Q: Where do most of the police gallows humor and funny moments come from? Is that your experience with the Homicide squad or is it Ed [Burns] or Jay [Landsman] or what? A: We're funny guys. But mostly, human beings—regardless of what they do, what they confront or where they are headed—have a capacity for humor that is endless and heroic. Cops have their own interior wit and it is savagely funny on their side of the police tape. Corner boys have their inside jokes and they are bitterly clever on the other side of that tape. Politicians have their own comic voice, as do longshoremen, as do reporters and teachers and, well, film crews. Everyone knows the small twists and hypocritical absurdities of their workplace, or their neighborhoods, or their families and lovers and children. The trick is listening long enough to catch glimpses of such wit at play. Because without the humor and the camaraderie that humor brings in squadrooms, on drug corners, on the docks or at city hall, the story itself would be too tragic to bear.
David Simon Q&A, August 16, 2006.
