Does this look funny to you?

[David Terrenoire]

Those of you who have had the misfortune to be in a bar with me (and really, who hasn't?) know that I laugh easily. I laugh because:

A. I'm usually drunk.

B. I'm deranged.

C. You are a funny person.

Often, it is all of the above.

But what makes a person funny? What is it that makes one person twist a thought just so, and say the line so right, that it surprises us and makes our diaphragm convulse. What is it about people who write funny, so that the alignment of words, the rhythm of the language, makes us laugh?

Dick Cavett has a column over at The Times that runs that question around. You might need a subscription to read it, and if so, I apologize. But here's part of it:

"It took Bob Hope’s longtime head writer, Mort Lachman, to put into words a thing I had only sensed. “Comedy writing can be a fairly easy life,” he said, “and you’ll make absurd amounts of money if you have two things: a sense of humor and the ability to turn on the comic you’re writing for in your head.”

The reason I bring this up is that so many of you are funny writers. You know who you are. You can compose a line or conjure up a word or scene that's absurdly right. You listen to that voice in your head and instead of finding medications that will make it stop, you encourage it. You give it to a character who speaks in a certain way and sees the world in a certain light.

I don't write funny. Not intentionally. It's just that the people in my head are funny people. They say funny things and I write them down. I'm often as surprised as you are.

I like that. It's one of the great things about this job. I only wish the comic inside my head made more money.

What about you? When you write a funny line, is it a struggle? Do you sweat over it? Or does it just pop out? And what about those writers who think they're funny, but sadly for us all, they're not? Can they learn funny or is it like music, you either have the ear or you don't?

And who are your favorite funny writers? Who do you go to when you need a good laugh?

Tell me something funny. Then go read Cavett's piece on comedy writing. I'll either be here when you get back...

...or I'll be at the bar. Look for me.

[Margot Renne Payne]

We must be on the same wavelength. I totally agree with you. I've laughed so hard watching Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters together I felt like I'd been using Bowflex--or whatever equipment you would use to over exert your stomach muscles. Also, George Carlin the first two times I saw him live. I don't exercise. Except for laughing, trips to the refrigerator and pushing book carts around at the library.

Although we do have kids. Our daughter is 16 and loves George Carlin. Of course, she was raised on him and I think probably learned all the seven words from her parents first... She loves finding old clips of him on youtube--one way she and her dad can bond. And both she and our son, who is 15, have read Carlin's books. I also grew up watching George Carlin when he was on "The Tonight Show". With Jack Paar, "I’m complicated, sentimental, lovable, honest, loyal, decent, generous, likable, and lonely. My personality is not split, it’s shredded." Paar was another amazingly talented and funny guy.

I would spend the night at my Grandmother's and she was a night owl so I'd watch TV with her. Also, the Smothers Brothers on "The Tonight Show." And later when they had their own comedy show. Man, that takes me back.

Our last family outing, in April, was to see George Carlin. Twisted? Maybe. Fun? Definitely!

[Margot Renne Payne]

[To add insult to agony, the hospital’s trauma center parking lot was full. Casey used every curse word she knew as she drove up and down the lanes of cars. She gave up trying to find an open space and pulled into a slot marked ‘Reserved for Our Visiting Chaplains.”
“Lady, you can’t park there. That space is reserved for ministers.” The warning came from a man in a battered blue parka and dark pants sitting on a bench next to the trauma center’s entrance. He took a drag from his cigarette and wagged his finger at her.
“Reverend Crazy Bitch, of the First Church of Kiss My Ass,” she yelled as she slipped through the automatic doors.]

I LIKE!!

[Neil Plakcy]

I've been thinking about this a lot and I think there are a few different types of humor that appear in mystery fiction. The first is slapstick, physical humor. In my MFA thesis, I was wrote a scene I still think is hilarious, in which a group of Seminole Indians in full tribal regalia were participating in a test of a new escalator at a shopping mall under construction. Someone flipped the stop switch suddenly, and the Indians toppled down one after the other.

Then there's comedy which arises out of a situation. In the third Kimo book, the same killer shoots both a person and a chicken, and Kimo is forced to take the chicken to the station for ballistics analysis. Much hilarity ensues.

There's also witty word play, similar to the repartee between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting.

Finally, there are jokes.

Unfortunately, I usually end up cutting most of the really funny lines in my writing because they call too much attention to themselves and don't advance the plot.

[Toni McGee Causey]

And sometimes, writing funny is your destiny, like when you get married, for instance, and you go to a nice hotel for the honeymoon suite and your husband's best friends bribe a guard to help them lower a live 85 lb pig (named Honda) onto your balcony. And you have to help him as he finds a way to tie it and drag it down the hall, past the fancy concierge. Did you know the Hilton has a jail cell down in its lobby? Well, it does. You either find the funny or you kill someone, and if the potential headline, "Newlywed kills husband over pig in honeymoon suite" doesn't deter you from the killin', nothin' will.

[Jordan Dane]

Yeah, Toni, but what about the pig? Did he have to stay on the balcony listening to you guys making bacon all night?

[Toni McGee Causey]

Poor Honda ended up in the jail cell. It was a close call as to whether it was going to be him or my husband, and luckily, it was the very very unhappy pig. I don't think the concierge was all that thrilled, either. I can't imagine how they explained the extremely loud pig squeals the rest of the night and the next morning to the guests checking in for the convention that weekend.

[Jordan Dane]

Yeah, it could have been Ned Beatty.

[Stephen Blackmoore]

Dear god, I'd forgotten that story. Thank you for making my morning.

[Toni McGee Causey]

You're welcome. Though I started to tell the breast-milk story.

[Margot Renne Payne]

George Carlin. Amy Sedaris. Jean Shepherd. Bill Watterson. Laurie Notaro. Helen Fielding. Bill Amend. Nora Ephron. Lisa Lutz. I left David Sedaris for last beause it ties-in to when I was reading Me Talk Pretty One Day . And I got tired of trying to think of writers. Anyway, I tried to read one of the stories to my husband over my cell phone and I was laughing so hard he couldn't understand a word I said. But, he was laughing because I was. And my sister and I were reading it at the same time so we'd talk on the phone and read parts aloud to one another--again laughing hysterically. I love in Jean Shepherd's books when the dad talks it's written in CAPITAL LETTERS BECAUSE HE'S ALWAYS YELLING.

I don't think you can learn to be funny. I think you can learn to appreciate funny. And that's OK. But I have a hard time being around someone who has no sense of humor. Or, the person who lacks a sense of humor and doesn't even appreciate humor and therefore thinks when you crack a joke you must be stupid. There are some really good people out there who are not funny, but can truly appreciate humor. They are not my teenage children, however.
I'm not sure about learning to write funny. Maybe they're the ones--like you said--who think they are funny, but they're not.

I need to continue this tomorrow because I just realized it's 2:37 am and I no longer have the capacity to write anything. I'll also read Cavett's piece in the morning.

If you're in the bar you won't need to look for me, you'll hear me. I tend to get loud when I drink--or so I'm told.

[Jude Hardin]

I think Stephen King is LOL hilarious. Mark Twain. Flannery O'Conner. That's the kind of humor I like. The grotesque. The absurd.

I saw Jay Leno in a small club back before he was famous. He'd been on Letterman a couple of times, but hadn't done Carson yet. He made me cry.

[Karyn J. Powers]

Once, on Spring Break at Daytona Beach, um, wait a minute, I better check the staute of limitations for crimes in Florida. ..............I guess I have to wait a couple more weeks to tell this one.