Editor's Notes
With successful comics, you hear a range of attributes used in describing their strengths. Sometimes it’s related to their writing ability, how they craft a joke. Sometimes it’s the performance, their level of commitment or energy. But, in all of them, there’s a special part that is so critical that many have gotten by just fine without the two afore mentioned skills and relied almost solely on another one – and that’s timing.
Timing is what lies at the heart of comedy. That moment where a joke clicks, where the surprise cloth-covered spring snake is released from the can of nuts. Malcolm Gladwell might call it The Tipping Point, if he wasn’t so busy being so NPR dorkishly-chic with his minimalist serif-laden book covers and his Mac Davis fro.
You hear about athletes coming back from injuries or retirement, that they’ll struggle at first as they try to get their timing back. Occasionally it never returns and even their greatest fans have to shrug uncomfortably like hosts at a party who want the last guests to leave.
Often timing has more to do with an ordinary event, a thing you’ve come to expect that has to go in a certain order. If you take a date to a steak house and the waiter starts you off with coffee and cheesecake, you’d think he was insane. So what if it goes to the same place? If you have the dessert before the main course you go from comfortable to freaky by the time the salad shows up with the check.
So, I’m returning to stand-up as a performer. I’m not really sure why, or how for that matter. I’m already burning the candle at both ends with my work and commute and my wife and kids that I like to see every so often. And what about my drinking? Where’s the time for that? That’s why I respect problem drinkers and coke addicts; they attend to first things first.
But there’s something about being in front of a crowd that I miss. I’ve got a 12-minute slot coming up in a couple of Thursdays. I used to go up there four nights a week. Five years later, that seems as alien as college kids who think I’m interested when they brag about what happens at their frat parties.
At this point in my life, it’s not about being a superstar. You rarely hear casting agents say they’re looking for pudgy 40 year-olds for their next Bro-mantic comedy. I don’t know what I’m hoping for or whether my timing will come back.
I can imagine quitting again halfway through a forgettable Elks Lodge benefit in the middle of fucking nowhere, where the only people looking at me are wondering how my head will look mounted on the wall of their den. I can imagine calling it quits just to avoid having to go out at night and miss an episode of Rescue Me. I can imagine calling it quits after my first road gig when I wake up at 3 in the morning away in some crappy hotel, hundreds of miles from my kids, depressed beyond description. Is my time worth the stress, the travel, the sitting around, the hassles, the bullshit?
Maybe that’s what matters most in timing, the time part. As I write this from home, my girls have just invaded my writing space, a haphazard nook where I try to get my stuff done. They’re giggling because they’ve taped pieces of paper to their shirts with large capital letters drawn on them and think it’s silly. They’re right. I’ve got to go now. There are library books to read aloud and jammies to be put on as I try to get them ready for bed. I guess I’ll get back to my material later when I have the time.
Ken Carlson is the editor of the Comedians Magazine.
editor@thecomedians.org