By Jim Hagarty
When I was a teenager in university, I hung around with a guy who laughed at every second thing I said.
He thought I was hilarious. He even advised me that I should be a stand-up comedian. I knew that wasn’t going to happen as “stand up” was in the job title and standing up to make a living went against my every principle. I was then, and still am, all about sitting down. Subsequent summer job stints in factories where I stood up all day convinced me of the rightness of my position. Standing up for all 10 hours of a 10-hour shift became my notion of hell on earth.
I remember going to a party with my biggest fan one time when he introduced me to someone like this: “Hey, this is my friend Jim. He’s funny. Say something funny Jim.” I was suddenly the singing frog from that classic Looney Tunes cartoon who refused to sing for anyone but its owner. I had nothing funny to say.
Even then, I had a vague feeling that the concepts of comedian and clown were closely related. I had served my apprenticeship being a class clown. It didn’t always leave me with a good feeling.
But there was no denying I did have the ability to make people laugh. Over the years, I used that knack to ease my pathways through life. Sometimes it worked but other times it got in the way of my being taken seriously by people I thought I needed to impress.
Then one day, a cousin provided me with a key. He called me a storyteller. I liked that better than clown. But here is what I discovered. I can only tell a story when I have a story to tell. And lots of times I don’t have one. I am no good at making up stories, only recognizing them when they pass by. Just like I could not produce something funny when commanded to by my university pal, I cannot come up with a story when I don’t have one.
In that way, storytellers and songwriters are alike. We wait on the great Idea Muse in the sky to bless us with something. Some days he is generous; some days not.
People call me a good writer. I don’t think of myself as one. What I am good at is observing life and recognizing an irony when it drifts by.
So I live and watch and wait. Sometimes the Story Train is late in arriving or doesn’t show up at all. Concerned, I sit at the keyboad anyway and try to write something funny. But I am like a baker on those days, trying to make a cake when the flour can is empty. He has no choice but to wait till the store opens.
The fear of every songwriter is that the Muse has moved on to someone else. Sometimes, he has. Some days the best and only thing the songwriter can do is sit and wait. Same with the storyteller.
The clown, on the other hand, he just goes for it, Muse be damned.
