list, and then ask my brother what he's into. Words continue to fail me. I listen to other people's jokes in conversation and try to decide if they're good or not. I say things that make other people laugh and I wonder why. They say that comedy's in timing and I find myself counting the seconds between David Cross' setup and his punch lines. I watch, study, meditate on George Carlin and Woody Allen and Rich– ard Pryor. I even suffer through a mindless Dane Cook act. YouTube is my homepage. When I finally give up in front ofmy computer at midnight, I determine video is really the only thing that does most comedians justice. It, as does Seinfeld or any other sitcom, makes the viewer feel like she's having a conversation with the person, that he's living with him for a couple ofminutes. Satire works on the page and so does some other cleverness, but the real experience of being made to laugh only really works between two human beings, whether in a one-sided, simu– lated relationship or in the flesh. For the performer in this specific kind of relationship, timing seems to be pretty important, but playing to the instincts of the audi– ence is integral. Whether that's in the wry, dry humor ofAllen or in the spastic idiocy of Cook, connecting with something learned and deeply rooted can make or break an act. The courtroom scene from Bananas isn't funny for me. It doesn't have the oomph of existential loneliness of the beginning ofAnnie Hall. In the same way, weird, irreverent sitcom humor is a turnoff for me. Most cartoons have the same childish, thoughtless feel to me. It's not the laugh track; it's just that I've cut myself off from that kind of thought. I have killed these parts ofme or at least stifled them from development. I've put away childish things and my own snobbery has flourished in their absence. What a person finds funny in a comedian has very little to do with the comedian's own verifiably authentic personality. 1he good comedian brings out thoughts we've already been thinking, words that we've been meaning to say but haven't had a chance to, and, in the case ofAndy Kaufman or, more recently, Miranda July, do things that we would never have done. 37
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