Books show comedy improves with age

  Two new comedy books are hitting shelves this month, and a comparison of the two shows some things do get better with age.
  “Free-Range Chickens,” written by Simon Rich, a 24-year-old writer for “Saturday Night Live,” is a joke book broken up into sections with titles such as “Growing Up,” “Relationships” and “God.” Though some of the vignettes are funny, most are familiar. Maybe the jokes were fresh to the 24-year-old, but I felt like I had heard them before.
  Take this, under the title of “Terrifying childhood experiences”:
  — Peek-a-boo!
  — Jesus Christ. You came out of nowhere.
  Funny? OK. Original? Not so much.
  Rich does have some amusing entries. This one from “I think my teenaged daughter knows I read her diary”:
  Dear Diary,
  I have the greatest Dad in the whole world! He is so cool and smart and his words have such a huge impact on me. For example, I never try any drugs because he told me not to. I especially have not tried Ecstasy.
  Love, Sarah
  That made me chuckle. For the most part, though, I didn’t think the book was laugh-out-loud funny, not to say Rich isn’t talented, he is. I just don’t think he has the life experience from which to draw.
  Now a book that did have me laughing out loud is “Clothing Optional” by Alan Zweibel, a former writer for “Saturday Night Live” who is in his 50s.
  He starts the book with a foreword by Pearl Blankman, 78, Zweibel’s high school English teacher:
  After reading the following pages, I am convinced the achievement lends proof to the adage that if you give a chimpanzee a typewriter along with an infinite amount of paper and time, it will eventually write a collection of short pieces entitled ‘Clothing Optional.’
  There’s a lot of Jewish/New York humor in the book, some of which I didn’t get, but most of it I found hilarious. In one piece he describes going to a nudist resort. Another is a touching vignette about his mentor, Herb Sargent. Yet another is about a husband seeing his mother-in-law’s ass ... while she’s riding an exercise bike.
  My favorite though is a series of “Letters from an Annoying Man.” A man requests Zweibel sign a book and send it back. Zweibel does and gets another letter in return:
  Dear Mr. Zweibel —
  While I appreciate your prompt response, I must say that I was terribly disappointed when the copy of your book arrived and I saw the inscription. Sure, I can understand how you’d think that “To Kevin, This book is really good” is a cute thing to write but, quite frankly, I didn’t think that your book was really that good. In fact, I thought it was just okay. So I am returning that copy with the hope that you will send me another one that merely has your signature on the title page.
  Thank you, Kevin Traverson
  This goes back and forth and I found it hilarious! It just got better and better.
  Zweibel’s accomplishments as a comedy writer, not just with this book but as a whole, are something for Simon Rich to reach for. I think he’ll get there with a little more experience. But for readers, if you are looking for a laugh, I’d recommend picking up “Clothing Optional.”