I don't get Andy Kaufman.

After many years of desperate denial, I'm finally just coming out with it.

I don't understand him, I don't think he's funny, and I'm officially ready to stop trying.

"But Marcus," everybody from my Grandmother to my third grade teacher says in unison, "he's wild and artsy and 'out there.' I figured he'd be exactly the kind of thing you'd be into!"

While I'm admitting things, I also have to say that I don't actually know that much about Andy Kaufman. I mean, I was eight years old when he died... if he's really dead...

My knowledge of Andy Kaufman extends about as far as "He was the guy on Taxi who wasn't as funny as the Back to the Future guy."

When I went to go see Man on the Moon I thought that I could pull an Ed Wood on it. You know, see the movie understanding that it was going to be fictionalized a bit, but still come out with some kind of understanding of the person the movie was about.

No such luck. You know that way that Andy Kaufman just stares at you? Jim Carrey does a great job of impersonating it. It's still not funny.

Okay, before you even open your AOL mail program, let me do it for you:

Could somebody please define to me exactly what defines a comic genius? I mean, outside of being funny?

At what point, when you repeatedly do things that are only funny to yourself, do you attain the status of comic genius? I mean, look at me for cryin' in the mud! I'm the only one who thinks that I'm funny, but is ABC offering me a sitcom? I think not.

And garnering the "true Andy Kaufman" notwithstanding, this movie didn't make an awful lot of sense to me.

Little Private Parts Howard Stern kid Andy is performing TV shows for his wallpaper. His dad yells at him. He performs for his sister. Cut to like, fifteen years later. He's doing the same gig, but now in some skeezy little club.

Okay, I'm with you. He's not doing what everybody else is doing. He's a genius.

Then George Shapiro discovers him. Why? Because his comedy act bombs and then he impersonates Elvis Presley. Huh? Oh to live in a climate where the least funny comedian of the evening gets approached by a major talent agent. I would be king.

I think it's safe to say that as far as Andy Kaufman goes, I'm just not on the same page. I mean, even not "understanding his genius" and all, I was expecting more from this movie than I got. I think a reviewer more articulate than I said it best when he said something to the effect of, "Jim Carrey plays an excellent Andy Kaufman, and if you like Kaufman, watching Man on the Moon is like watching a really good cover band of your favorite musical group."

So what was up with the Courtney Love character? Was there really a woman who wrestled Andy on the Merv! show and then fell madly in love with him over one date? I mean, for her to date him after the show didn't seem unusual. He is a genius and all. But then to suddenly become his cancer bed soulmate just seemed totally bizarre to me.

And could somebody explain the Tony Clifton ending to me? Andy is really dead, right? I mean, in the Elvis Presley sense of dead. Like "perhaps maybe not really dead but the post office doesn't deliver his mail anymore" kind of dead? Who was Tony Clifton one year after Andy's death? Who is Merritt Stone!?

Ah crap. I've revealed myself. Now everybody knows I'm an idiot.