DON’T BLOW THE LIGHT

As any promoter knows, you’ve got to keep performers to a strict time limit. Left unchecked and without accountability, people on a stage will become intoxicated by all the attention they’re receiving. Overestimating the importance of what they’re doing, they’ll stay up there way past the allotted time and thereby inject too much of themselves into the universe.

What’s needed is a signal: a flashing light in the back of the room telling them that their time is over, and they should shut up and move along.

Without a clear sign to GTF off the stage, comedians will continue “doing time” even though the audience feels like we’re the ones “doing time” (in the penal sense of the word).

Musicians will keep playing, though their notes are background music to our more interesting conversations, and dancers will keep dancing while we fantasize about peeling out of the parking lot and heading home.

Some people refuse to see the light, they deny that their time is up. Others see the light but refuse to step down. They stubbornly cling to moments goneby and imagine they can somehow make up for lost time.

In comedy we call this phenomenon “blowing the light”, your time is up, but you think you’re not done.

Why on earth would you stay past your time? There’s nothing new that’s been said, nothing fresh that’s been done. Brilliance fades and times passes on.

But mostly, people forget the most important parts and recall only the most random of details.

***

My first time trying stand up I was sitting down (at a piano). It was an open mic variety show where audience members pay nothing for a showcase with near-zero entertainment value.

It was all about the performers – an opportunity to impress this tepid audience during Tuesday Taco Night. The promoter put no time limits on these budding performance artists, gave them no flashing light at the end of a tunnel to indicate time was up. So, everybody blew the light and I waited and waited for my chance to take the stage.

I had written a comedic cover of one of the most recognizable songs from the 90s. Surely this tasty treat would go down nice and easy with the assembled audience.

But the guy before me just would not wrap it up. He was giving a spoken word poetry tribute to recently deceased Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño.

Death and dying, admiration and poetry…...What a drag dude! Talk about something nobody wants to hear!

Now being the sophisticated person I am, it is probably no surprise to you, dear reader, that I have finished numerous works of Roberto Bolaño’s. His most acclaimed novel 2666 is a dark epic that is over 1000 pages long. He wrote the novel while in the process of dying from liver failure and it has the feel of one man’s futile screaming against a universe that will inevitably overwhelm and defeat him.

I remember the novel being intense, I was proud to be reading it, and proud to have others seeing me reading it. It looked good on the shelf, it looked good in my hand at the coffee shop.

Though the book is clearly brilliant and groundbreaking, I only remember the last page of the book where two men are having a conversation in the park about ice cream. The one man says ‘Fürst Pückler’ brand ice cream was named after his great-great grandfather Fürst Pückler:

“No one remembers the botanist Fürst Pückler now, no one remembers the model gardener, no one has read the writer. But everyone at some moment has tasted a Fürst Pückler, which is best and most pleasing in spring and fall.”

That was how the novel ended. For all its artistic mastery and verbose one thousand pages, my takeaway was two men in a park eating ice cream named after a guy who probably didn’t even like ice cream.

***

But finally.

Finally, the dude before me finished his lengthy tribute to Roberto. There was scattered applause as he stepped off stage.

Way to kill the room dude. People already have one foot out the door.

But my comedic cover on the piano was just what the moment required. We righted the ship, people settled back in to stay and enjoy the remainder of the show. The accessible chord progressions and recognizable tune (with lyrics changed for hilarity) were the tasty treat this audience needed to stick it out for another hour. Everyone’s was laughing and smiling. The room was full and fun, but more importantly the foul taste of that man’s bizarre and droning tribute to the poet Bolaño had been scrubbed from our palates.

MANS SEARCH FOR ICE CREAM

Most likely nobody remembers that dude’s spoken word tribute.

I do, but I’m a Bolaño guy, remember?

Everybody else just recalls the good stuff, the highlights, the sweet cream of the evening.

All these subtle references to ice cream remind me of another deceased author, Larry Crabb.

Larry was a legend in the field of counseling and widely read author. And I met Larry in real life, at a week long counseling training he led in 2019. At one point during the week we had lunch together, just the two of us. And being together with him made an impression on me.

Larry was dying from multiple cancers but still had the desire and energy to teach another cohort from all the wisdom he’d acquired over the years. Years later, looking through the thick binder of materials we covered for that week, I am ashamed to say I remember almost none of it.

I’ll tell you the truth about what I do remember, though it certainly isn’t pretty.

The thing I remember most about that weeklong training is the soft serve ice cream machine. It was set up in the lobby and you could get as many cones as you wanted. I bring this up not because I particularly love ice cream, but because my roommate at the conference and I had such a good laugh about that machine.

The retreat center we were at was a highly evangelical environment, so it should come as no surprise to you that the place was packed with conservative Christians. From the looks of things, many of these folks lived morally regimented lives, avoiding worldly vices like drugs, alcohol, avarice, lust, and greed.

But the dirty secret of Christianity is that church folks will often look the other way when it comes to gluttony. Hence, the ice cream machine in the lobby was working overtime. Chubby, goateed men in khaki pants lined up for another round of chocolate vanilla swirl all day long. Unconsciously, they poured all their frustrations and anger into those cones. The unspoken realities of this life, their dreams left sitting on the shelf were momentarily consoled by the hum of that soft serve machine.

Oh, we had such a good laugh about that scene at the ice cream machine. That may have been the hardest I’ve ever laughed, and it was rude and deep and truthful. The polite southern gentleman in the room next door mentioned in the morning that he could hear us laughing. His demeanor told us he’d heard everything, but in graciously southern fashion would save face for us by acting like it never happened.

***

Bolaño was a literary genius and Larry Crabb was a giant in the counseling field, yet here I am talking about ice cream. If they were unable to say something new and transcend soft serve cones, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Yet my hubris says the rules the don’t apply.

The temptation is there to keep “doing time”. I see the flashing light at the back of the room and know it’s just about time to step down.

We will toil to bring some truth or beauty into this world, but mostly people will remember their ice creams. There’s a hilarious absurdity in it all, but perhaps we should just embrace this inevitability.

After all, isn’t it liberating to go about your work, to put in the time and effort, but at the end of the day accept the arbitrary nature of what people remember? What a relief to not feel that pressure. It makes room for the playful and the silly.

Life is as serious as a heart attack, or liver failure, or cancer, but also not so serious at all. Perhaps the universe doesn’t need MORE of us, so stop doing time and move on. When you see the light flashing from the back of the room, that’s your cue to wrap it up and get off the stage.

Don't Blow The Light