Clowning Around

Just a quick post on a relatively quick and fun read: I devoured Dave Barry's memoir Class Clown over the course of about a week. I've been a fan of Dave's humor writing since I was a kid. Growing up, my family had a collection of his books, which I would read and re-read and return to over the years. My favorite was "Dave Barry Slept Here", a satirical textbook history of the United States, and to this day I still remember a ton of it, including The Monroe Doctrine ("1. Other nations are not allowed to interfere in the Western Hemisphere. 2. But we are. 3. Ha ha ha!"), the Hawley-Smoot Tariffs, "We all go heppin down the wiff-bane", the French and Indian War (which America didn't realize it was supposed to be involved in until several years in, by which time the confused French and Indians had started fighting one another), and so on. It's one of those things along with Weird Al where as I've grown older I've belatedly come to understand the full joke behind something I already thought was funny.

 

He was also a columnist, writing for the Miami Herald but syndicated nationally. I don't recall whether his columns were reprinted in our local paper or not, but I definitely know that in the years since then I've always enjoyed his "year in review" wrap-ups along with any other pieces I see from him.

The memoir is written in his voice and is very funny. He does touch on some sad elements related to his parents early on in the book; despite the limited space available in a book, he gives a fully rounded view of them, emphasizing their love and amazing actions and enormous influence on his humor, while also unflinchingly sharing the struggles they endured and ultimately succumbed to. Other than that and a brief mention of how much worse the political and media landscape has become since the 2016 election, this is a consistently upbeat and amusing book. As he says, and I have no reason to doubt him, he's been lucky to have one of the best jobs in the world.

Dave liberally quotes from columns throughout the book. When he experienced some major event, like appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or writing for the Oscars with Steve Martin, he definitely got a column out of it, and he'll excerpt from that column here. Probably 90% of those were new to me; there were a few I recognized from one of his books or some other writing, but those also made me chuckle. I think the hardest I laughed during this book was his description of attending a French sommelier competition, which I don't recall having ever heard about before.

I got a big kick out of this book, and definitely recommend it to anyone who already enjoys Dave's writing. It's amazing to see how sharp and funny he is today years after officially retiring. It also reminds me that he's written a lot of books since I was a kid, none of which I've read before now, so there's an unexplored trove of light, hopefully fun and funny books out there for me!