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Tonight - what a wonderful awful rainy night. Tonight featured Princeton Elementary's "Evening of Excellence," a night of recognition of Princeton Elementary students. Both Marina and Walker were invited to take part. Both kids are on the Principal's Honor Roll meaning they've received A's on their report card for each of the grading periods this year.They both also were honored for reaching their AR goals (Accelerated Reading) for all three grading periods. And if that wasn't exciting enough, they both were honored with the distinction of Writing Wizard for their class. Great job kiddos!!

Afterwards we go to Jade Bistro on Edgewater avenue for a celebration Asian fusion dinner. While we're ordering, Walker is drawing on the back of his sushi form and Marina is writing on the back of hers. Suddenly Walker holds up his drawing and announces "Look what I drew - it's Fagzilla."
"What? We responded, embarrassed and surprised.
"It's Fagzilla." Now our minds are reeling, wondering how our writing wizard has bolstered his vocabulary with this word.
"How have you come to know this word, Walker?"
"Well, he's fat, and he's Godzilla, so that's Fagzilla."
"Oh, of course. Fagzilla." In our relief we didn't really realize how comfortable we'd now become with this new and wonderful name. So for the rest of the dinner we had a wonderful time saying Fagzilla over and over without any shame or remorse. Thanks Walker.


Oh, and this one is his follow up drawing - King Pong - it's a ping pong reference. See how he's shaped like a paddle?

Hey, now I have 2, count em' 2 blogs I can struggle with keeping current. With that, I officially introduce my Quantum Improv blog to the world. If you get a chance to check it out, be sure to look at the foundation posts - they are easily bookmarked at the top.

Quantum Improv is a new venture that is be becoming a major part of my life, not to mention my improv teaching. The basics molded in Quantum are shaping a philosophy, process and program that will continue to grow. I call it the Quantum Vision and it has wonderful applications past even Quantum Improv. But improv is where it starts and improv is where it will always have a base.

I am currently writing the book Quantum Improv and plan to have the first published copies available by the end of the year. I'm excited to be entering a publishing agreement with a firm that will be a combination I guess you could say of self-publishing and mainstream publishing. I'm talking about a co-publishing arrangement which will allow me to keep my book rights while the publisher (having limited trade rights) will do all the marketing and promotion of the book to retailers like Barnes & Noble, Borders, Amazon as well as retailers such as Target, Wal-Mart, etc. All the things I have no earthly idea how to do. I am very thankful for such an arrangement. My part of the deal will be to order an initial printing of books that I will sell myself through SAK, the Quantum Improv website, etc.

It is all new to me so surely I will post the victories and the defeats along the way.

Be sure to check out the Quantum Improv blog. Onward and Forward!

Well the several weeks of nervous Disney employees is pretty much over. And how things can change over just a few months. Although I have served as a contract Show Director for the past several years and not an actual Disney employee, I was not really on the chopping block, as they say. But, the current climate has affected me as well. Last September, 2 of the shows I looked after closed - Comedy Warehouse and Adventurers Club. Luckily I still had Turtle Talk, Monsters Laugh Floor and World Showcase Players. And last week, I was informed that Monsters and Turtle Talk have been reassigned to one of the full time Show Directors at Maingate. I don't officially know at this time who has them, (althought I think it is Jason Surrell), I just know it isn't me. So the hammer has come down on my wee little head. I do still have responsibility for World Showcase Players so fortunately I get to keep my parking pass and still have a reason to stroll through Maingate from time to time. But my goodness - 8 months ago I was looking after 5 shows, and today, I have one. This represents a 90% decrease in my Disney responsibilities.

So like many others, I eagerly await the next chapter in my life. I bet you'll be seeing a bit more of me down at the ol' SAK Comedy Lab, that's for sure. I'll be teaching more classes I think, especially Quantum Improv which is steadily growing. Two semesters under the belt and looking forward to more of that.

As sad as it is to lose the Disney shows, I'm still amazed that I had so many in-park shows to look after in the first place. It is very unusual for a contract (outside) show director to look after even one ongoing show. For awhile there I had 5. I'm pleased to say I have really enjoyed every one of them very much. It was very sad to see the Island shows come to an end. Obviously the Comedy Warehouse is especially near and dear to my heart. I really loved the Adventurers Club too. Somehow the closing of those was dignified and I felt we really celebrated the legacy and history of what those shows were.

My wife pointed out what a special and wonderful surprise that was - to have a chance to close the shows with a little celebration and fanfare. Usually, (as it was with the current layoffs), Disney likes minimal (if any) fanfare and quick closure. You don't even get 2 weeks if laid off. You're immediately escorted off property. What a great and wonderful opportunity we had (because someone leaked the plans to the press), to close the Warehouse and Ad Club as we did. Morgan said I was able to bring a nice balance of celebrating the legacy and maintaining the dignity of all those who lost their jobs.

For some reason - there is a deeper sadness to having Turtle and Monsters reassigned. I understand it is a better fit to have them looked after by the full time Show Director staff, but I have marshalled those shows from their infancy, after being birthed by WDI. It is with a great deal of sadness that I say good bye to those wonderful shows and especially the wonderful actors who made/make those shows what they are.

Good Bye my lovelies. I wish you all the very best.

It has been a very busy couple of weeks with work on the Walt Disney World Resort Showcase. Several events culminated last week, each as part of the Resort Showcase. Since there has been little time to consider what to write - I have pulled something from the archives. Enjoy the following movie short. It was created 5 years or so ago when the Houseful of Honkeys performed a show called Hooray For Honkeywood!

Each week we had a show built around the game the Honkeys developed called "My Movie, My Movie, My Movie..." In our version, each week found one Honkey at the end of the show, riffing improvised movie titles one after the other until the current week's Producer proclaims - "Make That Movie!" That Honkey then had one week to create, write, produce, shoot, edit and premiere a movie using that improvised phrase, word or sentence as their title. The movie would premiere for our Honkeywood audience the following week. I think I got the call the second week. That title was "I Got A New Shirt." I eventually followed with several other titles, "Seething Biscuit," "Help! I'm Yearning For A Pale," and "Cinderheart."

I'm proud of them all for various reasons, but one of the wackiest ones was "Seething Biscuit." I made this little movie about 3 months before we heard of a movie being made for the big screen - "Sea Biscuit." It's mind boggling and a little scary how this improvised title could parallel what would eventually come to the theaters.

I gotta admit I'm a Mac fan. As a proud owner of a MacBook Pro and an iPhone, both which I love, this video hits my funny bone rather well. In fact, I must say I have been enjoying very much comedy videos from the Onion. I am impressed with the level of production they are able to obtain. They score extremely high on news parody - they did so in print and now in picture.



Very funny.

This post is made after our neighbor comments to my wife Morgan - "Hey, what's up with the Christmas Lights?"