good shows

there's something about doing a good show that really makes your night. there's something about putting together a string of good shows that makes your month.

after a slow July of not doing much performing it was nice for the cupholders to hit the road and retrace what is becoming a classic tour path for us. a couple weekends ago we journeyed to Dallas for their first annual Comedy Festival which was hosted by a theatre we have frequented since its opening last Fall. Our Thursday show was well-attended and well-received. we got some compliments from a group that we respect in the biz and that's always nice. our dallas following is growing nicely. saturday we performed for the same festival except this time in a different room. a bar. we were not excited about performing in such an environment as it tends to become a hurdle during the show. we're competing with sound from the bar, the opening and closing of doors repeatedly, one such door that would let in the booming sounds of a dj stationed directly outside the door in the plaza. and of course, there was the wildcard sound distraction of a band of hare krishnas marching by outside singing at the top of their lungs and playing strange instruments. not to mention the booming sounds of an incredible karaoke bar directly beneath us. the only sound distraction the show missed was the familiar sounds of my upstairs neighbors fighting at 2 am and the pitter patter of the little dogs' feet. nonetheless, needless to say, hitherunto, the show was regarded a success. subtracting the fact that we had some communication errors with bill who was stationed at the keyboard and the mysogyny brought on by one of our more misguided members, the show was good. i tend to over-analyze our performances, but the audience was huge and therefore entertained (some kind of strange law of improv - the larger the crowd, the greater the success.) the festival was an overall good experience and easily the best time i've ever had in dallas, one of my least favorite places. [and there goes that nice following]
so onto austin. we had a week before our weekend shows. woo. it was a week frought with emotion as relationships were broken, formed, strained, and broken on many fronts. an interesting smorgasbord of swelling glee and crushing defeat. really weird and altogether pretty uneccesary. i know several people who have gone insane and destroyed beautiful things, and i have discovered others just this past week who are very near to the same.
so it was a fantastic and glorious release to be able to perform friday and saturday night to packed houses on our home turf in Austin. two great shows for two great audiences. i am constantly amazed by the people i perform with who carried saturday's show without much of my help. not that they can't normally carry a show. its just nice to know that i can be physically and emotionally drained while my homies blow the room away and i pretty much just watch. i felt off but the show was a success and it was one of my old mentors, who by the way has since gone insane, who noted that it is the success of a show that matters and not the success of the individual performer.

i hardly do drugs at all but i liken the high of a good show to that of a killer buzz that you never build a tolerance for. it will always be there to help me through tough times, so long as i can get on a stage and say whatever the hell i want. performing improv is truly something i cannot live without and if my ability to perform it were removed i would be sad or i guess according to what i just wrote, i would die. that seems extreme when you say it out loud but it may be true.

good shows, never leave me. other good things come and go but i hope you care about me enough to stick around.

b