We, as a nation, are insane. But we knew that.

December 27, 2021 12:12 PM

Dave Barry's 2021 Year in Review MeFi's least-favorite Pulitzer Prize winner (previously) (but probably not our least-favorite celebrity libertarian) is back with another year in review.
posted by box (81 comments total)

(And it's currently #1 on the Washington Post's most-read list.)
posted by box at 12:13 PM on December 27, 2021

I read a third of it before my rage at this complacent, morally lazy asshole caused me to quit. Did I miss anything good?
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:29 PM on December 27, 2021 [16 favorites]

You did not miss anything of value.
posted by pan at 12:40 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Huh, Dave Barry's still alive. I always thought he was like 80 when I was a kid in the 90s but apparently he's only 74.
posted by star gentle uterus at 12:58 PM on December 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

On the one hand, I don't envy anyone who's tasked with trying to find anything to joke about in 2021; on the other hand, Barry isn't trying very hard here.
posted by octothorpe at 12:58 PM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I feel a strange and mild compassion. Some day we will all be people out of our own time, doing the same old actions over again, although presumably we won't be paid for it.

One of these days I will look into whether someone's written about the corrosive effect of both-sidesism in popular American political humor on the actual voter's typical mindset. Probs not today though.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:02 PM on December 27, 2021 [16 favorites]

I feel a strange and mild compassion. Some day we will all be people out of our own time, doing the same old actions over again, although presumably we won't be paid for it.

I'm already there, but I have the good sense and common decency to side with the kids and otherwise keep my fool mouth shut.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:13 PM on December 27, 2021 [23 favorites]

I read this shortly after reading this thread of times when one thing dominated Twitter for at least a day, and it was nearly the exact same thing.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 1:21 PM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

I understand that people without a scientific education find this national scientific thinking aloud of the last two years confusing and difficult to follow, but could he at least throw a bone to the medical community who have to bear the brunt of the stupidity of the uninformed over the last two years? Oh wait, there was a jab about HOW HARD IT IS TO GET YOUR DOCTOR ON THE PHONE.
Like, THERE IS A *&%& REASON FOR THAT.
Oh sorry did I start yelling again.
posted by sophrontic at 1:22 PM on December 27, 2021 [15 favorites]

Huh, Dave Barry's still alive. I always thought he was like 80 when I was a kid in the 90s but apparently he's only 74.

Turns out I've been mixing up his death in my head with Harry Anderson's.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:23 PM on December 27, 2021 [12 favorites]

MetaFilter definitely hates Dave Barry, but he had some funny-for-the-times stuff back in the day. i was surprised to see this column get headline-traction, not just on the Washington Post but elsewhere as well.
posted by briank at 1:23 PM on December 27, 2021 [12 favorites]

Well, I thought it was OK.

But seriously, the national mood remains racially tense. A major issue is Georgia’s new voting law, which critics say targets minorities, and which prompts Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta. There is no comparable effort to move the Masters golf tournament, which by long-standing tradition is held in 1958
...
In sports the “feel good” story is the New York Yankees, who, for the 12th consecutive year, do not even get to the World Series (neither, incredibly, does Tom Brady). The two teams that do qualify are the Houston Astros, whose players openly carry wads of cash on the field so they can bribe umpires, and the Atlanta Braves, whose home field is in Atlanta, Ga., a location that was morally unacceptable to Major League Baseball in April but is okay now because, to quote an official statement issued by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, “shut up.”
posted by riruro at 1:26 PM on December 27, 2021 [13 favorites]

If you’re looking to Dave Barry for cutting edge progressive comedy that makes Erma Bombeck look like Lenny Bruce, I don’t know what to tell you.
posted by dr_dank at 1:27 PM on December 27, 2021 [9 favorites]

If you aren't into him, don't read it? Like at this point you know what you are getting into? I dunno, I find it hard to get worked up over old jokes at this point in the world.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:28 PM on December 27, 2021 [24 favorites]

One of these days I will look into whether someone's written about the corrosive effect of both-sidesism in popular American political humor on the actual voter's typical mindset.

I couldn't find much in the way of polling or academic writing (okay, there's this dissertation), but previously, and here, on bothsidesism and SNL, and here about Space Force, and about the 2016 presidential election.
posted by box at 1:28 PM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

from GamedesignerBen's link above: Bernie and his mitts at the inauguration

I couldn't decide between these two, so Choose Your Own Misadventure:

(a) New Clue solution: "I think it was Bernie, with his mitts, at the inaguration."

(b) B-B-B-Bernie and his mittsssssss...
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:47 PM on December 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

Guys! This is so weird! I was doing some reading on wikipedia, and did you know Dave Barry apparently used to be known for being funny?

I guess that was before my time.
posted by allegedly at 1:49 PM on December 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Is our least-favorite celebrity libertarian MeFi's Own Scott Adams? Maybe he should write a year in review and then come back and post the link here.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:07 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Yes, this column by Dave is not very funny. But neither was this year.

I think at this point, we’re all just hanging on like grim death.

Or hoping it won’t be one.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 2:09 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Well, you have to admit that

the facial expression of a man having his prostate examined by a hostile sea urchin

is a snappy line.
posted by y2karl at 2:10 PM on December 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

Also,

Bernie and his mitts at Tanagra.
posted by y2karl at 2:15 PM on December 27, 2021 [15 favorites]

I got to the first non ironic use of "woke"and bailed.
posted by signal at 2:16 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

2 paragraphs. Then I remembered that I had to vacuum my lawn.
posted by Splunge at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

"Nothing really matters you know. Everything is the same as everything else and none of it has any true value. Anything more than a wry smile at the activity of those flickering shadows would be going too far. We are all just dust, laughing gently to itself as it disperses into the void. Why make a fuss about it? Happy New Year to you all!"
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

I am not on board with all the Boomer hate. I think it's lazy, ageist and shitty. But if you're looking for the living human embodiment of "OK, Boomer," Dave Barry may be your man.

I think at this point, we’re all just hanging on like grim death.

In a video the other day Georg Rockhall-Scmidt signed off with, "May 2022 have mercy on us all."
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:32 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm always mixing him up with Scott Adams in the bag of old white guys who, as a young nerd in the 80s, I would never have guessed would later cause me so much regret.

Bill Watterson's still OK, right? Right? [Please no Padme/Anakin meme.]
posted by The Bellman at 2:35 PM on December 27, 2021 [9 favorites]

"We play music as well as Metallica writes novels."
- Dave Barry
posted by clavdivs at 2:37 PM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

I loved him as a kid, but haven't read him in decades. I'm hesitating to read this. I wore out my copy of Dave Barry Slept Here, his spoof of American history books.
posted by brundlefly at 2:45 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Good point about the arrow floor stickers!

But I could really have done without all the space program mockery.
posted by doctornemo at 2:53 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Also, I am fairly certain that Dave Barry goes to the same hairdresser as Ken Burns.
posted by brundlefly at 2:53 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Wait, Dave Barry’s a Libertarian? Did that happen some time in the past 25 years or so when I wasn’t paying attention, or has he always been a Libertarian and I just didn’t notice when I was a young ‘un?
posted by eviemath at 3:00 PM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'd say he's more of a glibertarian, and has been since at least the late '70s (1994 interview with Reason, in which the '70s gas crisis leads him to conclude that there's no such thing as the common good and no such thing as society. What is it with people and freaking gas prices?)
posted by box at 3:12 PM on December 27, 2021 [11 favorites]

I think he's always been a Libertarian but the Libertarians of yesteryear weren't so insufferable and flat out fascist as Libertarians now. Maybe I wasn't seeing the whole story as a kid but the "small government and open borders" Libertarians of the 70s and 80s seem to be a far cry from the "I want everything to collapse so we can build a white ethnostate" Libertarians of today.

(My parents were Libertarians while I was growing up but bailed on the party when it went its current way and are now Democratic Socialists)
posted by mikesch at 3:23 PM on December 27, 2021 [14 favorites]

I am not on board with all the Boomer hate. I think it's lazy, ageist and shitty.

Goddamn fucking right and I have complained to the mods more than once. But, for a fact, there is an unconscious financial incentive involved: there's more potential $$$ coming from Gen Xers and ettes, as well as Baby Busters, Millipedenials, Zeds and thereafter than a bunch Get Off My Lawners on Social Security -- especially now that we're glued to our lawnchairs. So there is that.
posted by y2karl at 3:28 PM on December 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

Loved him in the 80s. But if I were him I think I'd be embarrassed to be doing that kind of lazy humor in a place where my name might appear on the same page as Alexandra Petri's.
posted by gurple at 3:29 PM on December 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

Something’s wrong with me because I LOLed at least three times during this and thought it was a pretty good summary of 2021. I don’t get “morally lazy” … there’s zero punching down I could see. He’s mostly making fun of the establishment and rich famous people. Also I think it’s a pretty good take on how a large number of “regular people” think about the news they hear. I love the Mars rover because I am a science geek, but I thought “even more dirt than we thought” was pretty good.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:29 PM on December 27, 2021 [17 favorites]

I am not on board with all the Boomer hate. I think it's lazy, ageist and shitty.

I cannot speak for anyone else but my own views on Barry have nothing to do with his generational cohort or politics (P.J. O’Rourke is a committed Republican, four months Barry’s junior, and often remarkably funny) but more to do with having a sense of humour that is seemingly targeted at the readers of Marmaduke who are up for a longer read.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:33 PM on December 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

Stop putting this stuff behind a paywall. Please.

For the record, you whippersnappers will too soon feel the earth move beneath your feet as the present slips into the future without so much as a by-your-leave. It's going to happen. It's happening now. I'm not trying to get you fuckers to respect your elders, but try to have a little compassion.
posted by mule98J at 3:40 PM on December 27, 2021 [11 favorites]

What is it with people and freaking gas prices?

I don't really get it, either.

However, this comes up a lot in The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker. Cramer (a political scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison) made repeated trips to rural communities across Wisconsin, basically trying to understand why so many folks in those areas hate urbanite college professors. It was published shortly before the beginning of the Trump era. It's a worthwhile read.

Basically: folks in those areas often make very little money, and they rely a lot more on driving (since it's too far to walk or bike anywhere, public transit is nonexistent, and trips to work sites, grocery stores, etc. tend to be much longer). So a difference of $0.50/gallon can be a lot more significant to them.

I mean, I think it's also sometimes just an excuse to grumble about big-city politicians who are out of touch with Real Americans – it it wasn't gas prices, they'd find something else to grumble about. And I doubt that Dave Barry has to worry much about gas prices – but he knows that vast numbers of readers will read this line, pound their kitchen tables, and say "AIN'T THAT THE DAMN TRUTH". And Dave Barry is basically a machine for harvesting the lowest-hanging fruit in the "political satire" orchard.

a sense of humour that is seemingly targeted at the readers of Marmaduke

I legit lol'ed. Dave Barry is the literary equivalent of cream of wheat.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:58 PM on December 27, 2021 [15 favorites]

For the record, you are going to be the age you are now forever. Until you look in a mirror. And the only cure for that can be found in The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. Otherwise, learn to love the sorrows of your aging face.
posted by y2karl at 4:02 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

I found the piece inoffensive and mildly funny, and I don’t mind having mockery for everyone including people I agree with.
posted by Peach at 4:03 PM on December 27, 2021 [10 favorites]

you whippersnappers will too soon feel the earth move beneath your feet as the present slips into the future

I have heard this happens. My plan is to fly like an eagle to the sea.

Whoa, whoa, there’s a solution
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:19 PM on December 27, 2021 [17 favorites]

Boomer here and I loved Barry back in the 80s but his schtick got stale a long time ago. I wish that he would just stay retired and stop embarrassing himself.
posted by octothorpe at 4:22 PM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

But if I were him I think I'd be embarrassed to be doing that kind of lazy humor in a place where my name might appear on the same page as Alexandra Petri's.

Other than having a slightly more liberal bent, Petri's stuff seems about on the same level humor-wise as a typical Dave Barry column.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:30 PM on December 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

I think that much of the distaste for Barry is precisely because he's so mild and inoffensive. He wants to present social and political commentary – but without committing to anything, without ever actually taking a stance for or against anything. (Except the safest, most uncontroversial stuff – such as "boy, I sure wish I didn't have to spend so much money on gas, am I right?")

I'm not condemning him or anything, but – who is Barry's shtick for in 2021? It might've made more sense in an era when America wasn't so polarized (aka "on the brink of civil war"), and when his main target demo (i.e., largely white middle-class suburbanites) were more oblivious to the systemic injustices outside of their bubbles (which tend to involve concerns more urgent than gas prices). "Good-natured ribbing of all sides" is a lot more viable as political satire when there are no actual stakes for the reader.

Petri's stuff seems about on the same level humor-wise as a typical Dave Barry column.

That sounds about right, yeah. I'm absolutely baffled by the enthusiasm for Petri. At least she has the courage to stake out a clear position, I guess.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:38 PM on December 27, 2021 [11 favorites]

I LOL’d a few times; it was worth the 5 mins I spent reading it while waiting for the airtrain at Newark. Probably the only thing that definitively marks Barry as a boomer is his rather quaint concern for how the government will fund its budget, which nobody has sincerely cared about since the Clinton era.
posted by panama joe at 4:55 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

If you’re not into either Barry or Petri, how about Max Read’s Year In Stupid Futures? Bonus: none of it is intentionally a joke.
posted by migurski at 4:56 PM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

I remember finding Dave Barry so boring and anodyne and milquetoast as a younger person and wanting edgier humor from whatever I was reading that had him in it. I guess I'm getting old because the gentleness and inoffensiveness of this piece honestly felt so refreshing? It was a dull read but very nostalgic! I'm not like, linking it to my friends or anything but I definitely read the first third and was like "wow, why did I used to hate this guy so much?"

I have never understood the Alexandra Petri love on this site either. I absolutely agree she is Dave Barry but targeted at people in my demographic group and I can't think of a single time she's actually made me laugh.
posted by potrzebie at 5:39 PM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

You know, people regularly post "hilarious" things that I don't find funny at all, and I just don't feel a need to let other people know I think it's not funny. If someone goes to the trouble to put up a post that some people clearly enjoy, I'm not going to shit on it because it's not my sense of humor.

It's a bit worse on MetaFilter with people like Barry because yes, it then becomes an excuse for the ageism that shows up on this site again and again and that the mods mostly don't give a damn about.
posted by FencingGal at 5:45 PM on December 27, 2021 [23 favorites]

Is
THE HAWLEY-SMOOT TARIFF
on the list?
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:19 PM on December 27, 2021 [14 favorites]

Turns out I've been mixing up his death in my head with Harry Anderson's.

Probably because Harry Anderson played Dave Barry in a sitcom about Dave Barry, partly written by Dave Barry, who appeared as himself. It also had such 90’s luminaries as Shadoe Stevens, Meshach Taylor, Florence Henderson, Bea Arthur, Pat Morita and Taylor Negron.

I remember watching it a couple of times, hoping it would be funny, because, you know, Harry Anderson, and Dave Barry was kind of funny then, but really, it was the television equivalent of tepid white rice.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:26 PM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

I used to read Dave Barry in the 90s when I read newspapers, and worried about tainting those memories if he'd gone off the rails, but... this was perfectly fine? The biggest problem I had with it was that it refreshed my memory of 2021.

That said: I don't read a lot of humorists or watch stand-up comedians, so my basis for comparison is basically Alexandra Petri and a few bloggers. (Petri is often relevant to my interests, so I've started reading her more regularly.
But sometimes it is clear that she too is mortal and has deadlines to hit.)
posted by mersen at 6:48 PM on December 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

The thing that annoys me about Dave Barry and this kind of humor is how utterly detached it is from the content it's referencing. Barry doesn't live in the same world that the rest of us do. He's just going down a list of things that happened and making light of it in any way he can just to be silly. It doesn't matter whether it's a pandemic that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives or a violent coup which almost toppled or democracy, Barry's just going to distill it into some inoffensively glib comment that references something which happened.

I think what sets Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, Larry Wilmore and all the others from TDS apart from earlier political satire is they know that this is real life they're making light of. All of them understand when it's time to stop with the punchlines and just earnestly remark about how messed up things are (Stewart's famous "meet me at camera 2" bit, etc).
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:34 PM on December 27, 2021 [13 favorites]

That’s because Barry is more of a parodist, he just makes fun of everything and the form he uses (and yes in a hokey way that was funnier as a young kid.)

Stewart is more a satirist who became an actual political commentator by the end of his run on TDS, however it was framed.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:40 PM on December 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

The frustrating thing is that Barry can be sincere. He wrote very moving columns after the death of his mother and a few other major events. But these, he's phoning in. The running gag about anagrams, for instance, is old enough to have graduated college and had school-age children by now. Barry could do better. He doesn't. Why should he? They still publish him, don't they?
posted by Countess Elena at 7:49 PM on December 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

"Making light of things just to be silly" is the mantra of my life.

Maybe Barry's current humor isn't as zingy as it once was (or as our younger selves thought it was at the time), but it's pretty harmless either way.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:03 PM on December 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but - here is the big difference - in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking lots.

I did indeed laugh out loud when I first read that. Or another about the expectations of gratitude from other people for the gifts they bestowed upon you which went to the level of something like Omigod! We are going to sell everything we own and start a new religion devoted to it! Only snappier and funnier with way more italics and exclamation points. And again I actually laughed out when I read it -- which is something I almost never do in real life.
posted by y2karl at 8:04 PM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

honestly if we're going to grump about Both Sides!! and the worsening of American political discourse, South Park deserves about ten times the focused ire, given the way it presents itself
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:06 PM on December 27, 2021 [22 favorites]

Bill Watterson's still OK, right? Right?

Far as I know, Bill Watterson is at home, safely retired, making the world a better place by just quietly existing in it.
posted by Merus at 8:43 PM on December 27, 2021 [16 favorites]

I remember Dave Barry are being pretty funny back in the early 1990s; but he just doesn’t have it anymore.
posted by interogative mood at 8:50 PM on December 27, 2021

As hopelessly out of touch Dave Barry is, he’s surprisingly less-so than post-comeback Dave Chappelle. And this column gave me four wry chuckles, which is three more than any of the episodes of Chapo Trap House I’ve forced myself to listen to in an attempt to stay relevant to the younger generations

B-
posted by Skwirl at 10:27 PM on December 27, 2021 [8 favorites]

I'm always mixing him up with Scott Adams in the bag of old white guys who, as a young nerd in the 80s, I would never have guessed would later cause me so much regret.

Although he does represent a sort of “boy, the government can’t get anything right!” small-c conservatism in his columns (and he may well be a big-L Libertarian personally) Dave Barry is nothing like Scott Adams (who was always a quiet crank and is now a loud right-wing crank). He’s mostly just formulaic. He’s always been formulaic, but it used to be a fresher formula, before the Internet was fully saturated with the same sort of joke constructions and news of the weird. But as far as I know he’s basically retired at this point, anyway. He just trots out the schtick annually for the sake of nostalgia.
posted by atoxyl at 11:09 PM on December 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

I was reading along in this thread and agreeing with every comment, both the ones angry at Dave Barry and the ones questioning why anyone would read a columnist one is already aware of disliking and the ones pointing out the Dave Barry is mostly a very dull proposition, the humor equivalent of the Lawrence Welk Show. But then I got to DoctorFedora's comment suggesting that we channel any anger we might feel at Dave Barry over in the direction of the "South Park" guys and I literally yelled out "YES!!!!!!" in my condo here and woke my daughter up. She's on the holiday break from school.

I tried to watch the "South Park" "Post-Pandemic" special. It was reprehensible vapid garbage, so no new developments there.
posted by Ipsifendus at 4:32 AM on December 28, 2021 [6 favorites]

Although he does represent a sort of “boy, the government can’t get anything right!” small-c conservatism in his columns (and he may well be a big-L Libertarian personally) Dave Barry is nothing like Scott Adams (who was always a quiet crank and is now a loud right-wing crank).

Dave Barry is nothing like Scott Adams, but the problem with always joking that the government can't even make the proverbial trains run on time is that you're leaving the door open for someone to suggest an alternative which would surely make the trains run on time, and that someone is people like Scott Adams. (Standard disclaimer: The trains did not run on time). And despite all the actual, specific incidents where the government did make mistakes in the past year, Barry felt the need to invent one ("Within minutes a dozen towns in East Texas are flattened by an oil wave estimated to be 200 feet high") because even when the government is functional it has to be comically dysfunctional.

That aside, I've been thinking about this and yeah--it's easy to hate on Dave Barry. The column did give me a few chuckles and Barry does have a style of writing which can be fun to read.

I think I'm more disappointed that he's sticking to his shtick of goofing on all sides when I'd like to see him use his position and platform to take a more vocal stand that's appropriate for our unprecedented times. It's a little jarring to see him so quickly and thoughtlessly move from "Pandemic: hundreds of thousands dead, everything sucks, we almost had our government overthrown, amirite?" to "Didja hear the one about Biden's dog Major?" and "What's the deal with parking lots?" in the same exact same voice and without any pause. But I guess Barry's going to Barry.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:05 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

Back in the 80's, when we used to get the Washington Post delivered, I realized I was cracking up every Sunday reading page F1 (or F2), and eventually realized it was the same guy. So I was a fan then.
A day or so ago, my wife (who also was a fan back then) complained about this year's list. So I read it yesterday on my phone and LOL'd a bunch of times. He has a formula, and he s[ch]ticks with it. He's just doing what's expected of him- anagrams, for instance. I don't think he's changed much, but the times sure have. Like I used to love The Beverly Hillbillies back in the day, but the world has moved on.
Glibertarian, as box put it, sounds about right.

Weird thing is, I read it yesterday on my phone, and the very next thing I looked at was yesterday's post on Trauma Plot, and I was still in a Dave Barry mindset and having trouble reading the New Yorker article without wondering if it was satire.
posted by MtDewd at 6:03 AM on December 28, 2021 [5 favorites]

the problem with always joking that the government can't even make the proverbial trains run on time is that you're leaving the door open for someone to suggest an alternative which would surely make the trains run on time

The problem with always joking that the government can’t make the proverbial trains run on time is that it plays into the attitude that the government shouldn’t try to run any trains at all, and the platform of the party that fundamentally promises as much. At least I think historically that’s a more accurate account of how this attitude (which has deep roots in America) plays out in America.

I’d like to see him use his position and platform to take a more vocal stand that's appropriate for our unprecedented times

Would you, really?
posted by atoxyl at 7:32 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I saw him give a book talk a couple years back at my local library. He's an amiable old guy who's a little vague, and I was happy he could still make a living writing (the last book was about a dog). I think he's happy he can make a living writing too.
posted by Peach at 7:42 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

Surely there are more deserving objects of our wrath.

So, what has Mark Russell been up to lately?
posted by y2karl at 8:05 AM on December 28, 2021 [4 favorites]

celebrity libertarian

"Celiberity", please.
posted by howfar at 8:24 AM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

I guess I'm the only one who liked the arrows in the grocery store aisles.
posted by MarvinTheCat at 9:30 AM on December 28, 2021 [7 favorites]

Nah, I liked 'em. Even though my own supermarket had me going in the opposite direction through the store than I'd historically done myself. I speculated at the time if that had anything to do with being left-handed.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:43 AM on December 28, 2021 [3 favorites]

A grocery store I often patronize* is frequently an exemplar of Unclear On The Concept. Sure enough, the arrival of physical distancing did not disappoint: there are seven aisles, all aligned north-south (the entrance to the store is at the south end). In all seven, the arrows directed you to enter in the north end and exit to the south. Okay then.


*Occasionally in both senses.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:36 PM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have always enjoyed this post and wondered about the snarkout. The centrist, absurd humor made me laugh and want more laughing, which is a rarity lately, and welcome. I don't remember everything he covered, but I remember that I laughed. I don't need everyone to pass some esoteric political litmus test, in order to entertain. One good thing I promised myself, never to hear or see POTUS 45 again. Lightning strikes kill 10 people per year on average and 32% of deaths are indoors. We can only be careful, and hopeful.
posted by Oyéah at 3:32 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yet indoor lightning strikes are remarkably rare
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:40 PM on December 28, 2021

I mean, I admire Dave Barry. He basically has ten jokes and managed to write a humor column for decades. I read this, I saw the ten jokes, and I still laughed at them. I am not a humorist, but I am required once a year to tell jokes that won't offend anyone at a conference. Trust me, being funny once is easy; being funny every damn year for the last... 15 years? requires me to have my own version of the ten jokes. Dave Barry is funnier than I am.
posted by acrasis at 3:51 PM on December 28, 2021 [7 favorites]

Whoa, whoa, there’s a solution

*singing*
Feed the children, with no shoes on their feet,
To the people, who don't have enough to eat...
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:01 PM on December 28, 2021 [2 favorites]

Fly Like A Modest Proposal
To the sea
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:02 PM on December 28, 2021 [7 favorites]

Hating on Dave Barry is easier than the punchlines to his jokes.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:25 PM on December 28, 2021 [1 favorite]

Abracadabra, don’t wanna reach out and tax ya
posted by box at 5:28 PM on December 28, 2021

Bizarro Barry =-> Lewis Black
posted by mule98J at 7:25 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

Except Lewis Black is animated by righteous anger, while Dave Barry is animated by born-on-third-base frat-bro smugness. Also, Lewis Black is funny.
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:18 AM on December 29, 2021 [3 favorites]