D A V E
B A R R Y
IS NOT TAKING THIS
SITTING DOWN!
Illustrations by Jeff MacNelly
C r o w n P u b l i s h e r s
N e w Y o r k
Copyright © 2000 by Dave Barry
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Crown Publishers, New York, New York.
Member of the Crown Publishing Group.
Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
www.randomhouse.com
CROWN is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barry, Dave
Dave Barry is not taking this sitting down! / Dave Barry.
p. cm.
1. American wit and humor. I. Title.
PN6162 .B2956 2000
814'.54—dc21 00-031415
eISBN 0-609-50406-1
v1.0
Contents
Introduction
A Few Words About the Title
Politically Correct
Let’s Get Physical
My Final Answer Is . . .
Go Back to Your Spaceship, Regis
Rubber-Band Man
From Now On, Let Women Kill
Their Own Spiders
Here’s Mud in Your Eye
Eye of the Beholder
Fore!
Fore! II
Another Road Hog with Too Much Oink
Bon Appétit
Road Warrior
Weird Science
The Tool Man
The Toilet Police
Smuggler’s Blues
Head to Head
Gone to the Dogs
The Nose Knows
Missing in Action
Why Abe Was a Geek
Rock of Ages
Mr. Language Person on Nitches,
Yores, and Defective Sea Lions
Caught Between a Czech and a Slovakia
Parlez-Vous Français?
An Aesthetically Challenged American
in Paris (Part II)
A Blatant Case of Slanted Journalism
Prison Is Deductible
How to Handle the IRS
Coffee, Tea, or Dried Wood Chips?
Betting on the Ponies
My Son’s College Apartment Has a Pleasant
Pepperoni Motif
The Gulf Between Father and Son
Is Called “Quantum Physics”
“Day Trading for Dummies,”
Including Nap Times, Bankruptcy Laws
Stay Tuned to FearPlex, for More
Panic All Day, Every Day
The Wait for the Tub Is Forever Since
the Frogs Moved In
A Titanic Splash (Again)
Blair Witch Mystery Solved: The Seal Did It
A Rolling Stone
Decaf Poopacino
Good for What Ails You
A Critic, a Crocodile, and a Kubrick—Voilà!
Grammar: De Letter of De Law
The Unfriendly Skies
The Sky Is Falling
Pine Sap Transfusions Could Save
Your Christmas Tree’s Life
Don’t Eat the Muskrats or the
Poinsettia au Gratin
Everything I Know About Dieting
I Learned on Leeza
The Banzai Chef
Turkey Day
Independence Day
High-Fivin’, Bosom-Ogling Soccer
Lizard Must Die!
Build Yourself a Killer Bod with Killer Bees
High-Tech Twinkie Wars Will Be No Picnic
Be an Internet Millionaire, and We
May Like You
This Real Man Can Drive Any Truck
Named Tonka
Wrestling’s First Rule: Cover Your
“Masculine Region”
You Don’t Wanna Know What’s
Under His Hood
The Boob Tube
And Don’t Forget . . . Tassels for All
the Generals
A Watchdog Never Drops His Guard—
Except for Dessert
Nuke the Stalker Sparrow That
Fowled Fabio
Batman to the Rescue
The Fountain of Youth
He Would Flee Bosoms, But His
Car Is Booted
The Birth of Wail
Survival of Mankind Rides
on the Successful Pickup Line
Baby Hormones Have Taken Over
My Wife, and All I Can Say Is “Waaah!”
Today’s Baby Showers Require
an Ark to Haul Home the Loot
Labor Dispute
Voyage of the Stuffed
My Workday: Nap, Toenail Inspection,
Nap, Underwear Check, Nap
Introduction
People often ask me: “Dave, what is the best thing about being a professional humor columnist?
I always answer: “The best thing is that I can help others and make the world a better place.”
Then everybody has a hearty laugh, because of course, I am lying. In fact, that’s one of the great things about being a humor columnist: You can lie! You get PAID to lie! What other profession can say that?
OK, lawyers. But they have to wear suits. Whereas we humor columnists can wear whatever we want. We could report to work in a giant squirrel costume, and our employers would not question it. They might even be impressed by it, and remark upon it positively in our annual Job Performance Review. (“Shows good initiative. Came to work in squirrel costume.”)
When you are a professional humor columnist, people cut you a large amount of slack. I have an office at The Miami Herald, a serious, major metropolitan newspaper. Here are some of the items that I keep in that office:
—A six-foot-tall plastic-foam model of a bear (named “Bob”);
—A plastic bag containing the preserved reproductive system of an actual cow (named “Bossy”);
—A huge mutant corn-flake wad in a display case;
—A reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper, with a clock in it;
—A rubber chicken wearing underpants;
—An electronic gun that can make a burping noise, a puking noise, a farting noise, and all three noises combined;
—An extensive collection of beers, including Old Jock Strong Ale, Bone Beer, St. George Lager (“Traditional Ethiopian Flavor”), Louie’s Evil Lager, and Blade Beer (“Official Brew of the World Famous Lawn Rangers from Amazing Arcola, Ill.”);
—Two cans of “Potted Meat Food Product,” each at least 10 years old;
—A picture of a man lifting 350 pounds with his private parts;
. . . and much, much more. And guess what? Nobody thinks it’s odd that I have these items in my office. Because it’s not odd. These are all work-related items. I obtained every one of them in the course of doing my job as a professional humor columnist. They are the Tools of My Trade!
My point is that I have a wonderful job. It’s WAY better than other so-called “prestige” jobs, such as neurosurgeon or president of the United States. Don’t believe me? Let’s compare the key elements of the three professions:
Neurosurgeon
President of United states
Humor
Columnist
* * *
OK to wear squirrel costume to work?
No
Onl
y on special occasions
Yes
* * *
Hardest part of job
Drilling into skull of live human
Maintaining delicate balance of peace in world
Working phrase “weasel boogers” into column
* * *
Worst that can happen if you mess up
Brains squirt onto your shoes
Nuclear war wipes out civilization
Phrase “weasel boogers” fails to appear in column
* * *
Ultimate benefit
Can save a life
Can truly make the world a better place for millions of people
Can drink beer on job
So the facts are clear: By any objective standard of measurement, there is no better profession than humor columnist. That is why so many people want my job. It looks so easy! In fact, as you read the columns in this book, you may find yourself thinking: “Hey, I could do this. Any random person could do this!”
That is where you are wrong, my friend. It takes a very special kind of random person to be a humor columnist. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people try their hand at this demanding profession. After a few months, almost all of them have given up and gone back to the ninth grade.
Do you think you could do this job? Do you have what it takes to be a truly professional humor columnist? To find out, take the following multiple-choice quiz:
TEST OF YOUR HUMOR-COLUMNIST APTITUDE
The part of the newspaper that you turn to first is:
The front page.
The editorial page.
The page that says what time The Simpsons is on.
The primary purpose of a newspaper column is to:
Inform the readers about all sides of important issues.
Change readers’ minds through reasoned argument.
Contain the phrase “weasel boogers.”
What is the best resource to consult when confirming a fact?
The encyclopedia.
The Internet.
Confirming a what?
As a journalist, you should always carry a notepad because it enables you to:
Accurately recall conversations and events.
Maintain a record of your research.
Remove food wads trapped between your teeth.
If you were given the opportunity to ask one question of the Pope, what would that question be?
“What do you hope will be your legacy to future generations?”
“What is the greatest moral threat facing humanity today?”
“Can I wear your hat?”
You write a column containing a so-called “joke” that is so tasteless, insensitive, juvenile, vicious, and cruel that thousands of readers write or call the newspaper to state that they are deeply offended. You should:
Apologize to them in a column.
Apologize to them in a public forum.
Threaten to cancel their subscriptions.
SCORING: If you answered “c” to all of these questions, then you might have potential as a humor columnist. But I warn you: There is a lot of work involved.
For example, in this book you’ll find two columns I wrote about Paris. To produce those two columns, I had to spend two weeks in Paris conducting tax-deductible research in various cafés so I could provide my readers with solid information about issues such as exactly where Paris is (not in Italy, it turns out) and what the French people are thinking (they’re thinking that we’re morons).
You will find that quality of research oozing out of every column in this book. I hope you enjoy it and learn from it. Because my goal, in writing it, was to help others and make the world a better place.
A Few Words About the Title
A tremendous amount of thought went into choosing a title for this book. My personal choice, designed to appeal to the book-buying impulses of today’s consumer, was: Tuesdays with Harry Potter.
Unfortunately, the Legal Department had some problems with that. So eventually we decided to go with Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down! This title was selected for two reasons:
It reflects the fact that, while on a superficial level, this work may appear to be “humorous,” its underlying theme, its raison d’être, is the expression of deep concern—and, yes, outrage—about the forces of ignorance, injustice, oppression, and profound moral decay that beset American society today.
It meant we could put a toilet on the cover.
Politically Correct
So there I was, sitting under the hot lights, when suddenly Vicki Lawrence leaped to her feet and started yelling at me about the death penalty. This happened in Los Angeles, on the TV show Politically Incorrect. People yell a lot on that show. One time I was on there with Micky Dolenz; he yelled at me, too. Back when I used to watch The Monkees on TV, I never dreamed that one day, one of them would be yelling at me personally regarding current events. This is a great nation.
Guests are encouraged to express strong views on Politically Incorrect, because it makes for better entertainment. The host, Bill Maher, could name any topic at all—say, monetary reform in the 17th-century Netherlands—and we guests would immediately be at each other’s throats over it, even if we were not totally certain what “Netherlands” are.
I was on Politically Incorrect because I was on a book tour. You go on whatever show they tell you to go on, in hopes that the host will at some point hold your book up to the camera, causing consumers all over America to rush to bookstores to purchase it. You will basically do anything to get your book on TV. For example, a few days earlier, I let a total stranger commit a major act of gel on my hair. This was on The Today Show, in New York. I was sitting in the makeup room, drinking coffee, trying to wake up, and the makeup person, after studying my head, called the hair person over, pointed at my hair, and said: “See? This is exactly what I was talking about.”
Then they both laughed, and the hair person, before I knew what was happening, applied 37 pounds of Industrial Concrete Strength gel in my hair, and thus I appeared on national television looking like Eddie Munster. This would have been fine if the reaction of the world at large had been to rush out and purchase my book, but the actual reaction, to judge from the people I know who saw the show, was to ask: “What happened to your hair?”
But getting back to Vicki Lawrence: She was yelling at me about the death penalty, and I was yelling back at her, while simultaneously—and I am NOT proud of this—holding my hand over the mouth of another guest, Sol Wachtler, a former chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals who got into trouble over a woman and went to jail and, needless to say, wrote a book. I was silencing him so that I could better express my very strongly held views on the death penalty, although now I honestly cannot remember what those specific views were.
I do remember that before the show, when I was in the waiting room with Vicki Lawrence, somebody brought up her hit song, “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” which has an extremely complicated plot. I have never met anybody who understood what that song is about, so I figured this was my big chance to find out.
“What is that song about?” I asked Vicki Lawrence.
“I have absolutely no idea,” she said.
Here’s a coincidence: Vicki Lawrence was once a regular on The Carol Burnett Show, and earlier that same day, I met: Carol Burnett! Yes! A comedy goddess! A star who, in my mind, is bigger than all the ex-Monkees combined. She and I were waiting to appear on the early-morning news show on Los Angeles TV station KTLA. I still don’t know why Carol Burnett was there; I don’t think she has a book out. I do know that we were both preceded on the show by a lengthy live news report in which the reporter wound up stripping down to her bathing suit and—I am not making this up—taking a shower with a live iguana. I don’t know whether the iguana has a book out, but I would not bet against it.
The next day I was on a show called Home & Family, which is broadcast from a house on the Un
iversal Studios lot, just a short distance from the house where Tony Perkins stabbed Janet Leigh to death in Psycho. I found myself sitting on a long sofa with—these are just some of the people who were on that sofa—two co-hosts; Olympic decathlon champion Bruce Jenner; an Italian cookbook author; two large spherical home-improvement contractors wearing matching bright-yellow overalls that would be visible from Mars; two women who wrote a book about something like how to feed a family of 117 people for 23 cents a day; and a complete set of quintuplets.
We did not, to my recollection, discuss the death penalty, but we did change locations a lot; every now and then, for no apparent reason, we’d all jump up and move, herd-like, into another room, where we’d watch somebody show us how to do some Home and Family thing such as baste a turkey. For all I know, that show is still going on. After a while, without being formally excused, I just sort of drifted outside and left, moving briskly past the Psycho house.
Yes, the book tour was a lot of effort, but it definitely increased the overall public awareness of my name. I know this because my last appearance was on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, and at one point, when we came back from a commercial, Tom Snyder, who was not joking, introduced me to the audience as “Chuck Berry.” I was not offended; I’m a big fan of Chuck. But if he has a book out, I want a piece of the royalties.
Let’s Get Physical
I turned 50, which is really not so old. A lot of very famous people accomplished great things after 50. For example, it was during the post-50 phase of his life that the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein produced the vast majority of his drool.
But still, when you’re 50, you’re definitely “getting up there,” so I decided I’d better go in for my annual physical examination, which is something I do approximately every seven to nine years. I keep my physicals spaced out because my doctor, Curt, who is ordinarily a terrific guy, has a tendency to put on a scary rubber glove and make sudden lunges at my personal region.