So I was GOING to blog about how terrible a mood I’ve been in for the past few weeks?  All this dark stuff about self-destruction and suicidal thoughts and all that cool stuff…?  Only THEN I realized that, as of tonight, I had something like four new blogposts I was now officially due to write and post.  So, fuck all that depressing jazz, kids, we just don’t have time for it!  Let’s all put on the same Runaways album as me…

…and get straight to the good stuff.  And top of the goodies list today is, new class at the OSSD!  Which is awesome, because we missed last weeks class (and I know you did too, gentle readers) on account of Big Cheese Brie Barker coming down with a bad case of being really sick, which sucks.  Being sick SUCKS.  But happily, he seems all weller now, and he greeted us (just a small selection today…myself, Catherine, Vanessa, Sasha, Andrea and Julie) in torn jeans and Leafs jersey, taking the roll by making us shout out our fav’rit Hockey team (not the Sens!) and fav’rit band.  I picked the Detroit Red Wings on account of some old-time Bob Probert luv, and the Ramones, because they’re the Ramones.

We all loosened up with a game of…whatever you call batting a paper ball up in the air.  IS that a game?  Whatever, we did it, and had a few good runs, even IF Sasha kept trying to spike it (no, Sasha, NO!).  Then it was on to the quite amusing theatrical game ‘Bunny’.  One person gets pointed to, makes like a bunny, while the people to his/her sides make like the bunny’s ears.  The designated ‘bunny’ does his/her bunny bit ’til pointing to a new victim.  ‘Elephant’ was then added to the mix, then ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (don’t ask), and then, finally…anything.  We got some good mileage out of ‘anything’, let me tell you.  Then on to a rousing round of ‘Mister So and So’, an improv based game.  Me and Sasha started things off as a security guard at a mall and a concerned dad.  Then Brie sent someone in, and I had to designate who they were (in a ‘Mr.So and So’ fashion’ and leave the scene. And so forth.  I made Vanessa Miss Talks-too-loud and split first, and watched the fun.   I later re-entered the scene, with Brie himself making me ‘Mister Incontinent’, which I think I pulled off in true Oscar-worthy fashion.  My interactions with Juvenile Delinquent and Miss Equestrian are the stuff of legend, I tell ye!

Brie then split us up into pairs, and instructed us to just have a regular conversation.  Not exactly my forte, but Sasha and I started on a decent palaver about restaurants, until Brie stopped us and instructed us to resume convo, but speaking softly.  Which we did…until he switched us again, this time to loud.  And THEN to one soft, the other loud.  It got a little tricky.  We then switched into diff’rent pairs, and did the same thing, this time alternating between fast speech and slow.  Methinks Messr.Barker is going somewheres with all of this…

And I was right (kind of a surprise, but it happens sometimes).  Today’s focus on speech rate and volume was the next aspect we were to integrate into our evolving character.  W did a quick batch of improv scenes with Brie assigning us rate and volume at random…I did one with Vanessa as a Chiropracter (me)  and his new patient (her)…it actually turned out really cool and funny because Vanessa got ‘Acupuncture’ stuck in her head instead of Chiropracter and we had to do a good back and forth about it. I was doing it loud and fast as instructed, and tried to keep the guy nice…it was hard, as I later found out.

When we regrouped after a short break to do more scenes, this time trying to be in FULL character (ie: using all the characteristics we’ve assembled over the last 5 classes), I found that the voice thing was doing all the leading in scenes.  One with Catherine as a husband and wife at the Baseball Hall of Fame, then with Andrea at a Bathhouse in Russia (Sasha’s weird idea), both of my characters immediately morphed into the same loud, brash asshole.  And it don’t HAVE to be that way, even tho my voice choices ended up as loud and fast.  But we all agreed (and Brie several times stressed) that what we’re being asked to do is NOT easy…it’s hard, and that’s as it should be.  After all, being good at ANYthing is, and should be, hard work.  Anyone can be a SHITTY plumber.

Anyhow, I think I’m missing at last one thing from tonight, one scene, SOMEthing, but it’s not coming to me.  At any rate, I’ve got some practicing to do if I’m gonna keep all this stuff in my head for next time around.  Oh, and before I close for the evening, shoutout to Julie, because…well, why not?  Hi Julie!

That’s all for tonite…two or three new posts coming tomorrow, and a busy week coming up.  Depression break is OVER, yo.  Peace, love and soul

The Visitor (and Winston)