AC4: Thursday

Finshed my online course workshop for DPI at 4 PM, and was about to drop. Couldn’t sleep the night before, kicking around ideas and possibilities for AC4. Kicking around worries. Wondering what I had forgotten.

The Green Bay team had mentioned that they would be in around early afternoon, so I was going to hang around Raleigh and try to reach them for dinner. Andre Meadows from Austin called around 4:45, so I went down to ComedyWorx meet him. Wade Minter joined us for dinner.

The open practice Thursday night was lightly attended by folks from other cities. Only Andre and Mike Baumann from ComedySportz Buffalo was in the house, as he generally drives to the AC4 while the rest of his team flies.

I took the opportunity to work with the whole troupe on some more scripted stuff, like the Spy Movie and Buddy Cop longforms. These seemed like they would be a really good way to get people interested in more sustainable formats and out of the 3-and-a-half minute box. We had a fantastic time with the Spy Movie the first time around, with Mike doing some really hilarious character work. But the second and third go-rounds lost a little steam each time, as though after having worked through the script structure, we had exhausted its possibilities. That was really disappointing, since I know we hadn’t!

We ended the practice with a Buddy Cop, which was a lot of fun. I really wished we could have done another to see if we’d have the same course of comfort that that we had with the Spy Movie… but a few minutes into the Buddy Cop, Meat Lodge arrived!

Meat Lodge is Anthony King, Charlie Todd, Dan Kois, Bill Cochran, and me. The first three are living in NYC and Bill and I are here, but we put Meat Lodge together with the AC4 in mind and then decided we wanted to keep going after that. Before we’d ever played a show together.

We adjourned to my house for our first practice… ever. Charlie had brought at tape of his Level 1 show from UCBT, where they performed an Armando, so that we’d all have a chance to see one together and get on the same page with the form. We’d been discussing electronically, but I was thankful to see the tape. I’d never actually seen an Armando… or, for that matter, a decent monologue in a longform. I was still skeptical about that, because the one longform I had seen with monologues built into the form was beyond horrible, and I had wondered if they were generally that boring when working in that context. (The tape was really enjoyable. I thought Charlie shined, just because he didn’t seem concerned with stage time, with jokes, or with anything other than having the conversation he wanted to have. Mark Hoffman was also quite good.)

So we got up in the living room, and we tried the format, and…. it rocked. We went 30 minutes before we even knew we’d gone 10. It was 11:30 by the time we started, and Bill and I were dead on our feet. It was 2:30 when we finished and no one really wanted to stop, but we felt kind of like we had to. But damn, we were having fuun and making good connections, and the scenework was some of the best that I had been a part of in a while.

It was maddening to know how much fun we were going to have at our shows but to have to wait 19 hours for them.

AC4. Awesome. Draining.

I slept for what felt like a day and a half after dropping Anthony and Charlie at the airport at 5:45. It was kind of disturbing to have to go back to a normal life after a whirlwind weekend, just because I wasn’t quite sure how to go about my day. Post-natal depression, in a sense– after carrying around the AC4 for months, I’m in that awkward stage where I’ll have to start working towards a new goal in the next couple of months. But I do feel that haunting dichotomy of complete fulfillment and nagging emptiness that comes when you finish something that you loved doing.

Took the day off work in anticipation of exhaustion, which was evidently the right move. I remained sluggish until Ben and I hit the frisbee golf course on Kaplan St. Without Jen, which was nice. She did, however, accompany us for some Japanese food, and was mildly creepy the whole time. Ben explained while we were playing that they don’t even kiss any more and they don’t really have a relationship, but that he can’t explain her strange hold on him. But, in the same conversation, he revealed that she’s still pissy about him hanging out with other girls, particularly another Jen. Ben continues to tell me that I should continue to tell him to kick her to the curb. Which I will do.

Saw the hypnotist today.

Constantine has a small office on Columbia St. in a kind of crappy house. He e-mailed me mid-day to remind me of our appointment, which I was not aware that I had ever confirmed, but the e-mail arrived right as I was about to call George Serad and see if he was up for practice on the two-man team. Serendipity.

Constantine spent the first hour explaining what hypnosis is and how it works. He answered some of the common questions, and he was able to relate the process to me in improv terms because we have talked so much about the skills necessary for a stage show. It was amazing just how closely related improv and hypnosis are– I was so surprised that group mind exercises are often sets of triggers for trance states (my conclusion, not Constantine’s).

A few of the fine points about hypnosis:

• You can’t make someone do under hypnotic suggestion something they would not otherwise be willing to do. (”People just surprise themselves sometimes with what they would be willing to do,” says Constantine.)
• People use the term “sleep” because there’s no better word for the process, but you are actually more alert and focused than normal.
• Hypnosis gets easier each time you do it… you learn to go deeper into the hypnotic state.
• Hypnosis is loosely defined as the bypass of the critical function, which relates the conscious mind to the subconscious.
• Constantine worked me through relaxation exercises, and I was a little surprised to find out that there is physical contact in the process– he touched my forehead, my arms, and my neck a few times for different reasons.

At one point, Constantine told me that I would not be able to open my eyes when I counted to three. I was, at this point, relaxed, but I did not feel like I was in a trance, and I had been chatting with him a little. But sure enough, when he hit three, I tried to open my eyes, and the struggle to do so just turned back on itself. I was amazed.

I don’t think I went as deeply as he wanted me to, because he tried to make me forget that there was anything between 5 and 7 when counting to 10, and 6 still came out. Nonetheless, I was in a state of relaxation that I don’t know that I have ever achieved, and time got fuzzy for a while in there. He talked a lot about confidence and told stories about Abraham Lincoln, of all things. (I had gone to him because I felt like my confidence had waned in the past months, and I wanted to look at the causes and start to rebuild it.)

When he coached me out of the trance, he counted to five, and at each number, he gave me a suggestion about the bodily reaction I was going to have. And sure enough, at each number, I had that reaction. It was amazing.

I walked out of the session feeling like a new person.

I have a job interview with PriceWaterhouse Cooper Consulting tomorrow. Big, high-payin’ ho type job. Don’t really want the job, but will check it out, nail the interview, and then try to use it as leverage to get a raise from where I am. Don’t feel bad about this at all. I’m worth every penny they pay me!

Except those days when I am on IRC the whole day.