The answer is not 42.

Any normal Friday in Westwood.  UCLA students fill the streetside restaurants, and line up outside the local ice cream and cookie shop where you get sweet treats on the sly cheap.  One street over from Diddy Riese, across a small pay lot, and through a unmaked black door there I am.  I prepare to leap into my first scene of the the night before a packed out house of 20ish-ers  With one of my closest allies next to me, he's Beast and I'm a grown man with the name of a half-Japanese teenage girl.  Together we are willingly made slave subjects to: The Improv X-ecution. 


This weekend I had the venerable joy of surviving my first Improv X-ecution match; an event almost three years in the making.  I remember first stepping into what was still "Ultimate Improv" back in '08 to watch my roommate in his X-ecution.  Next door to the UCLA In - N - Out I'd see the contestants warming up in the parking lot.  Usually in a circle.  Usually doing something resembling a focus exercise.

It was my second time auditioning that landed me in a position where I am actually performing in this charade.  The first time around I remember getting my acceptance call from J.D. while at the "Dude Ranch", my old apartment and the one adjacent to it.  I ducked into John and Sean's bathroom in order to avoid the noise from the living room.  That same spring/summer I ended up going to Miami w/Powerchord Academy and  had to resign from the X-ecution before it even began. 

But now, after seeing Ryan, Mauricio, and Nick do very well for themselves in this competition I now take on the mantle. I represent iO, Shirts on Shirts, and Monkey Butler.  And also myself. 

I have found through practical introspective, and thoughtful amateur self psychoanalysis that I am a person who finds much worth in what I do.  That working is actually a motivator for happiness.  Even moreso working where I am able to fire the cannons of my specific skill set like mad.  One would say I have found self worth, and meaning in my work.

However, lately I've been finding that the answer to the question of the meaning of life is closer to group mind, and zip zap zop than one's career, or even numerical justification(thanks Douglas Adams).  Improv connects people to each other.  Emphasizes agreement, and positivity over pointless conflict.  Focus on eye contact over looking out at a void of nothingness.  So few people at work actually look each other in the eyes.  The corporate hoards that rarely smile usually surmount to fear vs. Love... and who's winning? 

I'm very blessed to be able to get up on a stage w/a diminishing group of people every week, perform, and get cut into about my work.  Thank you if you saw the first round, and thank you if you'll be out anytime until my death.

Improv X-ecution: Friday 8:00PM, The Improv Space, Westwood, CA