On the road again: Balticon, day 4

It's late, and I'm exhausted, so I'll keep this shorter than it probably should be.

After going to bed very late, I was up late and out to a quick lunch at a local Panera. I was nervous about the stand-up show, which I still hadn't finished.

I returned to lead the Liars Panel, which packed the room and entertained everyone. We all had a very good time, and we raised a decent amount to buy books for local kids. The only bad news was that we failed to complete even half the questions, because a lot of the panelist stories ran way long, and so we raised less money than last year. Should I do this panel again, I'll restrict people to a max of 90 seconds, with a goal of one minute. Still, everyone laughed a lot, and some kids who can't afford books will now get them.

After a little time checking out the dealers' room and the art show, I retired to my room to finish the stand-up show. Printing in the hotel proved to be more challenging than it should have been, but in the end I found a way, so I had the show's notes ready in plenty of time.

I attended the masquerade, which started late and ran late but was otherwise a nice show. A surprising number of entrants were genuinely humorous, which was nice to see.

The ripple effect of the masquerade running late, however, was that my midnight show didn't start until almost 12:30 a.m., which led to a far smaller crowd than I had last year. (Best guess from friends watching was about 75 folks.)

I have to call the show a mixed performance. I started slower than necessary, and as happens with new material, some of the bits fell flat. On the other hand, my physical comedy worked better than before, the highs were higher than last year's, and everyone stayed to the end--and laughed a lot. So, on balance I have to call it a success--but I can definitely improve on the weak bits.

With almost two hours of material I've now written and tried, I think I have 80 to 90 strong minutes, which isn't a bad result.

Of course, all that stays with me is what I did wrong, the failure moments, and all I can do is beat myself for not doing better, but I'll get over that and continue to work to improve my stand-up.

I was gratified to have everyone laugh so much. Making people laugh is a wonderful thing.