Kris Tinkle “Maybe I Don’t Feel Like Smiling” (review)

Kris Tinkle begins his new album to a round of applause…before quickly telling everyone in the crowd to “simmer down” because he’s “gotta earn it.” A true workhorse that knows struggle, Tinkle takes us through a comedic adventure that is part social commentary, part relationship commentary, part plain absurdism, and 100% energy.

Tinkle appreciates regular struggles – like childhood expenses, and what it must have been like to deliver mail in the old West to keep people in love, and getting older, and racism, and the plight of being the U.S. military in Iraq and not being allowed to watch porn. He jumps around very quickly, without giving the audience time to reflect on any inherent meaning within each bit. This might be a good thing, since Tinkle’s material occasionally touches on potentially dicey issues (re: racism). However, there’s nothing to do but laugh, because these experiences of Tinkle’s are absolutely unique to him. They don’t really touch upon a broader social milieu, and that’s absolutely a strength rather than a weakness because Tinkle’s main comedic mission is to tell short epithets about his life, while garnishing them with some punchy slice-of-life observations. It’s somewhat coincidental that I’m beginning to analogize him to a chef, because at one point in his album he takes reality chef Bobby Flay to task, jokingly giving the audience the imagery of him challenging Bobby Flay to a “Shirley Temple-off.”

Tinkle’s greatest weapon might be his brilliantly-paced, fast-but-loose delivery style. Frenetic, yet controlled, he manages to keep most bits under a minute-and-a-half so as to cover an impressive amount of ground in a 45 minute recording. Furthermore, it allows him to stay abreast of what seemed in this recording like a fairly spastic audience – the kind of audience that will (poorly) call back Tinkle’s own jokes for him in the middle of a bit; the kind of audience that will bluntly say offensive words (like ‘the C-word’) out loud, just because Tinkle alludes to them.

At one point near the top of the set, Tinkle asks for an audience member to volunteer to say “I love you” during his set, because he wants his album to feel like a concert he’s listened to.  When someone from the audience blurts it out before Tinkle has explained his directions in full, he says: “Do it, but not during a joke – or I’ll do a cannonball on your table.” It is this absurd imagery that evokes the most surprising bits of laughter from the audience and the listener, while simultaneously reeling an ecstatic crowd.

As you might guess from his strong use of off-the-cuff imagery, Tinkle’s bits can also be fairly well-written. “You can still have a very strong pimp hand, but leave a soft footprint on the earth,” is one phrase that stands out.  If this album leaves anything to be desired, it might be more of these phrases, as they catch the listener off-guard with nice contrast and solid punch. In his previous album, Almost Awesome (released in 2009), he delivers a few such memorable lines, such as: “Where do you think adult assholes come from? …[Kids have] been doing evil stuff their entire lives, and they turn pro.” Also, in Kris Tinkle’s previous album, he talked about his unusual name, which he might disagree warrants more attention. Ironically-enough, it is distracting that he mentions his name only in passing during this album, rather than addressing the unusualness of it directly.

Regardless of such weird investigations, this album is well-deserving of attention, as it delivers a rip-roaring tide of consistent laughs from an expert comic. 

Maybe I Don’t Feel Like Smiling is in stores now and available on iTunes and Amazon. Go pick up a copy today.