Aftermath

It's a terribly stimulating experience when you have the opportunity to perform. Any of us has the chance to sing karaoke, and that's something I enjoy- if I manage to do it well, that is. I'm not someone who gets much out of anything that he does poorly. People will say that it's just supposed to be about having fun, but as Patton says (in the film of the same name), "I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed!"

I think that's what he says. I'm not about to re-watch a film some three hours in length to verify such a quite, but I'll admit I could be wrong. In any case, my thoughts are about performing and the awful, gut-churning insecurities that plague you when you may not have been absolutely fantastic. The other night, I did some standup comedy, and I think I probably did all right, but it's positively impossible to be entirely objective.

I certainly don't trust my own point of view. I think I might have done fine, provided the audience did not perceive all of the nervousness inside and the mistakes I made. I always say how you can minimize very effectively the damage by hiding from those watching any evidence in your mood of things you think you did wrong. It's hard to put into practice, but easy to recommend that others do so. In any case, I think I managed to get out alive.

I trust other people, and the more I respect their candor (and of course their opinions regarding comedy), the more I think of what they tell me about my performance. A lot of people will tell you how well you do in order to spare your feelings (or their own). Others will say little or nothing in order to avoid saying something bad. The rare few will be totally frank and fair, and it is those who do you the most good, however much it hurts all concerned in the short term.

As I said, though, I seem to have done passably on this occasion. I got no booing, and I got no crickets. I got a fair number of laughs, although it may not have been as many as I would have liked. I feel such discontent deeply, much as I'd like to pretend otherwise. I'll brood and brood until the next opportunity comes, and maybe then a better performance than this one will quiet the vicious internal criticism. I could use that, although as I keep telling myself, I did all right.