Lent Me a Hand

It's raining and I have the coffee pot brewing.   The smell of the hot brown liquid wafts through the air warming an otherwise cold kitchen with it's Brazilian perfume.  It's a combination of two grocery store bagged Starbucks - a medium house blend with a dark cafe Verona.  I like to experiment to find the right combination and frankly one of these bags on sale at Publix is cheaper then one low-fat salted caramel cappuccino Venti.   I add my Splenda, carmel toffee creamer, call my name and pretend to be my own barresta.    If it's mid-day and I have a nice small piece of dark chocolate, then I'm in heaven.   Seriously, St. Peter had better greet me with both to convince me that this is really it before I go through the pearly gates.  

I don't drink coffee for the caffeine - I stopped drinking the full octane stuff when I was trying to become pregnant with Amber over 16 years ago and never went back.  It turns out that full out caffeinated beverages give me terrible headaches.   I just really enjoy the taste and the ritual of starting your day with a steaming cup of Joe, even if it's neutered.  So it's in these last few days before Lent starts that I fully appreciate every taste of that savory broth.   Because once Ash Wednesday hits, I'm off coffee for 40 days until Easter.  Not only coffee but I push it one step further - I give up chocolate too.   Lent represents for Christians the time that Jesus spent in the desert, fasting, praying and avoiding temptation from the devil before he was crucified and rose from the dead on Easter.  At this point in my life, I only occasionally go to Mass and actually teach Religious Education to teens at our local Unitarian church - but for some reason, giving up that which I love the most (my husband and kids excluded) gives me a sense of comfort.  It makes me appreciate the other things around me and allows me to try things I wouldn't ordinarily because I don't have my coffee and chocolate crutches to fall back on.  Lent is a time to repent and reflect and I try to do both - but I also look at it as an opportunity to expand my knowledge beyond what I already know and push myself outside of my comfort zone. 

I was raised Roman Catholic and Lent was always an interesting time in my house.    All five of the kids had to give something up and usually it was candy.   Cussing for me would have been better but then if we had to report to our mother what we had given up, I'd have to admit to having a filthy vocabulary and face the possibility of getting my mouth washed out with soap - so candy seemed to be the safest option.   For Catholics on Fridays, you couldn't have traditional meat like pork, beef or chicken but fish was fine.   Friday nights were generally Mrs. Paul's Fish sticks or crab cakes and corn or corn pudding.   The tartar sauce made it somewhat more palatable if twice the calories.   I soon began to dread these dinners and the mere mention of Mrs. Paul's would make me shutter.  It wasn't until I was in my teens that someone noted that you didn't have to eat fish on Fridays, you just couldn't eat meat.   Suddenly a whole new vegetarian world opened up that included cheese pizza, eggplant parmesan and spaghetti without meat.  It was a revelation and suddenly Friday night dinners during Lent were fun - hey we could eat cheese pizza!   It was always interesting to me that I never wanted bacon cheese burgers at any other time of year, but when you know you can't have them you wanted them more during those Lenten Fridays. 

Chocolate is another hard one to give up and I have for decades now during Lent.   I'll freely admit that I'm a chocoholic - that the minute I'm stressed and I get a taste of the chemically altered cocoa bean mixed with butter and sugar, I instantly calm down.  It's a scientific fact that the way to a woman's heart is through chocolate.   According to a recent Harvard study, eating a little dark chocolate one to three times a month can help lower the risk of a heart attack but three times a week can increase it.  It lifts our mood and makes us more receptive to our male partners.   So why on earth would I give out something that makes me so happy?   Because when you have constant access to something anytime you want, you take it for granted.   You assume it will always be there for you and when it's not, you miss it.   You miss it badly.   So when midnight on Easter morning hits - I hit the Cadbury Eggs, the malted robin's eggs and the dark chocolate Hershey kisses in pastel foils.   Being back with my good confectionary friend feels great and for the next few months I will not take them for granted.   As for my coffee amigo, the pot is fired up on Easter morning and the Starbuck special blends flow. 

Then a realization hits me - I'd made friends with Chai Latte's, decaf green teas, White Bean iced drinks, caramels, pralines and other non-chocolate, non-coffee concoctions.  My taste sensations were expanded but now I was back to what I know best.  Those other flavors were there for me and now that I'm back with my old friends, I'll probably call on them less and less.  Oh hell, who am I kidding - I'll drop them like a rock until I need them again in the late winter/spring when Lent rolls around again.    Does that make me shallow?  Yeah it pretty much does.   

Maybe this year for Lent, I need to look at how I treat that which I love (which includes Max and the kids) and appreciate it as well as the new flavors and opportunities that come into my life.   I'll work at finding a balance and trying not to let things bother me so much.   I'll push myself outside of my comfort zone.   I'm still looking for a job and trying not to take the rejection as a personal sign of my shortcomings but a way to improve what I do and to see myself outside a narrow range of career opportunities.   I need to look at Lent as a way to cast my net out and see what comes back.   It sounds like something Jesus would do.   And Mrs. Paul, I might just give you a call one of these Friday nights for just old times sake. 

The Parable of the Cookie

When I first moved to Atlanta from Miami back in 1998, I wanted to find a place where I could practice my sacred art of improv.   I had been doing it since 1984 at that point - in college and then professionally at Mental Floss in Miami.   I had been taught by both good and bad improv teachers and like most actors had come to a synthesis of what worked for me - a good chunk of Viola Spolin with a few splashes of Uta Hagen and Stanislavsky.   By the time I was ready to start doing improv in the ATL, I had been performing it off and on for over 14 years.  You'd think that I would be able to audition and then start performing with a company but as in NYC and LA, many Atlanta companies have a "Pay to Play" (P2P) system.   Rather than just depending on ticket sales, subscriptions and corporate underwriting, many of these theater companies have found that there are plenty of actors, actresses, wanna bees and desperate housewives who will pay for the privilege to be on stage with their favorite comic improv actors.  What they don't tell you is that they can keep you in that P2P system for a long time until you're "ready" to go on stage and even then it won't be on a Friday or Saturday night but a Tuesday or Wednesday night when they can get your friends and family to  pay to watch you perform.  You can say that you are part of the troupe as long as you keep putting out for classes.  It's sort of like crack - you pay more and more to get a little bit of a high to perform.  Oh and you never really get paid - since what little money you get in your paycheck will go right back into workshops - uh show business!  Never underestimate how much someone will pay to feel like a star.  

I had researched the few groups that were around at that time and one improv troupe seemed to be the most reasonable in price. They had their theater in a very artistry enclave of Atlanta.   I had gone to watch their show a few weeks before to see if it was a good fit.   It was a very young college crowd but they seemed to stay on a pretty funny intellectual level.  I knew the sort of improv pieces they did (if you know the show Whose Line is it Anyway? there are standards like Irish Drinking Song, in addition getting a location and relationship from the audience and creating a scene the spot with your improv partner).  I found out after introducing myself to the class that some of the founding members of the group had actually gone to school in Miami and had been to see Mental Floss as students.   "You did Fluffy La Puff? Awesome!" said one of the young members.   Fluffy was one of my signature characters.  "I used to go to Mental Floss when I was in high school."    I was hoping that meant I was cool and not old.   So after about two years of not doing improv (being a mom of a toddler can put things like that on hold)  I found that I was back to where I was when I was performing on a regular basis after about two classes -  it's like riding a bicycle - you never forget.   

After about four workshops, I got invited to do "Micetro" which is a sort "Survivor" of improv shows.   You have 12 improvisors start out in the evening and only one makes it to the end.   Sounds like riveting reality TV - the audience decides who to vote off one by one based on how you did in each of the improv sketches.   Now, on those "scripted dramas" having folks voted off the island is just how it goes.  But for improvisors that are just starting out - it creates very bad acting habits.   Rather than learning to support their partner to create a great scene,  they try to out do their partner and undermine them to get the most votes.   The improv "judges" can give side coaching but let's face it, it's the audience that gets the final decision.    So if a new actor saw that they could get a laugh mentioning an jock strap, erection, boobs or cum - they would do it and get the votes.  Even if they got warned by the "judges" about being vulgar, once they knew that wearing the scum box ( box of shame that went over the head of performer who had gone too far) was a twisted badge of honor, it was hard to get them back to playing at a higher intellectual level.  It' s sort of like sharks that taste mammal meat for the first time - it's quick, easy and very satisfying.   Who cares if the blood in the water is your partner's?  

So I'd do these Micetro's and get voted out in the first half because I'd refuse to go code blue but I'd try to support my partner the best way I could.   After the show, we would get notes and usually Joe, my workshop coach and judge would compliment me and say that my scenes were some of his favorites.  He was sorry that I wasn't getting voted through.   Then the younger members of the class would pipe up with "But if the audience isn't giving you the votes it doesn't matter how good your scene was."   That's when I realized something sinister was taking place - the scenes became more about pandering to the audience - not working with them.

The nights I would get ready to do a show, Max could tell that I wasn't having much fun.  "Why are you doing it again - you seem freaking miserable every time you go?"  "It's one of the best improv groups in Atlanta and I can make some connections." I would respond - trying to convince myself as much as him that it was what I really wanted to do.   One night, one of the company performers decided to perform with us.   He was doing a scene and afterwards, Joe  gave him some feedback just like he did for all of the performers in the show.  The player became incensed, called Joe a facist and stormed off the stage.  We thought it was a bit, but he walked out in the middle of the show - I mean got in his car and left.   Everyone tried to make light of it, but good God, the guy pulled that right in front of an audience and embarrassed everyone including himself.   If it had been my company, he would have been gone or at least suspended for a few weeks.   But no, there he was back at a Friday night show like nothing had happened.  He did send a note which was read to us at the next workshop - by Joe.  

It was the holiday season and I had made my usual selection of cookies and decided to bring a few dozen to the theater before the show.  It gave me and the toddler Amber a reason to make chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, rice crispy treats, magic cookie bars and fudge.   Two of the guys asked if the chocolate chip cookies were the soft batch like the Keebler cookies.   "Actually, those cookies are loaded with chemicals to make them that soft but I just made these fresh this afternoon," I said with my best Bri DeCamp smile.  "Ah, I really like them soft - hey I bet if we nuke them, we can make them soft."  Again, I smiled and said "Enjoy!"   They took four of the cookies over to the microwave and nuked them for 10 seconds.  Sure enough, they were soft, but the chocolate was extremely hot and burned their hands.  When they cookies got cooler after a minute, they were hard as rocks - putrified by the radiation of the microwave.    They threw them out and shoved some sugar cookies into their pie holes and walked away without so much as a thank you.   

That night at Micetro, I was getting voted through and made it to the second half of the show for the first time.   It felt good as many of the other women in the show had been voted off.   Then the second part of the show started and I found that I really wanted to make it through to the end - which meant pandering.   I had promised myself I wouldn't -  but I wanted to make it to the end to prove to myself I could do it.   So I made jokes about my boobs or lack there of, groins, premature ejaculations - nothing was sacred.   I didn't get the scum box but I did get to the top four before I was voted off.   I had made it further than my past three attempts.  I should have been happy - but I felt empty.   I knew I hadn't done my best work and while the audience didn't know or care - I did.    I saw the box that I had brought the Christmas treats in ripped up and thrown into the garbage along with those ill fated cookies.   So quick, easy and disposable once it had been consumed. 

I thought about that as I drove back on I-85 that night.  I was that poor chocolate chip cookie.  I wasn't a soft batch - I was me and try as I might I just didn't want to do improv their way.  When I did and it made me feel as hard and tasteless as those sweet hockey pucks at the bottom of the garbage can.    I had gone as far as I ever had in Micetro, but I didn't want to go back to see if I could win it all - it just wasn't worth it if I was doing the sort of stuff I just didn't believe in.   I was sacrificing who I was for the instant gratification of an audience that only wanted dick jokes.   In an odd way, it felt good to walk away that night on my own terms.   

Now for you improv actors in Atlanta, I want you to understand that this is not a slam against that improv company.   They are good at what they do, it was just not the right thing for me.   That was over 13 years ago, and I'm sure things have changed.  A few years later in 2005,  I started with an improv group called Comedy Cobb which eventually got changed to The OTC Comedy Troupe.  I got to teach my philosophy of the art.  Now I would be a hypocrite if I told you that I never do a dirty scene - but when I do it's because my partner and I are working together - it's a mutual smut fest based on trust.  My group doesn't have eight shows a week and our own space like they do, but I love to perform when I can with like minded folks who make me laugh really hard.  When I get off of stage I feel good about what we've done.    Our shows can be geared to any audience from the edgy college student to kids who still watch the Disney channel.     I think we succeed on our own terms and really isn't that all any of us can ask? 

So the moral of the story is to know what sort of cookie you are and be proud if it.  If someone tries to nuke you to make you into something you're not, just take your treats and leave.  Because it doesn't matter how good their bakery is, if you hate their sweets, you'll never be happy.   Now go out there and blaze a trail - on your own terms with your own recipe for success - one that you can actually stomach.