Boundaries and Bandwidth

Last year, when I was living in Los Angeles, I was producing a show called the Saturday Night Revue, and I was supported by an amazing manager, Mary H. Mary is an old friend from Chicago who, aside from being a great stage performer, is an amazing stage manager and tech. I believe tech is one of the most important components of live shows, especially sketch comedy shows, and I was super fortunate to have Mary on the team.

My producer brain is firing on all cylinders at all times, and almost every time I had an idea about the show, I was shooting Mary a text. It could be morning, midday, or evening. Idea comes in, text to Mary goes out. Finally, Mary hit me up and was like, "I don't have the bandwidth for this. There needs to be some control with the messaging." In that moment, I stopped and did something I had yet to do. I thought about Mary on the receiving end of these messages. 

Text has a certain level of immediacy, and to them, nothing I was sharing had urgency. Also, there was no reason to share in the moment, because nothing needed to be done. I replied to Mary with sincere apologies, and we decided that for ideas, suggestions, and to-do things, we would use email. For immediate needs, we would text. This arrangement created a respectful way to honor Mary's bandwidth and also to install some controls on my communication. I am forever grateful to Mary for this callout.

Those shows are over, and Mary and I are no longer working together on the project because it's done. But the lesson of controlled communication remains. I am now more aware of the need to respect others' bandwidth. I am also saying, "No one cares about your stuff as much as you," and I need to follow that quote as well. People have lives. People have jobs. People have projects of their own. They cannot be bombarded with your stuff all the time. 

Boundaries and bandwidth matter, and learning to respect both is important. 

Another minute

The signature for my email is visit this site, and every time I send an email, I ask myself, " What am I sending people here to see? I have fallen all the way off with the Daily Highku (sorry, Lori), and I probably need to get back to that. I should also just blog. Like, use this as a real web log. Like "I had coffee today, and it was delish."

Seriously, though, I live in Dallas, Texas now, and everyone is like, "How's Dallas?" and I'm always like, "It's cool," 'cause really I have only seen a small part of Dallas. I haven't started working yet, so the only places I go are church and the comedy club. Duality, am I right?

The comedy scene I frequent is really cool. Really young. I'm older than everyone there, including the club's owner, and that's really exciting. I feel like I found the comedy fountain of youth. The improv class has me on my feet again, exercising a muscle that hasn't seen a gym in years. There are differences in style, and I'm appreciating that. I have no desire to be the old guard running around screaming, "That's not how that's done," because a) clearly it is, and b) I think it's extremely important to respect the house. And the house is great and worthy of respect. 

I just recently started TA-ing a sketch class, and that's super fun. It's forcing me to write more often, which is what I need. I should be writing all the time, but the truth is, I usually do a ton of writing when I know a new show is coming up. This class is really going to serve me well as a writer because I will be tasked with writing, which will put me on a schedule I can and aim to maintain once the class ends. I am also hoping to become an integral part of the sketch program at the club, and this will help me understand how the house approaches sketch. 

I must also come here more often. Just in case someone gets an email and actually visits the site. 

Cheers!

It's been a minute

It's been a long time since I last posted to this weblog, and I am super conscious of it now because my email signature guides people to this weblog. I admit the Daily Highku has stalled. I haven't written one in months. I should write one now. I'll post that. 

So, what's going on with me? Well, I have moved to Dallas, Texas, and I have been adjusting to the move. Why Dallas? Well, I got married in October of 2025, and this is where my wife lives. I was in Los Angeles, and we decided that my coming here was better than her going there. And the gas is so much cheaper here.

I haven't really gotten out much. I spend most of my time rehearsing for my show in Toronto, which happens in March. I have started taking improv classes at the Dallas Comedy Club, and that has been exciting.

It's a long form 1 class, and even though I am familiar with long form improv and I have done it and taught it, I have never really gone through a full course and course structure. I'm learning a lot. I say all the time that improv is like barbecue, it's the same everywhere, and everyone does it differently. Dallas definitely does it differently than my introduction to it (which was Chicago). I'm liking my experience, and I intend to continue to take more long-form classes.

I also need to weblog more often. 

Let's see what happens. 

New York City

I have a lot of fond memories of New York. I was born in Connecticut, and when I would visit my grandmother and grand-aunt in Stratford, going to New York was always a treat. Later, when I was in university, I made several friends who lived in New York, and I would visit them often on my way to or from family visits in Connecticut.

My grand-aunt took me to a Yankees game once at old Yankee Stadium. I remember catching a foul ball, dropping it, and reaching down to get it, and the man in the seat in front of me was reaching under his seat, scratching my head in an effort to get me to release the ball. My grand-aunt bopped him over the head, and he stopped scratching me. There’s a picture somewhere of me holding up that ball.

I remember being at a store on Broadway and asking about a large Zippo lighter that said NYC on it. The man said it was $45. I then asked about the smaller one. He said it was $45. I then inquired about the larger one, again, and he said it was $60. That seemed like quintessential New York City to me.

I remember being in NYC for New Year’s Eve in 1998. I was amazed to see all the people in Times Square waiting in the freezing cold for the ball to drop. Even more amazing was how fast the cops cleared the street at 12:02. Five minutes into the new year, the only evidence of the number of people who were out there was the massive amount of confetti in the streets.

I remember almost dying in a bodega in the Bronx. I remember tying a bowtie for what I am convinced was a mobster from Sicily. I have fond memories of Brooklyn and visiting my great-grandmother before she passed.

New York may be the city of dreams, but it is the city of memories for me.

Please Donate $1 To The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival

 

Please Donate $1 To The Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival DONATE 2 TO SKETCHFEST I am asking you to help support my favorite sketch comedy festival with a donation of just $1. As you know, I am a sketch comedian who travels domestically and internationally with my one-person show. No place has been more important to my journey than the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, also known as TO Sketchfest. In 2024, after being selected randomly to participate, my show won the Producer's Pick Award. In 2025, I was honored to host the Best of the Fest Award show. Additionally, in 2025, with your help, I was the top fundraiser for the festival, raising over $ 2,000. And I am now the face of the marketing campaign. This time around, I am trying to double that goal. To do so, I am calling, texting, emailing, and creating TikTok videos in an attempt to support this amazing festival. So, please donate a dollar or five to the festival. Every donation is tax-deductible, and, depending on the exchange rate, you may spend less than you pledged. Please help me support the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival by clicking the link and making a donation. Thank you in advance for your support. WIN STATE!

DONATE 2 TO SKETCHFEST

DONATE 2 TO SKETCHFEST

Another Must-Have Book

Here is the description ripped from the Amazon page:

This book starts with a way to think about comedy and then guides you through concrete strategies for making your work smarter, richer, funnier. Libera covers everything from generating material to revising and performing to fostering social connection through comedy. In the book’s final section, Libera draws from her personal life to make a profound case for why future comedy writers should consider the ethics of their art and their responsibility to their fellow human beings in the audience. Readers won’t just be funnier because of this book—they’ll be better people.

https://www.amazon.com/Funnier-New-Theory-Practice-Comedy/dp/0810149362

Anne Libera is absolutely brilliant! She is a master of the art of comedy and the most influential person in my comedy matriculation. I will forever identify as a "Student of Anne."

Here's Anne's bio ripped from the Columbia College Chicago website:

Anne Libera is the Director of Comedy Studies for the Theater Department where she teaches History and Analysis of Modern Comedy and Comedy Survey I and II. She is Director of Improv Pedagogy for The Second Science Project which studies connections between improvisation and behavioral science. She served as Executive Artistic Director of The Second City Training Centers and Education Programs from 2001 until 2009. She has worked with The Second City since 1986 and has taught in its Training Center since 1991 where her students have included Ashley Nicole Black, Amy Poehler, Kristen Schaal, Jordan Peele and Steven Yeun. Anne has presented on topics in improvisation and comedy at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Code Conference, Chicago Ideas Week, TCG’s annual conference, and guest lectured at the Stanford Business School. Her book, The Second City Almanac of Improvisation is published by Northwestern University Press.

For The Second City, she directed The Madness of Curious George and Computer Chips and Salsa, The Second City Goes to War and The Second City Looks at The Windy City as well as touring company productions that have appeared all over The United States. in Edinburgh, Scotland and Vienna, Austria and on multiple cruise chips for NCL. She directed Bunny, Bunny for Illinois Theater Center and Stephen Colbert's one-man show Describing a Circle. She reviewed theater on WGN radio and wrote for the NPR news quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Get. This. Book.

https://www.amazon.com/Funnier-New-Theory-Practice-Comedy/dp/0810149362

Dame Van Winkle (Merch excerpt)

I have a book called Great American Short Stories - and no, mom, I did not steal this from your house. My mother swears that I steal all her books, and rightfully so. I have pilfered some texts in the past. However, I got this particular book of short stories from one of those take-a-book-leave-a-book structures in the front yard of somebody's house. I left Twilight. Anyway, the first story in the book is Rip Van Winkle.

I had never actually read Rip Van Winkle before. The only thing I knew about Rip Van Winkle was that he “fell a-hella-sleep;” and considering the context in which Rip was mentioned in the Run DMC song, I associated Rip with fairy tales and nursery rhymes. So I was pleasantly surprised by the short story. 

I love the way Irving told the story of Rip and the conventions used. For example, the story begins pre-revolutionary war and ends post-revolutionary war, and this is shown by the picture in front of the pub Rip frequents. Before the long sleep, the portrait was of King George the Third. After the sleep, it was a picture of George Washington. 

I loved the language of the story. It was rich with words that sent me thumbing through my dictionary at least thirteen times.

I loved how Irving told the story. I loved the conventions used, and I loved the language. I did not love the story itself. It wasn't very kind to Dame Van Winkle, Rip Van Winkle’s wife.

"The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor." 

 

In the story, Dame Van Winkle is a "termagant" and a "virago," words with identical definitions; a shrewish bullying woman. Despite Rip being a farmer who didn't farm, a breadwinner who earned no bread, and possessing a willingness to do anything for anyone anywhere except for his own at home, Dame Van Winkle is the villain because she consistently reminds Rip of these facts.

 

"but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence." - Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle.

I felt for Dame Van Winkle. The setting is the Catskill Mountains during Colonial America. You ate what you grew and shot. There may have been markets, but I'm sure they were selling what they grew and/or shot if there were.

 

So, if I'm living with someone whose responsibility is to grow and shoot breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they don't, I'm probably going to have something to say about it; and if it happens every day, I'll probably have something to say about it every day, like Dame Van Winkle.

 

Now, I don't know if I would have gone up to the pub and busted up the party like Dame Van Winkle did, but then again...

 

If I'm sitting at home waiting for Rip to bring home a wild pigeon or a squirrel so I can whip up dinner, and I find out he's at the pub pontificating about news that happened a month ago from a newspaper printed a month ago...

 

Side note - I don't think one can "whip up" freshly shot squirrel. I don't know. I don't cook like that. But the other night, I made a Mexican casserole, which took like an hour, prep and cook time. So, I have to assume, newly dead squirrel takes at least four times longer than that. By the time I skin it, gut it, cut it, start a fire and cook it on a spit, the kids won't have eaten until damn near eleven.

 

Yeah. The tongue and I are going up to the pub.

 

It was Dame Van Winkle's tongue that sent Rip up the mountains where he went to sleep. It was Dame Van Winkle's tongue that Rip feared when he realized he had spent the night in the mountains. And it was "comfort" that came over him after learning that Dame Van Winkle and her tongue had died during his twenty-year slumber.

 

But what about Dame Van Winkle? What happened to her? All we know is that the house was in shambles when Rip found it after the sleep and that Dame Van Winkle died a couple of years before Rip woke up. And, on brand, she died from a blood vessel bursting while giving a New England peddler a tongue-lashing.

 

Tongue or not, it's safe to say that Dame Van Winkle spent at least fifteen years wondering Where TF Rip at?! I feel like Irving did Dame Van Winkle dirty; and for that reason, I'm not too fond of the tale. But I love the way it was told.