TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/070389/07038900.019

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 9KB | 186 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.