#25 David Sedaris
January 26, 2008 by clander
For many of you, this post will be a confusing as you wonder who exactly this David Sedaris is. He is a humorist who writes for the New Yorker and has seveal books including Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice.
His stuff is kind of funny, but white people go crazy and will pay hundreds of dollars to hear him read from his own book. Let me say that again, they will pay money to see someone read from a book they have already read. They know the jokes are coming, they know the punch lines, but they feel the need to hear the author actually say it.
White people universally love David Sedaris. So if they ever ask you “who are you favorite authors?” you should always reply “David Sedaris.” They will instantly launch into a story about how much they love his work, and the conversation will go from there, and you don’t have to talk about books any more.
It is also safer than saying Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, or Shakespeare. White people are very divided on these authors and might actually ask you questions about why you like them. Stick with David Sedaris, you can’t lose! If they do you press you, just say “I read a lot, and I never laugh out loud from a writer, but Sedaris is just brilliant.”
This advice will make white people respect you, trust you and more willing to invite to you parties.
*sigh* Guilty. It’s not our fault! He’s gay, and misunderstood! How can we resist?
How is paying to hear someone read a book any different than paying to go to any sort of concert? You know what’s coming at a concert too.
Well because if you go to a concert you get to see some kid that axel got to replace slash just about get away with a famous solo.
That’s a fucking stupid thing to say, isn’t it? Do you even understand what the purpose of music is? You can listen to a song every day without getting tired of it. You gonna read the same book three days in a row? You’re stupid.
You might if you’re reading something interesting that requires some thought and reflection (perhaps something that takes longer than a day to read?).
Music has a set “purpose” that you know for a fact? That pretty much puts you up there with the greatest philosophers of all time, dude.
I have been listening to avaunt-guard ( punk, metal, industrial, noise, etc…
music for a couple of decades now and I have to say, being in a band ultimately is about getting high/ drunk and getting laid and little else. Any musician that says other wise is having a reaction to NOT getting high/ drunk and laid. Take it from me I was in a band that had REAL practices, made REAL recording and played REAL shows. Fo’ reals!
Musician provide nothing but entertainment/ distraction in the long run.
Fyi you have strayed off topic yet again because you are a self absorbed first wold megalomaniac.
Jesus God. I have owned houseplants that were smarter and more articulate than you. What next, a long diatribe on how you *know* that the real purpose of art is so paint has somewhere to go after work?
Please get some therapy. Or don’t, and just stop posting. You make me fear for the human race.
AND FUCKING LEARN TO SPELL! You CANNOT, you simply CANNOT pontificate know-it-all shit when you CAN’T FUCKING SPELL.
Ah, heck I’m sorry mister. When I write these little nuggets of joy early in the morning before I arrive at the construction site (to build your condos) my farmers grammer gets extra red necky.
I think it’s ironic that you yourself are attacking me without really saying anything. So I’m not really sure what your problem with me is other than what I’m saying smacking of the truth.
In short you are the kind of snivelling tool that dismisses people by telling them to “get therapy”. I’ll get therapy when you learn to act like a man.
Nice grammatic errors by the way Mr. Know-it-all.
Black metal rules the day, and Mayhem takes on all comers and murders them.
If you like Mayhem you should check out Maniac’s (of Mayhem) noise project such as Skitliv or Voluspa. But that really does not answer the question of why Pillow talk has a crush on me or why you should read David Sedaris to relate to the sheeple while taking the big city transite rail on the way to your corporate gig to produce nothing and destroy everthing now does it.
I pooped my pants
Me and my friends have a game we play called “shotgun blast to the face”. It’s a question answer game where the answer in always “shotgun blast to the face”. For example You would say “reading David ‘Fag-a-tron’ Sedaris and I would reply ” shotgun blast to the face. You get the picture. You can try it with the entire stuff white people like list and if you are another self hating white person you just might never get your well deserved shotgun blast to the face.
When you try to be amusing, I wish you didn’t exist. And I have a feeling I’m not alone. I bet people who actually know you also have this wish.
SPELL. SPELL. SPELL. There are dogs out there who can spell better than you. And so can David Sedaris.
I get it already. All you have is my puctuations bad. And all I have is scapel like spears of truth that make people like you uncomfortable. The truth shall out as they say.
OMG, “Me talk pretty one day” was the first book that made me laugh so hard to the point of crying.
If you like David Sedaris, you should definitely read Augusten Burroughs - Possible Side Effects, Magical Thinking… He kicks the shit out of Sedaris in Sedaris’s own genre.
Matter of opinion. I find AB to be too bitter and angry and crunched up to be really funny.
That’s bullshit. AB’s stuff isn’t as clever as Sedaris, just seedier.
Agreed!
PS - It’s the only book thus far to trigger such emotion.
Me too, Allie.
Next thing you know, they’ll pay money to hear somebody perform songs they’ve already listened to.
LOL!
I once mistakenly admitted to a crowd of white people that I didn’t like David Sedaris. I was immediately detected, and my whiteness rating suffers still.
Ha!
I first knew my second marriage was kaput when my wife started writing love letters to David Sedaris and then pretending to be his wife.
FLEE!
“I was immediately detected, and my whiteness rating suffers still.”
Very funny Jake, but I detect a certain inherent whiteness in the name Jake!!! It’s even more obvious than Ted.
*sigh* im not white and yet I love David Sedaris. i read most of his books but will not pay good money to watch him read them. besides, his voice kinda freaks me out.
I’m not white either (the name does get me in the door though). I love David Sedaris. His voice is the best part about his stories on “This American Life”.
i concur in every way with dominique. i also have to add that since david sedaris is vaguely Mediterranean and so am i, it’s one of the reasons i love him. the bond of the stuffed grape leaves.
stuffblackpeoplelike - eating watermelon! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike - pumping oil! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - gang warfare! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - eating beans! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike - shooting heroin! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - welfare! hahaha!!!
stuffjewishpeoplelike - keeping money! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffchinesepeoplelike - eating rice! hahaha!!!
stuffarabpeoplelike - kissing goats! hahaha!!!
stuffmexicanpeoplelike - wearing sombreros! hahaha!!!
stuffblackpeoplelike - sniffing glue! hahaha!!!
aren’t i funny and clever!!!
don’t you dare call me a racist!!!
you’re not racist….just not very funny. BTW, black people do not like sniffing glue. Black people like Cadillacs. Black people like fried chicken….etc.
We love Michael Chabon too.
So true about Chabon . . . it just goes back to the whole gay best friend thing bc the book is progressive and helps them feel like they need to do something about the oppression gays used to face and still face.
BTW, that book is on our reading list at high school. My white english teacher LOVED it. And Sedaris. Actually, both of my white english teachers loved Sedaris. Damn. ..
I thought I had it bad in high school when they first really started the cult of the intolerant tolerant indoctrination ball rolling with Maoist fervor (that circa known as the 90’s FYI) . But we where never force fed bourgeois tripe like David Sedaris. What happened? Did they run out of black and or holocaust literature mixed with maximizing your earning potential capitalist allegiance propaganda.
“What you don’t like David Sedaris… Shun the non believer, shun the non believerrrr!” Just another uber shallow, rich homosexual who produces nothing in the big picture.
“The thought of what ameica would be like if the classics had a wide cirulation troubles my sleep”- Ezra Pound
I’m white and I heard him on NPR and laughed a few times, but I’d never pay to see him. Cool?
DS is a f******ing wump!
I dont know whut that meens but i dont know whuts ut with DS either.
i didnt realize he was gay until he started talking about sleeping with some guy .
i dont get david sedaris. Everyone on the train reads him (white neighborhood trains), i borrowed one of his books from a friend and i still dont get it. i think i missed some white culture class i should have gone to.
and to Anonymous: you’re rasict… and i dont believe this site ever claimed it wasnt racist. so your irony is lost… if your white, your failing your race in the irony sector.
What I get about David Sedaris is his family was as screwed up and crazy as mine, but in a gentle, loving way. Even though the parents and children love each other, they don’t necessarily like each other or have anything in common.
Only white people could grow up in the same house, raised by the same parents, and wind up completely different people. It sure makes things interesting at Thanksgiving.
I love that.
My wife would enjoy this one. She isn’t white, but according to most of this blog, she might as well be.
I prefer Andy Sidaris.
http://www.andysidaris.com/
But I miss on about half of these things I’m supposed to like. On the other hand I’m an evil mustache twirling republican so I guess I’m at least halfway a failure as a white guy.
so fucking true. reading this blog makes me realize just how white i really am. its hysterical.
I hate David Sedaris and have mentioned this to other white people. Word has spread quickly and I have no more white friends.
the end
if you really want to irk white hipsters, mention liking amy sedaris more than david sedaris. you will regain the respect of white people and they’ll wish they were as cool as you. amy sedaris is a comedian who did a short-lived show called “strangers with candy.” it’s about fitting in in high school and steven colbert plays a closet homosexual. soooo many things about it white people like.
Give me Eggers over Sedaris any day.
do people who aren’t white dislike David Sedaris?.. how could someone not like David Sedaris?..
Don’t forget David Sedaris also lives in France, which makes white people of a liberal stripe happy because it can counter-act all the faux-patriotic “Freedom Fries” claptrap.
I really don’t find his books that funny to read, but hearing them read or performed as plays (The Santaland Diaries) makes me cry with laughter.
I never knew just how white I was until reading this blog…
I love David Sedaris, but I’m a black female raised in white suburbia- so I don’t have any real impact on this blog.
Just glad to see that he’s universally liked by white people!
hm. i love david sedaris and franzen
and i’m asian.
somehow, this post made me think of how it has become increasingly popular among my white friends to point out that they find steve martin’s writings “so much better” than his films. just a thought, in case you wanted a future topic.
sg - so you’re saying this sight IS racist? Why is racism the most evil of all things except when it’s directed at white people it’s funny? If I where to tell a racist joke I’d get scolded for it and told that racism is NEVER funny. What hipocrites you asses are!
guilty.
What about Amy Sedaris?
I’m so white I love David Sedaris AND AMY SEDARIS!
Ditto to Katy! They both crack me up! I was very upset the day my family went to see David Sedaris’ play w/out me. Very. Upset.
Sedaris is hilarious! I love his sister Amy too!
He is hilarious… and so is his sister Amy… How they came out of the same household and became as hilarious as they are in their own right… awesome
Oh no! This one was a bit painful for me. There have been accurate ones, but this is the first one that made me wince uncomfortably over how true it was.
When I first heard him on the radio (NPR–how could you not point that out?), I thought it was an old lady. Now I find him sexy.
His successor David Rakoff is also quite shagworthy. (Yes, I know they’re both gay.)
people pay hundreds (usually it doesn’t actually cost hundreds) to hear an author read for the same reason people go to concerts. i assume people own or have at least heard of the music that will be played at the concert. so, i’m not sure why this seemed so strange.
This is RICH.
A few years ago a white acquaintance of mine suggested I read “Barrel Fever”. She loaned me her copy.
I read the book from cover to cover and really didn’t get much out of the experience.
I was unmoved by his supposed wit or insight.
It was just one bland “observation” after another.
When I returned the book I reported my honest assessment that ‘I didn’t like it very much.’ Which was met with shock and, I believe, a fair bit of disgust.
Sigh.
Well then, Adisa, I suggest you return to watching “American Idol” and leave the white people alone.
David Sedaris? Since I now live in a major metro (Chicagoland, my friends), I’m supposed to love the guy, but my Downstate Illinois roots make me squirm every time I hear him talk for more than 30 seconds. Oooohhhhh, the smugness. I know its supposed to be in the service of Irony, which I do like, I’m therefore racially inclined to like it. But I think he’s not ironically smug, he’s secretely seriously smug. Almost as smug as, say, “They Might Be Giants”.
I’m now inspired to collect some scathing book reviews of “Me Talk Pretty One Day” c’mon over…. Nothing is more white than writing Amazon reviews, and to get even whiter, read ironically bad reviews on Amazon.
[...] you condemn me, read this! I’ve never read any of his books, but I do have a Dave Eggers book on my shelf! (which I [...]
I guess I lose my white club membership card as I’ve never heard of this guy
I have never paid to see him read, but I have gone to a bookstore for a reading and to have a book autographed. Damn I’m lame.
Yeah, the autograph and reading was by David Sedaris.
Eh, what’s the controversy with Dave Eggers? Depression is at least as white as gayness.
Whoever writes this, you are a fucking genius.
I agree with Devin.
Yeah, I’m white, and I love David Sedaris. He’s funny as hell! Also, his sister Amy is hilarious, too. Strangers With Candy is one of the funniest shows of all time.
basectly, if you haven’t been through an akward nerdy period where every little thing you did seemed to be out of place socially, you wont get his humor. but…considering most “white” people have been through it (whether for a month or 5 years) they’ll get it and piss their pants!
ps. david saderis is on my top list of authors, also hunter s. thompson (hes fuckin amazing!)
Why WINCE? Why is it a BAD thing to like David Sedaris? Or watermelon, for that sake?
David Sedaris is funny AND extremely touching at times. When he writes about his mother, he gets the maternal love and abuse JUST RIGHT!
No shame here. AND I went and saw “Santaland Diaries” at the Gallery Players in Brooklyn this Christmas, and practically could speak along with the actor.
No shame. He’s a great writer.