Kipworld

We hit the road again. One of the incubators had been sick all trip and when we got to the hotel, she was in bed. We were all pretty worried that night, and the incubators spent time cheering her up. We ended up calling her mother and it was decided that she should fly home on an early flight. Again, the incubators were really loyal and they drove her at the butt crack of dawn to the airport. When I woke up to get breakfast, they were crashed out in the dining room in front of the tv.

Got on the road again. Freakin’ GPS started crashing, but I figured it out at the first gas stop. Mike’s car had developed a crack in the windshield the day before and he radioed its growth throughout the drive.

Jessie was in my car, so I followed up on my promise of Sondheim musicals.

Lunch was at a Roy Rogers around 12:30. One of the incubators (Kelly) asked for my keys to get cash from her bag but when she gave them back to me in line, they were freezing. After lunch, we were walking to the spot, and my car was gone. I didn’t panic though, since there were nicer cars around me when I parked. I calmly said, “Kelly, where’s my car?” Then I looked in the far corner and there it was. She had done a nice job hiding it, behind another row, but I think some of the cars had moved since. She was upset that I hadn’t gotten upset. I told her in my best Sherlock Holmes voice, “The keys were too cold when you gave them to me. I knew that they must’ve been outside longer than it would have taken to just get something from your bag.” I’m such a faker. She bought it though. I think I’ll wait to tell her I was bullshitting.

At another rest stop off the MA turnpike, I bought circus peanuts. For some reason I love em, although they remind me of my cousin Chien’s fishing bait marshmallows sometimes. Not that I’ve eaten those. Tried to get the passengers to try them. No takers. Getting back on the turnpike, I led the way, although I thought I was following the rental car. By the time I realized the other cars were nowhere close to me, I was almost at the tollbooth. Had to pull over to the left and wait. There was some business at the gas station so Mike was dealing with it. Meanwhile, I’ve got my flashers on and all the tollbooth employees are staring at me eating circus peanuts and screaming into the walkie talkie that they needed to get there before the toll takers came out and applied some highway justice to me for clogging up their nice little workplace with my big red car.

We hit Boston around 5:00 and would’ve have been at improvBoston earlier if Jessie and I didn’t convince ourselves that we had gone too far on the the right street. So, instead we turned around to get on the wrong street. I was pretty fried after the trip there, and the city traffic sucked after the two days of highway driving. The other cars were there and parked already, so I was double pissed at not being able to find parking. Jessie had a mild case of road rage and I made her get out before either of us killed the other. The three incubators in back just watched as I had a mild bit of road rage myself. Luckily a spot opened up in a parking lot.

improvBoston: hey! We met up with Max and Chris Britt, the two Boston natives. We started herding towards places to eat. The first place was too small. Then we began heading east, nixing restaurants left and right as too expensive or too involved (we had to get to the show by 6:15 or so to change and it was around 5:30). The final AAGH moment was when we got a Thai-Japanese restaurant (Sweet Chili) to almost prepare tables for us before realizing that we just didn’t have time. Some people really began to feel like they were just being swept along. Some people deal with this well, others don’t. In the end, we grabbed pizza at a corner place across the street from the theater.

And then, hey, Joe Kendall! Woo hoo. Joe and I performed together for two years in Titanic and for a brief bit in the spring and summer of my sophomore year at ImprovOlympic. Joe moved back to Boston (he’s a native) after that summer (without telling his IO team, we thought he was camping in Canada) and started taking classes at improvBoston, which was just getting into long form. They asked him to become a teacher. Right place, right time. The theater itself is awesome. We went downstairs to change and warmup and the ceiling was just my height. Felt like the office scenes in Being John Malkovich. The two person show which was supposed to go on with us decided to bow out and give us the entire time (1.5 hours) which meant that each team could play for 30 minutes and then Joe and Mike and I could do a three person. Most of the house were friends and relatives of Max and Britt anyway. So, incs went on. During the show, I had to get around to talk to Joe and I found out that this theater was made for short people. Which it was. The artistic director, Will Luera, was at the St. Louis festival and I met him there. He’s shorter than I am. No wonder the building fit me so well. I slipped around backstage and went down through a small hallway, more like a tunnel. From there I was in the downstairs area. Joe and I just decided to mess around, since we couldn’t really warm up because I had to do the lights for my team’s show. Three person, and when the chairs move, it’s a new scene. Then he showed me the ladder and trap door out of the basement, leading to the front door. From there, I could get into the small office and take a ladder to the light booth. Jenny Brown says that all my video game fantasies had come to life. They had.

Big Texas went on. Suggestion was “Mercury.” I didn’t take notes as I’d left my notebook in the car and I was feeling sort of irresponsible anyway. Plus, there were ladders to climb. Ladders! Their show was a little restrained, a little unfocused. They took off the gloves for the third beat with some nice tagouts, but I don’t think they were wild about their show.

Mike and Joe and I took the stage. I felt great, even though I hadn’t played with Joe in two or three years. Actually, the three of us had done a three man before, back at NU in the coffeeshop below Elder. It had gone great for a house that had no idea what we were doing. This time, we were in this cute litle blackbox theater. The show felt good. A little light on relationship, but that’s the way I’ve been playing these days, on the rare occasions I play. Max says I pulled out all my little tricks, like sitting in a chair and putting my legs up. We also had this side ways scene lying on the ground with mad “flying” leaps and stuff. I had one stinker of a scene in a truck cab when I tried for some relationship, but it went badly so I scooted out of that right quick.

I felt really great, especially since Big Texas hadn’t seen me perform in a while. It was nice to be a rock star for a little bit. The audience loved everything they saw and I talked to a couple of the improvisers after the show. We left to get alcohol and go to Duxbury. Max and Jessie and Jenny went in his car to get stuff and the rest of us drove to Pete’s house.

Walking into the mansion was amazing. It’s his great grandfather’s house (one of them). The sort of house they just can’t make anymore. It’s old and drafty. The upstairs has bedrooms beyond bedrooms. Even with everyone here (17 people) only two or three had to sleep on couches. That’s pretty amazing. No drinks to be found in Massachussetts on a Sunday, so Max came down empty handed. Some people were annoyed, myself included. To make up for no alcohol, we did some yelling games of Mafia. Afterward, Max and Peter and I tried to get alcohol from a convenience store as it was past midnight (Hey, we didn’t think it was a good idea either) but no go. We had to settle for chips and salsa and Doritos and orange juice. We got back and pigged out a bit. Then we went to the beach. Cold, so cold. I sat on a towel with Kelly and Orvin and Britt and Sarah and the four of us talked about weird dream images. The stars were really close (no light pollution down here). The moon rose red orange and the light made a path across the bay that I wanted to swim in.

Back in the house, people were collapsing on the couches in the main room. Someone asked me for a bedtime story so I pulled out The Star Wife and told it. Then we got Jessica Carleton to tell. She was amazing. She told a kid’s story, vaguely ugly duckling ish, but her voices and movements were great. The lights were down low and during the silences, you could feel people imagining. She even got us all to sleepily move our arms like wings with her. She had everyone in the palm of her hand. Then Sarah told a Jane Yolen story about a girl dealing with her mother’s death and subsequent vampirization. People were rapt. Peter told a gussied up joke about an Irish goaltender which was the funniest use of the word “baby” ever. The piano player told one that he’d made up a couple years before. After that, we all went to bed.