So, how did I come up with Midair as my SCA name?

It was…gack, fifteen years ago. I had just joined the SCA, and one of the first things I tried to do was figure out a name. We met on Central Campus, in the basement of one of the dorms, I think. I recall about five people at those meetings who are still a part of Cynnabar now. Maybe ten.

Anyway, one of the pre-meeting workshops was to help people find a medieval name. The old timers brought in books, published by the SCA (heraldry people) with lists and lists of all kinds of names.

I was interested in something Celtic. Why? I don’t know. The whole Irish thing sounded cool.

So I flipped through it. I liked the girl names much more than the boy names, so it was difficult to find one that I liked. But then, in the M’s, I found Midar, Midir, and Midair, which are all variations of the same name. Neat! Midair! That was perfect! Juggling in Midair! That would be funny, and also authentic! Perfect for my jester persona.

According to this website, Midir is the “Irish/Celtic ruler of Mag Mor, the underworld. He is a son of the goddess Danu. When he was hit by a twig from a hazel tree and lost one of his eyes, the healer god Dian Cecht placed the healed eye back in its socket.”

So, see, I’m the god of Death.

The problem is that I didn’t register my name fifteen years ago. I waited until I had arms to register, and that was a mistake. Because, when I tried five (seven?) years ago to register my name, the College of Heralds said, “You can’t have a name based on a god.” Or, at least, the Celts at the time didn’t do that.

So my name in the SCA is officially registered as Charles MacCormaic.

Whatever.

MacCormaic means “Son of Cormac.” Cormac was a great fellow in the SCA who was a big part of early Cynnabar, and for fun we pretended that I was his son (with him only one year older than me, that is a pretty impressive feat). We kept that persona story alive, and it actually added a lot to my SCA experience. (He passed away a few years ago, damn it.)

And so, that is the story of my name.

We practiced the presentation until late in the evening. Before going to bed, I actually did my hour+ worth of exercises.

Then I got five hours of sleep, waking up about once an hour.

Up at 5:30 AM PST, and, amazingly, did my squats and pushups!

At the military base by 6:30 AM. Gave the presentation and demo between 7 AM and 8:30 AM, and it went very well.

Had a nice breakfast with colleagues afterwards and talked a lot about business and non-business topics. That is always a great learning experience.

And now I will head to the airport. If things go well, I’ll make it home before 9 PM EST. Just in time to say goodnight to my wife and kids.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to sleep on the plane.

All in all, not a bad trip at all.

I'm just outside of Phoenix, Arizona. We have yet another meeting, this time fro 7 AM to 9 AM. I'll be home by 9 PM. Sigh.

When we arrived, it was 106 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the morning, it should get up to 116. At least I'll be wearing my suit.

Ever have one of those early evenings where you feel a little tired, so you go and lay down on the sofa to relax, maybe read, and instead up just crashing. A sleep so fitful and painful that you are more tired than before and can barely move as you struggle to open your eyes?

That was me tonight.

I’m really wrung out. Between all the trips and the craziness going on at work (most of which is good, actually, but still, a break would be nice!), I’m pretty much reaching my end.

And I still have another trip: leave Monday, arrive in Mesa at 8:30 PM, drive for an hour to the hotel next to the Air Force base, work on the demo, then wake up for the 7 AM meeting. Yes, 7 AM.

It ends at 9 AM. Since it is Pacific Standard Time, we figure we’ll just get up, do the meeting, then have breakfast and head back to the airport. We got an earlier flight, so I’ll be home by 8:30 PM or so (instead of 2:30 AM).

This weekend I can relax. I have another improv class: always fun. I get to make Elaine and family breakfast before that, which I find oddly relaxing. And I have nothing else planned for the rest of the weekend except for some games in the evening on Sunday.

Maybe I’ll get some sleep.

Except, well, I’m wide awake now.

I want anyone and EVERYONE who reads this to post in here something they would like to do with me someday.

Then post this in your journal to find out what people want to do with you.

It was a good Pennsic War.

There is no way it could have been a great Pennsic without Elaine around, but honestly, aside from that, I am not sure how it could have been better without many extra hours available each day.

So, let’s see.

Anne became my protégé. She’s my first, and we had a nice Ceremony on Thursday before Midrealm court with a bunch of people from Cynnabar and Starry Knights attending. I couldn’t get her to ‘laugh at all of my jokes,’ but hey, if I can get her to ask for help at the appropriate times, I’ll feel I’ve succeeded as her advisor. Oddly, our relationship feels differently after the ceremony, even though we’ve been on a trial run (teacher/student) for over a year. I think this will work out well.

She and her husband, Greg, helped me out greatly by setting up my tent for me (and carting it down and back), and helping me (with Kay!) take it down on Friday. It made it possible for me to not miss any improvisation classes.

The weather was incredible. I missed most of the heat when I arrived on Saturday, and it was pleasant during the day and cool at night for the rest of war. Well, except for Friday, but that was my last day anyway, so who cares.

My performances went incredibly well, and I can’t express how happy I am about them! My concern has always been, “Am I really learning anything at Second City?” The main problem is that, unlike television shows, I only get one take. I’m also the guy with all the supposed training and experience, right?

My first performance was the Coxcomb Faculty Performances. With Tim (last year’s Whose Line winner) we did Emotional Option, with Matthew getting suggestions from the audience. I figured out a good blow line, and the actual scene went fine, although there was confusion when I was adding emotions, and not just switching them.

Later in the day I demonstrated my new one man performance piece, “Sir Forgets-a-lot,” to Matthew and Henry (at Coxcomb). I had practiced it (earlier with one of my instructors, as well as alone), and wanted to perform it at the Coxcomb graduation show, so showing it to them and getting advice would be a good thing. It didn’t go nearly as well as I would have liked. I made many mistakes that I’ve made before, and I knew better. For example, I walked around nervously too much, didn’t directly face the audience, etc. The feedback was useful, and I made sure to practice it the rest of the week.

Whose Line Doth It Be, on the other hand, was incredibly fun and was, in my opinion, fantastic. I was the MC and ran it all. Tim helped out and did some scenes with the players, and both Tim and Matthew helped me prune the players down from fourteen who showed up to the twelve we could support. The audition for that was fun on its own! We played ABCs and the singing game “Da Do Run Run.” They were competition games, but loosing didn’t mean a person was out. We evaluated on how well they worked together, their ability to improv, projection, and other factors. I wish we had room for them all.

The show itself was fantastic! The audience was very much into the show. Because of the problems this year, I wasn’t sure we’d have a large audience, but a couple hundred did attend, and they were ready for fun! In the beginning I did some directing of the audience applause, and that went over quite well. We had two teams of six, each of which performed the following games: Conductive Griping, Challenge in a Minute, One Word Story, and Last Letter Scene. I had a blast running the first two games.

After the audience picked the best two from each group (total of four), we had the final rounds: Pockets (pick audience created lines from your pocket), New Choice (run by last year’s winner, Tim), Blind Switch (with Tim helping them out), and, as a run off for the top two, Emotional Option. Judith came in a very close second, and Jacamo won!

It was a fabulous evening.

Earlier that day (Monday) I taught my intro to improv class. Last year I expected 12 people and 50 showed up. This year I expect 50 and only 12 did. I found out later people thought I’d be teaching the exact same thing. They were wrong!

I had far better turn out for my intermediate improvisation class, where we did three line scenes, concentrating on the who, what, and where, drilling that over and over and over. Many students complimented me afterwards and I believe they learned a lot. As did I.

Oh, yes, the fighting. The Middle trounced the East this year. For the first time in a very long time, I was on the winning side of the war. In fact, we only lost one war point. It was odd: I actually fought in the field battle, killed, and also survived to the end. I had plenty of fighting, and saw lots of wonderful chivalry on the battlefield.

During the woods, I discovered that my endurance was up. At around twenty minutes to go I got killed, and managed to walk all the way back, res, and then walk to the front without resting, and fought for the remaining ten minutes!

I also got to see over ten of our ballistas fire as a volley. It was an incredible site to see. My knight also got hit by own of our ballista, which was not a good site to see. Especially since it was from our own Barony.

I mentioned Friday quite a bit. Here was my schedule. Be on the field by 11 AM. 1 PM was Coxcomb graduation rehearsal. 2 PM – 4 PM was the show (it went over to 4:30). Get back to camp and pack. 6 PM was Iron Bard Competition (wasn’t needed). 7:30 was Cynnabar court. Then I went home when court was done: I made it home by 3:30 AM. Ugh.

Court was nice, yet bitter sweet. It was Straum and Ute’s last court, and lots of nice things were said, and there were some very entertaining moments. The only bad part, in my opinion, was the end. There were several great notes the court could have ended on (and it should have ended with Straum or Ute speaking last), but people in the crowd had to keep bringing things up, more about thing that weren’t really about the Barony. The focus should have been on S&U, and nothing else, really.

The Cynnabar gate looked awesome.

The Coxcomb show went incredibly well. I did two pieces: one with Jacamo (emotional option) in the first act, and then I did my solo Sir Forgetsalot in the second act. Some friends went to see me, but only stayed for the first half. I should have told them I was in two scenes!

But anyway, the one person scene I did turned out incredibly well, far better than I hoped! Somehow, I took it very slow, was relaxed, and it all just worked. The audience was with me the entire time, and I got some great laughs and fantastic compliments afterwards. I now have a one person improvisation show!

I need to figure out some more…

I’m thrilled to be home, though. I spent most of yesterday and all of today with my family. Marcus fell asleep in my arms earlier, and just a few minutes ago we were outside playing catch. Cassandra is adorable. My cat really missed me. And my wife is the best.

It is so good to be home.

A four-star told us a true story. A general recently back from Iraq was going around giving talks his tour in the war zone. One of them was to a bunch of fourth graders. He walks up to the group and says, in his full military voice, “My job is to talk! Your job is to listen!” Immediately a student in the front row raises his hand. “You have a question already?!?” The kid responds, “Sir, if we finish our job before you finish yours, can we go home?”

I’m at a conference, and, actually, it is going pretty well. I’m not going to talk about the contacts, though. I’m going to talk about the show itself.

I cannot believe how glitzy and slick the presentations are. The high tech government agency is giving talks, and it is like I’m watching videos on VH1. Seriously. They even hired Leonard Nimoy for some of them.

My tax dollars at work. The $500/ticket covers the conference rooms, meals, and the handouts. With 2,500 attending, that is $1.125 million, which, oddly, isn’t enough.

Doesn’t make any sense.

Sure, it makes the show more interesting, but it is really required?

That being said, the banquet’s entertainment was another comedian. Not quite as good as the guy from last year, but he ended with a juggling act. He even commented on the entertainment scale of doing that, as it goes, from high to low, “Comedians, Jugglers, Magicians, Mimes, and Clowns.”

I can agree with that.

No more updates for a while. I’ll be at Pennsic, the land of thunderstorms. Good thing I have a metal helm to wear.

We had a good show.

No, I take that back. We had a great show.

I don’t know how or why. Maybe we are finally gelling or something. But we did a fantastic job, and while on stage I knew we were doing well.

We were given only thirty minutes to create a full show (six scenes, three blackouts) from Sunday’s paper, and, it seemed to me, we all worked together to get the ideas, pare them down, cast them, and even go through a bit of the beats.

This was our first show at the new Novi (Detroit) Second City main stage. Because of that, we had a wonderful stage, great stage management (running lights) by our teacher, Pj, and wonderful musical accompaniment by John (the musical director).

Having great music and lights just heights the scenes so well! Or, they can just make a scene work. We had one where three old men were talking about cloning, and it was basically just a slice of life. As it wound down, the lights faded gently on us, which was perfect!

We also challenged ourselves. The day before, when practicing, we came up with a great blackout. One guy says, “I have never used steroids. Period.” Then another guy, as a kid says, “Mr. Palmeiro, would you please sign my syringe?”

Really funny!

But Mike, from our class, said, “No, we should make up something new, and not recycle.” He was right.

And so, we came up with something better.

Person 1: I have never used steroids. Period.
Person 2: I have never, while President, slept with an intern. [That was me, using a Pres. Clinton accent.]
Person 3: I have never lied to the American people. We will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Person 4: The Second City Main Stage will open on time!

(It really is funny when you’ve been waiting months for it to open while they keep pushing back the date. Pj laughed when he just saw that line.)

So we all felt that it was really good. Finally, a show better than a rehearsal! And my wife and two people from my medieval club were there to see it!

Afterwards (way afterwards, after all the shows), Pj gave me some valuable time to go over a one man scene I was working on. Somehow I nailed that too, so I think I’m all ready for Pennsic, especially with the extra advice he gave me to improve it even more.

So, an almost perfect time.

Now I just have to figure out how to stop intimidating people when I think I’m being a team player.

Saw this on Annikki’s live journal, and thought it was fun.

Directions: Type "(your name) is", (with the quotes, but without the parens) into a Google search, cut-and-paste the first 10 responses that work. Just pull the answers right out of the excerpt Google shows you, don't click the link and search around. The only rule is that each one has to start with "(your name) is".

Midair is deeply moving and empowering.
Midair is a regional organization of institutional researchers.
Midair is quite difficult.
Midair is renown.
Midair is one of the most troubling.
Midair is a translation of a compound Greek word.
Midair is always followed by a sensation.
Midair is still a dream.
Midair is now available in the store!
Midair is not very good.
Midair is vanishingly small. (Hey!)

Since that worked out well…

Charles Cohen is a New York based conceptual artist.
Charles Cohen is going bankrupt.
Charles Cohen is a Jew and a native New Yorker.
Charles Cohen is currently a freelance writer.
Charles Cohen is a master synthesist.
Charles Cohen is a master improviser. (Yay! Refers to a musician, though.)
Charles Cohen is an advertising and marketing consultant.
Charles Cohen is happy to explain.
Charles Cohen is president and third-generation owner of Benco Dental Company.
Charles Cohen is Vice President of Technology for Cybernet. (Hmph, about time).

Hey, not too shabby!!

For those interested, my next class performance will be Sunday, August 7th from 12 to 5 PM. We go on right at Noon. Even better, it will be at the new Second City theater! For those of you map questing, the address is 42705 Grand River Avenue, Novi, MI 48375.

It should be interesting as I have no idea what skits we will be doing for are show.

Really.

A half hour before the show begins, our instructor, Pj, will hand us a newspaper or magazine. We then have only those thirty minutes to come up with six scenes and three blackouts (short comic bits) based on ideas inspired by the paper. We have to cast, set up a running order, and have two extra copies for Pj and the musician.

So right now I have no idea what we will be doing, how many scenes I’ll be in, and what characters I’ll be playing.

I guess that is why it is called improvisation!

For our last class we did this twice, and the shows actually turned out pretty good and funny! Still, it was stressful, but it really pushed our boundaries and showed us that, yes, we can come up with skits quickly and creatively if we have to.

Only three more eight week sessions to go.