David Sedaris is just not funny anymore

We're laughing at him- not with him.

I’ve always thought he had four or five funny essays and the rest were just mediocre. Some of his essays just come across as bitchy queen.

It is kind of strange that he has a mass audience given that his stories are often about being gay. I thought middle America would be more bigoted.

I've never cared for him. Always found him smug.

I used to love him, but I think he simply ran out of things to say.

I gave up when every essay was about his culture shock of living in France.

Someone starts a thread like this once a year. And, yes he hasn't been funny in ages.

I saw him live a few months ago and he was pretty entertaining. I was surprised how quick and naturally funny he was during the Q&A. I think he lives a privileged and unusual life and it's hard for a person to talk about that without seeming a little smug. To be fair, he's been very open about his dreary adult life pre-fame. He talked about picking dirt and crumbs out of his carpet and smoking the mixture in the hopes there was some meth mixed in there.

I like David but his first books were better. He was here for a "night with" and he was very funny and dry.

Sadly the writing seemed to fade when his mom died. She was truly his inspiration.

His stories about his mother were so funny.

He turned into the sort of wealthy old neurotic queen that he would have skewered for making his life miserable at one of the many humiliating subsistence jobs he worked back in the day.

His writing after his sister’s suicide shone a light on what a profoundly selfish and cold family they are (including his beloved mother, who just seems like a frosty misanthropic drunk who treated her prick husband and odd children like mildly annoying housecats).

I agree with you OP, his old life and childhood were far more entertaining - his stories now “our place in Paris, our place in England, oh I just bought a beach house for my family” are tiresome and smug.

We had a local version of Santaland Diaries here in Chicago for years. It had a big following and people came every year, so the actor started adding his own riffs to keep it interesting and the audience loved it. It's success prompted CBS Sunday Morning to film the show in conjunction with a feature on Sedaris, and when he saw the footage he flipped out. CBS scrapped the Chicago footage and Sedaris' lawyers started sending Cease and Desist Orders. After 2 years he pulkled the rights to the show and it closed down.

I certainly understand his reaction and how it played out. But the intensity of the letters, and his apparent reaction to CBS producers who gossiped about it to the Chicago show people, made me realize that he really is a humorless prick and I just can't make nice with him any more.

Aging white trash homo gets money and cosplays as Connecticut housewife turned European aristocrat.

More at 10.

His first few essays/stories were great because he was new....... Now, meh........ I appreciate him but thats about it.

I remember going to hear him 20 years ago, and he told us if he went shopping and found a cashmere sweater he particularly liked, he made sure he bought duplicates of it for all of his homes around the world. I realized then that he was a huge tool.

I just borrowed Barrel Fever audiobook, is it any good? It's read by him and his sister Amy.

He sucks. His sister sucks. He was funny way back in the day but now he's all Fox News Loon Bag accusing anyone who doesn't shriek the N word as being woke. He's an asshole.

Token gay for the NPR set.

He was never funny. Smug from his very first word.

I gave him a genuine shot but was bored, but I absolutely adore Amy.

David has always leaned into the absurd. Becoming very wealthy, as with most things, amplified and intensified that tendency.

When a poor person is eccentric and quirky it’s endearing. When a rich person is eccentric and quirky it widens the gap between them and the rest of regular society. Doing zany things when poor makes you unique, but doing zany things when rich makes you weird.

R22 most say the opposite is true

I knew him in his Chicago days, he had a very hot Mexican BF named Chuck. Wildly funny doing spoken word, at the Green Mill Lounge in the 80's. What I remembered most was his tobacco-stained fingers, he rolled cigarettes and smoked a lot. He was always charming to me and didn't call me the fetus as the others did, I was a twink BF to an older friend of the group.

Barrel Fever is from 1994 so it should be purer, but...

[quote] When a poor person is eccentric and quirky it’s endearing. When a rich person is eccentric and quirky it widens the gap between them and the rest of regular society. Doing zany things when poor makes you unique, but doing zany things when rich makes you weird.

Today must be opposites day.

I have never found him funny. He's way too self-conscious and preening.

Just listening to one of his audiobooks, why didn't anyone warn me about that ghastly voice?

I grew up in Raleigh and once he and Amy became famous I met their dad and brother. Lou, the dad, was a nice guy, reserved but funny. He loved wine and had a huge Great Dane. I think he just recently died at close to 100.

The youngest brother, who some people call The Rooster, was born in Raleigh and is almost a redneck but more liberal. He owns a hardwood business and at the height of David’s fame a Sedaris Hardwood sign in your yard when they were redoing your floors was almost required. He’s a nice guy, if rough around the edges, and his wife is really fun.

Back years ago David would always have a book signing in town on Father’s Day weekend, supposedly so his trip to visit his dad could be a business expense.

Any once bummed a cigarette off of me outside of one of these signing. When I went in to get my book signed I could see David was smoking in the bookstore. I commented on it and the old lady who employee who was minding the line said, “Yes, be he’s the only one allowed to smoke inside…” as if I was asking to light up in line.

I’d rather read a Garfield & Friends illustrated joke book from 1982