It's self-effacing, it's hard-luck, the shtetl stories. All those Coasters things are an amalgam of Yiddish and black humor.
“I was a little nerdy, but I got along with everybody. I had fun at school - skateboarding, surfing, getting kicked out of class for making too much noise.”
“Americans have been remarkably devoted to the capacity for belief, to idealism. That's why we get into trouble all the time. We're always viewed as naive.”