07.31.09
They’ll Love Ya! Or Not…
I was talking with my friend Rob last night. He told me about an experience he had in LA on Sunset Boulevard (Sunset Strip? I don’t know LA; I only know PA). Wanting to fulfill his dream of doing stand-up, Rob walked into a comedy club for their amateur night. What he found was a shock.
Onstage, practicing some new material, was Robin Williams. His act was followed by J.J. (Dy-no-mite!) Walker. Then Billy Crystal took the stage. This was in the early days, when Robin Williams was just getting started, Rob told me. (I can almost hear Robin Williams say from the stage, “Oh, I’m just gettin’ started!”…)
Rob said, “At that point, I didn’t even want to go onstage. How can you follow someone like that??!!”
And so, he didn’t take his chance while he was in LA.
Rob is one of the funniest, most clever people I have met in a very long time. He’s a joy to be around, because he brightens the room with his skewed outlook and his off-beat comments. Someone at our meeting asked, “I wasn’t able to be here last time; what did I miss at the last meeting?”
Rob replied, in a serious tone, “We raffled off a Lexus. And those people who jumped out of the cake–whoa!” Everyone was laughing, mainly because we weren’t expecting that kind of reply.
But that’s Rob’s gift–he’s not only funny, he knows exactly WHEN to be funny. And it works. Every time.
Not everyone will like us, personally. There are some people who are wonderful–but not wonderful for us.
We don’t click, and we never will. But that’s no reason to stop being yourself, or to stop living your values.
In the same vein, just because someone may be funnier than you are, that’s no reason to stop using your sense of humor. You can’t please everyone, all the time, and you can’t make everyone laugh, all the time. (Unless you are Rob; but I am partial, because he’s a friend of mine. Other people may think he’s an idiot).
“Get Your SHINE Together!” even if you have a tough act to follow. Because to some people YOU are a tough act to follow!
