...Tug on Them Heart Strings!

I forgot to mention that, on the morning following our TV special, I and the rest of the comics were slagged on a Saskatoon radio station. They’d been invited to attend, but declined the invitation, and instead, slipped someone into the club to record the whole show. The next day they played cuts of each comic and lambasted them. Some people are angry about it, but then, some people just have no sense of humour ...besides ... it’s free advertising!

Spent yesterday at the Toastmasters International speech contest; I know ...it’s not Stand-up comedy, but, I did it Stand-up style, so I think it merits mentioning here. In spite of my natural modesty, I must say ...there was no competition! I won ...guess what? ...”First Place!”

The International, is primarily for inspirational/motivational presentations; I don’t like people trying to motivate me, so, out of fairness, I don’t try to motivate others. Mine is, I hope, purely inspirational, and the tricky part of 'Inspirational', is that it doesn't materialize from logical dialect, it is less about 'expression' ...and much more about, 'impression'. I decided to do it stand-up style, because I like the way that allows you to develop an image with minimal verbiage, then, just as quickly, annihilate it! And an eclectic group of images are annihilated in my presentation! I look briefly at ox-carts, automotive computer chips, the bible, paraplegic heavy equipment operators, pee-tests, buffalo chips, slapping people on the bare bottom, my mother, hot tea, windows, Twitter, Gabriel Dumont, Facebook, Tommy Douglas, the odds of your being born Afaganian, Zimbabwean, or, perhaps, Haitian, and the whole concept of ‘Winners’, as applied to individual Canadians, and the Canadian population as a whole; past, present and future! Whew! That’s a mouthful, especially when it has to come out, and come together, in less than seven and a half minutes! At the same time, it can’t be individual pieces, but everything must be part of a recognizable whole! Oh yes! Just one more thing, it’s inspirational, so it has to take people on an emotional roller-coaster, and, at the conclusion, leave them feeling better about themselves and their world.

I do want a little laughter in the set, mainly to get the audience’s attention right off the bat, and then perhaps three times throughout the presentation, as an aid to transition between sections of the presentation itself. I want them laughing as I walk on stage, and I accomplish that with a title that, when it first rattles off your ears, strikes the listener as an absurdly extravegant boast; but, remember ...this is supposed to be an extraveganza! Then, immediately, re-enforce that boast, and, just as quickly, reverse it, let them know that I’m boasting on behalf of not just myself, not just them, but all Canadians. I talk about the original pioneers, future generations of Canadians, and, of course, all of us that are here right now!

No inspirational piece is complete without a Hero, and I provide an unlikely one. Blowing someone up to heroic proportions is a difficult undertaking, its kinda’ like taking a trip north; there’s only so far you can go, before you can’t go any farther north! So, let’s say that you start 1000 miles from the north pole, that means you can ‘go north’ a maximum of 1000 miles. Now, if you want to travel north farther than that, you can, but ...you have to head south first! So, I’m going to take ‘em 1000 miles south; then, if it all works out, I can take ‘em 2000 miles north!

It is emotional manipulation, and I don’t really care for it, but, people like the inspirational type of speech, so, OK, they’re asking for it, and I’ll do it the best I can. And, it’s kind of a handy trick in a Comedy Club as well. Laughter is an emotional process, when provoked well, and I wouldn’t want to provoke it any other way.

So, I describe my hero as a man in his late sixties, who used to put in drainage tiles on my Father’s farm. I describe him as simply dressed with massive shoulders ...a powerful man! As I speak I can see the dubiety in the listener’s eyes. OK, now let’s take that first jaunt south! I first want my listeners to feel, within themselves, just a touch of contempt; to do that I take them back to when this fellow was ten years old, at the start of the depression. I describe him as weeping at the realization that, “his parents would be gone some day, and that he’d have to take care of himself!” Now the audience is looking much more dubious; time to take another jaunt south, and for this, I suggest, but never explicitly state, a long history of alcohol/drug abuse. My, my; we’re so far south now I can smell mint julep! Turn back? No! They paid for the ride, so ...let’s take ‘em all the way! Can’t wring much more mileage from contempt, so let’s try a little shame; have to squeeze it out of the audience ...cause I got none!

So, let’s knock down the mirrors, and clear up the smoke; I let them know that my Hero was a paraplegic, and the sudden silence is shattering! Now, the roads clear all the way to the pole; 2000 miles of smooth sledding! On the way I mention the difficulties my Bride and I have with modern technology, comment on historical perspectives, and finally give them my hero’s advice and best wishes for future generations! Not bad ...and I’m left with an extra 30 seconds!

My rendition was acceptable yesterday; I have the memory work just about nailed down, and good gestures. Now it’s just to soup it up with a little vocal jazz, and keep my self esteem engine going at full boil!