I am not making this up: Dave Barry has a new book. It is a memoir called Class Clown: The Memoirs Of a Professional Wiseass. The subtitle is How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up.
I will save you a lot of time. You should buy this book for yourself. You should buy this book for your friends. You should buy this book in bulk and hand it out on street corners to people that pass by.
It is the funniest book of 2025. In fact, it is probably the funniest book of this decade. Although it is still early, this book is probably the funniest book of the century.
This is Barry's life story of how a kid raised in New York who wore Davey Crockett t-shirts became the best humorist in America, even if that's not a real thing anymore since all of America has decided to become humorless scolds.
Barry's not a stand-up comedian. But his nationally syndicated column was as funny as any act in the past forty years.
It is because Barry has never shied away from the issues of the day, like low-flow toilets, which Barry was criticizing long before Donald Trump heard about them.
He also alerted us to the dangers of roller-blading Barbies which could spontaneously combust unless you are on "Late Night With David Letterman".
Barry is a champion of the little guy, particularly the little guy who decided to major in English and if there is a more worthless college degree than History it is English.*
His English degree came in handy when he joined a small local Pennsylvania newspaper and was able to cover local events.
From there, he took a job teaching businessmen how to write. This job has now been eliminated by AI. While he was teaching business writing, he submitted his humorous essays to various newspapers. One thing led to another and soon he was writing a weekly column for Tropic magazine which was the Miami Herald's Sunday insert.
It was a glorious time. Living in the Atlanta area, I could read Lewis Grizzard three times a week and our Sunday paper ran Barry's column too. Then, if you were lucky, there would be a magazine running an article written by P. J. O'Rouke. It was grand, I tell you, just grand.
Of course, I am required by law to tell you things have not been all peaches and cream in Barry's life. His father, a Presbyterian minister, developed a drinking problem when Barry was in college. His mother, committed suicide after his father died. He's been married three times but is very nice about the two that didn't work out.
Aside from all that, Barry has led a pretty charmed life. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988 for "the most creative use of booger jokes since Charles Krauthammer." No really, he really won a Pulitzer, and his first couple of books were turned into a television show that starred Harry Anderson and it wasn't bad.
I hadn't realized it, but Barry ended his column twenty FREAKIN years ago. No wonder the country is full of sour pusses who fall over from the vapors if somebody tells a joke.
But never fear, Barry has a website and a blog. The blog carries hilarious newspaper articles that Barry comments on. When "24" was on, Barry would do a recap of the latest episode. In the early days of my blog, I would use Barry's recap as a template for my "24" recap. His was much funnier than mine, but he is a professional.
Barry still does his Year In Review series in December. And yes, I use his Year In Review as a template for my last posting of the year. And yes, his is funnier than mine.
It was through Barry, I found James Lileks of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Lileks has a blog too and a humor column which has been canceled by the powers that be up there. That's the world we live in today.**
Barry is now in the Substack game. You can do the free Substack or you can do the paid Substack. I do the free one. It is just like the old days, funny as ever. And I am not making that up.
* We liberal arts majors always cheer for another liberal arts majors who make a lot of dough.
** Lileks was recently given an assignment by one of his editors and instructed not to put any humor in it.
