Tag Archives: Dave Barry

Goofing, Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down,’ by Dave Barry

Leave a comment

I picked up another Dave Barry book, offered at a bargain price. Short review: I enjoyed Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down. I had a suspicion it would be funny, and it was. (The title, by the way, refers to a couple essays on modern, low-flow toilets.)

It was odd that, though this book only came out around the turn of the millennium (which doesn’t seem that long ago to me at my age), it describes a palpably different world. This was before 9/11. Before Covid-19 and the Lockdown. Many of the everyday annoyances that Barry jokes about here seem to come from a long-ago, golden age when you could be annoyed when little things went sour, because they usually went okay. Most of the time.

Memories, memories.

Here’s a few excerpts:

So your school is having a science fair! Great! The science fair has long been a favorite educational tool in the American school system, and for a good reason: Your teachers hate you.

**

The reason Congress did not get around to ordering an audit any sooner is that it has been extremely busy with its primary functions, which are (1) spending money; (2) declaring National Cottage Cheese Appreciation Week, and (3) authorizing the IRS to hammer taxpayers for inadequate record-keeping.

**

Q. When should I arrive at the airport?

A. You should arrive two hours before your scheduled departure time, so that you will be among the first to know that your flight has been delayed due to mechanical problems.

**

The most stressful part [of registering for a baby shower] is picking out the stroller. Today’s baby stroller is an extremely high-tech piece of equipment, comparable in complexity to the B-1 bomber, but more expensive.

Recommended.

Goofing, Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Best. State. Ever.’ by Dave Barry

1 Comment

When you enter Gatorland, the first wildlife you see is—Spoiler Alert—alligators. A buttload of alligators, dozens and dozens of them on wooden platforms surrounded by water. They are sprawled haphazardly, often on top of each other, as if they’re having a wild reptile orgy, except that they are not moving. Some of them look like they have not moved since the Reagan administration. It’s like the Department of Motor Vehicles, but with alligators.

I spent 11 years of my own life in Florida, so I feel a certain ownership in the place. Thus I share with Dave Barry the slight pang that comes when I read yet another story about “Florida Man,” the archetypal doofus who does something magnificently stupid and self-destructive in the sun. In his book, Best. State. Ever., Barry provides both an apologia for, and an appreciation of, the state where he’s made his home. And, oh yes, it’s also very funny.

Most of the “Florida Men” you read about, Barry notes, actually come from someplace else, and it’s Florida’s misfortune that having water on three sides makes it difficult for them to find their way out. But that doesn’t alter the fact that strange things do go on in Florida. He proceeds to provide “A Brief History of Florida” and then to report on personal visits to a series of tourist sites that I, though I lived there a while, never got around to myself:

  • The Skunk Ape [Research Center]
  • Weeki Wachee and Spongeorama
  • Cassadaga
  • The Villages
  • Gatorland
  • Lock & Load Miami
  • LIV (a Miami nightclub that was hot at the time), and
  • Key West.

The book is, as mentioned, very funny, featuring Barry’s signature style of strategic exaggeration. It might have been funnier if it were crueler, but Barry seems to genuinely like the people he meets, and he has no intention of humiliating them.

The most striking part of the book, for this reader, was the description of The Villages, a group of large, planned communities for the elderly. All the houses look alike, and all the people seem to be alike too – they live for golf and early bird specials, and they dance – a lot – like nobody’s watching. It almost comes out sounding like a pleasant gulag, where dying people go to deny their mortality.

Kind of the perfect finale for Baby Boomers, when you think about it.

Best. State. Ever. is a very funny book. Cautions for language, drugs and mature themes.