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12/23/2007: ""

Those who have worked with me know that I love doing the show. I always volunteer to do more shows. In comedy clubs on off nights in a blizzard when there are eight people in the audience and the club has a policy of not doing a show unless there are at least twelve people and they ask me what we should do, I always say 'lets do a show'. I truly believe that each time I take the stage I learn something and get better. I also believe that up to this point in my life, I have spent about as much time onstage perfoming as was possible.
Some ships on the first night of the cruise do two 'welcome aboard shows'. This consists of ten minutes of the singers and dancers, fifteen to twenty five minutes of social hosts and cruise directors interacting with the audience from the stage, and 20 minutes of comedy or variety from someone like me. Other cruise directors only do one show. The ships that do two shows do usually do one at 7 and one at 8:45. The ships that do one do that show at 10:30. I thought I was going to be doing two of these shows on this ship last night, I found out they only do one. Knowing how much I love performing and how I pride myself on the number of shows I do in a year, some would think I would be disappointed in this. I wasn't disappointed when I found out, I was kind of happy. Just one show means a bigger crowd. I just had some pretty good shows at the end of the last cruise on the same ship so I was confident, and with one show at 10:30 I could eat dinner at 6 (when the staff mess opens) and still be ready to perform the show. When I have two shows at 7 and 8:45, I don't eat until after the shows. Eating at 6 and working at 7 doesn't work for me.
It wasn't until I got offstage last night that I wished there were two shows. I could have been better, a lot better, than I was onstage last night. I wanted to go again, immediately. I needed another shot at these folks. I have to wait until midnight tonight for that shot. Last cruise was like following a really good opening act, this cruise is just the opposite. I'm taking some time off for the holidays, so this is my last show of the year, I'm planning on hitting the stage hard tonight.