humorless

Gah, I can't stand it--being circumspect sucks. I probably never will blog Stuff Asian American People Like, although it's pretty easy to do, because it's too dangerous even though it could be hilarious.

It's hard to be funny, at any rate. Humor is so individual. I think TD is funny and I make him laugh, but objectively speaking, we are not super funny people. The only guy I ever met who was objectively funny on a comedian level was this guy named Robert back in law school. His facial expressions, his very laugh, his gigantic wasp-fro (he was of Scandinavian descent), his funny jokes, the loudness of his voice--the dude just had to look in my direction and I would laugh. He was also a hell of a nice guy, and a pretty awesome progressive lawyer. See, we aren't all bad.

But me? I can be sarcastic or witty, but I can't tell a joke for the life of me, not without bursting into giggles. I can engage in snarkety snark snark. TD and I will riff for hours on skewering stereotypes and coming up with absurdities and elaborate fantasies about the way the world should be, if we had our demented way. I laugh at inherently funny words, like "kugelriffic" or "frogilicious." I do think juvenile, physical humor is funny, which is why I do like Apatow movies and why Superbad's cock jokes were hilarious. This probably surprises you. Unless I am writing in my witty way (which occasionally fails, as evidenced by yesterday's kerfuffle), I don't think I provoke laughter as much as I elicit and respond to it. I am a great audience, and when I am surprised or shocked by the humor of something, I laugh really loudly, and when I think something is incredibly funny my laugh collapses into silent, shaking giggles. I am kind of annoyin,g, yes.

But no, not inherently funny am I. One of my favorite movies is Brain Candy, which TD hated. I never laughed at all during The Wedding Crashers, which apparently some people like. Romantic comedies suck. Funny to me would be a good ol' episode of Animaniacs or that opera Ring Cycle episode of Looney Toons. Funny is Peter Sellars in almost anything, but particularly "Being There." I love "Wonder Boys." Daniel Pinkwater makes me laugh, because he's so absurd. Tina Fey is like, awesome. I like funny heh heh, with snide, snarky, clever allusions. I am insufferable, yes.

What's funny to you? How are you funny to others?