Comedy is actually pretty subjective; my British friends find different things funny from my Mexican friends, for example. I have yet to meet a non-American who found The Big Lebowski funny.

Is Jerry Seinfeld unfunny because he isn't "edgy"? Well, it depends. If you find Bob Newhart and Michael Palin funny, you might well like Seinfeld. If you find Sam Kinison and Lenny Bruce more to your taste, then you probably will like stuff that substitutes provocation for irony and gross-outs for that warm and fluffy "yeah, I never really thought of that" feeling.

What is funny to me is the vitriol that some people invest into a debate about an "Art form" that is slightly more interesting and relevant than mime, but finally, by definition, laughable. There is no good stand-up comedy about the holocaust, not because the holocaust is a sacred thing about which no humor can be found, but because stand up comedy is facile and populist: everyone has to get the joke in the exact moment its being told. If it takes almost a second to get it, thats a sleeper in stand-up terms. Not a lot of room for subtlety or insight.

So if you want someone with subtext who's funny, read george saunders, if you want to have an easy laugh about crack whores or muffin tops, watch a stand-up comic. Liking an unfunny comic who used to live the life of a druggie doesn't make you authentic or Real, whether that comic is Tim Allen or Shapiro.

I used to wait tables at one of the clubs where Shapiro routinely performed. He was a relatively nice guy off the stage, but he really made audiences uncomfortable. It was interesting to watch, but the weird, "edgy" shtick was by turns disturbing and strangely boring. When he asked me out, I turned him down - he was just too scary a guy. When he worked my rejection into his routine, I found another job.