AMA: Ask Me Anything!

[jkg79]

Kevin, what took you away from improv for so long, and what brought you back. How did you satisfy your creative urge while you were away?

[happywaffle]

Kevin, what took you away from improv for so long, and what brought you back. How did you satisfy your creative urge while you were away?

Funnily enough I answered this question earlier in the thread, but it's a very good question and I'm happy to answer.

Long story short: I left to do ghost tours and be married.

Long story long: Jeanine, who runs the tours, was married to Sean Hill, who started the Hideout. As a result, ghost tours checked in right alongside improv at the Hideout ticket booth. One night I started swapping ghost stories with Jeanine, and before too long (mid-2003) I was giving the tours.

I loved improv just as much as ghost tours, but it turns out that giving ghost tours pays money. Soooo that won. My very last involvement with improv was as a charter member of Foolish Mortals until late 2004. I'd just started dating my future wife, so my weekend nights were occupied there, too.

By 2007-ish I had taken leave of Austin Ghost Tours too. (I still kinda miss it.) By then I was married, and I never really made a move to get back into the improv scene. To answer your second question, I really wasn't fulfilling my creative urges at that point, not really. To make matters worse, I didn't quite realize HOW unfulfilled I was.

In February 2009 I participated in the Hideout 10th anniversary show, and I realized painfully how much I missed the stuff. In July 2009 I signed up for my first Maestro in 4+ years. (Not to get too personal, but my marriage had its first come-to-Jesus moment about a month prior. It's not unfair to say that my involvement in improv correlated inversely to my marriage.)

I eased back into things from there. I did more Maestros, joined Facebook, started following the forums, went to the 2010 AIC potluck, met lots of people, and in March 2011 Shannon cast me in False Matters. I was back in the game for real by then.

I won't make the same mistake twice. Wild horses can't get me out of this hobby now.

[happywaffle]

Josh: I don't know anything about how you and Lisa met, I'm specifically wondering how much improv performance had to do with you developing a relationship with her. Did you meet through improv? Or join it afterwards? When and how did you start performing together?

[jkg79]

Josh: I don't know anything about how you and Lisa met, I'm specifically wondering how much improv performance had to do with you developing a relationship with her. Did you meet through improv? Or join it afterwards? When and how did you start performing together?

HEY! Well, Alex, I moved to Austin in 2008, and shortly after that I moved in with Arthur Simone as we had a friend in common from college. I started going to shows at Coldtowne and really liked it. I knew I'd eventually end up taking classes, but I thought at the time that I'd be better suited to sketch because of my creative writing background and degree.

One day around March of 2009 Arthur told me that they had one more space open in a Level 1 improv class and that I could intern to get the class cheeper. I decided to go ahead and do it. Lo and behold, Lisa was my teacher. That was the first time we met. I attended class for the next 8 or 10 weeks, and toward the end of that term, Arthur, John Ratliff, and I threw a party for Memorial Day.

Lisa came and I followed her around like a puppy. At the end of the night, I asked her out, and we started dating, even though technically, as she was faculty and I a student, we weren't supposed to. It didn't matter though. We dated for about 6 months before I asked her to marry me, and on Dec. 7 2009 we went to the Clerk of Court just down the road from Coldtowne, and declared ourselves "Informally Married", which is technically a full marriage in the eyes of the state. About a year later we had a big wedding with family and friends, and I can't quite remember exactly when, but I believe we started Galactic in 2010, around Spring.

That's the condensed version. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask. I love telling the story.

Now, turn-about is fair play. I know that you are from the Ukraine, but that's about all I know. What brought you to the United States, what do you remember from living in the Ukraine, do you ever go back? Dish!

[jkg79]

Now, turn-about is fair play. I know that you are from the Ukraine, but that's about all I know. What brought you to the United States, what do you remember from living in the Ukraine, do you ever go back? Dish!

I just realized that you are Kevin and not Alex. Woops! If Alex sees this, he should still answer it, but since I'm here. Kevin, what do you do for Apple?

[happywaffle]

Damn, I was all ready to come up with a fantastic story about Alex escaping the Ukraine. There would be narrow escapes and vampy dames and most likely a talking animal of some sort.

As for Kevin, I write training for Apple tech support, aka AppleCare. I was a tech-support grunt for a good five years before being hired as a trainer. I very much enjoyed training delivery, since it wasn't far off from stage performance, but I was never at my desk and hardly had a moment to think (even on breaks and lunch, you're just prepping for your next section). So I switched to training development, which is a more conventional sit-at-desk, waste-hours-on-Facebook type of job. I can sometimes escape to coffee shops and work from there. My job has more than its share of bullshit, but it's a fantastic company to work for, with a truly ridiculous cafeteria. I just passed my ten-year anniversary.

[Asaf]

Josh, I'm thinking a lot about crossroads lately because of the show I'm working on, so what crossroad from your own life comes to mind that you often wondered "what would have happened if"?

[jkg79]

Josh, I'm thinking a lot about crossroads lately because of the show I'm working on, so what crossroad from your own life comes to mind that you often wondered "what would have happened if"?

Well, there's a lot, but there's one in particular that could have really changed my life. I was a pretty typical college hippy. I got high a lot on a lot of different stuff, and in order to get that stuff for free, I did what I had to do, which usually meant moving a bit of it at a little bit above cost. Without getting into specifics, one day the sheriff's deputies showed up at my door and came inside to search the house. Now, a lot of things could have happened there. By coincidence, I and my friends were stone cold dry at the moment. Nothing in the house but seeds and stems. They did their best to get us in trouble for those, but we basically got out of the whole thing with a slap on the wrist. Had they showed up a month earlier, or a month later, it could have been a very different, much sadder story. There's a good chance me and my roommates could have all done fairly serious jail time.

After that, I got a lot more careful, and decided that there was a fair price to pay for my hobbies.

Asaf, how long did you live in New York, and what is the thing that you miss most about it?

[Asaf]

I was in New York City from the age of 1 through the age of 34. There are very few things I actually miss about NYC. Lately, the thing that I've been missing most is going to museums, having so many museums to choose from with different exhibits of important works. I used to get into the MoMA for free because I worked for Citigroup and there were days when I would just go sit in the Monet Waterlilies room (the painting covered three walls) or sit in front of a Jackson Pollack and zone out.

I also miss Autumn. The colors, the temperature.

[Terry]

Follow up to Asaf. What brought you to Austin and what made you stay?

[hujhax]

*bump*



--
peter rogers @ netbook | http://hujhax.livejournal.com

A rat would never get through a maze if it thought a rat’s job was to know which way to go.
-- Alex Epstein

[Spots]

Peter:


How did you come up with that specific emoticon for expressing yourself just now, and what would you say is the nuance behind him being blue while also smiling/grinning?