Minor redemptions

In all honesty, I've been putting off writing this particular entry. I wanted some time and distance in order to write it from a less emotional perspective.

In retrospect, I let myself get carried away too much by the whole audition thing. Doing the math, it's easy to see I set myself up for a failure. On the day of my audition, there were over 500 entrants. There were three days of auditions. They could realistically only "accept" 50 acts max from all three day's worth of auditions. So, just on random chance, I had only about a 3% chance of being selected anyway.

However, there's always that light of hope you carry around with you. That maybe you're special and it just takes one chance to get noticed.

So, I waited about 5 hours for my minute-and-a-half audition. Never did I think it would take that long. It was not my best performance ever, either. I wouldn't even say it was good. Unknown to the two judges, in my nervousness I forgot a punchline in my abbreviated routine. I don't recall them ever actually laughing either, which didn't bode well. In my 20-second critique (at which point I already knew I wasn't going anywhere) I was told that this year was going to be especially though for ventriloquists since one won the show last year. So, feeling a bit dejected, I left.

I probably wouldn't be so bitter about the experience if it hadn't made everyone else in my family miserable as well. I felt really bad about that, much more so than the rejection at the auditions. It was Nico's birthday, and we were planning to go to the ESPN Zone for dinner and games. Carma had gone ahead with the boys, but was having a very hard time. We had neglected to check the ESPN Zone schedule ahead of time, and failed to realize that the place would be ultra-crowded due to the two Final Four games that night. So I finally caught up with them, the boys were cranky and hungry, and so we left (it was a three-hour wait for seating).

Out of desperation, we ended up having Nico's birthday dinner at Pax- a little slice shop on 42nd that caters mostly to the tourists to Times Square. I felt horrible- nothing had gone well, everyone was unhappy, and it felt like it was all my fault. We took a taxi to the ferry terminal to wait for the 9:20 ferry to Hoboken. Which, at about 9:35, we found out that it no longer exists, despite being posted on the electronic schedule board when we arrived. So we had to take a different ferry to another place and then take yet another cab to our car in Hoboken so we could drive home. We finally arrived there after 10:15. Yeah, a great ending to a perfect day.

I guess the lesson here for me (there's always a lesson involved, isn't there?) is about priorities. What was really more important? Some against-all-odds chance of being on TV? Or spending my boy's birthday with him and the rest of my family? In hindsight this is much clearer to me, and I regret my decision. I felt I let down Nico (though he probably didn't even really notice, to be honest), but even more so my wife.

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On the morning of his birthday, Nico asked us "When are my friends coming?" Carma and I had decided that we weren't going to have a birthday party for him this year (involving his friends anyway), but after that we reconsidered. He'd been to so many of his friend's parties by now, we didn't realize that he had come to expect it.

So we decided to have a party with a few of his friends just at our house, which took place this past Saturday. We sent out invites, and Carma did a lot preparing the Super-Hero theme, complete with Super-Hero capes for all the (child) guests (which read "Super (kid's name)"), a Superman cake, and Spider-man gift bags. Ironically, all the guests who were able to come were girls.

As part of the "entertainment", I brought out my duck for the kids. Nico and the girls were all delighted. They laughed and giggled, and tried to pet him. The duck even got a "Super Duck" cape of his own. The duck lead them around and after a couple of minutes of fun, was put away. They were momentarily sad, but moved on to other fun activities.

Me, I had found an audience that made me feel special. One that fit what my true priorities are.