procrastination

greyscale image of a stop sign with the sky and phone lines in the background.

Stop Doing the Thing

Well hot damn, this took a turn. I’m always using my busy schedule as an excuse not to blog. Well, that’s not so much an issue now, is it? With Covid-19 spreading like wildfire (another very serious problem we’re also still facing globally), there seems to be nothing to do BUT write.

Or so I thought. But you’d be amazed all the stuff you can do instead of writing. I’ve managed to get all my physical receipts ready for tax time. Not enough, so I organized my husband’s too. I’m learning to teach improv online. (Yes, and… it’s gonna take some adjusting!) I’m sorting through junk drawers (and bags, anybody else got junk bags from moving so often?) I’m cleaning this and sanitizing that. I’m taking naps. I’m meditating. I’m watching way too much Netflix.

So here. Gah. Here I am, keyboard. Let’s type.

2020 was gearing up to be great and fun and BUSY:

  • I was about to teach more improv than ever before.
  • Improv Niagara had just secured a second monthly show, which was to take place in downtown Niagara Falls.
  • IN was about to make a huge deal about our 2nd Birthday Fallout show.
  • I was starting to get corporate gigs.
  • I was getting better at Pilates (ie farting less)
  • I’d received a newfound confidence from performing The Vagina Monologues in knowing a) I can, indeed, memorize big chunks of text b) I can, indeed, rock full-faux leather performance attire.

The last month of February was BUZZING. I’m telling you, BUZZING. A huge Improv Niagara event in Niagara Falls, followed immediately by two sold-out, explosive performances of The Vagina Monologues at Camp Cataract.

And now it comes crashing to a halt. No more shows. No more events of 250 people or more. Wait, now it’s 50. OK I get it. No more events. Gatherings = virus spreading. Non-essential services must cease.

Yes, of course, for the best. We must do our part to flatten the curve and keep as many people safe as possible. And yet, it is an adjustment. I guess at least with improv, we’re good with making those.

Putting it Off

OK. I’m celebrating a small personal victory today. I did a thing I’ve been putting off for months; literally I intended to do this thing as soon as I began my leave from my day job. But I did it today. Many months later. Finally! I’m not going to say what it is because it I don’t want to jinx myself,  so sadly this is going to be a bit of vaguepress post today.

But, what I will say is the reason I was holding off was because of a fear of judgement.

I teach improv, and I tell people to behave silly all the time, in a way that normally they would fear due to our innate self-preservation. But here I am, the improv teacher, holding back because I’m afraid of what people will think of me. Or how they might classify me. Or that I’ll be completely rejected due to a lack of experience or because I look the way I look. For all these reasons I didn’t do the thing I wanted to do. Until now.

Today I did the thing. The vague thing. I put myself out there and what I’ll get in return I have NO idea, but at least I took the step that needed to be taken. Otherwise there would be a guaranteed negative return. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and whatnot.

I’m taking a second to bask in the fact that I finally did that thing. The immediate response is a satisfaction for having done it.

Now to see if it yields anything.

Finally, screenwriting

I have finally begun writing a fucking script!  I’ve been telling myself since graduation from Humber “Brie, write a spec script, Brie, write a spec script.  Do it do it do it now!”  But I didn’t.  I don’t know why?  Procrastination?  I guess it’s because I can always go out somewhere and perform.  It’s easy to put off writing by justifying the fact that you need to go out and do and see shows; to stay connected and to make sure people out in the community remember your face and that you do in fact, live and breathe.  However, equally, it’s important to have a base of written work in case someone asks you to write for their TV shows one of these days.  (Or so I dream.)

I decided not to write a spec script.  Rather, I’ve had an idea mulling around the ol’ brain box for a number of years now, and I’m finally putting the ideas down in writing and creating my first script for a sitcom pilot. Of course we did work on similar tasks while at Humber.  We collaboratively wrote a workplace pilot, which was altogether a very interesting learning process.  But it was the entire class working on it, so my contribution was pretty limited.  Nothing you could show to an agent or whatever.  We also wrote pitch packages in our writing class, which was also an interesting exercise, and I was told to get writing an episode, but I never quite found the desire for it.  It was a fun project to work on, but I didn’t see the show ever realistically being picked up.  It was about army cadets, and I don’t think there’s a huge interest in youth paramilitary activities.  At least, not since 1945 anyway.

In addition to the writing of words, I also caught a few live shows this week.  On Monday, I attended the Humber College New Faces ’14 show.  (I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since my face was new!)  It was a classy show and featured a guest performance by none other than veteran comic Dave Thomas.  Last year, I left the Industry Show with a sense of joy, maybe because I knew some of the performers still, and I was still riding high from my own experience from the year before, but this year the connection was a bit different.  I now look at the shows more critically, thinking: “if I were ever to direct a show of this magnitude, I would do this differently, or I wouldn’t do this at all, or I would definitely consider this… etc.”  Maybe having taken the Conservatory program at The Second City has given me more experience and a different approach to putting on a massive revue, but whatever the case,  I felt differently about this show than I had in the year prior.

Then I thought about the aftershmooze.  There were some people I would really have liked to chat with, but the room was clearing out and it seemed like everyone wanted to go home because it was friggin sweaty in there.  Also, I felt like what’s the point of talking to someone if they’re really there to see and mingle with the people who just performed a huge show that took months of preparation and 2 years of training?  It wasn’t my night to shmooze.  Or was it?  Who knows?  Are there appropriate conventions to shmoozing? It was a great night to catch up with my ol’ teachers.  Ever since high school I’ve found it slightly easier to connect with the teachers than to most of my classmates.  I know.  What a nerd, right?

Anyway, it was a great show, and it’s always a cool production to see such young, hopeful talent rockin’ their jokes & performing their little hearts out on the Main Stage.  It’s also a great way to get motivated to get my own butt back in gear!

That being said, I also attended a show put on by a great Toronto improv troupe; Fake Cops.  Every month they put on a free show at The Ossington. This week, they had some pretty awesome acts.  It seems like a great show to be able to explore; to make crazy choices and see where that takes you.  To do a set where you end up covered in cereal, or to perform with a mic stand wearing a wig.  Either way, the result was laughter!  There was some weirdness and some messiness, but it was all good, it was all interesting, and the night had a really good vibe going on.  I highly recommend checking this one out (and I’d love to get on it one of these days, if any Fake Cop ever reads this blog.)  Passive-manipulative social media marketing.  That’s my bag!

Aaaaaanyway,  I suppose I still have a job to go to tomorrow.  I best be off to bed.   Bonne nuit WordPress!

Another Yuk’s Under the Belt

Last night’s Yuk’s was a ball!  Sadly, I’m stuck at home this evening memorizing a monologue & writing topical jokes, or I’d be out telling more jokes tonight.  This semester’s been busy.  I can tell this not only because of the amount of work I have due, but more visually, because my apartment is in an almost constant state of disorder.  In university, I used to clean my room as  a means of procrastinating.  Maybe I should get back into that habit, (instead of blogging to procrastinate.)

Yuk Yuk’s Humber Night – October 19 2011

This is how I get called up:

      “Your next comedian is, um… Brie Watson.”

Technically, she got it right. Yes I was next, and that is in fact my name.  But how about a little oomph please?  I walk up on stage to that and the crowd already thinks I’m going to bore them to death.

But I get up on stage and couldn’t be happier about the fact that the three people in the front row, off to the side, look like celebrities.  More specifically, they look like a blonde Justin Bieber, the bearded-guy from Modern Family (but not a red-head) and a less-coked-out Courtney Love.  Bringing this information to the audience was one of those moments I’ve heard Larry refer to as: “A gift from the comedy gods.”   Just a moment when something comes up and you just KNOW it’s going to be good and it’s going to resonate well with the crowd.  And it DID.  Which is GREAT! Because I was going up with all new material and I was worried the set would be garbage!

But this guy was blonde.

God!  I just re-listened to it.  I HATE re-listening to my sets.  The second half of it WAS garbage, I stumbled so many times.  Gotta tighten it up, that’s all.  Tighten it up.  I wonder what Larry thought of it.  I LONG FOR HIS APPROVAL.

AND for Andrew Clark’s.  That’s why I talk so freakin’ much in his class. LOVE ME, ANDREW!  Get me a gig with Breslin when I graduate this place!! Don’t send me back to Ottawa, I don’t want to go back there! I can’t do it!  I just can’t!! (Unless it’s to do gigs at Yuk Yuk’s! In which case, SEND ME BACK TO OTTAWA!! PLEASE!)

The gay dude from Modern Family!!

I think I’m starting to crack under all this pressure.

No not really.

Havin' a good day.