The birth of a classic bit.

Last day of scuba classes today in the busy ocean waters of Los Arcos. The current slapped us around all day, and the water was freezing. Our Dive Master Rick took us over near the arches that give the site its name and we could feel the warm water rush towards us in blurry waves, like those you can see on the horizon on warm days.

At the end of the day, he came up to all of us a couple times, and said goodbye.

“Great diving with you, George.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Greg.”

“John, good dive today.”

“Ryan, it was a pleasure.”

Then he came up to Shawn and shook his hand and said: “Shawn.” And moved on.

He did this twice.

We laughed and repeated different variations of this transaction all the way back to the ship.

Feeling it.

This last cruise was the first one where I think we all suffered from being homesick. Maybe it’s the holiday season, but we all started to talk a bit more about home. Being here until May is starting to look like a long time on this ship.

Finished our first sea dive at Los Arcos, and it was amazing. The first time going underwater was a little nerve-wracking, but the second one, done on your own with your dive buddy, was really easy and we took an amazing dive through reefs, following a manta ray. There were moments that I wanted to yell out in excitement it was so great. My dependence on air prevented me. Then they drove us in the motor boat back to the pier, and it was a great ride back. Chef George suggested he drive us right up to where the tender boats drop us off, but one of our crew said that the Mexican government wouldn’t let us on the ship without going through security. That would have been great, though.

And knowing is half the battle.

Back in Los Angeles. Mary’s been sick for a couple cruises, throwing up all the time so we had to change our Stardust show at the last minute because she was too sick to do it. Since she’s in so many scenes in one way or another, we had to change about 90% of the show, mostly with other scenes sent to us by Second City. We included Gump, a scene I have seen and really liked, but I was not up to the job. At one point, in each performance, I talked the audience out of the scene. I’m still not sure how I did it, though I know I did it in both, and it bummed me out.

Otherwise, the shows went well, and it was kind of fun for the group of us to come up with a new show. Strength in adversity and all that.

We started scuba classes in Puerto Vallarta, which entailed us sitting in uncomfortable chairs in a hot room watching videos for hours. John and I giggled in the back of the small room, like two teenagers with a substitute in class mocking the cheesy video segments intended to be “funny”. Shawn slept. He woke up at the tail end of each video section to clap and congratulate everyone for finishing.

Change is good.

It’s still hard to believe that, 2 months ago, I was living in Amsterdam, performing Boom shows and working on sets for the MySpace show. It’s surreal. Tonight I sat in the crew Jacuzzi in Acapulco Bay, a light rain falling on my shoulders.

The month in Chicago was great, but not enough time to develop any kind of rhythm. My hope was that I would have plenty of time to hang out with Erica and friends and get to do some shows, all of which I did, but not quite at the frequency I was hoping for. I guess, everyone also had their own lives which didn’t fit conveniently into my little plan. Still, I was glad to be back and to see my friends.

The reason I left was twofold. Erica, having been treated poorly by Boom in general, at one time being told that “no one was better at babysitting” than her by Pep, wanted to go home since she felt she was never going to be hired. If she didn’t, we’d have to continue to send her back to the States every 3 months, as she would not be granted the same visa as I was since she was unofficially working for Boom.

That was one reason. The other was my contract. From the very beginning of my tenure at Boom, it was clear that I was not very important to the Producers. Ryan Archibald had told me that I would not be replacing him or Jim, the two departing actors, but Tim’s role in the ensemble, that of the reliable, mature performer, whom they wouldn’t have to think about or even treat well if they didn’t want to. I don’t think I was ever able to swallow that latter half of the situation. Laurel and I were treated like we had arrived to Amsterdam on the special bus, and I resented it. Laurel had a more solid beef than me, as they treated women so much worse than men. Eventually, I would even graduate to being a performer they wouldn’t have to worry about, but only due to my acquiescence to Boom’s style. Laurel stuck to her guns, got frustrated, and left. I stayed, not wanting to break my contract, and forever hopeful that the situation would improve. It didn’t.

In late April, I found out that Lauren and Dan had met with Pep to discuss a second contract, with both of them signing for another. Our contracts were up in August, so these discussions were pretty early, and I thought I might get the same treatment. Pep finally talked with me in early May, and his waiting to talk to me didn’t sit well. With our group being as small as it is, there’s no way to keep much secret, and I felt that Dan and Lauren and I were equals. Setting his priorities as he did, I felt Pep had decided otherwise.

It could be argued that I was overreacting. I knew how people had been screwed by Boom in their contracts. It wasn’t exactly new to boom’s history. Tarik was told that he was on probation for six months before Pep and Andrew would sign his second contract. Tim had been told that he had another contract, but it took months for it to arrive. I think this only made me angrier. Why would they treat their talent like that? Why did some get preference, while others just had to accept poor treatment that Pep and Andrew wouldn’t dream of placing on their favorites?

So we met with Pep in early May, Erica and I, and we started the discussion. Pep said we’d meet again on May 10th. That day came and went without Pep contacting me to meet as he had scheduled. Then another week went by. And another. I didn’t say anything to Pep about his lack of follow-through on the meeting, but was glad that he had granted Erica and I to go on vacation in June. As the weeks went by without Pep contacting me, my fellow cast members and Boom employees asking me if I was staying as well, I decided to contact Second City. With Pep forgetting our second meeting, he had made a decision, consciously or unconsciously: I was not a priority.

So I met with Beth and I was offered a ship. I accepted a ship leaving in November, but gambled when I told Beth I would prefer the one leaving in September. Erica stayed behind in the States. If I didn’t get the ship, Erica and I were looking at more separation. If I did get it, we wouldn’t. I told everyone that Erica had to stay behind in the States to attend to family concerns but would becoming back, and we waited for Beth.

Brendan was still in town to perform his and Pep’s World Cup show, and he saw one of my first shows back from vacation. Brendan was great to me, and one night at the Waterhole, he told me I should stick around, that Boom needed me, that they needed someone to call them on their bullshit. It was the first time I had felt validated for doing so, but it was too late. I was leaving. Pep contacted me immediately after that, but Beth had already emailed me. The September ship was mine. I sat down with him and he told me that they really wanted me around, and I told him that I had another job. It felt…really, really good.

Now I live on a cruise ship. Every week I walk around Mexico. I get to perform shows for Second City. I swim in the ocean, I drink margaritas on the beach, I make fun of our Cruise Director, I see other performers do their shows, I do laundry in the crew facilities, and I work out in the gym. That’s my life. And I love it.

Finally...

Five years ago, I moved to Chicago to work for Second City thinking it would take me only one year and I’d be working there. I was young, cocky and stupid. I saw one TourCo show the weekend I went to look for apartments and thought: “I know I can do this.” I didn’t know anything.

5 years, 4 months, and Amsterdam later, I finally did my first Second City show. To a huge theater with more people than I ever performed for at Boom. I am elated. I know it's not TourCo, and I'm just on a ship, but I'll take it.

Welcome...home?

So, it's good to be back in Chicago. People have been pretty cool, and people have been pretty excited to see me. Things are the same and also different. Since I'm only here for a month, it's slightly weird, as if peeps are preparing for me to leave again and not trying to get too close. And you basically are still starting over in a town that you knew but you left. I only wanted a couple things to be the same, but of course they weren't. That's how it goes.

The other thing is that I feel like I'm playing a little bit of catch up. Doing Harolds is still pretty different from playing InnerSong to end Act One and then finding your prop-up for Sitcom. It's a mind-set change as well, because it's not like I was some super established improvisor before I left. All I really had to my name was the Good Time Hour, and possibly Otis, but we were never a team Charna liked. Since I've been back, several people have talked to me about GTH, so that sort of cements why I feel like that. Plus, performing here is different in tone. Boom was entirely about getting a laugh. Chicago is different. You're allowed more room for the scenes to breathe, and acting is much more neccesary. It'll take a little adjustment, just like Boom took months for me to get used to before I was performing at the level I felt was at least decent.

Now that I'm back, I really wish we had done a Harold while I was at boom. We never did as the perception was that it would NOT work, and I agreed with that, but now I wish that I hadn't. It would have been a blast and had confused the audience in such a great way that I would have loved it.

Back

We are back in America, in Minnesota to be exact, and I wanted to share this photo I took at the Minnesota State Fair.

I love you, America.

The Sneak

Every Tuesday night at the City Theater near Boom, there is a sneak preview called the Sneak that a lot of Boom people attend. I've always wanted to go, but never have, mainly because I was usually in the Tuesday night show. Finally, I made it.

You have no idea what the film is going to be until it plays, which I admit made me as giddy as a kid at Christmas. The film were blessed to watch was Tokyo Drift: Fast and the Furious 3, and it was such a fun night. What a wonderful piece of shit. I love terrible movies-done right-and this one was perfect. Best of all, the Sneak crowdy is a little rowdy, so they laughed at all the right places and cheered for all the lame "heroics" the main character attempts.

It was a great night at the Cinema.

Granny Franny

Greg's grandmother passed away abruptly a couple days ago, so he decided to have an Irish wake on her behalf in the theater tonight after the show was done. Brendan sang an old Irish song and we drank Jamison as we told stories about our grandmothers. At first I was a little weirded out to attend such a public mourning, but it turned out to be a really cathartic evening for all of us. The stories were funny, touching, sad and wonderful.

I've now lost all of my grandparents, with Grandpa Jack passing away this year. They're all gone. I really miss my grandmothers and it's a real bummer to me that Erica will never get to meet them. It was fun to talk about to them, to remember them, and how much I was lucky enough to have them touch my life in so many ways. From my Grandma Grace always making you be the one to say goodbye on the phone to my Grandma Gowland always feeding you mostly gross food that you had to eat or you'r insult her, it was great to live with them again for a little while in my mind. It even reminded me of a conversation I had with my Grandma Grace right before she died that I did not share with everyone.

The weekend she died, she called me. It was a Friday or Saturday night, and it wasn't a long conversation. At that point, she was in the hispital after her lung had collapsed on her and the emphysema was really taking hold. It was the only time she ever initiated the end of a phone call. Usually, and I think this is a Midwestern thing, if you call someone, they always let you end it. So, while I always had great conversations with my Grandma, at some point, you run out of shit to talk about. Then there would be a small awkward pause as I realized there was no way she would ever initiate the end of the call. This time, she did.

"Well, you're the last one. I guess I've talked to everyone." (she'd already called my brother and my sister.)

"Ok, goodbye Grandma."

"Goodbye."

I never forgot her saying that:

"I guess I've talked to everyone."

She sort of sighed as she said it. She was done. We were never to speak again. She died two days later.

Groc!

Last night during Heineken Late Nite, we all wore soccer jerseys to celebrate the World Cup. The show was a really good time, one of those nights where everyone is having a legitimate fun time and everyone seems "on", and then we went to the SugarFactory where a Batman and Robin themed club was taking place. The Dj's were in Batman and Robin costumes, episodes of the 60's TV show were shown on the screens, and right on the lip of the stage was a shirtless Greg wearing a Batman cowl and dancing in his usual horse-on-roller-skates fashion. At one point he was dry-humping a ampstack on the side of the satage, just slowly grinding, his face driven into the amplifier mesh as he quietly and deliberately went to town.

As Brendan and I watched this from the balcony, he said "This is your life right now."

Sidenote: decorating the walls of the club were these homemade foam exclamation bubbles depicting what you would see when Batman would hit his adversary on the TV show. One said, "Pow!" Another read "Blamo!" Bla-mo? "Zapo!" My favorite was "Groc!" Not sure what that means really. Is that the Dutch equivalent of "thwack"?

Best of Boom Photos

Greg was asked by a photographer if he could take some pictures of a Boom show, so I thought I'd share the results.


Warming up with "Musicals are Gay", our opening sketch that Laurel wrote.


My character in "Musicals Are Gay", DJ Hardcore Mutherfuckin' Biotch Asshole.


This game is called "Hollywood Pitch", where an audience member is interviewed and asked to pitch a movie, and we improvise their suggestions.


Dub: this old standard involves me interviewing a couple in the audience, and then a previously recorded video is played while two cast members improvise their conversation backstage.


Me, hosting the news.


Setting up 3 Things, a big guessing game that sets up our rotating closing number.


Our closer. It works. Most of the time.

Engaged

Erica and I got engaged! On our recent trip to Paris, I finally got to ask her after months of planning. It wasa real surprise, and happily, she said yes. We're both extremely happy, and I'm so glad it went well. In fact, it went as well as you could think it would.

I spent the day wondering when I should ask her, even thinking I should in the morning as we ate a breakfast of bread, cheese and strawberries in the Champs de Mars, right in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was so peaceful and there weren't many people, but it didn't feel right, so I didn't.

We took a boat ride down the Seine, and walked to Notre Dame, ate lunch sitting along the Seine, but still it didn't feel right. We ate at a Thai place not far from where we were staying and had purchased tickets to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I figured I would ask her at the top, with the whole city in front of us.

However, at the top, Erica's face read nothing but palpable fear. She was too scared to even walk to the edge, without my prodding and guidance. So, again, no. The ring, in its box, had been sitting in my pocket the whole day, with me fidgetting with me constantly, worried that Erica might notice the box-like bulge in my pocket. I was starting to get antsy. We got in line for the elevator to take us down, which was quite long, and I kept checking my watch. As we were staying near the Eiffel Tower we had noticed that around the top of each hour, the lights on the Tower would twinkle in rotation for around 15 minutes, which Erica thought was beautiful. I decided to ask her on the grounds in front of the twinkling lights of the Eiffel, but the line was so long, and on the elevator ride down the grounds, the twinkling began. I thought I was screwed. To top it off, Erica wanted me to record the lights with my camera as soon as we reached the grounsd, yet another obstacle. After meeting her wishes, I hurried her to the grounds and asked her, the lights still dancing onto the Champs de Mars.

We celebrated with a nice stroll home, feeling excited and alive and filled with love. We stopped by a caf, took a sidewalk table, and celebrated with a drink. The breeze was light and refreshing, and the streets were quiet and deserted. Just the two of us and a quiet Friday night in Paris. The night, the day, my life, felt perfect.

It's midnight somewhere...

Rob sent this to me, and I love it. I sent it to my brother who used to live in Minnetonka, and he said it was a pretty big deal to those in the music scene in Minnesota.

Oh, Holland.

We found out today that our Dutch internet provider denied our request to transfer the account from Laurel's name to mine. So our service is going to be canceled and it'll be a matter of days until our cable and internet disappear. I never had this happen, a company turning me down when I just wanted to keep paying them for a service they are already providing. You win this round, Amsterdam!

Really good question.

After the show tonight, a Dutch girl was talking to me and asked me if I felt like I really know what Holland is like after living in Amsterdam.

It made me think: I don't feel like if I know what it's like to live in Amsterdam. This job is all I really do. I have 4 months until the end of my contract, and I'm beginning to understand why people stay for more than one year. I'm just realizing that I won't be living in Europe soon, or ever again.

Bye Laurel.

Laurel left right as we opened "Best of Boom 2006", as it will be dubbed. Laurel is the 7th cast member to leave Boom since I got here.

We both got here on the same day and have gone through a lot here, some good, some bad. It'll be weird to not have her here, and shitty not performing with her.

Shelly, from my improv team Otis back in Chicago, wrote me this:

"life is a wild exciting ride. whatever you are gonna do next will be right. i am always reminding my self this: ENJOY THE RIDE. ENJOY what you aredoing RIGHT NOW, cause its ultimately all we have. too much worry aboutwhat's next can ruin today. anyhow, i had cancer so i can say stuff like that. in case you forgot."

At first, I was like: of course I'm enjoying what I'm doing, don't be crazy! Then I thought, wait, am I? Do I? Ever?

I don't know if I'm much of a "live-in-the-now" kind of guy.

I'd like to be though. Does that count?

No more grey.

To amuse my ex-pat colleagues I decided to dye the 'do. When I got back from the States, I told everyone that my hair proves what two weeks of the sun will do for you. I'm hilarious.

Before:



After:



I look positively 29!

Oudejaarsavond

I spent New Years doing one of the worst improv shows ever, and then we went up to the roof of a building right behind Boom to watch a half hour of fireworks exploding all around the city, right above the rooftops. Fireworks are legal here for only a week, and everyone goes nuts exploding them all over the place. Walking home, I saw two guys run around the corner and a trashcan was smoking with it's door hanging open, a firework having exploded inside.


Erica and I heading to the roof.


The cast on the roof.


The city streets.