If you tell the reader it's funny, then the audience is like an audience at a stand-up comedy club and they expect you to be funny, and if you're not, they notice. Whereas if you read a regular op-ed about Israel or the family or medicine, you're not starting with the assumption that you're supposed to laugh.
Dave BarryYou don't have to think really hard to get the joke. I think humor in general appeals to all people.
Dave BarryMany things have been written, including by me, linking humor and pain. Mostly, in my case, the humor part keeps me sane. If I spent all my hours writing things like "Fatal Distraction," I'd become a brooding, erratic melancholic. I'd be Raskolnikov.
Dave BarryElsewhere in Italy is the lovely city of Venice, which each year attracts millions of visitors despite the fact that it is basically an enormous open sewer.
Dave BarryWe idolized the Beatles, except for those of us who idolized the Rolling Stones, who in those days still had many of their original teeth.
Dave Barry