Last Friday Hammerspace performed at New Roads High School in Santa Monica. We did two Harolds in the sort of technical iO West style structure. They went very well and the high school kids loved them. They were completely amazed that we hadn’t memorized lines or blocking… that we were truly improvising. It is really satisfying to give young people a great improv experience. Perhaps we inspired somebody. When I was in high school the only improv people who came to perform were fundamentalist Christians who basically did onstage public-service-announcements about Jesus, being saved and the Rapture. I wasn’t inspired, not by that anyway. Nikki Muller performed at the high school with TJ, Brittany, and me. Then in the evening TJ left and Kelly joined us and we did a really cool long form piece in the ADT about dinosaurs. Nikki, TJ, Brittany and I are all in Craig Cackowski’s level 6 class together. That’s very cool. Kelly and I are in Ed’s Friday class together and doing our 2-person improv-radio show as well. This is a very exciting time for Hammerspace. We are making deep discoveries together and really beginning to come together as a group. It’s nice to have Nikki joining us. She’s very passionate about the artistically revolutionary side of what we’re doing and she has great energy and intelligence.
There are 3 November Hammerspace Improv long-form group performances (5 person show) in the Andy Dick Theater. We also have 3 November Hammerspace Mystery Radio Hour performances (2 person show) in the Upstairs Black Box. Kelly and I will be doing the Mystery Radio show in a regular timeslot beginning in December. The Hammerspace Mystery Radio Show will be at 11pm the 1st and 3rd Sat. of the month in the iO West Upstairs Black Box Theater. That is super exciting!
I played a vampire in some pictures for Sick End films this past weekend. It was pretty cool, except… that I totally got what felt like a chemical burn in my eye from a white vampire contact lens. It was so awful and my eye was red and swollen and wouldn’t stop watering. I got a big bottle of Clear Eyes Redness Relief and that totally helped. I am happy and I’m excited. I was really depressed recently, but now that is over. I am feeling so inspired about life and art and adventure. This is a super cool time to be me.
Saturday night (10-18-08) at 11pm Hammerspace performed an improv show in the iO West upstairs Black Box Theater. The theme of the evening was “radio night”. At the House of Blues on Thursday night I got the idea that we (Kelly Chase and myself) should perform a completely improvised, old fashioned radio mystery drama. We talked about it more on Friday and both were in agreement that it was a good, experimental, risky idea and that we totally wanted to do it… and I am SO glad we did! The Hammerspace Mystery Radio Hour is truthfully the best improv show I have ever been part of. It was amazing and it was so much fun. We didn’t hold back. We were both fearless and risked it all and just completely swung for the fences the whole time and it paid off beautifully! I am in love with our new show and the new team!
The show was: The Hammerspace Mystery Radio Hour Presents- The Strange and Amazing Case of Lumberville, brought to you by Go-Away (an imaginary household product). The show had teenage lovers trapped in a pickup truck, an artistic and vain Colonel/Doctor and his feminine and soft young male assistant in their military astronomy center, a volcano mysteriously appearing in the center of town, a family of hungry pterodactyls, and a mysterious and drunken hobo who was secretly the greatest ditch digger in the world! It also had the occasional station identification and commercials for Go-Away. The audience consisted for the most part of two very talented improv teams, The Dollhouse and Whiskerfish, as well as some other people. It was great to have a nice sized house and they loved the show and laughed the whole time. Afterward we got a ton of praise and compliments and felt like rock-stars. It was really cool. I’ve been thinking a lot lately (and blogging about) improv and creative, artistic exploration. I have been craving new forms of creation and expression. A beautiful discovery was made in the show tonight and it feels incredible. Kelly and I discovered a magnificent comedy treasure and it happened to be inside of us. There is so much more to discover and that is so exciting. Now we can practice and rehearse and just get better, more fearless and take even bigger risks! I love the limitless potential of wonder and glorious magic there is to play with. A genuine breakthrough was made and I’m so happy and thrilled about it. The show was one of the best performances I’ve ever done, anywhere. I’m in love with my experimental two-person improv group and our awesome new mystery radio show!
On Thursday evening Juli and I did our first extended 2 person long-form improv experiment. It was somewhat rough, and somewhat raw, but also very cool. There was no audience there to see it. Kelly came in about halfway through and thought she was watching us have an actual conversation at first (in a weird way we were). It was a very thoughtful, patient, and subtle piece. The reactions were genuine and the moves all seemed to come from a place of emotional and creative authenticity, especially our third scene. It was a very flirtatious job interview between two spies. It was cute, and very real. It wasn’t ever really about espionage. It was about how well you can ever know a person, and how much that ultimately does or doesn’t matter. The excitement of secrets versus the security of believing you know the truth, and how willing we were to embark on the voyage of a meaningful relationship knowing full well we didn’t trust one another at all. The piece felt really good and totally a style and way of performing and relating that I hope very much to explore further in the future. It was really cool and felt good and full of discoveries. It was interesting because I had been having a really raw and emotional day. I didn’t feel like doing improv. I was emotionally exhausted and feeling pretty edgy and strange. Doing the piece though had a weird, somewhat wonderful, and kind of cathartic effect. I felt liberated and had a lot of fun and like an artistic cleansing of the spirit set me right with my sea legs again. I am still searching for the inspired spirit animal of improv to join me on an artistic, philosophical adventure filled vision quest of honesty, comedy and performance-creation-energy. That will be grand and I’m enjoying the quest.
After the improv the Evangenitals all had a band practice, so Kelly and I headed out to the iO West to catch the Dasariski show. Cackowski wasn’t there but it was quite hilarious anyway. I’m glad Kelly got a chance to see them. Friday was opening night of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. That not only means that the coolest movie magic filled haunted houses and mazes open up, but also that the Eyegore awards happen as well. The Eyegores are an awards ceremony (or scare-a-mony) honoring celebrities who have achieved special status within the horror movie community. I was able to get on the guest list and scored VIP passes too. Last year I played Freddy Kreuger in the commercial. My part wound up on the cutting room floor but I have some sweet connections to this event now. We watched famous folks on the red carpet for a while. Roger Corman, Kate Flannery, Julie Benz, and Bill Moseley were all the people on the red carpet I recognized. Roger Corman is totally awesome and I’ve been a big fan of his since I was a young kid and first saw Death Race 2000. Corey Feldman was the host this year. Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre director) got an award and the original Leather Face did too. There was a great all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and an open bar. The only thing vegan were some little fried crispy vegetable spring rolls. I had 5 plates of them (they were delicious, especially with spicy soy and sweet and sour sauce drizzled over them). I also had quite a few cherry cokes with lime. Since it was a special event with free food and drinks I let myself get a little crazy with the portion control. I talked to Kate Flannery and she was thrilled to run into a fan of the Lampshades while out at Universal. I love the Lampshades! The haunted houses and mazes were so cool. We got to cut to the front of every line with our VIP passes. The tram tour of terror is always a treat. The Dr. Seuss Whoville area was populated with rotten zombie face fuzzy white bunnies wielding chainsaws. It was a pretty nightmarishly bizarre sight. The Nightmare on Elm Street haunted maze was probably the creepiest in my opinion. We were at the park over 6 hours and had an amazing time. It was a really sweet experience to have kicking off the Halloween season.
Saturday night I had an 8:00pm Hammerspace Improv show in the Andy Dick Theater at iO West. Nobody currently performing with Hammerspace was going to be able to perform with me so I made some calls and got Ryan and Ken to show up. Kelly Chase arrived at the last minute and the four of us did a pretty funny little piece of long form that involved plenty of gay scenes, cock and ball torture, the Grateful Dead, family road trips, and Army recruiters. After the show I saw Kate Flannery in the iO bar and she recognized me from the night before (very cool).
Juli and I discovered the 2 dollar movie theater in Pasadena today and saw Pineapple Express (it was hilarious). That theater was so freezing cold. I totally think I’m going to start seeing movies again. I really only stopped because the price became so outrageous. I got an agent on Friday. She says before she can start getting me anything I will need pictures. That makes sense. It is still nice someone wants to represent me. I’m glad I sent those emails out. I need to get about 4 looks shot. The handsome young dad, a rough and scruffy criminal type, a detective, and a well dressed lawyer/business man. Also a good basic head shot that looks like me.
I am in love with Los Angeles and also very lonely. It’s a weird and conflicted way to feel. I am feeling so passionate about so many things right now. I am bursting with the desire to express myself and I hungrily need to create. My life is currently in a crazy state, and I don’t only mean California.
Last week I stayed awake for 41 hours. I was just too busy and when I had time available to sleep I wasn’t tired. It had been quite a while since I’d been up that long. Thursday Juli and I had a good “Laughter for a Change” meeting with Ed, followed by a Hammerspace Improv workshop-rehearsal-performance with Ed and Shaughn. The topic was weird (the definition of “is”?), but we did a decent little awkward piece about Santa Claus running for president. It was fun, funny, and strange. Keith and Henry (both Evangenitals) were there to see it. Nobody showed up for our improv/music jam, so the Evangenitals decided they would just have a fairly straight forward band practice and I took off to the iO West to see Dasariski. The Dasariski show was quite incredible and those 3 guys definitely lived up to all the hype. They were really smart and hilarious and I’m so glad I saw them. I had been having something of a weird and somewhat uncomfortable evening and I really appreciated the extreme cheering up that I got during that show. While in the balcony audience, Katie Ward (of the Dollhouse) and I got to talking about how funny we both find one another. We decided that it made perfect sense for us to form a new group and that the next step was recruiting our dear friend and fellow improviser Allegrah Hollenbeck to join us. We will begin performing upstairs in the iO West Black Box in November (thanks to Maggy Keegan). Soon I expect to be in at least four or five really great improv groups (perhaps more).
I got home from iO West late and was wired on yerba matte and pomegranate green tea. I watched “Extras” on DVD, read some "Writing Down the Bones", and never actually went to sleep. I did lie in the dark for a while with my eyes closed and drank valarian tea but it didn’t work. Once it was officially morning I had to go to my improv class at PCC. After a 4 hour class I had a Hammerspace workshop-jam in Highland Park at Studio (experiment), and then Kelly and I went out to Hollywood for our 8pm Hammerspace show in the Andy Dick Theater. It was okay, but honestly I was just too tired by then. We had done some great scene improv during our workshop and I would have liked to bring more to the show. Juli and I are really wanting to do some inspired hard core 2 person long-form improv and get to the heart and soul of the spiritual and philosophical possibilities of abstract, honest, dark, light, scary, lovely, and pure comedy-theatre-performance. The surrealistically human honesty and intimacy that we have gently touched upon together so often. We need to bravely plunge headfirst into the swirling improv abyss and hold up our fists together, open our eyes wide, and say "FUCK YES WE ARE READY". There are some beautiful discoveries being made and I feel I’m on the very edge of unlocking a magnificent and mysterious treasure of majestic and artistic improv revolution, revelation, and beauty. I just need to look closer, dig deeper, and be fearless and truthful in the face of all danger and terror.
Kelly Chase and I stayed to watch "Opening Night the Musical" at 9pm, and “Heather and Miles” in the ADT at 10pm. Both shows were very awesome. Heather and Miles both step into the puddle of vulgar and tasteless brilliance every Friday night. I should see that show every week, it's extremely educational. Then we chilled at the bar for a bit and stayed to join in the big Improv Jam (hosted by Pat Keys) at 12am. It was pretty fun but I was delirious and exhausted at that point. I was quite happy that Kelly got to play on the main stage. Everyone who played got a free candy bar (Butterfinger), but I’m a vegan so I gave mine away. On Saturday a talent agent wrote me back. I had decided to email a few agents last week and see about getting representation. I don’t know much about that though (only what I see on Entourage). I looked up 3 talent agencies with an email address and sent them my resume and picture, and actually heard back from one 2 days later. Not only did she write me back, but she also had a job for me to submit for. I took my package (pic and resume) to drop off at a casting office in Hollywood for a Disney Channel TV show. They are looking for a mime. I took the train to Hollywood on Saturday evening and the security guards let me on the lot with a walk-on guest pass. Nobody from the show was in. I went back on Sunday, and there was still nobody from casting there. Monday was much better. The office was open and people were inside working. I dropped off the envelope containing my resume as instructed (with the agency name, agent’s name, and agent’s phone number as my contact info). She said she’ll call them and call me. Now I’m waiting. I am optimistic and excited. It would be pretty amazing if this worked out... Oh this would be so cool!
Monday night I saw Mo Collins do the Armando show and Inside the Improviser’s Studio. She had some very inspirational advice and kind words of wisdom (she was pretty damn funny too). The "Best of LA City Beat" magazine featured a pretty fantastic picture of me doing an improv performance on the dance floor while Juli and the rest of the Evangenitals rocked the house on stage (see image above). It is from last Tuesday at the Mr. T’s Bowl Evangenitals show. When I wasn't performing improvised movement art I was filming the band play. I'm posting the super cool "Bad Town" video below. I also just booked a modeling gig. I will be playing a fashionable zombie (in full gruesome make up) posing with a femme fatale/noir vixen girl in a photo shoot (Hot Women and the Men they Loved and Murdered). It's for a "Sick End Films" promotion for the new horror web site they are launching. Last time I worked with them they gave me a bag of vegan cookies. I will be wanting more of those cookies.
I feel like all these little signs and signals (and some big ones I guess) keep happening and showing me that I am on the right path. The universe is telling me that I am doing a good job, and to keep at it. Enjoy the journey and don’t give up or lose sight. Keep the faith and believe in yourself and the goodness of other people. Love life and take part in the magic the world is offering up. Thank you…
The Evangenitals Video for "Bad Town" (filmed by me at Mr. T's Bowl).
Monday night I performed in Madame Pamita's "Parlor of Wonders" show. I did my silent movie tribute-mime act (inspired by the work of Stan Laurel, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin). The response I got from the crowd was very heartwarming. They really liked what I did. It is inspiring to be appreciated. Following your dreams can be very discouraging sometimes and Hollywood is an especially tough town. This was a very special event though. There were ukulele players and banjo players. There was fortune telling and an awesome puppeteer named Eli Presser who had the creepiest little marionette I've ever seen. The show was at The Coffee Gallery Backstage in Altadena and they filmed the entire thing. John C. Reilly was there and he told me I was great, and that I had a terrific face. That was very cool and I totally appreciated it. He and I had a nice little conversation about Del Close.
The Evangenitals (the greatest band in California) played at Mr. T's Bowl in Highland Park tonight (Tues. night). It was quite an event. Juli wore a hot pink prom dress, vegan combat boots, and a tiara. Bass player Keith Lubow was wearing a sailor suit. And Elizabeth Swenson and I were there representing IMPROV! We did a whole series of experimental-interpretive-movement-performance-art pieces that were directly inspired by the songs being played by the band. We were raw and fluid and the experience was magical. There was amazing trust and risk and energy. We were physically fearless and did somersaults and we jumped and leapt through the air, rolled around on the floor, and spun each other around. It feels so good to do something that requires such BALLS! It feels good to be fearless and non-self concious. It was strange and special and I felt the creativity vibrations going crazy all throughout my body and shooting out in my performance. The people in the audience seemed to like it as well. They approached me afterward and thanked and congratulated me. It was weird and I loved it. Things have been weird lately. I have been going through strange times and re-discovering myself in odd spots. It is a time of growth, re-birth, and settling into what will never be settled. Greg Cohen (photographer) was filming the show and I will have that footage soon... fear not!
The footage from the Sick End Films production, "Arkill", is now available to view (as a roughcut). Pay close attention at the end and you will see my ultra-violent blood and gore death scene.
Saturday night at the iO West we had 2 very experimental Hammerspace Improv shows. At 8pm in The Andy Dick Theater I did a 2 person show with legendary improv teacher Ed Greenberg. It was a really awesome experience. We started with an opening that was a dialogue scene, and it went on for 28 minutes. It was deep and meaninful and I did a lot of meditative philosophical stream of consciousness pondering of the Universe, it was very surreal and poetic. I was so loose! We actually adapted one of my favorite comic books, "Animal Man", into a film, within a long form improv show. It was wild. There were many musings and explorations of environmental and economic issues and problems in today's world all thanks to our suggestion of "Where do Black Holes Go When they Die?". At 11pm in the Upstairs Black Box I had a 3 person show with Kelly Chase and TJ Gooding. Our suggestion was "Why am I Here?". The show we did is best described as an absurdist southern gothic romantic comedy of errors! It was like an abstractly sophisticated piece of slapstick theatre. Something very meaningful and magical was tapped into deeply and opened up big Saturday night. I am quite proud of Hammerspace Improv. The progress is exponential and growing!
Sunday morning and afternoon I was in a Sick End Films horror movie called "Arkill", filmed in a ballet studio in Alhambra. My improv buddy Ryan Karloff was there playing a role and we were both pleasently surprised to see each other. I was playing a campaign manager and he was playing a coked out speech writer. It was fun. During my gory death scene I had a semi-erotic experience as a cute make-up girl named Brittany sat over me and massaged fake gooey blood into and onto my face, scalp, neck, and lips. That was really awesome. When I left the set the director gave me a bag of organic-vegan-peanut butter cookies!
I recently discovered, in a quite personal way, the very fascinating phenomenon of how funny and entertaining it can be to be brutally honest. Hammerspace has been experimenting with monologue openings in our improv shows this week. I have been using them as an opportunity to really open up and make myself pretty vulnerable. I am going through some heavy life changes. My world feels like it is falling apart. I feel shipwrecked, lost, abandoned, and alone. I am hurting, sad, and in pain. I don’t like it.
I made the decision to be honest when I did my monologue. I made it general and specific, but truthful… very truthful. I didn’t necessarily say why I felt the way I did, but I did say how I felt. That seems more important and ultimately more relevant to what would best enable you to express yourself in both a meaningful and artistic way. The thing that is most interesting is how funny it was. It wasn’t a joke… it was as far from a joke as it gets. I simply told a short story about what was happening to me today, and how I felt today and as if by magic… it was funny.
We did a Thursday show recently and our audience was very small. At the top of the show it was just Henry Bermudez. He gave us our suggestion: How do you keep a woman happy? We delved into a series of observations on happiness, how can anyone be happy, what it means to keep anyone anything, and other philosophical musings. At one point during my monologue I told the audience I was currently experiencing depression… the “I want to drink myself to death kind of depression”. They laughed. It was funny and I don’t exactly know why but I wasn’t surprised that there was laughter. I certainly wasn’t trying to be funny. I was just being honest. I was being painfully honest about being in pain, and it was awesomely cathartic.
The monologues based on the suggestion led to a series of scenes that were very real, genuine, natural, emotional, and patient. It was fun and it was funny. The improv happened with the flow, ease, and grace that you sometimes get in real life. There were a few crazy situations but they seemed real because we were treating them truthfully. The show was deep. We all felt it and it felt like fucking magic. The four of us: Juli, me, Brittany and TJ connected. We connected with our minds and projected that connection outward and it felt amazing. The scenes were deep and philosophical and connected to each other with natural simplicity that all just seemed meant to be. It was incredible and ultimately I believe the gods and ghosts of improvisation revealed some of their truths and secrets to us through the performance of that piece. I felt changed. I experienced some growth during and in the aftermath of that performance. I experience growth as an artist, an improviser and a person. It was our deepest show ever and one of the very best by far.
We did a 4-person Hammerspace show in the Black Box (me, Kelly, TJ, Brittany). The show was so great. It wasn’t quite as deep or as philosophical as Thursday, but it was the closest to it we’ve had. It was a little shorter but it was also very honest. The suggestion was: Do soul mates exist? It was real and genuine and had conflicts of the heart. We did a very good hot-spot monologue opening. I opened up again. I started by saying that I was going through a lot right now so I’m reading a Zen book called When Things Fall Apart (by Pema Chodon). Everyone laughed. It was a sad thing to say and I was as honest and heartfelt in my delivery as I could be and people laughed. They weren’t being mean about it… we were sharing a moment. I spoke of the value and virtue of hopelessness and I was being serious and the audience was laughing and it was wonderful. During the show I wound up playing a girl stuck on the toilet in a bathroom stall at prom. She was calling for help on her cell phone trying to get rescued and scared that she would wind up telling this story her whole life and it would be a horrible prom story to be stuck with. It was really hilarious and realistic. The whole piece was that way and we all felt it. We all knew we had shared an honest experience, and we hadn’t just shared it with each other. We shared it with the whole audience.
The bible of long form improv is called Truth in Comedy. I understand why on a level of personal experience now. We discovered for ourselves that brutal honesty and vulnerability is funny. Audiences really appreciate it when you take the risk by opening up and letting them in. It is a wonderful thing and I am grateful for the experience.
Around 2:30am early Thursday morning Juli discovered that I had been quoted on a very cool science fiction blog, "i09: Strung out on Science Fiction" (you should definitely read this blog, it rocks). The Day the Earth Stood Still remake with Keanu Reeves will be coming to theaters in December. The same week it gets released, The Asylum will release The Day the Earth Stopped direct to DVD. If you've been following "Patrick's Quest" you probably know all about my 3 day sci-fi adventure with C. Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson. If not... you can read all about it here in some slightly older posts from a couple of weeks ago. I love the fact that someone read this blog and quoted me. I love that they called me an LA improv geek (because I am). We performed non-verbal improv shows to live music by The Evangenitals tonight at Studio (Experiment) in Highland Park. We also performed a Hammerspace Improv show with Ed Greenberg and hosted our first improv jam. Back to business though... The Day the Earth Stopped. I visited the IMDb page for the film and dicovered... there is an IMDb page for me, Patrick Ian Moore! I had no idea but it sure is cool.
I'm fascinated by crypto-zoology, and a big fan of science-fiction, the environment, and philosophy. I am a big-time art-improv-theatre nerd. I'm not the greatest singer, but I love to do it.
