You Talk Too Fast... by Simon King

Not really but I hear it a lot. I mean, I suppose I do speak faster than most. It’s just who I am though and it’s the way I communicate in real life not just on stage. I’m frenetic and stream of consciousness driven and I tend to assume that everyone is at least as fast or faster than me. Maybe to a few people it can be a sort of roadblock stopping them getting the most out of my act. I do understand that but there comes a point in your art form, and I do believe stand up is an art form, that you have to start reeling in the compromise if you wish to be true to yourself.  Don’t be exclusionary if you can avoid it but you have to be happy when you’re making others laugh. If you’re not… what’s the point

Photo by Bob Garlick

Stand up comedy is supposed to be about being unique, or at least that’s what the pamphlet says. So we all stumble around in the dark until we find the spotlight and under that intense scrutiny, a scrutiny that is unique to any art form you cannot practice without also performing in front of people, we are supposed to learn ourselves. It’s hard, really hard and some comedians never make it. So finding something that is you, or even better staying true to something you are, is a difficult prospect. Understandably then my nose gets a bit out of joint when someone tells me how to customize my art, my passion and my person (because that’s after all what comics who are about honesty are putting out there), so that it fits their preferences.

Imagine a painter sitting in front of a canvas waiting for inspiration. I find it unlikely that before spreading a streak of deep crimson across the canvas splitting it in two as the first steps of what will become her masterpiece, she thinks to herself “Oh, what if Tammy the part time small town realtor with the bobbed hair cut and zirconia earrings doesn’t like red?”

No, that’s ridiculous. Just as it would be ridiculous to go to the symphony and yell at the pianist to “stop using the black keys! I only like white keys!”

Yet with stand up people think it’s perfectly acceptable to demand that the artist conform to their wants. “Don’t talk about this, don’t do jokes about that” etc. If they hire you and are paying for what you don’t say I get that but if you’re just minding your own business pursuing the passion that has damn near burned you to the ground they have no right to come in and tell you how best to be yourself because make no mistake, that’s what they’re doing.

So when someone says to me “you talk too fast.” I oft respond with a sharp carefully selected handful of words because I’m tired of justifying and explaining myself to people who likely will never understand the world I live in. Or for that matter, take the kinds of risks I do. It doesn’t happen much. Maybe once every year or so and with that frequency it may seem like I’m being sensitive but I’m not really. It’s not just the speed thing it’s everything. It’s the arrogance of telling an artist how best to take the chances they take. Nobody would dream of telling a pilot how to fly, especially if they have no idea how to fly themselves. Nobody would go to a dentist and grab the drill out of her hand “just gimme that, you drill too slow.” Yet for some reason that entitlement exist amongst comedy audiences. 

Maybe we make it look too easy?

I’m not sure why people seem to think that imposing their ideas of what is funny and what we should and should not discuss or write material about is ok. Maybe because many people don’t see stand up as a particularly skilled pursuit? Hey, it’s just making people laugh right? How hard can that be? 

Maybe it’s because making someone laugh puts that someone in a uniquely weak position. You’re directly controlling someone’s emotional response by words. In a way I guess it’s sort of a gentle assault certainly because laughter can be involuntary. Every comic has had someone in the audience that is defying them, trying not to laugh. Often, you can crack that nut. It’s a real sense of victory. Maybe that’s why? It’s a cold war of wills? Maybe it’s a lack of respect or a sense of competition with the comic? Maybe it’s just that some people are arrogant jerks? Who knows what the ultimate motivation is. I surmise it’s likely different from one person to the next but the result is the same. Someone out there thinks that after watching everything you do as a comic, even if you’re supremely experienced and paying your rent with the thoughts in your head and how you share them, that they know better than you. It’s patently insulting and ridiculous. 

So I’ve decided to not apologize for who I am. I’ll compromise of course, I’ll come some of the way. That’s part of it, the communication. I want people to enjoy what I do and connect to it but I’m also at the point in my career where I’m done trying to bend myself into the shape others want.

So yeah, I talk fast. I perform in front of thousands and thousands of people every year and maybe a few have a problem keeping up, sure. That’s ok. But to the one that decides I should do what they want, to make them happy. That hides behind the anonymous comment card at the club or the comment on a You Tube video. To the ones even courageous enough to say it in person… To that completely entitled and selfish arrogant person I say this: maybe I don’t talk too fast. Maybe you think too slow. I don’t have puppets either. We’re probably not gonna get along. Here’s your twenty dollars back. 

Simon King - @Unfamous