at the end of the day yesterday, i was really regretting signing up for a dcm workshop. i'd had 3 not good shows in a row and i was growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that all my improv friends seem to have all the time in the world to see shows; to block off an entire weekend for the dcm marathon; to do practice groups, dcm workshops, class, see shows and be in shows all in the course of a week. i don't have time for this. i continue to make time for improv in my life and i'm not sure why. why am i continuing to make sacrifices for something that's not "paying off"? for improv, i have missed work, cancelled doctor's appointments, blown off my friends, and sunk way more money than i want to think about.

whether this has been a good choice or not is besides the point. people can argue that improv has its flaws, that the majority of it is not very good, and that it's a money trap. i'm not going to argue against any of that. i'm not sure whether it's been a good choice in my life to continue with it. i know that i have had a hard time committing to any pursuit that takes time, effort and money, that i have wanted desperately to be good at japanese or guitar or screen-writing, but that i have always given these things up because i couldn't deal with the idea of being bad, at failing. so i wrote them off as a waste of time. or something i could do later when free time and a pile of money just happened to come along in my life. how long did i have to suck before it just clicked? where was the movie-style montage where i started out shitty and ended up great at the end of one song?

mid-class yesterday, i asked the teacher (curtis gwinn, a hero of mine and a performer in the first improv show i ever saw... commedia dell high school, which changed my life) a question. he apologized that his response wasn't as cut-and-dry as i'd wanted it to be. but in his answer, he reminded me that improv is not paint-by-numbers, that no amount of following the rules could make up for a lack of innovation or inspiration. i want to approach improv like a science, the same way i approach a lot of things in my life. if i do everything perfectly, if i make no mistakes, if i follow the same system every time, things will have to turn out okay. i go into scenes scientifically, following rules, annoyed at people when they break them.

but improv, like life, is unpredictable. the unpredictable is what makes it funny and fun and an art, as opposed to some kind of machine. there are no steadfast rules. there are no right answers. we make choices and we live with them and sometimes our scene partner makes choices that we don't agree with, but they've been made and the whole audience has seen them and we have to choose how to react accordingly. none of my friends or teachers or parents or bosses can tell me what the exact right thing to do is because there is no right thing. this is incredibly frustrating to me, but i guess you just keep going, right?

On The Daily Show and Women

Last week, Jezebel published a scathing post on the lack of women on the writing staff of The Daily Show, after which the women of The Daily Show responded with their own online message. Jezebel's been getting a lot of flak (See Emily Gould's piece at Slate) and so has The Daily Show (see Tiger Beatdown's parody of TDS ladies' open letter). And it's one of those issues where I feel very torn between the two sides.

I think it's very nice that TDS is responding to Jezebel... they certainly don't have to. And it's lovely to see all those women who are contributing to the show (especially Jill, yay Jill). 40% of the staff is more than I would have guessed. And I want to believe that Jon Stewart is the demigod I make him out to be in my mind, so it's nice to hear people stick up for him. Besides, I love Olivia Munn and am all about a hilarious outspoken half-Asian lady on the show (whether she eats a banana seductively or not).

The problem is that the letter seems more like defensive PR strategy than any sign of empowerment from the women of the show. And having all of these women sign this letter doesn't make the complaints of women who used to work on the show any less valid. I can imagine (and I may be totally wrong on this) that there are people who signed it with a tinge of hesitation- who love their jobs and love Jon Stewart and love the show, but still feel disrespected or unwelcome occasionally. Because that's the way the world works, and because not everyone is politically correct or sensitive to the underdog 100% of the time. It takes a lot more courage to say something that goes against what people in power want to hear than to go with the flow. And to just shove those people away and say "No, we are all of one collective mind who likes how things are. We do not differ in opinion from one another" seems like a glossing over of the problem.

Regardless of how many women are on staff in total or what glowing reviews of Jon and working there they can drum up, it still might have been nice to hear that someone high up at TDS does value the idea of increasing gender and racial diversity on its writing staff and among talent. Instead of just saying "We're all happy," I would have liked to hear someone acknowledge that "Yes, there are a lot of white dudes on our staff. There are a lot more of them in the comedy world in general. But we're trying. We want talented women to come out and write for us. We're dying to have a diverse staff, so keep trying and don't be intimidated by how our correspondents and writing room look right now. We're waiting for you to come along and change things!" Because I get that it's hard. I get that people don't want to compromise the quality of their show to fill some kind of quota. But to pretend that there is no problem, that everything is fine, is a problem in and of itself.

And that's my moment of Zen.