Meet nathan timmel | Stand-up Comedian

We had the good fortune of connecting with nathan timmel and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi nathan, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
This is a fascinating question that I’ve never been asked, which means I’ve never given it much thought.

As a stand-up comedian, I’m not “helping the world” in the same way a volunteer at a soup kitchen might. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not healing the sick. I’m not a scientist attempting to further the cause of clean energy. I’m a comedian, which means I sling jokes into a microphone.

Understanding that, I have put together 12 “Comedy for Charity” shows over the past 15 years.

(COVID broke the flow of having an annual show, unfortunately.)

Over those 12 shows, I’ve helped raise over $25,000 for various causes, including researching pediatric cancer, sponsoring veterans returning home from combat, and private families in need.

The comedians always donate their time, and the venue always donates the space, so there’s never any overhead. A dollar raised is a dollar in the hands of the recipient.

Add to that, laughter itself can act as a reset button for someone having a bad day. While I’m in no way curing cancer, I have received emails from people who say they were down, watched one of my videos online, and it cheered them up.

That’s powerful, and I am humbled and grateful by such notes.

So, though one might not view a comedian as someone who is making a difference in the world, in our own small way, we do nudge the universe in a nice direction.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
What sets me apart from others…

Oh boy, that’s a tough one.

My wife always complains that I’m the worst at tooting my own horn.

If I were really to attempt to focus on that, I would say it’s the fact I talk about personal experiences on stage. I do that to stay, for lack of a better word, “original.”

All too often, you attend a comedy show, and you’ll hear five or six varying-but-similar takes on Uber, airplane food, the weather, or whatever generic, universal topic is out there. Sometimes you’ll even hear the same joke twice in a night.

(Comedy Central once actually aired two comedians back-to-back who made the same joke involving performance enhancing drugs in sports.)

By keeping my material close to home, I’m able to be just a little different from other joke slingers.

What am I most proud of?

That one is easy.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to travel the world to entertain American soldiers stationed far from home. I visited benign countries like Japan and South Korea, as well as more frisky hotspots, like Iraq and Afghanistan.

I can’t really put into words how impactful those tours were for me; being able to see first hand what it means to put on the uniform for your country and live elsewhere in order to keep the world a little safer…

It left me humbled, and honored.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Favorite spots in the city…

See, this is difficult for me, as I travel so often. When I think of places to visit, I think of the Gorge Metro Park in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I think people should visit the Minnehaha Dog Park, in Minneapolis. Biking the High Trestle Trail in Iowa is a great way to spend a day. Likewise, not just visiting Niagara Falls, NY, but crossing the Rainbow Bridge into Canada and seeing the view from there…

The great thing about being a comedian is getting to visit other places.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It is a cliché, but it’s true, my wife deserves many kudos for her support throughout my career.

Website: https://nathantimmel.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathantimmel/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/nathantimmel