04-01-2003 11:28 AM
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The Circumstance Was a Different Kind of World

04-01-2003 05:26 PM
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The Agony and the Irony

No one tell Heidi.

Bryan King : hey dude
Anthony King : are you in town?
Bryan King : yeah
Bryan King : i am now Anthony King : have you talked to ross?
Bryan King : about?
Bryan King : he came in at 1am last night
Bryan King : i was sleeping
Anthony King : yeah, i know - he called me
Anthony King : you haven’t talked to him today?
Bryan King : breifly
Bryan King : whats going on?
Anthony King : we talked for like 2 hours last night - he told me he has been thinking about crap for a long time and he thinks he might be gay
Anthony King : don’t tell him i told you
Anthony King : i don’t know if he’s going to tell you
Bryan King : hmm
Anthony King : so he hasn’t said anything to you?
Bryan King : nope
Bryan King : are you serious?
Bryan King : hes with heidi all the time
Anthony King : yeah dude, we hung up about 3:30 last night
Bryan King : hes not gay
Anthony King : was she with him?
Bryan King : no
Bryan King : but…
Bryan King : he was out drinking with people he was coaching
Anthony King : i think he’s going to talk to heidi about it today
Bryan King : where?
Bryan King : make sure im not around heh
Bryan King : acutally im going to leo’s tonight so thats good
Anthony King : i don’t know. he was really weird on the phone
Anthony King : i think he was still really confused about it
Anthony King : and worried about hurting heidi
Anthony King : i’ve kind of always suspected it
Anthony King : so i’m not shocked - but very surprised
Bryan King : leo always makes fun of him by saying it
Anthony King : well, he should probably lay off now Bryan King : well i cant tell leo that
Anthony King : no, let ross tell him
Bryan King : yup
Bryan King : its weird…i thought he really liked heidi
Bryan King : what made him bring this up anyway?
Bryan King : what happened?
Anthony King : i’m not sure. he was a little drunk he said. and he was out without her and decided it was time to admit it or something
Anthony King : i need to call him today and see how he’s doing.
Bryan King : heres my conversation with him today
Bryan King : Bryan says:
wazza
Ross says:
Yo!
Bryan says:
you got in late last night
Ross says:
yeah… went drinking after class
Bryan says:
ahh
Ross says:
yah
Bryan says:
alcoholic drinking on a monday
Bryan says:
shame on you
Ross says:
hehehe
Bryan says:
i saw death to smoochy last night
Bryan says:
that shit was funny
Ross says:
Oh, I need to see that!
Bryan says:
it was on skinamax
Ross says:
mmmm. skinamax
Anthony King : he obviously doesn’t want to talk about it
Anthony King : maybe he’ll be more ready to talk about it when it’s not April 1 anymore
Bryan King : ahh
Anthony King : know what I mean?
Bryan King : yup
Bryan King : people thinking its a joke
Anthony King : people like you
Bryan King : well yeah
Bryan King : heh
Anthony King : but yeah, he’s gay gay gay
Bryan King : so youre the one joking with me
Anthony King : April Fools
Bryan King : i hate you

04-04-2003 02:23 PM
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City Hall All Are Freaks

I’m sitting on Andy Sloey’s couch in St. Louis. I was supposed to stay at Victor Moore’s apartment– I’ve even got the keys, but just ended up walking back here last night since that was easier than bumming a ride to Victor’s, which was out of the way for everyone.

I watched the City Improv shortform and longform shows. It’s cool to come back here and see the guys who were just starting out three years ago running the place these days… they’ve gotten so much better and have stayed really positive through a bunch of shit surrounding the club’s break from ComedySportz and weird ownership changes.

St. Louis is cool. I’m being a tourist– went to the Cards game Wednesday and will go again, and have ended up with an Albert Pujols shirt. Their light rail– MetroLink– rocks. I want to research it. I’m a train geek. Seriously. But just light rail / subways.

As I do the tourist thing, I’ve been thinking a lot about Heidi, who I think gets angry that I would do anything touristy after I told her that I don’t like doing traditionally touristy things, and would also get angry about the fact that I’m in a city outside NC and I have spent the day working from Andy Sloey’s couch. (Have not even gone in search of food yet.)

It’s silly to me that the one thing that’s really caused an issue in our relationship is travel– I think that otherwise, we’re really pretty damn compatible. I know that the issue for me is one of insecurity, and I need to fucking get over it. Simply put, I’m scared that Heidi won’t ever be content to stay in one place, and I’m very big into staying in one place. (This is not to say that I won’t ever move. I probably will. But when I do, I want to feel like wherever I’m going is not a way-station, it’s the destination.) I’m scared that Heidi will eventually find my worldview too small, too limited, and so I make problems for us now because I’m too busy worrying about the future.

I’m frustrated with myself for being insecure. I’m frustrated with Heidi because she won’t do anything (maybe can’t do anything) to assuage that insecurity. Because I feel sometimes like she holds moving out of the country over my head as a threat. And I get so irrationally, so retardedly scared (especially considering that we’ve only been together about nine months, and that’s hardly the time to start worrying about anything other than having fun). I wonder why I can’t just enjoy things for what they are, relax and have fun, and realize that our time apart is usually just as fulfilling as our time together (it is) and that’s what makes the time together worthwhile– that we are different people with different interests whose intersection is a good and comfortable one. And I start wondering where it’s going, and I have impulses to just do something stupid that would end the relationship dead in its tracks, and I know that’s just insecurity talking, but it’s a whisper that I can’t seem to ignore.

That’s pretty lame, but I think sometimes that she spends an inordinate amount of her energy thinking some of the same things, and she gets equally insecure. And neither of us will really admit it, but that’s what is going on.

So there. I said it. In print, which was pretty cowardly, because I tell you that I’m not going to say anything in this journal that I won’t say to your face.

04-06-2003 10:37 PM
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Like Wildlife or Someone Else’s Pet

04-08-2003 05:00 PM
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You’re Having the Time of My Life

I’m tired. I am glad that Syracuse won so that Roy Williams can come to Carolina. I heard he got terse. Go Roy.

I got CDs yesterday from Will Hines and El Jefe… I need to get cracking on some CD-making. Won’t happen until the weekend. Things have been running on all 8 cylinders the last few days. It’s been awesome, I wouldn’t have it any other way. They just need a few more hours each day for people to sleep.

Here’s former Devil Ray Jason Conti striking out. Or, about to. Yay Brewers. Hah.

04-09-2003 05:55 PM
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Live ‘Til You Die

I just finished reading Alan Corey’s journal in its entirety. That is freaking awesome.

We have a second production meeting for LOBBY HERO tonight. I’m looking forward to it. I think sound design is one of those things that is so minor that it will be easy to be amazed at how the rest of the play progresses.

Met with Zach twice this week to discuss future DSI stuff, which has me very excited. Zach’s accelerated his timetable for returning to Chapel Hill, which would definitely make the improv going easier, because he has a killer head on his shoulders. I won’t be surprised if several people follow him back here, simply because he’s magnetic and people believe in him. Wouldn’t it be cool if NC ended up a destination for improvisers who love the work but don’t care so much for living in one of the three largest cities in the US?

04-10-2003 05:14 PM
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She’s Just Dusted, Leave Her

I’m amused by the notion that Radiohead’s Kid A is about raping and killing babies. Jesus H., people can read anything into a text.

Of course, all the stuff in the Bible predicting that W. would need to end the threat of Saddam… that’s all there, no doubt in my mind.

04-14-2003 02:00 PM
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Swimming in Bali

Friday afternoon, Zach and I went to look at a space where we could have some shows in Chapel Hill. It’s not perfect, it’s not awesome, it’s not even a theater, but it would be a great place for us to do the occasional midnight show and have a place for our classes to perform.

I to Heidi’s Friday night and was asleep by 10 PM. I slept 14 hours Friday, 10 Saturday, and 16 on Sunday. I don’t know if it was a cold, or the flu, or just allergies, but I felt awful. I had that thick head that just won’t let you focus for very long on anything. I did manage to mow my lawn Saturday, I accomplished exactly nothing on Sunday. Just after I woke up today, I coughed up a hunk of phlegm about the size of a golf ball and I’ve actually felt pretty good since then. But I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about that fucking golf ball.

Thank God for the game show network– no matter how bad you feel, you can always get by with some game shows. Heidi and I just sat on the couch watching Newlywed Game, Love Connection, Lingo, WinTuition, Whammy! (the new Press your Luck), and some other crap. It’s amazing how little show you get when you watch game shows. Not much ever really happens. WinTuition was the worst, by far. Heidi should be sainted for sitting through it all.

I’m amazed by how many commercials for non-fattening snack foods use the cliche of the person being so light that they are lifted off of the ground by a single helium balloon or a swift gust.

I am feeling superabundantly powerful.

04-15-2003 12:03 AM
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Rah Rah Carolina-lina

04-18-2003 07:41 PM
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Collectin’s Gettin’ to be a Drag

I have had the feeling all day that I was walking through the world while everyone else was frozen in time. I had every intention of going into work, but after not sleeping very much at all this week, I was out for 15 hours last night. Sleep seems to be coming in one of two flavors lately: too much or not enough. Never just 8 hours.

Scott and I premiere Two Horsemen tonight, which I am way stoked about. That great feeling is offset somewhat by apprehension about doing the show at ComedyWorx, a place that I increasing feel uncomfortable in, simply because in my heart, I feel like I have put it completely behind me.

Heidi is in South Carolina. Her grandfather, who has been fighting cancer, now has probably only a few weeks to live. Earlier in the week, I told her that if she needed to go down there, we could do that, and she said she didn’t think she would need to and that she would see him in May. Her mom told her last night that he might not make it that long. This is hard. There’s just nothing I can do to make anything feel better.

Her mom plans to teach her grandmother to write checks this weekend, so that she’ll be able to pay bills. She’s never had to handle money on her own. It’s a different kind of world, huh?

04-20-2003 11:42 PM
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Nothing as it Seems

Two Horsemen was fucking great… for the four people that came to see it. There’s no apparent advertisement of any kind for the festival next week, despite my best pleas. Augh. Oh, well.

This weekend was bad movie weekend. Scott and I subjected ourselves to Black Hawk Down, which would have seemed like a very poor idea had The Recruit not made it seem slightly better. Heidi and I hit Daredevil tonight, which was the worst of the bunch.

Final report card:
Black Hawk Down: D
The Recruit: D+
Daredevil: F, but only because there is nothing lower.

I did mad yardwork this weekend, mulching around the trees, triming hedges, cutting some of the annoying low branches off of the trees in my yard, filling the big hole that I keep stepping in, seeding the area that just never seems to grow any nice grass.

04-21-2003 05:50 PM
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Some Secret Plans I Need to Carry Out

Toba’s Revenge will have a substitute coach for a while when I’m teaching my next DSI level 1 class. That’s cool– they need some other perspectives, especially since the dating on the team is sorta tearing it apart. But I’ll miss them– I feel very close to that team’s well-being, and I don’t like to let them down at all.

Their new coach took a dig at paid coaching by sending them an e-mail that says:

“Also, just so it’s clear, I love improv, and it’s something I might be better at than most other stuff I do, but it’s not my job, so I would NOT want you guys to pay me anything for this. I understand you had a financial relationship with other coach(es), but I’d be helping you guys because your my friends and teammates, and I’d rather be invested in you guys than paid to look after you. Just a personal philosophy thing.”

So, memo to myself: Just because I value my time and the expensive training that I’ve gotten over the years doesn’t make me any less invested in my friends and teammates. I’m not in the wrong for charging for my time, because I am worth it. I’m a good coach and teacher.

I have to remind myself every so often.

It is cool that people want to coach improv for free, and that’s probably the trend in the area. No big deal. I don’t know why I feel bad charging sometimes. I just do.

04-22-2003 05:22 PM
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I Don’t Want the World, I Just Want Your Half

Here’s what I want. It’s a simple list.

1. A positive community.

2. A sense that the community is accomplishing something new.

3. Excitement about the art.

4. Willingness to go ass-out and try it, yes-anding the ideas along the way.

5. Shitloads of fun.

Heidi got a job! I don’t know how I failed to mention this in the journal before now. But she did! She’s going to be working with the International Student Affairs dept at UNC… just across the parking lot from LEARN NC. We’re going to turn into one of those disgusting couples that rides to work together. Ha-HA!

I also neglected to mention that I refinanced the house. That’s keen– it’ll be 8 years before the Credit Union can even raise my rates back up to the level they were at three days ago. Go, 2-year ARM!

Sent an e-mail today to the folks in the first DSI level 1 class letting them know how to register for level 2, and already two of them have jumped right back in for another go-round. I’m not gonna get too excited about two people, but the fact that they committed within hours says good things. Exciting. I’m all pumped for improv right now. All pumped.

Billy Merritt, god bless you, dude.

04-30-2003 11:23 PM
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Dollars and Cents, Pounds and Pence

I keep wanting to write in my journal, but never seem to have the time. Right now, I am in the sound booth at Deep Dish Theater in University Mall. (By the time you read this, I won’t be any more. But I guess that’s pretty obvious.) So I’m sneaking a few minutes for me while I wait for the next sound cue… it’ll be a while. Not much need for sound in this show— Kenneth Lonergan’s LOBBY HERO. Cool show.

So, a lot happening. The AC4 was last weekend. 7 shows in two days, the first shows at ComedyWorx where we’ve mixed longform with shortform. A bunch of great people rolling into town to hang out, drink beer, and do a little improvising. The skinny: Dual Exhaust is awesome and playing with them as “Team Chicago” made shortform fun again. Andre Meadows is the bomb, as Arnie Sykes or as the star of his form, Improvision. (Doing the Christopher Walken Children’s Network made me tingle!) Mesha and Ginger make me giggle, especially since they teamed up with Andre to play in anything they could. Toba’s Revenge got shanghai-ed but still did an awesome show and they heightened the hell out of their games. I loved it.

Zach and I spoke Friday with the woman who runs the Inside Scoop, and we are going to be doing shows there every Saturday night in May. Then we visited with Paul, who is the president of Deep Dish, and he’s down with us doing our next round of classes in the theater. So, two big victories for DSI in Chapel Hill. The Level 1 class that just finished plans to stay together— they are getting a practice group together for next Monday and have hired a coach already. Rocking. The next level 1 already has a handful of folks and I expect that we’ll see more in the next couple days.

Danielle got me on Friendster and I have spent way too much time on there, always in 1.5 minute chunks. Ridiculous.

Presented the Star Heels awards to eight deserving School of Educationites this morning. I was too lazy to think ahead about it, so I improvised some lame jokes while introducing the speakers, and people were generally amused— way more than anyone should have been. I hate when I do lame things because they’re easier and more pleasing to others than actually working on something more meaningful. But I still end up doing them. Sloth has a powerful pull sometimes.