Feel Me Don’t You

Mom + Homage = Momage
Portmanteau, baby!

Quick thought:
Is anyone else likening last night’s violent storm into today’s sunny warmth to the birth process? Just me? Ok.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there, but especially my own. Every year I struggle with what to do for mom. Even though she says, “you don’t need to do anything”, it just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t make it any easier that she’s in another state. So, this year I decided to compile some “mother” songs. I wanted some she would know, but mostly ones she didn’t. In addition, I found some memorable quotes to let her know what she means.

“A man loves his sweetheart the most; his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”
~ Irish Proverb

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
~ Tenneva Jordan

“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”
~ Mark Twain

There are many more great Mother’s Day quotes here.

Keeping in the friends mode from earlier today, I joined in on the graduation celebration for Kim Carrington down at the Westport Flea Market before the party shifted to the Crosstown Station. If you’re in the Westport area, stop into the WFM for the burger voted “Kansas City’s Best Burger 25 years in a row”, but pray you don’t have to suffer what could possibly be “Kansas City’s Worst Karaoke Ever” (I’m hoping we were just there on an off night).

I had no idea what Crosstown Station was going to be like - I’d never heard of the place before. I will say, though, that it’s a great performance venue. I really enjoyed the layout, spaciousness, the architecture, the L.E.D. lighting, the sight lines, and even the fixtures around the place (including the faucets in the bathroom). Once they get some of the minor sound issues out of the way, it will be excellent. That’s likely a minor issue since there will be differences between each band that sets up to play. Tonight’s performers were The Abracadabras, The ACBs, and It’s Over (all good/very good in their own way).

The thing that I kept thinking was “this would be a great location for an improv show”. It could definitely be arranged to place tables and chairs on the dance floor by the stage to make it more intimate. Tables and chairs would also hinder too tall, too lanky, too effeminate, Craig Hughes lookalikes from “dancing” (I’m being kind here people, trust me). It was reminiscent of Choo-Choo the Herkey Jerky Dancer (below).

It’s been too long since I’ve been recognized as a member of the entertainment industry. So long, in fact, that I’m taken aback whenever someone calls out to me as “Ref Pete” in a restaurant, on the street, or wherever. Today I was having lunch with the ever-delightful Hughes family at the 54th Street Bar and Grill by Liberty. Lunch was fine, but I was a little more than disconcerted by the proliferation of diamond stud nose rings by the wait staff on hand. I realize that piercings are still somewhat fashionable and a form of self-expression. When everyone has the same one, however, you cross the line of being uniquely individual into oddly cult-ish. I digress.

As we were leaving, the people at a nearby table caught my attention and said enthusiastically, “Hey, you’re the ref… Ref Pete, right?”. Before I could get out a simple “Yes”, they continued on with “we see you all the time at ComedyCity… you’re great” (clearly, they haven’t been there in awhile since I’ve been gone since January). I had barely gotten out a “thanks” when the barrage of questions came like waves at high tide. I answered as many questions as possible before little Sarah came back for me. Continually tugging harder on my hand, I finally had to excuse myself and head off. I think I would have been there for an hour had she not pulled me away. A couple things struck me as I walked away.

1. What would it be like if I was an actual A-list celebrity rather than an echo blip on the celebrity radar?
2. Why are we taken by surprise when people say nice things about us or those around us?

Michelle had just been saying that she wondered what was wrong with the people at her dentist’s office because they kept complimenting her on not only her oral hygiene, but her children’s as well. Are we that conditioned to be wary of kind words? Is this where we are as a society? I saw a story recently on CNN, if I recall correctly, and it dealt with whether people would prefer $5 or a compliment. Surprisingly, most, but not all, took the compliment.

First, let me tell you how excited I am by the turn out. This should be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to checking everyone’s mixes out. So, without further ado…

Jared Brustad
Pete Calderone
Scott Connerly
Keith Curtis
Ed Doris
Leah Gunn and her blog
Jennifer Harmon
Sara Hertwig
Craig Hughes
Paul Moore
Corey Rittmaster
Jessica Robins
Josh Steinmetz
Tommy Todd
Trisha Tschopp
Craig Williams
Timm Zahn

If anyone wants to email one of these people regarding their mixtape, let me know.

There are a bunch of my friends who recently had a birthday, so perhaps some well-wishin’ is in order. Happy birthday shouts to Corey Rittmaster (April 27), Dan Walsh (May 3), Joe Van Haecke (May 4), and Michael Montague Jr.(May 5). Hope your collective birthdays kicked ass.

Reminder:
You still have until tomorrow night at 10pm (central) to submit your mix tapes. I will be posting them all tomorrow night. I have to admit I’m kind of geeked up about this.

Recently local improviser and theatre owner, John Robison, ranted about the proximity of his club and the difficulty of drawing performers and audiences. If I may paraphrase, he believes that the inconvenience of a slightly longer drive (if you live in Overland Park, KS at hypothetically 75th & Metcalfe) is a small price to pay to attain a quality experience (for both the performer and the audience). To be clear, he harbors no illusions about the proximity issue for Missouri residents or, for that matter, anyone who lives east of Johnson County. I believe he’s absolutely correct in his basic assertion and I don’t believe many would disagree on that point. Really, would you pass up going to a location you find superior in quality just because it’s a little further? So, what’s the problem? Why is it so tough to draw people?

Perceptions.

John is fighting against several perceptions which may or may not be accurate. His main concerns here are time/distance and quality. Let’s examine the first one - time/distance. The time/distance from the above hypothetical location according to John/Yahoo maps:

To Comedy City: 14 minutes

To W. Coffee House: 16 minutes

To Roving Imp: 20 minutes

Quick sidenote: I’m not sure what Yahoo maps knows that Google maps doesn’t, but here’s what I came up with courtesy of Google maps.

To ComedyCity - 11.9 miles approx. 18 minutes
To Westport Coffehouse - 8.5 miles approx. 17 minutes
To Roving Imp - 16.8 miles approx. 26 minutes

Without knowing the route Yahoo maps is using it’s hard to definitively compare the two. They are almost similar. Am I nitpicking? Possibly, but I believe that it could have a bearing when considering factors like point thresholds (i.e.:time, distance, price, & etc.). What is the average person’s time threshold? Is the average person willing to drive 15 minutes (can you even get to most places in this town without going 15 minutes??)? If so, then might we agree upon that interval as an acceptable time limit unit? I’m sure there are many people out there who may feel that 30 minutes is an acceptable time unit with regard to travel, but I would posit that number is less than those who feel 15 minutes is acceptable.

If that is acceptable, there are 2 places that don’t quite meet the criteria (one does according to Yahoo maps), but they are close. So, let’s double the time unit. This now gets us all three locations, but in the mind of the general population, you had to surpass the acceptable threshold by almost double. I realize that the reality is much different; these places are not that far apart. That is just the perception. How many times have you said or heard someone say, “I don’t want to go there, it’s all the way out in (insert location here)”? Chances are the location isn’t necessarily that far, but it is perceived as such.

Now let’s take a look at the discussion of quality. This one is even trickier as subjectivity is harder at work here. Many factors come into play from the performer’s perspective and it’s highly probable that no two performers will share exactly the same needs to base their judgment of quality. Can quality be deemed simply by providing an open nurturing environment? Is quality defined by the availability of a space to rehearse or perform? Is quality determined by the character of the owner? All of the above? Something else? From an audience’s perspective, quality can often be boiled down to fewer factors - price, performance, and overall experience. Price and overall experience are much easier to measure, so that leaves us with performance. Once again, subjectivity rears its ugly head as people run the gamut of likes/dislikes - short form, long form, gimmicks, reality, absurdity, new or different formats or games. That’s great, but how does that fit with the argument of perception?

Let’s say an audience member sees your show and they happen to come back another night or multiple nights and see basically the same type of show. The perception is that is what can be expected from your show. An example: Alan Scherstuhl would pen that all ComedyCity did (pre-Duck) was gimmicky, tired, short form games. Is that true? Maybe, sometimes. Was that all ComedyCity had to offer? Hardly. Lost in the myriad shows where gimmicks or schtick reigned supreme was some of the best improv this city has seen. Not gimmicky. Not schticky. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Since he rarely or never saw these shows, his perception was cemented as to what ComedyCity offered. Even Too Much Duck suffered because of preconceived notions from the general public because of the perception of ComedyCity shows.

What about the perception that a new or fledgling group will be more miss than hit? Is it true that all new groups will struggle or flounder as they try to discover who or what they are? Absolutely not. Is there a perception that all new groups go through this? Yes. Unless you’re a hardcore improv fan, you’re probably not paying attention or don’t care one iota about the performer’s pedigree. Where did they study? Who taught them? How long have they trained? The general public’s only concern is whether or not they are being entertained.

Is this empirical evidence? No. It is merely the analysis/opinion of one man. In the end, I think the community could do with a bit of market area analysis (volunteers?). If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me.

Did anyone else besides me notice a gaping hole where YouTube should have been this morning? I noticed it for what seems like an hour as I went through my morning blog reading routine - a noticeable empty space where YouTube videos would normally exist. It made me wonder if another country had inadvertently brought down the video sharing behemoth like Pakistan managed to do. I couldn’t reach it with a browser nor could I ping it. I found it interesting that it wasn’t just that pings were blocked, but that it returned “host not found”. With the nearly instantaneous posting of news that seems to happen these days, I thought perhaps there might be something out there on the the Interwebs as the kids call it (or Interbutt if you’re Dave), but found nothing. Well, nothing new anyway.

/shrug

It’s a mystery.

Has anyone else been having trouble posting comments here? At first I thought it was just slow around the ol’ blog until Jeff D. mentioned that he was getting an error when trying to post a comment on the Flight of the Conchords post. I thought I had all the bugs in the comments admin section sorted out and now I see an empty post from Jared and Jeff is still having trouble. Unfortunately (with respect to troubleshooting), I was able to place a few test comments in as myself and as a regular blog visitor. If you’re unable to post a comment, please use the email in the “contact me” section (or if you notice something isn’t working quite right) so I can investigate. Thank you for your time.

of the Conchords that is. I caught these the last time Nick and Kelly were visiting and was just reminded of them thanks to Neppy.

And the live version…

It has been made known to me that all this improv talk lately has been a bit of a buzz kill, so here you go…

Thank you Maxim Online for reminding me that there’s yet another movie coming out this summer that I want to see - The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Looking over some of the production stills, David Duchovny is looking a bit rough, but Gillian Anderson seems to be looking better. I always enjoyed her portrayal of Dana Scully and never really considered her much of the traditional “sex symbol” type. I’ve had friends who thought she really fit the bill, but I just didn’t think of her that way. Then one day, I saw what they were all talking about. It all came together for me.

Anyway, I really hope that creator/writer and producer/writer Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz (respectively) hold true to the things that made this show a smash for 9 seasons - government conspiracies, UFO’s, and the paranormal. The X-Files was, naturally, one of those shows I came into late. I didn’t start watching it until sometime around the third or fourth season if memory serves. Once I did start, though, I was quite an avid viewer. I might be more excited to see this film more than any of the ones I previously listed other than Indiana Jones.