on the comic orbit

and the impact of gravity on a joke

at the end of the joke there’s always a moment.

it’s in that moment that you think

c’mon, get it, get it, c’mon, I know you’re going to get this, you’ve got this… get this GET THIS!

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It’s that moment know by every golfer and embodied so well by the great Adam Sandler in the cinematic masterpiece Happy Gilmore when Gilmore employs many a sophisticated trick to convince the golf ball to ‘Go in your hole’.

Sometimes jokes don’t hit right away.

Sometimes that’s because the joke went over the heads of the audience.

If you’re patient and the joke is quick enough, you can let it orbit the earth a couple of times. The weight of time will drag it down a bit, then it might just smack them funny eventually. But in order to let the gravitational pull of the earth bring a joke down to the level of some people you know, you need to wait.

And there’s no waiting without hope.

After every joke, a comedian isn’t certain they’ll get a laugh. They’re never guaranteed a good set. The best comics don’t expect to be funny. Most go on stage with a hope that they don’t die at the least and a hope that they laugh so much that there are deaths in the audience as the absolute pinnacle of a comics power.

But a joke?

A joke isn’t powered by ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ or positive thinking.

A joke ALWAYS HAS DOUBT. Good jokes dance and play on the margins of what’s acceptable and with whom.

And that is always changing.

So, go and be hopeful.

Make a joke.

They likely won’t get it and you’ll be disappointed.

But then?

Make the same joke, with someone else.

Hope it works…