed by each other. A fair example of why came today while I was trying to write a joke. When I'm in a foul mood, I keep writing jokes that are just angry or sad expressions of opinion. I'll read what I wrote and realize that it's just me being pissed off, but it's written in a joke format. I have to throw out a lot of those.

I was trying to write a joke about people who still make jokes about the missing kids on milk cartons. It's an interesting story. Before the '80s, there were no real coordinated programs to find missing kids. A couple of really notable cases galvanized the movement to change that, and the National Child Safety Council was behind the effort to publicize individual cases of missing children and the general issue of them by putting their pictures on milk cartons.

So-So

It has become a Sunday evening ritual to troop off to the iO West theater in Hollywood to see what joke of mine has made it into the show (and, indeed, the joke made it in and stayed in). It's a time of nearly as much anxiety as the preceding day when I await word that I have gotten a joke into the show in the first place. I have gotten more relaxed all around about these things, but there's still some tension there.

Yesterday's showtime found me in something of a funk. I regained good humor for at least the duration of the show, seeing a few friends and meeting one of my fellow contributors of these two line jokes that I have been doing. The drink I had may also have been a contributing factor to my fleeting good feelings. Before I'd gotten very awkward in my social interaction (on account of my introverted nature, not the drinking), the show began.

Minor Achievement

I was very pleased with myself on Saturday for succeeding in my effort to write thirty comedy sketches in thirty days. You see, there's this thing called "National Sketch Writing Month", and while I despise fake holidays and the like, I try very hard not to see this as one one those solely because of the appellation. It's just an exercise wherein you try to do what I said: write thirty sketches in the month of September.

It's challenging for a few reasons. It's not easy, of course, to think up thirty ideas that you will be able to bring to fruition. In truth, I was forced more than once to proceed with an idea I didn't entirely love due to the pressure I felt from where I stood in relation to the quota. This is actually a good thing, because you get to see what happens when you override your instincts. Sometimes you're very pleasantly surprised, and it's a way to grow as a writer.

Half-Baked Hand-Wringing

I find myself once again brooding over the nature of the jokes people make online. They say in comedy that you should always punch up, which is another way of saying that you should only make jokes at the expense of people who can take it because they're bigger than you. You're not supposed to make jokes at people who are smaller than you. That's mean, and I hate mean jokes. I've made more than I'm proud of, but I know they're wrong.

I guess people can disagree about what makes someone adequately bigger than you. It's mainly all right to make fun of the president, because the buck stops there, as Truman said. It's not all right to make fun of poor little orphans forced out of their home by a fire. Is there an unclear middle ground? I suppose there is, and if those are judgement calls, then it makes me question the judgment of most people who write jokes online, professionally or otherwise.