Dave Barry is an American writer and journalist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005 and has written numerous books of humor and satire. Barry's levity can be a bit silly and - in his own words - he's not known for being the voice of maturity, but this is a funny book.
Dave Barry
Many of Barry's anecdotes riff on his life, and the book's opening provides a taste of what's to come. In the Introduction, Barry writes (in part):
"In the past few years I watched my son get married; watched my daughter play many soccer matches and perform in ballet recitals longer than the Spanish-American War; got a dog named Lucy; rode in a fire truck with Clarabelle the famous Walt Disney Cow; had some medical adventures involving direct medical assaults on some of my most personal regions; took up spinning; and spent the equivalent of the gross national product of Uruguay on veterinarian fees in an effort to repair a persistent injury to Lucy's tail caused by the fact that she wags too hard.
I hope you enjoy this book, and if you come away from reading it with just one message, let it be this: If a veterinarian suggests you can somehow keep your dog from wagging it's tail, that veterinarian is smoking crack."
*****
Some examples of Barry's humor follow.
- "Every single human cell contains DNA, which is a special molecule that your body leaves behind at crime scenes so the police can identify you. Your DNA wants to put its imprint on the entire human race, like the Nike Corporation - so the only thing your DNA thinks about is reproducing itself. This explains why men are shallow sex-obsessed horndogs." 😏
- "WHY DON’T MEN LISTEN TO WOMEN? They do listen. But they listen for specific information. Men are problem-solvers. They are doers. When you talk to them, they are listening to determine (a) what the problem is, and what they need to do about it, so that they can resume watching ESPN. When they have the information they need, they stop listening."
- "When a man purchases a necessary appliance such as a TV with a flat screen the size of a squash court, he cannot afford to fritter away valuable minutes reading the owner's manual. A man does not need instructions written by and for idiots. A man already knows that the way to handle an appliance is to plug all the plugs into the holes that look to be about the right size or color, then turn everything on and see what happens." (Dave's hi-def flat screen wasn't 'hi-def' for a year, until his wife set it up correctly.😃)
- “In the old pre-technology days, it would have been almost impossible to replicate Facebook or Twitter. The closest you could get would be to mail dozens of postcards a day to everybody you know, each with a brief message about yourself like: "Finally got that haircut I've been putting off." Or: "Just had a caramel Frappuccino. Yum!" The people receiving these postcards would have naturally assumed you were a moron with a narcissism disorder. But today, thanks to Facebook and Twitter, you are seen as a person engaging in 'social networking'.”
- "Here’s a simple and fun experiment: Select, at random, a man who has one or more daughters. Place a gun to this man’s head and tell him he must do one of two things: 1. Have his prostate examined by a scorpion. 2. Attend a dance recital. He’s going scorpion. Yes, he knows it will be unpleasant. But he also knows that eventually it will end. This is not necessarily true of the dance recital."
- Dave makes a lot of jokes about his home city of Miami, Florida. Here are a few:
“Some years ago I proposed a new tourism-promotion slogan for Miami. I even had a bumper sticker made. It said: 'Come back to Miami! We Weren't Shooting at YOU'.”
“The truth is that only a small percentage of Miami's population consists of violent criminals, and the bulk of those are elected officials. The rest of us Miamians are regular people, just like the people in your town: We work hard, try to raise our kids right, and are always ready to help out our neighbors by laying down covering fire when they go outside to get their newspapers.”
“[In Miami] we have a growing population of unwelcome out-of-town wildlife species that have come here and clearly intend to stay. Two invasive species in particular have caused serious concern: Burmese pythons, and New Yorkers. The New Yorkers have been coming here for years, which is weird because pretty much all they do once they get to Florida is bitch about how everything here sucks compared to the earthly paradise that is New York. They continue to root, loudly, for the Jets, the Knicks, the Mets, and the Yankees; they never stop declaring, loudly, that in New York the restaurants are better, the stores are nicer, the people are smarter, the public transportation is free of sharks, etc. The Burmese pythons are less obnoxious, but just as alarming in their own way.”
And here's a true story about Miami: "A German tourist detected a bad smell in his hotel room, and reported it to hotel staff, who found a human corpse under the bed. Germans are finicky about cleanliness, and draw the line at decayed corpses."💀
- After Barry got a vasectomy, he needed to buy a jock strap (to control dangling) and a package of frozen peas (to control swelling). Shopping for peas was tricky because the supermarket had a large collection and Barry went with 'Bird's Eye Spring Garden Peas'. Barry notes: "There is absolutely no reason to be afraid of a vasectomy, except that: THEY CUT A HOLE IN YOUR SCROTUM." Vasectomy can be done with a local anesthetic but Dave admits: I’m a big believer in anesthesia. I think it should be used for every medical procedure, including routine physicals. I’d like to be knocked out while I was still in the doctor’s waiting room and not regain consciousness until everything is over, ideally in my car, with no memory whatsoever of what happened. But the point is that you definitely want anesthesia for your vasectomy. Tell your doctor you want the Full Coward Package. Tell him you don’t necessarily want to wake up during the same month as your procedure."
- In a shot at the American healthcare system, Barry tells a story about Mary. This is a VERY abbreviated version of the tale:
Mary sees a television commercial for Endor, which suggests you ask your doctor about the medication. Mary wants to ask her physician about Endor, but can't get an appointment for three months. When Mary finally sees her doctor, he can only spare her 9.6 seconds because he has to see over 300 patients that hour. So - as her physician is leaving the examination room - Mary calls out, "Do I need Endor?" The doctor thinks she said, "I wonder if my feet are tender." So the physician - wary of a malpractice lawsuit - orders X-rays and a complete medical work-up - which leads to more and more tests and procedures. Mary eventually ends up broke, unemployed, and uninsured with unpaid medical bills in excess of $500,000.
Barry writes: “The point is, our health-care system is a terrible mess. It's expensive, wasteful, inefficient, unresponsive, and infested with lawyers. Which is why there has been a big push, in some quarters, to place it under the management of the federal government. This is like saying that if your local police department has a corruption problem, the solution is to turn law enforcement over to the Sopranos.”
- Two of the most hilarious sections of the book are extended parodies of popular media.
The first sendup is a satirical script for the television show "24", which aired (in various forms) from 2001 to 2014. "24 stars Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, the angst-ridden lone-wolf federal agent who protects America from terrorism by sooner or later causing the violent death of pretty much everybody he meets." As Barry's script opens, the President of the U.S. is a kangaroo, the terrorists have stolen a proton defrackulator, and Jack Bauer has been decapitated and fed to boars. Luckily, doctors are able to sew Jack back together, and he goes on to cause havoc and save the country. Very entertaining!
The second spoof is "Fangs of Endearment: A Vampire Novel - which is a take-off on the Twilight series. The main character is a clutzy girl who goes to Creepstone High School with her boyfriend Phil - an EXCEPTIONALLY HANDSOME vampire.....so good-looking that she can't stop commenting on it. All the boys in the story are in love with the main character including Stuart - a werewolf; Sven - who can transform into a Zamboni machine; the Jonas brothers; and Zac Ephron. The vampires and werewolves hate each other, but work together to save the girl from a vengeful female vampire.....and so on. Very funny!
These examples are just a taste of the humorous reminiscences and observations in the book. Highly recommended to readers who want a laugh.
Rating: 4 stars
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