Chris Rock

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I don’t think people understand how hard it is to write comedy. The gestation period, the trying out of jokes, the whittling them down — a lot of people may not understand that, in some ways, drama may be easier.

It’s not may. It is easier.

Go on.

It just is. Hey, man, I loved Gone Girl. Loved it. But you could probably get other directors — I’m not saying they’d make it as good as Fincher, but you could get it from beginning to end and get a reaction out of it, where you can’t really do that with comedy.

Every moment has to pay off.

In this sense, comedy’s really fair. It’s not like music, where you can hire Timbaland and he gives you a beat and a song, and even though you can’t sing it’s a hit. Comedy, especially stand-up comedy, it’s like: Who’s funny?

It’s a ruthless marketplace.

It’s the only thing that smacks Hollywood out of its inherent racism, sexism, anti-­Semitism. It makes people hire people that they would never hire otherwise. Do they really want to do a show with Roseanne Barr? No, they want a thin blonde girl.

But she’s funny.

She’s just funnier than everybody. I’m not even sure they wanted to do a Seinfeld show, but he’s just funnier than everybody.

[...]

Let’s put it this way. Take Anchorman. Now switch the directors of Anchorman and Gone Girl and give them their movies to do. Adam McKay’s going to get closer to Gone Girl than Fincher is going to get to Anchorman.

Absolutely.

It’s not even close.

-- Chris Rock at Vulture.com

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The Natural World

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Home Life

Pop is feeling so heavily woeful that I half-expect him to start crying. He edged the lawn this afternoon, and found the chore breaking his endurance. In addition to his elderly age, he complains about calluses on his toes. He says they sorely hurt his feet. He even has an appointment to see the doctor about them tomorrow. I was tempted to take off my socks and ask if those supposed calluses are anything like what is happening to my right foot, but I hold back that impulse.

I wish he had waited another week before tackling the lawn, because I am geared up to ask him to teach me how to use the weed-eater, but I had just mowed yesterday, and the day before that I also showered when I knocked out that shave. Hence, I had showered three days in a row, and besides, I was tired of lawn work. I think this is the summer when we make the big transition to having all of the lawn work fall on my middle-age shoulders.