Making a Commitment

This weekend will mark the release of the 8th episode of my podcast, currently titled the Mike Handelman Podcast, although that may change soon... the title I mean. But hopefully not the dedication I've shown in producing it regularly! Even more regularly than I write this blog, and guess which takes a greater investment of time and energy? It's a rhetorical question, making a podcast is much harder. Yet rewarding! Even if they are averaging ten to twenty downloads a piece... which come to think of it, is how much traffic my blog posts receive on average... but for me, a big part of this experiment has been committing to an idea and sticking to it. The idea in this case being producing and regularly releasing a podcast, just like a professional person in the entertainment industry. Not that there are that many people making a living off their podcasts, in fact almost no one is doing that, but they are using them as a tool to promote themselves and their brand. The archetypal example being Marc Maron, who had worked as a respected although not particularly affluent stand up who helped kick off what's called the "alt comedy" movement, and stayed afloat in the entertainment industry throughout the 90s before joining with the ship that was Air America (an attempt at a liberal talk radio station) through it's various ups and downs and after being finally fired from it for the last time, started doing a podcast.

An example numerous comedians have followed, myself being one of them. When asked what young comedians started out should do, another well known podcaster (if you follow podcasts that is, which lots of people don't, yet) Doug Benson said "start a twitter account and then start a podcast" both of which are easy, free ways of self promotion and brand building (unless and until your podcast blows than you need to pay for hosting but that's another thing) and podcasting isn't as easy as it sounds! At least, not if you want to do it well, which is my ultimate goal.

And keeping sight of that goal has eased the transition from the end of Uncle Vanya to where I'm at now, which is focused on editing and releasing a new podcast every Sunday and listening for what myself and my partner Jesse can do better from week to week, a goal I've been accomplishing.

And thinking about it feels like a real accomplishment. I was reflecting on my past creative endeavors and I realized that I've put more focus, time and energy into this project than just about anything else I've ever started completely on my own. Sure I've put a lot of time into theatre and film things that I've been a part of over the years, but in all of those examples I've been in some way or another subservient to another person's master plan. But this is me, this is my thing, and so far it's success or failure has been dependent on my talent and dedication.

With that comes a degree of anxiety, I am collaborating with someone else and I can't take all the credit even if I am the "director" of the project (and the producer, and the editor, and the... you get the idea) and I'm trying to keep Jesse on board and motivated without being a pain in the ass. Which is a feeling I struggle with. In the few times I've taken on a "director" role, prior this point exclusively in theatre classes, it's something I've struggled with as well. The people I'm working with are volunteering their time and energy, and how do I manage that effectively and not be overbearing? If nothing else, this phase of my podcasting career will also serve as a record of how we got to know each other and have become better friends by working on this together and how do I manage that friendship aspect of the project? It would be easier in some ways to hire someone to do the podcast with me, but not nearly as satisfying or rewarding, and I can't easily think of anyone else I'd rather be working with from week to week. But there's that component, from week to week to week, I'm asking for a lot of time and so far he's been very gracious in giving it and I couldn't have gotten this far without him in the room lending his energy... I've tried it, and getting on the microphone by yourself is harder and a lot less fun than having someone to bounce energy off of. It's also a necessary skill I should learn someday, and I can think of some examples in the podcast field of people who do it very well.

Which brings to mind another source of anxiety, where am I going with this? When and how will I take it there? One step has been the establishment of a Facebook page for my podcast. A facebook page I actually established a while ago intending it as a means of promotion for my acting stuff and this blog, but I've been too bashful to share it with the world. No longer! That shits gone public! Likewise I've yet to move beyond the very small pond of Buzzsprout, the free service where I've been hosting my podcast and where no one is particularly likely to see it without first being linked to another, more professional and money costing service like Libsyn and then to the grand daddy of podcast directories... iTunes. Basically, I've been waiting until we could consistently deliver a product I felt comfortable sharing with strangers, which took us a while both from a technical stand point and a creative one but I feel like we've gotten there and my hope is when I get from the January intensive to start doing that. Assuming we can resume our present momentum, which I'm hopeful we can and even if it takes a little while I now have a nice back log of episodes to recycle.

So all in all, I feel good about the work I've been doing. I've found an outlet separate from my live performance, channeled my energy into it and taken visible steps towards developing it... all good things! Now, the next steps are to develop a live performance component that ties back to the podcast which I hope will be Jesse and I's comedy music which we can play out with first at open mics and then hopefully at real events in real venues. And of course, actually building an audience. All in good time! Time I look forward to.

Feeling Victorious

This week was a good one. For starters, my improv troupe Rebels Without Applause (find us on Facebook OR ELSE) went up against two other improv troupes Tuesday night at the Back Page in Lowell. It was a comedy contest judged by a local stand up and some radio personality types, first prize being a gift certificate to a local joint, and tickets and back stage passes to Who's Line Is It Anyway? alumni Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood show coming to Lowell. Going into it, I didn't think there would only be three groups performing and it never seriously occurred to me that we could win. But we did! I know, crazy right? We did some strong stuff in our opening set of twenty minutes, then in the semi final five minute one scene round, we really knocked out of the park with some kick ass scene work, singing and my guitar playing. Our plan going into it was that if we made it that far we'd do one of our signature games, "Musical" which is basically a mini musical with an ingenue threatened by a bad guy who is then saved by the hero... musical! Our heroes in this case were nuns who's bus broke down outside of a bar on the super bowl, the villians were drunken patriots fans and the hero/in this case guitar player was Jesus played by me who encouraged everybody in the joint to drink heavily and tip their bartenders well. If you are ever performing in a bar, that's probably a sound strategy. Anyhow, everybody performed awesome and it was a pretty great time. Winning was kind of icing on the case.

The show is Friday, and I still haven't fully processed it. I grew up watching the Who's Line guys in reruns (I was always more of a fan of the English version) and it definitely affected my view of performance and improv. Getting to watch and then meet someone like Colin Mochrie... let's just say it will be a blog post. And my profile picture for a while.

The past two days we rehearsed and shot a staged version of my friend Cassie Seinuk's play "The Muse", which we'd previously performed at Turtle Lane as part of their Young Actor's Winter Festival and then in New York for the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival. The script is pretty fantastic, and it just keeps having legs, because this time it was accepted as a contender for the Strike 38 festival in New York. Our options were to go and do it, or film a staged presentation, so we ended up filming it. Working on this script was like visiting with an old friend after having done it twice already. It was new again, because we had a third actor playing my scene partner. It was interesting as well, because I felt the weight of my experience doing Swimming in the Shallows upon my performance and I mean that in a good way. Malcolm Gladwell, I think in Outliers and this quote I've only heard referenced I've never read the book, thinks that to get really good at something you have to spend like 10,000 hours practicing it. I think that applies to acting. And the best way to get better is performing in front of people. Swimming in the Shallows was pretty incredible, because I got to do it live fifteen times which is quite a few more performances then I usually get. So I really felt fresh and vital revisiting Finn, and that felt good!

I should wrap this up. I'm auditioning today for Apollinaire's R&G Are Dead and then tonight I have a front row mezzanine seat to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom which I will then blog about more throughly. And also other stuff I'll have to talk about later. Till then!