My Mount Everest! My Niagara Falls! Please Be Kind To Me!

Apparently it's called glossophobia: the fear of public speaking. Some would also call it performance anxiety but I don't really cotton to that term for obvious reasons.

The thing is, I have typically been an acute sufferer of glossophobia. I mean I get it in spades I tell you. Some of you who know me, however, probably find that hard to believe. I can be a bit of a ham. I like to deflect all serious inquiries with humorous asides and wacky nonsequitors. I have at one time or another, and occasionally still, held the desire to try my hand at stand-up comedy, improv and acting. It is all true. Embarrassing though it is. And yet this fear has plagued me all my life. Why even as a lad in elementary school I was so riddled with stage fright that I bowed out of my scheduled performance as one of the three wise men in a nativity play, leaving poor baby Jesus without any myrrh.

Since then I have avoided any situation that would require me to perform in a public setting. In fact, if you want to get deeper, I'm sure this all stems from some deep-seeded, all-pervasive, root fear - a general fear of failure the likes of which has caused me to quit everything before I've had the chance to succeed or fail...but that is neither here nor there.*

The reason I bring any of this up is to tell you, kind readers, that I have begun a three part program to cure myself of this ailment. And it goes thusly:

Part One: Sing at a karaoke bar. Part one has been accomplished...twice. Feeling a little bit more comfortable up there. Thanks to Billy Kernkamp, whose gig hosting a karaoke night at Harvey's opened the door for me, and the support of various friends and acquaintances who made me feel like comfortable up on that stage: Justin Deckert, Mary Bell, Steve Carson and of course my lovely girlfriend, Krystal Flevotomos.

Part Two: Sign up for an acting class. Part two has been partially accomplished. I am currently enrolled in a beginning acting class. I've only finished one class thus far but I will have you know that I did have to descend to the floor, move about on "all fours" as they say, and pretend to be, variously, a puppy, a kitten, a chimp and a lion.**

Part Three: Perform stand-up comedy at an open mic night. Now this is my Mount Everest to climb. However, it may just prove to be my Niagara Falls to go over in a barrel. We shall see.


* It is somewhere though. Probably in my frontal lobe.
** I was also paired up with a forty-six year old, ex-gang member, Compton bred, self-proclaimed "hustler" and recent stroke victim, named Paul, for an "open scene" project. I may conquer my fear of public performance but I believe my fear of shady black people may prove to be life-long.