Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:57:20 -0800WeeblyMon, 23 Jan 2012 09:51:23 -0800http://www.otccomedytroupe.com/1/post/2012/01/the-parable-of-the-cookie.htmlWhen I first moved to Atlanta from Miami back in 1998, I wanted to find a place where I could practice my sacred art of improv.   I had been doing it since 1984 at that point - in college and then professionally at Mental Floss in Miami.   I had been taught by both good and bad improv teachers and like most actors had come to a synthesis of what worked for me - a good chunk of Viola Spolin with a few splashes of Uta Hagen and Stanislavsky.   By the time I was ready to start doing improv in the ATL, I had been performing it off and on for over 14 years.  You'd think that I would be able to audition and then start performing with a company but as in NYC and LA, many Atlanta companies have a "Pay to Play" (P2P) system.   Rather than just depending on ticket sales, subscriptions and corporate underwriting, many of these theater companies have found that there are plenty of actors, actresses, wanna bees and desperate housewives who will pay for the privilege to be on stage with their favorite comic improv actors.  What they don't tell you is that they can keep you in that P2P system for a long time until you're "ready" to go on stage and even then it won't be on a Friday or Saturday night but a Tuesday or Wednesday night when they can get your friends and family to  pay to watch you perform.  You can say that you are part of the troupe as long as you keep putting out for classes.  It's sort of like crack - you pay more and more to get a little bit of a high to perform.  Oh and you never really get paid - since what little money you get in your paycheck will go right back into workshops - uh show business!  Never underestimate how much someone will pay to feel like a star.  

I had researched the few groups that were around at that time and one improv troupe seemed to be the most reasonable in price. They had their theater in a very artistry enclave of Atlanta.   I had gone to watch their show a few weeks before to see if it was a good fit.   It was a very young college crowd but they seemed to stay on a pretty funny intellectual level.  I knew the sort of improv pieces they did (if you know the show Whose Line is it Anyway? there are standards like Irish Drinking Song, in addition getting a location and relationship from the audience and creating a scene the spot with your improv partner).  I found out after introducing myself to the class that some of the founding members of the group had actually gone to school in Miami and had been to see Mental Floss as students.   "You did Fluffy La Puff? Awesome!" said one of the young members.   Fluffy was one of my signature characters.  "I used to go to Mental Floss when I was in high school."    I was hoping that meant I was cool and not old.   So after about two years of not doing improv (being a mom of a toddler can put things like that on hold)  I found that I was back to where I was when I was performing on a regular basis after about two classes -  it's like riding a bicycle - you never forget.   

After about four workshops, I got invited to do "Micetro" which is a sort "Survivor" of improv shows.   You have 12 improvisors start out in the evening and only one makes it to the end.   Sounds like riveting reality TV - the audience decides who to vote off one by one based on how you did in each of the improv sketches.   Now, on those "scripted dramas" having folks voted off the island is just how it goes.  But for improvisors that are just starting out - it creates very bad acting habits.   Rather than learning to support their partner to create a great scene,  they try to out do their partner and undermine them to get the most votes.   The improv "judges" can give side coaching but let's face it, it's the audience that gets the final decision.    So if a new actor saw that they could get a laugh mentioning an jock strap, erection, boobs or cum - they would do it and get the votes.  Even if they got warned by the "judges" about being vulgar, once they knew that wearing the scum box ( box of shame that went over the head of performer who had gone too far) was a twisted badge of honor, it was hard to get them back to playing at a higher intellectual level.  It' s sort of like sharks that taste mammal meat for the first time - it's quick, easy and very satisfying.   Who cares if the blood in the water is your partner's?  

So I'd do these Micetro's and get voted out in the first half because I'd refuse to go code blue but I'd try to support my partner the best way I could.   After the show, we would get notes and usually Joe, my workshop coach and judge would compliment me and say that my scenes were some of his favorites.  He was sorry that I wasn't getting voted through.   Then the younger members of the class would pipe up with "But if the audience isn't giving you the votes it doesn't matter how good your scene was."   That's when I realized something sinister was taking place - the scenes became more about pandering to the audience - not working with them.

The nights I would get ready to do a show, Max could tell that I wasn't having much fun.  "Why are you doing it again - you seem freaking miserable every time you go?"  "It's one of the best improv groups in Atlanta and I can make some connections." I would respond - trying to convince myself as much as him that it was what I really wanted to do.   One night, one of the company performers decided to perform with us.   He was doing a scene and afterwards, Joe  gave him some feedback just like he did for all of the performers in the show.  The player became incensed, called Joe a facist and stormed off the stage.  We thought it was a bit, but he walked out in the middle of the show - I mean got in his car and left.   Everyone tried to make light of it, but good God, the guy pulled that right in front of an audience and embarrassed everyone including himself.   If it had been my company, he would have been gone or at least suspended for a few weeks.   But no, there he was back at a Friday night show like nothing had happened.  He did send a note which was read to us at the next workshop - by Joe.  

It was the holiday season and I had made my usual selection of cookies and decided to bring a few dozen to the theater before the show.  It gave me and the toddler Amber a reason to make chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, rice crispy treats, magic cookie bars and fudge.   Two of the guys asked if the chocolate chip cookies were the soft batch like the Keebler cookies.   "Actually, those cookies are loaded with chemicals to make them that soft but I just made these fresh this afternoon," I said with my best Bri DeCamp smile.  "Ah, I really like them soft - hey I bet if we nuke them, we can make them soft."  Again, I smiled and said "Enjoy!"   They took four of the cookies over to the microwave and nuked them for 10 seconds.  Sure enough, they were soft, but the chocolate was extremely hot and burned their hands.  When they cookies got cooler after a minute, they were hard as rocks - putrified by the radiation of the microwave.    They threw them out and shoved some sugar cookies into their pie holes and walked away without so much as a thank you.   

That night at Micetro, I was getting voted through and made it to the second half of the show for the first time.   It felt good as many of the other women in the show had been voted off.   Then the second part of the show started and I found that I really wanted to make it through to the end - which meant pandering.   I had promised myself I wouldn't -  but I wanted to make it to the end to prove to myself I could do it.   So I made jokes about my boobs or lack there of, groins, premature ejaculations - nothing was sacred.   I didn't get the scum box but I did get to the top four before I was voted off.   I had made it further than my past three attempts.  I should have been happy - but I felt empty.   I knew I hadn't done my best work and while the audience didn't know or care - I did.    I saw the box that I had brought the Christmas treats in ripped up and thrown into the garbage along with those ill fated cookies.   So quick, easy and disposable once it had been consumed. 

I thought about that as I drove back on I-85 that night.  I was that poor chocolate chip cookie.  I wasn't a soft batch - I was me and try as I might I just didn't want to do improv their way.  When I did and it made me feel as hard and tasteless as those sweet hockey pucks at the bottom of the garbage can.    I had gone as far as I ever had in Micetro, but I didn't want to go back to see if I could win it all - it just wasn't worth it if I was doing the sort of stuff I just didn't believe in.   I was sacrificing who I was for the instant gratification of an audience that only wanted dick jokes.   In an odd way, it felt good to walk away that night on my own terms.   

Now for you improv actors in Atlanta, I want you to understand that this is not a slam against that improv company.   They are good at what they do, it was just not the right thing for me.   That was over 13 years ago, and I'm sure things have changed.  A few years later in 2005,  I started with an improv group called Comedy Cobb which eventually got changed to The OTC Comedy Troupe.  I got to teach my philosophy of the art.  Now I would be a hypocrite if I told you that I never do a dirty scene - but when I do it's because my partner and I are working together - it's a mutual smut fest based on trust.  My group doesn't have eight shows a week and our own space like they do, but I love to perform when I can with like minded folks who make me laugh really hard.  When I get off of stage I feel good about what we've done.    Our shows can be geared to any audience from the edgy college student to kids who still watch the Disney channel.     I think we succeed on our own terms and really isn't that all any of us can ask? 

So the moral of the story is to know what sort of cookie you are and be proud if it.  If someone tries to nuke you to make you into something you're not, just take your treats and leave.  Because it doesn't matter how good their bakery is, if you hate their sweets, you'll never be happy.   Now go out there and blaze a trail - on your own terms with your own recipe for success - one that you can actually stomach. 

]]>Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:22:10 -0800http://www.otccomedytroupe.com/1/post/2011/11/funny-girls.htmlWhen I was a small girl, the Saturday night line-up of comedies on CBS was about the best thing in the whole world.   I got to see smart funny women being smart and funny.   The night would start off with All in the Family with Edith and Gloria getting the best of Archie and Michael (most of time).   Next the Mary Tyler Moore Show came on and our gal Mary Richards worked relentlessly to produce the WGM 6:00 p.m. Newscast with an over bearing boss and an inept anchorman named Ted Baxter.  Then there was The Bob Newhart Show where Bob's brilliant wife Emily tried to keep things in perspective between Bob's crazy friends and even crazier patients.   Sure, M*A*S*H* was in the line-up too, but I never really saw Major Hot Lips Houlihan as much of a role model even after she lost the "Hot Lips" and just became Margaret.  Finally, we had my patron saint of comedy, Carol Burnett.   I would have to beg my mom to let me stay up until 11:00 p.m. to see the entire show.   I got to sit at the altar of funny ladies every Saturday night and in the 1970's - they ruled network TV.   Back then, aspiring to be a funny girl did not seem that outlandish.   It could be feminine, sexy and intelligent.  You did not have to be Lucy and have to outsmart Ricky to get laughs.  You got what you needed on your own terms and if a man wanted to come along for the ride, all the better.   

Maybe it was because in the heyday of the Equal Rights movement, anything seemed possible for girls.  You had women in Congress like Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm daring to question Richard Nixon and his administration during Watergate.    You had Margaret Thatcher's rise to power as a women who wore pearls and puffy hair but could easily stare down her male counterparts just as easily as Winston Churchill.   Golda Mier was the Prime Minister of Israel and was first called the Iron Lady before Thatcher got that title.   Then in India, there was Indira Gandhi -- another nation ruled by a very strong woman.  It seemed conceivable that women were making strides everywhere and if you could dream it, you could be it.   I dreamed of making the world a better place through comedy. 

Praying at the CBS altar of those sacred Saturday nights helped form the comic sensibilities I have today.   The stand-up comediennes of the 1960's like Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields and Joan Rivers had to denigrate themselves to get laughs.  Samantha Stevens and Jeannie had to pretend they were less powerful then they were to assuage the insecurities of Darren and Major Nelson. But these new women of the 70's, these comic goddesses could hold their own with their male counterparts and had the strong ratings to show for it.   I loved them as extended members of my family.   I'd wear a bright paisley head scarf to my fifth grade class like Rhoda and pretend my desk was like the one Mary had in the newsroom.   Sometimes I would pretend my bully Lisa was Sue Ann Nivens - the Happy Home Maker - it made Blue Lakes Elementary a more bearable place to learn.  Once I was in Junior High, I'd get to stay up and see a little of Saturday Night Live.  Gilda Radner and Jane Curtain were a revelation.   Never mind that John Belushi once said that women weren't funny - who needed Samurai Deli and the Blue Brothers when you had Roseanna Danna and Candy Slice?  These women were writing and pushing the envelope in a very subversive way and I loved it! 

In the 1980's the trend continued with shows like Kate and Allie, Designing Women, Golden Girls, Roseanne, Murphy Brown, and Grace Under Fire but for some reason they just didn't resonate with me like the my old CBS Saturday nights.    I liked the Designing Women and no one on TV could monologue like Julia Sugarbaker.  Murphy Brown seemed to be strong in a one note kind of way and every now and again you got to see her vulnerable.  I loved Claire Huxtable and her no nonsense way with her husband Cliff and her five kids.  I could identify with being in a large family and not wanting to tell your father that something around the house was broken for fear he would try to fix it.   God bless my dad, but he was not a handy man like Cliff and we would pretend that the dishwasher was working before we could get a repair in while he was out of town, just like Claire. 

But then in the 1990's - things changed.   You a had few stand out sitcoms like Seinfeld in which a character like Elaine was out numbered by three other male players.   I loved Mad About You and identified with Jamie Buckman during the early years of my marriage to Max.  We even got pregnant about the same time.   Ellen was very funny but the networks bulked when she came out.   When was the last time you saw a pair of lesbians on a sit-com like Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family?   I guess the networks were and still are more comfortable with Will being gay than Grace. 

I'd all but given up once the year 2000 hit.   It seemed like the new millennium was not ushering in new comedies with women at the helm.  Sure you had Friends, but no strong females pushing the boundaries.   Just when it looked like another season of sitcoms with men in the leads and women as copilots - Tina Fey came along with 30 Rock and the comedic embers of my youth were rekindled.   She, like Mary Richards, is the head of a motley crew of actors and writers whose egos lead to comedic chaos.  Her boss is a network executive that is way hotter than Mr. Grant.   The writing is intelligent, irreverent and not politically correct.  Liz Lemon faces being forty, unmarried and having that ticking biological clock with a charming mix of goofiness and brains that makes it one of my favorite sitcoms.   In fact, NBC Thursday nights are my new CBS Saturday nights with sitcoms either created by or starring women who are trying find that yoga-like balance between work and family that seems to elude them each week and many of us as well.   

I've written before about how comedy is my drug of choice.    Having an improv troupe and the ability to make very silly videos gives me a positive outlet for my frustrations.    Acting like a crazy lunatic all these years on stage and YouTube has kept me very sane.  My comedic idols taught me that women can show strength through humor and that laughing at yourself is the best medicine of all.   Edith, Gloria, Emily, Mary, Rhoda, Phillis, Carol, Gilda, Jane, Claire, Murphy, Julia, Jamie, Leslie, Ellen and Liz, you have been there for me when my life has been at a tipping point and I needed a compass to find my way.  Your comedy has been that needle to help me find my way out of an emotionally dark jungle of fear and gave me the courage to believe in myself even when other people wanted to write me off.   That gift, my comedy goddesses, is one I'll always treasure and pass down to the next generation.  

What I've learned is that these funny girls can teach our daughters more than the Kardashians or the Real Housewives ever could:  that life is funny, sweet, ridiculous, you don't always look hot and yes, sometimes it's really, really unfair.   Ellen came out of her career tailspin with a great talk show and a burgeoning entertainment empire.   She survived on her own terms much like my favorite sitcom heriones.  Learning to roll with the punches and laughing at ourselves is what life is all about.   Taking yourself too seriously is a sure recipe for a reality Diva meltdown.   What our girls need to see today are women who know how to be strong, smart and funny.   Women who know how to throw their hats up in the air  and smile because they know they are going to make it after all.  





]]>Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:43:35 -0800http://www.otccomedytroupe.com/1/post/2011/10/happy-place.htmlMaybe you, like me, might have had one of those days, weeks or months when getting your sorry ass out of bed was a huge effort.   You turn on the TV and there's Matt Lauer unloading more depressing news on the economy and how we might be headed for another double dip recession.   The employment figures are dismal which means now might not be the best time to reinvent yourself and switch careers by starting that improv program for at-risk kids you've always dreamed of doing  (Insert your own dream here).   You get into your car and put on NPR which has an interview with an economist who tells you that the world markets are not rebounding as they should and things may never be the same economically in your lifetime.   Your heart starts to beat faster, so fast that you can see the steady thumping through your shirt.   Your breathing becomes shallow, you're sweating profusely and starting to get light headed.   You realize that you might be headed straight into a full blown anxiety attack and might pass out at the wheel on your way to work.   

You pull over into the nearest parking lot, try to catch your breath and try to calm down.   You turn the radio to a pop station just to listen to something different.  Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" blares out of the speakers and suddenly you picture those Glee kids singing their hearts out oblivious to Sue Sylvester lurking in the background.   Your heart starts to slow down and you take a shaky swig from your bottled water.  After a minute or two, you can finally catch your breath.   Rather weakly and barely on key, you join Steve Perry at the refrain: "Don't stop believing - hold on to that feeling - streetlights, people - oooooooohhhhhh!"  A sort of calm takes hold of your body as you continue to try to out sing Journey's front man.   Then it occurs to you - that you need to stop listening to depressing news shows and start listening to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars instead.   Because while National Public Radio definitely has the lock on probing interviews - you discover that what you really need is a good dose of the Lazy Song during the morning rush hour.    Singing badly at the top of your lungs in your car is just one juicy slice of awesome to get you through your day.  

Finding your happy place can be a challenge in this day and age.  We seem to be so programed for negativity and gloom and doom that being joyful can seem like a guilty pleasure - especially when the internet is primed to really bring you down.  For every laughing baby on YouTube, there's at least 10 rants from the Real Housewives or a new outbreak of violence or disease in a developing country.  I was talking to a group of women when the resident Debbie Downer proceeded to read a series of depressing statistics that she was getting from her Twitter feed.  When I suggested that she might be happier if she was following Conan O'Brien or Jimmy Fallon and watching a sitcom to break the tension - she looked at me seriously and said "Never!"   Why kill that sense of constant righteous indignation with something fun and mindless? 

Here's the problem constant negativity - habitual thoughts and behaviors create specific neural pathways in the wiring in our brains, similar to the way water flowing downhill creates a groove in the earth. When we think or behave a certain way over and over, the neural pathway is strengthened and the groove becomes deeper. Unhappy people tend to have more negative neural pathways -- their minds are literally stuck in a rut.   But here's the good news: new research shows that when you repeatedly think, feel, and act in a different way, the brain actually rewires itself. This means you can change your happiness set point.   Leading brain researcher Richard Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison reported recently that, "Based on what we know about the plasticity of the brain, we can think of happiness as a skill no different from learning to play a musical instrument...it is possible to train our minds to be happy." 

For me, finding those little moments of happiness in my day can do more for me than a double dose of St. John's Wort ever could.  For instance, on Saturdays, I go to Zumba and then spend the rest of the day in my yoga pants because frankly it's the weekend - I'm just too lazy to wear real pants.   Going to Target with my kids and getting a decaf low fat Salted Caramel latte with a little whipped cream is a sure ticket to my happy place - it just makes me smile.  Taking the kids to the park and jumping around like an idiot is very therapeutic.  Sitting on the carpet and watching movies with the Amber and Daniel is another way I like to spend some fun time on the weekends.  Cuddling with my husband or exchanging really inappropriate "That's what she said" jokes is another simple way to laugh together.  

Many people expect too much from the pursuit of happiness and make themselves miserable along they way.  They think that by finding that perfect spouse will end their days of loneliness, or getting that big promotion will guarantee financial independence, or finally going to Hawaii on the perfect vacation will give them the Nirvana that they've been searching for.  In the end, they end up disappointed because, no person, place or thing will ever give them that sense of satisfaction if they don't know how to find it for themselves.   

In the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey spends his life regretting never leaving Bedford Falls and feeling like a failure when his business is about go under on Christmas Eve of all days.   He's sacrificed so much to help others and in the end he is emotionally and financially exhausted (as someone whose spent my entire adult life working with charities, I can relate).  He is so tied into finding his destiny once he can leave his hometown that he cannot see all the blessings that have been bestowed on him.  It takes an angel named Clarence to show him what the world would be like if he was not around.   He realizes that it's his wife, family and even that drafty old house that makes him happy not that elusive dream of building bridges overseas.   

You have to find those moments of happiness each day - because if you don't find them for yourself - frankly no one else will.  It's so easy to play a crappy mood forward or to pass on a lousy day at work to those who are near and dear.   One way to beat that is to make some else's day might be by complimenting a co-worker or the women next to you in the supermarket checkout on her hair or shoes (this is a safe choice even if you're a guy and worried that she might think you're flirting with her - complimenting hair and shoes is not something most straight men do).   When you see how happy a compliment from a random stranger makes someone,  you end up feeling great too.    Those small acts of kindness make your world a better place and can really be a tipping point in someone else's day.   

This parable from the book 5 Habits of Truly Happy People by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline really brings the importance of happiness into focus: One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people's heads. He said, "My son, the battle is between the two 'wolves' that live inside us all. One is unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion.  "The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"  The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."  

So do yourself a favor and find at least 30 minutes a day to laugh and spend time with someone you care about - even if it's a pet.  Tell the people that you love simply that you love them.    Watch an episode of The Office after a bad day at work - it will help put things in perspective (because let's face it - we've all worked for a Michael Scott at one time or another),    Happiness can take time to create - but it's totally worth it.  Just close your eyes, take a deep breath and don't stop believing.  











]]>Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:52:32 -0800http://www.otccomedytroupe.com/1/post/2011/09/laughing-at-bullies.htmlMy bully Lisa stepped out onto the sidewalk just a few doors down from my house.  She had been bullying me since elementary school.  But now at 11,  I was taller and she was nastier.  I never knew what I did to make her want to bully me.  The first time it happened we were both in the first grade and I got a Partridge Family lunch box and apparently she hated the show (okay - in hindsight I understand why).  I had my cherry juice in the matching thermos and she grabbed it and smashed it right on Danny Bonaduce's face.   The red juice spattered everywhere like a bloody scene right out of the movie Scarface.  I told my Mom, but Lisa's family was the one house on the block with the lawn that was never mowed and the dad with the notoriously bad temper - so the whole neighborhood stayed clear.  They were never invited to the Friday night dinner parties.   I tried to avoid her, but she'd pick up my scent and track me down.   I didn't have to track her scent, it was pretty bad and the sight of her made my eyes water.   My stomach became an instant gas chamber. 

She stood there in her popsicle splattered t-shirt.  The juice had run down her arm which was stained red and mixed with a light dusting of dirt, her hair filled with sticks and leaves.  Apparently she had to wrestle that popsicle to the ground to eat it.   I should have taken the long way home, but it was starting to thunder and I needed to get home fast.   Rain storms come in fast in Miami around 4:00 p.m.   I had about 5 minutes before it would pour.  Lisa wouldn’t budge and was making it a point to tell me how fat and stupid I was, even through I had lost weight and was an honor student.   But each word made me doubt my weight and my intelligence - that's how bullies wear you down. 

I tried to walk around her but she kept getting closer.  Sensing that I might be cold cocked in the stomach once again with her sticky juice stained hand – I decided to try a different tactic.   I put out my butt and started to walk funny and taking my cue from a Carol Burnett sketch, said “Mr. Tudball – I have pencils to sharpen.”  Lisa stepped back and looked at me with eyes as big as golf balls.  "What did you say?" she asked.   "I have pencils to sharpen," I replied, sticking my butt our even further.  I heard a boy laughing behind me and turned to see her older brother Michael watching the whole thing unfold.   He was the one nice person in the family who got along with the rest of the kids on the block.  "Carol Burnett - Mrs. Wiggins, I love that sketch."  He then turned to Lisa, "Good God, haven't you ever heard of a napkin? C'mon Mom wants you home before the storm hits."  Lisa turned still looking at me with my butt sticking out.  They both started to laugh and I ran home just as the first drops were beginning to splat. 

Making people laugh has always been a refuge for me whether I was that chunky little girl with the David Cassidy Tiger Beat magazine or the girl in Junior High who had lost a ton of weight over the summer vacation.   Just like a runner who gets that endorphin high after a run or a heroin addict that needs that rush from their next fix, comedy is my drug.  It just makes me very happy.   I get a heady feeling and a blast of energy after a show with my partners at the OTC Comedy Troupe.  Whether it's doing improv for an audience of 300 or a show for 10 people in a coffee shop - just bringing laughter into someone's life is something that I take very seriously.  I've seen it heal me.  I've seen it heal others.  

I've seen the parents of children with development disabilities hire my comedy troupe for a show and then ask us to do some really blue comedy that was totally politically incorrect because they just needed to escape for a few hours.   We performed for two hours straight - not stopping for our usual intermission because the comedy and the healing needed to keep on coming.  The energy of the room transformed and their faces were brighter -- ready go back home and deal with a child that they loved dearly but who was not emotionally able to communicate that love back.  

I've seen my actors who had a piss poor day at work revive at workshop and feel renewed after a "play-date" with the other players.   I've pulled my self out of painful funks and crying jags by dragging myself to the web show and getting a rush of energy from our audience.   

I'd like to say that once you leave school, you leave the bullies behind.  But as any women whose been at the mercy of the Mean Girls can tell you, it doesn't always happen.   It still pervades at our colleges, social circles and workplaces, but I've found that doing comedy is a good escape for that.   Ironically, I am considered a dead ringer for one of the biggest bullies out there- Ann Coulter.  My various video jabs at the conservative cougar have brought accolades and condemnation from both sides of the political aisle.  Sometimes it's pretty vicious and obscene.   It's very clear that those cyber bullies really need to get a life which is what I tell them right before they are blocked forever from my YouTube channel.  If only it was that easy in real life.   

As far as dealing with bullies goes, you get better at handling it as you get older, but there are times when those mean girls or guys can make you feel as small as that little girl with the broken thermos.   You can either go back there and believe all those bad things about yourself, or move forward, learn to laugh and feel some compassion for the bullies.   Lisa didn't have a great home life and felt ashamed and took that anger out on me.  After the Mrs. Wiggins episode, she bullied me less and less until it stopped - she just wasn't that scary anymore.   

The cyber bullies don't have a real way of communicating with real people so they grind their angst anonymously on any internet venue they can.   The mean folks confuse passivity for weakness which is a mistake because sometimes you just have to pick your fights.  The quiet ones can strike out with terrific and focused strength when they are pushed too far.   My tongue can be a real dagger when it needs to defend me - when the nice Kelley has to be protected by the sardonic Kelley.  It's not something I like to use very often, but it's nice to know that I have it in me when it's needed.  

For me, laughter is the best medicine and comedy is my drug of choice.  It helps me keep a stiff upper lip and gives me the courage to stick my butt out.  After all, I've got pencils to sharpen. 

  


]]>Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:48:54 -0800http://www.otccomedytroupe.com/1/post/2010/01/first-post.html For those of you that don’t know me or what I do on the weekends for fun -- I’m the artistic director of a comedy improv group.  In fact, I’ve been doing comedy improv professionally for over 20 years.   Now many of you are probably thinking, “Wow, she must have started when she was ten years old.”  Well the truth is, yes, I did start when I was ten years old.   Well not professionally, but I did find that as a kid, I enjoyed helping people laugh.  Comedy was a good defense mechanism growing up – I was overweight and not coordinated or good at sports and was of course the last person to be picked forsports teams in elementary school.  My only saving grace was having a good sense of humor and the ability to do spot on impressions from the Carol Burnett show.  In middle school when I was allowed to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live -- Gilda Radner became another patron saint of comedy who helped me entertain the jocks while I warmed the benches.  So from an early age, I learned to not take myself too seriously and it opened meup to friendships with people who could laugh with me and not at me.  My work as an improv performer over the last twenty years has helped me see the importance of adding humor in our everyday lives and the healing power of laughter.    

My group does corporate events and one time we were asked to do a show for the Attachment Disorder Network which is group of parents with children who have severe developmental disabilities.  Keep in mind that we were performing at Simpsonwood which is a United Methodist Retreat Center in Norcross that has large wooden doors and you literally have totake the hand of Jesus to open the door.  Knowing this, I warned my actors to being their G-rated A game.   Well just about 10 minutes into the show, the audience made it clear by their suggestionsthat they didn’t want politically correct.  They wanted us to get blue.  At first I tried to control the scatological references so I could keep it on a high intellectual level – after all I did take the hand of Jesus when I walked in.   But this audience needed to laugh at themselves and take a moment to be in on jokes with other adults who had children with the same problems.   We did two hours of  comedy and when it was over, the room felt lighter.  Was this the cleanest show we’d everdone?  Not by a long shot, but these parents, who always had to be patient and understanding with children who would never understand their sacrifices, were putting their need to laugh first.  I realized in this place that God works in mysterious ways by bringing in a group of actors who are as far from therapists as they can be and in their zeal to just entertain an audience had given a healing performance. Laughter, it's said, is the best medicine. And there's lots of evidence that laughter does lotsof good things for us.  It reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort.   

According to an article in Psychology Today, laughter reduces blood sugar levels, increasing glucose tolerance in diabetics and non-diabetics alike. It improves your job performance, especially if your work depends on creativity and solving complex problems. Its role in intimate relationships is vastly underestimated and it really is the glue of good marriages.  It synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener so that they are emotionally attuned. Laughter establishes -- or restores -- a positive emotional climate and a sense of connection between two people, In fact, some researchers believe that the major function of laughter is to bring people together. And all the health benefits of laughter may simply result from the social support that laughter stimulates.    We love being in on the same joke. Now comes hard new evidence that laughter helps your blood vessels function better. It acts on the inner lining of blood vessels, called the endothelium, causing vessels to relax and expand, increasing blood flow. In other words, it's good for your heart and brain, two organs that require the steady flow of oxygen carried in the blood.   You feel better and think clearly when you laugh.   Haven’t you ever just had a good laugh when friends and finished it with an “Ahhh” and then had a moment of clarity as if whatever might have been bothering you had either gone away or you had a renewed perspective on how to handle it. When 9/11 happened, all the comedy and talk shows stopped producing while the news stations told us the details of all the things that were happening at Ground Zero in New York.  It was a heart wrenching time in our history and not one in which many people were laughing.  Saturday Night Live was supposed to come on September 29, 2001 but it was uncertain if it would air on its premiere date.   Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in what I think was his finest hour, decided that the country had mourned enough and needed New York to get back to normal.    He asked Lorne Michels, the producer, to have SNL premiere as scheduled.  The opening that night was a beautiful tribute by Paul Simon to the police officers and fire fighters that had perished that day. After it was over, Lorne Michels turns to Mayor Giuliani and asks, “Can we go back to being funny?”.  Giuliani pauses for a second and replies, “Why start now?”  And in that moment, America got it’s funny back and weneeded it.   If the mayor of a city that had lost so much could crack a joke, then it was okay for the rest of us to laugh again.  As someone who loves comedy and loves to perform it, that was a very proud moment.  It meant we could laugh and start to think more clearly.  Letterman and Leno came back on the air and we started to have fun again.  

People came back to see shows on the Great White Way, and Broadway was back to it’s pre-9/11 levels in just five months and unlike the airline industry – without government subsidies.   If we ever needed laughter and a sense of humor with the way the world is going – it’snow.  There is a constant stream of gloom and doom about the economy on the news and yet when things are bleakest, comedy seems to be the first thing people turn to.  This year instead of a crop of movies like No Country for Old Men or The Wrestler- Hollywood is finding that the end of 2009 is one of the strongest ever.  Why?  Because people want to escape to Avator, Up in the Air, It's Complicated and Sherlock Holmes.  People want to escape and laugh more than ever. The media loves to report on the negative side of things and we’ve been getting tons of it lately.   But they are not always right.   Remember the Y2K apocalypse that wassupposed to wipe out civilization as we knew it?   For years we were warned about the possibility of major blackouts, airplanes falling from the sky, and food shortages when the clocks chimed in midnight on New Year’s Day 2000.    Survivalists stocked up on ammo, bottled water and canned tuna ready for the anarchy that would ensue.   News reports gave you the impression that you had better kiss your kiester good-bye because once theyear 2000 hit, none of the computers would be able to handle it and would think we were back to they year 1900.   So on New Year’s Eve 1999, I sat on the couch after Max, my husband and I put our toddler Amber to bed and watched TV thinking it would be the last time for a while.  We watched other parts of the world ring in the New Year, Australia, Japan, Italy, and London, all with no loss of electricity.  New Years 2000 was turning out to just like any other New Years.  When the countdown for our Georgia’s New Years happened, I was very anxious and went to bed.   The next morning,  the year 2000 had arrived, the electricity was still on, I did not have to climb over airplane parts to get the paper and my kiester was  exactly where I had left it.  Years of anxiety had produced a normal New Year’s Day.  The biggest losers were the survivalists who had more tuna then cream of mushroom soup and let’s face it you can only do so much with tuna noodle casserole.   I remember going to the park with Amber (Daniel was to be born 12 months later) and feeling this huge sense of relief that civilization had not collapsed.  What bothered me was that I had spent years worrying about something terrible that they news media reported with absolutecertainty was going to happen, but never did.   

It can be hard to keep your sense of humor in these challenging times, but it pays to laugh each day.  Not laughing can have negative consequences on your mental health. According to the book, 5 Habits of Truly Happy People by Marci Shimoff and Carol Kline, our habits do affect our happiness, and neuroscientists have recently discovered why. Habitual thoughts and behaviors create specific neural pathways in the wiring in our brains, the way water flowing downhill creates a groove in the earth. When we think or behave a certain way over and over, theneural pathway is strengthened and the groove becomes deeper. Unhappy people tend to have more negative neural pathways -- their minds are literally stuck in a rut.Scientists used to think these neural pathways were set in stone. But new research shows that when you repeatedly think, feel, and act in a different way, the brain actually rewiresitself. This means you can change your happiness set point.Leading brain researcher Richard Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, "Based on what we know about the plasticity of the brain, we can think of happiness as a skill no different from learning to play a musical instrument...it is possible to train our minds to be happy."Scientists used to think these neural pathways were set in stone. But new research shows that when you repeatedly think, feel, and act in a different way, the brain actually rewires itself. This means you can change your happiness set point.Leading brain researcher Richard Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, "Based on what we know about the plasticity of the brain, we can think of happiness as a skill no different from learning to play a musical instrument...it is possible to train our minds to be happy."These five habits along with a good dose of laughter can help you get through tough times and can help you feel much better. 

1. Don't Believe Everything You Think 
According to medical experts, we have an average of 60,000 thoughts a day -- about one thought per second during every waking hour. And of those 60,000 thoughts, 95 percent are the same thoughts we had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. What's worse is that for the average person, the vast majority of those habitual thoughts are negative.How many times have you been in a room of people who really enjoyed your presentation, performance, art work, etc. but you zoned in on the one person who didn’t seem to be enjoying what you were doing.  Here’s a something to think about, very negative people who are hard to please know that most people will work hard to get their approval and if they give their approval then they lose their power to manipulate.  So stop giving away your power and stop trying to please someone with impossible standards.   Instead of trying to satisfy that one relative who never likes what you give them, send them a gift certificate and be done with it.  If they complain, let them--  they would have even if you had spent hours trying to buy them the perfect gift.

2. Notice The Happy Things in Your Life -- No Matter How Small
This parable helps to bring this concept into focus:One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people's heads. He said, "My son, the battle is between the two 'wolves' that live inside us all. One is unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority. The other is happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and compassion."The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."  When I start to feel down, I try to notice the little things that make my life better, like a decent parking space, or the nice walk I need to take when I can’t find a good parking space.   Also, try complimenting co-workers or strangers on their outfit and you can see their demeanor change and their smile reflects back on you.  

3. Choose the Happier Thought
The next time you're faced with a challenging situation that gives rise to negative thoughts and bad feelings, find an equally true thought about the situation that makes you feel better -- and lean into it.   When you are stressing about a deadline, try to clear your head of negative thoughts and ask for help – the more you relax the more ideas will come to you.   It’s seeing the glass as half full versus half empty – the glass half full people generally forge on ahead without giving up. 

4. Tend to Your RelationshipsThe best way to keep relationships happy, healthy, and supportive can be summed up in one word: appreciation. "One of the most important things a person can do to raise his or her happiness level is to acknowledge those around them," says Judith W. Umlas, author of The Power of Acknowledgment. "According to a recent Gallup Management Journal article, when someone is acknowledged, dopamine is released -- a neurochemical that's directly linked to being happy!" When we demonstrate our appreciation for the support we receive from others, it reinforces that behavior and deepens our connection to them. 

5. Find Passion and Purpose
Bringing a sense of passion to mundane activities will boost your happiness, but so will taking the time to find your true passions. Think about what activities most absorb you and analyze what it is about those activities that makes you happy.  I stopped doing improv for a few years because I was caught up in work, raising my family and all the other things that are on your to-do list except for those things you really enjoy.   I knew something was missing, I just wasn’t sure what.  I didn’t realize how much I missed performing until John Ritter passed away and it really affected me.   While it was a shock, here was a guy doing exactly what he wanted to do the day he died – being funny and entertaining people – but I wasn’t.   I decided to try doing improv again six years ago.   I’m now the producing artistic director of my own group – which has its roots here at UUCG when I was teaching improv workshops and John Schmedes, my executive producer, took the class. He liked what he saw and invited me to help him start what is now the OTC Comedy Troupe.   So thanks to UUCG, you can now see such OTC comedy classics as “Booty the Vote” on YouTube and I know you must all be so proud. ]]>