The Snap

I've had the desire to be an artist as long as I can remember. I took piano lessons for a while but didn't have the discipline to practice. I took art classes in school and out from age 7 to 13 but showed no facility with any medium or ability to bring my ideas to actuality. I first got on stage at age 8 in a production of the Pied Piper, I was Councilman #3, and was intrigued. At age 11 I was in a staged production of a number of Aesop's Fables. It was the first time I got laughs from an audience, I was hooked and decided I wanted to be an actor.

Through middle school and high school I was in a number of plays and musicals. I cultivated my modest singing and dancing abilities. I had fun but I wasn't totally satisfied. I didn't feel like I was getting to express myself fully, I felt like acting fell more on the side of interpretation rather than creation. There was still something I wasn't getting, an undiscovered outlet.

Recently I've been reading, per Clayton's recommendation, this fantasy series Mistborn. In the books they describe the pivotal moment in someones life wherein they discover their magical abilities as "snapping". The moment I had my creative snap wasn't onstage but in my dorm room.

My college roommate was a guitarist and bassist, he turned me on to a bunch of musicians and I turned him on to a couple too. Fall of 2003 we were big into Tenacious D, Keller Williams, and Martin Sexton. One evening we were sitting around, Bob was playing guitar and I was playing Final Fantasy X on mute. For no particular reason we started singing- improvising lyrics and harmonies. By the end we had a complete song with a double chorus and two free-form verses, it was called "Trees".  We performed it a couple weeks later at Theater of Ted, a weekly sign-up variety show, and got a great response.

It was the first time I put out something  I created, the first time I felt a genuine collaboration. Bob and I wrote and performed songs the remainder of college and he taught me how to play guitar. Writing and performing original music gave me a unique satisfaction, a satisfaction I hadn't gotten from straight acting. A feeling of originality, singularity of purpose, and direct artistic expression. I continued to act but I became increasingly frustrated with speaking others words. That discontent eventually led me to improv and sketch comedy.