T. Scott Gross

The client was named Skeeter. It’s one of those things that for whatever reason sticks in your memory.  It must have been the early 90’s.  Positively Outrageous Service had just been published.  I was still speaking for next to nothing, lucky to have a wife at home who never complained about just getting by.

When Skeeter booked the date, she moaned about her too small budget and said she would make the deal if I would agree to stay over an extra night and emcee her annual banquet.  (She needed an emcee.  I needed the fee. Done!)

On my way back to my hotel room I passed one of the attendees.  I said “Hello”;  He said, “I’m looking forward to hearing your presentation tonight.”

“I’m not presenting tonight.  Just introducing the VIPs.”  I said as I stopped and turned to face the direction from which I’d come.  He turned to mirror my maneuver.

“It says right here” he whipped a wrinkled yellow agenda from a pocket inside his sport coat,  “that you are doing a comedy routine.”

“Let me see that!”

He was right.  There it was in black and wrinkled yellow. “T. Scott Gross will open our gala affair with what is sure to become a comedy classic.”

That was not funny.

I raced to my room, fired up the Mont Blanc, and began to outline something that was funny but far short of a comedy classic.

When people decide that you are funny they immediately respond by trying to be funny, too.  (They rarely are.)  One of my biggest fans from the morning session was self-appointed to introduce me. Not to be out done by the guy being paid to be funny, he headed to the bookstore where he found a small paperback titled, The World’s Worst Jokes.  Whoever came up with that title was right on target!

My so-called fan told first one stinker and then another.  Each punchline earned a tired groan from the audience which only served to encourage our tormentor: “Okay, okay, let’s try another one.”

With the audience slipping toward coma, Mr. Personality suddenly closed his little book and said, “Without further ado… T. Scott Gross.”   Then just to make certain I had the situation accurately pegged he added, “I don’t think these guys are in the mood for comedy.”

I don’t remember much about the routine or how it was received.  I do remember looking nervously at my watch and wondering when the “real” entertainment would arrive.  Finally, the door at the back of the room cracked just a bit.  I saw the glint of tiny sequins, and knowing I was about to be saved, launched one last story before snatching the neatly printed introduction of Miss Tennessee, nineteen eighty something who was, no surprise, going to entertain us with a patriotic routine of baton twirling and tap dancing.

Not what I would have ordered for the evening but it saved my butt and now it was her turn and that was just fine with me!

Now there were just two tiny problems.  First, the ceiling in this room was barely ten feet.  This baton act would have to go into stealth mode because anything high enough to be seen by the audience would have to penetrate the drop in tiles.

Oh well, there’s always the tap dancing.  Except.  The same Skeeter who neglected to inform the speaker he had suddenly turned pro comedian had also neglected to have the hotel bring in a wood floor.  Yep-per, this tap routine would be performed on genuine, high pile, easy-to-care-for DEW-pont carpet!

Tap dance is lost on carpet.

Like the speaker who quickly wrote a comedy routine, Miss Whatever simply pushed a button on her boom box and in less than three minutes, the crowd had pushed away from their tables, struggled to rise from their chairs, and joined the now beaming young woman in a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner!

When the music stopped and the applause died I stepped to the mic saying, “Thank-you very much.  You’ve been a great audience. Good night!”  I caught a quick smile from Miss Tennessee and headed to my room wondering if there would ever be another night quite like this.
There are many things that happen in our lives for which we think we have had no preparation.  But that is simply not true.  Everything we have experienced influences our decisions in the present.  Afternoons writing an emergency comedy routine and evenings spent tap dancing on carpet leave their mark.

For example I am in my eighth or ninth year of Parkinson disease.  I am also in the best physical condition of my life.  I can lift more, run farther, and am mentally sharper than ever.  Yes, I do have a bit of a tremor in my left hand but one of my tiny blue pills (not what you are thinking) or a couple of cold beers and the tremor goes away.  I do have trouble with those aggravating little buttons on my shirtsleeves.  But so what?  I always travel with Buns who just happens to be a world class buttonerupper!

I do walk funny but I’ve always walked funny.  It’s my nature.  My biggest fear is that they find a cure, nothing changes, and we discover I was just born a dork.

I may have Parkinson but Mr. Parkinson doesn’t have me! 

Could you honestly say to me that all those years of loving on audiences and helping them learn while they laugh hasn’t influenced my handling of this minor inconvenience?

What past experiences… if you brought them forward and put them to work… might help you right now? 

When you are hiring a new employee, understand that you are hiring past, present, and future behavior.  The purpose of an interview is to learn enough about past performance to predict future behavior.
 
If a sixty-ish woman wearing a sequined leotard and carrying a baton applies at your place… hire her!  She knows how to handle an audience.
 
“Now, please stand for our National Anthem!” 

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