The Moment of Truth

The Moment of Truth 

“And now…. Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for… here to give you a great show tonight– give it up for your performer!”

[Performer stands backstage, anticipating his time to come on and perform his act. We take a brief moment to enter into his mind and discover what he thinks about before every show.]

“Am I nervous? Yes. Will that stop me? Never.”

“I have always wondered if people ever consider the feelings they endure the second before they go on stage,  propose to their lover,  kill a man, or just about anything else remotely important. I can’t be the only person in the world that takes the time to think about this phenomenon!? If you are unsure of what I am speaking of, it is what us performers call the “moment of truth.” The moment of truth is the split second of disaster that overwhelms your body right before you commit to a specific action. The most relatable example I can think of to illustrate this experience is the split second you jump off a moving train or into a ice cold shower. While the examples may seem extreme, some may prefer jumping off a train over taking a cold shower. Your brain, nervous system, blood flow and even your soul all simultaneously grab your focus away for just a second and try to convince you one more time that this might be a bad idea and that you need to do something else. You try to convince yourself to do something far more comfortable, like going home and making a sandwich and brewing a nice cup of tea. I typically feel tempted to quit the whole stand up career all together and go back to baking cookies for a living. Yes… I used to bake cookies for my grandma's bakery in Colorado, “G-MAS Bakery and salad.” Her favorite desserts to make were these special brownies, but she never told me the special ingredient nor allowed me to make or eat them. For some odd reason they were also for “special” customers that came on Tuesdays every two weeks at 4:20 in the afternoon. It’s weird that I remember all these specific details, but hey… I digress. 

 The moment of truth only lasts for one second… but it feels like an eternity.  Right before I get on that stage, my mind goes numb, I can’t feel my sweaty hands and my nose loses scent of the mixtures of alcohol and smoke coming from the audience. My ears become deaf to the announcer and the large crowd waiting to hear me tell a couple of funny jokes. Sometimes I even forget my script that spent the entire week memorizing and rehearsing! Call me Stevie Wonder because at this point, I might as well go blind so I don't have to witness the catastrophe of my own shitty performance. The only thing worse than shitting your pants while on a first date is giving a shitty performance to a large crowd, and I have only done one of those two things! But I digress… 

 The beautiful thing is that I can see. Yes, that is the one sense of humanity I have left in the final second before I go on stage. I can see everything that is happening. I can see the small sliver of light breaking from between the curtains. I can see the dark and luminous audience breathing and drinking away their favorite beverages. I can’t help but to also notice that one guy who always sits in the front wearing a gray t-shirt. The shirt is obviously too small for his size, and I am always baffled as to why he wears it. Get a new shirt!? He also has a mustard stain on the side of it… probably from all the hot dogs he continuously eats while I perform my stand up routine. I have yet to see him eat anything else other than a hot dog saturated with mustard.  He sits there alone and doesn’t validate any of the performers except mine. He laughs at every joke I tell… but here is the sad part… sometimes I am not even telling a funny joke and he still laughs. One time I was in a particular mood, and maybe had a bit too much to drink, so I started talking about me and my grandmother's broken relationship. He laughed the entire time recklessly and the entire audience followed suit. So by the end of the night, I had the whole crowd explosively laughing at my emotionally vulnerable stories over my experiences at “G-MAS Bakery and salad.” But I digress.. 

 I can see…  and that is all I need in that split second. This moment of truth is the moment that I live for. Not the money, fame or giant crowds. I live for the small quiet moment of truth I get to have to myself before walking out on that stage. My body tells me to “quit and turn around and forget about the show.” That's actually what women tell me before they decide to sleep with me. Zing!

 Fear and doubt, the two emotional companions come to haunt me and create an atmosphere that drives me mad. This fabricated atmosphere is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, which… speaking from experience is not a fun place to be in! Specifically between G-MAS Bakery and Salad and Uncle Tony's Giant Rock Company (Long story). But I digress… Nobody ever actually tells you how to escape from between a rock and a hard place (Nor ever really explain how you got there in the first place?), but the truth is that you can’t escape it. Once you get stuck, you’re stuck forever. The trick is to never get stuck– so you do what I do. You take a deep breath and walk on stage and perform, because performing is actually the easy part. The moment of truth is a complicated moment of time, but after years of experience I actually have come to cherish that one second of glory. Cherish the time you have when you get  to overcome the zealous companions of fear and doubt, because those moments are the most liberating moments of your entire life.” 

[Performer takes a deep breath and walks out to perform for a sold out crowd.]