From Patton Oswalt:

All I care about is the profession I work in. Stand-up comedy. I also care about the continued, false perception the bulk of the general public has about stand-up comedy. And what I care about, most of all, is the maddening false perceptions that other people in the creative arts have about stand-up:

Comedians don’t write their own jokes. They all steal. All great artists steal. You can’t copyright jokes. It doesn’t matter who writes a joke, just who tells it the best. Don’t musicians play other musicians’ songs? There are only so many subjects to make jokes about, anyway. I’ve seen, like, five different comedians do jokes about airplanes – isn’t that stealing, too?

Most people are not funny. Doesn’t mean they’re bad people, or dumb, or unperceptive or even uncreative. Just like most people can’t play violin, or play professional-level basketball, or perform brain surgery, or a million other vocational, technical, aesthetic or creative pursuits. Everyone is created unequal.

But for some reason, everyone wants to be funny. And feels like they have a right to be funny.

But being funny is like any other talent – some people are born with it, and then, through diligence and hard work and a lot of mistakes, they strengthen that talent.

But some people aren’t born with it. Just like some people (me, for example) aren’t born with the capacity to make music, or the height and reflexes for basketball, or the smarts to map the human mind and repair it. I’m cool knowing all of those limitations about myself.

I’m even cool knowing my limitations within comedy. I think, after nearly 25 years pursuing my craft, that I’ve become very very good at this. But I’ll never be as good as Jim Gaffigan, or Louie CK or Paul F. Tompkins or Maria Bamford or Brian Regan. Never reach the plangent brilliance of a Richard Pryor or the surreal mastery of a Steve Martin. I’m okay with that. I still get to be creative – on my own terms, and purely on my own work.

But why is it – and this only seems to apply to comedy – that some people so deeply resent those that can write jokes, can invent new perceptions of the world that actually make people laugh? Resent them so much that they have to denigrate the entire profession, just so they can feel better about themselves? Do they really think they’re less of a person if they can’t make up a joke, or be funny in the moment? Why is it so crucial to them? Is it because all of us, at some point of darkness or confusion or existential despair, were amazed at how absurd a thing as a simple joke suddenly lit the way, or warmed the cold, or made the sheer, horrific insanity that sometimes comes with being alive suddenly, completely, miraculously manageable?

A few weeks ago I had a phone conversation with Red Smith’s biographer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Ira Berkow. He told me:

Walter Matthau once told me that his idea of good writing is that you have to come in on a slant. You want the reader to pause for a moment before it hits them. It’s telling a good joke.

I’ll give you an example. Matthau’s wife was good friends with Oona O’Neill who was Charlie Chaplin’s wife. When Chaplin finally came back to America Mathau and his wife gave them at a party at Matthau’s Palisades house in New Jersey. Matthau went out onto the lawn with Chaplin and they overlooked the Atlantic Ocean which was dotted with sail boats. Chaplin looked out over the ocean from Matthau’s backyard and said, “Must have cost you a fortune.”

Matthau told his wife the line and weeks later they’re driving on a hill near their home and they see the same scene–gorgeous view of the ocean. His wife said something like, “After you bought all those boats it must have cost you a lot of money.” And Matthau said to her, “That’s not good writing. You have to come in on the slant.”

Red did that kind of thing.

Just to show you that some people are more awesomer than others please enjoy the following photo gallery of our pal Matt B through the years.

Carry On.

Nice piece at the A.V. Club on Bob Newhart’s most famous record.

Oy-men. 

Marc Maron hosts a celebrated comedy podcast. Check out episode 67 with Robin Williams. It’s a beaut.

From “The Nightclub Years: 1964-68”

“When Making Love…” Woody Allen’s Baseball Story

Daily Laff from Richard Pryor.

“Have Your Ass Home By 11: 00”

[Photo Credit: Kurt Stallaert]

Go Carts

Muhammed Ali – America the Beautiful

From our friend, George Carlin.

Head on over to BBC Radio 4 to listen to old episodes of The Goon Show.

“The Simpsons” writers reunion.  Diggum’ Smack.

S”long, Mr. Winters.

From Colossus of Clout: Happiness.

Listen to this story about the 1981 All-Star Game by Michaela Murphy.

More, on my pal Shannon:

“Towheads,” which makes its premiere Wednesday at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the annual New Directors/New Films survey (with a second screening Saturday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center), features a unique homegrown ensemble filled out by filmmaker Derek Cianfrance (“Blue Valentine,” “The Place Beyond the Pines”) paralleling his real-life role as Ms. Plumb’s husband and the boys’ father. The story centers on Penelope (Ms. Plumb), a lapsed actor who has back-burnered her career in favor of homebound motherhood while her theater-director husband focuses on his work. Penelope increasingly falls prey to a kind of mac-and-cheese Stockholm Syndrome from the isolating and unrelenting demands of round-the-clock parenting.

Though new to feature filmmaking, Ms. Plumb has made dozens of Super 8 films with homemade props, minimalist camera blocking and deadpan physical comedy closer to silent-era film comedians and Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot than to the video artists with whom she has shared gallery space.

“Her presence onscreen is arresting,” said Alex Orlovsky, a “Towheads” co-producer who has worked on Mr. Cianfrance’s films as well. “I was aware of that from her video art. She is really gifted in that Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin sort of way. It’s totally anachronistic. No one does that.”

“The Day My Grandfather Groucho and I Saved ‘You Bet Your Life'” by Andy Marx.

Via Kottke, here’s the annotated wit and wisdom of Louis C. K. over at Splitsider.

“Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Richard Pryor are my favorite stand-ups.” 

I’m with him there.

[Photo Credit: Chris Buck]

Okay, not it’s really so raunchy–it’s tame, in fact–but here’s “For Adults Only” by Bill Cosby.

Thanks to Matt B for pointing this out: