Stage Door

I dreamed that I was a new writer on Saturday Night Live. Now, this isn’t something I’ve ever aspired to nor have I even seen the show since back in the cheeseboiger, cheesboiger, cheeseboiger, coke, Jane, you ignorant slut, there’s too much violins on television days.

Just before show time one of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players rushed up to me begging that I – me, a writer, NOT a comedian and certainly NOT the much ballyhooed guest star – get up and perform the opening monologue.

I shrugged and agreed. Why? Why not? Could be a hoot.

The bit was essentially a shaggy dog – a funny based on something or other I’d done (and messed up). The  Not Ready for Prime Timer had heard me speaking the piece, so’s I could scan the rhythms, the possible laugh lines.

I came on stage, bright spotlights in my eyes, and start the tale. I’m getting a few chuckles and snorts, things are going shockingly smooth. Then, THEN, right before the story’s big finish I completely lost the thread – WHAT story was I telling? How does it end? What was the point I was trying to make? Where’s the goddamned punchline?!

I froze solid in front of the studio audience and 10 million home viewers. My vision tunneled to white, my hearing evaporated. I was physically still on stage but I’d disappeared, evaporated inside my bombed performance. Possibly, hopefully I was now in an alternate universe where everything was soft, dimly lit and warm and there were no people witnessing my astounding humiliation.

That was it. Dream over ‘cept for one parting utterance “man, I suck.”

In real life, have I ever gotten on stage (apart from flute playing)? Once, in junior high. I forgot whatever lines I had, drowned in a sea of embarrassment (like a good 13 year old) and moved to a small planet circling Proxima Centauri for the next ten years. That last part MIGHT have just been a wish. //shrugs//

Would I ever do it now that I’m older and less rattleable? Probably not but never say never and shit. A few years or so back there was some local cat festival of sorts – you know, all things feline, including people getting up to tell funny stories. I thought this’d be perfect for me – I got a zillion cat tales AND I could speak as well as sign my stories of B.O.P (Big Orange Pumpkin), Rocco, Gaston, Ghost Cat, Zeus, Umlaut and Princess Nurse Coco. I submitted some anecdotes but wasn’t invited to audition.

Hmmph, mebbe they’d heard about my 8th grade disaster and wanted to spare me the moving expenses to Alpha Centauri? Thoughtful of them, no?