The Chelsea Rule -part b

Consider this part b of music writing tip 15.

Sometimes someone who makes a living being funny can actually be funny without actually meaning to be funny. All they have to do is just forget they're talking to someone who is furiously scribbling things down (or perhaps recording...) and say something so entirely bizarre that it becomes funny.

I got an insight I didn't have. Why someone is funny maybe isn't about the things they say, why they say, but when they say them. It's not the jokes. It's how they're told and when. It's the timing. That's the nature of their ability.

I've heard for years about comic timing, but I didn't really understand it until I talked to a comedian who was trying not to be funny. She was irritable and bored. She was annoyed and combative, but there was something there, something I didn't catch the first time.

It was still a shitty interview, but I heard her fall into the pattern effortlessly. That's why she can do what she does. She just didn't want to do it when I needed her to.