They say that comedy is saying something ordinary in an extraordinary way. If that’s the case, then are all comics’ poets at heart? I thought about the relationship between comedy and poetry while listening in to a poetry reading at Barnes Noble, I spend a lot of time there in case you haven’t noticed, but that’s one of the perks of being unemployed, being able to stroll into a book store at 3 in the afternoon at my own leisurely broke ass, can’t afford to buy a book pace. Anyway, the bookstore was holding and open mike for poetry, yet the aura of desperation that hangs over comics at open mikes was absent here, the room had a whiff of respectability to it, and the aura was fifty times more intelligent than any stand up open mike I’ve ever bombed to the ground. Plus, the quality of the writing was superior in every way, the lines were crisp yet airy, tight yet explosive, lyrical yet hip, visual yet real, everything stand-up should be, but more often is not. Stand-Up Comedy seemed infantile in comparison; my love for the punch line turned cold.
I have lived and died by the punch line while doing stand-up on and off for the past four years so how can I turn on the punch line so fast knowing that on stage a good punch line is difference between life and death. In stand-up comedy, they say you need to get a laugh every fifteen seconds, which is one of the most difficult artistic feats to pull off outside of smoking your acting career away on Crystal Meth like Tom Sizemore. It takes some comics up to ten years before they can write their first hour’s worth of material, yet that sort of output seems so lackluster when you compare it to the hundreds of poems Charles Bukowski would pump out in a weekend while drowning his skull in booze, not all but most of his pieces had a humorous view of some kind, but it wasn’t manufactured shtick like 99% of stand-up is, his prose was just an extension of his personality which was pure funny, totally inbred, but that much sharper due to his powers of observation and sheer wicked sense of depraved fun. I’m bringing up the late Charles Bukowski, because he was freaking hilarious, more laugh out loud funny than 90% of the stand-up comics you see on Comedy Central, you don’t believe me, buy the book Woman and you’ll be a convert for life. Then again, Bukowski has a cult following for a reason, he is claimed to be the most imitated poet of the last twentieth century yet I don’t what other wordsmiths you can compare him to besides the original poet of comedy, George Carlin, sorry Lenny Bruce, reading law books on stage in between bits on lesbians doesn't count.
Why can’t there be another mini Bukowski who could be part- poet, part- comic and part-time alcoholic, I say part-time alcoholic because none of us could ever keep up with Charles Bukowski drinking wise, he’d drink Cancun under the table. I don’t mean to brush aside the great George Carlin, the Mark Twain of stand-up comedy, that man was prolific, and he had more HBO specials than Real Sex episodes. What separated Carlin from his peers was his sheer love of the human language, that really came through in all of his bits, there was a piercing level of intellect that shaped every syllable that came out of his mouth, every fuck had a purpose behind it, there was meaning behind every action, he infused his soul into every monologue, his words waltzed up to the punch line which made the pay off that much sweeter because it was punctuated by the reverberating sound of laughter. Who are the poets of comedy now that George Carlin has left us?
But before we start throwing out names, if you mention Demetri Martin, I will break your head over his stupid chalkboard, sorry Mr. Prop Board doesn’t do it for me, and Carlin had more charisma in the rubber band of his dead pony tail,than this guy has in his hipster infested body. Like I was saying, before we start discussing other poets of comedy, let’s first examine what that means. For me, the poets of comedy aren’t afraid to show their intelligence or writing ability, take Bill Hicks for instance another legendary poet who disguised his insightful descriptions of war, drugs and religion with acid tinged punch lines, Hicks was the best, you felt the power of his words, they shook your belly and rattled your brain like it was a giant gumball machine after a kid puts a quarter in it, I’d say that makes a poet comic, the ability to shoot words through heads and have them stick remaining engraved in your brain forever with their initials on it like some sort of internal autograph. There’s a rhythm to stand-up like poetry, so comics like Robin Williams might fall under the category of stand-up poet, if you’re into free associations riffs popularized by acid freaks like William Boroughs and Cub Scout chasers like Allen Ginsberg. On a more rudimentary level, you can say Dice was a stand-up poet considering his wide section of raunchy nursery poems that rhymed, yet not all of them did, remember Mother Goose I fucker her, that seems kind of easy, funny yes, but not difficult to write, I don’t think Dice burned the Midnight Oil puffing a carton of Marlboros over that one. Richard Lewis can get poetic in that he’s written a thousand different metaphors to illustrate what a neurotic nut job he is. Sandler wrote the Hanukah Song and three other versions, so that definitely passes as poetry, Shakespeare for pot heads if you will. Jim Norton bridges that gap occasionally between poetry and comedy, he’ll launch into graphic dark descriptions of diseased hookers, failed suicide attempts and Heather Mills, dirty rotten, stinking stump.
Don’t get me wrong, I will always love the punch line, nothing will ever replace that, the punch line is like the all mighty lure that yanks laughter right out you’re of throat. If anything, this poetry reading taught me how much bigger comedy can be while most of us are just skimming the surface, hacking away to find that precious rock of comedic gold when all we need to do is dig deeper. Both poetry and comedy are compact art forms, both favor brevity and economy of language, precision is the name of the game, there’s an expression trim the fat for a reason, because if you don’t, the poem or bit won’t move and it dies of lethargy on the butcher’s block. There’s plenty that poetry can learn from stand-up as well because as we know poets can take themslves too seriously. Maybe, if the poet wringed out some laughs he wouldn’t feel inclined to shove his head into the oven next Thanksgiving dinner. And who doesn’t like to end with a big laugh, let’s also not forget that humor is an effective tool to use when you’re discussing something serious, it strips away pretension and deflates emotional heaviness like no other. Overall, this poetry reading made me realize that the punch line isn’t the only way to go out with a bang. More importantly, it opened me up to world of deeper feeling that triggered loftier, fuller, richer ideas of what comedy can be; and I’m going to explore them by channeling the insatiable curiosity of George Carlin, the penetrating gaze of Bill Hicks, the silliness of Dice and soulful yearnings of Charles Bukowski, long live the king.
Written by,
Josh Kornbluth
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