Hand drawn jokes for smart attractive people

A COMPLAINT: The "humor section" is a meaningless bookseller's term. Think about it for a second. If you go to the bookstore and find yourself browsing the biography section, you know what you're going to get: biographies. Mystery section: mysteries. Sports: books about sports. But humor is something else entirely, conveying an intention rather than a subject. Rare is the humorous book about humor, although Joe Randazzo has just written quite a good one about breaking into the humor industry. Books filed under "humor" aren't about anything specific. Their subjects run the gamut from "Calvin and Hobbes" anthologies to comedic memoirs to pop culture parodies to the sorts of gift books that are best read from the cozy confines of the commode. Their only commonality is their desire to amuse. Yet, you won't find some of the world's funniest writers in the humor section. No Mark Twain, no Douglas Adams or Jane Austen or Kurt Vonnegut or Tom Robbins or any number of others. Why? Because, at a certain point, a funny book with long enough legs graduates from the humor section to the literature section or the classics section or what have you. I mean, you can't put "A Confederacy of Dunces" in the humor section, right? It won the Pulitzer, for goodness' sake! Pulitzer Prize winners, no matter how funny, do not get put alongside books with titles like that of the comedian and actor Brad Garrett's new memoir, WHEN THE BALLS DROP: How I Learned to Get Real and Embrace Life's Second Half (Gallery Books, $25). In other words, the best a writer of humor can hope for is one day to be exiled from the humor section, which does not make those of us left behind feel very good. One could certainly be in worse company than the very funny writers who have given us a new crop of books to chuckle over. Garrett won fame as Ray Romano's oafish brother, Robert, on "Everybody Loves Raymond." In his comedic autobiography, he dishes on his former castmates: "A few weeks later, I met Raymond and promptly felt that we were doomed." On Doris Roberts, who played the mother: "It was like we were separated at birth, right down to the 42-inch waist." It's clearly all meant in good fun, and "Raymond" fans will enjoy Garrett ribbing his television family. The book also recounts Garrett's days opening for "Mr. S.," Frank Sinatra, who referred to him as "Greg Barrett" for the several years he worked with Ol' Blue Eyes. Nobody ever corrected Mr. S. because nobody ever corrected Mr. S. Showbiz kibitzing aside, the bulk of the book deals with growing into middle age and the unfortunate ailments that come with the territory (one chapter is entitled "Celebrating Your E.D. During Your Midlife Crisis"); the ephemeral nature of fame ("My career is at the point where about half of the people who recognize me think I'm Kramer from 'Seinfeld.' Especially Mexicans. I'm not sure why"); and on a more serious note, Garrett's struggles with alcoholism. Garrett is a naturally funny writer, uncensored and, at times, crass - admirable qualities all. He makes no great effort to win us over, presenting his politically incorrect views on marriage, for example, without apology. Whether you agree with him or not, readers will laugh. And laugh a lot. The photos alone are worth the cover price, including that of a 15-year-old Garrett, already well over six feet tall, in blackface, doing his "fully committed Jimmie Walker impression." From a recovering (or as Garrett calls himself, "former") alcoholic to a full-throated lush.... YOU DESERVE A DRINK: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery (Plume, paper, $16) is the literary debut of Mamrie (pronounced MAME-ree) Hart, a YouTube star whose show of the same name has over 800,000 subscribers. Hart's show is like a lot of popular shows on YouTube: one camera, rapid cuts, lots of non sequiturs and enough high-spirited antics to hold an audience for five-minute increments. A book requires far more attention-holding than that, and Hart has done an admirable job translating her frenetic show to the slower pace of the written word. Although she keeps her anecdotes trotting along as if they were on Adderall, she injects so many funny snapshots from her out-of-control life (an exotic dancer throws a contact lens of Hart's that had fallen onto the stage of a strip club "like a grenade about to detonate," warning Hart that "unless you want some random coochie juice in your eyeball, you gotta let that thing go") that readers will be happy to take the ride with her. And it's difficult to dislike anybody who owns up to an early crush on a paper towel logo. Of the Brawny Man, she says: "A man who can pull off plaid and cleans up in the kitchen? Sign me up!" Hart is a pull-no-punches comedian with a talent for self-deprecation in the guise of selfaggrandizement, a winning formula. Appropriately, most chapters begin with a cocktail recipe. I'd suggest Hart would make an excellent drinking buddy, but I suspect many of us would not survive the night. Those seeking (slightly) more highbrow amusement might want to check out Michael Frayn's MATCHBOX THEATRE: Thirty Short Entertainments (Valancourt, paper, $15), a collection of one-act plays in miniature that range in subject from indecipherable voice mail messages ("Buzz Me"), to a very silly memorial service for a theater intermission that has just passed ("Memorial"), to the various and totally unnecessary details of a sofa the speaker wishes to dispose of ("Let Me Tell You a Little About Myself"). Frayn is probably best known for "Noises Off," a play repeatedly advertised as "the funniest farce ever written." Because Frayn is English, when reading selections from this book aloud, as any reader will be tempted to do, I found it best to read them in my woeful British accent. Reciting the part of J. Walter Unction upon receiving the annual J. Walter Unction Award from the piece "Themselves" in anything other than an approximation of the voice of Peter Cook is pointless. Try it: "I've won this prize every year now since it was first established....And every year it comes as a complete and utter surprise. I'd just like to thank the judges for their faith in me, once again.... And my parents, for ... well, for setting up this award." See? The book's tone ranges from Samuel Beckett to Peter Sellers to Monty Python. "Matchbox Theatre" is a book of scripts. All of the pieces are either monologues or sketches of not more than two or three characters, and while one could easily sit down and peruse the book as a reader, Frayn's publisher is right to say, "These tiny plays are offered here for performance in the smallest theater in the world: the theater of your own imagination." It is great fun to cast yourself as any or all of the characters, open your mouth, and let the silliness fly. American silliness has long had a champion in Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist whose newspaper columns chronicled the absurdity of modern American life from 1983 to 2004, and in a few dozen novels and essay collections. His newest, LIVE RIGHT AND FIND HAPPINESS (ALTHOUGH BEER IS MUCH FASTER): Life Lessons and Other Ravings From Dave Barry (Putnam, $26.95), pretends to be organized around the search for happiness but seems much more like a menagerie of funny in search of an organizing principle. Personally, I felt no need for any cohesion beyond Barry's singular voice. Here he is recounting a trip to Russia: "Call me a courageous patriot if you wish, but when my country asks me if I am willing to go on a potentially dangerous mission to a potentially dangerous foreign place where I will run a very real risk of being in potential danger, I do not hesitate. I simply answer, as countless brave, self-sacrificing Americans have answered before me: 'Can I fly business class?'" Funny, and slightly self-deprecating in that he doesn't even ask to fly first class. A courageous patriot, indeed. Barry has never been cool, which is no insult. His brand of folksy yet mildly anarchic humor lulls you into thinking his comedy is toothless, but would a toothless writer open his book with an essay entitled "Bite Me, David Beckham"? I think not. Comedians of all stripes have struggled to translate their humor to the printed page, but Barry is a writer of prose by trade, and his easy style belies the genuine genius it takes to create a series of sentences like these when describing his fear of being mugged while on a trip to the World Cup in Rio: "When I lumbered out of the men's room, I was a man of mystery bulges, a human cash piñata. . . . I had my hand in my pocket, clutching my decoy money wad, ready to throw it at the first Brazilian who got within 10 feet of us. You probably think I was being ridiculous. But guess what, smarty-pants? Guess what happened. . .? I'll tell you what: Nothing. Nobody robbed us, at knife point or gunpoint or needlepoint or any other kind of point." If reading those sentences doesn't unloose at least a modest chuckle, I don't even know what to say to you, smarty-pants. At 67, Dave Barry remains, and there is no other word for it, hilarious. But how does one learn to make comedy for a living? Surely this is a question bedeviling thousands of folks unsatisfied with being the funniest guy in accounts receivable. For those aspirants comes a guidebook to the world of professional humoring, Joe Randazzo's FUNNY ON PURPOSE: The Definitive Guide to an Unpredictable Career in Comedy (Chronicle, paper, $18.95). Randazzo is the former editor of the satirical newspaper The Onion, and he puts those skills to good use as he takes readers on a guided tour of the comedy community, from doing standup to writing for television and movies to auditioning to creating a YouTube channel. Randazzo pulls off the rare trick of being funny while discussing comedy. Here is his definition of comedy: "The simplest definition for what makes something funny is 'abnormality.' Like a tumor, for example." Tumors, of course, aren't funny. Which is why his definition is funny. Or because it's now impossible for me to read the word "tumor" without hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger say it, as in "It's not a too-mah." "Funny on Purpose" has actual, useful advice for those who would seek to subject themselves to the paradoxical suffering and pain of a career devoted to making others laugh. For example, his five traits for performing comedy are as succinct as they are debatable: reliability, timing, shamelessness, yelling and vulnerability. Actually, of these, I think only yelling is debatable. Bob Newhart never yelled and still did O.K. People who already know they want to be screenwriters or stand-up comedians can find books on the market with more in-depth advice on their specific subjects. Those, however, who have a sense that they are funny people but, unlike LeBron James, do not know where to take their talents would be well served heeding Randazzo's advice, as well as reading his assorted interviews with comedy luminaries like Terry Jones, Joan Rivers, Judd Apatow and many others scattered throughout the book. BEFORE YOU GO scampering off to the humor section, I would like to note a couple more books that fit in my "best read from the cozy confines of the commode" humor section subsection. First is SPINGLISH: The Definitive Dictionary of Deliberately Deceptive Language (Blue Rider, $27.50), by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf. This is one of those perfect bathroom books, because a reader can open up to any page and the contents within will make him or her sick. Compiled in one exhaustive edition are all of our worst neologisms from the worlds of politics, advertising, the military and whatever other industries have need for terminological subterfuge, complete with definitions and first use. Consider "document management," defined as "the now-no-longer-economicallyviable Enron Corporation's term for shredding paper evidence." Or the head-shaking "exquisite egg pasta," which was "a phrase prominently displayed by Stouffer's on packages of its veal tortellini with tomato sauce that touts what was referred to in the product's list of ingredients as 'cooked noodle product.'" Each entry is lovingly footnoted so that curious readers can flip to the back of the book for sourcing. Another book that deserves a place of honor in the family water closet is HAND DRAWN JOKES FOR SMART ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE (Scribner, $22), by Matthew Diffee, a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Diffee is a master of the single-panel cartoon, able to convey in one picture and few words a novel's worth of wit. A slightly sauced businessman at a bar complains to his neighborhood barkeep, "I feel like a man trapped in a woman's salary." Boom! A great joke plus social commentary on two different topics, all in 10 words. What more could anybody ask for? Here's another: An old couple are getting ready for bed. The man, T-shirt tucked into boxers, reaches for a pair of spectacles: "These are my reading glasses. I need my sex glasses." Diffee is able to accomplish with very little what most humor writers cannot with so much. One may wish to extend potty time just to keep flipping through. Like Dave Barry's latest collection, this assortment of books is a menagerie of funny in search of an organizing principle. And as with Barry's book, there is none, other than that all fulfill the promise of making the reader laugh. Any complaints I have toward the booksellers of the world regarding the humor section do not apply to these authors or their fine and funny works. MICHAEL IAN BLACK is an actor and the author, most recently, of "You're Not Doing It Right," a memoir, and "Naked!," a children's picture book.