That Revolutionary Scribe Dave Barry

My taste in humor runs to David Sedaris, Bill Bryson, Futurama, Arrested Development, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Humorist, Bill Maher, David Cross, Jon Stewart, and so on. Nevertheless, good ol' Dave Barry has made me chuckle plenty of times. He's no more cutting-edge than Bennett Cerf or Victor Borge were in their day — but taken in small doses, Barry is perfectly clever and likable. As one reviewer put it:

"He's the McDonald's of American humor. One, nearly everybody likes him. Two, he's everywhere. Three — and this is the key — when you open one of his books, you know exactly what you're going to get."

It is a measure of how stupendously ossified the journalism business has become that Barry's newspaper columns might not find an audience today if it weren't for his now-well-known byline. In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Barry speculates that

"If I were just starting out, I don't think a newspaper would take a chance on me. The tendency for newspapers is to not take chances, write shorter and shorter, dumber and dumber. Here's what happens, I think: Someone tries to write something funny and a little bit edgy, and most people get it. Most people think it's funny. But you get a few people who are ticked off or crazy, they make irate phone calls and write angry letters. This gives us writers and editors who are more humorless, more easily offended, more and more scared, less and less daring."

That's on the nose, I think. Newspaper editors should keep Barry's observation in mind next time they're tempted to whine about how their readership is dwindling (especially among younger people). Or they might just look at the current New York Times bestseller list, where John Stewart and George Carlin occupy the number one and two slots in the hardcover non-fiction category. Just a few weeks ago, David Sedaris had four books in the top ten. The popularity of slightly edgy, off-the-wall humor writing is indisputable. Newspapers, to their enormous detriment, don't care, because they've made it their sacred mission never to offend anyone. And that's not remotely funny.

Comments

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Hey Dave berry is great. I like your site also found it when i read Dave Berry in search engine.

have a good one you and Dave should meet up he sounds like he is nuts.