Thanks for reading me – and occasionally laughing
I’m turning off the keyboard on my humor dispatches. Remember, I was only trying to summon a wry smile.
By Chuck Cohen / March 13, 2009 edition
Alas, along with that luncheon special, Tripe-4-Two Tuesdays, Funny Friday in the Monitor will no longer be available after this week as the paper transitions to an online daily and a weekly print edition. While Funny Friday has only been part of the paper for four years, as one of its writers, I hope it has provided a respite from the downward tendencies of GM stock.
I have tried to generate chuckles, with results ranging from a couple of guffaws to an equal number of “huhs?” Along the way, I’ve also discovered that aiming for laughs can be dangerous.
The response to an article I wrote about creating a holiday for men – a Guy Day – was so vitriolic that I actually considered, to use a Godfather term, “going to the mattresses.” (If you want to catch up on the nastiness, just head over to Jezebel.com and type in my name. Keep the kids far away from the computer.)
The other piece that had me cowering in a bunker was about crying babies on airplanes. The notion that children were entitled to scream as they flew around the globe was one I was not familiar with. But after all those threatening notes, I was more than willing to agree that I was not only wrong to kvetch on the subject, but should, as penance, be forced to attend their children’s pageants for the next five years.
The real difficulty for humor writers is finding subjects that are as funny as what’s in the news. It’s hard to beat, for example, the University of Texas paying millions for Norman Mailer’s car repair bills and other material in the name of collecting his letters. Or New York nursery schools interviewing 2-year-olds to see if they are worthy applicants. And what can you say about Mickey Rourke that Mickey Rourke hasn’t said funnier?
And yet we continue to try and amuse, though I’m not sure why. A print writer, after all, doesn’t hear the laughter. I suppose I could have begged for a subscription list to the Monitor and knocked on doors twice a month to ask how many laughs I gave readers along with their oatmeal. But then I’d just end up like Sally Field when she won her second Oscar in 1985: You like me, you really like me.
When I worked in advertising in New York City, I would occasionally come across a subway poster I wrote. Whenever I saw a straphanger looking at it, I was tempted to let him or her know I was the author of it. Except, this was the New York in the what’s-it-to-you-fella era and any nudge would probably have been answered with a rabbit punch.
And so as the sun – and moon – set on Funny Friday, I have learned that as desperate humorists we will do just about anything to provoke a wry smile.
The great Chuckles the Clown from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” said it best about what we do to make people laugh: “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”
Which is why I leave you, with a smile on my face and a closet full of wet trousers.
• Chuck Cohen writes from Mill Valley, Calif
3. Pat Teters | 03.13.09
Thanks Chuck, you HAVE brought a chuckle to my lips many times. I will truly miss the inventive and quirky perspective you have brought out in your writing. I did feel sorry for the mom with the screaming baby, knowing the helpless misery you both were feeling. I mean trapped in a can 30,000 feet from the nearest ear plug and a kid who will someday star in the Metropolitan Opera…wow.
But keep us in your heart and we will do the same for you.
4. carol freund | 03.13.09
As a preschool teacher for over thirty years, meeting my prospective little students in their home where they were
most comfortable, before they entered this new preschool experience was always very rewarding. We really got to
know one another. In fact I am still in touch with many of them.
5. Suzanna Anderson | 03.13.09
Dear Chuck, I love your dry, droll (sounds like old sandwich bread) sense of humor! I was always amused and generally in agreement with your pieces, often passing them around my office. I will miss the fun. I know you will be somewhere still making folks laugh.
6. Bill Voss | 03.13.09
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Isn’t there “room” in the onlne edition? Or, even in the weekly print edition? When don’t we have the time (or space) to grin, guffaw, or groan. Heavy sigh.
7. Robert Masello | 03.13.09
What a loss. Your column was always the one thing I could look forward to on a Friday. (I’m self-employed, so there’s no weekly pay check to celebrate, and no “Thank god it’s Friday” feeling. For me, every day of the week is Tuesday.) There were always several lines I wound up quoting to friends — and that’s when I didn’t just forward them the whole column. And, btw, can we really AFFORD to lose any humor these days? Bernie Madoff is still out there, still refusing to ccoperate and still just waiting to be skewered. Who’s gonna do that for us?
8. Mike Goldstein | 03.13.09
Say it isn’t so! Better than Art Buchwald, you never failed to make me LOL at your dry, witty, and always trenchant observations. The Monitor is making a big mistake and I hope they will reconsider. Take the suggestion from this Stephen Sondheim lyric: “In the meantime, get an agent, and in jig time, you’ll be being booked in the bigtime.”
9. Jim Purcell | 03.14.09
Since I enjoy the privlidge (sp) of actually knowing you personally, although the line that Mr Masello penned “(For me, every day of the week is Tuesday,” for me, it’s Friday…)” I can look forward to an occasional hang-out with you and/or the Mrs….I feel blessed, and will continue to enjoy your usually unexpected and prizimatically inventive regard for what was a previously unregarded aspect of human behavior… in short, a mobile treasure of seemingly unplanned perspective that, somehow, produces chortles and guffaws (Good afternoon, Chortles and Guffaws— No, I’m sorry, she’s on the floor, laughing her ass off… can I take a message?) etc. Anyway, my condolences, Chuck and all of us who are facing cold turkey oodle-too to your printed presence no longer available to us… sigh…JP
‘
10. jan from Tucson | 03.14.09
The world news is bad enough without learning that I won’t be chuckling to Chuck anymore. I don’t often forward things, believing my friends have enough to read/delete, but I always forwarded this column. There are too few literate, honest and adult writers in any media—you will be missed, Mr. Cohen.
11. Dick Fenderson | 03.14.09
I always enjoyed my Chuckles on Wry. Hope you find a new home where you can keep us laughing. In the meantime, I’ll keep the seltzer bottle handy.
12. Nick Rocchio | 03.14.09
Although I never got to read your humorous columns as quickly as you might have liked, i nonetheless enjoyed each and everyone of them when I got to them in my own good time. Unfortunately there will not be any more chuckles with Chuck, at least not in the Monitor. Maybe on the Net? Your funnies will be missed Chuck Cohen.
13. Dick Fenderson | 03.14.09
The Friday Funnies will be sorely missed, particularly your Chuckles on Rye. This is a time when we all need a laugh of any size. I’ll keep dialing you up on the internet to see if Chuck Cohen finds a new home. In the meantime I’ll keep my seltzer bottle handy.
14. Mike Hogye | 03.18.09
Please add my sigh to the others. After more than 30 years as a print subscriber, I’ve broken down today to check out the online Monitor. Naturally, the first thing to look for is the Chuck Cohen repository…only to find that it will not accumulate any more well-written, insightful wit from Mr. Cohen. Sigh indeed.
15. Jody Crane | 03.20.09
It is so unfortunate for all of us that your editors have lost site of what makes the Monitor, the Monitor- and your column is truly one of those unique features that keeps me coming back. Especially in the face of all the pain and pressure and fear among us - now is not the time to cut back on uplifting humor and insightful observation. If the Monitor is to not just survive but thrive in this new media age and be a leading, unbiased voice of journalism it will need to recognize the contribution of your column and resind their misguided decision to end Funny Fridays!
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1. Joan Grayson | 03.13.09
I’m SO sad! Now you’ll just have to be funny in person much more often!