Learning

The road is never more lonely than after a bad show. The economy rental car silently cuts through the night, guiding you back to your room on its own. Your mind is elsewhere, contemplating the minutiae of the show, reliving the performance word-for-word, beat-for-beat.

A bad show is like getting turned down by the girl you asked to prom - except this time it's in front of 500 strangers. A bad show is like forgetting your sixth grade book report over and over again for 45 minutes. A bad show is like watching your coffee mug careen off the counter in slow-motion, crashing into a million pieces on the kitchen floor.

Don't be fooled. When you're bombing, you're completely aware of it. You know you're bombing and you do your best to tread water and get through it. A slight laugh or a hint of energy in the room gives you hope to continue, even though you may have lost the crowd 30 minutes ago.

Sometimes it's the audience. Maybe they weren't your demo. Maybe they were too drunk, or not drunk enough. Maybe they were too tired.

Sometimes it's the venue. Maybe the room was too big. Maybe it was too small. Maybe the sound system was outdated and people couldn't hear you. Maybe the client changed the floor plan at the last minute.

Sometimes it's the event. Maybe it went too long. Maybe there was too much going on. Maybe they were distracted by the company raffle or the dessert the caterer just laid out on the opposite side of the room.

The excuses echo in your hotel room as you stare at the ceiling. You question every decision that led you to this point. But the only person to blame is yourself.

It's always your fault - no matter what. 

You failed to educate the buyer or vet the client. You failed to effectively plan the layout. You failed at something.

It's always your fault.

You get into performing for the good shows: the applause, the standing ovations, the packed houses and rave reviews. 

Good shows are what you dream of on those early morning flights around the country. Good shows are the answer to every half-baked creative equation scrawled in your notebook. Good shows are the destination...but bad shows are how you get there.

Bad shows are your education.

A bad show stops you in your tracks. You're distraught and depressed but everyone else is going on with their lives like nothing happened. The sun still rises and sets, just like any other day.

At first it's hard to sleep and hard to move on, but developing a mental suit-of-armor is a must for a career in the arts. You keep the good and fix the bad, then move on to the next gig.

This isn't about a bad show I had recently. It's about something else. But you're supposed to write about what you know and I thought that the necessity of learning from bad gigs was a good metaphor for life. For every experience, you have to keep the good and fix the bad. You have to wake up tomorrow and get back to work.

Life will go on. It always does.

Patience

I love games. 

Board games, card games, party games - you name it. Strategy games were always my favorite. Chess, Stratego, Risk, Go, Pente, and more. I'm not sure why. I guess when you live in a small town and you don't have much else to do, you end up making your own fun. My fun was mastering any game I could get my hands on.

My fourth grade teacher loved playing chess. He was really good and never took it easy on me. Even when I moved on to sixth and seventh grade, I would walk back across town after school to meet him for our weekly chess match.

I had a long row of chess books at home and studied them more than my homework. But no matter how much I learned about chess I could never beat Mr. Kern.

Then one day I castled, sacrified my knight, and set myself up beautifully for the end game. We danced around each other on the board in silence, the custodian's keys echoing in the empty, familiar hallway.

We traded pieces and shielded our kings, and it became apparent that I wasn't going to lose. I had dreamt of this moment and anticipated his moves. Mr. Kern stared down over the board and, after what seemed like hours, he did exactly what I was hoping. Finally, it was my turn. 

It was a draw. I had pulled even. I was ecstatic.

Mr. Kern - Lyle - had given me a tremendous gift. He had forced me to actually learn the game and try to outwork him. He hadn't let me win and had always played his best. 

Somedays he would humiliate me, winning after a handful of moves. Others, we would fight hard before he would outfox me with a clever combination. But that day was different. I was prepared for his strategy and fought back. I had learned to hold my own and create my own opportunities. It took months and months of agonizing defeats, but my dedication had finally paid off.

I don't remember playing chess with Lyle much after that. Middle school activities got in the way; track, drama, basketball, and choir. I was caught up in adolescence, trying hard to fit in when I could and hide when I couldn't.

In high school I joined the tennis team. Only in a small town could your high school tennis coach also be your favorite elementary school teacher. Lyle and I had crossed paths again.

I had a volatile temper on the court, always knowing I could be better but unable to get where I wanted. And Lyle was there for me again, showing me ways to control my anger and channel it into my game. By my senior year, thanks to Lyle, I was a top-ten finisher at the state tournament.

My favorite games - just like tennis and chess -  teach you patience. You have to commit to something for a long time and know that your hard work will pay off in the end. You have to be willing to be terrible in hopes that one day you can finally pull even. You have to wait for your shot before you can finally unleash your forehand...or bishop...or new mind reading show.

There's no shortcut to success. There's no secret "lifehack" that will suddenly get you where you want to be. No one is going to take it easy on you and if they do, they'll only be doing you a disservice.

Some people find success quickly, with few roadblocks or detours along the way. For the rest of us, we have to keep working and writing and practicing and studying and finally - after patiently waiting - it's our turn to make a move.

Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving.

It's hard to say that phrase because 2016 has been a pretty rough year. It's not the "giving thanks" part I'm having trouble with. I have plenty to be thankful for.

I have a beautiful, talented wife who is supportive of everything I do. We travel, create art, live, work, and play together. I'm thankful for her every day.

I also love what I do. I'm incredibly fortunate to do the exact thing I promised myself I would be doing 25 years ago. I spend my days making people laugh and helping them experience something that is becoming harder to find with every passing moment: mystery. It's my dream job and I'm thankful for it every single day.

Plus, I live in Chicago. The Windy City constantly challenges me to make my time count and to work harder. I always wanted to live in a city full of opportunity, surrounded by people different than me. Chicago is all of that and more. I'm so thankful to live here.

So yeah, it's not the "giving thanks" part I'm struggling with. It's the "happy" part.

I haven't been very happy this year - for a lot of reasons.

Work was slow for the first four or five months of 2016. I'm not sure why, but I was in a funk and I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere artistically. As a result, my business suffered. 

Most performers in my field pretend to be busier than they are. They boast of their number of shows and their first class seats. But I don't want to lie - not here on my own blog. The point of these essays is to be honest, so believe me when I say the start of 2016 sucked for me. Artistically and business-wise. It was awful.

When you're self-employed and business is slow, it puts a strain on everything. My wife and I would get frustrated with each other more often, looking for somewhere to place the blame. We had to go all the way to London to get away from our work and take a break.

I was also training for a marathon at the start of the year. I was logging between 50-60 miles a month on top of a busy show/travel schedule during the holidays. Then, I was out for a run one day and I felt a sharp pain shoot up through my right foot and into my leg. I went to a podiatrist who told me that my feet aren't really built for running. Some custom orthotics and several months of physical therapy later, I'm finally getting back to training. But my progress is gone. I hate starting over.

In August my best friend killed himself. I've never been more sad then I was the day I heard the news. There's an emptiness inside of me now that will never be replaced. A song will come on my iPod that reminds me of Jake and it stops me dead in my tracks. I try to smile through it but it hurts too much. I miss him every day.

As the bad news kept piling on over the summer, I tried to figure out what happiness means to me. Why do I feel so sad when I have so much to be thankful for?

I turned to my usual outlet - writing - and made a list of the things that were affecting my mental well-being.

• Social Media

• Society's Definition Of Success

• Negative People

The things that contributed to my depression all had one trait in common: they were out of my control. So I made another list - some reminders for myself:

• I couldn't control what people shared online - I could only control my response to it.

• My definition of success didn't have to be the same as everyone else's.

• I could choose to eliminate the negative people from my life.

Now, whenever I'm alone and uncertain I pull up those reminders on my phone and think about what makes me truly happy. I can only control my thoughts and my actions. Nothing else. So I choose to think good thoughts and do good deeds.

I choose to be happy.

Business has picked up. I'll end the year with more shows and flights than any prior year. It just took a while to get going.

I'm slowly getting back into running. I can't wait to do another marathon.

Losing a friend made me realize how important the people I care about really are. I will never take them for granted.

I've stopped talking to the people who bring me down. I limit my time on social media and remind myself how little it matters. And I view success differently than I did before.

I'm not as sad as I was at the start of the year but I'm not fully happy either. Still, I'm closer than I've been for a really long time. And for that I'm truly thankful.

Make Great Art

I spent three or four days after the election losing sleep and trying to come to grips with the results. Then, at the end of last week, I decided it was time to do something.

So I logged onto the American Civil Liberties Union's website and pulled up their donate page. I typed $100 into the submission box, then paused.

Blink, blink, blink.

The cursor taunted me, reading my thoughts for a change.

Was this the best I could do?

All last year I had donated to campaigns and causes, lent my voice to protests and debates. I was involved and educated, but to what end?

Here I was, ready to donate again, but it just didn't feel like anything would come out of it. After a vicious election cycle in our post-truth society, how would this truly change anything?

I could click send and have a small sense of pride knowing I had donated to the ACLU, but then what? I guess I'd walk over to my neighborhood coffee shop and listen to a podcast. Just like any other day.

But it's not any other day now, is it?

Blink, blink, blink.

As I stared at the blinking cursor, a few thoughts raced through my mind:

When George W. Bush was president I had serious concerns with his actions and disagreed with him on nearly everything. However, I still respected the office of the president. I knew it wasn't the end of the world and he would be out of office soon.

But this time is different. We have a president-elect (whose name I refuse to use because he already gets enough free advertising) who built his entire campaign on hate, sexism, racism, and more. He was endorsed by the KKK and encouraged violence at his rallies. Not to mention, he's a sexual predator and has really tiny, baby hands.

So no, I don't respect this person. And I don't understand the people in the media saying "Just give him a chance!" Isn't that what the campaign was for? You can't erase eighteen months of disgusting rhetoric with a victory. He's still the same awful person he was prior to winning.

That's why this time is different. That's why people are protesting and my neighborhood has grown eerily quiet. That's why people are wearing safety pins and speaking out. They're scared for the future and uncertain of what our country will look like with a thin-skinned demagogue in charge.

Blink, blink, blink.

The cursor winked back at me like it does so often when writer's block hits mid-essay. And I finally understood what I was feeling.

This time it's different. A simple donation on our way to work won't get the job done. It's time for more action. 

It's time for more love and more empathy. It's time for more understanding and more compassion.

This is a time for people to bridge the gap between different opinions. It's time to enrich and inspire, educate and enlighten. 

It's a time to make great art. Fearless, unapologetic, fantastic art.

So I opened my inbox and started reaching out to my favorite performers in Chicago. I messaged a local theater I'd worked with in the past. I opened Photoshop and started designing a poster.

And suddenly, an idea was born.

On Sunday, November 27th, I'm hosting a one-night-only show called "BE HAPPY 😀: A Forget-About-The-Election Variety Show", along with nine of the best performers in the city.

The best part? ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the proceeds will be going to the ACLU!

When something bad happens I've always been a person who responds by doing more. I get more involved and make sure my voice is heard. I fight for what I believe in by taking more action.

Somewhere in the midst of a dozen projects, two browser windows, fourteen open tabs - between research, writing, and half-baked ideas - is that donate page. And that goddamn cursor, still waiting for my next move.

I can't wait to hit send on November 28th and get rid of that. But I need your help.

If you've been wanting to do something since the election but weren't sure what to do, then this is a great first step. Come to this show and forget about the election for a couple hours. You'll see some magic, laugh, maybe even let me read your mind. All for a great cause.

Then you can go do something else and get even more involved. That's what I plan on doing and so should you. But for now, get a ticket for this show and support the ACLU. I think we all deserve to BE HAPPY for a night.

You can read more about the show, the lineup of incredible performers, and buy tickets here. 😀

Silence

I walked down Lake Shore Drive in the early hours after the election. The results weren't fully in yet, but the outcome was inevitable.

My heart pounded ferociously in my chest and my breath was short and staggered. Numbed by this awful moment in time, I stared off into the darkness of Chicago unable to process my thoughts and come to grip with this reality.

The best I could offer were tears of solace and solidarity for my friends who would live in fear for years to come. But my best wasn't even close to being good enough.

My mind was racing but I couldn't form sentences. My feelings changed without warning, unable to be put into words.

I was engulfed by the silence.

My opinions are simple: I don't care what you believe as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That simple thought is at the core of what I believe and how I act toward others.

So how was I supposed to live in a world fueled by hate? The only country I've ever known had turned its back on decency and love for our fellow citizens.

Then I wondered, how do the people I've known my whole life feel about this election? How is it affecting them?

And that's when it hit me. The people who claimed to be loving and compassionate and caring and religious and kind to all were no where to be found.

They weren't posting meaningful dialogue online. They weren't contributing to the conversation. And they weren't voicing their disgust for a person who was openly against everything they claimed to believe.

Throughout this election, I've been subjected to various forms of bullying by people on social media. Old high school classmates have called me a "spoiled brat" or a "fucktard". They've made assumptions about my character and the character of my friends. I've been attacked viciously by white supremacists on Twitter and had to listen to old white men at gigs angrily tell me why they support a misogynistic, tax evading, sexist demagogue.

Where were my "religious" friends when I needed defending? Where were my "religious" friends when Muslims, women, immigrants, the disabled, Veterans, Mexicans, and other groups were being marginalized? Where were they when their voice could have mattered the most?

They were no where to be found.

This isn't on me. The ones of us who spoke out and attended rallies are not to blame. We're not responsible for this setback to this country we love. 

I'm sorry to my friends who are minorities. I'm sorry to my friends in the LGBTQ community. I'm sorry to the refugees and the women. I'm sorry to my wife and future children. I'm sorry to my friends with disabilities. I'm sorry to anyone with a religion other than the majority's. I'm sorry to the youth of America who will be bullied at school now because other children will have seen a person in power who bullies others, too.

I'm not religious. I don't go to church or send out "thoughts and prayers". I take action and make sure my voice is heard. I take a stand for what matters, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.

As a white man, I'll be fine. I'll go about my life like nothing has changed and everything will work out. But I'm not fine. 

I know everything will be okay, but things won't ever be the same.

I just wish the people who claim to have "values" - my family and friends who claim to be so "moral" and "good" - had done their part. I wish you had lived what you love to preach.

So to those people now, I say this:

I see you.

I see your "religion" and your "morality". But most of all, I see your hypocrisy.

Your silence has not gone unnoticed.

It's deafening.

Honesty

I'm a liar.

My voice isn't always this loud. I have a microphone on and it amplifies the words I'm saying.

Standing like this isn't natural. No one stands like this in real life. My "upstage foot" - the one farthest away from you - is slightly ahead of my "downstage foot".  It's a stance designed to make you feel as if you can still see me while I'm talking to someone onstage.  It's literally called "cheating out".

I told you. I'm not telling the truth.

We're in this room with three real walls and a fourth one that we've invisibly agreed exists in the space between us. 

Now we're just lying to ourselves.

You sit there, all facing the same way, and I stand here peering out at you through my glasses. One lens is necessary - I'm blind in my left eye - but the other is just a pane of glass. Another white lie to give the appearance of normal.

A faceless figure in the shadows is sliding switches and pushing buttons to make sure my amplified voice is the right volume and these bright lights - all pointed in my direction - turn on at the right time.

If they do their job right you won't even notice.

The inside of my briefcase, weathered by years on the road, is held together with gaff tape.  Extra pencils and batteries sit just out of sight. You'll never see the ugly truth behind this facade I'm showing you.

My watch doesn't work, but I glance at it just to keep up appearances.

I'll be saying the same words I said last night but making them sound fresh and new. It may feel unplanned but I spent hours writing the script on my MacBook and refining it onstage. It took years to write it out and give you enough clues to fill in the blanks.

So I stand here, surrounded by lies, as the most sincere version of myself.  Without those lies I can't give you the truth. I can't tell you the things that matter and make you forget the things that don't. I can't make you care without lying to you first.

I need this room with this invisible wall, and those chairs, facing towards the front. I need this mic and my mysterious friend to make sure I'm heard. I need to "cheat out" and say the same words I've said a million times. I need all of those things to keep this on the up and up. 

What better place to be honest than on stage?

Perspective

Have you ever seen the Albert Einstein/Marilyn Monroe illusion?

Basically, it's a photograph that is designed to make you see Einstein up close and Marilyn at a distance. It's a fascinating demonstration of how our eyes focus on things at certain distances.

If you're close to the picture you see the finer details (Einstein) but as you move further away the picture blurs together, leaving you with an image of Marilyn Monroe.

Recently, I was talking to someone who said "We're always in a state of hypnosis."  As a clinical hypnotist, she viewed the world through her own frame of reference. She felt that we enter a different state of mind depending on which situation we're in, and categorized those mental states as "trance states". 

I argued that I didn't view the world that way. As a theater student, I viewed our "different selves" as various roles we were playing. They were all extensions of our self, just slight variations depending on what situation we were in.

We were both looking at the same room - just through different windows.

We all see the world through a different lens, based on our own personal set of experiences. We're forever prisoners of our own mind, unable to truly see the big picture.

As a creative person it's hard to see anything but Einstein. Most of the time I'm too close to my work to see anything else. 

I'm my own director, writer, producer, manager, agent, film editor, researcher, marketer, and performer. I'm too self-absorbed and caught up in my own projects to be able to look at my work with a discerning eye.

This is usually apparent after I come offstage and tell my wife "Wow, that was a terrible show." She usually replies "What are you talking about? They were loving it!"

Unable to step back and see the whole picture, I'm dreadfully unaware of how my performance is being perceived. Thus, I am constantly asking for feedback and forcing myself to watch my act on camera (painful) or listen to an audio recording of the show (the horror!).

Feedback is crucial to a career in the arts. As hard as it is to hear, you have to be quiet and listen to what someone else is telling you.

Once, I showed Stephanie two ideas I was working on and asked her which one was better. She said she liked the first option the best and I quickly responded "Really? I like the last one better."

Stephanie has an uncanny way of making a brilliant point in as few words as possible. She paused, then said "Oh, I thought you were asking for my opinion."

After that I ate my words, shut up, and listened to her thoughts. She helped me step back and see it from an outside perspective. With her assistance, I could see the "Einstein" and the "Monroe".

Being open to feedback is hard. It hurts. But you have to do it.

Several years ago, I finished a gig on cloud nine. The show was firing on all cylinders, the audience had been receptive, and I had crushed my performance. I was sure the corporate client would be thrilled and positive it was going to lead to many more bookings.

As I walked offstage a man waved me over, saying "Good show. Can I ask you something?" I smiled and leaned in to shake his hand.

Then he pulled me closer and quietly said "Just thought you should know...your zipper is down."

My fly had been down the whole show!

Sometimes a good show feels bad and sometimes a bad show feels good. And on a rare occasion, the show feels great but no one knows because you forgot to zip your pants.

It's all about perspective.

My Own Little Corner

After college I slept on couches in Los Angeles for almost a year and did my best to get my name out there. I was simultaneously seeking work and trying to find my voice as an artist.

It was exhausting.

But there was a moment during those nine months that changed that. A piece of advice that gave me the courage to continue the somewhat absurd pursuit of art as a full-time career.

It came at a lecture given by visionary choreographer Twyla Tharp on the campus of USC. I had attended SC as a freshman theater student and, still on their mailing list, tried to catch any free events I could.

After my freshman year my father passed away and money was tight. I transferred back to Kansas to finish my BFA at Wichita State University. I'd gone from my dream school to a place near my small midwest hometown that I'd never even been to before.

I was wildly depressed and alone.

Losing my father was my first real experience with loss. It shook me to the core. A soft-spoken, intelligent, kind man, my father had always supported me in my endeavors. Even if he didn't understand them. When I left home for theater school, he never questioned it. He just smiled and wished me good luck.

He believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself.

But with my father gone, I was struggling to believe again. I was lost and sad. Any creativity that had come in my short year at USC was gone. My desire and enthusiasm for what I did was missing. The friends I had made didn't stay in touch and the opportunities I had worked for had come and gone.

I was back to square one.

I contemplated suicide and holed up in my dorm room. I was not the confident performer I had once been. I was scared of the future and unsure of my goals.

But I knew I had to get out. I knew I had to push through and make my way. My dad had always told me that it didn't matter what I did, as long as I worked as hard as I possibly could. And so I did.

I practiced relentlessly and wrote my first show. I wrote a countdown of days on my wall, impatiently waiting to move back to southern California. And finally, the day arrived.

With nothing more than a bag of clothes and a bag of tricks, I hopped on a train and headed west. But the roadblocks kept coming.

I wasn't original. I just felt like I was one of the crowd. Just another performer that could easily be replaced. I had no idea how to stand out and how to find myself in my art. I'd been so busy studying other people's approaches that I'd failed to develop my own.

And that's when I went to hear Twyla Tharp's lecture.

Tharp had authored one of my favorite books, "The Creative Habit", which I had studied in a class while attending WSU. I was excited to soak up her knowledge as best I could, hoping she would hold the answer I was seeking.

When Twyla invited the attendees to ask questions I nervously raised my hand and asked her what advice she had for an artist who was just starting out and trying to be original. And this is what she said:

"You have to get away from all the other artists and find your own little corner somewhere. Then you sit in that corner and say 'What does my art mean to me?' If you stay there long enough, then you'll find the answer to that question. Once you do, everything else will fall into place."

It seems obvious but for a small town kid who never had a mentor growing up that was the advice I'd been seeking. It was life changing for me.

I feel like I'm just starting to come out of my own little corner. I've been asking myself every day for eight years, what does this art mean to me? Sometimes the answer is vague and too hard to decipher.

But most days I feel like the answer is right in front of me, closer than it's ever been.

Falling Through The Cracks

My phone flew through the air in slow-motion before bouncing across the pavement like a rubber ball. The screen flickered then went black, a spider web of cracks branching out from the upper right corner.

I had flown over the handlebars, not far behind my iPhone. I wasn't injured. But I'd been going too fast to slow down in time and it had cost me my go-to distraction: my small, portable, pocket computer.

I couldn't call my best friend for a week. Or listen to my daily political podcasts. Emails transitioned to my MacBook, along with any social media projects. 

A phantom vibration lingered in my pocket for the first 48 hours - a hint of a missed text or a new voicemail.

But there was nothing there. No phone to charge, no glowing screen on my nightstand. Not a single little red number to aimlessly fill my time.

So I did other things.

I read a book. A big book. I stayed up until 2 am getting lost in someone else's thoughts. No music, no cat videos - just me and 400 pages of non-fiction bliss.

I went on a run. My first post-injury-and-8-weeks-of-physical-therapy jog in the park since January. I went out without my phone blaring hip-hop in my ears or telling me how far I'd gone. Just me and the crashing waves of Lake Michigan.

I talked with my wife. Like, really talked with her. Not about a new meme I'd seen or a trending topic on Twitter. We talked about things that mattered and a lot of silly things that don't. Just me, and my beautiful wife.

And I did some thinking. Okay, I did a lot of thinking.

For the first time in years, I felt truly connected to everything around me - without the very device that promises to make me more connected. 

With my shiny gadget I know everything about the people I care about, but I don't put in the effort to truly connect. A thumbs up here, a red heart there - meaningless signs of approval in the digital age. 

In a time when I can do anything I spend most of that time filling the void. The vast, beautiful world is right at my fingertips, blocked by a rectangular piece of plastic and glass.

So, here's where I stand:

I'm not getting rid of my phone. That's not going to happen. But I'm glad it broke last week.

I needed to remember how great it feels to get lost in this world of ours. I needed a reminder of how great the people I'm surrounded with can truly be. And I needed to fill my time with the things that really matter.

From now on, I refuse to let any of those things fall through the cracks.