A Lamentation

In a 1993 interview with the New York Times Julia Louis-Dreyfus described how the cast would go out to dinner every Tuesday night after shooting an episode and would “remind each other of lines, howling, howling,” because, as she said, “To tell you the truth, I think we find our show funnier than anybody else who watches."  There is no way I could know what these occasions were like, but of course I can imagine: in a restaurant, not unlike Monk’s, Jerry Seinfeld sits and jokes more at ease and less artificial without a camera running; Michael Richards mocks his own method acting and exaggerates the exaggerations they just filmed; Julia Louis-Dreyfus makes fun of these absurd men in the same way Elaine makes fun of their television selves; Jason Alexander goes in and out of his sane self and George Costanza with his distinct theatrical flair; and Larry David, whose presence solidifies the fact that it is reality and not TV, talks about the time he was a bra salesman, or was in a contest, or ate an éclair out of a trashcan.  This book is a lamentation that I was eight years old when these jokes were being hashed and rehashed; that I could not be there summing up my own personality in my interpretation of “These pretzels are making me thirsty”; that I couldn’t witness nor participate in the making of jokes about the best jokes ever to be made.

            My only consolation is that this book succeed, that John Stewart introduce me, and that I walk out wearing the Puffy Shirt.