Did you hear the one about?

Flirtatious: Adj: Like a coquette. (Is that anything like a baguette.)

Real Mood? Proud, Doting

I'm going to be half serious this time and talk about former student Robert Dominguez. I think Robert has more guts than most of us can ever hope to have. When he was leaving school he said he wasn't sure he could handle small market radio or TV. He needed the Big City.  So he picked the biggest one, The Big Apple. The only advice I had to give him was to walk in every door and say I'm here to help. He did just that and the result is that for over a year now he has been working, in one form or another, in some of the hottest TV reality series.  He just finished up a project on the new Martha Stewart show. 

But working on those shows was not Robert's dream. He has been sitting in the wings waiting for a test of the dream he's had lurking in his soul. That test arrived on Monday Night.

"Ladies and Gentlemen,and I use that term loosely, LIVE, for the first time on our stage here at Caroline's, Give it Up for Robert Dominguez. [applause]"

He'd been working for months on this opportunity, writing, testing his material on mirrors and friends like Mindy. Friends have flown in from around the country, and were among those applauding. Robert was in the Green Room (where you go to put on makeup and wait your turn). Like the other first time performers at one of the Nation's top comedy clubs, Robert was pacing, getting rid of all the negative energy. This was a dream come true. But as Robert stepped out there on the stage, it happened. He went blank. There was nothing there. He couldn't remember his own name. He was alone. There was no one there to feed him a line, no one to pat him on the back and say, "It's okay Robert."

 After giving it what he thought was an eternity for his memory to return, he left the stage, went back to the Green Room and pretty much curled up into the fetal position. "I've failed the audience, my friends and myself," he thought.

Well as fate would have it, the first timers who followed didn't use up all their time. Words from the MC: 

"Well Robert, you're not the first, first timer that froze on stage. We've got some time left. Want to give it another shot?"

I just think most of us would already be on our way back to Iowa. But something inside him, including a shot of something a friend contributed, told Robert he didn't want to do that. He unraveled himself from the fetal position, stood tall, made sure he had some notes handy this time, and headed back out there.

They laughed, they applauded, they cheered. Now Robert wants to be on stage every night.

Robert is part of a growing number of students and former students in a support group we've formed. It's made up of people  just getting started in what they hope will be life careers, helping each other along the way.

Among the group are three athletes, Blake Eager, 95 mph fast ball pitcher, working his way up the ladder with the Mets, Mark Worthington, who will be playing for the professional basketball team in Sydney, Australia, and Stephenie Davis, who left school a champion. I like to use athletics to illustrate some things in life because athletics often mirror life.

I've watched Blake pitch a game where home plate was a foreign country and he didn't have a passport or visa.  I've watched Mark put up a total of three points and foul out early in the game. I missed the game where Stephenie broke some bones in her hand in her Junior year, a year when her team was in the conference cellar. ( there was fear, and some real concern from her coach, that Stephenie would never play the game again.)

Well let's move on down the road.  Blake gets drafted by the Mets. Mark becomes conference and division player of the year and ends up with a bunch of professional opportunities. And Stephenie?  She comes back her senior year and leads that last place team to the conference title, and gets loaded up with accolades and trophies.

I don't live with a notion that sports are life. They are if that's where you make your living. But lessons of life are easily illustrated though games.

What the three of our athletes knew, and now Robert joins their fraternity, is that one failure does not have to define you. It can, but it doesn't have to. We get second, third, fourth, fifth chances in life. We just need to have the guts to take them if they are the stepping stones to our dreams.

"Ladies and Germs, and I use those terms loosely, let's hear it ONCE AGAIN for the very funny, the very brave, the very talented, ROBERT DOMINGUEZ."

"Hey Robert, can we get some coffee over here!"

You learn that too.

By the way my neice Donna, who has been battling very aggressive breast cancer, just got a report she's cancer free. "Yee,Haw!"