What George Burns Taught Me About Performing

Have you ever seen the movie “Oh God! Book 2?”

It’s a sequel to the first “Oh God!” movie. In both, George Burns plays God, who decides to go to earth and select one person to be his messenger.

Before going further, I want to say I am NOT religious. At all. But there is a line in the movie that reflects the theme of this week’s newsletter.

One of my wonderful subscribers recently wrote to me. Here’s what he said:

“I had a show where a child came up unexpectedly and started grabbing my props right off the table. I asked a parent for help and no one came to the rescue I asked politely for the child to please sit down so everyone including him could enjoy the show Did not work I had to end the show because this child did not stop. And he was not special needs. I did not get paid for the show due to stopping after 15 minutes into the show. Person that hired me was very upset with me for not handling it better.”

My heart went out to him.

I responded, saying something like, “Man that sucks, I wish that hadn’t happened” or words to that effect.

He responded back, saying he was hoping for advice on how he could handle things like that better.

Well, here’s my message to him and all of you. Assuming everything happened exactly as my subscriber wrote, I can’t imagine how he could have handled it any better.

The truth is some people just suck. Not the kid, but the parents who allowed it to happen.

A close friend of mine from Texas had a similar incident happen at a show a few years ago. A child came up and literally tore all the pieces of his prop apart.

He was on the spectrum and ‘wanted to see how it worked.’

My friend is the parent of a child who is mildly on the spectrum so he was more patient than I would have been.

I have had ridiculously bad behavior from some kids, including having things thrown at me. I can laugh about them now.

Go back to the 10th episode of the podcast where I share all manner of horror stories throughout my performing career.

I could go on and on with other stories. Incidents where kids AND adults behaved horribly, but I won’t.

My theory is social media is shaving away decency and manners. Since anyone can say whatever they want, more and more people are becoming brazen in their real lives, too.

I also think that with services like Amazon and DoorDash, we can get gratification faster than ever before.

And so many of us want what we want immediately. If we don’t get it, we have a hissy fit.

That spills over to what we do as entertainers.

Being an entertainer isn’t easy. I remember reading one of Eugene Buerger’s books and he said something in it about an audience having the right to reject you.

That’s what makes performing hard enough. But when you couple that with more and more bad behavior we see in the real world, well, professional performing is harder than ever.

My advice to anyone encountering situations like this is twofold:

1. Put a note in your files not to work with the client again.

The exception to this is public shows. I work at a lot of libraries. And some of my best clients have the occasional problem child because it’s a public venue.

2. After the show immediately do a mental exercise where you visualize some of your best show experiences.

Really feel those experiences. See everything happening in your mind’s eye. Hear the sounds of gasps, laughter, and applause.

The more ‘real’ you can make it in your mind the better.

Then, when feelings of the bad show bubble up, immediately focus on the good memories and feelings of the good shows.

This is kinda/sorta a collapsing anchor in NLP. We use good feelings to ‘pave over’ the bad feelings.

Here’s one that happened to me recently.

I had a school in Long Island book me with two days’ notice. I was surprised because schools don’t normally book that close to the date.

I hate going through NYC, so I was dreading the show.

Upon arrival, I was told I’d have to wait several days for my check, which always annoys me.

I did both shows, which went just fine.

Then I saw something that made me stop in my tracks.

It was one of those Special Memories (capitalization intended).

The second show had finished. For this particular show, I always play a certain Selena Gomez song as the kids leave.

My wife picked it out because the lyrics are about being proud of who you are and not listening to negativity.

Because the song has a fun beat to it, the teachers and kids in the class stayed behind and danced to the song. And the teachers were really into it.

I was so captivated that I forgot all about trying to get out of the school quickly to beat rush hour traffic.

I knew this was one of those Special Memories. I just sat and watched.

And the drive back home was a lot easier.

Getting back to “Oh God! Book 2,” there’s an exchange between God and the young girl he’s chosen as his emissary.

She asks him why there is so much bad in the world.

God counters with, “Have you ever seen an up without a down?”

That perfectly encapsulates professional performing. The bad shows suck. And sometimes there is nothing you could have done to make things better.

But if you’re a great performer, you’ll have plenty of good to counter the bad.

Have a great week everyone!

One last thing – thank you all for your well-wishes, both for my birthday as well as my being sick.

I really appreciate it.

--Cris

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