Another bad idea brought to you by the Shuck 'N Jive

Some of you may know that awhile back, I took some improv classes.  I cannot recommend this enough to anyone and everyone.  You don't have to want to be a professional improver (in fact, I recommend against that as it doesn't pay jack squat), you just have to have an open mind.  I think the benefits of improv in your everyday life would make it worth your while.  You will spend several hours a week with other people that will create a safe, nurturing environment for you.  You will learn to treat everyone as though they were a genius and in return, everyone will treat you like a genius and you'll feel a sense of support I've never found anywhere else.  You'll also get to make a lot of dick and fart jokes, that's worth the $200-$300 price tag alone!

Ok, now that I'm sure all of my readers have signed up for an intro improv class, I'll move on to tell you about one of my favorite improv books.  It's called Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier.  There's a lot of improv books out there and they say a lot of different things.  Nobody is right and nobody is wrong.  People are different and some books help certain people more than others.  I happen to do well with this one.  One of the things I like about this book is the exercises it gives you to help you train your mind.  One of my personal favorites is the Dada Monologue.  The basic idea behind it is to not make any sense.  This helps you work on free association.  To get started, just look at something and start talking about it, but don't try to make any sense.  In fact, the second you feel yourself starting to make sense, turn it around and crazy it up a bit.  I find this helps me when I'm in a writing rut.  I almost never do it, but when I do, boy does it work wonders!  Here's an example:

Pine tar is often used in the elaborate recreation of tombstones for monkey lemons.  The best way to fight cats is to use broad words and mannerisms most often tickled by the idea of a sandwich making a hot dog eat frugal mints.  Often lost is the hasty retreat of the television gone shopping at the colloquial benchmark brought to the staple of a timely diet.  Champion telestrators are one of the many philosophical differences between keyboards and typists.  Among all glass fixtures surprised by the lack of intermittent markers is the jump rope of my best friends lost dynamo.  Paper clips seem like harmless hamsters compared to the finite amount of cheddar ice cream in the world of Walt Disney.

Ok, I screwed up.  I feel like the sentence, "Champion telestrators are one of the many philosophical differences between keyboards and typists." actually makes sense.  And if it doesn't, I don't want to hear about it, I just want to draw a picture of what I think that means.

I'm pretty sure that picture will crystallize it for you, but for those of you that don't quite get it, let me explain by saying that keyboards, by there very nature, are logical.  Typists on the other hand, are an extremely sad people.  You'll notice that the typist in the picture above doesn't even have a flat panel monitor.  In this day and age, it's demeaning to be forced to use a CRT monitor.  You can't even give those things away.

I'm glad I could clear that up for you.  I'm going to go play Guitar Hero 5 now.