A week with the kids...

This week, I had one of the best part time jobs in the world... teaching stage combat to a bunch of kids in a summer program. I had done it last summer and like last summer it was challenging and fun and over waaay too fast.

Eleven kids, eight to twelve years old and five three hour sessions, to give them some knowledge of stage combat and physical comedy.

They were total kids... silly, spastic, charming, needy, unbelievably creative, completely exhausting. Awkward, beautiful, fragile, clumsy, glorious kids.
The first day of the session I asked them to write their names on pieces of paper, so that i could take mugshots of them and hopefully get some idea of their personalities and imaginations. Best idea I've had in a while...
I had kids who knew each other, kids who hung out together, kids who'd never met before. It's amazing how fast they make friends with each other. I came in that first day and started tossing around some basketballs, hoping they might play. I shouldn't have worried...
Just five days. just fifteen hours. Much less if you take out the non-negotiables, like the final performance and "recess" and "snack" (what kind of word is that?). Not much time to build an ensemble that will have something to show off to the folks with on friday morning!
We did some theatre games... sound and body balls... there was that awkwardness that comes from wanting to have fun, but not wanting to stand out, which usually results in crashing the exercise. Or sometimes they wanted to stand out by hijacking the game or by checking out of it all together. All you can do is change tactics fast so you don't let everything turn into a struggle that someone has to win (and try to remember what tactics worked for which kid!).
They loved to learn to slap, were a little uncoordinated when napping against there own body, some were directionally challenged (well... if she hits you THIS way, why does your head go in the OTHER direction?) But they really liked pulling hair!
But nothing, NOTHING, is better than wacking your friend with a sword, even one mocked up out of pvc pipe and duct tape! When they got their swords , these kids became superstars!
We had a brief scare... I turned my head for a moment and came back around to find a boy with a piece of tooth in his hand and a different smile on his face. No blood though! The kid who hit him was crying first. Then the kid with the tooth lost it! Well, the damage was done, there was no injury to treat, so I had him sit down and watch me teach the others the basic sword drill. After a few moments, I turned the drill over to my assistant and asked the boy is he'd like to try it with me. He got up raised his sword and got down to business, memorizing the combo in a flash and seemingly forgetting the accident.
The next morning he came in running with a smile (still chipped) and he went to work. I paired the kids together and had them come up with Pirate names and a scenario that would lead to a swordfight. I told them someone could die, they could decide who... just tell me a story!
It was amazing... knights, pirates, wenches, rastafarians, a silent ninja fought a chatty samurai and my wounded warrior turned into Errol Flynn, somersaulting into the scene and finishing his opponent with a figure-eight flourish,
After "Snack", it was hand to hand scenes... Fighting pizza men, pigeons at war, some guy beating up his talking walrus because it wouldn't do the dishes... really. if you were the world's only talking walrus, would you take a position as some guy's housekeeper? The creativity was flowing and all i could to was try and focus it! They wrote their own scenes, cast extras if they had to and went for it. It was a struggle, but I did get the talking walrus to ditch the light saber (it was mimed). Some things are just too much of a stretch, y'know?

The last morning arrived, we had a dress rehearsal... one run through in the gym. The scenes were solid. A few adjustments to blocking, a few dozen reminders that just because you're not in the scene doesn't mean that no one can hear you... Then we hit the stage... they were great... not perfect... but alive and up there without a net. They threw their slaps and almost all went in the right directions. they forgot their props and kept going, they screwed up blocking and made it work! They found laughs no one expected, especially me. Fighting pigeons, dueling knights, a talking walrus. Who knew?

Simply Amazing.

Doin' The Menage!

So today was one of those days you can't plan for...

Usually, Saturday is my training day. I don't have to teach, I just go to the Dojo and let another teacher put me through the wringer for 4 or 5 hours. For the last couple of months I've been doing a consistent 1o hours of Karate a week along with daily calisthenics and a better diet. I can really see a difference in the shape of my body. Having a night job where I dash several miles carring 20 lb. stacks of plates probably doesn't hurt either. But today the plan went out the window for a good cause.

My producer Kris called and asked If I'd like to go on a radio show and promote our musical "Meet The Biscottis" (yeah, it used to be called something else, welcome to lawsuit land!).

The radio program "The Menage" is a local broadcast on KKNW 1150AM out of Bellevue, WA. It streams live on the web at www.1150KKNW.com Saturdays from noon to 3pm. Webcam included! It's a trio of very funny people, Julie Mains, Jennifer Austin and Duane Goade, sitting around the microphone, riffing on the news of the day, doing interviews with folks like Lily Tomlin, and generally making the world a funnier place for three hours.

When Kris called to ask me to show up as Agent Skip Wesson and take over the Broadcast and arrest the hosts in order to promote the Biscotti show, well... let's just say the dojo didn't have me to kick around today.

Busting in to a room full of funny people and taking over the show is a little intimidating. I have to thank the "Menage" for making a place for me and laughing at all my jokes. Also, thanks to Kris and Kori for dressing up in character and walking the Bellevue Arts Museum Fair handing out flyers for the show until we all got busted and thrown out...

An Actor's life for me...

"Meet The Biscottis" is playing at The Parlor Live Comedy Club on August 9th. Doors open at 5pm. go to www.meetthebiscottis.com and enter the code "biscotti" for ten bucks off the ticket price!

Oh Brave New World...

Sitting in the Kitchen with Kori Just creating Blogs for our characters in Meet The Biscottis.

His ... Tough yet Sensitive.
http://forgotaboudit.blogspot.com

Mine... Straight Outta Renton
http://badmofofromkent.blogspot.com

Eventually we will have all the family members hooked up with blogs and webpages so Biscotti Fans can enjoy the action on the web. Ah, Synergy!

Yeah, I'm stealing the idea from The Dark Knight, so what?

so now my cat gets junk mail...

You finally know who's boss (and you know it's not you) when something like this shows up in your mailbox...

So I went back to work at the restaurant last night...

... and I realized "So this is why people drink at work".

Starting off... with a few words from Reverend Robinson

So i think this part of my website should be a discussion of where my mind goes during the various phases of my various creative processes. I tend to just think, think, think, CREATE, then drop it. I'm not sure how well that works for a consistent output or vision. It's more like a constant state of shooting from the hip. Productive... but exhausting.

I'm also not very good at journaling, so as I'm learning from my friend Ben, down in Austin, might as well do it out in public.

And speaking of doing it out in public, while I can't say enough how happy I am at the arrival of our new President, a man of great heart and vision, who has spent the last ten days reminding the world that America is just as much an idea and an ideal as it is a place and a collection of interests, I have to stand up for someone who kind of got kicked to the curb during the inaugural hoo-hah... Reverend Gene Robinson. Out of the closet, in a relationship, a spiritual leader... not a movie star, not an activist, kind of the person you mght want to put on camera if you were trying to say to straight folks who are afraid of gay people "Hey, look they're not all stereotypes!".

So The Rev gets tapped by the inaugural committee to offer the opening prayer for the big pre-inaugural concert with Bono and Beyonce' and the Boss. (Apparently this may have been a tactic to throw a bone to all the folks who felt dissed when Rick Warren was chosen for the prayer on the Big Day itself.)

He composes this lovely prayer and delivers it to the 300,000 enthusiastic people braving the cold that afternoon and when he's done...

...when he's done, HBO turns the cameras ON and starts their broadcast to millions of people around the world. Who's the Genius who made that call? Good question. If you ask the network, it was the Inaugural Committee. Ask the Committee, they say it's the network!

Snub? Accident? Who knows? All I know is that people were cheated out of hearing a great message.

So here it is...

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC January 18, 2009


Welcome to Washington!

The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people. Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times. Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead. Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States. Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims. Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.