I just flew in from the Austin Improv Festival, and boy are my arms tired. (See? I'm doing improv RIGHT NOW.)
Here is a picture of some percentage of New Orlean's improv crizzew Coldstone Heroes. (At least, I think that's what they're called. I was pretty drunk when I was talking to them.)
Here's their story:
Last Week, Mayor Nagin was like, "You better get out of the way of this storm coming through."
The Improvers go: "I think he's right; we'd better split like a promising stock."
They fled the city for couches in Chicago, Ireland and elsewhere. Like four of them ended up in Austin.
You know what happened next in New Orleans:
*Cheap-ass 55-seat theaters and no-cover bars where the troupe might have plyed their craft are closed forever.
*The alternative weekly that called them "brilliant" and named them "comedy pick of the week" is gone but for millions of soggy hooker-ads floating down the street.
*The college kids who are starting to catch on to the improv thing have gone home to their parents.
*The one agency in town of any importance, the one they've been trying to entice for months to attend a performance, is gone too.
*That cool music store where they browse for Arcade Fire CDs has been destroyed.
*The thrift store where they purchased ironic T-shirts and non-ironic vacuum cleaners is gone.
*The Ramen Noodles they would have eaten have been looted, found, or left for rats.
Anyway, the troupe, homeless, heard about the festival in their adopted city--a city happily full of record stores, ironic T-shirt outlets, and like-minded funny people. Festival organizers screwed around with the festival's schedule to give them a chance to perform.
By all accounts, their set went very well; they were funny even though their hometown had been washed away.
Here's what I remember of my drunken conversation with them:
THE GIRL WITH THE SHORT HAIR: We're having a really good time tonight, but that's just cause we've drinking. This whole thing really sucks. Nagin is a great hero.
THE GUY WITH RED HAIR: I miss my records.
NOT PICTURED GUY offered many creative ideas of what should be done with former FEMA director Mike Brown.
THE GIRL WITH THE SHORT HAIR: Get ready for an influx of New Orlean's most desperate poor people, Texas, gold teeth and all.
ME: If you were in the Superdome, would you have lightened the mood with your improvisational hi-jinks?
THE GIRL WITH THE SHORT HAIR: Yes, definitely. 100%.
I regret not giving this story the journalistic respect it deserves. I didn't have a tape recorder or notepad, and,like I said, I was drunk.
Maybe it's not as big a story as people starving to death in their attics while our president pretends to play a guitar, but still, to members of the now-none-existant New Orleans comedy scene, it was pretty major.
It's also a story about how miniature golf, fellowship and booze can make people happy even though their records are in condemned apartments in New Orleans.
RAT GIRL
This is Ratgirl and Jobber Ratgirl:
Ratgirl stands on street corners of Austin holding up poorly spelled signs. She hosted a show Thursday night. I thought that Ratgirl was a crazy street person with an interesting way of expressing herself, but it turns out she has a white collar job in a legal firm during the week, and being Ratgirl is just a hobby.
She didn't tell me this, as Ratgirl never breaks character.
Ratgirl is my hero.
OTHER CRAP
Sketch and Improv troupes were in from all over the country, and the vibe created by organizers Mike D'Alonzo and Shannon LastNameIForget was, in a word rad. DIY without being disorganized and obviously centered on everyone having a nice time doing what they love instead of scrambling for some agent to pay attention to them so they can get an audtion for Laugh In or whatever. Very different than an L.A. festival I imagined.
Speaking of: L.A.was holding shit down for the Westsii-ide, with my wife's group, Tiny Bandeleros, delivering a solid, sexy longform set, Marty Barrett performing a lifechanging one-man improv thinger and Keilly and Roeters turning in a hysterical set.
The troupes from Austin and Dallas I caught (The Sicks, The Plurals, The Knuckleball Now) were, generally speaking, on some whole other shit from L.A.'s groups. Lots of energetic, rough-around-the-edges schtick, with a heavy helping of "shock" material, while the Los Angeles troupes displayed a dedication to craft that was sometimes lacking in the smaller market playas.
I guess making an audience go: "I can't believe they went there!" is different in smaller cities than in Los Angeles, where we enjoy dinner theater featuring old ladies peeing on each other and everyone knows there is no God.
Each troupe made me laugh in a different way, though, and how often can you say that about comedy?
LOVE IN TEH AIR
Also, Love was in the air at the Improv festival. If George Bernard Shaw were alive, he'd have taken the intriques, mistaken identities and romantic dalliances of the comedians at the fest, and created any number of delightful light comedies... But he would have set them at a manor house.
Robyn and I are old married people now. We do not participate in shenanigans, so we treated the improv people as our personal jesters, spending the evening mightily entertained by their petty hopes and heartbreaks. It was nice to see people from all over the country checking one another out in a professional and personal sense.
I'd tell you all about it, but I like my friends and I probably don't even know you.
I blame Kitty Kitty Bang Bang for the extra helping of shenanigans. The Austin burlesque troupe provided entertainment for the closing night party, and their reckless brand of retro-striptease set the tone for an anything goes night of dirty dancing and fluid exchange.
Or something. Anyway, I'm going back next year, but I will not be participating in the miniature golf tournament because playing miniature golf is like being tortured.
I imagine playing maximum golf must be worse--it's an argument of scale--but I'll never find out because I don't have a pair of those ridiculous pants they wear.
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