Humor Blog Highlights

But I’m Still the World’s Strongest Humorist

I’ve been writing humor columns for over five years, and I’ve met, corresponded with, and even become friends with other humor columnists around the world. Some of them are extremely successful, some became successful while I’ve known them, and some are just beginning their writing careers. I’ve even helped a few aspiring writers get published for the first time.

We’ve traded laughs, tips, and ideas over the years. I’ve co-written a column with Jennifer Layton of J Street fame, traded name placement in columns with Joe Lavin, and critiqued pieces for a number of different writers.

I’ve met Garrison Keillor of Public Radio International’s “A Prairie Home Companion” on two different occasions, I have an autographed photo of Dave Barry on my office wall, and I am in the same humor writers group as Bruce Cameron, author of “Eight Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” which made the New York Times Bestseller’s List.

I hate them all.

Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word. How about despise, detest, or loathe.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re all wonderful people, and I even consider a couple of the non-famous ones my online friends. But I would think much more favorably about all of them if they weren’t humorists.

But how can this be a problem, I ask myself? Garrison Keillor is a kind man who offered me some advice in the early stages of my writing career (“Write about current events,” he told me). Dave Barry sent me his autographed photo after I asked him to join another humor writers group. Jennifer Layton and I email each other on a regular basis, and I’ve corresponded with Bruce Cameron on a number of occasions. He even politely declined an invitation to join a humor website I was creating.

Even with all these good feelings running rampant throughout the humor community, do you think I’m alone in my professional envy of other humor writers?

Hell no. We all hate each other.

It’s true: every humor writer everywhere hates every other humor writer.

Oh sure, we all admire each others’ creativity and talent, and publicly state how much we love each other’s work. But beneath the surface, every humor writer is dripping with envy. It oozes out of our pores. Despite all our well-wishes to our fellow humorists, we secretly despise each other.

We’re tired of hearing about everyone’s book deals, book tours, and requests to write screenplays. I’ve even heard a rumor (which I started) that one humor writer is even being interviewed personally by Disney chairman Michael Eisner to be his office coffee table. We want these successes to be our own, and we hate each other for getting what we think should be rightfully ours.

So late at night, when we’re alone, our jealousy bubbles to the surface, and we’re consumed by our loathing. We draw grotesque pictures of our competition being eaten alive by weasels. We whine and cry at our computers, “Why him? Why not me?!”

At least the others do. I’m not so melodramatic. I just sign them up for subscriptions to book clubs and porn magazines.

Why do we do it? Why do we look at our fellow humorists as competition rather than teammates and friends? Why can’t we be truly happy for them?

Because we’re all afraid everyone else is funnier than us. All of us. Even the top professionals suffer from a deep-seated envy of other humor writers.

Even though they’re friends, Garrison Keillor grinds his teeth, cries out “I’m not making this up!” in his sleep, and dreams of the day he can dunk Dave Barry in a vat of boiling oil. And Dave Barry weeps nightly as he delivers “the news from Lake Okeechobee” on a second-hand karaoke machine, and throws darts at Keillor’s publicity photos, while he downs slug after slug of homemade beer.

It doesn’t matter who supports us, tells us we’re great, or that we’re funnier than anyone else they’ve ever read. In addition to envy, we’re all have self-esteem issues that makes us believe the only people who find us funny are the people who are supposed to: our parents, spouses, and close friends.

In the past, I’ve been compared to Dave Barry and Lewis Grizzard, as in “Gee, you’re much bigger than Dave Barry is,” or “Wow, you’re not quite as dead as Lewis Grizzard.” Some people have even gone so far as to say they like me better than Dave Barry.

And these are always great to hear. My head swells as big as Rhode Island when someone says my name on the same day they mention Dave Barry, let alone making a direct comparison to him.

Trust me, any comparisons to Dave Barry and Lewis Grizzard are like gold to any humor writer, and they’re always vastly appreciated, because we need our egos stroked constantly. But there’s a part of us that always thinks “This person must have forgotten his insanity medication. There’s no way I’m as funny as those guys.”

We humor writers are a neurotic lot, because we worry about everything. We make jokes about anything, but worry that we make them about the wrong thing. We try to push the envelope on what’s funny, but worry that we’ll offend and insult our readers. We love comparisons to “the Big Boys” — oh man, do we love comparisons to the Big Boys! — but worry that we’ll forever be in their shadows.

But don’t cry for us. This is the path we’ve chosen: making other people laugh in the face of adversity, for little or no pay. So if you ever meet a humor writer, just pat him or her on the shoulder, give a knowing nod, and say, “I understand how you feel, and I appreciate what you do.”

And slip him 20 bucks, you big cheapskate! It’s not like we get rich doing this!

About Erik Deckers (25 Posts from 2002 - 2003)
Musing about current events and personal observations for nearly 20 years, Erik Deckers' Laughing Stalk never ceases to entertain the masses with tales of philosophy, parenting and Xena, Warrior Princess. Remember Xena?