Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey, rock stars. Reggie Dawson here, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back, and as always, thank you so much for tuning in. If you haven't done so already, please go over to iTunes and subscribe, drop a rating and a comment. I would greatly appreciate it. So today is September 16th, 2018, at least for the next hour and a half it is. And I gotta tell you, I had to get this show in before midnight, and I'm gonna tell you why. When I started performing in 2005, there were. There were a couple of entertainers that I really, really looked up to. And two of them were drag queens. And one of them in particular was a really, really strong and just a personality of the community. Just a real, like the backbone of the community around this performing and this club. And just, there was a real community and family feel around the venue that we all performed at. And the reason I'm talking about this today. Is today would be his birthday. And he passed away in 2007. And this is an entertainer that I quote all the time. He instilled so much into me when I was growing as an entertainer, as a performer. And really kind of coming into my own and learning how to be myself when I'm on stage. And that's something that he perfected. I mean, any time he was on stage. As Mercedes. Mercedes was his drag name. Any time he was on stage as Mercedes. You were just captivated by the excitement and the energy and just the fun of him being on stage. And, you know, he wasn't a great dancer. He wasn't even that great at, you know, he didn't have a lot of coordination. He wasn't that great at his balance. And he would be the first person to tell you. This is not me, you know, talking bad about the deceased. You know? You know, he'd be the first to tell you. I can't dance. I can barely walk. But it worked for him when he was on stage. And some of the things that he instilled in me, I kind of felt compelled to share today. It's one of those things that, you know, you think about your past and you're reminiscing. And you're going through all these memories with this person on, you know, this is his birthday. So this is a day that we would usually, you know, we would celebrate as a huge group, a huge family, a huge community. Now it's almost like a day. It's a day of mourning. And truthfully, I think we should still celebrate the memories. And that's kind of the purpose of this podcast is this is my way of celebrating his memory. It's kind of sharing some of the things that I picked up along the way. And I know that I'm not my usual excited, fired up, go get him person. And that's, this is a little more of a somber episode. This is one of those things that, you know, he died very young. He died 40 years old. Heart attack. Like heart problem. Had a heart transplant. And went, had some complications and passed away. Like everything was supposed to be fine. Every, his life was supposed to continue on for another 40 years. And I can honestly say though, that he lived a great life. Like he probably did everything that he intended to do. And there was never a dull moment. And that's kind of one of the things that he passed on to me was like, when you're on stage, there should be no dull moments. It should always be exciting. It should always be captivating. And if you mess up, you mess up, you move on. No one probably even realized you made a mistake. Granted, he's not the first person to tell me that. Cause I'd been performing since, you know, since I was younger and everything, but hearing it in such a way that like, it was just more relatable because of who he was. And I think that all of us are going to have people in our lives like that, whether it's in performing or, you know, through your, your professional, your personal life. We're always going to have someone in our life like that, that gives us the information that we need or the wisdom that we need in a way that is super relatable to us. Another one of the things that he shared, and I talked about this, God, probably a couple episodes back and then some, um, he said, you know, when you're out on stage, you are the show. And at first, when you hear that, you don't really know what that means, but really, really think on that. You are the show. Like when you go see a show, you expect to be entertained. You want to, you want to laugh. You want to cry. You want to experience a little bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. But when you're the performer, you are that show that you so desperately want to see and connect to. So that's how you have to treat being on stage is you are the show. Another thing is, um, it was about money and the desire to perform. He said that, you know, the day you start doing it for the money is the day you should stop because yes, it is a okay for us to make money at what we do. We're talented. We should be compensated for our talent. Just like, you know, an amazing chef is paid for what they do in the form of people coming and eating at their restaurant. You know, an amazing artist gets paid. People come to the gallery and, you know, they can purchase the artist's art. We should get paid. But if that's, if that's the reason that you're in the game, if that's the reason that you step on stage, go home, pack it up. You're done because you may not fall on your face today, but eventually it's not going to be fun anymore. It's going to be work. And the audience is going to be able to tell that you see it as work. And that's when you start to fall. One of the last things I want to share with you, and I'm probably going to keep this one pretty short, um, just because it is getting late and it is kind of more of a somber, like, wah, wah episode, but one of the last things I want to share has to do with being nervous. And it's something that I've definitely, definitely said on this podcast multiple times. Being nervous on stage is a great feeling. It is a wonderful thing to have those nerves. And he communicated it to me like this. Being nervous on stage means that you care about what you're putting out there. If you ever stop being nervous, it means you no longer care. Now, this doesn't mean that you have this debilitating fear and you can't get on stage, but you should have those butterflies. You should have the, that rush, that, you know, rapid heartbeat. You should have a little bit of the sweaty palms and, and the hot face. That's your body preparing to go. I talked about it. I don't know. I'll probably talk about it again. Fight or flight. It's along the same lines you hear about in survival mode. You go into fight or flight, you know, being nervous is that same thing. When you're approached with danger and you're in nature and you're in survival mode, you're either going to fight back and defend yourself or you're going to run away. And depending on the situation, your body will make that decision very quickly. Same thing with performing, except you consciously make the decision of fight or flight. Fight is go out there and just lay it all out. Flight, puke. Run away. Freeze on the stage. Hold yourself back. That's not a good thing. Always go out there and fight. You care about what's going out there. Those nerves are a sign of your caring about your talent and your art that you're presenting to the world. Right? Don't shy away from those nerves. Don't think it means you can't do it. That's a great thing to have. That care about what you're presenting. So listen, I want to wrap. I want to wrap up here and say this, and this is one thing that he didn't tell me, but I did learn from him, and that is that when you're performing, any show could be your last. Just kind of let that hang for a bit and keep on shining.
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