Charlie's Joke

I was playing at the Rooster House
In Tobosco
Which I wasn't even sure was a place
Until I played there

I was so drunk onstage that night
I kept asking the audience--

'Is this really a place?  Am I really here?'

They thought I was one of those
New age comics
Who doesn't tell jokes

I felt like saying--

'They're jokes all right.  They're just not funny.'

If a joke isn't funny
Is it still a joke?

Think about that
I mean, the nature of a joke
Is that it should make you laugh
So if a joke has never made somebody laugh
And I'm sure there's that joke out there somewhere
That ideal bad joke
That has never made anybody laugh
And I believe it begs the question

Is that still a joke?

I got into a similar discussion about yogurt
With the audience in Tobosco
And pretty soon people were shuffling
And yawning

Nobody booed or anything
But that only made me more depressed
Since a boo at least means
You're eliciting a response

So I'm yammering on and on
Waiting for the owner of the club
To turn the lights off on me
And then I hear it

That lone voice in the back

A laugh

A single laugh

But a sustained laugh

A laugh that continued

Even as I stuttered
And tried to figure out
What the hell I just said
To get that laugh

'Cause see, you can get more laughs
Out of one laugh

You can get more people
To follow that one lone laugher

Provided you know what the hell you said
To get the laugh in the first place

But I couldn't figure it out

I closed out my set
With the old--

'Women are different from men, you know...' routine

A few jokes
About my imaginary girlfriend
Getting mad at me
When I do stupid shit
And I got enough chuckles from the crowd
To make a respectable exit

But never another laugh

As I was standing outside
Trying to figure out
What bus stop I should sleep at
I felt a tap on my shoulder

I turned around
And there was Charlie

He introduced himself
And told me
He was the one who laughed
And that he was sorry if it threw me

'Well,' I said, 'It did throw me, but considering I'm a comedian, that's pretty sad.'

I asked him what he found funny
And he said--

'I was just having one of those "what the hell am I doing with my life" moments, and it struck me as funny."

'So it wasn't even me,' I asked

He shook his head
And I instantly regretted
Giving up hard drugs

I thanked him for his honesty
And asked him where the nearest park was

I had a sudden urge to sleep on grass

He offered up his place instead
And promised me
He wasn't a serial killer

I crashed on his couch
And the next day
I left a 'thank you' note
And moved onto the next town

I got a little bit better
At doing stand-up
But not by much

Eventually I quit
And wrote a book
About how bad of a stand-up comic I was
And the book was pretty successful

The funny thing is--

--Pardon the pun--

But the funny thing is--

Any time I ever said Charlie's joke onstage

You know--

'What the hell am I doing with my life?'

Doesn't even sound like a joke, but--

Every time I said it onstage

I got a laugh

Charlie's joke
That isn't a joke
Became my biggest hit

'What the hell am I doing with my life?'

For some reason
Everybody always finds that
Funny