Tis but a dream. It's a quiet whisper that dare not be spoken loudly lest it vanishes. If you think about it too long it just might disappear, yet if you fail to plan, your plan has already failed.
You see, I grew up in a youth group that had annual talent shows. I then went off to school at a place that had a few talent shows a year. They are a part of my life. They are a part of my past. Are they a part of my future?
I've got a lot of feelings associated with talent shows.

1. My dream is to pee my pants on stage. I've always thought that would be funny.
2. If you think too long about any one skit, it ceases to be funny.
3. Serious skits are a no no. I understand that Jesus died for my sins, and that isn't the issue. The issue is the timing. During a talent show we are celebrating joy, life, humor, all those godly good things. What we aren't doing is taking a moment to ponder, nay, to meditate on Gods infinite mercy and grace. Don't get me wrong, I like his grace, but his grace ruins a talent show! (Dear God, please don't kill me. I hope you smell what I'm steppin' in)
4. Anything that includes lip synching to Christian music doesn't usually work.
5. You never know whats going to work. Some things sound like a sure fire hit and they crash. Other ideas sounds pathetic and yet when on stage they take a life of their own. Often the funnies things are the ones that are completely spontaneous.
6. Jr. High girls are rarely funny.
7. I've been swept off the stage twice in my life...ouch

Here is my own personal highlight reel:

1. I used to be in a band called RONM. We were good. I sang lead and percussion and soprano. We sang such classics as Sweet Fellowship, We are the Champions, and we once attempted to sing that one Jon Mellencamp song, you know the one "little diddy 'bout Jack and Dianne..." Lets just be honest here, though, we sucked...bad.
2. There is nothing worse than a hostile environment. Try being a college student assigned to work with a particular youth group that already has a hatred of college students (and quite possible even a dislike of Jesus). Our first week working with the youth group meant that we had to go on their youth group retreat. I felt like disappearing. It was a youth group of like 200, and only the jr high girls liked us...the jr high girls who enjoyed doing sign language. Anyway, we had to do something for the talent show. Bad news. They didn't think we were funny, they thought we were stupid (seriously). And to make it worse, it wasn't just Jonathan (who I lived with in Portugal. He's very funny), Brian (check his blog out. He's very funny and very random...and he types too much), and a couple of girls who don't have a knack for being funny (they thought that they did...but they didn't. Their idea of a funny skit was rewriting "hey hey we're the monkeys" except we would insert our own names and such). In the end I threw on my billy bob teeth, my red fully body pj's, and told the kids how to pick up women. It was ok funny. Next Jonathan and I sang a song that we made up on the spot. We took suggestions from the crowd and then sang. It was funny. And finally we gave in to the not-so-funny girl and did a skit that WAS NOT FUNNY, but it was amazing 'cause in the middle of the skit Brian just stops and says "this skit sucks. I don't want to be up here...I want to be up on the mountains (I think he might of ripped off his shirt)...I want to be a lumberjack" He then broke into the Monty Python classic "I"m a lumberjack and I'm ok, I sleep all night and I work all day..."
3. Another hostile environment was, what Jonathan and I call, the summer camp from hell. We had been in Portugal for a few months. We didn't speak Portuguese, we didn't have friends yet, we sucked at futebol, we were not in a position to be funny. To make matters worse, it was the worst camp ever. What I mean is that there were all these problems, dissent, sex, disobedience, frustration, bitterness, etc. It just wasn't working. And they asked us to host the talent show! Piss on that huh?! So what did we do? Well, duh, we did a dance routine to One Voice by Billy Gilman (remember, he was like four when he put out his first album). It was beautiful. I'm not sure they thought it was funny, but I sure as heck did...and that made it all worth while.
4. I've got so many stories and songs to tell you about, but alas this blog is too long and too dull to go on any further. For all you who have made it this far, thank you and god bless.

ryan