When I Knew What I Was

My dad suggested I take a Second City Improv class because all the ad creatives he knew took classes there. His theory was that I’d somehow parlay my way into a useful job by hobnobbing in the world of “Yes and.”

Though the first class I went to had one crazy-eyed woman from Leo Burnett in it, the group was mostly made up by people who wanted to be standup comics (it was that era).

During introductions, these would-be standups made kooky faces and modulated their voices like that somehow would make whatever they were saying “funny.”

They rolled their eyes when the older woman teaching the class said the point wasn’t to be funny, but to play and find something unexpected. “Funny” was all they had on their minds.

We did some work in a circle and it was quickly clear that they we’re very sure if they just talked over everyone else that we’d all start cracking up. Just when it was beginning to get desperate, we had a break.

When we came back we played a game where we all walked in the space until soemone took on a motion for a character that we all had to copy. Again, the comedians worked hard to make people laugh — mostly by walking normally and using their voice to make weird sounds.

Then someone, out of nowhere, got on all fours and started acting like a dog. They barked. They scratched. They lifted legs. About a third of the class got down and copied it. I looked around. Almost all of the comedians were standing there like frozen posts looking around. They couldn’t believe what they were being asked to do. Terrified, indignant, judgey.

I looked from them to the dogs rolling and baying on the floor at my knees.

I asked myself: If I came here to just stand around like these jokers and not put everything I had into it, I’d never get anything out of it.

So I got down on all fours and started sniffing someone’s ass - like a dog does when they meet another dog - while hopeful standups looked around plaintively for help.

Still remember that moment 35 years after the fact.