Just another blog. Does there need to be another one?

1. Saturday afternoon I went to the movie theater to see A Serious Man. I thought it was a great movie, but the crowd was annoying. They laughed throughout the movie at times that seemed inappropriate to me. I couldn’t tell if they really thought something was funny or they only laughed because they didn’t know what else to do. There were certainly parts of the movie that were meant to be humorous, but some much of it all seemed, well, serious. I just couldn’t understand and I started to hate the audience.

When I got home that afternoon, I cracked open Chuck Klosterman’s new book Eating The Dinosaur and read an essay about laugh tracks. In the essay Klosterman contends that Americans laughs most of the time not because something is funny but because it’s a way to fill silence.

2. In the very same book, I read an essay mainly about Garth Brooks and his failed alter-ego Chris Gaines. Klosterman makes a reference to David Johannsen, the singer of protopunk band The New York Dolls. He mentions his successful alter-ego Buster Poindexter.

Later that evening I’m listening to the podcast Never Not Funny and they bring up Buster Poindexter, joking about his hit song “Hot Hot Hot”.

I don’t know what to make of all of this.