I always, always, always, always want a do-over. Whether it be for my:

• miserable, humiliating failure onstage at the 1981 Michigan State Fair
• one lackluster turn on a national radio program
• written work that I want to keep editing ad infinitum, or my
• recent live storytelling pieces in the nation’s capital…

…The split-second I’m done, I want to try it again. I guess that’s what propels me forward to keep doing things. I’m hoping that it’s not just a case of wearisome perfectionism, but that it actually confirms that I am right to be doing what I do professionally.

The other night I realized: The performer who bombs and immediately goes home defeated and cries is just a dilettante. The person who bombs and insists, Lucy Ricardo-style, “Let me try again, Ricky!” shows she has the mettle to keep on. Whether she’s good or not.

STAGE FRIGHT

Anymore, I only get nervous after a performance. That’s when I start wondering how I did, if the producer/director/audience liked me, and so on. Much like how I’ve never written anything (besides my personal journal) that I wasn’t guaranteed was going to be published — until recently I had a crippling fear of rejection, so I’ve never “pitched” a story — I will only stand or sit in front of a mic if I’m sure the material is solid enough to carry me even if I drool or have an accident in my pants. Another reason I don’t get nervous beforehand anymore is that I truly don’t care what people think of me anymore. Or, put more truthfully: I don’t care about people I don’t know. And I barely care about people I do know. [Wish you could've seen how many times I just re-edited those last few sentences.]

It wasn’t always that way, though. For the Michigan State Fair of 1981, my guitar teacher had picked a few of his favorite pupils and arranged for us to do a recital. My song I picked to play was “Down in the Valley.”

Along the fence that contained the audience stood big blackened oil drums cut in half to form barbecue grills, filled with broiling ribs. My parents were standing over near the barbecue drums, waiting to applaud little Scottie.

But when I looked out into the crowd, which of course had warmly applauded us onto the stage, since we were just kids, I became terrified of them. I couldn’t even strum. I tried, but invisible hands gripped my arms to my sides. Presently the teacher came over and patted me on the shoulder and ushered me gently offstage. Another pupil played instead.

“I have to go back on, you have to let me!” I pleaded. My parents were watching from the barbecue pit but hadn’t been able to make their way across to me yet. The teacher relented. I went back on, and surprise, the same thing happened. I froze up.

I was taken off again. This time my parents were there in full condolence mode, trying to convince me that it was alright, you tried, these things happen, let’s go home. I didn’t know yet back then that seeing me in pain was 1,000 times worse for them than the pain I was feeling. “No! I’m going back on! Please! Please! Please!”

Exasperation all over their faces, they finally had to get a little sharp with me to make me understand that we were going home now. Period. I was too agitated even to cry. I just disassociated and stared straight ahead during the ride home. “You should have let me go on again, I would’ve played the third time.” Silence.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T TRY TO BE FUNNY

I was asked to do a story for a public radio program that has national distribution. My friend who had been on this show before gave me some advice when I asked. He said: Don’t prepare anything, and most importantly, don’t “try” to be funny. That made sense to me. Trying to be funny can produce “flop perspiration,” the stinkiest kind of perspiration.

As I sat in front of the microphone, the host tried to warm me up with a little small talk. The radio show had recently branched out and was filming a TV version; I asked what that was like, and the host laughed and said that he was getting used to wearing makeup. I said, “Do you ever forget to take it off?” He said, “Yes.”

Then he said “we’re taping now.”

I had trouble reaching a steady conversational rhythm. I concentrated hard on not talking over him, even though I think they can fix that in post-production. I babbled a little sometimes, like in a job interview.

In a way it was like talking to cop or a police detective. They ask you the same question 40 different ways because they’re waiting for a certain answer, and yet they can’t force you to give it, they have to coax or even trick it out of you.

We talked for 45 minutes, in which I relaxed more and more. Just when I hit my stride, it was over. Although the host and the producer had chuckled several times, I hadn’t, and I just didn’t see how my story was going to make it on the air. I felt my friend had given me a bum steer: He had said don’t try to be funny, and guess what? I wasn’t.

[Telling this story to you reminds me of telling that story to them. When does it get funny?]

So I said to the host, “I think I get it now, how this works. Do you think we could start over?”

He said, “No, no, we’re done.”

“But… I wasn’t funny.”

“Listen. Our editors are so great,” he assured me, “when they get done with this you will sound so tight, so clever, you won’t recognize yourself.”

I grudgingly relented, because I had no choice, but all the way home from the studio I suffered from that visceral, creeping post-performance fear. Like in a reverse-Carrie, a shrill voice taunting me: “They’re all not going to laugh at you!”

I only listened to the piece once, the morning it first aired. I understand now why so many actors and singers say they never watch their own movies or listen to their own albums. It’s not that they’re uninterested in looking at or hearing themselves. Far from it. It’s that the futile desire to do it over is unbearable.

Now, just to torture myself, I’m publishing this as-is. I will not re-write it.

I’ll be outside if you need me.

Tags: Carrie, Down in the Valley, Lucy Ricardo, Michigan State Fair, Public Radio