December 16, 2012
-
Obama Says Marijuana Not A High Priority
I went back and forth about writing a post about a certain tragic even that happened a couple of days ago. But, then I figured since most of yous already know what my thoughts and opinions were and since I'm quite certain we are all saddened about the situation the last thing I wanted was to think about it again. And I'm quite certain the last thing you want is to be reminded about it; after all it seems to be everywhere and we can't seem to get away from it. But, I did see a very funny headline on Yahoo the other day that I will share: "Obama Says Marijuana Not A High Priority". Get it? Not a HIGH priority?
About six months ago I decided to start taking improv classes as Chicago's legendary Second City. The first term went eight weeks and then I took the next eight week course. Upon signing up for the third term, my class got cancelled due to low enrollment. So I switched gears for the next term and took a writing class. The class primarily dealt with writing comedic sketches, something I'm not very good at. A couple of weeks ago we had to come up with a premise for a sketch and then of course, write it. As you probably already know, I'm a big fan of mafia movies. What I came up with was a mother in her mid to late 50s who was the head of a mafia family. In the scene she was threatening her son who refused to pay her money that he owed her. The first draft I kind of went overboard with the swearing. The next week we had to give it to a couple of people in the class to read it out loud. The results were not good. Honestly, it was not a good sketch. And not many people in the class found it funny, probably in part because of the rather excessive swearing, among other things. We discussed it and the teacher gave us tips on how to make our sketches better and gave us the assignment of rewriting it. So I went home and kept the same general theme but rewrote a lot of it, even taking out every single swear word. I emailed a friend of mine who read it and said it was really funny. I was confident it was good, but still anxious to have the class and teacher hear it. Well, yesterday was the day it got its time in front of the class. And it killed! The class and the teacher loved it. Honestly, I think a good part of the appeal was just how bad it was the previous week and then how much it improved in one week.
Yesterday was the last class of this term. I had a difficult choice to make. Continue onto writing to or go back and finish up improv as I have two terms left with that. I love improv and love to perform. So this morning, I signed up for the next improv class. What is cool about this one though is that at the end of this term, I get to perform on stage in front of an audience. At Second fucking City! I don't think it will be the main stage but still, it's Second fucking City!!
Comments (4)
Weirdly, watching improv makes me nervous. You must have to be fearless to do it! On rewriting, I know the feeling. I took an on line course and naturally thought I had done well. The instructor pointed out several things that made my story hard to understand. When I reread the story, I understood. It's difficult to express in words what you are thinking, period. That course did me a lot of good. That story has just been published! Of course, the class cost me a couple of hundred bucks and getting the story published got me...well, a free copy of the magazine.
@whyzat - haha why does watching it make you nervous? well i havent had to do it in front of a live audience yet, just in front of the class. one of the classes though had 31 people and i was not nervous at all. once i was up there i was so focused on doing by own thing that i pretty much blocked out the people watching. congrats on getting published! where can i read it and what is it about?
@heckels - http://samsdotpublishing.com/aoife/main.htm link to the page with my story on it--it's the first one. I thiink improvmakes me vervous because I'm afraid the comedian is going to bomb--not that you would! I have a horror of being in front of an audience!
Very glad to see your blog, thank you share so many interesting things. Hope that in the future can see you day published more interesting!
Marijuana Dispensary in Tacoma