{"id":327,"date":"2007-06-22T22:54:03","date_gmt":"2007-06-23T03:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/06\/22\/dave-barry-but-seriously\/"},"modified":"2013-04-12T06:09:31","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T12:09:31","slug":"dave-barry-but-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/dave-barry-but-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Barry, But Seriously"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA — Amazing speakers addressed the opening morning of the 31st annual conference of the National Conference of Christians and Columnists, er, National Conference for Columnists and Justice, er, National Society of Newspaper Columnists.<\/p>\n

Time, and the potential for flagging interest (mine or readers?), prevents a full transcription of today’s notes. So, Dave Barry or Bill O’Reilly? Or a panel discussion of the First Amendment? OK: free speech in action.<\/p>\n

O’Reilly — yes, the Fox News \/ Factor dude — writes a syndicated column published in a couple hundred papers. He spoke the way fans and foes would expect. I was neither, because I’ve never seen the show. I’ll start watching it some because he was entertaining. Also funny, smart, arrogant, and wrong. Is he as influential as his critics contend? The most popular political talker on cable still means he’s no Oprah. Oprah in ratings beats Leno and Letterman, who are network stars, not cable.<\/p>\n

Dave Barry skipped his routine campus speech and talked writing mechanics. He apologized for his tips being obvious, but that doesn’t stop them from being ignored from all of the humor writers and would-be humorists and would-be writers who are not Dave Barry.<\/p>\n

“There are no rules for humor, but here are mine:”<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It should be funny. “A writer might be amused by something, but he doesn’t use — here’s a technical term — ‘jokes.'” Lots of jokes. “Being self-amused won’t cut it.” Dave has spent a half day on the first paragraph to come up with a joke. He writes sentence by sentence, continually revising, not putting down a whole draft with asterisks to “insert joke here,” then further drafts. He would write a column-length joke, but those are too hard and he’s too insecure so he does lots of smaller jokes. Besides, a long joke reads like the same joke repeated a bunch of times.<\/li>\n
  2. It should be funny quickly.<\/li>\n
  3. The punch line comes at the end. Plus, don’t go on after the punch line. Some comics after the punch line explain the joke afterward and that’s the same mistake.<\/li>\n
  4. So after that joke, another joke, another joke etc.<\/li>\n
  5. “The ending should be — a joke. Or the word ‘weasel.'”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"With<\/a>
    Dave Barry with me, Ben Pollock. Behind is columnist Bill Campbell of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    <\/a> <\/a>Then he gave tips:<\/p>\n

    \u2022 Unexpected humor is better than expected; avoid being linear. The best examples are the Marx Brothers and Robert Benchley. Saying the opposite of what you feel is one way. Acting the fake and very wrong expert on a subject is another.
    \n<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u2022 Do things rather than think things. The first is journalism: Do something then write about it. The second is always getting ideas from reading the newspaper.<\/p>\n

    \u2022 Engage the readers. Presume they’re smart. Only the stupid or crazy ones contact you. So use that feedback for another column. If they invite you, say to name a sewer lift station after you in North Dakota, go, then use that for another column.<\/p>\n

    \u2022 Some people have no sense of humor. They’re called editors. Then Dave said, he really means some readers never will get the humor and they, the humor-impaired, often contact you. They want everything true. Dave will tease them. Otherwise you ignore them. “You can’t do anything about them.”<\/p>\n

    We also heard from Robin Givhan of The Washington Post. She has won a Pulitzer; she is fashion editor. Her writing ties politics and perception to apparel. “Fashion is not solely about clothes,” she said. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    PHILADELPHIA — Amazing speakers addressed the opening morning of the 31st annual conference of the National Conference of Christians and Columnists, er, National Conference for Columnists and Justice, er, National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Time, and the potential for flagging interest (mine or readers?), prevents a full transcription of today’s notes. So, Dave Barry or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philadelphia-2007","tag-columnist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/philadelphia-phreedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":327,"position":0},"title":"Philadelphia Phreedom","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists begins Friday at 8 a.m. Well, Thursday evening is the informal mixer that has become more organized over the years. Most conferees have arrived, as have some speakers, including Dave Barry. Little thus can be reported yet. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2117,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/07\/creatives-columnists-and-cunning\/","url_meta":{"origin":327,"position":1},"title":"Creatives, Columnists and Cunning","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Friday, July 9, 2010 -- \"Get Schooled\" was the columnists' theme this year, our conference hosted at a university for the first time, Indiana. Appropriately, our informal welcome Thursday night was at one of the town's oldest college hang-outs, Nick's Pub. The meat of a conference like this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bloomers"","block_context":{"text":"Bloomers","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/bloomington-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ed Grisamore accepting Will Rogers Humanitarian Award","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Rogers-300x225.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2143,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/07\/uphold-or-hold-up-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":327,"position":2},"title":"Uphold, or Hold Up, Standards","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sunday, July 11, 2010 -- Indiana University feels bigger than my hometown's University of Arkansas. Yep, 1,933 acres versus 345 acres. It has a journalism school not a department, a music school not a department. It is a handsome forested campus, full of sculptures (even a huge Calder)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bloomers"","block_context":{"text":"Bloomers","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/bloomington-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"NSNC Oath of Office","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Swearing-in-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1408,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/06\/hunting-and-gathering-information\/","url_meta":{"origin":327,"position":3},"title":"Hunting and Gathering … Information","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"VENTURA, Calif. -- The annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists convened in the morning, hewing closely to the announced theme of \"Survive and Thrive.\" Yes, we heard tips; the fate of newspapers may be out of our control, but columnists both staff and freelance theoretically have a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Few Bullets More"","block_context":{"text":"Few Bullets More","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/ventura-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/down-to-the-wire\/","url_meta":{"origin":327,"position":4},"title":"Down to the Wire","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The final sessions of the 2007 conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists were the most traditional. In panel discussion format, largely avoided until this morning, perennial subjects were again addressed: techniques, ethics, books and technology. This will be brief, a note or two on each. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":331,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/06\/word-pictures-picture-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":327,"position":5},"title":"Word Pictures. Picture Words","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia Museum of Art had a special exhibit of the calligraphy of the 17th-century Japanese artist Ike Taiga, as well as his wife, Mamie. As is customary, he illustrated the words with scenes of woods, mountains and a few people here and there. Often Taiga and Tokuyama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philadelphia Phreedom"","block_context":{"text":"Philadelphia Phreedom","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/nsnc\/philadelphia-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4236,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/4236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}