Dave Barry Goes Wild On the Internet

While this project is called “Writers Gone Wild: The Sequel” — or maybe “Writers Gone Wilder” — this anecdote is probably one of the mildest, but only because Dave Barry was ahead of his time in making an ass of himself on the Internet before the invention of social media turned it into the French Revolution but better mannered.

It started in 1994 on a newsgroup called alt.fan.dave_barry. Newsgroups were the social media of its day, except that it required literate people with a sense of humor, and the ability to figure out how to post and read messages that required a knowledge of Linear B and a personal note from Bill Gates. A British journalist by the name of Michael Bywater posted a note on it announcing that he was going to interview Barry and asked if anyone had questions for him.

Asking other people to do your work for you is a common tactic among journalists in the Internet age, except at The New York Times, where they’re not above asking important politicians to edit their stories for them. I am not making this up. During Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, reporter Mark Leibovich sent the campaign sections of his interview with Clinton asking permission to reveal that she ate moose stew during a visit to Alaska. After many high-level consultations with the candidate, the campaign gave permission, but said not to tell anyone that she thought it was interesting that “gay rights has moved much faster than women’s rights or civil rights, which is an interesting phenomenon somebody in the future will unpack.” And Mark Leibovich, important newspaper reporter for The New York Times, agreed not to tell a soul, until his email was leaked when Democratic Party official John Podesta’s computer was hacked and Leibovich’s email appeared on Wikileaks. And this is why many people view journalists in the same way as something they step on in the dog park.

Anyway, unbeknownst to the members of alt.fan.dave_barry, Dave Barry was lurking on the list. Up to that moment, Barry had never posted to alt.fan.dave_barry, possibly because he wasn’t a fan. But for some reason – I suspect a generous helping of alcohol was involved – Dave was excited that a reporter was interested in talking to him, so he clicked the reply button and wrote this:

I GOT YOUR FUCKING POST! ON THE INTERNET! WITH MY COMPUTER! Which is not like yours at ALL. Mine is JEWISH. And if that BOTHERS YOU, Mr. Chuckletrousers, then you will just have to accept that THIS IS THE NEW FUCKING WORLD ORDER IN WHICH WE LIVE IN.

I really like the Bargewater book.

The group’s collected response could be summed up in one syllable: “Wha?” Members began to seriously debate the matter:

“I thought it was a reference to that horrible Paul McCartney song from the Bond film, LIVE AND LET DIE. The line, ‘in which we live in’ is repeated several times. Drives me nuts. Thought I was mishearing it until I actually saw the actual lyrics.”

“I’m still trying to comprehend the nature of a Jewish computer, especially if it’s been circumcised. And I’m a bit afraid to ask about the ‘Bargewater book’ – I mean, there are books out there on everything, but someone had to be really desperate for a thesis topic to write one about the fluids found in barges. And, then for Dave to say he likes this sort of book, well …”

Someone even presciently wrote: “Do you think anybody’s told Dave yet that there are outfits that archive all the posts that appear on the USENET onto CD-ROMs? Which, of course, means that historians and English lit majors for years to come will be able to discover the famous “Dave Barry F*CKING Post” for themselves.”

Then someone wrote a joke that contained a possible grammatical error, and everyone dropped the subject of Dave Barry to argue whether in the sentence “Ahem. Officer, you misspelled ‘intentionally’.” if the quotation mark went inside the period or outside, because Usenet posters back then had the concentration of kittens chasing a laser light.

Meanwhile, another post appeared from Dave a half hour later:

“This is Dave Barry, with an apology, for real. I was going through this group, as is my wont, and I saw a post from my friend Michael Bywater, and I wrote a smart-ass response aimed only at him, using Bad Words and language that could seem offensive if you didn’t know the context. After I posted it, it struck me that I had posted it NOT to Michael, who may in fact never see it, but to THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD. And some of you may be offended. And if you are, I’m genuinely sorry. Now that I think of it, maybe I shouldn’t even have said ‘smart-ass’ in this particular post. So I also apologize for THAT. But not as hard as for the other. OK, I am going to stop groveling now. Back to the booger jokes.”

Fortunately, this was before social media, so everyone laughed. Dave had an amusing anecdote for his 1996 book “Dave Barry in Cyberspace,” where he explained everything.

Except who was really “Mr. Chuckletrousers.” I suspect it was Mark Leibovich.