The Numbers For 2018

Year #6 without a drink. I didn't do it alone, I couldn't. I've stayed sober because of the help of others and the grace of my Higher Power.

I read 62 books my top 5 were The Sudden Appearance of Hope, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break, The Anubis Gates, and Paradox Bound.

I saw 82 movies in the theater.

I fired a gun for the first time.

We(Nicole and I) went to 2 author events(Christina Henry and Esther Perel).

We went to 2 Michelin starred restaurants(Topolobampo and Parachute).

We went to 4 weddings.

We went ice skating once.

I went on 3 vacations (Richmond, motorcycle trip around Lake Michigan, New Mexico).

I saw 1 adolescent hero- Broon.

I did 48 shows with Deep Schwa.

I did 47 shows with Sight Unseen.

I did 9 shows with Plane Station.

I did 4 shows with Terrific Six(various mixes of members from my first improv team The Album).

I directed 1 solo show.

I understudied and performed in the play Deerfield Inn once.

I wrote 68 poems, 3 essays, and did 9 readings.

I rode my motorcycle for 6 months.

I went to 1 magic show.

I went to 0 funerals.

I went to 0 plays.

I went to 0 concerts.

I helped celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday.

Nicole and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary.

A full year, a satisfying year, a fast year. I'm grateful for each and every day.

The Numbers For 2017

Year #5 without a drink. Thanks to all the friends, family, and strangers who helped along the way.

I went on 4 vacations(Harrisburg, NYC, Denver, New Orleans).

I did 48 shows with Deep Schwa.

I did 45 shows with Sight Unseen.

The Night Shift did 1 show.

I co-wrote and performed 1 sketch show 5 times.

I conceived and shot 20 interviews for a documentary tentatively titled Chiaroscuro.

I wrote 62 poems, 1 essay, and did 6 readings.

I watched 78 movies in the theater.

I read 68 books my favorite of which was The Antagonist by Lynn Coady.

I went to 1 concert(Willie Nelson).

I saw 1 of my heroes in the flesh(Chris Rock).

I went to 2 plays(Linda Vista, Doll's House Part 2).

I went to 2 weddings.

I went to 0 funerals.

I went to 2 Michelin starred restaurants.

I moved once.

I babysat my niece for the first time.

I learned and cooked 6 crock pot recipes.

I rode my motorcycle for 7 months. I changed the battery once.

Nicole and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary.

I'm grateful for it all.

Swears

There are no short cuts in comedy, no real rules or guarantees, but over the past couple years I've noticed a couple things that always seem to make people laugh. A couple buttons that seem to always burp out chuckles when pressed. One of those is curse words. Not using them but not using them.

When your a kid and you first discover curse words there's typically a brief(or extended depending) period of fixation when you use them all the time to the point where they become almost meaningless. There's a similar phase in improv not prompted by discovery I don't think but by panic and a misguided idea that cursing a lot on stage is funny and/or edgy. The reality is its tiresome unless used judiciously. Even then expletives aren't terribly effective comedy wise past a certain adolescent age or in rare perfectly timed circumstances.

The trick, that works an astonishing amount of the time, is not to say the curse word but use the letter(s) instead. "What the F do you think you're doing!?!?" "This is a bunch of S!" You get the idea. Typically most effective when playing an adolescent or a parent. Tonight during the Schwa show Jeannie and I were in a father-son scene and I kept using "GD" instead of "God Damn" and people responded. It's a weird little thing, almost feels like a cheat sometimes. But there's something about not saying it, something that's almost quaint about it, antiquated almost, kind of absurd, which tickles a lot of folks funny bone.

I kind of recognized the move watching Old School in college. At one point Vince Vaughn, the dad character, has his baby and Luke Wilson is cursing a bunch and Vaughn explodes "I don't know why you have to do it! With the F-in'!" And I thought it was so funny, and the frat guys on my floor thought it was so funny and quoted it all the time. The idea percolated until a couple years ago when it bubbled up during a scene where I used "F" a bunch instead of fuck and the audience really got a kick out of it.

I hope its not a crutch I rely on, I don't think I do it that often, but I definitely do it if the opportunity/circumstance presents itself. It's fun to do, the move provides kind of a short-hand to character, and people like it so, why not?

Balance

We had a full roster for Schwa tonight and Joe in from LA, which put us at 10. Typical rosters at iO are 9 or 10 not because everyone is in attendance but because one or two usually aren't. Ten can be an unwieldy number of folks trying to do a 30 minute improv set. Bigger numbered ensembles are more compatible with longer sets, even two act shows, where the pacing is naturally more sedate.

I've been on a number of teams that had high numbers relatively frequently and there were all kinds of methods to try to find balance when there were so many people vying for time. One oft repeated "rule" is after you've been in a scene wait till everyone else has been in a scene before you make a move to reappear. Which is, I guess, in essence sound however with ten people that could eat up a good half of the show depending on how long the initial five scenes turn out to be. Which brings us to the next "rule" which is something along the lines of "be patient" "let it breathe" or "give people their time". Meaning leave those first scenes, when we're cycling through the entire roster, alone. Again, in theory sounds good, sounds egalitarian. However improv is a performative art form not a socialist enclave even though the way its discussed people believe it is or should be. Art & Entertainment shouldn't be bound by "waiting your turn".

The reality is that when your roster is light, then you have a chance to be patient and let stuff breathe. But when your roster is full that is when things need to move, pace picked up, so that the entire cast can cycle in and out of scenes quickly. This not only allows for everyone's ideas to be incorporated it allows each member the maximum amount of involvement. Speed not restraint is what's needed to make a possibly ungainly amount of collaborators effective in an improv piece.

Schwa rarely has a full roster so tonight was atypical for us but instead of agreeing to patience we settled on speed and because of that everyone was involved almost equally zipping in and out of the piece with relative fluidity. We were able to maintain a pretty high tempo because everyone was participating and making moves. And, I think, ultimately it was a success. Each of us knew going in we would play fast and that we individually would need to make the effort to engage. There is this idea prevalent in improv that the group comes first that can frequently discount the individual which can make for tentative or overly polite improv. A group of individuals with distinct points of view and their own energies and inspirations melding together actually takes care of the group more than this ineffective and untenable idea of "fairness".

And some shows don't necessarily require every individual performer be seen or highlighted at all. The Sight Unseen show last week turned into a narrative about this family musical group in Branson, MO played by Mark, Jimmy, and Rosie and I mostly participated as ancillary characters guiding the narrative, only coming on for a couple lines of dialogue or to move the show to the next scene. What I was doing was crucial to the success of the show but I wasn't really an "equal" participant per say.

Point being its the individual who determines their level of involvement, its no one's responsibility but their own to participate. And with that in mind, with that level of individual expectation shows are better and groups function more smoothly. Paradoxically by not "focusing on the group" by not trying to be "fair" by giving that authority back to the individual some kind of balance and artistic integrity can be achieved.

Maintain A Little Mystery

One of the best and worst things about improv is its ephemeral nature and as an outgrowth of that, as a practitioner, this process of consistently striving but never arriving. There is no end point, no mastery, no perfect. And because of that it, for the most part, retains a challenge and can, potentially, consistently deliver satisfaction. So the path of someone who does improv is riddled with small victories and discoveries(as well as elongated plateaus and petite defeats). I had a little victory, a little epiphany at the Deep Schwa show tonight.

Although every couple years we incorporate new members a lot of the people on the team have some substantial time together. And after literal years of performing together it becomes much easier to identify your habits and go-tos. With time comes awareness and with awareness you can slow things down and make more deliberate choices.

The first scene I did in the show tonight was with Andy we were a father(me) and son(him) and it was his fifteenth birthday. As was custom in the family I gave him a long-ago shed rattlesnake skin that he had to wear against his skin tied around his belly. The suggestion for the show was psoriasis so my pull was basically just "skin" for the scene. I had read a fantasy book years ago where there was a shapechanger that in their human form had a snakeskin wrapped around their bare torso, so that was where my head went. The thing being although my intent for it was to have some kind of magical connotation I didn't explicitly say that however the way Andy played it and the way it was called back later implied and played with the idea of magic and mystery. Although I didn't state my intent explicitly it was discovered and explored organically by the team.

In a later scene with Jeff I was a student and Jeff was my teacher. He was talking to me about a test I had taken, kind of reprimanding in tone, and I said that I had drawn a raven on it. My idea was that this kid I was play was trying to do magic(I was on a big magic kick for the show, don't know why) and I was trying to evoke Odin's ravens Thought and Memory to help me with the test. I didn't explicitly say this but it was clear there was something kind of odd about what I was doing. Jeff kind of translated that as my character being "creative" and sent me and another student(Craig) out to solve mysteries telling us we were beyond school and had bigger things to do.

In both instances I had a clearer idea than I ultimately put forth and the result was something much more fulfilling. Without me machine-gunning out every specific of my idea, the idea was able to coalesce in a much more nuanced and organic way. I was able to catch myself and only reveal a part of what I was thinking, giving my character some subtext an internal fuel as well as allowing my fellow players to interpret my words and actions with more alacrity than they could have had I been more concrete and specific. And the payoff was not only that it worked, the scenes were successful, but that the team kind of got it anyway maybe not my exact thought but the spirit of what I was going for. I checked my instinct of spewing all my ideas out at once and the result was something way more satisfying.

The Numbers For 2016

This was the 4th year in a row I didn't take a drink.

I went on two vacations. One to Richmond(to visit Matt), the other to Portland(with Nicole).

I did 50 shows with Deep Schwa and the team celebrated its 20th anniversary.

I did 42 shows with Sight Unseen.

I conceived and directed 1 play, Blockbuster, which had 8 shows.

I released 8 episodes of my podcast Hindsight Hour which constituted the second season.

I wrote 59 poems, 7 essays, and did 10 readings.

I self published 1 collection of essays.

I saw 73 movies in the the theater.

I read 56 books my favorite of which was Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

I went to 0 concerts.

I went to 1 dance performance.

I went to 1 musical(Hamilton).

I went to 1 play(The Flick).

I went to 3 weddings.

I went to 1 memorial.

I rode my motorcycle for 7 glorious months.

I met my new born niece Maris for the first time.

I celebrated 3 years with an incredible partner.

Deep Schwa 20th

Tonight was the 20th anniversary show for Deep Schwa the improv team I perform with at iO. The team started in 1996 and has been performing, almost, weekly since then. The past 17 years the team has held the 8 o'clock Sunday slot. Past teammates came in from all around the country to play and celebrate.

I started taking classes at iO in 2007 and my level one teacher at the time told our class to go see Deep Schwa. I did and I immediately fell in love. It was the hardest I had ever laughed. The team displayed an antagonistic playfulness, a facility for group work, and a knack for messing with each other and an infectiously delightful way. I became a super fan and rarely missed a Sunday show over the next four and a half years. I would periodically do lights for the team which was always a real treat for me to be able to part of the show in some small way. In 2012 I was asked to join the team and it was a dream come true. To be a part of this amazing team and, in my mind at least, improv history. Although the team roster has changed over the years, and improv itself has evolved, I think the integrity and spirit of the team has remained.

Since my time on the team a couple old team members have come back to play and it was always a real joy to play with those people I use to watch and be inspired by. Tonight the history of Schwa was on display and I was so happy and proud to be a part of this real cool and talented team. Some members I hadn't played with before and that was a real pleasure.

It was also the last show for Danny who is moving to LA. He's one of the greatest collaborators I've ever gotten to perform with. He has this kind of indescribable quality that makes him always compelling whenever he's on stage. He can roll with anything, you can put him in any situation, and he shines. He's versatile but always charming. Malleable but always dynamic. I've learned a lot from him and he will be sorely missed on Schwa.

The night felt really special. As far as I know no team has lasted as long as Schwa and none have progressed like we have, with members leaving and incorporating new ones. It was cool to see the three different era's of Schwa and the various improv styles and how they've evolved over time. Especially cool for me to see the second era of Schwa which was, essentially, the team I watched as a student which fueled my love of the art form.

I'm grateful to be part of such a unique, long-standing, and quality team. It's a joy and an honor to play with them each week. Long live Schwa.

Habitual Conflict

The past couple months I've noticed I've been relatively combative in almost all my scene work. I think argument can be enjoyable, characters in conflict are interesting, and that discord creates traction for scenes quickly. But I've been doing it a lot. So much so that I found myself setting myself in opposition to my scene partners almost instinctually.

Playing contentious characters isn't bad but anything done exclusively over an extended period of time is limiting. In the Schwa show tonight we started with a group scene at an airport, suggestion was "hangover", and I started it off as being a frustrated loud passenger. Made sense within the context of what was going on and it played well. A couple scenes later I was in a scene with Jeannie, she initiated by stirring a stew and saying excitedly something like "It's almost ready!" My initial impulse was to start a fight, to either be a son who hated the small town life in which he found himself or a disgruntled partner discontent with the monotony of the cooking.

I didn't do either. I caught myself and made the choice to be positive, to be on Jeannie's side. The idea that came to me was county fair cook off so I responded to her with something like "I promise we'll win this year!" The scene was fun, audience responded to it, and we even got a little darkness in there as we went on because we discovered we had lost year after year and planned to sabotage the other competitors.

The decision took place within a second or less. I point this out not to pat myself on the back, after awhile all improvisers learn to respond to things very quickly, but to say it only takes a second. A second can be the difference between breaking a habit you've gotten into or doing the same thing you've been doing. A second can be the difference between stagnation/complacency and an attempt at growth.

Improv coaches and notes certainly have their place especially in the first year or two of performing. But over time I think what becomes much more important is self-assessment, recognizing the ebbs and flows of your inner inspiration and making adjustments accordingly. Setting challenges for yourself outside your comfort zone and identifying when you fall into predictable patterns.

Framework

The Schwa show tonight was a success, in the sense we had fun and the audience liked it. There were only four of us there tonight so we did a Shotgun, a rudimentary form where you start in a car. It turned out we were on the way to the Sidney Opera House, we put on a mix tape of opera songs, and would periodically cut out of the car to enact them.

It was a simple and playful mechanism which both we and the audience really enjoyed. The move of setting up a number from an opera and then cutting to it came to us pretty early in the piece and we kept using it till the end of the show. Sometime improv shows can be a bit rudderless, a collection of disparate scenes with no connection, no unifying theme or idea. This, theoretically, is a problem that an improv form is suppose to solve but I've found as time has passed old forms are performed in perpetuity but new forms aren't necessarily being created, and improv itself seems to be evolving quicker than its underlying mechanics.

The solution, seems to me, is to free ourselves from this notion of rigid form and move towards the idea of a simple framework or framing device. And this frame can be applied before a show(ie deciding on a specific opening, goal, style etc.) or discovered within a show typically early on(some pattern, theme, or idea that emerges that then becomes the show). In the Schwa show tonight we did a little bit of both, we decided to do a Shotgun before hand which basically boils down to just starting in a car and then relatively quickly found the opera through-line. These two things are kind of atypical for teams to do. There is kind of an unspoken reticence to put a deliberate lay on to a show(even though many of the most popular improv shows have thick stylistic lay ons) as well as maintain a game throughout a show in favor of creating ever-new scenes/characters/situations and only making connections towards the conclusion. I think this reticence comes from a fear of doing things "right" and the misconception that the type of play I'm advocating strays from "pure" improv. The reality is that improv is an ever evolving, malleable, mercurial artform that is heavily influenced by its constantly changing practitioners, and thus should be allowed much more freedom. Not constrained by some nebulous and nostalgic idea of what improv is or rather, what it use to be.

Happenstance

As part of most iO shows there is a piece in the middle of the night called "The Dream" where an audience member comes up and is interviewed about their day which the improvisers then use as inspiration.

Tonight I interviewed a teacher from Mississippi. I asked her if she had a particularly troublesome student and to describe them. I then asked her his/her first name. She said it was a him but she wouldn't tell me his first name(reasonable). Just for context, to make the improv easier, I said for the sake of this we'll just call him Travis. The woman and her table of friends gasped then burst out laughing. I had guessed the kid's name.

A simple enough thing, random luck, coincidence, and yet. And yet it felt like one of those little pieces of magic that happen every once in a while in improv. One of those moments where everyone sits up and takes notice, where you realize how special and fleeting improv can be. Call it group mind call it telepathy what have you, there are those rare moments when you tap into something beyond simple conversation, something a little deeper than connection.

Playground Architect

Inspiration for the most part isn't something that strikes like a lightening bolt, unsought and without effort. Different mediums require different degrees of diligence and discipline in order to be open to, seek out, process, and implement whatever myriad of things might jump-start the discovery of an idea. With writing it can take the combination of a kind of constant pursuit as well as idea gestation, which I've gone into previously, to lock down some actionable inspiration. With improv there is a certain amount of preplanning, of preparation, all in real time for the most part, when you assess a scene or situation and evaluate and discard a number of possible options or digressions before making a specific choice or move. But there are those rare moments when things bubble up from no where.

I had one of those moments in the Schwa show last Sunday. Jeannie and I were two loveable nerds in a prom scene where both of us had gone stag, we had this kind of awkward flirty conversation and at one point asked each other what we planned to do after graduation. My response was "I'm going to be a playground architect" which got a laugh and led to a fun scene later on with Craig. Now certainly that isn't particularly revelatory nor was it one of those moments that anyone in the audience will necessarily remember but for me the idea, the profession of "playground architect" just came from no where. I had no idea what I was going to say I reached for something and thats what I found apropos of nothing. As on-the-nose as it may sound it was one of those moments of true inspiration where I didn't force anything, didn't invent anything, I just found what I was looking for out in the creative ether. And that kind of moment feels like magic.

I had a similar experience with the poem I wrote this week. I woke up and the idea and first three stanzas were just kind of there, the afterglow of an apocalyptic dream. This kind of thing is rare enough, at least for me, that its still very exciting and gratifying. Ultimately every artist/creative person needs to develop a discipline with how they create content, a routine of input and output. A habit of looking for inspiration everywhere, with this default awareness in place you are more susceptible to those rare calls of the muse.

"I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean." -Socrates

The Numbers For 2015

For the third year in a row I went 365 days without a drink.

I went on 3 vacations. To LA(to visit Alex), Denver(to visit Beanpole), and The Badlands(with Nicole on the motorcycle).

I was laid off for the 1st time and spent 2 months unemployed.

I started 1 new job.

I did 54 shows with Deep Schwa.

I did 47 shows with Sight Unseen.

The Night Shift had 2 shows and retired.

I conceived and co-wrote 2 plays. Contention and My Two Sons which had 12 and 11 performances respectively.

I released 6 episodes of my podcast Hindsight Hour which constituted the first season.

I wrote 62 poems, 10 essays, and did 15 readings.

I applied to 4 graduate schools for poetry.

I saw 76 movies in the theater.

I read 33 books, my favorite of which was The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe

I went to 2 author readings.

I went to 0 concerts.

I went to 1 opera.

I went to 0 funerals.

I went to 1 wedding.

Nicole and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. Some days were tough, some were easy, we loved each other every day.

Newman

Every year Matt comes back to Chicago for Christmas with his in-laws. Almost every year he takes a day to come down and visit with me and play with Schwa. We met in level 1 at iO back in '07 and have been friends and collaborators ever since.

Matt moved to Richmond in '09 to open his own improv theater: Coalition Theater. I've been out there to visit about once a year since he moved. When we get together we catch up about friends and family but mostly talk a lot of improv shop.

The show tonight was great, Matt's played with Schwa about half-a-dozen times or so at this point and whenever he plays he fits in seamlessly. We had a sold out house, the show was high energy and a lot of fun. We all had a great time. It's really satisfying to get to share that with Matt, despite our divergent paths both personal and creative, despite the distance, our friendship remains strong and continues to evolve. For that I'm very grateful.

Schwa Alums

Last night we had three LA Deep Schwa members in town. The first time we've had such a full roster in a couple months. It's always great when old members come back, they bring a fun energy and there's a sense of history and longevity which make Schwa unique.

It's especially exciting to have Brian and Nooch back(Joe comes back about once a month, other members visits are more sporadic), they were on Schwa when I first started watching the team, part of the incarnation of Schwa that really opened my eyes and inspired me to want to do improv, showed me what it could be. I'm very thankful folks that have moved away/on still make time to come back periodically to play, it means a lot.

Character

In improv there is a lot of talk about playing characters. A very popular, and in my mind ineffective, theater and improv exercise is the old walk-around-the-space lead-with-a-different-part-of your-body in hopes that a physical change will then inspire some unique characterization. The reality is that creating an effective character is much more difficult and complicated then simply walking differently. I've heard, gotten, and given the note to "play more characters" in improv but it rarely goes beyond that and you almost never hear how one is actually suppose to accomplish it. The reason is, like almost all creative disciplines, everyone is different. My process works for me but it won't necessarily work or even make sense to someone else.

One of the first scenes in tonight's Deep Schwa show I came out as a character. The scene was between three siblings, myself and Sarah were visiting our older sibling Jeannie in her fancy downtown loft apartment. As I entered the scene, apropos of nothing, I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. In that moment I figured that was my character hands-in-pockets-person. I slouched my shoulders a bit and it seemed to me the posture I was taking was representative of someone petulant, rebellious, defensively sarcastic, and most likely young. All this took place over the course of two or three seconds as I was walking on stage before anyone spoke.

Jeannie initiated the scene by saying something to the effect of 'welcome to my beautiful loft apartment, things are so much different here in The City, there's so much going on'. Her posture was very straight, she made a couple sweeping graceful gestures. Confident, high status. Going into the scene my idea is that it would have a school setting, I dropped that, and put my character in context with the information Jeannie provided. It seemed to me my character was resentful of being there and of the big city mentality Jeannie was projecting so it seemed logical that the only reason I would be there given that information was that if we were siblings. I called her sis and the scene progressed accordingly. Older, sophisticated, sibling shares new found invigorating lifestyle with younger siblings one who is naively in thrall(Sarah) and another who is resistant even out right hostile(me).

The character choices were made within the first couple seconds of the scene, by the second line all of us knew the situation and the relationship dynamic. In order to create a character you have to be inspired and make choices, this is most effective when it is done incredibly quickly, in improv you don't have the luxury of a lot of time to decide who you are. If you take an inordinate amount of time to decide who your character is the scene will most likely have progressed significantly while you were making up your mind past a point where you can get directly involved. Or a lot of time elapses where nothing happens.

Quickly make physical and/or emotional choices that inform your character, this should be done while your entering a scene or in the first couple seconds. If you don't initiate the scene, adjust your preconceptions to put your character within the context of what has been established. At least that's what works for me.

Return of Duffy

Duffy was back in town for a wedding and she played with Schwa last night. When I joined the team three years ago we connected right away and it was a real treat to have her back. She fit back in seamlessly, like she had never left. She is a joy to perform with and is one of the kindest people I have ever met. I've missed her as a performer and as a friend.

A couple months back she tweeted something disparaging about men who wear bolo ties not knowing since her move to LA I'd begun wearing them. Since then she's given me a hard time about wearing them hence the above picture, note her disgust.

One of the great things about Schwa is former teammates coming back to play. It's a singular team in the sense it has been around for years and has continued to evolve. Members get added, members move on, but the team remains and whenever any former member comes through town they are welcome and encouraged to come play. There's an ever replenishing sense of camaraderie and history. Thus Deep Schwa endures.

Team Time

For some reason Craig has been increasingly excited about Mad Max: Fury Road the past couple months. He hyped it up so much and was so stubbornly enthusiastic about it almost all of Deep Schwa went to see it tonight(photo credit to Jeff).

The movie was great- visually rich, fast paced, bizarre, and fun. We don't often hang out or even see each other outside of our prescribed Sunday show so its always special the handful of times we get together throughout the year. Great to spend time with my friends and teammates in a theater we aren't performing in.

Schwa+

Tonight we had a couple former members play with Deep Schwa- Tim, Joe, and Neil. There were eleven of us which can be cumbersome but the show was fast paced and balanced, Schwa is the only team I've played on that can do great shows with large numbers. The chemistry was pretty seamless with the old and new members, Joe comes back about once a month and Neil two or three times a year so there's a nice level of familiarity there. It was Tim's first time playing since I've been on the team and he was great, really playful. I hope he enjoyed himself enough to come back. We all had a blast and the audience seemed really into it too.

It's always exciting and fun to have people back, it shakes us out of our patterns, injects some energy. Raises the stakes. Playing with people I use to watch and revere is a real pleasure and honor. It reminds me that for the longest time playing with Deep Schwa was my dream and I get to live it.

The Numbers For 2014

For the second year in a row I went 365 days without a drink.

I went on two vacations, one to Richmond, VA the other to New York City.

I saw 72 movies in the theater.

Deep Schwa had 51 shows.

Prime had 49 shows.

The Night Shift had 20 shows.

The Hague had 3 shows and was cut.

We formed Sight Unseen and had 12 shows.

I read 37 books, my favorite of which was My Real Children by Jo Walton.

I wrote 46 poems and did 5 readings.

Tisher, Tim, and I released 10 episodes of Bubble Boys compromising season 2 completing the series.

Tim and I recorded the first season of a new podcast The Hindsight Hour yet to be released.

I conceived of and co-wrote a play, Contention, which will open in the new year.

I made 1 collage.

I made 1 mix tape.

I wrote 1 song.

I moved twice.

I went to 1 audition.

I rode my motorcycle for 7 glorious months.

I went to 0 concerts.

I went to 11 plays.

I went to 2 weddings.

I went to 0 funerals.

I had the love of a beautiful and supportive woman for the entire year.

Last Double Sunday

Andy got our team photo printed on this cool wood backing to hang up at iO. Matt took this picture, he was in town from Richmond and sat in with Schwa. Matt and I spent the day together catching up and talking shop which was great, the show unfortunately wasn't so great. I was a little disappointed that Matt didn't get to play a show where things were really clicking. The audience seemed to be a little reserved and we all had relatively low energy, it felt too much like work. Not a bad show but no where near the fluidity and fun we've been having the last two months.

After Schwa was the last Prime. We've been doing the show for almost two years at this point, started off as an idea Craig had, he just wanted to introduce a show as "two Scotts, two Nelsons, and a Uhlir". When it turned out to be really fun we kept doing it. Then both the Scotts got Second City gigs, we played with Brett for a while, had some sit ins, the Scotts came back, then we added Sabine. I always found the most satisfaction in the shows where we told some kind of story usually centered around a group of brothers, friends, co-workers, or some kind of sports team. Sometimes I was tired and our speed of play would lose me, sometimes I didn't like the shows that veered towards the absurd or the disconnected, but always I enjoyed playing with my friends, always I enjoyed the unique challenge of our particular style.

We had a great house and the show was super fun. It feels good to end it on a high note. It's nice to hang it up while were all feeling good, it's the right time. I'll miss the hour or so we talked and caught up before we hit the stage the most. Right now the plan is to get another slot at a better time but who knows. Whatever happens its been a good run.