Sunday 29th June
Dino is from Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay and has only been in San Diego for a year and a half but has already ingratiated himself into the social and performing arts community in the city. He kindly offers me a lift back from Ocean Beach to North Park. As I step into his car, he removes the set of boulle from the seat and what looks to me like a tall hand drum, but is in fact a novelty water flask for his tea, which he calls tereré. The tea, yerba mate is a traditional Paraguay drink made of green herbs that he drinks from an ornamental animal horn cup called a guampa that he keeps in front of the gear stick.
As Technical Director and a teacher at Finest City Improv, Dino has to get back in time for the improv show at 8.30pm. Afterwards they are all going out for Birthday drinks to Arcade Bar Coin-Op which he tells me is free play on the last Sunday of each month. He invites me to come along and see what its all about. As part of my saying yes to everything, I calculate this is the only last Sunday of the month I shall be here, and how silly I would be to pass on such a perfect opportunity, so accept his invitation.
He shows me into the office where I meet two of his associates, Chris and Kat. Chris is a quiet, unassuming, bearded chap who tells me he deals with the IT side of the business, but who actually turns out to be Assistant Artistic Director and a long time improv performer himself. I later discover he has a very interesting blog where he expostulates on the rules and practise of improv through his vast experience. http://www.00george.blogspot.com
He’s celebrating his 30th Birthday that evening and asks if I’ll be joining them for a beer later?
Kat is sat typing in front of a large computer screen and is one of those big personalities, with, I sense, a quieter soul underneath. An attractive girl in her twenties and unmistakably Irish to look at, with pale freckled skin, large green eyes, wide smile and long black hair framing her face. I assume she is the office administrator but turns out to be Community Manager of the Training Programme and again an improv performer in her own right.
She amazes me later, caught up in conversation with us, suddenly sensing she has missed her cue, she flies from her swivel desk chair and charges behind a curtain to suddenly appear on stage as MC announcing unflustered with great projection “Whaa- hey! Ladies and gentlemen would you please put your hands together for the improvisation class the ………. “
A round of applause. She then reappears as if nothing had happened, sits back on her swivel chair and resumes typing!
I am taken through to the front of the new theatre that Dino tells me he helped to design and build in reclaimed wooden packing crates. I buy Dino and myself a beer at the little bar in the reception before the show starts and he gives me a quick guided tour of the Lafayette Hotel that the theatre has been built onto. It’s a surprising place with considerable connections to Hollywood. I am captivated by the framed magazine articles giving the history of the place on the walls and don’t quite have the time to read them all, much as I would like to.
Built in 1946 in the grand colonial style as Imig Manor by former Chevrolet dealer, entrepreneur and property developer, Larry Imig.
It was an expensive gamble due to cost $250, 000 that actually rose to $3 million as his ambitions and plans grew, built in North Park on the El Cajon Boulevard, the last leg of the old Highway 80, the trans continental roadway running from Savannah, Georgia on the East coast to San Diego on the West.
Originally the site occupied 2.5 acres and boasted 24 shops, 4 restaurants, a nightclub, an Olympic swimming pool and 250 guest rooms, suites, and apartments.
Advertised as “Southern Style on the Miracle Mile”. It attracted some of the top Hollywood stars of the day with its salubrious accommodation and setting, becoming a popular vacation resort and hideaway to stars like Lana Turner, Betty Grable and Ava Gardner. Bob Hope was the first person to sign the guest register.
However it failed to recoup its costs or make a profit and by 1949 hotelier, Conrad Hilton purchased the hotel paying off Imig’s outstanding debts. It continued to flourish in the 50’s but suffered a sharp decrease in occupancy by the 60’s when a new freeway, Interstate 8 was completed, redirecting traffic away from The Boulevard and the novelty soon faded.
Today the Lafayette Hotel, Swim Club and Bungalows is redesigned as a Californian boutique hotel, with a more relaxed contemporary feel but one that still conjures the same glamour as in the glory days of its historical past. http://www.lafayettehotelsd.com
A large neon gateway sign, “the BOULEVARD” was erected on a streamlined ‘T’ bar across the dual carriageway of El Cajon Boulevard in 1989 to celebrate the glory years of neon signage once to be found on businesses along this route from it’s heyday 1940’s to 1960’s.
It almost looks like it could have been a giant name badge from a 50’s Chevy and has acted as a rallying call for the revitalisation of the area’s local businesses ever since. This is exemplified in the work of El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association which has done much to develop and promote the image of the area and where much of this information can be found on their fascinating website. http://www.theboulevard.org/index.html
We go through a warren of corridors past rooms to the basement where there is a huge ballroom behind locked doors where Dino talks about the famous large clam shell that forms part of the original band stand for the big band dances of the 1940’s and there are black and white pictures of bands playing in front of it.
The ‘Mississippi Room’ as it was named, after a nearby street, was a big draw and continued to be popular after the hotel waned. It reinvented itself entirely as a DJ underground club the ‘ID Club’ in the 1980’s, when queues regularly formed round the block on a Monday night to dance to international new wave and house music records and many rare imports from Britain. Dino tells me it was here where a scene from the movie, Top Gun was filmed, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” around the famous circular bar.
It crosses my mind how wonderful it would be to open up this original basement ballroom and use it for the improv comedy nights but I suspect it’s too large and unwelcoming for intimate gigs.
I have an unfailing nostalgia for places that no longer exist to entertain the masses like old cinemas and theatres that never quite lose the magic of their original purpose. One of the most fascinating of these was the old State Theatre which was a futuristic designed cinema built on the Boulevard in 1940 with a distinctive neon pylon like ariel and curved pod box office, which would have been the jewel in the crown of San Diego’s historic theatres had it not been wantonly demolished as late as 1987! More pictures and background can be found on the website above.
I also learn the pioneering lady who used to manage this cinema also ran the Adams Theatre on Adams Avenue which has a similar Art Deco frontage with terazzo patterned sidewalk and curved box office entrance but is now home to a fabric store where I bought some voile during my first week for Sitwell’s medieval style hat!
Upstairs we go through a wonderful open palm court style dining room with a piano through the French windows on to the terrace.
It is just falling dusk as I take a photograph of the beautiful swimming pool and surrounding bungalows. It turns out this Olympic pool was designed by former Tarzan and five-time gold medal winner, Johnny Weissmuller. In the 1940’s San Diego native, Florence Chadwick trained here for her then record breaking swim across the English Channel.
We head back into the Improv Theatre for the start of the Sunday show. The room is set out cabaret style with tall circular tables and bar stools towards the back and lower tables and chairs towards the front. A glass framed door to enter. There are a few punters dotted around and we take our place towards the back of the room perched at one of the high tables.
Kat comes on to rouse the crowd and welcome to the stage a large mixed age group of fairly new improv students presenting their show, ‘About Science’. Their subjects are sourced from science journals, asking the audience to pick from a list of titles from which to improvise around. They gather for a chat, then perform a fairly rapid succession of sketches around the theme. It is quite addictive watching how the group manage to engage with one another, swap roles and hop so swiftly between mini scenarios. One girl in particular I notice is a little trigger happy and jumps in prematurely to most sketches that don’t yet feature her or ends them. This is a shame since the real art of improv, it seems to me, is judging that perfect moment when to cut short and when to leave well alone in order to allow something organic the opportunity to develop in front of you as it shifts and builds into an arc of a living drama.
It was fascinating to observe live improv like this having just run a special workshop on Improv at the Jack Studio Theatre earlier in the summer for part of our Write Now 5 new writing festival in London. I had found myself with the same difficult predicament of “playing God” and the difference it made to not rush the improvisers but allow space and time around the interactions to “frame” the drama. I had asked the participants to think up interesting questions to ask of the other characters so they were not reliant on building a scene from scratch as such but allowed a narrative to be drawn out or emerge from answers and subsequent questioning.
I decided to split the group into performers and observers. This proved invaluable in allowing those watching the chance to observe and interpret how the participants interacted not only through words but body posture, tone, volume, speed, and status on stage.
Then later, a given situation into which participants were slowly allowed to enter the scene in staggered times to allow relationships to establish before introducing more characters. A similar template was being played out in front of me here.
I suddenly had thoughts of how interesting it would be if I lived in San Diego to be a part of Finest City Improv and run some character improv workshops in tackling a simple scene and the myriad ways it could be reinterpreted by the variant choices made.
Of course, it’s a different situation and pressure in front of a live audience as they are essentially looking for light entertainment and expecting laughs, therefore that is what participants naturally tend to cater for. But if you can try and tell a story underneath the laughter, then drama is born.
This was achieved so brilliantly by the next double act. It was such a joy watching the chemistry between two consummate, polished performers, Matt Harris and Tommy Galan, who are obviously experienced in working closely together. Dino informs me one of them is a lawyer and both are relative newcomers to San Diego. Tommy is from Brooklyn and Matt from North Carolina and in fact they have only been performing together for about a year in their group, ‘Bicoastal’.
They were wonderfully intuitive with one another and committed to strong physical performances and rather than going straight for the obvious would constantly surprise the audience with a considered anarchic approach, even linking sketches by referencing characters and situations established earlier on with a though line arc of drama.
This to me was improv at its best with two thinking performers on their feet responding intelligently to one another in rapid characterisations and scenes growing out of their own drama, both completely in control of their technique but flexible enough to circumnavigate it to arrive at fearless and daring comedy theatre.
Finest City Improv was the brain child of Amy Lisewski in 2011, born out of years of study with The Second City and iO West in Los Angeles. During her regular commute from San Diego to Los Angeles for classes, it suddenly dawned on her instead of driving to another city why not start an improv studio in her own city open to everyone to learn the art of improv?
Working with influential performers and coaches, she began teaching all levels improv classes out of four different spaces in and around San Diego before the new theatre space was officially opened in December 2013.
They now have a current roster of over 80 students, 34 ensemble members, eight house teams, and countless guest teams and visiting artists. Shows are from Thursday to Sunday evenings and are well worth catching for an alternative comedy night out in this backdrop of San Diego history, where individuals and generations have left their mark as a glamorous playground location for public entertainment. http://www.finestcityimprov.com
After the show I accompany Dino, Chris and Kat to the Coin Slot Arcade in North Park which is a bar with an amusement arcade and computer games. Not a fan of computer games per sey, nevertheless as part of my saying yes to everything, I go along and actually really enjoy having a go on some of the games.
Kat sits at the bar and I offer to keep her company and have a drink while she eats and the others start gaming. I didn’t envy her choice from the menu of the least of American evils. But the redeeming feature is the wonderful selection of craft beers chalked up on the board. I ask a little background information on each before making my selection. I told Kat how I always go for the strangest sounding ones as a general rule of thumb and start with a dark red ale followed by an ‘Old Witches Brew’ which promises dark chocolate, coffee and smoke. I am not disappointed!
Kat tells me she’s only been at ‘City Improv’ a year and a bit but she loves it. It’s really changed her life round. She’s made so many new friends and its just a great place to hang out and has given her a ready social life.
She asks me about my plans after the Fringe is over and I mention the idea of going on to see San Francisco or the Santa Cruz Fringe Festival, though people tell me not to waste my time because there’s nothing there!
“Oh”, she says, “Well, I may be biased because I studied there, but it is a really pretty place with some nice old buildings and very picturesque”.
She is the first person to speak in praise of Santa Cruz, and makes me think perhaps I ought to see it!
I do love how drinking in America is not regulated by the stupid outdated drinking laws of Britain where you are shoved out onto the cold streets after 11pm with the post pub pall without so much as a “Thank you kindly, Sir” before they shut up shop in your face and lock the doors for another night!
Many regulars from the Improv place call in to wish Chris a Happy Birthday throughout the night and I see what a vital, warm community of performing artists it is and wish I were local enough to be a part of it on a regular basis.
Dino has been busy conquering an electronic hunting game where you have to shoot bison and wildlife in the Grand Canyon at the screen with dummy rifles but are out of the game soon as you shoot anything female! He encourages me to have a go, which is fun but laughable how quickly I am out after Dino’s long run. Then I have a go at a car race one but I’m really drawn to the old fashioned all American pinball machines where you flick levers as ball bearings are flung around flashing lights and bounce. Engrossed in my own distraction on the outskirts, slightly apart from the rest of the crowd, gathered round the central table, now the worse for wear.
It somehow chimes with the nostalgic feel of a daytrip back to the Fifties. With a juke box beat and the journey to Ocean Beach, serenaded by the Haste Girls in old fashioned bathing costumes singing “Lollipop” to the romance of the 40’s Hollywood set at the Lafayette Hotel and the good humour and energy of the Finest City Improv. To new friends made and the flashing coloured lights and sound effects, bleeping of machines and rolling balls of steel as they are repeatedly fired around an obstacle course of wire and pins before always returning back to glide through the arms of the two goal levers like gatekeepers to life itself.
It’s like I’m playing the game of my own life, mapped out before me. I can watch myself faring as a solo player, flicking those levers, keeping the ball animated and alive, jostled and bounced between smooth chrome nipples and wire tracked holes, for as long as possible before that bias slope inevitability calls time, sending your own ball drunkenly back towards you, swifter than you could plan to stop, as you watch it roll and drop through the gaping hole left undefended into the bowels of the unknown void in front of you as it disappears out of sight for the last time.
It is too late for buses and Dino walks out with me to ensure I can find the way back. I start to walk home following 30th Avenue from North Park which I know intersects with Adams Ave by the ‘Polite Provisions’ bar near to my home. Of course, I naturally select the wrong way with my intuitive sense of no direction and after checking to ask people, turn and head back in the opposite direction! I pass unfamiliar shops and bars and follow the straight road home. I suddenly spot a black woman in her fifties, sat on the opposite side of the road, with what appears to be an entire stock of a charity shop or wardrobe set out on the sidewalk. It’s a surreal sight, nonchalantly surrounded by all her worldly goods, set out like a jumble stall. I continue on my path, before starting to berate myself for not taking the opportunity to go and speak with her and find out what her story is and what she is doing there.
I walk back and cross over the road but she is now oblivious to the world. Busy vigorously brushing out her long blonde wig with definite repeat strokes, like a proud mermaid, perched upon a rock in the perfect privacy of her nocturnal, moonlit idyll. It seems impolite to interrupt. It is as though I am being led by my subconscious through a dream I am only meant to observe. To break the spell by speaking would surely be wrong, yet the scene curiously captivates me. Is this her temporary abode or is this an outdoor clothes market?
“Is this a shop”? I ask.
“What”?
“Is this for sale”? I ask.
“What’s it to ya”? She challenges.
“I’m intrigued” I reply.
“Where’s that accent from?” she enquires.
“Can’t you guess”? I tease.
“I don’t know… somewhere foreign… China” she tries.
“No, try again”, I say, a little wounded.
“Britain?” She asks?
“Correct” I say.
“I knew it had to be one of those. Not from here, anyway”!
“What are you doing here”? I ask.
“I live here” she stated as if it were the stupidest question in the world.
“I mean, is this all yours?”
“Aha”.
“Is it for sale”?
“No, it’s mine”
“What do you do”?
“I’m a jewellery designer”!
“Really, what type of jewellery”? I ask in disbelief.
“African beads mostly. I used to sell them in Vegas. Las Vegas”.
I guess the Las Vegas jewellery trade is not what it once was.
I think if I remember she was wearing many layers of colourful beads around her neck and rings on all her fingers as a kind of model advertisement for her trade. It was as if she couldn’t have loaded any more decoration upon her. Vain and proud she sat like a cat, preening herself, content in her company in contempt of the outside world. And I suppose in her splendid isolation she was only as proud of her own individual appearance as was Sitwell or Monroe in their time and worlds. Indeed, it was perhaps all that she had left.
I realise now I must have been an unwanted threat. I should have sat down with her as her equal and talked openly rather than loitering guarded and apprehensive in front of her as though she were some exotic exhibit on display. In my naivety I saw a story and wanted to know all about why she was setting out her stall in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of the night. It was as though she were a sooth sayer, one of those fictional characters that wouldn’t be there when you returned to find her. And I was left with a feeling that she might have held the key to some secret strange journey into another magical realist dimension that would open up through stepping over the threshold and passing through her coat rails or by trying on one of her garments.
However, it had been a long day of adventures and whatever world I missed by not pursuing this particular act, was tempered by my desire to enter another dimension by the more conventional means of sleep. I bade her goodnight and left her to her hairbrush, jewellery and clothes.
I was lucky enough to be able to leave the public domain and walk away to find the private sanctuary of my own room in my temporary home of my host American family.
The Peacock and the Nightingale 