Exposed! Now there’s a loaded term and yup, we’ve all felt it from time to time. There are all levels of exposure. But in reality, have you ever felt that you had no defenses behind which to hide? That pretty much covers the term. Apply it to any type of “exposed.” Financial, emotional, physical. It works for all of them. No place to hide.
I am a singer, a performer. Have been all my life. Unlike a lot of people, I’ve never felt exposed in front of an audience or a classroom; rather it’s in front of an audience I feel the most in control.
However, I harbor a secret ambition. I state that desire in carefully defensible language. As in, “In my next life I want to come back as a stand-up comedian.”
What? Did I just say that out loud, in front of you guys and everybody in cyberspace? And to that you might just say, “Well, go for it girl. Try it out on your friends.”
You want to talk exposed?
You understand that when singing it’s usually someone else’s words someone else’s music. On stage, it’s the playwrite’s lines and plot. In the classroom or teaching studio, it’s predetermined content. Graphic art comes close, but it is still one step removed. People either buy your work or they don’t but you’re not necessarily there to see it. . . but comedy? Oh, my gosh . . . it would be my own words my own sense of humor, my own timing . . . my own self . . . no defenses behind which to dodge. They either laugh or they don’t . . . right there . . . right then.
What if they don’t like me? That’s ME I’m talking about!
Oh, I have really, really tremendous respect for comedians. Good, bad, indifferent . . . doesn’t matter, they all lay it out there in front the world at large. When I expressed this trepidation about doing stand up comedy to one of my musician friends, he claimed the solution was easy: Just sit down.
That’s not quite what I meant.
Well, and now there’s this writing thing. Another arena of exposure. It might be my content and my words, but at least with writing for the public one gets the benefit of spell-check and an editor. Unfortunately, in comedy, there’s neither of those things available for my mouth.
Maybe in my next life.
Adrienne Jacoby is a 40-plus-year resident of Shasta County and native-born Californian. She was a teacher of vocal music in the Enterprise Schools for 27 years and has been retired for 11 years.
A musician all her life, she was married to the late Bill Jacoby with whom she formed a locally well -known musical group who prided themselves in playing for weddings, wakes, riots, bar mitzvas and super market openings. And, oh yes . . . she has two children, J’Anna and Jayson.
A News Cafe, founded in Shasta County by Redding, CA journalist Doni Chamberlain, is the place for people craving local Northern California news, commentary, food, arts and entertainment. Views and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of anewscafe.com.
