Humor is tough, I know that. There are lots of ways to be funny. Jim Carrey's brand doesn't make me laugh, that's all. Neither do any of the situation comedies on tv. I occasionally smile at stuff, but it's one reason I just don't watch what America watches. Seinfeld makes me twitch. David Letterman is only funny when he has stupid pet tricks nights. I can't stand being told what's supposed to amuse me via laugh track. Sometimes it's hard to explain what makes strikes me as funny; it's so much easier to explain what doesn't.

One writer who makes me laugh so hard I can't see straight is Dave Barry. I admire the hell out of his writing. He celebrates the absurdity of life without being, himself, absurd. Playing the straight man. The charming strangeness of Japanese Engrish is a great favorite with me. Using words incorrectly isn't enough; it's the delightful oddity of almost getting it right, or getting it right but not in the way it was meant, that sets me off.

Another writer I greatly admire is Dave Langford. I wanted to write like him, once. I set out to do it. I'll never write like him, of course, but I did learn to write humor by imitating him until I found my own way of putting things. I used to want to write words that would move people, make them feel what I feel, hear how I hear things. I found I could not do it with any kind of success. Humor, I decided, would be easier. And it was, for me. I could look at the enormously weird way people cope with life, and reflect it back with a twist. In doing so, it turns out, I can (surprise) show people how I feel, and how I hear.

That's why I just wince at the antics of Carrey, and others. It's not subtle. It's not reflecting life. It's just leaping around, and slapping meat on your head onstage while reciting Camus. It's vaudeville. It's absurdity for absurdity's sake. Which is fine, if you like it. It's just not comedy to me.