I stood onstage, blinded by lights, looking into blackness, which made every place the same. Though my general recall of the period is precise, my memory of specific shows is faint. My decade is the seventies, with several years extending on either side. After the shows, however, I experienced long hours of elation or misery depending on how the show went, because doing comedy alone onstage is the ego's last stand. Enjoyment while performing was rare-enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford. My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years.
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