Ashley – White Shadow Jr. from BRIAN JAMES O'CONNELL on Vimeo.

This is a music video that I recently directed. I quite like it.

So a couple of people have mentioned that they like coming to me for music. Now, granted, I don’t know as much as, say, John Conroy or Dave Holmes and certainly not as much as Matt Pinfield, but I do like to think I have a certain eclectic taste, so every once in a while, I’ll be dropping these Youtube Mixes into the atmosphere. Enjoy or ignore them at your leisure.

Thanks!

BOC

This is Diz McNally, one of my favorite characters from a TV show of my youth, Canadian Television show, OUT OF CONTROL.

I loved this show when they re-broadcast it in the US on Nickelodeon. It had everything: sketch, short films, wacky characters. The works. Diz played the "stage manager" of Out Of Control; sort of a punk rock mash-up of Lucille Ball, Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper and a psycho Girl Scout in arrested development.

This was one of the first times that my child brain was exposed to the concept that there might actually be someone BEHIND the camera making all the stuff on screen happen. It was a fourth wall shattering moment that, up to that point, my eight year old brain had never even considered. It's where the seed was planted early in my mind that, "Wait, you can do this when you grow up? They have people whose job is solely to make funny stuff happen? I can do that." I'm kinda in Hollywood following my dream due to Out Of Control.

The real Diz now works the day shift at the outdoor newsstand around the corner from iOWest.

This is a rough fucking business. A tough fucking town.

Stay forever young, punky and beautiful, Diz. You always will be to me. Thank you.

Untitled from BRIAN JAMES O'CONNELL on Vimeo.

I'm really kind of done with the tired old narrative that is "LA improv sucks!  Chicago is the best in the world!"

Now, don't get me wrong.  Chicago is still Mecca.  Without that foundation, the history, none of the rest of us in the world would have this wonderful artform, this gift that is long form improvisation.  Without iO, Second City, Playground, Annoyance (and UCB, you could make the argument) etc., etc., I wouldn't even be writing this.

And yet....

The time has come to accept that great work happens all over the country.  Ten years ago, I'd might be able to buy the argument a little more but its 2011 and the argument no longer holds merit.

I still remember the first time I ever saw long form improv (Author's Note:  Seeing as my ENTIRE FAMILY IS FROM CHICAGO, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention I'm a little perturbed I wasn't exposed sooner.)  

It was January 19th, 2003.  A wonderful woman named Rebekah, whom I dated in college and remain friendly with, was having a show at iOWest.  They were called Tigerpants and were a team that came out of the training program at iOWest.  It was a Sunday night and as I had neither HBO nor Tivo (or anything else better to do), I went.

It was magical.  They just happened to have the best show they had ever done and I was immediately hooked.  I "got it” instantly.  I can still recite 70% of that show by heart.

I signed up for classes on March 1st, 2003 and I've never left this wonderful place called iOWest.  I consider it my home and its people my family.  Truly, the best things to ever happen to me over the course of the last 8 years of my life, I can directly contribute to iOWest. 

Now, when I came up through levels at iOWest, my teachers were Paul Valliancourt, Scot Robinson, Bob Dassie, Craig Cackowski and Miles Stroth.  I've been coached by Karen Graci, Aaron Krebs, Sarah Gee and Miles Stroth.  I've shadow coached Dave Hill and Bridget Kloss.  I spent a two year mentorship (which is kinda still going) under Miles Stroth; I've been called "Miles Jr." which is a term I don't even try to deny, so important were/are his teachings upon my work.  I've played, whether it be Armando or some other show, with just about every important name you can think of from the Chicago improv generation previous to my own, and most of the current generation as well.

Did all of those people originally hail from Chicago before they crossed my path as teachers/coaches/mentors/peers?  Yes.

Could I have received a better improv education in Chicago than in Los Angeles?  Possibly.

Am I less of a player, any less of a teammate or any less of a student/teacher/lover of this beautiful art form because I received my training in a different time zone?  

Not on your life.  And I'm not alone.

In the last 5 years, I have been to over 30 festivals spread across this great nation of ours, ranging from Austin to Toronto to Philly to Phoenix to San Francisco to Boston and, yes, even Chicago.

The best Harold I've ever seen was done by Apollo 12 in Phoenix who took the suggestion of "betrayal" so seriously, that the first group game was them revealing actual secrets about other members of the team they had told to each other in confidence as friends.  The bravery and trust that took was incredible to see firsthand.

The best example of group mind I've ever witnessed (on more than one occasion, by the way) was Rare Bird Show from Philadelphia.  Those three communicate as well non-verbally as any other performers I have ever seen.  They maintain an intense level of sustained absurdity that only comes from knowing your teammates better than they know themselves.  When Alexis Simpson moved to Los Angeles, I snatched her up for my team Extra Strength before she had unpacked a single bag.

One of the most innovative improv shows I've ever seen is PT Scarborough Is A Movie, out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina where the aforementioned Mr. Scarborough takes the first thirty minutes of a movie he's never seen (his friends pick for him; no cheating) and improvises all of the dialogue, sound fx and score simultaneously.  I don't know if PT has ever stepped foot in Chicago.

And it doesn't matter.  Talent is talent is talent.  And because of the wonderful work that came out of Chicago all of those years, the work has spread now to every possible corner of the globe.  To hold onto the myth that the only good work being done is currently in Chicago is akin to attempting to put the genie back in the bottle and that motherfucker likes stretching his legs now, feel me?

Again, don't get me wrong.  I love Chicago improvisers.  TJ and Dave is one of the best 2 man shows I've ever seen.  Seeing Miles and Dan Bakkedahl do Zumpf in Chicago in '05 was one of the best improv lessons of my life.  I learned more in that 55 minutes than any other rehearsal I've ever had in my life.  Hearing Miles and TJ discuss "Math Vs. Color In Improv" for 45 minutes at the Phoenix Improv Festival (hands down, the BEST festival in the country) was an absolute joy.  I love Chicago improvisers.

But not because they are from Chicago.  Because they have talent and I admire their work, drive and dedication to this art form.  Same as I do improvisers hailing from any other section of the country.

I'm fortunate enough to play with a group called Dr. God here in Los Angeles.  Those men are my brothers and I mean that sincerely.  Collectively, we hail from North Carolina, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas and Wisconsin.  Only one of us trained in Chicago.  All of us trained in our home states and here at iOWest in Los Angeles.  I’m lucky to have the opportunity to play with such incredibly talented and wonderful people.  I’ll gladly put our work up against anyone else in the country.  Book the gig.  We’ll be there.

But we’re not alone out here either.

I see incredible work coming out of iOWest (Middle Seat and The Lusty Horde are my two current favorite improv shows) not to mention UCB, Second City, The Improv Space, Hothouse and many, many more.

There is no lack of talented, driven, dedicated and HILARIOUS people working in improv in LA.  I feel blessed that I get to watch Jill Alexander and Zabeth Russell or Marshall Givens on a regular basis. Yeah, some improv in LA sucks.  Just like it sucks in Seattle and Providence, but I’ve seen great work there as well.

Those who would hold on to the comforting blanket that is the myth that “All Improv In LA Sucks” are only doing themselves a disservice and honestly, have probably only seen a handful of shows in the City of Angels.  For every example you give me of an LA improv show or team that sucked, I can give you a dozen examples of LA shows that fucking RULE.  Feel free to go watch some Trophy Wife or USS Rock & Roll Harolds online when you are done reading this.

The point is that we are all in this together.  Every time a Chicago improviser moves to LA to further their career, I welcome their arrival.  I want to welcome them to the clubhouse, talk to them about improv and what books they’ve read and where the best place is to go for pizza (Yes, we do have good pizza out here now too.)  Just like I would welcome every other improviser talented and gutsy enough to make the move out here and put their ass on the line.  Hell, just the fact that I know a classy dude like Brian Jack now is enough for me.  The rest of y’all are gravy.  (I’m kidding:  you are not at all like gravy).

Once you move out here, you ARE an LA improviser, like it or not, no matter where you came from originally. 

And once you are here, with the immense amount of talented men and women who hail from all over the country and add to the richness and vibrancy of the scene in Los Angeles, you might find yourself revisiting a once long held belief:

“Wait:  Why do I think LA improv sucks again?”

The Golden State Warriors:  Jesus Christ on a stick, where do I start?

Potential NBA owners and General Managers already know what all potential improv teams and coaches stand to learn from observing the Golden State Warriors for, oh, about 5 minutes.

This is NOT how to assemble a team.  But the only way you could make it worse is if you put an absolute madman asshole in charge.  Not once but, twice.

Don Nelson is currently the head coach of the Golden State Warriors.  He was also their head coach back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when he had some triumphs with a group of young, star players affectionately nicknamed “Run TMC” (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin). 

Who feels old for getting that reference? 

Nelson’s 1^st time around was so poisonous that not only was he fired but lawyers were unleashed by both management and Nelson.  With apologies to George Carlin’s views on married people who get divorced and then re-marry, this milk was DEFINITELY not going to be fresh tomorrow.  This time around isn’t much better as one of the most recent things Nelson did was play office politics and get his current GM fired over the summer and replaced with a sycophant?  That GM he pushed out?  Chris Mullin.

Nice.

So what happened to change things in San Francisco?

Don “Nellie” Nelson is an amazingly fantastic coach.  Given the nickname “The Mad Scientist”, Nelson has been instrumental in implementing a lot of the innovation in today’s current NBA.  The style of basketgall (that was a typo originally but I think it is very befitting considering the subject matter so, fuck it, it’s staying in); the style of basketgall Nellie promotes is extremely fun and exciting to watch and is dependent upon eschewing quite a bit of the accepted norms in professional basketball. 

Nelson has given the world the “point forward” (the point guard, traditionally one of the shorter players on the team, usually runs the offense; in “Nellieball”, a taller player, a forward, will be responsible for those duties), starting line-ups predicated on mismatches and offenses that treat the basketball like a hot potato; the faster you shoot the ball, the faster we can get it back so we can shoot it again.

Nelson is one of the few professional basketball coaches to ever win over 1000 games (Hell, he’s only a few wins away from being the NBA coach with the most wins of all-time)  which sounds impressive until you realize that he’s lost nearly that many games as well.  For as exciting as “Nellieball” is to watch, for those actual participants the results leave a lot to be desired.  The old adage in the Association, the conventional wisdom, is that “defense wins championships” and there is no room in “Nellieball” for defense.  Shockingly, he has yet to win a championship. 

In fact, Nelson actively recruits players that are so averse to playing defense it’s as if they had it removed from their DNA by Dr. Otto Octavious.  But this is not the greatest flaw to Nelson’s design.

(NOT Don Nelson)

Don “Nellie” Nelson is an amazingly fantastic coach but he is absolutely abysmal as a human being.  This petty, vindictive, insincere, mind-game playing, politicking douchebag has lain to waste nearly every team it has ever been his miserable misfortune to coach.  I’m convinced this prick will die either penniless, alone or both.

Now, if you’re an improviser reading this and wondering how a man like this continues to be employed as a professional basketball coach (and what the correlation is to improv), I encourage you to take mental stock of the people in your theater or improv scene and see how long it takes you before your mind fixates on that dude that makes this sound super familiar.  That was fast wasn’t it?

Maybe he is that guy that’s been around for a long time on the scene.  Maybe he was a part of developing a lot of the performance forms that were groundbreaking at the time and that we take for granted now.  Perhaps he was a major player in one of the larger markets but has now moved to your town. 

Does he drink a lot and loudly proclaim to anyone who will listen how much better it used to be back in the day or how no one appreciates his genius?  Is he moody and sulky, bitter that others he deems less talented than he have achieved a higher status? Or does he walk around with an air of confidence that belies his actual concrete accomplishments? 

Are a lot of the people he coaches young, beginning improvisers that hang on his every word and repeat it as gospel simply because he is their first ever coach or they simply don’t know any better?  Are the teams he coaches the kind of teams that go big, fast and work “blue” at every opportunity?  Has he alienated himself from nearly every person in your improv scene yet somehow has managed to endear himself to the powers that be so that the idea of him going away seems impossible? 

Or had he, through pure Machiavellian cunning, assembled a tight circle of apologists or disciples that will allow him to remain untouched by outside opinion?    When not given a wide berth, are people cordial to him only to spit his name through their teeth when he leaves, sure in the fact that they can’t trust him as far as they can throw him?  Or is he the kind of guy that somehow seems to fail upward?

Yeah.  I’m talking about that guy.

Now take any of those attributes individually and we can probably recognize those flaws in ourselves.  I’m sure I’ve been guilty of at least a few of them at any given moment in time.

Now add all of those together in one giant stew and you find yourself with a giant, steaming bowl of Don Nelson Du Jour.

(Mmmm.  Don Nelson Soup.)

Just like when I wrote about the Chicago Bulls, if you suck long enough in the NBA, you are given the opportunity to stack up on a lot of new, young talent.  Unlike the Chicago Bulls who make a habit of drafting based on collegiate success, the Golden State Warriors, who have let Don Nelson position himself into power through shady, underhanded backroom power plays, draft players that fit the “Nellieball” style but also with the added benefit (?) of being immature and completely unprepared to deal with the cunning mindfuck that is playing for one Don Nelson.

Now, I don’t blame the players in this scenario at all.  Most of them are extremely talented and exciting prospects.  Anthony Randolph, a young power forward/center from Louisiana State University, may very well end up being a Top 10 player in the League; that he almost seems to have been born to specifically play in Nellie’s system should make his arrival in Golden State a (wait for it….) slam dunk.

The problem is, again, Nelson.  It seems the “Mad Scientist” is incapable of sharing the spotlight with the people, who you know, actually play the games.  He will grind down his young players, yanking their playing time and alternately berate and condescend them in private and publicly.  Inexplicably, players will be pulled from a game for the minutest infractions and will be given little to no explanation. 

Nelson is almost always with teams that are young, rebuilding squads which he seems to have no patience for and can’t deliver the winning record he believes he deserves.  He will give up on players or put them in his doghouse almost at random.  He’ll jerk around a young player for “not playing the right way” and then be almost pathologically unable to explain the “right way” to that young player who so desperately needs his guidance. 

For god’s sake, it’s “Nellieball”:  If there are no rules that would apply to how basketball is traditionally played, how in the holy fuck are these young guys going to know how to do it?  What part of “damn the torpedoes and jack up as many shots as humanly possible” is playing it the right way?  When I watch Nelson in post-game press conferences bitch about how the team lost the game because their defense was poor, I laugh The Laugh of the Damned.

Hey, chucklefuck, you haven’t run a practice that focused on defense in nearly three decades and YOU’RE THE COACH!  When were they supposed to learn about defense?  On the bus ride to the stadium?

This is akin to an improv coach cursing out his team after a show because there were no real relationships when he’s only devoted every single rehearsal to pace and one-liners. 

We’ve all seen these improv teams perform.  They are loud, fast and funny.  They go “big” in a heartbeat.  They blurt out racial epithets as punch lines and go for the shock value like it is going out of style (which it has by the way).  They never met a scene that they didn’t think could be improved by a ton of walk-on characters and devolving into a mass of shrill, screaming jackasses. 

It might be fun for awhile.  One might even enjoy the team ironically for the “It’s-So-Bad-It’s-Good-Factor.”:  I once watched such a team from the balcony at iOWest with some of my friends who had decided to turn the show into a drinking game; every time a dick joke was made, you drank.  The waitress had to come back three times and I was drunk 15 minutes into their show.

But eventually the whole thing sours.  The rest of the teams start to view teams with that style of play as an embarrassment to the theater and detrimental to the work overall.  Anytime a non-improviser friends says to you “most/all improv sucks” they probably only saw one long form improv show in their life and it was probably THAT team of assclowns.

Similarly, whenever a casual basketball or sports fan says that the NBA is just a bunch of spoiled, selfish thugs who just want to dunk and jack up 3 pointers, they will point to the Golden State Warriors as an example.  Congratulations, Denver Nuggets!  Now that you are winning consistently and have reached the elite echelon of the Western Conference, you’re off the hook!  Woo hoo!  Don’t party!  Please.  Don’t.

Or even worse, when a person says they prefer college basketball to professional basketball because the teams play a more “team oriented”  style or the game is “purer” I turn red like Chairman Mao’s little book. 

Look:  professional basketball will always, ALWAYS, be better than college basketball.  That’s the truth.  Please don’t mistake nostalgia for your alma mater as a substitute for talent, athleticism and expertise.  You are watching inferior basketball.  Accept it.  The worst player in the NBA would absolutely dominate any college game you put him in.  And if you think the college game is “purer” in any sense of that word you are being willfully naïve.  The benefit of being a professional basketball player is that you get paid above the table, you feel me?

Not quite as analogous, as short form improv definitely has its benefits and heroes, but anyone who tells me they prefer short form to long form improv I consider that person to not be a terribly deep thinking person.  When I’m challenged on this topic, I usually request for that person to regale me with the tale of that short form show they attended about “betrayal”.  That usually does it.

Rant over. 

(Ahem)

Rant resumes.

But Don Nelson isn’t done ruining the team that San Franciscans root for in their fair city!

Not….by….a….god….damn….sight.

Asides from the wealth of young talent whose confidence he spends most of his waking life ruining, Nellie also likes to bring in veteran players in free agency that will provide, in this environment, the worst example of how to conduct oneself as a professional! 

Hey, young draft pick for the Golden State Warriors, worried that Coach Nelson has provided zero instruction for how to play the game at the next level? 

Fret no more!  He’ll bring in a potpourri of mercenaries, head cases and rejects that will stunt your emotional and professional growth to finish off the horrible mission he started!  To wit:

Corey Maggette, an unrepentant gunner who the Warriors signed to a ridiculous 5 year/$50 million guaranteed contract, is all offense, all the time and is the epitome of the “me-first” player proponents of the college game would throw in my face.  The good gentlemen at Basketbawful.com have a term for this type of player: A 20-10-50 Guy.  He’ll get you 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 50 losses.  Woof.

The improv equivalent of Mr. Maggette is the player that will sell out your scene for a joke at the drop of a hat, walk on to as many scenes as it takes for him to get the laughs his ego requires (or he’ll sulk afterwards) and will be unapologetic after a bad team show as long as he got his.  As long as he gets to live the lifestyle of an entertainer and parlay that into interest from insecure women, he gives two shits about team success. 

I remember reading an anecdote where after a double digit loss by Maggette’s team (where he rang up 20 and 10, natch), Kevin Garnett, on the other team, passed by Corey on the way to the locker rooms.

(Sneering) “Way to get your numbers.”

Ouch.  I encourage all improvisers to direct this missive towards these types of players after a particular egregious show.  An insincere “good show” just doesn’t have the same panache.  I know it makes me smile when I have the opportunity to use it in earnest.

NOTE:  You must also remember that the good gentlemen over at Basketbawful.com have also given Mr. Maggette the nickname “Bad Porn” as in “Sure, there’s penetration and scoring involved, but are you really enjoying what you are watching?”  I’ve yet to find an appropriate place in improv to use this term but I’m working on it.

Stephen Jackson is a guy who would give you the shirt off of his back; now whether you actually needed that shirt or he was giving it to you to hold while he went absolutely ape-shit bananas on someone is another matter entirely.  While he’s got his shirt off, you might want to take a gander at the large tattoo on his chest of the traditional Christian symbol of the “praying hands” whose design Mr. Jackson has improved upon by having the hands clasp a 9mm Glock automatic handgun.

  (And this was the tattoo he got AFTER he got his act together. Seriously.  No, really.)

And without going too much into detail about Mr. Jackson’s role in the infamous “Brawl at the Palace” (I kind of chalked it up to the aforementioned brand of, ahem, loyalty that Mr. Jackson subscribes to), the one thing you could always say about Stephen Jackson is that he tried. 

He prides himself on playing defense, normally covering the other team’s best offensive player.  He hits big, clutch-time shots.  He plays hurt.  He plays at maximum effort, night in and night out.  He was made a team captain, an honor he was truly humbled by and appreciated it.  He’s also an extremely intelligent and well read man.  He read “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.  Dude, I haven’t even read that book.

So guess what happened?  Go on.  Guess.

Nelson fucked him.  Hard and completely.  Here was the absolute last guy (after mega-star Baron Davis signed with the Clippers, a team who’s blog post I’m alternately looking forward to and dreading) in Nelson’s corner and Nelson embarrassed the man by giving him a verbal beat down in Nelson’s car for 20 minutes during a practice.  I shit you not.

Word around the campfire is that Nelson told a stunned Jackson that his coach thought he was letting the team down.  The coach didn’t think his captain was leading by example.  The coach thought Jackson was exaggerating his injury for, I (once again) shit you not,…..pity.  

Larry Freaking Bird thinks Stephen Jackson is the toughest guy in the NBA, and Don Nelson accused of him of throwing a pity party?

("Wait....what?)

Stephen Jackson does NOT want your pity.  Here is a guy who has had one of the more dangerous upbringings and made something of himself in spite of the harsh environment of his youth.  This was supposed to be his coach; the man who finally understood him as a man and we was so far off that Jackson wondered aloud if Nelson had been drinking.

Jackson didn’t even get out of the car to enter the practice facility.  How do you think that worked out?

And so began the long process of taking any of the good will from the magical playoff run of 2007 and completely dismantling it by dismantling the team. 

Stephen Jackson spent a long summer proclaiming that he would be willing to work anywhere but Golden State.  He was eventually traded to the woeful Charlotte Bobcats early this season.

Remember Anthony Randolph?  He’s on the trading block now.  In fact, everyone is available now.  Being a Golden State Warrior fan must be like…..I can’t even think of an appropriate simile.

Sports Illustrated just named The Golden State Warriors “The Worst Franchise of This Decade”.  And the Warriors play in the same league as the Clippers!  That’s like Hitler being the 2^nd Worst Dude of 1943.  How do you pull that off?

Easy.  Hire Don Nelson.

When I first started this project, I said I would be focusing somewhat on the chemistry aspects of both improv and basketball as the need for everyone to be on the same page is so essential.  You don’t have to like each other but you do have to respect each other and share a common goal.

But I don’t care what business you are in; if you have a guy like Don Nelson anywhere near you, things will go bad in a hurry.

The first or second time you hire him.

As this is my project, I get to say which team goes first.  So this week, we will begin with the Chicago Bulls as that is my favorite team and improvisation’s Mecca is Chicago.

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 30 odd years, you’re probably aware there is a human being by the name of Michael Jordan.   Yeah, he was pretty good at basketball.

When he retired, for the 2^nd time in 1998, the Bulls began to suck.  Boy, did they suck.  Watching the Bulls whimper their way through a 13-37 strike shortened season only to have it be followed up the next season with a horrible 17-65 record was brutal.  For you improvisers reading this, it was like watching a student show with 2 teams going back to back and the teacher forgot to show up to call the lights to end the show so the bad thing happening in front of you just goes on and on and on.  In fact, now that I think of it, I’d rather watch that 17-65 regular season.  It would go by faster.

But just like in improv, professional basketball is always benefitted by the infusion of new blood; wide-eyed, young performers willing to jump into the mix.  Professional basketball has one leg up on improv in this regard as they have the NBA Draft.  You suck long enough in the NBA and you at least have the opportunity to stock up on a lot of talent; which brings us to the current incarnation of my beloved Bulls.

The Bulls are what is known in the Association as an “up and coming team”.  During those lean years, the Bulls front office made a habit of using most of their top-of-the-order draft picks on either extremely young, high-potential athletic projects or the best players from proven winning college programs. 

There is a lot of talk about “the culture of losing/winning” in the professional ranks.  The idea was that if you brought in guys who were used to winning and doing the type of work it took to win at the college level than that would rub off on the guys who had all the natural ability in the world but maybe not as much experience.

Yeah, that didn’t work out so well for the Bulls.  Not at first.

After some terrible draft picks that didn’t work out (Eddy Curry, eating champion of the NBA, traded away to the Knicks), were hampered by injury (Jay Williams), were given up on by the front office (Tyson Chandler, traded away to the New Orleans Hornets, now sucking it up for the Charlotte Bobcats so maybe not so bad) or were just too insane (Ron Artest!) or expensive (Ben Gordon) to keep past their rookie contracts, the Bulls find themselves in 2009 with a nice nucleus of young, semi-mature, very talented players.

But where the Bulls really started to be taken seriously was when they won the 2008 NBA Draft Lottery when they only had a 1.7% chance of winning the lottery.  With the #1 Overall Pick they eagerly chose college basketball freshman phenomenon and Chicago-birthed, point guard Derrick Rose.

(Hi!  I'm the future of your franchise.  HOLY SHIT, Look at the size of my watch!)

The day of the NBA draft is forever linked in my mind to improv because as the exact moment that Derrick Rose was being picked #1 overall in New York City and I was on stage with Neil Garguilo at the Providence Improv Festival, a drunk driver plowed through the glass front wall of iOWest in Hollywood, CA.  Fortunately, none of the above mentioned people were killed. 

(There is not a emoticon sad enough to show how I felt when I first saw this picture.)

Last year, Derrick Rose ran away with the Rookie of The Year Award.  The Bulls made the playoffs and were in an instant classic of a first round series with the defending champion Boston Celtics.  The series went the full seven allotted games and featured a half dozen overtime periods. 

Game 1, I was in Phoenix for the 7^th Annual Phoenix Improv Festival and watching an intense playoff basketball game at 9am in a hotel room in a strange city when you are a rabid fan that yells encouragement at the television is a great way to get dirty looks from your neighbors the rest of the weekend.  They thought I was being murdered for awhile and then after some time probably wished I was being murdered.

So now what?  The Bulls have gotten a little taste of success and now what’s the next step? 

It reminds me of that improv team that forms out of a class or is put together by the theater as a “developmental team”.  The performers may have been on other teams and/or had some individual success. 

They go through some ups and downs.  Different members come and go.  They struggle to find a coach that suits their style or temperament.  Maybe they’ve had some mild success; some decent shows and got some laughs.  Perhaps they went on a little extended Cagematch run.  They’ve got a nice group of like-minded, committed people who interact well on and off the stage.  They’re not quite ready for a prime slot on the theater’s main stage but they ain’t exactly chopped liver either, you know?

This is where there is simply no other answer than continuing to grow and build on that momentum you’ve gained as a team.  Not a popular answer but the right one nonetheless.  Derrick Rose is far and away the best player on the Bulls but he’s only a few games into his second year.  He can’t be expected to run the offense, score a bunch of points and be a leader in the locker room all the while working on his own individual development.  

Similarly, a naturally gifted improviser who doesn’t have a lot of stage experience can’t be expected to direct the flow of the show, drop all of the funniest one-liners and do all the booking/marketing for a team when he still isn’t sure exactly what kind of player he is yet. 

At the same time, the rest of the Bulls young roster is worrying about the same things that the other improvisers on this example team are worrying about:  How much playing time am I getting?  Why am I not performing as well as I wanted to?  Why doesn’t the coach spend as much time with me as he does with those other guys?  Why does that guy get all the accolades?  Am I letting the team down?  I’m used to being the funniest guy in my college short form group and now that I’m at the next level trying to pursue this larger team concept my normal effort isn’t good enough anymore.  What’s up with that?

This is where having an experienced but nurturing coach would be invaluable.  The coach of the Bulls, Vinny Del Negro, is neither of these things. 

Del Negro, a former journeyman player in the Association, until last year had never been a head coach at any level of basketball.  Not high school, nor AAU, nor college, nor overseas and certainly never in the NBA.  Hell, he’s never even been an assistant coach at any level.  His previous job before accepting the head coaching duties for the Chicago Bulls was a VP role in the front office of the Phoenix Suns.  Who had an opportunity to interview and hire him to run their team when they had a coaching vacancy and they declined.  I’m just saying.

I could go on all day on why it is a terrible, terrible idea to put together a group of young, talented, inexperienced (yet used to a culture of winning) players and then putting a guy who doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing in charge.  You can see the logic in that right?  Would it make more sense if I told you that Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf is notoriously cheap?  Is that better?

It’s congruent with a young improv team not going after the very best coach they can get because either

a) they can’t/won’t pay them their rate or

b) they are too afraid to ask them for fear of them saying no or

c) they’ve had this coach thrust upon them by management.

Young improv teams:  Please don’t be your own Jerry Reinsdorf.  Please don’t retard your own growth during a few years of your prime by “settling” for a coach that you can get for pennies instead of stepping up and putting your money where your mouth is to try and get the absolute best coach you can so that you can become the absolute best team that you can be.  To do so otherwise is madness.

I once was on a team where the coach we approached refused to coach us unless we agreed to his terms:  rehearsal for 2 hours at $50 bucks a pop, twice a week and we had to make a 2 year commitment. 

We discussed it at a “come to Jesus” meeting at my house and decided that he was the guy we wanted, he was a legend in the scene and we would be the better for it.  Best 2 years of my improv development.  It made all the difference.  Not only am I way better as an improviser than I have any right to be at this moment but I’ve also been humbled by that knowledge; i.e. I haven’t really accomplished anything yet.  Unless the team succeeds, how good or bad I am really has no relevance.

Now, I realize that all coaches have to come from somewhere.  There will always have to be a first time for a coach.  I get that.  I really do.  But what we’re talking about here is a team that is already further along in their development as a team and individual players than their coach is as a coach.  That’s not a recipe for success.

These players are sure of their abilities but they are unsure of their footing.  They need a coach who’s been through what they’ve been through BUT with the added benefit of having the necessary gravitas as a coach, as a leader, so that the players will buy into what he’s selling, you know?

If I’m a young talented improviser, how am I going to listen to a coach who’s barely competent or trips over himself or contradicts himself at times?  All you need is ONE person on the team to think that and it will be impossible for the group to move forward as a unit.  If everyone is not on board, if the coach doesn’t have the full authority to coach the team, with backing from the management/theater and the full respect of his players, than how can the team reach its ultimate goals?  You’ll also notice I said “respect” and not “love”.  The latter is nice to have but the former is absolutely crucial.

The Bulls already had a few blow-ups in Vinny’s rookie year (which was also Rose’s rookie year).  When he reprimanded and fined a few of the players for a minor team rule about eating in the locker room, they blew up at him.  This is akin to getting a minor note from an improv coach and the player snapping back “well, this is how I do it.”

When that first season under Del Negro began with a couple of bad showings, players openly questioned, in the media, the game plan.  This is akin, in improv, to sitting in the bar after the show and having the players loudly discuss with their friends how the show would have been so much funnier if the coach hadn’t made them do all that “slow, organic bullshit”.

See what I’m getting at here?  Winning this season may put some mighty fine deodorant on that problem for now but I guarantee you it will rear its ugly head again soon and eventually Del Negro will be fired.  Then the Bulls will (hopefully) bring in the kind of coach that should have been there all along.  So what was the point of those wasted years?

I love what the young players on the Chicago Bulls have been able to achieve up to this point.  Like an up and coming improv team, I look forward to watching them develop and will accept the bumps and bruises along the way as a necessary evil to ultimately seeing them achieve their ultimate goals.  But until they get an experienced hand to guide them to that goal, I’m afraid what I’m really watching are a lot of guys treading water.

So, I have this idea.

I love long-form improvisation.  No, it’s true!  I’m sure you couldn’t tell from the dozens of references to it on this site.  But I also love professional basketball, specifically, the National Basketball Association or NBA.

In either basketball or improv, players must cooperate to be successful.  When it all comes together, the result is awe inspiring and magical.  A few examples:

-          Most teams have 15 players on their roster but they really only run a 9 or 10 man rotation which is about the number of people you have on a Harold team. 

-          Both have coaches who stress fundamentals and playing as a unit but really the big job is handling multiple personalities at once. 

-          Both involve a certain amount of organized chaos.  Both have warm-ups. 

-          Both stress sharing as an integral part of success; in basketball, it’s called “passing” and in improv, it’s called “sharing the focus”. 

-          Both follow a basic set of rules but with numerous permutations (Basketball:  Princeton Offense, Triangle Offense, Run and Shoot, etc.  Improv:  Harold, Deconstruction, Armando, etc.)

-          Both have their superstars but a team really doesn’t become great or achieve anything of note unless it has really selfless role players. 

-          Both require, depend on and are affected greatly by the number of butts in the seats. 

And there is an amazing amount of preparation that goes into both for what is essentially a finite amount of time that happens on a small square piece of wood.

Ultimately, in either arena, you are going to have various levels of ability but as long as you know the basic rules, you can play the game anywhere in the world.

Now, I understand that writing about improv and how it relates to professional basketball is an extremely niche area that may only relate to a very small sub-set of the human race, but the “secret” to blogging, or so I’ve read, is to find that one thing that you are truly passionate about and write about it. 

So even if you are not someone who cares about professional basketball (or vice versa, improv), I encourage you to give this series a look because what I really care about is the human drama that is involved behind the scenes and how it affects the play on the court/stage; i.e. chemistry.

There will be no math involved.  There will not be a test.  But there will be a lot of frank discussion on the group mind that needs to go into both improv and professional basketball.

I’m hoping to find, more than anything else, the truth as that is what we should be striving for every time one steps on stage.

 Thanks for reading.

NOTE:  I chose professional basketball, as opposed to say, just plain old basketball for a few reasons. 

1)      I wanted a finite end to this project for the reader’s sake and mine.  I could easily ramble on about a larger discussion of improv vs. basketball for years.

2)      The NBA is the absolute best basketball played in the world; in improv, you strive for excellence, if not perfection.  The exclusivity of the NBA not only provides a context for “excellence” but it also narrows the discussion down to a workable size for comparison.

3)      All of these players and their histories are easily recognized and able to be researched.  I don’t want to talk out of my ass about a guy who plays for Moscow CSKA because I can’t find enough data about him and you don’t want to find yourself saying, “Wait:  Why the hell am I reading about a benchwarmer for a Russian team in the Euroleague?  It’s nice outside.”

Deal?  Cool.