Word: buchwald
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...humorists, including S.J. Perelman and, in a sense, Benjamin Franklin. (Franklin was the nation's first regularly published humor columnist, and Rudulph dug up an early example of his work.) "Everybody was happy to discuss Baker," says Rudulph. But no one was more pleased than Syndicated Columnist Art Buchwald, Baker's colleague in the American Academy of Humor Columnists, a select and wholly frivolous group. Summed up Buchwald: "Russ should be on TIME'S cover, because he doesn't have too many more good years...
When Syndicated Humorist Art Buchwald heard that Russell Baker had won a Pulitzer Prize, he addressed a memo to half a dozen of the nation's top humor columnists accusing Baker of spending $100,000 to lobby for the prize and suggesting a response to any queries about the award: "I have no comment until I read one of Baker's columns." When Baker received the bulletin, he fired off one of his own, thanking his colleagues for planning a gala testimonial dinner in his honor. "Unfortunately, I cannot accept," he added, "as I will be busy throughout...
Such is the state of professional relations among the nation's leading humor columnists that some of their best lines are written to each other, and some of their worst. Buchwald, 53, whose political word-cartoons now appear in 510 newspapers, has been trading quips with Baker since they met in Washington 17 years ago. On a bookshelf in Buchwald's office is a photo of Baker, with the inscription: "To Art Buchwald, who with Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon was all that made Washington worthwhile for ten long years...
...fact, Baker and Buchwald are founding members of the American Academy of Humor Columnists, a nonpartisan, nonprofit and otherwise nonexistent organization that hands out awards to each member and encourages the exchange of funny memos. "If we put as much effort into our columns as we have into our correspondence, we'd all be millionaires," says Erma Bombeck, 52, whose madcap suburban comedies are syndicated to 800 newspapers, and who may be a millionaire anyway...
Nachman last month left the News to compile a book of his humor, but he will not have to worry about the academy's replacing him. "We're sort of like the oil companies," explains Buchwald...