That was what I posted on the message board of improvchicago.com in the morning of January 24. For those of you not familiar with the improv ‘scene’ in Chicago, I will try to breakdown why this post was inflammatory; other than the fact that I misspelled his last name.

TJ Jagodowski is an amazing improviser in Chicago.
Translation: his fan base is huge.
He was on both the main stage and E.T.C. stage at Second City.
Translation: one of the top improvisers in Chicago.
He teaches improv classes at the Improv Olympic (IO).
Translation: he teaches improv.
He performs with many other veteran improvisers in various shows, like Carl & the Passion, a “house” team at IO.
Translation: more opportunities for him to increase his fan base.
He is the three-time winner of the Most Supportive Player award at the Del Awards- a small awards ceremony held for people involved at IO.
Translation: his fan base has voting power.
He is probably one of nicest people you will ever meet.
Translation: he is nice.

The question you might ask me could be, ‘why did you post that if you obviously think he isn’t an asshole?’
The answer might surprise you: TJ asked me to.
Translation: huh?

I started this website in July of 2001 because I wanted to learn HTML and I thought it would be nice to put up the things that I have written over time on it. During this time, I was in level 5 classes at IO. I was signed up for Craig Cackowski’s Sunday class and I did go to it every week. I also went to TJ’s Saturday level 5 classes for 7 weeks because I heard from friends, after they only had the first class of eight, that his class was amazing. I went to just sit in the audience and watch the class but because this class had fewer people TJ let me play with the people in the class, most of whom I already knew from previous level classes.

Anyway, I told TJ one day in class that I wanted to interview improv teachers in Chicago and put the interviews on my website so that it might be different from all the other improv web sites on the Internet. He said that he wouldn’t be opposed to doing it. All I had to do was tell him when and where.

Fast forward six months later, and I hadn’t yet even started to get my interview idea moved forward. I had written on my web site that I would be starting the interviews in January of 2002 and halfway into the month, someone posted on my guestbook that they were getting impatient for the interviews to be posted. Not to be showed a man of all talk and no action, I decided to act. I decided to interview teachers in the order that I had them when I came to Chicago. TJ was my level 1 teacher at IO and IO was the first place I went to for improv classes in Chicago. I called him up and for two days played phone tag. I then met up with him at IO on Wednesday, January 23, after he got done with a 7-Up show, to set up the interview day and time. Saturday, January 26, at 3pm was agreed upon.

Then TJ made the suggestion that it would be funny to have it like Inside the Actor’s Studio, except that we hate each other. Better yet, how about I post on the message board that I hate him and get everyone to think that we both hate each other?

I couldn’t fall asleep easily that night. Ha! Fooled you; I have trouble falling asleep every night. Just that on this night, instead of being awake and thinking of various things, I was thinking about whether or not I should actually post the thing.

I woke up the next day- it was on my mind.
I got ready for work- it was on my mind.
I rode the L train to work- it was on my mind.
I arrived at my cubicle- it was on my mind.
I did the small amount of work I had in the morning- ‘I wonder what Mr. T is doing right now,’ just kidding- it was on my mind.

Did TJ really expect me to do it? Would I be left high and dry? How many people would call me an asshole? Would I be booed off the stage next Sunday for my next Kilgore Trout show? Would I find myself off the IO schedule? How would I be able to keep up the charade and lie to my friends that I was serious about the post? What would they think once they found out this was a bit?

Not only all of that but what would be the ramifications after it was all done and the truth cleared? Who will feel more hurt after I lied to them about this? Will some people still believe that I hate TJ even after I tell them that it was a bit? And some people may never hear that it was a bit and still think it’s real. My biggest fear is to be not liked by those I would like to be friends with and I wondered how I would deal with it.

[Click.]

Once I posted it, I didn’t check the board for an hour, making myself busy with work. Could I still bail out now, while I had the time? But there was no going back. I was basically supporting TJ on this thing, since it was his idea; I made myself think. And I kept reminding myself that when I first talked to him about it, it was HYSTERICAL! The first hour after my identity was found out was horrible on my mind. All those worries and thoughts in the previous paragraphs came rushing back to me and some new ones to throw into the mix. Would the truth come out and I would find out how people really felt about me? Scary stuff.

The plan was to post twice anonymously and then “accidentally” post my real name, at which point I would have to fess up to it. I actually messed up better than I intended. I had registered on the message board, which means that only I could post under my nickname ‘Forsythe,’ which had a password to go along with it.

[Note: If you’re not registered, other people can post things under your name and totally mess with you. Mostly this was done among friends and only as bits and my name was posted by someone else only once before I registered my name]

Now, also when you register, you can set defaults which control things like font, font size, font color, the way your boards looks to you, and a bio sheet to put up info about yourself. I put on my bio sheet my e-mail address and my web site address. The problem that I overlooked, was that although I changed ‘Forsythe’ to ‘Seriously,’ the defaults were still there and people could find my info if they clicked on the post and then dragged the pointer over the nickname.

Someone was clever enough to know this, use it, and later reveal me; I was busted. So I didn’t have to “accidentally” reveal myself; it helped to add to the credibility that I was being truthful and that I didn’t want to be found out. Before I realized the other person posted that they found me out, I posted one more time “anonymously.” Once I was caught, I posted an explanation for my post, apologized for bringing up personal stuff and personal attacks on the board [something I DISPISED and here I was, seemingly doing the same stuff, being the biggest hypocrite in the world.], and then tried to add some believability to my claim by bullshitting that TJ was blowing me off and that his niceness was a mask, that he was fake, and that he was an asshole because of it.

Damn if that didn’t set the improvchicago.com (IC) message board on fire with activity! People were defending TJ and other veterans of improv, others launched some of the funniest bit of calling other people assholes, and still others tried to kill the negativity of the board by posting unrelated things or telling people to be nicer.

The discussion about expecting veterans to be like your buddy was one of the good things that came out of all of this. Just because you have improv in common, doesn’t mean you’re going to be best friends. It takes time to become friends with someone and you can’t get all mad when it doesn’t happen as fast as you want it to. I though the funniest bit was with Dennis O’Toole and Stephanie Morse taking turns at insulting each other to a wicked degree. I also give props to Stephanie for posting the best parody of my “explanation” post. And some of the unrelated topic stuff were neat and I so wanted to post my thoughts on the subjects but I didn’t, due to fear of people making fun of me.

Going to IO afterwards was weird for me. I had no idea who or how many people knew about what was going on or even that I was the one that started it- some people don’t know my last name, and the posts were under ‘Forsythe.’ I was able to see what it was like to be paranoid. Paul Grondy walked by, does he know? Noah didn’t say anything, is he being his usual self or does he know? My friends don’t attempt to start to conversation about it- why? What are they thinking? I’m acting normal, do they think this is a front? Yes, it was definitely weird to be at IO.

I had to tell somebody about this bit, to let them know that I wasn’t crazy. I decided to tell two people, who I will keep a secret. They became my news sources; reporting what others were saying about all this. They didn’t reveal any names [much to my consternation] but they did say that no one who e-mailed them or spoke to them in person about it thought it was a bit. ”What the hell has gotten into Forsythe?”

I was laughing when people were bending over backwards to not call me an asshole. Of course, I understand they were taking the high road, not sinking as low as I was in my original post, but if there were ever a reason to call me an asshole, surely it would have been because of this, right? Although I got over the fear of having people think I’m not nice, I still was ruled by the fear of having people call me an asshole on the IC.

I post way too much on the IC. But this whole thing made me timid in posting anything. Rich Prouty posted that his web site had a new thing written by Jeff Griggs; it was so funny and I wanted to tell everyone that I, too, thought it was hysterical. But I didn’t. It also seemed like now was the time I actually had improv related questions but I didn’t put them on the message board. The next Monday was my birthday and people were wishing me a happy birthday; I didn’t post to say thanks due to fear. If one good comes out of this whole thing for me, it’s that I’ve cut down on the amount of posts I make.

I must praise one person in particular who asked me if everything was okay with me. My friends were good about making sure I was okay, as I would expect them to since they’re my friends. But, I didn’t expect people who I didn’t know all that well to ask me if I was okay and for the most part this was true except for one person.

That person was Katherine Gotsick. I don’t know her all that well, which is to say I’ve only talked to her a couple of times whenever we’ve run into each other after a show. She e-mailed me to see if I was at all upset by people making fun of me by calling each other assholes. Such and act of compassion was amazing to me, and I had to tell you all how amazing she is for that.

[Short note: the story in my confessional post, the first one I signed with ‘Forsythe,’ was true. I was sitting and reading the Onion after the 7-Up show and TJ did toss a lime slice at my head and it did hit me on the ear. However, he was aiming for the general back of my head- he told me that as he came over to me to set up the details of the when and where for the interview. And he totally showed that he was just messing with me and not at all looking to actually hurt me.]

When friends did ask me if the story was true or when people I knew asked me if TJ and I really did hate each other, I said that it was true. But the whole time I’m thinking, ‘I’m sorry I’m lying to you.’ The lying thing was hard for me. In this whole thing, that is what I will have to answer for when all is said and done. But at the heart of the bit was lying to everyone and getting them to believe we hate each other. I figured out an easy way of not actually having to make up more lies: pretend that this whole thing bothered me so much that I didn’t want to talk about it.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I should get an Oscar.

However, not everyone was completely duped. I can probably say that I convinced most of the people that it was real but many of the more cynical people probably had the feeling that this whole thing was a bit, which it was. Also, I had to get a voice recorder from a friend and clumsily mentioned that I needed to interview TJ. That act alone probably leaked it to about a half dozen people.

I met TJ at IO for the interview. We went in the green room upstairs while Christina Gausas was teaching her level 1 class. TJ hadn’t checked the IC so I had to relay all that had happened on it in the past two days. He ate it up and we both laughed very hard at how successful our bit was going over. He said that was going to post something that gradually degraded into him calling me an asshole in the next days after the interview.

I checked the board on Monday and no message was there from him. A week later I talked to him on the phone and he said that he tried later the night after the interview and then two days later to post a response. His post was to have said that I was a second rate improviser and such and such and the next time our paths crossed I would have to watch out for more than a lime to come at my head. He signed it ‘TJ Jago.’ He checked his first post two days later and didn’t see it, and then tried to put a second one up. However, something happened- ever TJ hasn’t figured out the workings of the IC yet or whoever monitors the IC deleted the post thinking it might be a fake post; that someone was impersonating TJ. Because of these difficulties, we decided to cut the bit and let everyone in on the joke.

As for the interview itself, I dropped the thing about doing the interview as advisories and instead did the interview as I originally wanted it to be: my normal nice self talking to the very nice TJ. I took me, like, forever to do and I tried to keep quiet about what I was doing. However, Sammy heard me listening to a tape, rewinding it, playing it back, and repeating this action over and over. He couldn’t make out what was on the tape, but he wonder. He even knocked on my door and asked me what I was doing. ”Never you mind,” was my answer. He thought this was a funny response and so he created a funny bit about it on the IC. I had fun the days after he did this, by sending him cryptic e-mails to tell him to cease and desist.

To read the interview transcribed, please click here.