Notes from the Academy

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 the rest of the spring counting my prize money."

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."

In 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.

The academy has two other working members.* One is the San Francisco Chronicle's Art Hoppe, 54, who tucks away moral lessons in his whimsical scenes, events and characters--like the Harvard-educated gorilla who chucks his campaign for the presidency to run for Johnny Carson's job, and the Ratt of Phynkia, who declares peace on the neighboring Republic of Mbonga to win U.S. foreign aid, then calls it off when he learns he would have to take the aid in weapons. "Writing a column beats honest work," says Hoppe. "It leaves the mornings free for other projects, such as writing rare books. In my case, the books are extremely rare."

The other member is Gerald Nachman, 41, a former feature writer for the New York News, who began a humor column for the paper in 1973. Since then he has proposed establishment of a home for wed mothers and called for an Anti-Turkey Roll League to slow the advance of that luncheon meat. Like Baker, Nachman has begun to avoid politics. "It doesn't touch people's lives like dealing with the phone company does," he explains. "In the real world, people go for weeks without thinking of Jimmy Carter. As a humor columnist, I wish there were a new President every six months."

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.

"We keep the rates up and productivity down. There's an agreement in the academy that if any new young humor writer writes us and sends along some of his material--no matter how good it is--we write him back and say, 'You don't have it, kid. Go into advertising.' " Still, there are a number of rising and risible newspaper humorists out there clamoring for attention. Among them:

> Robert Yoakum of Lakeville, Conn., who writes one of the nation's few self-syndicated columns of any kind (he sends it directly to his 80 clients, thereby avoiding a syndicate's customary fee of 50%) and has so far been unsuccessful in his quest for academy membership. Yoakum, 57, in one column described how the Indians tried to reclaim Manhattan from Mayor Beame, who was only too eager to give it back, and in another, after wincing at the mistakes in a lately deceased friend's obituary, imagined how his own would be botched: "LAKEVILLE, CONN.--Robert Yoakum, syndicated columnist and ... first ad obit Yoakum here today at the age of two or three days in the refrigerator before stuffing the bird. It's a 'surefire' recipe for holiday pleasure."

> Lewis Grizzard, 32, sports editor of the Chicago Sun-Times before he began his column at the Atlanta Constitution two years ago. Since then Grizzard has written lightly about such matters as tennis etiquette ("Never wear hats advertising farm or earth-moving equipment or T shirts that say 'Let's boogie' "), advice to riders of subways ("Swallow your wallet before entering the train"), and his town's present appearance ("Atlanta looks like what Sherman would have left if he had been carrying bulldozers and jack-hammers"). Grizzard will begin syndication to half a dozen or so papers in July.

> Diane White, 35, of the Boston Globe, who can count Baker among her fans. White has been writing a column of gentle, occasionally self-mocking humor since 1974.

She has, for instance, written a column of too familiar TV listings ("5:00, Ch. 3: Enough is Enough/Audrey falls for a swinging swimming pool cleaner and the twins disapprove"), rationalized rape ("Men who dress provocatively are asking for it"), and once dared to dismiss Barry Manilow as "the Mitch Miller of the '70s." Recalls White: "It's been a couple of years since so many nasty letters ended up on my desk. The last time it happened was shortly after I suggested that Queen Elizabeth be named the Best Dressed Woman of 1952. That was in 1976."

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