Puppet Up! San Francisco Tour Diary – November 14, 2014
I did not get to bed last night until after 1:30 AM. I slept very well in the cool house that Puppet Up has put me and Michael Oosterom up in. I got up at about 9:00 AM worked out and then walked the easy 10 minute walk to my parents shop.
I absolutely love to walking around San Francisco and being very familiar with my surroundings. When I was walking down the street that my parent’s shop is on, I saw my father standing out front and started to wildly wave at him. Next thing I know, my mother comes out in front of the shop and she starts running down the street to greet me. It was so good to see my parents as I haven’t seen them in a few months and that was just for a short visit.
I went over to the shop because some people were coming to film a promotional video for my dad’s business. My dad did not want to be on the video at all so he asked me to be there to be sort of the spokesman for the company. We took some time to shoot the video with the production company and, being the Baciocco family, we had a great time doing it. There’s always a lot of laughs when the four of us are together.
After the video was done, I hung out and visited with my parents and brother for a bit then Cameron and Aaron from the Puppet Up production came by the shopand we all took a walk to get some barbecue. It’s always great fun to hang out with both Cameron and Aaron. And the barbecue was pretty great too.
After lunch Cameron and Aaron went off to explore San Francisco and I went back to the shop and hung out with my parents for a while. My parents, along with my brother, and some of their friends were all coming to the show tonight so I’m very, very excited.
I’m also excited tonight because Robin Goodrow is coming to the show. Robin Goodrow created a show called Buster and me that was a local San Francisco kids show. It was one of my first exposures to the puppets, outside of the Muppet show. I’m very excited to get to perform puppets in front of somebody who inspired me as a kid.
After visiting with my family for a bit, I walked back to where we were staying and just relaxed.
Headed down to the theater at about 5:30 PM. Got to experience the fun of taking my first Uber ride. At the theater we rehearsed some pieces including the jamboree song which would be in tonight’s show. Soon enough it was showtime.
Such a fun show tonight. Lots of great suggestions from the audience and a few crazy ones! The jamboree went well. Sang about Justin sitting in the front row who was a clinical psychologist. The jamboree got many laughs but it’s just not quite where I want it to be yet. It will get there though. Another favorite sketch involved Ted, Michael and myself stuck in an elevator. It was really a funny sketch and it’s hard to explain via writing. You kind of had to be there. But that was probably my favorite sketch of the night.
Because I sang in the jamboree, I did not sing the alien barbershop tonight. Those duties fell to Michael Oosterom.
After the show I went out to the lobby and it was great to have my family there. I can tell that my mom and dad and brother all enjoy coming to see the show. That means a lot me. It was also great fun to meet Robin Goodrow after the show.I told her again how her show had been a big influence on my love of puppets. She told me that she never had kids but all the people who watched her show her like her kids. I took a picture with her and I can’t wait to get a copy of it.
After the show, the cast went and had some food. Then we were off back to our places of residence. Tomorrow, we have two shows which will be interesting. But exciting. I can’t wait.
Puppet Up! San Francisco – November 14, 2014 – Opening
Set off today for another fun PuppetUp run. This time is especially fun because the show will be playing in San Francisco. Growing up in the Bay Area, it’s always great to get to play there. It’s also fun because the first time I played a full run of Puppet Up shows was in San Francisco in 2011, so it extra special.
Funny story from that first San Francisco run, I had only done a few Puppet Up shows here and there before that and hosted two of them. I was excited because Brian Henson and Bill Barretta were both doing the run as well. First rehearsal, in the theatre, and Brian and Bill are going to rehearse the opening of the show using their Bobby & Sampson characters. Brian says, “Leslie (Carrara-Rudolph), you right hand me and….Grant, you right hand Bill.” Wow. Pressure is on from the start.
So, Bill and I are getting Bobby on and as I slide my hand into the sleeve I jokingly say to Bill, “So what kind of voice do you want your hand to have?”
Without missing a beat, Bill looks off stage and yells, “Where’s the champagne glass that Bobby always holds?”
It was funny. Anyway, back to this trip. The Puppet Up crew arrived at Burbank Airport at 8am for our 9:55am flight. As we checked in we were informed that our plane was delayed due to weather. So we hung out in the airport and watched the clock. Finally, around noon, we were on the plane and off to San Francisco.
Once in San Francisco, we were in the van off to the theatre and to slip into our rehearsal which we were a little late for thanks to the flight delay. As I’ve said before, we have a great crew and they are total pros so we were soon up and running.
We rehearsed pretty much up to house open and then it was time to don our puppet blacks for the show and what a show it was.
We went into this one a little frazzled for several reasons but pulled out a really fun show. The audience tonight was amazing. They were better than amazing, they were incredibly amazing. So much fun. Great suggestions, I mean, Narcaleptic Juggling?! What better suggestions is there than that?
Got to do I’ve Grown Accustomed to your Face and the Alien Barbershop. The topic of the barbershop was Jesus. I decided to tread lightly and not insult anyone:
I don’t insult Jesus
As a general rule.
Even though I’m and atheist,
I went to catholic school.
Got a big laugh from the crowd. Some really funny scenes tonight. The Narcoleptic Juggling was a personal fave. And, of course, it was a treat being on stage with Brian Henson.
After the show, and some socializing in the lobby, we went to a big cast and crew dinner that was a bunch of fun. After we made our way to our accomodations for the weekend.
I have good feelings for this portion of the run. And tomorrow, as one of the added benefits of doing shows here, I get to go visit with my family. Can’t wait.
Here we go! Puppet Up!
Creative Mondays #045 – The Process
The other day I was in my office doing some work when I noticed some gear I still had out from the last video shoot I did. The tripod, boom mic, surge box, videos splitter, etc. I thought to myself, “I should really put this stuff away.”
My brain instantly said, “Yes, but you are shooting another video in just a few days. You want to drag all this stuff back out again?”
I countered my brain saying, “It’s not about cleaning it up and dragging it all out again. It’s about the process.”
Now, I’ll freely admit right here and right now, I don’t know what I meant by that. I assume I meant, getting into the habit of putting stuff away in order to have a clean creative environment. But that phrase, “It’s about the process.” started rattling around in my head and I started applying that thought towards creativity. I simplified the thought and came up with, “Sometimes it is not about the end result, it’s about the process.”
It’s this thought that struck a note with me because of a creative corner I find myself in right now. I have an idea for a creative project that I want to work on, but I find myself without the taler to fully realize it. Basically, I need a puppet built for it and I have the idea of how I want the puppet to look and even have made some sketches of it, but I am not a puppet builder. Sure, I dabbled in it years ago, but I don’t have the skill to pull off the puppet in the manner and quality I need it to be for this project. My friends who are puppet builders are currently working on other projects, so I’m out of luck in that respect. I’ve toyed with going to buy supplies for it and attempting it myself but I talk myself out of it by saying my time would be spent better pursuing other creative ventures.
“Sometimes it’s not about the end result, it’s about the process.” It’s sort of like that saying, “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”
Thinking about it, I think there are creative projects we as artists should attempt to tackle and simply not care about how the final result will turn out. We should be open to ‘the process’ of getting it done and the things we can learn simply by doing. Yes, the end result of me attempting to make this puppet may be something I never want to show anyone, But I’m more than sure I will learn a few things along the way about the process that I can use in future projects.
I’m sure there are some who would say that ALL creative projects should be looked at this way and I can see their point. Throw out all care for the end result. Trust in your skills and just create. Start a project, no matter how big or small, and work on it with no care about the end result. If it stinks, you can hide it away. If it turns out amazing, show the world. The important thing is seeing what you can learn about your creative process while you are creating it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go clean up this equipment and then consider working on this puppet idea I have.
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Do you take the ‘it’s not about the end result, it’s about the process’ approach to your art? I’d love to hear how this has (or hasn’t) worked for you in the comments below. Let me know and have a great week!
10 years of The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd
Ten years.
November, 7, 2014 marks the ten year anniversary of The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd as a podcast. True, the radio show started in April of 2004, streaming on Dementia Radio, an all comedy music internet radio station, but things exploded we put our first few episodes out on a podcast feed.
Podcasting was brand new. I don’t know where, but I read an article that mentioned it in September of 2004. I spent most of October researching exactly how to do it and then, on November 7, 2014, EPISODE #101 of The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd was pushed out into the podcast world.
In those days there were not that many podcasts and the joke among podcasters was, in order to tell someone about the podcast, you had to first explain what exactly podcasting was. In those early days, it seemed, there were a few types of Podcasts. There were the folks like Dawn & Drew who took the whole ‘no FCC rules thing’ and ran with it, producing shows that were blue, to put it lightly. On the other end of the spectrum were the God-casters, priests who would podcast their weekly sermons. And somewhere in the middle of all that was The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd. We were the first podcast that was geared towards kids and, because of that, our popularity really exploded.
I remember when we got our first email feedback. We were floored that people were actually listening to our show. Then we got an email saying that the writer’s kids loved the show. We immediately swore, right there, to take all double entendre out of future episodes (SEE: Wright Brothers’ Nuts) and make it as family friendly as possible.
From the very beginning, the show featured guest stars, mostly friends who were comedians. Our first big celebrity get though, was Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, puppeteer for Sesame Street. Then Barbara Holiday, my manager at the time, suggested she could get Arrested Development’s Jeffery Tambor. We jumped on the chance and he was more than happy to do it. Chris Hardwick was also in that episode and I remember him standing in my living room saying, “What’s a podcast?” Just look at him now.
From then on, we were extremely lucky in the stars we had on the show. Don Novello became a friend, as did Chuck McCann. Joel Hodgson and Frank Conniff, both of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 did voices for us and Frank was the guest star who returned the most times and played the most characters. The highlight was getting to work with two heroes, both legends in the voiceover world, June Foray and Stan Freberg. I will remember those sessions for a very long time.
Our show went from twelve listeners to over 85,000 a month at it’s peak. The podcast helped us meet people from all over the world, some of whom I am still in contact to this day. It opened the door for me doing the podcast for The Jim Henson Company, which opened up the door for me to become a puppeteer with the company.
Even though there hasn’t been a new show since 2008, outside of Dr. Steve’s Thanksgiving songs, the show still gets tons of downloads every week and every once in awhile, I get an email, much like that first one, that makes me smile because I know that Doug and I created something pretty special that touched a lot of people.
So, happy ten years Dr. Floyd. Here’s hoping the time a space cube keeps going for another ten!
