"What do you get when you cross a hot dog,

"What do you get when you cross a hot dog, a ball of yarn and a pink flamingo with an ice cream cone and a keyboard?" .... silence. Hmm. Tough crowd.

Keifer shielded the spotlight with one hand as he looked out into the stonefaced audience. "Um, well..." he cleared his throat. "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the

other side." A few seconds passed. Crickets chirped. The audience stared. Then slowly one, by one, people started giggling, until the whole room erupted in laughter. "Must be the

sweetest sound on open-mic night." The rookie took in the sound of the laughter it felt incredible. The bar tender gave him a thumbs-up and he started an enthusiastic, "my wife

is so fat..." He waited for the response. Dead air. "Umm... she was so fat that." The mike gave off high-pitched feedback. The set went rapidly downhill from there.

You could almost hear the crickets. In a desperate panic, he did the one thing he vowed never to do again, on stage. He yelled at the DJ to play "Superfreak". The tunes came on &

made a giant dance circle but I was running out of moves. I looked for inspiration anywhere. I danced like I was taking shots, then serving drinks, then bouncing people out of the

joint. I met my nemesis in Irena from Moldova, dancing the Argentinian Tango. I took a stiletto to the knee when attempting a complicated lower leg manoeuvre. My eyes dimmed & the

music faded into nothingness. Then there was the light...and the famed stairway to heaven. But I couldn't climb them. Why? Because I am a Fred Astaires.