Make art that replaces AI

En route to band practice several days ago, I was ankle-deep in the same anxiety vortex as has befallen me nigh daily these past many months.

Would I soon be replaced by generative AI? Has the technology advanced to the point where I'm already obsolete? Why have drum machines never instilled this same fear and unease? Side note: I'm a drummer, and I recommend the instrument. Great for blowing off some steam. But remember your earplugs!

Anyhow, I was cycling furiously and chatting with my father via earbuds. He was listening patiently as I ruminated.

And then he said something remarkable. "Make art that replaces AI," he stated in his booming Bronx tone.

If Amsterdam's cycling traffic wasn't so frantic, I would have stopped right there in the lane.

Make art that replaces AI. What a novel and beautiful concept! And so obvious, really, if you think about the fact that I was literally on my way to play analog music with a timeless instrument made of wood, metal, and pure, groovy brawn.

Generative AI isn't going away, but neither are we

It's been said time and time and time again: generative AI is here to stay. The future of creativity in work and pleasure is as confusing and uncertain as its ever been. Many folks, me likely included, are already losing clients and full-time employment as companies leap to save tons and tons of cash (in the short term).

But we're all still here, as are all the species of art at our disposal. Perhaps we may see this rapid shift as an opportunity to do the art that matters most to us in the way we want to do it, and take our sweet, delicious time.

I've always maintained that nearly all ideas are devoid of deeper meaning without time and effort. Craft and thought matter immensely, and if powerful folks with their hands on the proverbial purse try to muscle us out in favor of speed, then in reality we can take as much wandering, pondering time as we want. We can put in our 10,000 hours for the adoration of the thing itself.

"Made with love" will be a rallying cry as opposed to a sales pitch. Creativity shouldn't be some monetized force to be unleased, but an expression of our own precious truths we can recapture.

Am I actually practicing what I'm preaching?

The way I see it, there are two major ways that I can uphold this philosophy.

Way the first: support arts and creative endeavors and the humans toiling away at this wondrous stuff. Amsterdam has a thriving comedy and theater scene, and if there's one thing that generative AI can't do yet, it's connect on a human level from stage to audience.

And that connectivity, the emotional heat you feel in a room where performers are transmuting raw human experience into resonant expression, is one of the greatest sensasions you can feel. I love it, at least. Both from a performance perspective and as a human sitting in that space soaking in the moment-to-moment creativity.

So, I organize shows, attend shows, market shows, and do my part financially to help ensure that these local things stay afloat and thrive.

I also teach improvised comedy and theater sometimes, and I'm quite adamant about making it all about the love and fun of it. Yes, improv can help with communication, public speaking, pitching, etc., but it's crucial to recognize that it's a chance to be silly and vulnerable safely. With fellow members of our ridiculous species.

Way the second: do art. That's it! Just do any creative thing you want, without the need to churn out quick artifacts.

Learn to play the bass and don't forget scales. Take photos of birds but with an analog camera. Paint like nobody's watching. Do molecular gastronomy at home. Doodle in a notebook and then put the notebook away, instead of posting each doodle to the Gram.

I've been doing improv for around twenty years, and throughout that time, I've really struggled with wanting to get better faster. You fail a lot when you're doing creative stuff. I once sang "Seasons of Love" to a room of five grumpy dudes who already didn't like my stand-up material. Generative AI would probably have optimized around that, but it was a teaching experience. It was me putting the hours in to become the performer I am today and the performer I'll be tomorrow. And I wouldn't trade it.

There's no substitute for the work, and it's our choice to value that work or not. As someone who has tried to cut corners and done less impactful, resonant art because of it, I can safely say that patience and careful craft make all the difference.

The trick is really enjoying it. Monetization options be damned, no one can take away the joy of caring about every seemingly arduous step. That's the story of every piece you create.

And really, people will always pay for a good story. That's how we as creative humans triumph. I sure hope so, at least.

Why everyone in the world should take an improv class

One of my favorite improv teachers (Jay Sukow) once told me that the world would be a better place if everyone took an improv class. Not because we'd all be funnier and sillier (that would certainly be fun), but because we'd all be better listeners and treat one another (and ourselves) with more reverence, kindness, and empathy.

This was an enormously positive sentiment that I've carried with me ever since. And I've never doubted it, not even for a moment.

I've been doing improv for over twenty years. That's a long time to do anything, and definitely long enough to allow resentments and jealousies to flourish, even at the best of times. Improv is, after all, an art form, and art's a competitive world to be in. You're constantly seeing folks vault beyond you and scoop up praise and opportunities that haunt your wishes.

The distinction with improv as a constantly expanding galaxy in the broader universe of art and theater is that it draws its strength from community rather than individual talent. The best shows and classes are the ones where folks are connected and give space to one another to give to the warm collective.

It's an opportunity to face that very human desire to be seen and heard and instead feel the incredible power of seeing and hearing others. Being an ensemble player, a gift giver.

As many improvisers will tell you, improv enhances your ability to listen, to notice funny and curious things around you and transform them into resonant stories, to find your unique voice and confidence, adapt to tricky situations with joy and agility, and say yes to the wild ideas you may consistently stifle as a working adult.

These are all true, and tangible reasons to at least take one improv taster class. But what's helped me most has been that slow rewiring to give others the stage, really listen to what folks are saying (and meaning), and spotlight the brilliance of those around you.

The world would be a better place if we did all that.

But wait, what even is improv?

Good question! I've been going on about how much I love improv, and I failed to define it simply and accurately. Here goes:

Improv (or improvised comedy/theater, and impro in the UK and Europe) is the art of making stuff up. Folks step onstage and get some form of input - the traditional method is to ask the audience for suggestions, but more practitioners are finding other ways to get inspired - and away we go! Characters, settings, stories, relationships, and everything else are discovered moment to moment until the curtain closes.

In an improv show, everything is made up on the spot, so no two shows are alike, even when ensembles use familiar framing devices like an improvised murder mystery or competitive game show.

For most of its modern history, improv has been an indie or community pursuit. There are tons of local theaters dotted around the world, with grassroots artistic movements sprouting up where established theaters haven't taken root yet. It's incredibly accessible, as all you need is one person with enough experience to teach the basics and a practice room.

But improv has broken into the zeitgeist a bunch of times. You may have seen an episode or several of Whose Line Is It Anyway? or caught Middleditch & Schwartz on Netflix. Many trained improvisers have gone on to star in Saturday Night Live. Jordan Peele, the acclaimed director of Get Out, got his start as an improv and sketch comic at BOOM Chicago in Amsterdam. As did Jason Sudeikis, who wrote and starred in Ted Lasso (with Brendan Hunt, also a BOOM alum and an incredible dresser).

OK, so improv is adult make-em-ups, but... how does it work for real?

Another good question! And one I've answered as a teacher a bunch of times. The answer is both simple and needlessly complicated. Let's start with the simple answer.

The engine that powers all improv is a couple of words: Yes, and. In improv, you say yes to everything (within reason) and add small bits and pieces to every new agreement.

Say that two people walk onstage and one of them shouts, "Grandma Beatrice! The house is ablaze!"

Saying yes, and means agreeing that you are, in fact, Beatrice and the house is burning down. The biggest challenge in that moment is thinking, "wait, what, no it's not, we're in a middle school classroom after hours that we rented and nothing is on fire and I'm 37 years old and I also had an idea of what I wanted to do," and then shedding all of those preconceived notions to just say, "yeah it is!"

And that's the simple answer. Listening to what comes before, saying yes in the safest capacity (there are lots of things I encourage you to say no to in improv, but that's a whole other topic), and adding a little bit on top to deepen the relationship and story being discovered.

There is also a complex answer. Or, to be fair, lots and lots and lots of complex answers. Over the years, comedy and theater sorcerers have cooked up all sorts of methods for learning improv. Some methods veer toward getting the most laughs per line, while others borrow more from established theater traditions and teachers. Still others employ costumes and sets. One of the most known methodologies is Game, where players notice an odd detail or paradigm and use patterns and comedy premise work to build more sketch-like shows. I'm a sucker for something called Free Form, where you learn how to play moments, as opposed to scenes, and use a unique toolkit of stagecraft techniques to create really flowy, often avant garde, set pieces.

The fun thing is that all of these methods are correct. Really, the only defining feature of improv is that it's made up, so you can do an improvised anything. I've seen everything from improvised Jane Austen to made-up Molière. You can improvise anything and everything.

Improv does sound great! How in the world did you fall into this weird galaxy?

It's been a long and windy road, dear reader, and not one that's even close to completion.

Before I was an improviser (and writer, I guess), I desperately wanted to be a voice actor. My hero growing up was Mel Blanc, the genius voice behind nearly every Looney Tunes character, second only to every single Muppet. I can still do a decent Miss Piggy and have never mastered Foghorn Leghorn.

So when I encountered theater in middle and high school, I saw it as a way to channel that silly engine within me. My first role was Harvey Johnson in Bye Bye, Birdie for some incredibly useful context.

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I goofed my way into an underground sketch comedy group that did a bit of improv as well. It was there that I created the character Chugnut the Clown, a persona and name that's haunted me ever since. I learned a few improv exercises that I've used since (that's like 16 years).

After graduating, I moved to Spain to do a master's degree in Barcelona. There I encountered a delicious group of hideously talented misfits known as the Barcelona Improv Group. I auditioned in the basement of a cave-like cocktail bar and impressed them with my ability to play multiple characters at once and hurl myself about the stage with little regard for my physical wellbeing. I was younger and foolhardy.

Barcelona is where I really got to sharpen my skills as a performer, teacher, and community builder. I had the distinct pleasure of helping develop an international festival that served as an inspiration and blueprint for others across Europe. And I got a mild concussion after two fellow players accidentally dropped me on my head. I was younger and foolhardy.

My master's complete, I moved north to Amsterdam with the erroneous notion that it had a real winter like my native Boston, Massachusetts. I miss fall foliage (ask me about it).

Things really got cooking in Amsterdam. I co-created a community theater called Tag Out Theater with a fellow sojourner and fiercely funny individual named Nora. This ridiculously venture included monthly or bi-monthly shows featuring new and veteran talent from all over Amsterdam and the Netherlands, workshops taught by us or by amazing teachers who agreed to work with us, lots and lots of community building and organizing, and two 12-hour improv marathons that were essentially four-day festivals crammed into single days. It was marvelous and a lot.

Alongside creating Tag Out Theatre, I also traveled to perform and teach across Europe, both at improv collectives and at corporates wanting those sweet, sweet transferable skills. It was a wild decade to cram on top of my previous ten years of making up stuff in front of a crowd. There was also the lockdown, but let's not think about that.

Today, I'm part of a lovely troupe of mega talented players called Cliffs of Dover, one-fourth of a touring super group called Land of Giants (Nora, in her infinite wisdom, came up with the inside joke behind the name, and you should ask me about it), and I occasionally perform a one-person improvised science fiction epic.

And after all that, there are still so many places to go, so many things to be, and so many discoveries left unearthed. Improv is infinite.

Sounds like it was smooth sailing the whole way!

Time for a twist! The truth is, it's been really challenging for many protracted stretches of time. As I said before, improv is a performing art and you're constantly trying to get onstage or get teaching opportunities. It's quite competitive, as is the case for all art.

There have been moments over the last twenty years when I've felt paralyzed, unwanted, lonely, and creatively smooshed. More may arrive soon enough.

Being an improviser has brought me face to face with the harshest sides of myself. I've had to contend with my sharpest competitive edge, my most potent jealousies, and that awful but pervasive and all-encompassing question: "why not me?" And by "had to" I mean "continue to." It's a journey, some say.

That's where being an ensemble player - being an improviser at its most fundamental - has been pivotal.

Improv only really works when everyone is on the same page and supporting the same discovered truths. You're all building everything from nothing, and that takes incredible vulnerability, openness, and faith in oneself and the group. That agreement and trust unleashes sublimity between improvisers more than any clever idea is able to.

A wondrous improv show (or workshop or exercise or whatever) is a perfect illustration of what you can achieve when you a) feel positive about yourself and your choices, b) think of every collaborator as a poet and a genius, and c) care about the collective success that you're willing to be dropped on your noggin (don't actually do this).

Learning improv is also a way to get closer to folks, whether they be strangers in a new city of lonesome wanderers (me in Barcelona and Amsterdam when I first arrived), or co-workers you've known for ages but never had the framing device provided to get silly, strange, open, and joyful in the way only you can achieve. And to see what kind of person you are when you're put in a somewhat embarrassing situation but everyone is laughing with you and saying, "yes, you are the best bird man we've ever seen!"

So instead of mumbling "why not me?" to the frosty universe, you gleefully holler, "of course, you!" to folks who may need those yummy morsels of kindness as much as you do. There's immense, bristling power in going up to another improviser and saying, "that was tremendous and you should be so ridiculously proud of yourself, you absolute legend."

Who'd have thought that the kindest thing you could do for yourself is to be of service to others?

Wow! It really does sound like improv is... like... enlightening!

I mean, I wouldn't go that far. My father is a Shambhala meditation practitioner and I've learned enough to know that what most of us think of as enlightenment is spiritual materialism with a really fancy hat.

Improv is a super useful (and FUN) mindset and toolkit that you can apply as a performance art form or as a practice to be a better communicator and collaborator at work. Maybe for you it's just a way to unwind after a long day of trading environmental financial instruments as market commodities (do you know what a Guarantee of Origin is? I sure do!).

Mostly, I teach improv to new initiates (other writers and businesses of all stripes) to boost confidence, access creativity and imagination, and build trust in the self and among teams, especially those that are on the cusp of amazing work but have creative and interpersonal blockers. I've also taught the performance stuff for many years, but that's a different story (the one above, mostly).

But even in the most basic sessions, I take a few moments to espouse those values of kindness, curiosity, and support. I've been trained to revere and champion my fellow players' choices (their gifts!), and if I can impart that mindset to others, it brings me enormous glee.

As a teacher and a player, I will forever say that everyone in the world should take an improv class. If you're made it this far, then you're probably part of everyone in the world. So what's stopping you?

Twenty nonsensical reprieves from our daily apocalpyse

How are you? No, really, like, how are you? Cause if you're anything like me, you're not completely fine. And that's ok. Feels like we're being crushed mentally, emotionally, and spiritually on a daily basis.

Seriously, the feelings are real and they are shared.

Want a hug? Here. Here's a hug.

Mmm. Wasn't that nice? I needed it, too.

But in reality we didn't hug. We just shared an asynchronous connection through the ether of time, space, and internet strangeness.

So, without that hug, we're still feeling the same doom-xiety that was enveloping us a moment ago. What now?

I'll tell you what now. How about I share my tried and true, exhaustive and silly, list of things that I do (or have done) to bring me wee moments of joy. Pinpricks of nonsensical light in an otherwise shadowy realm. Maybe they'll help you, or maybe, just maybe, you'll find your own silly things to try.

Here they are, in all their mad glory.

1. Take a walk in your most bird-rich park and find a comfy bench. Spot the most confident looking bird and make up a backstory for it. Keep it to yourself unless you have a friend or peer who also finds birds endlessly fascinating and deserving of complex narratives.

2. Research the cultural history of the cupcake in Western civilization. If you've made it to Magnolia Bakery in New York City, you've not gone far enough.

3. Buy a yo-yo and get really good at one trick. If you have the raw courage, bring your yo-yo out in public. Be that person for two weeks (or maybe for the rest of your rad life).

4. Watch competitive video gaming. It's oddly mesmerizing. I'm partial to Pokémon doubles matches. It's much more relaxed than trying to make Pokémon Go happen, and there's an alarming amount of math involved.

5. Make a map of all the best croissants in your area. Don't share this map with anyone - even your closest friends should deserve your pastry knowledge. On that note, create a criteria for folks to meet in order to gain access to your coveted croissant map. In the meanwhile, eat as many croissants as you wish.

6. Go looking for your neighborhood cats. Say hi, but respect their distance. They are wise and noble critters and mustn't be bothered. Let those fuzzy wonders come to you.

7. Learn to make a loaf that's distinctly not sourdough bread. Find all your sourdough buddies and tell them there's another way.

8. Craft your perfect outfit from the items you already own. Wear it to an unlikely location or gathering.

9. On that note, wear sunglasses inside for just enough time to make people look at you a little funny. Then give it five more minutes. You classy, confident legend, you.

10. Take an improv comedy/theater class! This one is more serious, actually, than the previous nine ideas, but you'll come with with nuttier concepts than these in your class. Improv is the ultimate fun way to let go, meet new friends, be silly, and find your voice among all the emotions flooding your dome in this wild day and age.

11. Go eat a muffin. Right now!

12. Turn on one of your favorite albums and listen to it from the first note to the last. Get rid of all distractions or literally anything productive. Sit back and let the music wash over you. If you nap, you nap. It's all good, just enjoy the tunes, man.

13. Do the exercise that suits your fitness level and preference but without anything in your ears feeding you podcasts. Instead, get really into the character of a person that would be exercising. Do you have any neon 80s clothing? Jog in those! Have the sweetest headband ever? Do yoga like nobody's watching.

14. Make a smoothie really slowly.

15. Throw a blanket over your body and pretend you're the baddest wizard in all the land. Cast a couple of spells, see how it feels.

16. Start a video game that you played a long time ago from the very beginning, but this time, you're older and have access to better food and drinks and other comforts. Revel in well-aged nerdiness. To be clear, you have to play the game. Watching a game is a whole other thing.

17. Learn to juggle but show no one until the time is right. True story: I was at the gym and my trainer was trying to juggle with a lot of determination and intensity. He spotted me looking at his attempts and was like, "what, you can juggle?" And I said, "maybe a little," but then really busted into a pretty solid routine. I was the talk of the gym for like three whole days after that.

18. Doodle with your eyes closed for 35 to 95 second. See what the result is and cherish it forever.

19. Search "cat videos" on Youtube and see how long you can watch one of them before you get bored. Hours may pass. They have before. Special note: Cat not required.

20. Make a really tall sandwich. Like, taller than your mouth can handle, but not too tall that it topples over. Record the number of cm's for later. Please tell me about it, it's very important. Don't forget to eat the sandwich.

And that's twenty silly but potentially edifying ways to find nonsense and joy in a world where most sources of information and stimuli are filled with reasons to be glum. I expect I'll encounter and then document more as life moves on at its present, chilling pace.

Thanks for reading and I hope you find your nonsense. You absolutely deserve it.