Joe Bill #1

Joe Bill from Chicago, USA. It is me. I am here in Gdansk. Yes, you are in the middle of the woods. It's amazing here. And it's much cooler here than it is in the States right now. Cooler? The temperature is about 10 degrees No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea. No idea. It was great. It was a great festival. It was nice to be in another place that's not the insanity of the United States right now as we're recording this.

I've been in the United States since Trump got shot at and since Joe Biden stepped down. Damn. And so it's been good to be in Europe while things go crazy. And then there's been record heat there, even amongst all of the politicians who say there's no global warming. But I haven't had to think about all that until right now. This should be a great podcast. Okej, tak. Czy jest tam polityczna improwizacja w Stanach Zjednoczonych? Ludzie często dotyczą polityki, czy nie? Nie sądzę, że tak. Nie mówię o tym, że wiem o tym. Nie mam pojęcia. Myślę, że są improwizatorzy, którzy postują rzeczy politycznie zrozumiałe online, z punktami widzenia.

I think America is sort of soaking in pop culture reference to keep their minds off of everything that's terrible. And I mean pop culture references I think have always been, at least for the last 10 or 15, 20 years, part of American improv. I think it's a reflection of how shallow my country is in general and especially amongst younger people. You know, and I think, I mean, You just missed... You're not... What are you, Gen X? No. I'm a millennial. Are you a millennial? I am. Oh my gosh. Are you? Yes. I know yesterday you told me that I'm the youngest 55-year-old you've ever met.

And so when people are desperate to be funny when they improvise, they go for what's in the media or what's in the popular mindset, the gestalt of Was the world funnier in the 90s or 80s? Hmm, może. Nie pamiętasz, cały czas byłeś stoną. Tak, byliśmy wysoki, tak. Nie mówisz, że byliście wysoki, ale czasów 90-tych to były trakcje seksu, rock'n'rolla i improv.

How do we optimize each of those sensibilities when we're doing different improvisation? What's neurologically true is the more we are in a jazz state of mind, the more blind we typically become to engineering opportunities when we Imprevise and vice versa. The more we lead with our engineer brain, which is most people, the more blind to jazz opportunities we become. Or we just don't have access to the other level of the unspoken, the unanalytical Z punktu widzenia działania, jak zainteresować się tym, co jest pomiędzy słowami, które mówimy. Co jest w naszych zachowaniach, co jest emocjonalne, psychologiczne świadomość, myśli, wszystkie te rzeczy.

Czy możemy wziąć wszystkie rzeczy, które nierdy hobbyści by wziął i wtedy powiedzieć, OK, a teraz dodajmy komercję do tego, a jak dostaniemy kawałek na siedziach, a jak marketingujemy to, a jaka jest nasza odpowiedzialność? I znowu, zamiast ja mówić, co to jest, I think different groups should have the autonomy and the agency as a group to figure out for themselves without having to feel pressured to live up to how another group and even in neighboring town or somewhere else in the world is doing it. And so I think at this point in time in improv Właściwie przez lata w imprezie, kiedy widzę grupy, które się odpoczywają od siebie, widzę grupy, które mają wewnętrzne cierpliwości, to dlatego, że osoby w grupie robią to z innej powodzeniem.

Tak. I dlatego, że ludzie odbierają się do bardziej profesjonalnej prezentacji i bardziej profesjonalnych umiejętności. Wiesz, nie mają sposobu, żeby rozmawiać z ludźmi, którzy chcą tylko, wiesz, przyjechać raz w tygodniu i prawie, wiesz, może jestem na jednym reho a miesiąc. What if the group wants to rehearse four times a month? Do you want to rehearse four times a month because you want to be professional or is it because it's a hobby and it's a social activity and you want to nerd out on Jane Austen or Shakespeare or Star Trek? Or if it's just a recreational group, then why four times a month are we going to practice? And so again, just like every place in the world, I think there's people in improvisation

Who want to mandate that all improvisation should be one thing. All improv has to be this way. All improv has to take this into account. All improv has to search to have the perfect balance of this, that or the other. And I think that there's some good heart behind a lot of it. But it's also... It's driven by a lot of people that are seeking recognition and seeking to... You know, control something that you can't really control. When someone tells me, improv is this, you have to do it like this, I'm like, I'm just instantly like, don't tell me how to live my life.

A potem, zanim wiesz o czymś... Mówimy tutaj z małym doświadczeniem. I, wiesz, potem idziesz na kilka spotkań i jest tak, o, wiesz, to jest dosyć dobrze, ale eee, okej, no, mogę to robić na chwilę. I część tego, że mogę to robić na chwilę, to, że, no, nie wiem, o czym się szukam, ale robienie jest fajne, i fajne jest być w barze z tą osobą, ale, wiesz, Maybe you sleep one way and I sleep another way. And then it's like all of a sudden, oh, if we sleep next to each other, okay. And then, you know, maybe I'm a neat person and, you know, maybe you're a clutter person, you know, or maybe, you know, all of this stuff just kind of comes into it.

And, you know, the commonality is people just want to be in a relationship. And whether it's a romantic relationship or an improv relationship, W mojej opinii, jeśli nie wiesz, kim jesteś w romantycznej relacji, czy w nieprzyjemnej, tak jak w wszystkim, tam jest datka ekspira. Tam jest datka ekspira na wszystko, ale czasami, kiedy się nauczysz, kim jesteś, You have to be with a group to learn who you are in one context. And then now all of a sudden who you are is not right to be in that group anymore. And then people, you know, the number of good breakups is so small.

Good or healthy breakups is so small compared to, you know, bad, unhealthy, soul crushing. Niemiecy nie są wdzięczni, że są w związku. Niemiecy nie są wdzięczni, że są w grupie improwizacyjnej. Musimy być wdzięczni dla siebie i dla własnego szczęścia. I to byłoby świetne. Pytam się, czy mówię o tym w moim książce, ale to byłoby świetne, Miałem kilka spotkań, w których wiedziałem, że to jest tylko na pewien czas. To nie jest całe. Miałem rzeczy, które wyglądały na spotkania.

And you had many workshops. Yes. What about relationships? Yes. Tak, to jest dokładnie to. Najpierw może się nauczyć tego, czego potrzebujesz, kim jesteś, czego chcesz. Możesz także znaleźć kogoś, kto może chce coś podobnego. Słyszałem, że w tym festiwalu, w innych festiwalu, jest większość ludzi w 20-tych, niektórzy w 30-tych. I just started doing this a year or two ago or I started doing this during the pandemic and then I came out and I started doing this more and I just want to do this all the time and it's all I want to do and it's everything, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, do you want to date that person?

Yes, and it's perfect for depressed people, for oxytocin. It's perfect for anxious people who can get around anxious people. It's perfect. One of the great and horrible things about improvisation Teatrical improvisation as a creative proposition. I resist calling improv an art form. But improvisation can teach itself. Elaborate. Improvisation, whether you believe in rules or not, there's books on improvisation and in my day most people started with games anyway. So if you read directions on how a game is supposed to go, You know, and have a bottle of wine and six people can play some games and they can learn fairly quickly what's fun about playing, what's a fun way to play the game and what's not a fun way to play the game.

Kreatura, Kreatura, Kreatura If you're going to take this practicing of this game or practicing of whatever you're doing and put it in front of an audience that they can help facilitate skills in you that will ultimately make that audience member feel like they got value for whatever they paid for it. Including, yeah, we're not, no, including

Wiem. I ja też tak mówiłam, i mówię o tym dużo w rozmowach, że południowy aktor Jerzy Sztur właśnie przeszedł i powiedział, że daje 15 minut na wystawę. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, he leaves, because he just doesn't want to waste his life and energy. So I have this saying like, okay, I'm asking myself, would Sztur stay or leave? And I'm like, Sztur would leave, I leave. So I'm like more or less 15 minutes, especially during festivals, when you have like six hours of shows and sometimes you just have to take a break. Tak, nie możesz... Myślę, że kiedy masz 40 lat, albo kiedy robisz to przez 10 lat, myślę, że dość szybko wiesz, jak to będzie.

Wcześniej to było takie wyzwanie dla nerdów, żeby próbować zobaczyć każdą show w jakichkolwiek festiwalach. No i teraz są ludzie, którzy organizują festiwale, i jest to tak, jakby, mądrze mandatowane, że lepiej być tam na każdej show, lepiej być tam do wsparcia, i, wiesz, dlatego, że robią ten mandat, zabierają agencję osobistą, żeby prawie, szczerze mówiąc, autentycznie być w wsparciu tego show. To jest straszne. It's awful. And it deludes the people on stage that are not doing good improvisation into thinking they are doing good improvisation and because a lot of those people just are seeking to solidify egos or at least confidence in themselves, mandating people to be there, to have butts in the seats and giving fake, you know, to give phony feedback even just by your being there if you don't care to be there.

You know, helpful at least to an artistic condition. It feels like at any point the world could just tip towards this collection of authoritarian mafias, where everybody's, you know, in a little nationalistic fucking nightmare. And that politicians and religious overlords will try to keep us from speaking each other's language, performing in each other's, creating with each other in different ways. ...or valuing things that are beyond what they would mandate upon us. And so maybe, even amongst people I don't care for, that we all are improvisers and doing improvisation, it'll give this way of thinking a chance to have some type of fuck you to political and religious leaders.

And I'm fully fine with people hating me or telling me to, you know, check my privilege or whatever. And it's, I'm aware of my privilege. I'm aware of my privilege, of my maleness, of my relative, depending on the era, you know, straightness. Zależnie od okoliczności. Zależnie od okoliczności. Jestem przywilejowany, bo jestem wysoki. Jestem przywilejowany, bo jestem głupi. Jestem przywilejowany, bo jestem Amerykaninem. Jestem przywilejowany, bo uciekłem z kościoła katolickiego. Jestem przywilejowany, bo I have intellect. I'm privileged because I was abused by my parents. I'm privileged that I survived abuse. I'm privileged that I can have access to a therapist.

I'm privileged that I was one of two white guys on a high school basketball team. And I'm privileged that when my mother was in a mental institution, I learned the value of black women as mother figures in a context that very few other white kids may have seen. And so I don't give a fuck about anybody hating me or trying to shout me down because of my privilege. It's a privilege to be an improviser. It's a privilege for someone who's stepping on the stage for the first time of any gender, race, orientation, whatever. It's a privilege to step on that stage. The world is made up of Names mentioned in English.

I'm at there. And if you don't want me there to be in service to your people, I welcome your not inviting me. Yes. So I don't know if that rant is good for anything. Well, I didn't want to interrupt and I think I have nothing to add because you did pretty well. Except I talked over you as a man and I didn't give the woman space to talk. Of course. Even though it's her podcast and she asked you a question. Oh, I love you. I love you too. I don't have any more to add to this topic, so I will just go to the question from Piotr. Because I ask on Instagram, just for you people listening. I ask on Instagram if anyone wants to ask a question to Joe or whatever.

I didn't really learn anything. I just did some exercises and there really wasn't any insight or anything new. They were just, you know, maybe of the cut I talked about before of like, improv can teach itself. And if you can show up and just run a few exercises, Yes.

Oh guys, oh my god, we are so traumatized after school and people are scared to speak up because they will say something stupid and then they will be punished in front of the class or whatever. Everything is still somewhere there. It is requiring people to raise their hands, keeps order, which takes away from people the opportunity Kreatura, Kreatura, Kreatura.

Do you know what a Ponzi scheme is? It's like a pyramid scheme, right? And the con artists are the evangelicals and the people who go try to convert people. And it's all based in You can have everlasting life for all of eternity and happiness and joy or you're gonna burn in hell. And I mean I can't say anything better than George Carlin said it and thankfully people all over the world mostly can see his videos. Yes. But it's in that process fear and punishment like you say the Prussian school and shame. I mean that's puritanical America. Ironically, it's as much in the extreme right as it is in the extreme left.