Back at the 1999 Philcon, Paul Levinson, who was then the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, approached me and asked if I would act as Toastmaster for the following year’s Nebula Awards ceremony in New York. Ham that I am, I immediately accepted. The video below, the first of five clips available from that night, shows how I repaid Paul for that honor.

Here am I razzing Terry Bisson as he takes the stage to present the award for Best Short Story. To preserve the suspense, I won’t tell you who else gets to take the stage once he opens the envelope, even though, since this was more than a decade ago, I realize it’s a false sense of suspense.

You’ll note that both my name and his are misspelled in the subtitles, but that shouldn’t matter, since you know who we are. And we know who you are …

Next I introduce John Kessel, who then announces the winner in the Best Novella category.

If you bother to watch this all the way through, you’ll learn who won that year, but you won’t see anyone take the stage to claim the trophy, because a) the winner wasn’t present (and SFWA long ago abandoned the “you must be present to win” rule), plus b) even without the acceptor reading the e-mailed speech, the clip was already at 9:50, and if included would have put it way over YouTube’s 10-minute limit.

Even if you don’t want to watch this because by now you’re bored of my schtick, watch it for John—he’s hilarious!

Prepare yourself for what follows my introduction of Joe Haldeman. I’m sure you’ll get choked up, as did I, when you see the late Octavia Butler take the stage to accept her trophy. You’ll easily be able to tell how much she was loved—the announcement of her win produced the most enthusiastic applause of the evening.

As for my joke about Paul Levinson and singing at Nebulas, that refers back to a moment from the evening which I ‘m leaving for my final clip from the 2000 Nebula Awards. Think of it as desert.

As part of my lifelong attempt to prove to the world that I have no shame, here’s an excerpt from my gig as Toastmaster at the 2000 Nebula Awards in which I explain to the crowd one of the important differences between the Nebulas and the Oscars.

Those of you who were there or who heard from others about that sordid moment will know what to expect. As for the rest of you, well, you’ll just have to decide whether you’re brave enough.

There are some things which once seen cannot be unseen. The choice is yours. You were warned.