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Funny? You Should Ask
Hosted by Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2002; Noon EST
Gene Weingarten's controversial humor column, Below the Beltway, appears every Sunday in the Washington Post Magazine, generating more mail than Santa gets at Christmas. Not all of it is wildly condemnatory. Some of
it is only mildly annoyed. Weingarten came to the Post in 1990 after being chased out of Miami at midnight by farmers with pitchforks and burning torches. He is also reputed to be close to persons thought to be familiar with individuals claiming to be authoritative spokesmen for the mysterious and reclusive Czar of The Style Invitational.
He was online, at any rate, Wednesday, Jan. 2 at Noon EST, to take your
questions, and abuse. And he'll be back every other Tuesday, so stay tuned.
He'll chat about anything.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Gene Weingarten: Greetings. I'm relatively new at this chat thing, so I've been reading the chat archives of my Post colleagues for inspiration. I note that many of them begin by expounding upon some important news event of the day so as to appear erudite and perhaps move the chat in an appropriately serious direction. In that light, I call everyone's attention to Sunday's excellent page one story about how Monsanto may have poisoned a rural Alabama town. The story quoted a woman who said the problem was that Monsanto felt the locals were all ignorant clodhoppy hicks. The woman's name was 'Opal Scruggs.‘
Hereby receivin' your questions about funny names, or anything at all.
Laurel, Md.:
Toward the end of our last chat, there were some critical comments about the comic strips Nancy and Henry. To be fair, those strips are targeted at 5-10-year-olds, so it's probably okay to repeat jokes every five years because no one remains in their target demographic longer than that.
We also shouldn't judge the quality of their humor on adults. You know what 5-10-year-olds think is funny? My nephew is eight, and all his jokes start:
There's three guys walking down the street.
Their names are Harry, Joe and Kick-me-in-the-butt.
Of course it's entirely possible kids have gotten dumber, at least in terms of what they think is funny. Do you ever see any kid-targeted cartoons anymore that are half as good as the Roadrunner or Pink Panther? This at a time when adult cartoons are the best things on network TV. My favorite is "King of the Hill." It's good to see a TV show that's the opposite of Seinfeld's demographic -- single professionals living in New York City.
Gene Weingarten: Some of the funniest stuff on TV is adult-kid. King of the Hill, Family Guy, Simpsons. You ever see the South Park movie? It was really good.
The starts of badly telegraphed jokes is an excellent idea for an Invitational. I will alert the Czar. As to your nephew, you are not out of the woods yet. At 12, he
will hear the one about Johnny [bleep]erfaster.
washingtonpost.com:
Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution (Washington Post, Jan. 1, 2002)
New In Town:
Mr. Weingarten, are you really as handsome as that drawing makes you look! I'd love to meet you, and I've been so lonely since moving to town after completing my term as Miss Blonde California 2001, I just don't know anyone here! Also, can you recommend a good neuropsychiatrist?
Thanks
Gene Weingarten: Sorry, this letter is obviously bogus. You spell too well.
Bethesda, Md.:
Gina's funny. Does she have older siblings? Used drugs when she was younger? Let's see, we've got family and drugs in here, let's get politics and religion, just to see if we can annoy everyone. Do you agree that liberals are funnier than conservaties? How about those religious fanatics, and those wacky atheists? Or do you see no correlation on those attributes?
Gene Weingarten: In my experience, zealots of any sort -- people who carry their views to extremes -- are virtually without humor. That's because they are so intent on their MISSION there
is simply no time for mirth. Khomeini. Hitler. Pat Robertson. Ralph Nader. Not funny guys. So I would say archconservatives and archliberals tend to be prunes;
fortunately, their pruniness (prunitude?) makes them easy targets for ridicule by the rest of us. Now, here's an interesting question: Which is the cause, and which is the
effect? Is it not possible that these humor-impaired individuals, recognizing their disability at an early age, chose careers and political paths that allowed them to hide
this terrible character flaw behind a facade of zealotry? Wow. What if the lack of a humor gene causes genocide?
The only exception I've ever found to the above rule is Bruce Friedrich, the PETA guy I once did a column on. A few weeks after my column ran, Bruce was arrested in London
streaking naked in front of (I think) Buckingham palace, protesting animal abuse. Bruce is, without doubt, a zealot. But me has a terrific sense of humor. Sends me funny emails all the time. Go figure.
Maryland:
So how did you manage to be talking with Gina at one moment about a [bracketed sex act] and the next moment about being bracketed? Was this whole thing cobbled together from multiple conversations before and after editing, and fobbed off on us a single "synectic session?" That [performs a bracketed sex act]!
washingtonpost.com:
Below The Beltway (Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2001)
Gene Weingarten: So, let me get this straight: You think Gina and I do these columns in real time? Approximately four minutes on the phone?
wiredog:
The weather forecasters are predicting snow for tomorrow night. OH MY GOD! SNOW! IT'S THE APOCALYPSE! Run for the stores and buy all the bread and milk! Panic! Every man for himself! Women and children first!
We need what Buffalo got.
Gene Weingarten: Agreed.
Burke, Va.:
Giuliani was Time's 2001 "Person of the Year." Who would you choose as humor's person of the year?
Gene Weingarten: To be serious a moment, the choice of Guiliani for Person of the Year was a shocking, monstrous act of journalistic cowardice by Time magazine. We all know who the Person of the Year should have been. Had to have been.
Not sure about the HUMOR person of the year. Nominations? I'll make the final call.
Boston, Mass.:
Hi Gene. As one (of many) resolutions, I decided to get off my behind and sign up for a humor writing class. Just to be as self-defeating as possible, I am anticipating the difficulties. My past efforts to write have gone poorly because I love to read good writing so much I get discouraged that my work isn't up to par with the likes of you and your ilk. Also, is there some kind of structure that helps when writing a humor column? I think it would help to have some kind of guideline, at least in the beginning so that I don't feel so overwhelmed. Thanks.
Gene Weingarten: Whoa. Relax. You can't write humor if your brow is all furrowed with comical little worry lines and you want rules and structure and caveats and stuff. Just look around
you. Notice something that is funny. Then write about why. It's easy! People of my ilk do it all the time.
Then rewrite it seventeen times to make it better because it sucked the first time. Then submit it to a halfwit editor who will separate all the wheat from the chaff, and publish the chaff.
Alexandria, Va.:
Gene,
Like you, I am also from Miami. I used to be a big fan of Tropic magazine and thought it was the best part of the Miami Herald. You, Dave Barry, good fiction, Tropic Hunt -- you name it. I go back to Miami a couple of times a year to visit family and friends and have noticed that Tropic no longer exists. Do you know what happened to it? Also, any chance we can get a version of the Tropic Hunt here in D.C.? (please please please?)
Gene Weingarten: Some background: I edited Tropic Magazine at the Miami Herald before I came here. It was a pretty daring little publication, and people liked it, so of course when the Miami Herald had money troubles, they killed it. That happened around 1997, years after I left. The last editor of Tropic was Tom Shroder, who immediately came here and is now my editor. The Tropic Hunt was a whacko event we held every year, wherein tens of thousands of readers competed on the streets to solve bizarre puzzles and win a trip to Paris. The year they killed Tropic, a top editor of The Herald came to me and asked if I would run another Hunt, for a fee. I very impolitely declined. Later, when I was interviewed about this by the local weekly paper, I gave the best quote I ever gave to anyone: His asking me that, I said, was "like a wife beater standing over her bloodied corpse and saying, "Hey, um, sweetie, how about one last quickie?".
Beautifully Drawn But Unbelieveably (sic) Unfunny:
Humor Person of the Year? Frank Cho for taking "Liberty Meadows" into the private world of comic books, thereby earning the gratitude of legions of Post comics readers.
Gene Weingarten: The Winner!
Gene Weingarten: Speaking of which, has anyone seen the two new cartoons in the paper today??? VERY PROMISING STARTS FOR BOTH. ONE USED THE WORD PEE!!!! (I am stunned. Usually we seem to choose comics based on how high its inoffensiveness quotient is.)
Frostbite Falls Church, Va.:
Let's go beyond the typically shallow nature of the online humor chats. I'm interested in the relation between physical appearance and humor. It seems that most funny folks are just average looking at best. (No offense.) This might even contribute to their turning to the lighter side.
My question is: Can anyone be drop-dead great looking and hysterically funny? Wouldn't that be patently unfair on the face of it? If such a person exists, does she have a sister? A clone?
Gene Weingarten: Steve Martin is drop dead good looking and funny. I hate him.
Delray, Va.:
Funny Names --
Archbishop Kicking Bird
Gene Weingarten: I cannot forbear mentioning, vis a vis funny names, that washingtonpost.com today is someone named Meredith. Meredith is a boy. Anyone wish to comment on this, including washingtonpost.com?
Loose Elk, Mont.:
Here's a topic I'd like to see you and Gina debate: divergent gender viewpoints on Chevy Chase movies. Every guy I know cites "Caddyshack" and "Fletch" as two of his favorite movies. I'm a woman, and I think I have a relatively unfeminine sense of humor, and I laugh at both those movies, but I can't understand what's so special about them. I mean, guys rank them above "Airplane," for heaven's sake, and that's just wrong.
Gene Weingarten: I don't rank them above Airplane! or even close. I also don't think the Stooges were any good.
Arlington, Va.:
Humorperson of the Year: Gary Condit, pants down. Remember, this is a guy who explained his clumsy attempt to dispose of a gift in an Alexandria trash can as "a coincidence" and "unrelated to Ms. Levy's disappearance."
Gene Weingarten: I stand corrected. Arlington is right. Humorperson of the year. Nominations are closed.
Virginia:
Your colleague, music critic David Segal, schmoozed his way into playing with one of his favorite rock bands. Which band would you like to perform with (living or dead), and on what instrument? washingtonpost.com:
The Critic Gets His Licks In (Washington Post, Jan. 2, 2002)
Gene Weingarten: I already achieved this fantasy. I played harmonica for Dave Barry's three-person band, The Urban Professionals, when we sang his "Tupperware Song" before a convention of Tupperware salesmen in Maui in 1991. I swear.
Arlington, Va.
Since we are throwing humor theories around -
What do you think of the theory that in order for jokes to be funny one must see a relative imporance to the joke? In other words, you won't laugh at something unless you believe that the subject being made fun of has some inherent value. This is why Jesus jokes are funny to all (whether you are Christian or not), while a Grand Moff Tarkin joke will only it the mark with Star Wars enthusiasts.
This is in no way a universal rule, but seems to work for male dominated aggressive humor 95 percent of the time
Gene Weingarten: Hm. Well, I think the punchline of every joke, ultimately, is "The world and everything in it sure is crazy, isn't it?" That applies most dramatically to things the more important they are. So, yeah. I'll buy it.
Reston, Va.:
re: Meredith:
I have a cousin Mike. A girl. Uncle tried four times to get a boy. Four girls. Robin, Chris, Mike, and Dana. Maybe the inverse is what happened to Meredith?
washingtonpost.com:
It is an old male family name from Wales I believe.
Grade School was the third circle of hell for me.
For the record the writer of the Music Man was Meredith Willson -- a guy.
Gene Weingarten: Has anyone ever heard of an "aptonym?" This is when a person's name eerily describes this person. For example: The Orioles' occasionally penny-pinching general manager, Syd Thrift. My favorite aptonym belongs to a secret service agent who gets in the news occasionally, describing plainclothes operations. His name is "Undercoffer."
Arlington, Va.:
On funny v. unfunny: I am a woman. I have met many more men who are funny than women who are funny. This has led me to believe that men are, on the whole, funnier than women. Many of my friends agree (albeit many of my male friends). Do you agree? If so, why do you think this is the case? Perhaps it has to do with the the "less attractive the funnier the person" theory -- I think I meet more women who are attractive than men who are attractive. Also, does this make me a lesbian?
Gene Weingarten: Don't worry about the lesbian part. I, too, find women more attractive than men, and I am not a lesbian.
Rockville, Md.:
No Dave Barry year in review? Is it because the year wasn't too funny or did Dave just forget to write one?
Gene Weingarten: Dave actually made the decision reluctantly, because of two factors: 1) No one particularly wanted to look back at 2001 and laugh, and 2) He writes the thing around Thanksgiving time in order to accommodate the necessary magazine deadlines around the country. So each year, he sort of has to hope that nothing dramatic happens in December and he looks dumb. This year, the odds of something dramatic happening in December were pretty immense, so he decided to skip a year.
I love those year-end reviews of his. I missed it.
Washington, D.C.:
re: Aptonyms. I grew up in a town with a dentist named Toothman, and orthodonitist named Brace and two ministers repectively named Haight and Sinn. No lie.
Gene Weingarten: Noted.
Gambrills, Md.:
Would you agree that understatement is usually funnier than overstatement?
Gene Weingarten: Sort of.
Virginia:
FINALLY! A man who doesn't like the Stooges! Gene, will you marry me? I'll take you, war crime hair and all!
Gene Weingarten: I think a lot of men don't like the Stooges and are afraid to say it. It is like admitting to being a bad driver, or lover.
Laurel, Md.:
Speaking of Dave Barry...
His columns this week was about dumb criminals, which is a continuing source of humor since most intelligent persons don't go into that line of work. My favorite dumb criminal story, which I swear was read on the radio as if true, but can't confirm:
Man was stopped by police and found to have $2,000 worth of cocaine in his car. At his arraignment hearing, the man testified that the drugs weren't his. When the judge asked him "If they aren't yours, what are they doing in your car," the man replied:
"I sold them to a friend of mine yesterday. He just hasn't come to pick them up yet."
Gene Weingarten: That's terrific. My wife, who is a prosecutor, has heard equally idiotic defenses. My favorite dumb criminal story, definitely true, involves a guy who went to rob a bank but forgot to bring a bag. He stuffed the money in his shirt, and socks, and pants pockets. He also forgot to bring a getaway car. So he had to run for it. Police found him a couple miles away, by following the trail of bills. Also, did you ever see the famous sequence on Police Chases where the guy they stopped was so drunk he put a traffic cone on his head, and staggered around dancing?
Washington, D.C.:
My apologies if this has already occurred and I missed it, but would it be possible for Gina to join you in a chat someday?
p.s. Hats off to Meredith for being secure enough in his masculinity to use his name instead of his middle name or something like "Chip." washingtonpost.com:
Actually Meredith is my middle name. My first name is Lynton, so it really was the lesser of two evils. Thanks anyway.
Gene Weingarten: 1) Gina may join me one week, but it may be logistically difficult. For certain important reasons, we have never actually been together in the same room. What about it, washingtonpost.com? Can this be done by two people in two different locales?
2) Wow. Lynton.
Aptonyms:
There used to be, and maybe still is, a psychiatrist here in town named Dr. Kafka. I always wondered what his sessions were like.
Gene Weingarten: There is actually a retired gynecologist around here with a name I cannot print. I wanted to, in a column I wrote about funny names, and realized I could not.
Wheeling, W.V.:
Gene,
I don't think there are enough female humor columnists. What would you recommend to someone trying to break in? Also, why don't you answer all your emails?
Thanks!
Gene Weingarten: I would advise you to try to break in somewhere other than The Washington Post. We have enough humor columns. Don't need no more, nope. We got just the right amount.
I do answer emails. All of em, I think, except some of those that threaten me. Did you threaten me?
Washington, D.C.:
I think there may seem to be fewer funny women out there because flat-out knee-slapping humor is not considered ladylike, so we need to be more subtle. Also it's hard to be funny when your pointy shoes are cutting off the circulation in your toes.
Gene Weingarten: I understand that pantyhose is a problem as well. Also, those little horrifying scissors like devices that my wife uses to curl her eyelashes. Who can be funny when you are approaching your eyeball with a tiny scythe? What's the story with those things? Do ALL you gals use them?
Alexandria, Va.:
Why shouldn't all public indoor spaces be smoke-free? If I walked around the 9:30 club spraying people with a bottle of eau'd skunk, they'd toss me out on my keester. But isn't the effect of being breathed on by a smoker the same? Or in fact worse in that it can have long-term health consequences.
Gene Weingarten: The dead comic Bill Hicks hated non-smokers. He called them whining little maggots. He said he would quit smoking himself if he "wasn't afraid of becoming one of you."
No, he did not die of lung cancer.
Rockville, Md.:
The new comics seem promising, but I'm going to miss Tank McNamara. Perhaps it should be moved to the Sports section since it is both funny and satirical of the sport industry, in the same way that Dilbert was exiled to Business. washingtonpost.com:
note: "Liberty Meadows" creator Frank Cho is scheduled to be online Friday at 1 p.m.
Gene Weingarten: I actually like this idea -- moving it to sports -- though I hate the fact that Dilbert is in financial. The Czar once awarded first prize in a "bad pickup line" Invitational Contest to this entry: "Hi! I'm the guy who moved Dilbert to the business pages!"
Washington, D.C.:
A friend of mine is a psychiatric social worker. She had a client who needed to have medication for her paranoia adjusted and my friend asked the client the name of her doctor. It was "Dr. Moneymaker" (look it up in the Northern Virginia Yellow Pages) and my friend didn't believe her until they looked the name up in the phonebook together. Tough love for a person with paranoia.
Gene Weingarten: That is totally incredible. If this is true, I will interview him. If it is not true, you will rot in hell.
Burke, Va.:
I think women are less funny than men because women tend to be extremely literal. Take my mother-in-law (please!). Half the time she doesn't even realize when I'm making a joke.
Gene Weingarten: Wait. Did you just make a joke?
Bowie, Md.:
Gene,
Of all the writers (either journalists or columnists) you know at the Post, who's a very funny person when you meet them in the flesh, but you wouldn't know it from their writing?
Gene Weingarten: David von Drehle's stories tend to be complex, brilliant exegeses on weighty subjects, history delivered in real time, brought forth with such magnificent gravity that they could be chiseled in stone for the ages. David is one of the funniest people I have ever known.
Rockville, Md.:
Is it too late to submit a question?
Gene Weingarten: No.
Gene Weingarten: Alas, now it is. We have reached the one o'clock hour. It was fun. See everyone here next time, I hope.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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