Open Mike

A young adult story.

It’s one thing to be the class clown. It’s entirely different to be funny and get paid for it. At high school, they tell me I’m going nowhere. At the comedy club, on open mike night, they’re going to tell me that I’m a rising star.

No one is worried that I might be throwing away my chances as night clean-up boy at the grocery store to be a comedian. Maybe, if I had a better academic career, they’d be more concerned about my ambitions. As it stands, the guidance counsellor isn’t beating down my door with post-secondary opportunities.

I can’t help it if I’ve got a rapier wit. Mom hears that and sees a future felon in our family tree. But she, more than anyone, should understand my gift. I’ve made her laugh since I was born—I’ve seen the home movies.

So maybe I’m not going to save the world like my older sister, providing clean water by digging wells in African villages. I have something else to offer: an introspective moment of clarity about how the world works and why we are all screwed. I would argue that both are important. Okay, the clean drinking water issue may be a tad higher on the human needs scale, but can you imagine a world with no laughter. I think not.

A smile has no language barriers—this is good stuff—I’m going to use it in the closing statements to my parents to explain why I need to go to a downtown bar on a Wednesday night and how I may be unable to attend school the next morning, depending on what time I get on stage. Parents love it when you give a mature and rational argument for your actions, especially before the infraction. They’re reasonable people; I’m sure they will see my point and commend me for my aspirations and bravery.

Who am I kidding? They were upset when I mentioned that I was going to wait in line for the latest zombie war game released at midnight three weeks ago. I was throwing away my potential, they said. And since that night, they’ve remarked that for the amount of time I’ve spent playing that game, I could have cured cancer. They don’t understand how the creative mind works. I play video games to release my connection to the outside world in order to channel my intuitiveness. They didn’t buy it. I do keep a notebook and pen handy to write down spur of the moment thoughts that I could turn into jokes. And honestly, most of my ideas come to me while killing a soldier, re-awakened from the dead, who I am chasing down with an AK-47. Every blood spatter is a light bulb going off in my head.

Technically, I don’t need their permission. I turned eighteen last month, so it’s sayonara parental consent and bonjour none of their business. Well, let me make a small correction there. I will need room and board for a little while, until my professional career gets booming—a year or two, tops. I could be the Justin Bieber of the comic world. An overnight teenage sensation from a small Canadian town. Then my parents will be falling all over the paparazzi to say they always knew I had it in me. They’ll show pictures of me when I was two, dressed-up as a pirate, the life of the party. It’ll be sweet.

I'm going to use a few anecdotes from my family to open my act, with Dad giving me loads of material like, “One thing’s for sure, if you can be blessed, then you can be cursed” and a gem he lays on me every once in a while: “Shit doesn’t stick to you, it ricochets off your forehead and hits me right in the teeth”, and, a classic piece of fatherly wisdom: “You wipe your ass with the privileges around here.” If only my parents knew how much material they give me, they’d be even less inclined to support me as I share our private moments with the audience.

But it’s going to all pay off when I’m a gazillionaire who can provide clean water for every village in the world. I’d better rehearse again in front of the mirror; underprivileged children everywhere are counting on me.

My Video Gamer

When my son acquires a fulfilling, creative, and high-paying position as a video game designer someday, will I be able to look back at the countless hours spent with a controller in his hand and deem it career training?

He’s a good student, he writes stories, he plays hockey, and he has a great sense of humour but playing video games is his favourite pastime, gobbling up more of his time than I care to think about. We’ve tried to come to a compromise over the years regarding limits, to no avail. Last summer, when I had him think of a project that was screen-free, he drew illustrations of his video game covers; and when I insist that he spend the same amount of time reading as he does gaming, this hardly ever works and I eventually resort to nagging. I’ve settled for reading aloud to him as he plays with the sound off; however, he’ll be a teenager next year so my time is running out with this manoeuvre. He’s had his PlayStation3 for a year now and we have not allowed online access but I can’t avoid it much longer. This isn’t like his pursuit of passing fads such as Pokémon or Webkinz that I was able to put off until he lost interest. There are many good reasons why I’m hesitant to open his little world into a massive one whose scope I can barely appreciate, but my greatest concern is about how much more time he may spend playing video games. And because my son is a good sleeper, going to bed at 9:30 most nights, he’s also an early riser so he can get in an hour of game time before the sun even shines. Most days, I want to throw those game systems out the door. I’m tired of saying, “Take a break.” or asking, “How much longer is this game?” or in my most frustrating moments of the day, “Get off that thing and get ready for school!”

The genre of the game also makes a difference. I’m better with sports games and car racing, but I lost the battle for a gun-free home when the war games became his favourite thing to play. Ne’er a plastic gun has entered our home over his childhood but now he recites a repertoire of weapons and ammunition that he loves to rhyme off as I shake my head. My reluctant acceptance of violent games seeped under my guard in subtle ways over time. It started with cartoon characters carrying pseudo-weapons in games rated E10 for Everyone over Ten. He quickly graduated to war games where he pointed out, “I only kill zombies, Mom.” Now, when I wince at the blood splattered across the screen during war re-enactment games such as Call Of Duty, he rolls his eyes. I’ve watched for changes in his behaviour but honestly, he does not seem to be ill-affected by them. If anything, his focus and concentration resembles meditation and his memory for the exhaustive details is astonishing.

My resolve was officially undermined when I read an article in The Economist from Sept 13, 2010, which cited a study by cognitive scientists at the University of Rochester that suggested video gamers make faster and more accurate decisions. Subjects using fast-moving action games, such as COD, saw improvement in decision-making skills, enhanced sensitivity to their surroundings, and it helped with multitasking, driving, reading small print, navigation, and keeping track of friends in a crowd.

The best I can do is continue to supervise game-playing and expose him to new things, until he is older and his choice of activities is officially beyond my scope of motherly duties.

Update: We granted permission for online playing this week and all my fears came to light within 24 hours when he was invited to play a game by someone named Mr. McNasty. Yes, this is a learning opportunity and I will take it in stride but the world never gives a parent a break! It also looks like I’m among the last parents of his group of friends to come over to the dark side when he brought home a list of online classmates he can play with. I’ll still be adamant about conveying my views on these games because I hope what I think still carries some weight in my son’s development but just like everything else in parenting, I'll look at it as preparing him for the world because I can’t change the world for him.

Face-to-Face

Betty White said a game show like Password wouldn’t make it on TV today because contestants can’t think on their feet anymore. I agree. I’d like to think that I’m getting smarter every year but I would hazard to guess that the Jeopardy questions are less difficult than they used to be. At one time, I would see a show like Cops or America’s Funniest Home Videos, and fear for our future. But now, there is a whole culture of stupid out there. And they’re proud of it, not to mention, well paid. An article in UTNE Reader (Jan.-Feb. 2011), first published in The Humanist, reads, “The belief culture thrives on the false principal that all opinions are equal, even those without a shred of factual data, documentation, or reasoned methodology.” And Homer Simpson said it even better, “Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.”

This dumbing down of society has brought our below-average members to the surface—of my TV. We are drowning in media personalities who are obnoxious, selfish, fake, and ignorant. From my point-of-view, sitting in front of my television, attractive people are happy, young people are sex fiends, old people need copious amounts of prescription medication, I know more than certain politicians (scary thought), and all your problems can be solved with a prayer and a small donation. We are being deluded into thinking extremeness is normal. Thank goodness for programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to let me know that I’m not the only one looking for a little sanity, a wider perspective, and a good laugh.

Looking around, it appears the cream of the crop who are currently on topic, and worth listening to, are those with a constant Twitter feed, getting updates of their acquaintances on Facebook, while streaming the latest YouTube sensation. I'm all for the internet bringing us closer together and propelling the world forward, but not at the expense of drowning out more important topics.  And you are out of touch with the real world if you’re not connected 24 hours a day, knowing what everyone around you is doing every second, feeding an addiction to the daily minutiae of our existence.

As you may have surmised, I’m not a texter, therefore I am not on the same wave length as someone trying to communicate with their thumbs in as little time as possible; I’m on the side of people worried about the demise of proper punctuation (I can hear the moaning through the computer screen). It’s true, I’m old fashioned, and this method may seem obsolete but it works for me: apart from writing and reading—and I’m not referring to anything penned by authors named Snooki—I use face-to-face communication to feel connected to the world around me.

Admittedly, I usually have my nose stuck in a book at my kids’ practices, but when I do venture into a conversation, I find myself relating to real people. I do have a terrible habit of being so nervous when I talk to someone that I babble on, my inner-voice screaming at me to shut-up, but still I make an attempt because it makes me feel refreshed and energized. As Ms. White reminds us, being able to come up with a coherent thought at a moment’s notice is challenging; it’s a skill that needs to be honed: greeting someone you cross paths with on the sidewalk, speaking up at public meetings, asking questions of a stranger, small talk at a party. Mind you, there are some conversations going on around me that I would rather not be privy to: the gossip and intimate information you overhear people say—even though you, a stranger, are only two seats away—makes me cringe. I must remember, though, that these people are just like me, trying to make a personal connection, only in a less discreet manner.