Booooohhhhh!

Public speaking is a frightening thing, but it is particularly frightening when the audience is expecting jokes. I  accepted the role of playing comedian at the Black Sand Bang-a-lang Comedy show last evening April 23, 2014, at the Sandy Point community festival. One of the drama clubs of St. Kitts did not turn up to perform, and the guest comedian out of Trinidad and Tobago was not expected to even enter the gate until around ten o' clock  that night.
Guess who they turned to.
 And foolish me said, "yes I would", because, you see, I hate watching people squirm and one of the directors of the event was my good friend, so I went out there to face the crowd and tried to make the people laugh.
 The only thing I succeeded in doing was making myself look like a bloody donkey. The audience was kind to me though; I receive not a single booh, at least not audible boohs, although I suspect some probably boohed me in their heads.
 Public speaking is hard work.
Another time-filler was a young man I met at the gate when I arrived. He took the boohs and remained there facing them like  a duck being dowsed with freezing water; all of his Guyana-gold-front-teeth glinting in the  night light. I admire his courage, I tell you. He is a young man of courage because boohs are painful things.
 Only recently Hillary Clinton had, not boohs, but a woman's shoe belted at her. This is not a joke. The thrower missed, but I am certain that Hillary wondered why  on God's green earth would anybody want to  send a shoe flying in her direction with her as the target. What had she done that woman? She had no idea, I am certain, who the woman was, where she had come from or anything else about her, but having boohs and other things tossed at public speakers seems a natural hazard of public speaking. People somehow feel like throwing things at public speakers, comedians or not, and I do not know why. There is just some sort of connection between people who attend public speaking functions and this tendency to pelt things. Many public speakers have had eggs tossed at them. George Bush Junior once had to duck fast from a flying Middle-eastern shoe. Michael Jackson often had to move his head quickly out of the pathway of flying underwear, and I know of at least one public speaker who had a man enter the platform, pick up the speaker's glass of water and toss it  all over the speaker's head. So I go out of my comedic attempts without having to dodge any shoe, eggs or rolls of toilet paper. I know a  number of public speakers who have not been so lucky.
 By the way, that Trinidad and Tobago comedian was very good.