{PICTURE REMOVED}

This past Sunday we were sitting around the dinner table, chewing the fat as it were, enjoying the Father’s Day afterglow of a beef and baby back rib take-out feast. The commentary between Sally, Shannon and myself jumped between former “girlfriends” of mine—I use quotes because none of these relationships were ever formalized, except in my fevered dreams—and the exceptional meal we had just enjoyed.

For some reason we jumped over the subject of “Humor.” I was explaining how, at an early age, the creation of a joke and the reception of a laugh gripped my soul and led me down a questionable path from which I have never fully
recovered.

As eyes glazed over and rolled back into the heads of my captive audience I was about to expound on the comics and humorists who have influenced me. There was Steve Allen, Alan King, Albert Brooks (“OK, BOOMER!”) and the inimitable literary stylings of Jean Shepherd just for starters.
[Read more…]