TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/070389/07038900.019

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.3 KB | 202 lines

                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 68

MADCAP AIRS ALL


DAVE BARRY has a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary,
but he refuses to give it back

By Jesse Birnbaum


    A 41-year-old Miami Herald writer and author of the
soon-to-be-notorious book Dave Barry Slept Here assaults the
truth regularly through his weekly column, which appears in
more than 150 helpless newspapers.

    Q. The subtitle of your book is A Sort of History of the
United States, but some people will find it sort of upsetting.
You say that the First Amendment guarantees the right of
religious groups, "no matter how small or unpopular, to hassle
you in airports." You explain that radio works "by means of
long invisible pieces of electricity (called `static') shooting
through the air until they strike your speaker and break into
individual units of sound (`notes') small enough to fit inside
your ear." Why are you trashing history and science?

    A. I guess because high school textbooks stink. Also, we are
constantly told that American students are even stupider than
we thought. So I'm just dumping on the whole idea that we need
to make our kids smarter, by putting out a book that will
clearly not do that.

    Q. Would it be ungracious to suggest that your humor is a
trifle sophomoric?

    A. Yes. Anyway, I like sophomoric humor. Sophomoric is often
used as a pejorative term, but I myself remember laughing pretty
hard as a sophomore.

    Q. Your writing shows an extraordinary gift for metaphor.

    A. Really? No one's ever accuse-d me of that.

    Q. Well, your imagery is rather startling.

    A. You're easily amused. I can see that.

    Q. I quote: "The United States tried, by depressing the
clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of
rhetoric, to remain neutral." Also: In 1929 the nation's
economy "was revealed to be merely a paper tiger with feet of
clay living in a straw house of cards that had cried `wolf' once
too often."

    A. Yeah. Well, I see a lot of manuscripts written by people
who are hilariously inept with literary devices, because they
try so hard to be ept.

    Q. The dust jacket of your new book says that the Pulitzer
committee "must have been drunk out of their minds" when they
gave you the prize. What ever do you think possessed the
Pulitzer jury to give you a prize?

    A. Let's be honest. Nothing I've ever written fits the
definition "distinguished commentary." But I can explain. The
Pulitzer is judged by people who are undergoing two extremely
stressful things at the same time. One, they're in New York
City; and two, they're reading Pulitzer Prize entries, which
are often written for the purpose of winning Pulitzer Prizes.
Whole forests could be saved if we didn't actually put these in
the newspaper and just sent them straight to the Pulitzer
jurists instead. So these people have to read hundreds of heavy,
huge entries, every one of them earthshakingly important. And
that makes them really hostile toward journalism in general.
Then they have to go out into the streets of New York and get
into the subway at rush hour both ways. One of my entries was
a vicious and unfair attack on New York City, and the other was a
vicious and unfair attack on the Pulitzer Prizes. So they gave
me the prize for distinguished commentary. People often confuse
it with the Nobel Prize. Not that I'm giving it back.

    Q. More's the pity. I see that you write many unkind things
about well-known personalities -- Nixon, Carter, Reagan,
especially Geraldo Rivera. Why do you keep picking on Geraldo?

    A. For the same reason, basically, that you step on
cockroaches. Geraldo is so self-righteous. If he would just say,
"You know what? We're going to have a neat show today, and maybe
you'll get to see a woman's breasts." But instead, he says,
"We're going to talk about this cult that stabbed the kids and
cut the kids' noses off, and you'll get to actually see a
picture of it. It will be really neat." Geraldo has that
certain je ne sais quoi. For want of a better word, I would call
him a jerk.

    Q. Tell me about your first writing job.

    A. I worked for a little newspaper in West Chester, Pa.,
called the Daily Local News. And it was just like what you
would think the Daily Local News would be. I covered endless
hearings. Our favorite verb was air. ZONERS AIR PLAN. HEARING
AIRS ZONING. It was classic small-town journalism, and I really
loved that job. Then I went to the Associated Press in
Philadelphia, and I really, really hated it. Fortunately, I got
another job, and I spent the next eight years teaching
effective-writing seminars to business people.

    I'd lecture a bunch of chemists or engineers about the
importance of not saying "It would be appreciated if you would
contact the undersigned by telephone at your earliest possible
convenience," and instead saying "Please call me as soon as you
can," which was revealed wisdom to these people.

    Q. How did this lead to your writing a humor column?

    A. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I asked the editor at
the Daily Local News, "Why don't I write a column for you?" I
started the column for $22 a week. It was usually very
misleading, inaccurate and often quite offensive and
irresponsible. Then the Miami Herald offered me a job.

    Q. Why is Miami funny?

    A. It's just a bizarre mixture of cultures. There are
evidently cultures where it is considered basically good
etiquette to keep your left-turn signal on at all times. Then
there are people who feel it's important to buy the largest
possible car, the kind you can land aircraft on top of with no
problem, and they drive them incredibly slowly. At the same
time, there are people who cannot imagine going less than 70
m.p.h., including in their driveways. Then the politics here is
amazing. I mean, we have rallies here for the right to
sacrifice chickens.

    Q. What subject draws the most mail?

    A. Any time I write about dogs. People just love dogs. A lot
of people liked my piece Can New York Save Itself?

    Q. That was cited by the Pulitzer committee. Some folks
thought it was particularly nasty. I quote: "Times Square . . .
is best known as the site where many thousands of people gather
each New Year's Eve for a joyous and festive night of public
urination . . . It also serves as an important cultural center
where patrons may view films such as Sex Aliens, Wet Adulteress,
and, of course, Sperm Busters." It seems that you try to be as
provocative and as offensive as possible. Doesn't your editor
object?

    A. My editor, Gene Weingarten, is actually probably less
tasteful than I am, if such a thing is possible. He will edit me
for humor, but virtually never for taste.

    Q. Have you ever been sued for libel?

    A. I've certainly been threatened enough times. I once asked
the Herald's lawyer, "How come I never get sued?" He said, "What
makes you think you never get sued?"

    Q. How would you describe your style?

    A. My theory about humor, to the extent I have one, is that
it's fear that the world is not very sane or reliable or
organized and that it's not controlled by responsible people.
Anything can happen to you, and you have no say in it, and it
could be bad. What a humorist does is sort of poke through
that. You get on an airplane, and if you're like me, you have
no idea how an airplane could possibly fly and every fiber in
your body tells you it can't. Nothing you've ever seen that
heavy can fly. You get on there with all these other people
convinced of exactly the same thing, but you say, "Well, it must
be able to fly. Look at the guy up there with the short haircut,
the military bearing. Scientists built this, it must work." And
the humorist says, "Nah, it probably really can't fly. You're
right to be afraid of the airplane -- it's probably going to
crash, and you're going to die." People laugh because it's
easier to laugh than to really admit they're afraid. But I don't
think I'm the first person to observe the close connection
between fear and laughter.

    Q. What is it you like least about yourself?

    A. Well, sometimes I've been very meanspirited for the sake
of a joke, and I've regretted it. I once made fun of an
organization called People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals. I told how this group had bought seven lobsters from
the tank in a Chinese restaurant, flew them up to Maine and set
them free in the ocean. I figured that now they'll be recaptured
by lobstermen, resold to the Chinese restaurant, rereleased by
the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the life cycle
will continue. I dumped pretty hard on that group. I knew
nothing about them. Nobody wrote me saying "You scumbag." But
some people said, "We thought your column was kind of funny, but
you don't know anything about us, and this is what we're all
about." I thought, I could have written that same thing without
sliming that organization, which actually represents some things
that I think are good. I still think the event was worth making
fun of, but I shouldn't have lumped those people in with the
whole animal-rights thing as brusquely as I did. I try to avoid
it now, but there's a side of me that will do that. Otherwise,
I'm a great guy.