Escape Artists.

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I find a million little things every day that absolutely shake my world... if not break my heart.

Mostly, the outlet of this blog... or, of getting up and spilling yourself all over a stage... are often the one-way avenue this reality to written word relationship seems to work.

But, not always...

Last post, I went off on a little tangent on the types that used virtual worlds to avoid having to occupy and interact in this one, and then a funny thing happened... I met a girl.

Not a particularly unusual occurrence but, for this seemingly lovely girl, it was just that.

She was in her late twenties, as I said, quite presentable... easy on the eyes, even... but, as we bonded over comic and cartoon culture from our respective childhoods, she dropped a bomb on me.

She proceeded to tell me that this was day four of her time 'outside'.

The fourth day she'd spent outside the walls of a hospice. The fourth day she'd spent functioning in the outside world.

Her outlet for interaction to this point had been the on-line worlds... y'know, of warcraft and the like.

See... I should point out. When I was a kid, I was an 'escape artist'.

Running away from this world, to lose myself in a fantasy one.

I would draw, I would design, I would carefully craft a world of my own making... and, wile away the hours therein.

It wasn't so much a Dungeon's and Dragons alterna-verse... nor some similar Tolkien-esque middle earth where I had to learn the elfish alphabet.... but, the comic books, the superheroes, the sci-fi and spaceships I lost myself in... aren't exactly the high ground.... so, I'm not looking down on the ant-like behaviors of anti-social outcasts from atop my perch on Mt. Olympus.

See... I was kind of a spotty kid.

As a teenager, you're world is small, and you might not look much beyond the six inches in front of your face and, if you're the pizza-face kid, then that might be just enough to glance down at the white-topped peak of a particularly majestic peninsula of acne.

(As it happens, I wasn't the pizza-face kid..... though, if you are the pizza-face kid, do they call you pizza-face to your pizza-face?)

Hyperbole aside.... I do remember my mom constantly telling me, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought; "It's all in your head." She'd say; "The spots... the acne. It's not nearly as obvious to anyone else. It's all in your head."

"No, I think you mean on my head. The spots are on my head. Specifically, the front part of my head. Which is arguably the most important part of my head. The front part."

Most escapists today, still fall in this category...

Running away from this world into a more fantastic and deterministic one. One where they can easily replace a complexion of pustules for pixels that they can manufacture and manipulate.

We living through what is, inarguably the greatest time in which to be alive in human history... and, adults and kids are retreating in droves into computer generated fantasy worlds.

It's been my high-wire to walk with this show... with my day-to-day... to navigate that difficult and delicate balance in creating a comical show for a younger generation.

Like I pointed out in Are You Afraid Of The Snark? (jesus, it's like the snake chasing its tail with the self-reference! I'm like Ron Jeremy felating myself..), we're all so used to equating funny with scathing and snide. We're accustomed to thinking it's the only place to find funny.

All we're bombarded with are negative news and unnerving images. The waging of countless wars on a million fronts both real and manufactured.

But, a laugh is a release from all of that. That release, that catharsis, made potent(if not possible) by that contrast.

That said.. I mostly never forward a friend a video, a story or a song that isn't fun, upbeat or optimistic. I just assume they've heard the shrieking of the doomsday whistle.

I don't bother trying to contribute to the cacophony of catastrophe. I assume they can't escape it.... and, as such, I can't really blame anyone for trying to escape.

I believe... with every fiber of my being and all the good vibes that keep those fibers from fraying or flying apart.... that the future is, indeed, awesome!

That... regardless of its ultimate success... the true measure of this "TFIA!" endeavor is going to be the perspective I try to spread like refracted sunlight. (If nothing else, it should cancel out the energies I expend in conjuring purile humor and dick jokes, like a negative and positive charge meeting and dissipating.)

If you, or I, don't believe that, then there's a very good chance the world you're presently living in is one "Of Warcraft".... and, maybe that's not as easily categorizable a class of creepy folks as I've made them out.(... maybe.)

Once upon a time... in an adolescence far, far away... I'm quite sure that myself and a gaggle of like-minded geeks would have been Jedi neighbors living in the all-encompassing universe of The Old Republic.(... as convincing an argument for retreating into an all engrossing, expansive "Star Wars" universe as I've ever come across.) But, I've since had a lady tenderly and deliberately touch my penis... so, now that's out.

Now, I can't conceive, nor understand anyone wanting to live anywhere but, here and now.

I'm not trying to be dismissive or reductive but, I've gotta believe the majority of these people need to be made aware of just how fantastic the world is outside their window.

And.... the trick is to do it in a way that doesn't seem like you're selling a society of hugs or trying to buy the world a coke.

I don't want to undercut the awesomeness of the world we're living in.... and, the extraordinary optimism and hopefulness of the world of ten minutes from now.

Every virtual world offers some hyper-real twist... be it battle axes, digital D-cup damsels and pet dragons... jedis, sith lords and laser swords... or, just that one minor, Matrix-esque capacity to lift off the ground and take flight, in the otherwise quite 'grounded' virtual world of Second Life.

But every movie that necessitates your leaving this world for one of pirates and sea monsters... hobbits and tree monsters... or giant, walking, talking robots.... tells you that this world (and its future) is one that needs to be avoided; one that requires as frequent and numbing an escape as can be conjured.

My challenge with "TFIA!" is to create a culture that wants to exist in and collaborate toward experiencing and improving this world.

It's ambitious and it's exciting.... but, it is not escapist.

Every time that I retreated from my teen acne and paralyzing shyness.... I was retreating into an alternate path forward. A better future where I'd be a better writer a more well-rounded being and, maybe, attract a lady(... with all her fantastic and alluring lady parts) with my wit and wisdom.

In the future, I'll be better.. I thought.

I might be escaping into my head... but, I can't escape my actual head... nor, the adolescent acne spots that once adorned it.

And, the girl who I talked to... the one on her first week tour of the actual world... quickly took to this actual interaction in the world.

And, I couldn't help but notice that she didn't shrink from touch... or engaging those senses that were dormant for so long. In fact, the next time she touches.. perhaps even.. kisses a boy, she promised to think of me.

So, before she could react or turn away... before she could 'escape'... I kissed her quickly on the lips.

What..?

I was a shy and spotty youth once. I well know the mentality.... you've gotta just rip the band-aid off in one quick motion and kiss the scab... and, besides, she smiled and kissed me back.

Ask anyone who knows, in 'World Of Warcraft' that virtually never happens.

Sorry, I don't follow...

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Are You Afraid Of The Snark?

(... we are making a show called "The Future Is Awesome!"(... tv show... website... podcast... etc.). I am blogging about the process... also, as we make the transition to our spankin' new title, and 'official' site, I'm gonna be posting in parallel at Let's Make Politics!... Don't wanna lose anyone. :)

I've been in some very dark places over the past couple months.

I've been in comedy clubs.

Comedy clubs are dark, dark places.

You only ever walk into one well after the sun's gone down and the majority of the working world's gone to bed.

Down into a basement or a back room where no cheeky little beam of bounced light could seep in and spoil this cultivated atmosphere of counter culture, impotent rage and desperation screamed into the darkness.

I've been spending the better part of a month skulking around these clubs... getting bits up on their feet... bouncing ideas off a live audience... and mostly sitting idly with surly people.

Comedy writers.... comedians.... 'funny men'(and women); I assure you, though we may think of them as mirth makers and laughter craftsmen, this back room is not a back door to Wonka's colorfully vibrant and wondrously technicolor Candy Factory.

Spend a day on a comedy writer's retreat.. in a comedy show writer's room.. in a back corner booth at the local "Ha Ha Hut" sandwiched betwixt fidgeting comedians.... you are likely to meet some of the most miserable and morose individuals you ever did encounter.

It's a grind, to be sure, doing comedy for a living and the majority of these folks will remind you of this.

It's the angry chicken and the rage-filled unhatched egg. Are you a frustrated, angry comic because you haven't been 'discovered' and rescued from this purgatory... or, are you exactly where you are meant to be, honing and hawing until you run out of breath, because that's the life you chose... that's the life you gravitated to because that's who you always were, lighting rig and microphone notwithstanding?

Marc Maron has his theories about integrity and why he wasn't 'one of the popcorn kernels who popped'... but, his voice and his act are now so inextricably tied into this identity, he couldn't go shiny and happy if he tried.

Paul F. Tompkins talks about frustrations like not having the right 'tv teeth'. Still, a perfect set of chompers and my bet is his comedy is less incisive and biting.

The 'good ones' channel it into the work... better writing, more cutting comedy and an identity that says they are exactly where they're supposed to be, as they rail against the cruelty of the business... their shouts fogging the glass, as they press their snot bubbling noses to the window.

Comedians are not happy folk.

They're closer to snark merchants(... or maybe, tragedy tradesmen?). They manufacture sneers and jeers and use their wits, and every tool in their bag, to chip away at everything they couldn't knock down in one swing.

Most often, they become so good at this that they can't help but pollute their own heads.

So... I'm left to ask myself this question; is hope and optimism at odds with humor? Can good people with good intentions, be funny?

In case you hadn't noticed, most good people aren't funny.

Genuinely good people... caring, considerate, compassionate, empathetic people... are not funny.

Nick Hornby (of "High Fidelity" and "About A Boy" fame) wrote a book called How to Be Good and openly asked this same question therein.

Sure they can be funny in that self-deprecating, 'lamp-shade-on-their-head' sense of the world but, a truly good person isn't ever going to be a sharp, caustic wit... they can't and won't risk saying something that might be hurtful.

Can a good person be funny? Not really, no.

The voice inside their head curbs their wicked impulses. Their little angel wields a bullhorn to shout down the little devil whispering in their ear.

The comedians who've lived their lives on the road.... lived their lives in obscurity... have no qualms about releasing all their evils, their neurosis on an expectant crowd. That's where you get Pryor 'Live On The Sunset Strip' and its meaty mouthfuls of material. That's where a genius transitions to a transcendent comedy god.

You give me a room full of guys toiling away for ten or twenty years... a room full of Lewis Black's... I'll deliver you a "Daily Show".

I've been trying to reconcile this balancing act in my show, "The Future Is Awesome!"... and, in my own life.

I said I'd been in some dark places... and, I'm not sure that darkness isn't worming it's way into my heart(... if it wasn't always there).

How to balance the much needed notion of a hopeful, inspiring, future for a younger generation so wracked with anxiety and angst, against the irreverence and the humour that make this a fun and relevant show to those same young people.

The better angel on my shoulder might be our live in-studio host.... and, the devil his cartoon monkey counterpart.

Or, maybe the more realistic and nuanced view has each of those two hosts with a little man or monkey devil and angel of their own.

Light is the enemy of comedy, as it is in a comedy club.

I was never really afraid of the dark as a kid... I knew it was just all the same stuf in a well lit room made more mysterious for the fact that it was obscured in shadow. As far as this show goes..... I am afraid of the snark.

No more than I am frightened of the unfunny society of hugs and snuggles that the good people seem to occupy; that 'I'd like to buy the world a coke' attitude, I'm so distrustful of, so bored and unengaged by.

I mean for shit's sake, we (... and, by 'we', I mean Nobel laureate scientists having nothing to do with me) just discovered and isolated the Protein Behind Immortality.

Fuckin' immortality!

You listening, all you twee little Twilight, vampire fanatics?

(By the way, can you think of a group of human beings you'd less like to see walking the earth for all eternity, than Anne Rice fans and assorted vampire paraphernalia drones in their frilly-sleeved chemises and blank, bored stares..? Bring on the afterlife... it's gotta be better than spending the afternoon in the mega-mall food court with Azrael picking over a sbarro pizza slice and bemoaning the pointlessness of pepperoni.)

Mind you, it should be noted... this 'immortality gene' also happens to make to make great gobs of cancer as a side effect.

That's right, immortal little monkeys, we've figured out how to give you cancer... forever.

Score one for our side.

As with every inspiring and exciting idea and innovation I want to highlight... I don't think I can bathe in the glowing light and still find the funny.

The light side might be a beacon of hope... but, it always needs to be turned over 'cause the laughter is on the dark, unexposed underbelly.

Question is.... do you want to commit yourself to living there for the long haul?

Show me an immortal comedian.... I'll show you a guy who has all the time in the world to complain.