Tonight’s performance will be raw — and not that funny

For those of you following and supporting my pursuit of “Performer of the Year” in the A Star is Born competition at The Public Blogger, the theme for tonight’s round is “RAW.” Fortunately, since this isn’t Hell’s Kitchen, there won’t be Chef Ramsey yelling at everyone about their uncooked chicken or lamb. What it does mean is that, unlike past weeks in this competition, we were given just 24 hours to respond to two questions:

What is your contribution?

And

Where will it find its home? 

The point of this round, and why we were given such a short time to put our submission together, was so that it would be as unrehearsed, real, live and “raw” as possible. For my piece, I decided to strip away as much as possible (Don’t worry! There’s no nudity!) by answering those two questions as spontaneously and unrehearsed as possible. To do that, I avoided the written word, which allows me time to think things through. I simply set myself up in front of a camera and answered the questions uncut and unrehearsed. No fancy images. No music or flashy segues — just me, answering in one take.

No second chances. 

It’s not particularly eloquent. Or smooth. Or very funny.

But it does reveal a little about my early childhood during some difficult years that shaped my views on humor and it’s place in my life.

My submission, along with the other four nominees’, will go live tonight at 7 p.m. When it does, I’ll post the link here and on my Facebook page, where you can “like” the link and follow it to tonight’s performance — and then vote for the best performance at the bottom of the page. Voting will continue until 10 a.m. tomorrow (Monday).

The next nominee to be elimminated will be revealed at noon tomorrow, based on the accumulative score of Public Vote (52%), Judges Scoring (30%) and the Inner Council (18%).

In the meantime, here’s a sneak peak at my submission for tonight’s round: “RAW”

As always, regardless of where I end up after this round — whether still ranked No. 1 or eliminated completely — your incredible support and encouragement has meant a lot over these last six weeks. To be among the remaining Top Five from 700 original nominees is farther than I expected to get, even with all of that money I was throwing around (and Kraft Mac & Cheese dinners I sent to Canada).

Thank you so much for that.

And so much more.

— Ned