7 ODES TO MY NEW COMEDY PARTNER

1. 

Dear SOLOSLUT Forum:

I never thought this would happen to me. 

2.  

She walked in the door like the beginning of a music video: emerging from the California smog, in a pink bodysuit and giant faux fur coat. I remember thinking, Who is THAT? 

Because she looked like she was walking into a hip hop song and not a clown class. And then she slaughtered the whole workshop, just crazy funny and fearless and smart, and barely five feet tall, and everyone was like, Who is THIS? I’ll tell you. It was Brooke Sciacca. 

And it still is Brooke Sciacca. Brooke is my new comedy partner. 

Brooke and I started working together student/ teacher style in March 2019—that’s when she took an Oakland workshop of mine, then School for Comedy Beasts, then we hosted the 2019 Sh’Bang Fest Water show together (she was the scientist, I was the sea creature), then she took my pandemic Zoom classes, then I started directing her future solo show, then she performed in my Sh’Bang Melodrama Gang 2022 and we hosted that Sh’bang Burlesque show, so you know—it all felt pretty organic and gradual. We had a great rapport from the get-go, but we also became friends and started to just amuse the fucking shit out of each other all the time. Getting ready for the Burlesque show at midnight, in the woods, by the light of the trunk of my car, losing makeup compacts, dripping frosting, laughing so hard our faces wet with tears. I just think Brooke is the funniest person. She makes me feel like I’m at a preteen sleepover, all the time. 

So since the fall 2022 we’ve been working on a duo show, which is debuting at Edmonton Fringe 2023 at the Grindstone Comedy TheatRE. “RE” for “REAL CANADIAN FRINGE y’ALL.” I’m coming back, baby. 

3. 

How do you do it. 

How do you lump along down there

A tiny little lightning bolt 

(said five-one-and-three-quarters to five-flat)

Sweet when I’m salty, up when I’m down—

Your “everything happens for a reason” to my “everything dies in agony”

And yet, under the San Juan Island stars at night, after killing a show together…

Lying on our backs on the patio, 

Eating the remains of a sticky bun

Complete, at peace, perfect—

Oh, shit, it all sounds so romantic—when I put it like that… 

But it is! In the least sexual way you can imagine—I mean, uh, the most sexual way. Get Ready Edmonton, because you’re going to see some HOT SEXUAL CHEMISTRY right up under your face! I didn’t say “least sexual” up there! I said most! Moist! 

Anyway, Brooke and I can be very sexual and ridiculous and risk-free with each other because there’s no actual romance between us. Unless you count finding a comedy partner as a romantic thing. Which I do! So what are we talking about. 

I think my point here is that I found it very satisfying to be a solo interactive performer for ten years, but it was also isolated. More on that here. And it feels really nice to feel totally unambiguous about who you’re with. I mean, that’s just true in all relationships. But I wondered if I’d be a solo diva for life, and I’m just thrilled to feel right in a duo. 

4.  

I know a lot of solo artists. I think that’s because it’s the best financial model—really, the only financial model if you need to make a living and aren’t famous or from the moneyed classes. And personally, just between us, it was lonely for me. It was unsustainably lonely. I had to settle down and get a wife and kid. I love performing, but I love stability and routine more. 

But being in the right duo is amazing. It’s definitely more relaxed. It’s definitely more fun. Do you know what it’s like to go on an international airplane flight with your comedy partner and you’re both in drag and shooting footage on the plane all jet lagged and slap happy? The pasta dinner? Surprisingly delicious! Those sideways escalators? Super fun! That weird half-asleep swollen ankle feeling? Badge of courage, baby!  Everything’s a gas!

And I am freaking out way less than I would be, because I trust her. I know how funny she is, I know how the crowd eats her up, I’m safe. I can feel all my feelings, and so long as I stay with the audience with my feelings and breathe into them, it’s all going to go great! And that’s a chillness that is unusual for me. Usually I have recurring failure dreams in which everyone hates my shows and workshops. But my dreams about our new show are usually like, “hmm, we’re totally unprepared, but the show is sold out somehow.” I’ve never had more optimistic dreams. Don’t worry, in the dreams, it’s still not actually a good show. I could never be that optimistic. 

5.

Making a show with someone who likes the same flavors and styles and fantasies is de rigeur. Brooke and I are old-timey diva kings who vibe vintage and icon and classique. We like cardigans and slicked back hair on our off days, we like pennies in our loafers. That is to say, oof, hard to describe, but the same fantasies tickle us, the same details delight us. We both drool quite a bit, when it’s going well. 

Clown is wet, Giovanni Fusetti says. 

Working with Brooke helps me to clarify what my vibe is when I get to just live in my own fantasy. Broaches, velvet, ruffle sleeve, glam rock, Mid-Atlantic. Dapper as fuck. This is what it’s like to be in a band. 

Yes, we’re making music videos. 

6. 

It’s not the same now that I’ve got a family. Now I can’t just throw myself into my new show with Brooke and tour the Anglo-speaking world. I have to move slowly. But how delicious, divas, to be able to be moving forward with my performing practice! I love the fuck out of teaching and directing, it’s the absolute tits for me, but I know my teaching benefits from a continuous return to the stage to see how it is to practice what I preach. 

Brooke is patient and has enough else going on to take it at my speed. Talk about gentlemanly. 

7. 

I thought I was an old dog, Brookie. I thought I was going to be doing the same Butt Kapinski trick til I died. I didn’t think that was so bad; I still love doing Butt of course, but I didn’t know if I had anything else to offer enough to charge admission and make a big stink on the socials etc. You gave me a reason to make a big stink all over the socials, girl. I’ve never been so proud to make a stinky, and it’s all because of you. 

Also, toddlers make you think and talk about poop a lot. So if you actually weren’t thinking about poop in the above paragraph, and you are now, you’re welcome. 

No, no, back to you Brooke. Seriously. 

Dear Dylan, 

You make me feel young again. 

Full of breath, possibility. 

That moment when we almost kissed on stage

But didn't

And the audience screamed.

All my love for our friendship

Our bond

Our comedy

In that space between our faces

Plus You always let me finish 

The sticky bun

Yours forever,

Vincent.

THE (IN)FERTILE ARTIST LIFE

I have a pre-show ritual, and an exercise I give all my students and mentees, that involves falling. Basically, it’s about cultivating the experience of losing balance in the body, but catching yourself before you actually hit the ground. I do it, and teach it, to remind myself and others that the audience likes to see us off-balance, but also, we have all the skill we need to keep ourselves safe. 

If everything goes the way it’s supposed to, I’m going to have a baby next week. I have spent a long time (WAY longer than most first time parents!) being childless, and now that I’m about to be child-having, and, indeed, while I still have a mind that can form complete sentences, I wanted to reflect a little bit about being an artist with a uterus that’s been both chronically empty and, now, pretty fucking full. 

I can’t speak for other artists with uteruses, but I found the dilemma of having/not having a child butted up against my artistic life in challenging ways, for years. When my body was most capable of procreating, I watched friends of mine whom I considered artists have babies and, one by one, kinda give up their art.  I swore that wouldn’t be me. I was searching, I needed time, I needed space, I was still learning what my art was, how best to give it to the world. If I had stopped the process and had a baby when I was “supposed” to, I couldn’t have found Butt Kapinski, or my teaching/directing practice, or done all the touring–I don’t think any of it would’ve happened for me. Nonetheless...

NOT HAVING A KID WAS REALLY HARD. Especially if you have a uterus—I mean, maybe this has changed, or is changing, but the pressure (from within and without) to procreate was no joke. I think a lot of people assume that either you have a kid, want to, or totally don’t, and it’s all super clear. And that just wasn’t the case for me at all. I spent so many years being conflicted about it—first, decrying the social pressure and choosing to focus on my artistic path, and then, when that was more established, suddenly losing a life partner I thought I’d maybe have a kid with, then, experiencing the grief about what felt like a lack that I couldn’t figure out how to solve… slowly unfollowing Facebook friends with babies, declining baby shower invites, finding myself with tears in my eyes just hanging out with someone else’s cute kid or watching people be parents on TV. The pain was intense and isolating, for years. 

And then when I got a (much better) life partner and started trying again, the process of having it not work was horribly depressing, and overwhelming. The tests, the results, the biological realities of what it’s like trying to get pregnant in your 40’s—which you tell yourself maybe you’ll be the exception, maybe your biology is special, but, you know, turns out it’s not—the choices available to you in the fertility industry, the promises dangled—gauzy photos of babies in grateful arms—the lack of real guidance available, the price tags you couldn’t have predicted.

Ultimately, I found it pretty hard not to have a kid, and I know it’s hard for many others, too, whether they’re ambivalent, or whether it hasn’t worked yet, or didn’t work. I bet it’s hard to have a kid, too, but I can’t speak to that part yet. 

PEOPLE LIKE YOU MORE WHEN YOU PROCREATE AND THAT’S WEIRD. 

People smile at you more when you’re obviously pregnant, they’re way nicer to you, which, frankly, I find a little annoying. Why are you being nicer to me than you should just be anyway? Shouldn’t you be as nice to me whether I look pregnant or not? Who knows what someone’s going through who doesn’t look like a giant butterball? Why save your kindness for the turkey?

It feels like there’s a way that being pregnant makes sense to people, people of all ages and walks of life, in the way that just being a childless grownup wandering around in the world just doesn’t. I realize that a lot more people-on-the-street are going to find me relatable, which on one hand is nice—it isn’t always fun to be a freaky artist in a normal’s world—but on the other hand, just makes me mad. Why is this the thing that’s going to make me a relatable human?

ALSO, GENDER IS WEIRD. 

In case you haven’t heard, gender is weird, and our culture is obsessed with it. So many people ask me What are you having? as if there’s a question what species my child belongs to. When I tell them my child is afab (but obviously I say, “girl” because anyone who asks what are you having may not effortlessly roll with afab), they squeal with glee as if that was absolutely the right answer. What were they going to do if I said “boy,” rend their garments and wail? Probably just squeal with glee also, right? So what fricking difference does it make? I imagine that gender identity just makes the baby more real to people, like, okay, now it’s a person I can envision. But, again, that just goes to show how weird we are. Pregnancy, too, is pretty annoyingly gendered. I had a good time being a little liminal in my child-free state, but now that I’m very obviously pregnant, suddenly I’m getting called Mom and Mama all over town. Early in my pregnancy I was especially pissed about these gummy candies I saw advertised that were supposed to help with nausea: they were pink and had some cutesy-ass name like Mommy Tummy or Cunty Tummy Drops and I was just like, oh shit, is this what I’m reduced to? Some pink-frock-wearing gummy-guzzling cutesy-ass fembot? Is this the life I’ve chosen?

ALSO, IS MY CAREER OVER?

I’m not sure how working artists stay working artists when they have kids unless they have family wealth or a partner that supports them financially, or they make way more money than I do with their art. In fact, I’m not sure I know any working artists who have stayed working artists without at least one of those things. Or I don’t know many. So I’m not sure how it’s going to go for me. 

My artistic life has been my greatest joy, my catharsis, my journey, my thing. My students, the people I’ve directed, the audiences, their faces shine in front of me in the glowing tapestry I’ve been so lucky to be swaddled by, for years. What’s going to happen to me now? Will all my gigs dry up because everyone’ll be like oh she’s a breeder now leave her alone? Will having a kid make me irrelevant? Will I even have time, space or energy to create the way I did? My art has been my identity, for a really long time. It’s scary to contemplate what’s there when that isn’t. 

I tend to soothe myself with affirmations like how creativity doesn’t die, it just changes forms. And that my own creative path will find a way. And that we really don’t know what the future holds, and we can stay open to the possibility that it will be OK. All that. 

But, yeah, I don’t know. 

I have worked a long time toward being a parent. The fact that it is (most likely) about to happen is amazing, and humbling, and overwhelming. But it doesn’t change who I’ve been for years, what I’ve done, and how much that still really matters to me. It’s hard to say goodbye to a life that I've loved, that I’ve been almost totally-fulfilled by, in favor of such an unknown. 

And so I practice falling, in my heart. I play with the balance and lack of balance, the endings and beginnings, the deaths, and now, the births, all of it, that make up this dumb clown act we apparently call life. 

Wishing myself, and you, reading this, resilience in the face of transformation.

See you on the other side. 

THE COCKTAIL OF CHARACTER

 

It’s been a little too long since I’ve paid 18$ for a cocktail truly worthy—as worthy as any beverage could be—of being 18$ (plus tax and tip). You know, one of those splash-of-this, dropper-of-that, rind-rubbed, delicate-garnished situations that comes in a frosted tumbler with a napkin and a deep bow, which you enjoy in a dimly-lit faux-speakeasy to the sound of saxophones. I miss those cocktails.

But I've been facilitating character workshops this pandemic, and it’s made me really consider where successful, lasting characters come from, and maybe, hopefully, how to make them. As you start to plan your re-entry into performing live, as you entertain the characters kicking around in your soul, I’d love to share with you what I’ve garnered so far.

At first I thought it would be cool to use a cocktail metaphor all the way through. I, who know very little about cocktails except how to drink them, did some research and looked up the components of a cocktail and thought, You are very clever, Deanna, because you will employ a handy analogy for people to think about character creation, AND help everyone review how to make a decent cocktail at the same time. 

This self-satisfaction, as you will soon see, did not last. 

THE SPIRIT. So the first component of all cocktails is the “base spirit,” which means, Mom, the main liquor. You can see why I was excited about this analogy at first. The SPIRIT of the character! Double meaning! This is already genius! 

We all have impulses, lots of impulses for characters. They come from our brains and we think, “That could be funny.” And maybe it could be. But the truth is, the best characters come from who we already are, and from what we know in our own spirits. If your character isn’t originating from deep inside you, it’s just not going to be as good. Like, I sometimes dream about doing a character who’s breezy and moves lightly through the world not giving a shit, but no one would believe me. My characters are pretty much all control freaks, because guess what. 

Everyone wants to feel unfettered by who they are sometimes, and sure, live your truth. But I think the characters that really stick with audiences do so because they’re deeply personal. They are valentines that performers have crafted to their own pockets of secret truth, the parts they are shyest to show you outright. So I say, when it’s time to craft your character, go to the top shelf of your personal soul-bar, and use that special-occasion spirit you’ve been saving. The one that tastes so much like you that you’re a little embarrassed by it. You know the one. 

THE MODIFIER. According to my extensive 10 minutes of googling, the second element of cocktails is the “modifier,” which adds dimension to the base spirit. This is kinda working for my analogy. I mean, I do advocate modification to your base. Just-the-base-ma’am naturalism is not my particular interest. There are plenty of people who go for that kind of naturalism in their characters, and sure, live your truth. Myself, I like to focus on characters who take cabarets by storm and can hold a room in their thrall for a full-length show—characters who come on stage and everyone immediately goes, Whoa what is THAT. Characters you would either cross the street to avoid, or surrender all your worldly possessions to. Characters who can’t exist in our dumb normal world. Who can only live in our dreams and nightmares. 

So if we want to use cocktail parlance, your character is a modified version of your spirit. But I would say that the word modified just isn’t strong enough, that really, it’s a heightened version. This is where the cocktail comparison I was initially so proud of just starts to seem lame. 

Heightening starts with physicality. Your character should be Extra, taking up more energetic space than a normal person does. The way you particularly heighten your own physicality is unique to you. When I’m coaching, I like to get a sense of how someone naturally moves, and then see if they can go even further in that direction to the point of riveting watchability. Simultaneously, I like to push someone to move in a way that does not feel natural for them, as sometimes that can end up feeling even more rivetingly watchable, and at the very least be a way to enrich a character’s general movement pattern. 

It’s not usually that hard, especially with a performer who has some movement training and sense of their own body, to create a fun movement vocabulary that communicates a lot about a character and is bewitchingly Extra. The challenge is almost always when it comes time to talk. 

See, we all talk, talk all the damn time. Talking is normal. And so, it’s sometimes hard for our mouths and voices to figure out how to talk in a special way. But it’s essential that we do that, because just like we want audiences to go whoa as soon as they see us, we want them to go Whoa WHOA WHOA! when we start to verbally communicate. Again, the special way of talking is super unique to the individual performer. Sometimes it’s about enunciating your words more, or going in the other direction to mush-mouthed. It can be finding a different vocal range to inhabit: higher, lower, or a combination. It might be about holding the jaw or lips in a way that changes the way words come out. Someone I know—actually me—has been known to employ speech impediments or difficult-to-place accents. With these, it’s often best to stick to accents or impediments that are personal and based on what our bodies/mouths deeply know. 

And speaking of speaking, even when we find a fun way to speak, actually generating text can be difficult too. We are too used to generating text to communicate, we’re too used to being direct, to speaking in sentences, prose. And prose just isn’t special. That is why I advocate poetry when it comes time for a character to communicate. Poetry takes itself seriously, it takes up space on the page, it is unafraid to pause dramatically mid-idea, to be playful with language. And because we’re not used to speaking in poetry, improvising in character, with poetry, tends to produce some deep, surprising things. Our characters reclaim some of that youthful pretentiousness, back when we all thought our ideas mattered. We want our characters to be like that, convinced of themselves. That is a key to their specialness. That might make an audience, full of cynical, self-conscious prose-speakers, sit up and take note. 

THE ACCENT/COLOR/FLAVOR. The final element crucial to cocktails has been called, depending on what website you’re on, accent, color, flavor—or flavour if you’re British. This is where I start to kinda regret the cocktail thing. I mean, it’s gotten us this far, so I guess we’re sticking with it. But it’s reductive, it's trite, and I’m a little sorry. 

No, you know what? I'm not giving up on this cocktail analogy! I can do something with this accent/color/flavor thing! This can be about style, about aesthetics and world. What world does the character live in? What genre, what decade, what milieu? I often ask people when they’re constructing a fresh character, what movies and music do they love? Sometimes the music or movies that really do it for us when we’re young, for example, can be exuberant, sweetly sincere places from which to build a character’s world. 

Also, what skill set or knowledge base does the performer already have, that could make a more run-of-the-mill character stand out? For example, I worked with one performer who was doing a fedora-clad, Sinatra-loving, Rat Pack wannabe kind of dude, who sometimes tossed off a quip about chakras and alignment, because the performer herself happened to be an acupuncturist. That made for a fresh character with some really fun surprises. 

So, okay, the accent/color/flavor thing actually worked out fine. Relief.

But according to my cocktail websites, that’s the end of the line when it comes to elements of a cocktail, and I don’t think I’m quite done. You see my conundrum. I’ll just add this one more: 

THE SPECIFICITY. There are 10$ cocktails and there are 18$ cocktails, and the difference is in the details. For 10$, they’ll shove a shot of something with a fizzy juice and maybe a slice of citrus and there you go. For 18$, they will have considered the type of glass that will look most comely with your drink inside it. They will have smoked the inside of that glass, or salted or fruited one side of the rim. They will have assembled a bamboo swizzle-stick with several delicate slabs of contrasting garnishes. The ice cube will seem advanced, as if the water from which the ice originated was molecularly arranged for maximum wetness. The cocktail itself will blend several itsy-bitsy amounts of herbal extracts you have not heard of: seductively medicinal, French. When you sip this cocktail, you will feel incredibly expensive, and your mouth and soul will rejoice in one harmonic sounding of pure Art.

Obviously, you want your character to be the expensive cocktail, and so, you have to make choices. More choices, and more after that. One of the pitfalls I see performers fall into sometimes is just that they haven’t made enough choices. They’ve considered the drink but not the glass, and certainly not the rim. So make sure you focus on details when you’re building character. The placement of your feet. The angle of your hat. The way you turn. The more choices you make, the more your audience will feel pampered in artistic luxury. That leads to more applause and more people treating you to, well, at least 10$ cocktails. 

But, hey, that’s a real start.

ON GRIEF AND G… GRA… GRATI…

I lost Della Moustachella on October 18th in a car crash that was not her fault. She was one of my best friends and favorite collaborators. You know how it is when someone just gets you and you get them and you click away like chopsticks from the very first time you meet. We made a bunch of art together and sent each other a lot of personal fitness encouragement texts. She was into clown and drag and teaching and all my favorite things and she was one of the most special people I’ve ever known. Everyone who knew her will attest to this; everyone loved her fiercely, and the loss to my local performing community is fucking incalculable. 

I’m not here to talk about Della right now. I’m barely able to accept that she’s dead. I haven’t deleted her from her #4 position on the “favorites” on my phone. I’ve only left one message on her voicemail since—it was last week and the bitch still hasn’t called me back.

What I’m here to talk about is—to be honest, I don’t know. When you have a blogging practice you just think you should probably blog once in a while. Maybe you’ll end up saying something trenchant which will help the children, or maybe it’s just for reps. 

I smoked pot for the first time in my 20’s, and I felt all of a sudden like a foundational element of counterculture now made sense to me. Suddenly, I don’t know, I “got” something. Something about being cool and a little removed from reality, or a little more in touch with it, you know, whatever. The point is, it felt like a gateway toward understanding and connecting with more of my fellow early-21st century experiencers. Grief is kind of like that for me, even though it feels so personal and isolated. Losing someone so close to me, and so suddenly, has made me feel a kind of shiny silver connecting tube between myself and anyone else who’s ever lost anyone. It’s just so bad, and yet, so many people have gone through it and somehow come out on the other side. How the fuck do we do that?

Four days after her death, I taught a clown class. Then another and another. 5 days a week since she died I taught clown classes. There was nothing better I could’ve done. Also I’ve walked in nature a shit-ton, done a lot of cry-dancing, made/eaten ridiculously good food and watched obscene quantities of Rupaul’s Drag Race. 

I’m very lucky that my classes are without exception full of incredible human beings, and I’m not blowing them up, they’re seriously all awesome. How did I get this lucky? How did I get this unlucky losing Della, you know? Luck is luck. 

And it has been an incredible relief to stand in front of my laptop on its music stand, and watch people in their bedrooms and their living rooms just fucking giving it. In these home spaces, these crowded apartments, this square in front of coffee table, that red carpet, that sectional sofa, that window. To sentimental pop songs, to John Williams’s scores, zooming in, panning around, throwing themselves through the air. Free. In those tight spaces, those spaces not designed for wildness. There they are, wild. 

So that’s been therapeutic. And it’s made me keenly aware of the power of giving it. Of giving it all. Of being willing to be your fierce and uncontrolled self for others to witness. You don’t know what their day has been like, their week, their year. Your wildness could change their life. 

40 ZOOM SHOWS AND 40 ZOOM CLASSES LATER...

It's not the same. It will never be the same. That said, there are possibilities. 

I miss making people laugh, as I'm sure you do. I miss when something twinkling and different comes into someone's eye, or someone looks like they're farting silently, and you know you did that to them. I miss finding the funny and just nailing it to the wall, one more joke on the Great Wall of Human Idiocy, on which gloriously stupid jokes throughout time flutter deafeningly, like the wings of 20 million shitting seagulls. 

I worry about people more talented than I, or less relatively-balanced than I, for whom making people laugh was medicine, and not getting it drags them down. I worry about my comedy artist sisters, brothers and in-betweeners losing their juice—their little dry comedy veins just twigs in a strong breeze, fluttering, feeling full of air and not much else. 

I mean, that's how I feel too, sometimes. But I no longer feel like "if I can't do it just the way I want, then it's not worth doing at all." I feel like investing in my online teaching and performing will make me better at both. And this feels like growing up, artistically, if that makes sense. Like the art baby inside me—that has achieved a lot by crying and screaming until it got its way—is a preschooler now, and has some sense that a little compromise now and then could be all right. 

Here's a thing I've learned: most of the opinions I held about comedic performance before the pandemic are simply facts now. And there's a ton of science to back me up. Coming forthwith. 

Here are some of the data I've collected after a few months of playgroups, classes, and "shows." PREPARE FOR SCIENCE. 

PLAY COMES THROOOOOOO, MAMA!

Let's define play as "something you do for fun." 

Let's define fun as "an activity that causes amusement or pleasure." 

Let's define amusement and pleasure as... oh fuck you get it. 

We adults don't always know what fun is, even "cool" adults forget sometimes, or trick themselves into thinking they're having fun when they're actually not. Makes sense: a big part of growing up is learning that not everything that's worth doing is fun. Easy for us to get confused from time to time. 

But in the virtual performance world, performers gotta be having some real, deep fun if they wanna reach the children. That fun has even farther to travel now to reach said children, and it has all these computers and personal spaces and thought-germs stuck in the middle. So that's even more obstacles than usual. If you are not a pig in shit, you're gonna lose 'em all. 

So you better be a pig in shit when you're performing. You have to be. I mean, in my opinion you had to be a pig in shit before the pandemic, but now, it's not opinion anymore—it's just factually the absolute fact. You must be wallowing in your happiest place, in the warmest most-sun-kissed corner of your soul's pig-barn, at every performative moment. In order to reach any children, anywhere. There's a ton of science behind me on this. Doesn't this all sound like science?

HOW TO BE A PIG IN SHIT ON ZOOM!

Yes, I'm saying Zoom not digital online video platform. Know why? Because Zoom is the best. It is still annoying in certain ways, there are things it can't do, it wants my secrets for marketing purposes, whatever, it's still the best one out there right now. I've tried them all and you know what science says. Fact. 

Okay, so in terms of being a pig on shit on Zoom, here's how I'm doing it: real carefully. 

As in, I'm only doing the things I definitely 1000% wanna be doing on Zoom. I'm not taking any chances. I am taking super good care of my Inner Art Toddler and trying to give it alllll the cookies and none of the garbage-cookies. 

That's taught me a lot about what kind of stuff I enjoy doing. Who would've guessed? A lot of sex-and- violence jokes and melodrama and dancing! Shocks!

Also, I'm doing a lot of 1-on-1. Solo and small group classes are great on Zoom, interactive experiences feel real on Zoom. My first run of Butt Kapinski 1-on-1 "shows" was super fun. 

The word show is of course ridiculous and obsolete, unless we define show as "an entertaining experience that an audience member has purchased a ticket for." Even audience member is a problematic term now, when what I really mean is "paying collaborator." But whatever, Merriam-Webster. The point is, let's define My Zoom Shows as "heartfelt attempts to give one paying collaborator at a time a surprising, visually and auditorily-appetizing experience that makes them feel things (hopefully)."

For my "shows," I tried to think through my setup so that I was giving the "audience" some PRODUCTION VALUE GRRRRL. I had a "set" and I had "lights" and I had "sound." I've got a nice adjustable computer stand that I've had in my house for years and never needed until right now. I can angle it to put myself below the audience member, looking up at them, in keeping with my preferred angle when performing in real theaters. Ultimately, I've used a combination of technology available to me, and analog shit that feels DIY and down-home, which I frankly prefer. Mirrors, glasses, textures, wigs, puppets, liquids (towel on keys required). Good light. 

Also fun for me is that I can now live out all my cinematic auteur fantasies without having to be in the movie industry. I love movies and sometimes wish, if I had another life.... but now presto! Mother Rona has given me the mandate to be the best clown auteur cinematographer I can possibly be, right away, no time for film school. 

I did the shows in 4-chunk 25-minute sets, so 4 shows in two hours. It's more convenient in terms of costume, set up, etc. to do them chunked like that, but also I don't think I could have done more than 4 in a row because I got way too tired. It's a lot! 

You wanna know what my "shows" were like without having bought a ticket? Have it your way, cheapskate. Often in my theater shows, I had an interaction that felt really special—I'd found an audience member who could really play with me, to the delight of the entire audience. It would only last a few minutes, of course, because I had a whole show to get through and an audience of people who also needed attention. So there was a bittersweetness when I really had such a moment with a total stranger. Our moment only lasted a few minutes, and then maybe I never saw them again. 

So these Zoom shows were like I got to spend 25 minutes with an audience member like that. Someone who has signed up and prepared to play, and on whom I could lavish all my attention and really get deep with them. 

It was dope!

It's not like doing a show. It's not like getting lots of laughs. There were a few people who laughed, and honestly, that felt amazing, and reminded me how good it feels and how I miss it and blah blah blah see above. But mostly, the participant was too focused on playing to laugh. They were making something with me, we were building it fast and furious, but still, it felt very intimate because we had to trust each other and work together. So it was thrilling, to have a relationship with an audience member like that— "the audience" fully participatory in MY fantasy. That's kinda the dream, bitches!

And then it's over, and that stranger and I will always have that tight 25.

Now that the first run of shows are done, I'd say what helped the most was having a character that I love, a good filter on my camera, and a desire to co-create with whoever was on the other side of the screen. Like I said, I'm pleased with it so far. 

You don't get high, the way you do after a sold-out show, or hell, even half-sold-out. But high is temporary anyway, and low often follows. This is the most emotionally-sustainable performing I've done, perhaps. 

Next, I'm working on a 5-day Butt Kapinski experience, still for one audience member at a time. I'm excited about it. In a mellow, but decidedly-jazzed way. 

HOW TO BE A ZOOM PIG IN SHIT WITH OTHER PERFORMERS!

If you're a performer, perform. Yes even on Zoom. Do it. Figure it out. Get a buddy. You gotta stay in shape. 

Don't watch other people doing it unless they beg you. It's 99.9% horrible. No, that's not fair. It's 99.9% mostly for the performers. But, hey, nothing wrong with that. See my point above. Performers gotta perform. Good on ya. Now let's just work at making it watchable. 

To further illustrate my point, let's look at improv comedy (forgive me). If you have hung out with me in the last 20 years and asked me about my feelings about current improv comedy trends, (1) you wouldn't have done that; and (2) I would have told you that the big problem with improv comedians in the 21st century is often they're not working like theater artists, they're working like a tv writers' room. Everyone is standing around figuring out how to be clever as a team, and they absolutely succeed, in a way. King UCB's hammering of "find the game" to anyone who'd listen has taught modern improvisors that we shouldn't just be mucking around making a bunch of random choices. There are patterns to group cleverness. And good on us for learning that. But unfortunately, audience members still had to watch you when you were on stage—you know, back when stages. So you might've been "finding the game," but a lot of us were not working physically, spatially, rhythmically, or emotionally. And now that improv comedians are trying to work online, this is true times a million. Talking heads on Zoom is painful to watch, period. This is total science, at this point. 

I'm going to make the argument that, so far, the only good improvised work I've seen on Zoom has felt more like funny experimental film, with creative use of the camera, angles, travelling, weird filters. Last week one of my students put his mouth on his computer's trackpad and gummed it for a moment, and that kinda blew my mind. Laptops and smaller devices are made for being moved around, for getting on top of, for spinning around. Yes I know it's precious electronicware. But also, nobody wants to watch you look like a normal person on Zoom. We need to see you act like an animal. See pig facts above. 

And all the Viewpoints razz-a-ma-tazz? That works on Zoom. Working with music? That's nice. Narrate for someone else, or be the scenery they see when they walk. Close ups. Eat, put on lipstick. More closeups, way closer than you think. Embarrassing closeups. Fight scenes. 

What to do about that pesky self-view? I mean, I guess you can turn it off, but working with it has definitely helped me develop my directorial eye. I've been dealing with myself on video for years now, so I'm less obsessed by it than I used to be. But you know, I like cultivating that cool, nonjudgemental, directorial view of my own work. I'm not asking myself, Do I look pretty enough? Do I look old/fat? I'm only asking, is this angle interesting? Or, oh, that's what I look like when I'm laughing! It's just nice information, and it's a process. 

My big point here is, WERK THE MEDIUM. The medium is not your obstacle, it is your gift. USE THE MEDIUM.

Personally, I may be a pessimist who never thinks anything is going to go well, but I also believe in making the best of whatever shitty situation was inevitable anyway. This work can bolster our skill sets for when we do get back on stage, to play hard, to find joy, to work in 3 dimensions. This time off stage can be a time to develop new awarenesses and appreciations and everything. Or, at least it can be a pleasant diversion between jello layers. 

HOW TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY ON ZOOM!

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Sex work sounds lucrative right now. 

I'm also considering an advanced degree. In sex work. 

No, seriously, here's what's up: a lot of nice people still have jobs out there and they still need our goofy art. If what we offer them is heartfelt and thought-through, they might just pay for it. It's not going to be the kind of money we made before, but it's something. I for one am still figuring out income stream, the appropriate amount of doom-scrolling, and the future. But that's a whole other blog post. 

HOW DO YOU CLOWN IN A VACUUM?

The origins of the word "clown" tell us a lot. Giovanni Fusetti first told me about how "clown" comes from the old word "clod", or "Wet Earth." He was trying to explain to me his take on the difference between Clown and Improv Comedy. Improv is dry, he said. Clown is wet. This website does a nice job of talking about where the word comes from. A low-German word for klutz, a Scandinavian word for boor. There's even a possibility that the Latin word for farmer, colonus, is in the etymological mix. So, to sum up, the foundations of the word "clown" are deeply rooted in possessing the following qualities: FILTHY, WET and INAPPROPRIATE. 

That could be why this pandemic feels like the end of everything to me. 

Of course, I'm a pessimist. I believe in staying pessimistic so I don't have to get... you get my point. My pessimism is an ancient, inherited, shtetl pessimism that comes from the old country and goes very deep. She entwines her gnarled fingers around each individual DNA strand I've got and knits me into my very own walking Pessismism Sweatervest, all the time. 

So you, dear reader, can take anything I say with a giant grain of kosher salt. But, personally, I'm calling it The End. The end of my Butt show (technically impossible to do without saliva), the end of my breathy, wet, intimate workshops... oh shit, wait, this all looks like I'm into porn. Am I into porn? Is clown soul-porn? 

I don't expect to perform or teach in person again for up to a year or maybe more. Am I a big downer? Sure, absolutely. Take two of me and take a nap. I'll still be here when you wake up. 

Anyway, so I'm watching too much TV and rending my garments and wailing, like everyone. My biggest delight so far has been the discovery of jello-making. The first week it was a pomegranate jello, followed by a prosecco jello, and then my most impressive feat yet, a 5-layer deconstructed Thai iced tea jello: 3 layers of thai tea jello, 2 layers of sweetened condensed milk jello. Life-altering. 

Beyond the jello, I feel like my big takeaways so far have been aimless grief and TV. 

Speaking of, What We Do In The Shadows. The movie was cute, but the show is sooooooo cute! 

But anyway, my pessimism and grieving have a point, or could. Acceptance and trying to dig in for the long haul and hopefully—eventually—evolve feels like a reasonable choice. It at least gives me something to aspire to. I'm still a good capitalist stooge, after all: aspirationalism is my middle name, sandwiched between Good and Capitaliststooge.

Hopefully I'll get unemployment. Plus I am a saver. So I feel relatively hashtag-blessed for the mo', in terms of basic needs. I believe plenty of other people will get their jobs back sooner than I will; there are ways that we can social distance and still shop or whatever. Capitalism loves it some shop.

And it's not that I'm sad all the time. Most of the time, I appreciate my privilege and feel like I'm trapped on a packed schoolbus of chorus kids that's broken down in a snow drift. There's a lot of metaphorical snow around us, blanketing freshly, and lights are twinkling in the distance. The driver's name is Collingswood or something equally last-name-first-y, with a deep comforting voice and a sense of calm. Help is on the way, and until then, we're all together.

Incidentally, this has made me realize that, usually when the Depression Monster has me in its clutches, it's the isolation that I experience most bitterly. Somehow when everyone else is bereft too, I feel weirdly better. Which seems fucked up, but true. Not schaudenfraude, exactly, but there's got to be another long German word for it. 

So I'm not super depressed right now, but I definitely feel obsolete. I see the essential workers, more essential than ever. I see the white-collar-work-from-homers, going on with their zoom-meeting selves and still getting those paychecks like no big thing. And then here I am, trying to put together another reasonably-cute at-home outfit that I can both exercise and curl fetally in. 

I am humbled and amazed by my friends and colleagues who seem to have figured out... anything about how to work in this new reality. I am not there yet, but I admire you so much! You can stop reading this and go on back to being a pandemic art hero! 

I dedicate this blog post to everyone more like me, performing artists currently in love with jello or whatever your non-Jewish equivalent is, who have the feeling that everyone else has figured out more than we have about how to artistically survive in this strange new world. 

This is a very exclusive club we've got here, here in this blog post. I've put the red velvet ropes up and the only people I'm letting in are the aimless grievers and jello-makers and cake-straight-out-of-the-pan-eaters. Are you not just watching RuPaul's Drag Race, but the RECAP videos as well? Or whatever your heteronormative equivalent is? Whatever your preferences, you and your aimless grief are super welcome in this blog post. 

I may be a long way from figuring out how to feel anything like useful or productive, but I feel like I have a few useful suspicions, so I figured I'd get them down before another recap video comes on.

1) PROBABLY EVERYONE ELSE FEELS SECRETLY SHITTY SOMETIMES TOO. 

Even Taylor Swift has got to feel sad. Feeling sad is okay. Even before the pandemic, sometimes it's okay to feel sad. Here is Rosey Grier, former footballer, bodyguard and men's needlepoint activist, singing "It's Alright to Cry." I'm going to feel okay about being sad and try not to beat myself up for it. Thanks, Rosey Grier. 

2) HA HA HA ON YOU, SIZE QUEENS. 

If you're like me, you used to be a real size queen when it came to audience and workshop numbers. Ha ha ha, ego maniacs like me! While there's something moving about seeing a lot of strangers in a zoom room, I've personally had trouble feeling pulled in by big group experiences, and I suspect I'm not alone. I wonder if, when our attention isn't necessary, it's much easier to lose focus. That's one of the many joys of TV. It doesn't care if you're watching it, so you can have it on in the background or pause it, just toss it around attentionally-speaking and not give a shit. 

As a performer and teacher, that's not what I'm personally aiming for. 

The best experiences I've had so far have been super intimate. I attended/participated in a Zoom-based show called Couples Therapy for one audience member at a time, I got to play the couples therapist, highly recommended if it comes back. 

Before the quarantine, I did a lot of coaching of artists on their solo shows via online platforms, and that actually worked pretty well. Hoping to do more of that. I'm also trying to work on online performance experiences for just one audience member. And by "trying", I mean, I'm thinking about it. Between jello layers. 

Having to recalibrate and value quality of attention over quantity of attendees, that's a fascinating shift. And it could make me a better performer, in the long run, because of all the practice I can potentially get just playing for one person at a time. 

I always used to say, if you can make one person laugh, that's harder than getting an audience to laugh. But I didn't really mean it, because I was still thinking about those big fat crowds I used to have. So maybe that's the new goal. Just to believe the stuff I used to say about the importance of individual audience members. 

3) MAYBE GET REAL WEIRD.

You know how performing live, you get laughs from human beings who are a few feet away? That experience is gone for a while. The new experience of being a comedy artist might be about trying to get something else. 

What if we don't try to be funny anymore. Crazy concept, but it might just be too painful for our sensitive comedy organs to try jokes in empty rooms. Comedy organs are very touchy things, and if you expose them to too much not-laughing, your brain can start sending you signals that the comedy organs aren't functioning properly, which may or may not actually be the case. U like all that science I just dropped? All accurate. 

What if we tried to be beautiful. To be cinematic. To be weird. To be gorgeous. To be surprising. The good news is, we will probably end up being funny just because we're idiots. But I think focusing on something other than comedy feels healthy somehow. See above science.

I've done a few "clown" playgroups with friends on Zoom where we just get real weird with each other. They've been amazing. I get dressed up like a tragic telenovelas star (actually jewnovelas) with a velvet turban, mascara and lipstick (glossy, sticky-looking lipstick! that's the key! keep it wet!) I've rolled around and drooled on the floor every time. And my friends are of course brilliant and weird and they've surprised and delighted me, so that's been therapeutic. I'm learning about how to position the camera so that I've serving my friends the best angles, the most interesting tableaux. And I can tell they're doing that too. So that Zoom screen just looks beautiful, each of us our own tableau, creating little cinematic gifts for each other. That's been nice. 

4) AND WHEN POSSIBLE, SPARK SOME JOY.

You know Marie Kondo, right? The very charming celebrity-author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Runs an entire tidying empire with her flutey voice and deft-folding fingers. If you don't know Marie Kondo, you live under a messy rock, and that's totally fine. I'll summarize her. She's all about getting rid of stuff, and keeping the stuff you do have real clean. And the big question you have to ask yourself about every single thing you own is DOES IT SPARK JOY. 

does it spark joy does it spark joy does it spark joy does it spark joy does it—

An incredible question, and congratulations to Marie Kondo for coming up with it. 

Let's apply it to everything in our lives immediately. 

does it spark joy does this spark joy does that spark joy do they spark joy do we spark joy do i spark joy do i do i do i do i—

But seriously, do you? Do you spark joy? Do you spark joy in every person who has an interaction with you. Could you? Could that be your little assignment? 

Let's ask Marie Kondo what the fuck "spark joy" really means, because, define your terms bitch. Marie Kondo says that in order to determine if an object that you own in fact sparks joy, you have to hold it in your hands. Marie Kondo says that if the object sparks joy, then it will lift you up cell by cell, so that all parts of your body feel a little bit lifted. How do you know if the object doesn't spark joy? Every cell, every part of your body seems to be a little heavier. According to Marie Kondo, it's that fucking simple. 

You know what? I think she's right. Her point is that the body knows more about joy than the brain does, and it's important to listen to it. 

So let's apply the Kondo Principle, shall we? First of all, in order to have the potential to spark joy for another human, they have to be "holding" you, which obviously in today's day and age they can't do. But let's say, they have to be holding you in their attention. So the UPS guy who throws the box down on your stoop and runs away is probably not a good candidate. They have to be focused on you for a moment at least. Long enough to have an experience of you. 

Okay, so now that you've got them, it could be time to spark joy. 

How do you spark joy with everyone? You're a clown, you probably already know. You've been working at this your whole life. Try to break through, try to tickle. Try to have an effect on their body, lift it up, cell by cell. Even for a moment. You know when you've sparked joy, you see it. The energy around them gets fluffy for a moment. A tiny gust of hope. 

That's your only job now, clown. If you're doing that, you're doing something. Get 'er done.