P.J. O’Rourke eulogy tagged posts

I’ve never quite cottoned to people who can’t bring themselves to insert a joke, a hint of irreverence, a witty aside or a slightly jaundiced observation into their writing or conversation. Oh, I can respect and work alongside and even benefit in one way or other from knowing them. They’re not bad people.

But a severe humor deficit, a flattened, sparkless demeanor, as if a person has just emerged back up to ground level after a double shift in the coal mine and now has to walk three miles home in a steady drizzle, has always struck me as lacking too much of the animating life force that completes us as human beings and, in a powerful sense, helps at least somewhat to make the all-too-common tragedy and anguish of life bearable.

And as P.J. O’Rourke, the conservative gadfly, satirist, former “National Lampoon” editor, “”Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” radio show panelist and all-around droll wit pointed ...