Is it possible

To write alleged comedy and completely not understand comedy?

Well, if your work involves all things found at "Target" then yes...

I never heard Carlin be as hard on himself as he was on his favorite strawmen. That wasn’t his job, of course, and you can’t fault him for the routines he didn’t do. But the more you confront and accept your own human faults the less outrage you find in the small mishaps of others, and I never got the feeling Carlin spent a lot of time interrogating his own character with the same confident derision he brought to things much greater than himself.

Yeah, thanks for the bigger picture there Lileks. You and all your well-remembered comedy bits.

I'm pretty sure Lileks has managed never to actually watch a Carlin routine all the way through.

As opposed to the James Lileks' comedy pallet consisting entirely of discount Seinfeldisms.

I know that for some reason this guy is friends with Mike Nelson probably because of ideology (well, that and all of us have idiot friends, let's face it -- in fact, I think sadly I'm other peoples' idiot friend) -- but Mike Nelson doesn't shove his politics down my throat and oh yeah, he's funny -- always a fine quality in a person who performs, oh, I don't know, comedy?