If this article already feels too long, then you're in the right spot. You can skip to the number one reason to love each other to learn about the improv jam being held below in the comment box. If you think you're too good for improv jams, then I might suggest improv gourmet jelly manufactured in YOU'RE A DOUCHE. Though, if you do, in fact, like reading really long formulaic mediocre online comedy, then feel free to read this highly stimulating disappointing article.
Here are ten reasons to love each other.
10. We would all love to shoot a zombie in the face.
(Unless, of course, you're a zombie, in which case, I don't care because you're not a person. Stop moaning and scratching my door and I might reconsider.)
It's been 42 years since the summer of love and I think by looking at the time that has passed before and after the summer of love, we can really understand what it means to come together. From my perspective, I've realized that nothing is more effective at bringing people together than war.
Woodstock was only three muddy days with 400,000 dirty and barely fed people, while World War I was four years of mud attended by at least five million young people. I estimate five million because that's half the number of people who died in World War I and because I'm bad at math. (Actually, I'm too lazy to look it up.)
So, what brings us together is tearing us apart. We're very similar to zombies in that regard. Only, their motto is less paradoxical. They say, “What brings us together is tearing you apart.”
“Choke on ‘em! Choke on ‘em!” — Also, the last words of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
9. We've all been nearly caught masturbating.
(Unless you haven't, in which case I say, “Shames on you for making the rest of us feel weird,” because Microsoft Word won't accept “shame on you” without guilting me into fixing my already correct grammar. [Shame is a powerful tool.])
Should've used private browsing mode.I'd like to explain why this is all relevant but, if you've been reading, you probably have witnessed the trench warfare that's been taking place across the comment boxes on PIC. So, you may be able to see where this is going. And, I'm going to tell you my story of becoming a writer for Points in Case (PIC).
My training in comedy is principally as an actor and so the transition to being an online writer has been a process of discovery not unlike the process of puberty. At first I didn't really notice it had started, but some point after following Dixon (fantastic comedic artist and then new PIC writer) from a Second City, level A improv class to Facebook to PIC, I felt a tingle… just a little tingle at the tip of my creative implement. Then after figuring out where that tingle was coming from, I began to play with it, commenting sensuously and reading with care.
Pretty soon I was exploring my private things openly on the internet and I realized I'd been playing with it possibly multiple times a day for months. Soon I was sweaty in trying to conceal my private internet time. Just the sound of a door handle being grabbed made my butthole clinch. Sometimes my wife would come barging in, causing my rectum to constrict, screens to be slammed shut, and then her immediate question, “What are you doing?” Fidgeting nervously I'd say, “Nothing… just Facebook.” She'd pause for a second, looking at me suspiciously, and then leave in a huff. After my colon returned to it's rightful place, I'd wipe the sweat from my hands and get back to playing with it, happily realizing she probably thinks I'd been watching midget porn again.
8. We've all been rejected.
Really, I'd been reading a lot of articles and writing comments. Eventually I noticed that Court offers the ability to submit articles and get published. After the semester I decided to submit some stuff I had written in class and other random shit. Apparently, it was shit.
7. We've all written shitty poetry.
The point was clear. I had submitted some shitty poetry:
Nathan DeGraaf Fucked Father Time's Mother
[DeGraaf: fantastic comedy/economics writer / overall cool guy]
Nathan Fucked Father Time's Mother
That means he's fuckin old
Or he's fuckin old ladies
Nathan Fucked Father Time's Mother
Then he read the Wall Street Journal
Then he wrote jokes about it
Nathan Fucked Father Time's Mother
Then he played bridge
That Beatrix LaMotte is cheating whore
Social Security is funny
Social Security is funny
Social Security is funny
Ashley Garmany is Father Time's Mother
[Garmany: fantastic / professional / comic / writer / beautiful / envy factory]
Long Man in a White Van
A van door
Then chlor
o-form
Barely aware
Hands bound
Gag cloth in
Mildew
Darkness
Long Unwashed Hair
Hi KC
[Casey Freeman: paradoxical badass / nicest person you'll ever meet / great writer / school teacher]
My name's Gavin, sweetie
[Gavin Pitt: self-deprecating/dark/hilarious writer / entomologist / prof]
Don't look so down
I'm no clown
Your crying eyes judge
Don't hold a grudge
You have nothing to infer
Well except that I'm like Ben Roethlisberger
6. We've all made fun of white rappers.
(Unless you happen to be a white rapper, which in that case, doesn't matter because you're not a person.)
And, I had submitted a long shitty sketch converted into a written story:
“Come on dad, weren't you the one who said, ‘Never say you can't.' I need your perfect squareness to finish this off.” With his concept of honest sincerity, “I'll tell ya what, if you do this for me I'll be sure to leave your name off of the credits, and I'll repaint the front room.”
With huge chawing distorted talk Jon responds back, barely able to keep the drool in his mouth. “I will do this for you. But I don't see how you repainting the front room is a compromise.” A pink orb emanated from his mouth and burst into his facial hair. “You are the one who is responsible for destroying it.”
“Man, I didn't do that shit.”
“Your friend Allen—”
“You mean T-bone Crusher.”
5. We've all offended people before.
So, what I needed to do was write observational humor. That meant that first I would have to really look at what other people wrote, how well it did, how stand-up comics write, what they write about, and anything else that would help in writing a motha fuckin bossman winning-ass article. So, naturally I wrote a sentimental letter to my parents on Christmas Eve and it became the first thing I ever published.
4. We've all got egos that need protection.
After writing that stuff and reading more articles I then came to appreciate the most vibrant and delectable part of the PIC article: the comment box. Beneath every article on PIC is an often equally, if not more, interesting piece of Internet gold. There, you can find some of the dumbest people on the planet discussing semantics.
What couldn't be riveting about that?
Anyway, coming from a background in improve, I couldn't help but see the potential for creating stories with an ensemble made up of other writers. I dreamt that we'd storm into a comment box and create scenes like improv actors on a stage. But, my dreams were dashed as I tried to get support for the idea from Lord Voldemort he-who-shall-not-be named (I gave Lord Voldemort he-who-shall-not-be-named [Lord Voldemort he-who-shall-not-be-named: a great writer / unapologetic douchebag / loveable feminist / opinionated master of personal presence / Otto from A Fish Called Wanda / Scorpio from The Simpsons / angry ranter extraordinaire] an opportunity to read this beforehand and he requested that his name be removed from the article because of our history together… more on that in number two), who seemed like a perfect candidate for accepting a crazy idea like that, when he denied the idea outright because, he reasoned, people's egos were too big and they would never accept the idea of collaborating. I guess they'd be like, “What? You want to create something together? That's stupid. Everyone knows the best way to progress is through complete artistic isolation and the rejection of other people's ideas.”
3. We've all said, “needless to say,” before saying something that needs to be said.
Needless to say, I agreed with him, and I didn't attempt to contact anybody else. But, that idea stuck in my head and around the time I wrote my last article I found myself taking part in one of those pieces of Internet gold, a semantic discussion about “coincidence.” It was pretty erotic in a nerd sense. There was a lot of back and forth action, some tender caressing, a lot of yanking around, some guilt, a little bit of weeping, and then it happened: all that reciprocation created a distinct interpretation of who I am on the Internet. I had a character on the web created by myself and other people on the web.
So, I took from Lord Voldemort's he-who-shall-not-be-named's analysis of who I am and owned it and I added to it. Voldemort had told me that I was arrogant and always trying to prove my dominance and superiority over him. This was something that I had not been trying to do, but my “Yes! And…” training at Second City kicked in. So, I became as much like Sue Sylvester (plus crazy minus funny) that I could be. And the battle raged into an epic large catty struggle between the kind-of good guy, Lord Voldemort, and the kind-of bad guy, me, and the kind-of passive aggressive Lamb [Mike Lamb: brilliant/dark/fantastic writer of Jack's Inferno / PR nightmare / master of ethics].
[I could make this into a short comic strip]
The Overly Sensitive Lamb: BAHHHHH
The Kind of Passive-Aggressive Lamb: Um, BAHHH?
The Overly Sensitive Lamb: [crying] The fuck does that mean?
2. We're all willing to die stand up for what we believe before sitting back down because the other person seems like the type to carry a knife.
This is when I learned an important fact about improv online. It is difficult to get people to come together and make something for fun, but it is really easy to insult somebody and get into a huge unfunny battle. I also found that by thinking out loud what I would normally censor, I created a much more abrasive but pretty consistent character, through which I could explore openly other people's craft while creating semi-interesting content for readers. My talking openly about the pitfalls of other writers' work gave me the experience of really looking at who I am and what this medium is really about. Furthermore, as the battle raged to its peak recently, I came to finally connect the dots between stand-up, improv, and online comedy.
I realized that the best thing I can do is bring people together to have fun. So, if you like my article that's great, but what I really want is for you, the reader, is to have fun.
1. We can have fun working together to create something.
In the comment box below I think we all should play an improv game called “Ask the Expert.” In this game I will pose a question and you, the readers, will answer the question one word at a time.
So, if I ask “Why were you late to class?” You will answer:
Seriously, this is why you were late to class? …Oh oh, this is just game theory, right.
Anonymous: I
Anonymous2: was
Nnambibambi: going
AnonAnon: To
Zquade: be
Anonymous: inducted
AnonAnon: into
Zquade: the
Nnambibambi: Hall
Anonymous: of
Anonymous2: Mirrors
Then somebody will recap by saying,
Zquade: I was late to class because I was going to be inducted into the hall of mirrors
Then anybody else can ask a question they want the expert to answer and the process repeats.
So, I guess I'll ask the first question:
Oh wise, god-like, humble expert, why is it that we can't all just get along?