I'll have a cocktail please, with funny in it

Most of the seasoned Askers around here are well aware of the general sentiment of the reviewers regarding Humor Bloggers.

You can imagine the weary sigh I let out when I started reading the earlier posts of today's reviewee to discover yet another Humor Blogger, fishing for ratings. So, another self-awarded graduate from the University of Funny, certified to club me to death with the blogging equivalent of tired, predictable slapstick wants a review. I began to wonder what I could possibly say that hasn't already been said. But a good educator is a patient one, and so I put on my ass kickin gear and prepared myself to write an exegesis on the suck that is Humor Bloggers.*

As I stared squarely at a header that looked just fuckin stupid in Firefox, a template lacking any proper About Me page with the dreaded sidebar of doom, I began to hope for Johnny B's sake that he had spent his time since submitting his blog for review invoking St. Genesius, the patron saint of comedians (which, I presume, also covers self-proclaimed comedians whose jokes flop like bored, neglected genitals. In any case, St. Genesius is also the patron saint of torture victims, so I believe all our bases are covered).

But Johnny B didn't need the help of any saints. (Besides, I gathered he's Jewish so I doubt they would have come to his aid). It turns out he's actually funny. And not the kind of funny that only includes doctored images of celebrity that are apparently certifiably funny because two million other morons have posted them on facebook and have littered your email account with them making you want to telepathically torture everyone on the idiot chain of forwards. I'm talking about the funny that comes from the depths of personality, that seems enviably effortless, that has such delightful subtlety at times making you know it has not been pawned from another moocher or has been rotting in his brain for so long that it comes out with too much volition.

Johnny B has the ability to make the reader feel like they're sitting in front of him having a beer, eating up the fruits of mirth he throws at them. He does clever commentary with personal humor, all the while treating his readers to one liners that stick to your brain throughout the day. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: good humor is like good sex; by surprise, from behind, and riddled with blasphemy, and Johnny B seems to get that.

The only thing I can really hate on here Johnny B, (are you listening?) is that you seem to have labeled yourself funny, which I think is hindering you from letting readers enjoy the entire spectrum of who you really are. You sometimes seem to want to go deeper, sometimes you meekly whisper about it. I already know you're funny, but what else are you? Your sense of humor is way too good to be smashed up inside a pre-fab jack-in-the-box where there's only room for a clown inside. You can expand your box and also put anxiety and frustration and pride and love and secret hysteria and your colossal fuck-uppery in there, or you can ditch the box altogether. I don't mean for you to peel back the layer of funny and give me tears and pain absent any humor. I'd be willing to bet that if you opened yourself up to sharing more of your various shades, your humor would find a way to seep into all the cracks and crevices available for humor inherent in those other parts of being human.

Here are a few examples of what I mean, examples of humor finding it's way into deeper unexpected places, that I think is probably one of the hardest things to do as a writer.

But you know what? The fact that this aspect could use some beefing up by you wasn't enough to make me put these four stars back in my pocket and save them for someone more deserving.






Because dammit, you made me giggle like an idiot today and blink wide eyed at you waiting for you to open your mouth again.

But if you tried to coalesce and commingle your humor with the other parts of your persona, it would all self-rise into a truly delectable concoction, and you'd get an IFLY from me.

*And then I discovered that Humor Bloggers is no more.