after september 11 |
Soon after I got the news on Tuesday, I wondered whether shows that weekend would be cancelled. I hoped so. I was in shock and mourning like everyone and I didn't want to have to put on a happy face, but I called the booker for my weekend in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and he told me the shows would go on.
I talked with other comics about whether we should mention what happened. Most said no way, that people wouldn't want to hear about it, but I said how do we get up there and talk about pop culture, or minor news stories, or relationships, or whatever petty stuff we normally talk about when all this is on everyone's minds? How do we leave out the biggest event of our collective lives? On the other hand, our job is to be funny. Everything I'd written before September 11 seemed irrelevant now, but I didn't know what to say instead.
In the end, I didn't reference the attacks but in passing. We had lighter crowds than usual that weekend. It was not quite business as usual, but away from the endless TV coverage, people were able to put the news out of their minds for a little while. The shows went fine. Still, I felt like I was replaying a memory of myself, while who I was in the present just waited for it to be over, trying to be quiet and still because a dazed boy crying was not what people came to see.