What makes funny? How do we learn how to tell a joke? If a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence, then a “Turing Test” of an AI Bot must include the ability to create an original joke that will make us humans laugh, right? Well, I decided to ask three AI Bots — ChatGPT 4, Gemini 1.5 Pro, and Claude Opus — to explain how to write and create a joke, and here are the inconclusive, exclusive, results!
Yesterday, I was fortunate to watch a live Memorial Day weekend performance in Union Square in New York City. The performers were wild and quite enjoyable and I have some video tidbits of the event to share with you.
Continue reading → New York City Union Square Street Performance
Dave Hester — of silly Storage Wars YUUUP! infamy — is of one of those odd, and sadly self-serious, folk who happen to wind up on “reality” television and are then routinely surprised when people like us, who have never met them in person before, yet still know precisely who they are just by watching how poorly they treat others on television. This phenomenon is uncommonly known as “The Kardashian Effect” or, less routinely, perhaps, as “The Mark of Dave Hester.”
When I was growing up, watching television meant watching television programs that were written by creative writers, produced, and involved actors saying the words that those writers wrote and rewrote and deliberated over — sometimes pouring their hearts and emotions into the words that the actors would say. These television programs came in different genres. There were comedies that were situational and not, dramas, soap operas — it was all out there and waiting for us to consume it.
I wouldn’t say that I was apprehensive when I first found out about the television show Modern Family, but I wasn’t too excited, either. The concept of the show was that it was going to tell stories from three interrelated families, some of which would be told in the style of faux documentary film making, like The Office and Parks and Recreation. There were too many fake documentary like shows already, I thought to myself before I started watching it when it first aired in the fall of 2009. It only took a few minutes of watching the show to realize that it could really be funny.
Comedian Steve Martin tells jokes. He acts funny in movies. He also writes books. He plays the banjo. He’s an art collector. All of those facets make up the diamond of the man — but not in the stern glare from the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The 92nd Street Y wanted Steve Martin to be one thing, and one thing only: Funny.
Continue reading → How the 92nd Street Y Betrayed Steve Martin
On Tuesday, the Osbournes returned to television on Fox in “Osbournes Reloaded” — and while it wasn’t quite suicide television — it was awful enough in its entirety that we wish they’d stayed retired.
You must be logged in to post a comment.