|
Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
On stage,
you always
die aloneEpiphany (noun): the sudden perception of the essential nature of a thing.
I had one of those on Thursday night. A big, fat embarrassing one. With hair on it. In front of a hundred or so strangers. Which is a bummer because most experts on existential matters will tell you it's better to have an epiphany in church. Or while watching the sun rise while hiking through a beautiful country where no one speaks English. Or in the privacy of your bedroom.
In fact, it's better to have an epiphany just about anywhere else then where I had mine, which was right in the middle of a standup comedy routine on stage in Waikiki.
It was open mike night at the All Star Hawaii cafe and I had just launched into what I had perceived -- erroneously it turns out -- to be a extremely funny bit on the old television shows "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza." I was talking about how Marshal Matt Dillon had been shot 189 times and miraculously was never hit in a major organ. And how it was a little odd that on "Bonanza" four adult single men lived together on a ranch. Sure, they claimed to be family but none of them looked alike. If they were to do a remake of that show today they might call it "Queer Eye for That Hoss Guy."
The audience was reacting with rampant, unrestrained apathy. The lack of laughter was so thick in the air you could have cut it with a cleaver. As I gazed out over the sea of blank faces I had my epiphany: These people have no freaking idea what I'm talking about. They are too young to have seen the TV shows, they've never heard of Matt Dillon or Miss Kitty or Hoss or Little Joe.
AS THE EPIPHANY turned into an out-of-body experience, I floated above the stage looking down at the poor jerk dying under the hot lights. And I have to say that it was pretty funny. Look at the beads of sweat forming on his brow! Listen to the nervous twitter in his voice! Look at his ferret eyes dart around vainly looking for even one charity smile! What a hoot!
When you are dying big time in front of a crowd, time slows down. That gives you plenty of time to think. I was thinking about the fragmentation of society and how it leads to bad things happening, like people making fools of themselves in public. See, when I was a kid, there were only three TV channels. That means everyone pretty much watched the same shows. We all discussed the same shows at school. Now, there are hundreds of channels and everyone is watching something different. Therefore we are all disconnected from each other. There it is. As epiphanies go, it's not particularly deep. Nobody's going to write it on a grain of rice or anything.
Epiphany in hand, I made a strategic withdrawal from the stage vowing to use my new-found wisdom for the betterment of mankind. That likely will entail the religious avoidance of nightclubs, especially those that leave live microphones unattended.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com