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Talking About Golf Is Always Boring. Playing Golf Can Be Interesting, But Not The Part Where You Try To Hit The Little Ball; Only The Part Where You Drive The Cart.

-Dave Barry

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Talking About Golf Is

Dave Barry

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Talking About Golf Is Always Boring. Playing Golf Can Be Interesting, But Not The Part Where You Try To Hit The Little Ball; Only The Part Where You Drive The Cart.

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The Best Way To Understand This Whole Issue Is To Look At What The Government Does: It Takes Money From Some People, Keeps A Bunch Of It, And Gives The Rest To Other People.

One Popular New Plastic Surgery Technique Is Called Lip Grafting, Or 'fat Recycling,' Wherein Fat Cells Are Removed From One Part Of Your Body That Is Too Large, Such As Your Buttocks, And Injected Into Your Lips. People Will Then Be Literally Kissing Ass.

Babies And Other Hazards Of Sex: How To Make A Tiny Person In Only 9 Months, With Tools You Probably Have Around The Home.

Reporters Aren't Stupid. We Were Standing Around Talking About Which Of The 900 Health-care Proposals That Nobody's Going To Accept Is That Day's Hot News. They Know How Silly That Is. But That's What They Do.

If God Had Wanted Us To Be Concerned For The Plight Of The Toads, He Would Have Made Them Cute And Furry.

The Irs Spends God Knows How Much Of Your Tax Money On These Toll-free Information Hotlines Staffed By Irs Employees, Whose Idea Of A Dynamite Tax Tip Is That You Should Print Neatly.

The Major Parties Could Conduct Live Human Sacrifices On Their Podiums During Prime Time, And I Doubt That Anybody Would Notice.

Palestinian And Israeli Leaders Finally Recover The Road Map To Peace, Only To Discover That, While They Were Looking For It, The Lug Nuts Of Mutual Interest Came Off The Front Left Wheel Of Accommodation, Causing The Sport Utility Vehicle Of Progress To Crash Into The Ditch Of Despair.

Mutual Interest

Never Be Afraid To Try Something New. Remember That A Lone Amateur Built The Ark. A Large Group Of Professionals Built The Titanic.

The Objective Is Not So Much To Walk Your Dog, As It Is To Empty Him.

In Modern America, Food Is Abundant Everywhere Except Aboard Commercial Airplanes.

The Problem With Winter Sports Is That - Follow Me Closely Here - They Generally Take Place In Winter.

Now, Once Again, We Find Ourselves Facing Rising Gas Prices, And The Question Is: This Time, Are We Going To Learn From The Past? Are We Finally Going To Get Serious About Energy Conservation? Of Course Not! We Have The Brains Of Mealworms! So We Need To Get More Oil Somehow. As Far As I Can Figure, There's Only One Practical Way To Do This. That's Right: We Need To Clone More Dinosaurs. We Have The Technology, As Was Shown In Two Blockbuster Scientific Movies, Jurassic Park And Jurassic Park Returns With Exactly The Same Plot. Once We Have The Dinosaurs, All We Need Is An Asteroid.

Warning: This Is Assuming Your Spouse's Name Is Margaret.

Excellence Is The Trend Of The '80s. Walk Into Any Shopping Mall Bookstore, Go To The Rack Where They Keep The Best-sellers Such As Garfield Gets Spayed, And You'll See A Half-dozen Books Telling You How To Be Excellent: In Search Of Excellence, Finding Excellence, Grasping Hold Of Excellence, Where To Hide Your Excellence At Night So The Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It, Etc.

When Trouble Arises And Things Look Bad, There Is Always One Individual Who Perceives A Solution And Is Willing To Take Command. Very Often, That Individual Is Crazy.

I Would Rather Undergo A Vasectomy Via Weed Whacker Than Attend An Opera.

I Also Saw A Huge Expansion Of The Internet, With Many Major Corporations, Afraid Of Being Left Behind, Spending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Develop World Wide Web Sites In A Frantic Scramble To Reach The Vast New Consumer Market Of Web Use

With A Novel, You Have To Have A Story. It's Much More Important To Have It Matter To The Reader What Happens To People, And It Has To Make Sense And End In A Way That Is Satisfying. So I Spend A Lot More Time Thinking About That. Then The Writing Itself Usually Is Easier For Me, Because I Know Where It's Going.

Several Months Ago, Out Of The Blue, A Company Named "cingular" Started Sending Me Bills. I Had Never Heard Of Cingular, And I Honestly Did Not Know What These Bills Were For, So I Put Them In The Pile Where I Keep Documents That I Intend To Scrutinize More Carefully Later On, After My Death. Then I Started Seeing Tv Commercials For Cingular, But Of Course They Did Not Make It Clear What Cingular Is, Because The First Rule Of Modern Advertising Is: "never Reveal What You Are Advertising."

But The Feeling I Have, You Know, Is That I'll Never Come Close To Reading All, Or Even A Thousandth- A Billionth- Of The Books I'd Probably Love If I Ever Got To Them.

Winter's Here, And You Feel Lousy: You're Coughing And Sneezing; Your Muscles Ache; Your Nose Is An Active Mucus Volcano. These Symptoms -- So Familiar At This Time Of Year -- Can Mean Only One Thing: Tiny Fanged Snails Are Eating Your Brain.

It Was Not Easy Victory In The America Cup. Our Boys Spent Years Experimenting With Different Designs For Their Boat Before They Came Up With The Innovative Idea Of Having A Submerged Nuclear Submarine Tow It.

Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

The Greatest Electrical Pioneer Of Them All Was Thomas Edison Edison's First Major Invention, In 1877, Was The Phonograph, Which Could Soon Be Found In Thousands Of American Homes, Where It Basically Sat Until 1923, When The Record Was Invented.

Black Stache Had No Love For The Queen, No Love For Women Of Any Sort, Except For His Ma. He Had A Real Soft Spot For His Ma, And Was Truly Sorry For The Time He’d Marooned Her.

There Shall Be A National Anthem Containing Incomprehensible Words And A High Note That Normal Humans Cannot Hit Without Risk Of Hernia.

What Gets Me Is, I Waited In Line For An Hour To Do This. I Could Have Experienced Essentially The Same Level Of Enjoyment Merely By Sticking My Finger Down My Throat.

Dogs Love To Go For Rides. A Dog Will Happily Get Into Any Vehicle Going Anywhere.

I Am Absolutely Sick Unto Death Of Hearing People Say - They All Say This; It Must Be Item One On The Curriculum In Trend College - "i Just Hate To Talk To A Machine!" They Say This As Though It Is A Major Philosophical Position, As Opposed To A Description Of A Minor Neurosis. My Feeling Is, If You Have A Problem Like This, You Shouldn't Go Around Trumpeting It; You Should Stay Home And Practice Talking To A Machine You Can Feel Comfortable With, Such As Your Water Pik, Until You Are Ready To Assume Your Place In Modern Society.

The Republicans Have A High Beady-eyed Self-righteous Scary Borderline Loon Quotient, As Evidenced By Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, The Entire State Of Utah, Etc.

Never Trust Anything You Read In A Travel Article.

Your Guess Is As Good As Mine. Better Probably, Because You Haven't Had Four Beers.

Roy Blount, Who Is The Funniest Person I Know, Journeys Deep Into The Dark Heart Of Humor And Brings Back A Wonderfully Insightful, Superbly Crafted Song Of The Soul That Had Me Laughing And Crying Too

Humor Is An Escape, Because You Cannot Think About Your Problems When You Are Trying To Be Funny; So, In Essence, "being A Humorist" Gives You A Valid Excuse To Hide From Your Pain.

When I Read That I Had To Go To Gettysburg.

Let's Talk About How To Fill Out Your 1984 Tax Return. Here's An Often Overlooked Accounting Technique That Can Save You Thousands Of Dollars: For Several Days Before You Put It In The Mail, Carry Your Tax Return Around Under Your Armpit. No Irs Agent Is Going To Want To Spend Hours Poring Over A Sweat-stained Document. So Even If You Owe Money, You Can Put In For An Enormous Refund And The Agent Will Probably Give It To You, Just To Avoid An Audit. What Does He Care? It's Not His Money.

On Valentine's Day, Millions Of Men Give Millions Of Women Flowers, Cards And Candy As A Heartfelt Expression Of The Emotion That Also Motivates Men To Observe Anniversaries And Birthdays-fear.

The Badness Of A Movie Is Directly Proportional To The Number Of Helicopters In It.

Perhaps You Are Thinking: 'but A Tank Costs Several Million Dollars, Not Including Floor Mats. I Don't Have That Kind Of Money.' Don't Be Silly. You're A Consumer, Right? You Have Credit Cards, Right? Perhaps You Are Thinking: 'yes, But How Am I Going To Pay The Credit-card Company?' Don't Be Silly. You Have A Tank, Right?

...when The Armed Robber Of Unhappiness Knocks Over The Keebler Cookie Display Of Our Complacency, And Bangs The Samurai Sword Of Negativity On The Checkout Counter Of Our Dreams, We Must Not Be Afraid To Hurl The Fruit Cocktail Can Of Hope.

In Foreign Countries Such As Italy, The Government Puts Strict-looking Speed Limit Signs Everywhere, But Nobody Ever Sees Them Because Light Does Not Travel Fast Enough To Catch The Italian Drivers.

If Peter Was Nine, And A New Boy Came To St. Norbert’s Home For Wayward Boys Who Said He Was Ten, Why, Then, Peter Would Declare Himself Eleven. Also, He Could Spit The Farthest. That Made Him The Undisputed Leader.

Leonard Aster Thanked Fighting Prawn And The Mollusk Tribe For Their Hospitality. “you Mean,” Said Fighting Prawn, “for Not Killing You?” “yes,” Said Leonard. “it Was Very Gracious Of You.” “do You,” Said Leonard, “i Mean, Does You Tribe, Shake Hands?” “no,” Said Fighting Prawn. “we Kiss On The Lips.” “oh,” Said Leonard, Looking Very Alarmed.

A Secret Society Within A Secret Society.

In My Experience, If You Go To A Hospital For Any Reason Whatsoever, Including To Read The Gas Meter, They Give You A Tetanus Shot.

His Body Rigid With Terror As He Waited For The Savages To Something Horrible To Him—bash His Head With Clubs, Or Stab Him With Spears, Or… …or Tap Him On The Shoulder.

If Everybody Were A Guy, The Human Race Could Easily Get By On Less Than One Twentieth The Current Number Of Shoes.

In The Old Days, It Was Not Called The Holiday Season; The Christians Called It "christmas" And Went To Church; The Jews Called It "hanukka" And Went To Synagogue; The Atheists Went To Parties And Drank. People Passing Each Other On The Street Would Say "merry Christmas!" Or "happy Hanukka!" Or (to The Atheists) "look Out For The Wall!"

One Of The Major Hobbies In South Florida Is Keeping Animals That No Sane Person Would Want To Keep. One Of Those Is Snakes. They Usually Get Them When They're Small, And When They Get Too Big, They Let Them Go. But There Are Also People With Monkeys, Lions, Tigers. And They All Get Away, Eventually.

I Did All This Stuff That Was Illegal When I Was A Kid. I Drank Beer When I Was 15. I Smoked Cigarettes When I Was 13. I Drove To New York City When I Was 14 - Don't Tell My Son. Those Things Were Against The Law, But I Did Them Anyway. I Didn't Become A Heroin Addict, Although I Probably Could Have Gotten Heroin Somehow. I Don't Think My Son Would Buy Heroin At Any Price. He Knows What It Is, And He Knows How Stupid It Is.

Never Lick A Steak Knife.

Those Who Can't Laugh At Themselves Leave The Job To Others.

Your Friends Love You Anyway.

Funny, Isn't It? The Airlines Go To All That Trouble To Keep You From Taking A Gun On Board, Then They Just Hand You A Dinner Roll You Could Kill A Musk Ox With.

I Want To Gag Sometimes When I See Who "we" Are Recommending That People Vote For, And Not Just As A Libertarian.

I Love The Olympics, Because They Enable People From All Over The World To Come Together And--regardless Of Their Political Or Cultural Differences--accuse Each Other Of Cheating.

Your Federal Government Needs Your Money So That It Can Perform Vital Services For You That You Would Not Think Up Yourself In A Million Years.

I Still Think Of Myself As A Newspaper Guy And You Live By Deadlines In The Newspaper World, So, They Don't Really Give You Any Excuses. At The Paper They Never Say, "well, We Just Won't Have Tuesday's Paper Come Out, We'll Just Bring Tuesday's Paper Out On Wednesday, So Go Ahead, Take All The Time You Need." They Come Out With That Paper Regardless.

Back Then, The Entire Internet Consisted Of Two Slow, Boxcar-sized Univac Computers About 50 Feet Apart, Connected By A Wire. It Would Take One Of These Computers An Entire Day To Send An Email To The Other One, Which Would Immediately Delete It, Because It Was A Viagra Ad.

I Have Always Dressed According To Certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules,including: Both Of Your Socks Should Always Be The Same Color, Or They Should At Least Both Be Fairly Dark.

I'm Not Saying That Women Don't Think About Sex Also. I'm Saying That Women Are Capable, For At Least Brief Periods Of Time, Of Not Thinking About Sex, And That Most Guys Are Not.

If He (the New York Taxi Driver) Talked To Me, He Might Lose His Concentration, Which Would Be Very Bad Because The Taxi Has Some Kind Of Problem With The Steering, Probably Dead Pedestrians Lodged In The Mechanism, The Result Being That There Is A Delay Of 8 To 10 Seconds Between The Time The Driver Turns The Wheel And The Time The Taxi Actually Changes Direction, A Handicap That The Driver Is Compensating For By Going 175 Miles Per Hour, At Which Velocity We Are Able To Remain Airborne Almost To The Far Rim Of Some Of The Smaller Potholes.

All The Big Corporations Depreciate Their Possessions, And You Can, Too, Provided You Use Them For Business Purposes. For Example, If You Subscribe To The Wall Street Journal, A Business-related Newspaper, You Can Deduct The Cost Of Your House, Because, In The Words Of U.s. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger In A Landmark 1979 Tax Decision: Where Else Are You Going To Read The Paper? Outside? What If It Rains?

Maybe Somebody Finally Shot The Dog.

Famous Designers Think Nothing Of Putting Their Names On Your Clothing, But Would Have The Servants Set The Dogs On You If You Ever Tried To Put Your Name On Their Clothing.

I'm Not Sure You Can Count As History, Was Keith Richards's "life," Which He So Modestly Titled It. I Did Find It A Fascinating Book. Keith's A Pretty Honest Fellow.

My Mother Told Me, “son, It Is Better To Be Rich And Healthy Than Poor And Sick.” I Have Tried Very Hard To Heed Those Words.

By Today's Beauty Standards, Of Course, Marilyn Monroe Was An Oil Tanker.

If You Want To Give A Man Something Practical, Consider Tires. More Than Once, I Would Have Gladly Traded All The Gifts I Got For A New Set Of Tires.

Wood Heat Is Not New. It Dates Back To A Day Millions Of Years Ago, When A Group Of Cavemen Were Sitting Around, Watching Dinosaurs Rot. Suddenly, Lightning Struck A Nearby Log And Set It On Fire. One Of The Cavemen Stared At The Fire For A Few Minutes, Then Said: Hey! Wood Heat! The Other Cavemen, Who Did Not Understand English, Immediately Beat Him To Death With Stones. But The Key Discovery Had Been Made, And From That Day Forward, The Cavemen Had All The Heat They Needed, Although Their Insurance Rates Went Way Up.

We Journalists... Are Also Extremely Impressed With Scientists, And We Will, Frankly, Print Just About Any Wacky Thing They Tell Us, Especially If It Involves Outer Space.

Today's Scientific Question Is: What In The World Is Electricity? And Where Does It Go After It Leaves The Toaster?

At Least Once Per Year, Some Group Of Scientists Will Become Very Excited And Announce That: •the Universe Is Even Bigger Than They Thought! •there Are Even More Subatomic Particles Than They Thought! •whatever They Announced Last Year About Global Warming Is Wrong.

There Are A Number Of People Without Whom I Could Not Have Written This Book, But I Hope You Don't Hold That Against Them. They Are All Fine People, And They Had No Idea How It Would Turn Out.

Remember How He Handled The Iran-contra Never Ending Scandal From Hell? He Went On National Television, The President Of The United States, And Said It Wasn't His Fault, Because He Was Not Aware, At The Time, Of What His Foreign Policy Was.

Here's A Simple Experiment That You Might Want To Try If There Is Absolutely Nothing Else Going On In Your Life. All You Need Is A Cork, A Bar Magnet, And A Pail Of Water. Simply Attach Your Magnet To Your Cork, Then Drop It Into The Water, And Voilà (literally, "you Have A Compass")-you Have A Compass. How Does It Work? Simple. Notice That, No Matter Which Way You Turn The Bucket, The Cork Always Floats On Top Of The Water (unless The Magnet Is Too Heavy). Using This Scientific Principle, Early Hardy Mariners Were Able To Tell At A Glance Whether They Were Sinking!

My Son, Rob....said The Only Time He Ever Wraps A Gift Is, Quote, "if It's Such A Poor Gift That I Don't Want To Be There When The Person Opens It."

Ban Walking Sticks In Wilderness. Hikers That Use Walking Sticks Are More Likely To Chase Animals.

It's Income Tax Time Again, Americans: Time To Gather Up Those Receipts, Get Out Those Tax Forms, Sharpen Up That Pencil, And Stab Yourself In The Aorta

[american Tax Laws] Are Constantly Changing As Our Elected Representatives Seek New Ways To Ensure That Whatever Tax Advice We Receive Is Incorrect.

Men Have No Cause To Criticize Women About The Way They Are About Weddings. Because Men Are Like That About Sports, But It Never Ends. At Least Women, After The Wedding, Say It Wasn't That Big A Deal And They're Never Going To Look At The Dvd Again. Men Never Stop Being Crazy About Sports.

Nobody Is Excused From The Excellence Trend. Babies Are Not Excused. Starting Right After They Get Out Of The Womb, Modern Babies Are Exposed To Instructional Flashcards Designed To Make Them The Best Babies They Can Possibly Be, So They Can Get Into Today's Competitive Preschools. Your Eighties Baby Sees So Many Flashcards That He Never Gets An Unobstructed View Of His Parents' Faces. As An Adult, He'll Carry Around A Little Wallet Card That Says "7x9=63," Because It Will Remind Him Of Mother.

I Don't Want To Dis Anybody, But Someone Like Robert Parker. I First Read A Spenser Book Maybe 20 Years Ago And Then Read Every One That Came Out. I Did That With Tony Hillerman Too.

I Have Read That, On The Average, The Japanese Are Getting Taller, But At The Moment They Seem To Be About The Same Height As American Junior-high-school Students, Only With Fewer Guns.

The Internet Is A Giant International Network Of Intelligent, Informed Computer Enthusiasts, By Which I Mean, "people Without Lives." We Don't Care. We Have Each Other.

I Never Stop Running. I'm Not One Of The Weenies Who Drop Out Just Because The Electoral College Votes. I'm Still In The Race. I'm An Extremely Corrupt Candidate And I Stress That In Case Anybody In Our Reading Audience Is Interested In Sending Me Money.

But If I Hadn't Shoved You Off The Boat Back There,you'd Be Lost At Sea Now,wouldn't You? We'd All Be Lost! So Thanks To Me You're All Standing On Land." (pirates, Its A Good Thing They're Idiots)

Panicky Despair Is An Underrated Element Of Writing.

Chair Lifts Need To Be In Some Places So That We Can Get To Wonderful Views Without Having To Hike To Them.

Common Criticism Of The Internet Is That It Is Dominated By The Crude, The Uninformed, The Immature, The Smug, The Untalented, The Repetitious, The Pathetic, The Hostile, The Deluded, The Sefl-righteous, And The Shrill. This Criticism Overlooks The Fact That The Internet Also Offers - For The Savvy Individual Who Knows Where To Look - The Tasteless And Borderline Insane.

Skiing Combines Outdoor Fun With Knocking Down Trees With Your Face.

Nevada Has A Very Dynamic Economy, With Gambling Being The Number-one Industry, Followed Closely By Blood Donorship.

Don't Get Me Wrong. I Like Disney World. The Rest Rooms Are Clean Enough For Neurosurgery, And The Employees Say Things Like "howdy, Folks!" And Actually Seem To Mean It. You Wonder: Where Do They Get These People? My Guess: 1952. I Think Old Walt Realized, Way Back Then, That There Would Eventually Be A Shortage Of Cheerful People, So He Put All The Residents Of South Western Nebraska Into A Giant Freezer With A Huge Picture Of Jiminy Cricket On The Outside, And The Corporation Has Been Thawing Them Out As Needed Ever Since.

In My Experience, You Run Into Trouble When You Ask A Group Of Beer-drinking Men To Perform Any Task More Complex Than Remembering Not To Light The Filter Ends Of Cigarettes.

Although It Was Constructed In 1536, The New York Subway System Boasts An Annual Maintenance Budget Of Nearly $8, Currently Stolen, And It Does A Remarkable Job Of Getting New Yorkers From Point A To An Indeterminate Location Somewhere In The Tunnel Leading To Point B.

And That's The Wonderful Thing About Family Travel: It Provides You With Experiences That Will Remain Locked Forever In The Scar Tissue Of Your Mind.

All Of Us Are Born With A Set Of Instinctive Fears - Of Falling, Of The Dark, Of Lobsters, Of Falling On Lobsters In The Dark, Of Speaking Before A Rotary Club, And Of The Words "some Assembly Required".

The Doctor Looked At My Cardiogram And Made That "hmmmm" Noise That Doctors Are Taught In Medical School So They Won't Come Right Out And Say "uh-oh!"

Dogs Make Good Pets Because They Are Very Loyal

The Japanese Eat, Sleep, And Breathe Golf; The Only Thing They Don't Do Is Actually Play It, Because To Get On A Course, You Have To Make A Reservation Roughly 137 Years In Advance, Which Means That By The Time You Actually Get To The First Tee You Are Deceased. Of Course, In Golf This Is Not Really A Handicap.

She Wanted To Cry, But She Did Not Want Peter To See Her Cry, And She Especially Did Not Want Teacher, With Her Flowing Hair, To See Her Cry.

Karate Is A Form Of Martial Arts In Which People Who Have Had Years And Years Of Training Can, Using Only Their Hands And Feet, Make Some Of The Worst Movies In The History Of The World.

There Are Two Distinctive Classes Of People Today, Those Who Have Personal Computers, And Those Who Have Several Thousand Extra Dollars Apiece.

9 Saw The First Direct-dialed Long-distance Telephone Call, Between New York And San Francisco. Of Course, Back In That Primitive Era The Parties Had To Speak To Each Other Manually; Today One Or Both Ends Of The Conversation Would Be Carried On By A Machine.

Megahertz: This Is Really, Really Big Hertz.

We're Trying To Make Our Current House Look Domestic So That Somebody Will Want To Buy It. We're Making A Lot Of Simple, Obvious Improvements That Never Would Have Occurred To Us To Make While We Actually Lived Here, Because, Tragically, We Both Happen To Be Domestically Impaired. If We Were Birds, Our Nest Would Consist Of A Single Twig With The Eggs Attached Via Scotch Tape.

Many People Have Trouble Sticking To Their Resolutions, And There Is A Simple Scientific Explanation For This. In 1987, A Team Of Psychologists Conducted A Study In Which They Monitored The New Year's Resolutions Of 275 People. After One Week The Psychologists Found That 92 Percent Of The People Were Keeping Their Resolutions; After Two Weeks We Have No Idea What Happened Because The Psychologists Had Quit Monitoring.

I Read The Whole Jack Reacher Series By Lee Child. They Don't Take Long.

What I Need Is A Search Engine That, No Matter What I Type In, Comes Back With Go Back To Work.

One Night In Tokyo We Watched Two Japanese Businessmen Saying Good-night To Each Other After What Had Clearly Been A Long Night Of Drinking, A Major Participant Sport In Japan. These Men Were Totally Snockered, Having Reached The Stage Of Inebriation Wherein Every Air Molecule That Struck Caused Them To Wobble Slightly, But They Still Managed To Behave More Formally Than Americans Do At Funerals.

Not All Chemicals Are Bad. Without Chemicals Such As Hydrogen And Oxygen, For Example, There Would Be No Way To Make Water, A Vital Ingredient In Beer.

Look, In Particular, At The People Who, Like You, Are Making Average Incomes For Doing Average Jobs- Bank Vice Presidents, Insurance Salesmen, Auditors, Secretaries Of Defense- And You'll Realie They All Dress The Same Way, Essentially The Way The Mannequins In The Sears Menswear Department Dress. Now Look At The Real Successes, The People Who Make A Lot More Money Than You- Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, Anybody From Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, And So On. They All Dress Funny- And They All Succeed.

You Will Never Find Anybody Who Can Give You A Clear And Compelling Reason Why We Observe Daylight Savings Time.

Compelling Reason

Dogs Feel Very Strongly That They Should Always Go With You In The Car, In Case The Need Should Arise For Them To Bark Violently At Nothing Right In Your Ear.

It Takes A Minimum Of Six People, Working In Close Harmony, To Successfully Flush A Nautical Toilet. That's Why Those Old Ships Carried Such Large Crews.

Just Get On Any Major Highway, And Eventually It Will Dead-end In A Disney Parking Area Large Enough To Have Its Own Climate, Populated By Large Nomadic Families Who Have Been Trying To Find Their Cars Since The Carter Administration.

When I Write My Annual Tax Column, Some Ex-irs Agent Will Complain, "there You Go Irs Bashing Again." They're Always Saying That They're Just Doing Their Job. Someone I Know Once Said, "you Could Get Another Job."

One I'm Deeply Into Is Doris Kearns Goodwin's "team Of Rivals." I Was The Only Person In The Us Who Hadn't Read It.

The Beer Sold Here In The United States Is Sweet And Watery And Lacking In Taste And Overcarbonated And Just Generally The Lamest, Wimpiest Beer In The Entire Known World. All The Other Nations Are Drinking Ray Charles Beer, And We Are Drinking Barry Manilow.

If It Weren't For Marriage, Men And Women Would Have To Fight With Total Strangers.

The Soviet Union At This Time Was Being Run By The Communists, A Group Of Men Fierce In Their Dedication To Wearing Hilariously Bad Suits. Their Leader Was Josef Stalin (russian For "joey Bananas")

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

People Don't Like It When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity. When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity, You'll Hear From Really Loyal Fans Of That Celebrity.

To Defend Western Europe We Have To Let The Pentagon Buy All These Tanks And Guns And Things, And The Pentagon Is Unable To Buy Any Object That That Costs Less Than A Condominium In Vail. If The Pentagon Needs, Say, Fruit, It Will Argue That It Must Have Fruit That Can Withstand The Rigors Of Combat Conditions, And It Will Wind Up Purchasing The Fx-700 Seedless Tactical Grape, Which Will Cost $160,000 Per Bunch, And Will Have An 83 Percent Failure Rate.

The Science Fair Has Long Been A Favorite Educational Tool In The American School System, And For A Good Reason: Your Teachers Hate You.

As A Professional Journalist, I Am Always Looking For New Ways To Get Paid For Being Motionless.

The Method (of Learning Japanese) Recommended By Experts Is To Be Born As A Japanese Baby And Raised By A Japanese Family, In Japan. And Even Then It's Not Easy.

Can We Move This Conversation Along, I'm Getting Frightfully Tired Of 'hoa'.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

What I Look Forward To Is Continued Immaturity Followed By Death.

Directors Are Always Changing Things At The Last Minute. Actors Will Do A Scene, And The Director Will Say, ‘okay, That Was Perfect, But This Time, Bob, Instead Of Saying “what’s For Dinner?” You Say, “wait A Minute! Benzene Is Actually A Hydrocarbon!” And Say It With A Norwegian Accent. Also, We Think Maybe Your Character Should Have No Arms.

Today's Toys Contain Computer Chips, So They Can Move And Talk; This Stimulates The Mind Of Your Child. Notice I Say "your Child." My Child Just Wants To Eat The Toys.

Note That Both Of These Papers [the New York Post And The New York Daily News] Are Big Sellers In A City Whose Residents Like To Go Around Saying They'd Never Live Anyplace Else On Account Of They'd Miss The Opera.

Basically Ken Is A Very Gentle, Home-loving Person. I Remember When One Of His Stick Insects Had A Knee Infection. He Stayed Up All Night Rubbing It With Germoline And Banging Its Head On The Table.

There's Nothing Wrong With Enjoying Looking At The Surface Of The Ocean Itself, Except That When You Finally See What Goes On Underwater,you Realize That You've Been Missing The Whole Point Of The Ocean. Staying On The Surface All The Time Is Like Going To The Circus And Staring At The Outside Of The Tent.

Like All Writers, My Greatest Inspiration, My Ultimate Muse, Is A Deadline.

... Once You're Safely In The Mall, You Should Tie Your Children To You With Ropes So The Other Shoppers Won't Try To Buy Them. Holiday Shoppers Have Been Whipped Into A Frenzy By Months Of Holiday Advertisements, And They Will Buy Anything Small Enough To Stuff Into A Shopping Bag. If Your Children Object To Being Tied, Threaten To Take Them To See Santa Claus; That Ought To Shut Them Up.

With Humor You Have So Many Options With Topics And Length, I Mean I Can Write Humor Essays In Books Now And They Can Be As Long As I Want Them To Be.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World, And I Am One Of Them.

If You Look At Any List Of Great Modern Writers Such As Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, And F. Scott Fitzgerald, You'll Notice Two Things About Them: 1. They All Had Editors. 2. They Are All Dead. Thus We Can Draw The Scientific Conclusion That Editors Are Fatal.

Scott Fitzgerald

Lobsters Displays All Three Of The Classic Biological Characteristics Of An Insect, Namely: 1. It Has Way More Legs Than Necessary. 2. There Is No Way You Would Ever Pet It. 3. It Does Not Respond To Simple Commands Such As "here, Boy!"

When Your Super Bowl Guests Arrive, They Should Find A Mound Of Potato Chips Large Enough To Conceal A Pony Sitting In Front Of The Television. For Nutritional Balance, You Should Also Put Out A Bowl Of Carrot Sticks. If You Have No Carrot Sticks, You Can Use Pinecones, Or Used Electrical Fuses, Because Nobody Will Eat Them Anyway. This Is No Time For Nutritional Balance: This Is The Super Bowl, For God's Sake.

So When I Open The Door On Halloween, I Am Confronted By Three Or Four Imaginary Heroes, Such As G.i. Joe, Conan The Barbarian And Oliver North, Who Would Look Very Terrifying Except That They Are Three Feet Tall And Facing In Random Directions. They Stand There Silently For Several Seconds Before An Adult Voice Hisses From The Darkness Behind Them: "say 'trick Or Treat!

I Played Lead Guitar In A Band Called The Federal Duck, Which Is The Kind Of Name That Was Popular In The '60s As A Result Of Controlled Substances Being In Widespread Use. Back Then, There Were No Restrictions, In Terms Of Talent, On Who Could Make An Album, So We Made One, And It Sounds Like A Group Of People Who Have Been Given Powerful But Unfamiliar Instruments As A Therapy For A Degenerative Nerve Disease.

...hell, Which As Every Frequent Traveler Knows, Is In Concourse D Of O'hare Airport.

I Read "remembrance Of Things Past" In The Original French. I Never Start The Day Without Reading Me Some [marcel] Proust.

Violence And Smut Are Of Course Everywhere On The Airwaves. You Cannot Turn On Your Television Without Seeing Them, Although Sometimes You Have To Hunt Around.

When My Generation Was Your Age, We Took Crazy Risks. The Wildest Thing Was - Prepare To Be Shocked - We Deliberately Ingested Carbohydrates!

The Democrats Seem To Be Basically Nicer People, But They Have Demonstrated Time And Again That They Have The Management Skills Of Celery. They're The Kind Of People Who'd Stop To Help You Change A Flat, But Would Somehow Manage To Set Your Car On Fire. I Would Be Reluctant To Entrust Them With A Cuisinart, Let Alone The Economy. The Republicans, On The Other Hand, Would Know How To Fix Your Tire, But They Wouldn't Bother To Stop Because They'd Want To Be On Time For Ugly Pants Night At The Country Club

Never Assume That The Guy Understands That You And He Have A Relationship.

Bill Clinton, Who, To His Credit, Has Established A Clear And Consistent Foreign Policy, Which Is As Follows: Whenever The President Of The United States Gets Anywhere Near Any Foreign Head Of State, Living Or Dead, He Gives That Leader A Big Old Hug. This Has Proven To Be An Effective Way To Get Foreign Leaders To Do What We Want: Many Heads Of State Are Willing To Sign Any Random Document That President Clinton Thrusts In Front Of Them, Without Reading It, Just So He Will Stop Embracing Them.

Everyone Has A Right To Be Stupid. Some Just Abuse The Privilege.

The Story You Envision As You Start Out Is Always A Great Story; When The Facts Turn Out To Be Different From, Or More Complex Than, What You Expected, Your First Reaction Is Always Disappointment. That's When You Must Fight The Urge To Bend The Story To Your Preconceived Notions. First, It's Dishonest. And Second, In The End, The Truth Is Always The Best Story.

The French Are Not Rude. They Just Happen To Hate You. But That Is No Reason To Bypass This Beautiful Country, Whose Master Chefs Have A Well-deserved Worldwide Reputation For Trying To Trick People Into Eating Snails. Nobody Is Sure How This Got Started. Probably A Couple Of French Master Chefs Were Standing Around One Day, And They Found A Snail, And One Of Them Said: 'i Bet That If We Called This Something Like `escargot,' Tourists Would Eat It.' Then They Had Hearty Laugh, Because 'escargot' Is The French Word For 'fat Crawling Bag Of Phlegm.'

The Ford Falcon Holds The Proud Title Of Slowest Car Ever Built. In Certain Areas Of The Country You Can Go To A Stoplight And Find Falcon Drivers Who Pressed Down On Their Accelerators In 1963 And Are Still Waiting For Their Cars To Move.

I Called A Company And Asked To Speak To Bob. The Person Who Answered Said, "bob Is On Vacation. Would You Like To Hold?

I Read Warren Zevon's Bizarre Biography, "i'll Sleep When I'm Dead." His Wife, Crystal Zevon, Posthumously Published A Journal He Wrote And Some Interviews With Ex-band Members. Like [keith] Richards's Book "life," It's Brutally Honest.

The Major Advantage Of Domestic Travel Is That, With A Few Exceptions Such As Miami, Most Domestic Locations Are Conveniently Situated Right Here In The United States.

If Congress Were To Pass A 'flat' Tax, You'd Simply Pay A Fixed Percentage Of Your Income, And You Wouldn't Have To Fill Out Any Complicated Forms, And There Would Be No Loopholes For Politically Connected Groups, And Normal People Would Actually Understand The Tax Laws, And Giant Talking Broccoli Stalks Would Come Around And Mow Your Lawn For Free, Because Congress Is Not Going To Pass A Flat Tax, You Pathetic Fool.

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Ask Whether Your Country Has Been Inhaling Paint-thinner Fumes.

I Bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows Rsvp, The Best Of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, And Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates A House The Size Of Vermont.

The Only Really Good Place To Buy Lumber Is At A Store Where The Lumber Has Already Been Cut And Attached Together In The Form Of Furniture Finished And Put Inside Boxes.

Far Too Often, We Fathers Avoid The Subject Because It's So Awkward. The Subject I Am Referring To Is: Buying Gifts For Women. This Is An Area Where Many Men Do Not Have A Clue. Exhibit A Was My Father, Who Was A Very Thoughtful Man, But Who Once Gave My Mother, On Their Anniversary, The Following Token Of His Love, His Commitment, And-yes-his Passion For Her: An Electric Blanket.

It Is Important To Be Nice. But Sometimes Niceness Can Be Misconstrued As Weak. Should We Be Nice To Everybody? Should We Be Nice Only When Others Are Nice To Us? Here Are Some Interesting Views About Being Nice. Read These Nice Quotes And Turn On Your Niceness.

In South Florida, We Have Industrial Cockroaches That Have To Be Equipped With Loud Warning Beepers So You Can Get Out Of Their Way When They Back Up.

Japan Has A Low Crime Rate, Unless You Count The Fact That Approximately Every Fifteen Minutes The Entire Cabinet Gets Indicted For Taking Bribes.

My Theory Is That There Is A Finite Amount Of Intelligence In A Family, And You're Supposed To Gradually Transfer It To Your Children Over A Period Of Many Years. This Is Why Your Parents Started To Get So Stupid Just At The Time In Your Life When You Were Getting Really Smart.

You Cannot Paint The Exterior Of Your House. You Have To Take The Paint Chip Down To Show The Paint-chip Nazis.

The Voice Belonged To Mr. Pzyrbovich, An Algebra Teacher Who Was Always Called Mr. P, For Obvious Reasons. He Has A Heavy Accent, Which A Lot Of Kids Said Made Him Hard To Understand, Although To Be Fair Some Of These Kids Would Have Never Understood Algebra Anyway.

Dating Means Doing A Lot Of Fun Things You Will Never Do Again If You Get Married. The Fun Stops With Marriage Because You're Trying To Save Money For When You Split Up Your Property.

Camping Is Nature's Way Of Promoting The Motel Business.

If The People In Europe Are Soooooo Smart, How Come So Many Of Them Can't Seem To Locate The Deodorant, Huh?

You Don't Have To Think Really Hard To Get The Joke. I Think Humor In General Appeals To All People.

Too Many Bugs And Leeches And Spiders And Spiderwebs. Please Spray The Wilderness To Rid The Area Of These Pests.

The Romans Spent The Next 200 Years Using Their Great Engineering Skill To Construct Ruins All Over Europe.

In Fact, Just About All The Major Natural Attractions You Find In The West- The Grand Canyon, The Badlands, The Goodlands, The Mediocrelands, The Rocky Mountains And Robert Redford- Were Caused By Erosion.

What Happens If A Big Asteroid Hits Earth ? Judging From Realistic Simulations Involving A Sledge Hammer And A Common Laboratory Frog, We Can Assume It Will Be Pretty Bad.

Babies Are Equipped At Birth With A Number Of Instinctive Reflexes And Behavior Patterns That Cause Them To Spend Their First Several Years Trying To Kill Themselves. If Your Home Contains A Sharp, Toxic Object, Your Baby Will Locate It; If Your Home Contains No Such Object, Your Baby Will Try To Obtain One Via Mail Order.

As The Saying Goes: "if You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're A Newspaper Columnist."

Nobody Understands How Hard It Is, Being A Captain.

Thus The White Men And Native Americans Were Able, Through The Spirit Of Goodwill And Compromise, To Reach The First In What Would Become A Long Series Of Mutually Beneficial, Breached Agreements That Enabled The Two Cultures To Coexist Peacefully For Stretches Of Twenty And Sometimes Even Thirty Days, After Which It Was Usually Necessary To Negotiate New Agreements That Would Be Even More Mutual And Beneficial, Until Eventually The Native Americans Were Able To Perceive The Vast Mutual Benefits Of Living In Rock-strewn Sectors Of South Dakota.

Native American

If Charles Lindbergh, Flying With No Instruments Other Than A Bologna Sandwich, Managed To Cross The Atlantic And Land Safely On A Runway Completely Covered With French People, Why Are Today's Airplanes, Which Are Equipped With Radar And Computers And Individualized Liquor Bottles, Unable To Cope With Fog?

You've Read Newspaper Stories About Elderly Widows Who Die And Leave Their Entire Estates To Their Pet Cats, Right? Well, Your Cat Reads Those Stories Too, And Has Spent Most Of Its Skulking, Devious Little Life Dreaming About Inheriting All Your Money.

How Can You Be Afraid Of Women?” “those Ain’t Normal Women.

The Population Of Earth Has Reached 7 Billion People, Every Single One Of Whom Send You Irritating Emails To Join Something Called "linkedin."

A Perfect Parent Is A Person With Excellent Child-rearing Theories And No Actual Children.

Perfect Parents

The Word Aerobics Comes From Two Greek Words: Aero, Meaning “ability To,” And Bics, Meaning “withstand Tremendous Boredom.

It's A Real Smug Self-righteous Punk Kid Saying Nobody Has The Right To Tell Him What To Do And How Dare You Put A Sign Up Saying That I Can't Go On Your Property?

Here's A Man Who Was Twice Elected To The Most Powerful Position On Earth Despite Needing A Teleprompter To Correctly Identify What Year It Was.

When I'm Writing Columns, It's - All I'm Thinking About Is Jokes, Joke, Joke, Joke, Setup, Punch Line, Joke, Joke, Joke. And I Really Don't Care Where It Goes.

The Thing I Have Learned, Especially In The Internet Age, Probably The Easiest Thing In The World Is To Declare That Something Is Not Funny. I Mean It's Not Actually Humor To Say Something Is Not Funny, But It Is Viewed By A Lot Of People - And By That I Mean Mainly Snarky Young Internet Men - As A Kind Of Humor In And Of Itself Is Putting Down Other People's Efforts At Humor. And I Don't Care That Much Anymore About That Because I Know How Easy That Is To Do.

The Leading Cause Of Death Among Fashion Models Is Falling Through Street Grates.

Always Remember That If Editors Were So Damned Smart, They Would Know How To Dress.

Most Of The Presidential Candidates' Economic Packages Involve 'tax Breaks,' Which Is When The Government, Amid Great Fanfare, Generously Decides Not To Take Quite So Much Of Your Income. In Other Words, These Candidates Are Trying To Buy Your Votes With Your Own Money.

I Hate Rap Music, Which To Me Sounds Like A Bunch Of Angry Men Shouting, Possibly Because The Person Who Was Supposed To Provide Them With A Melody Never Showed Up.

Here In Miami, On Weekends, Amusement-seekers Will Come To The Marina, Set Up Folding Chairs, And Spend A Highly Entertaining Day Watching Boat Owners Perform Comical Maneuvers Such As Forgetting To Set Their Parking Brakes And Having Their Cars Roll Down The Ramp And Disappear, Burbling Gaily, Below The Surface.

I'm Reading "team Of Rivals'' I'll Probably Ending Up Reading A Bunch Of Books About The Civil War. But I Think My All-time Favorite Book About The War Is The Novel, "the Killer Angels'' By Michael Shaara.

To People Who Make Moving Ads That Block The View Of Websites: Not Only Will We Not Buy From You, But We Want Shrews To Eat Your Liver.

Until I Became A Parent, I Thought Children Just Naturally Knew How To Catch A Ball, That Catching Was An Instinctive Biological Reflex That All Children Are Born With, Like Knowing How To Operate A Remote Control Or Getting High Fevers In Distant Airports.

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