I love his long features, and his book titled One Day is fantastic. I hope he writes more like this. But I agree that his column has become increasingly stale and unfunny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh. I used to really enjoy his columns, about 20 years ago.

I also used to tune in to his weekly chats online.

He got progressively less funny, But it may have been a maturing a little bit and me also recognizing that he’s just a skeevy old man.

I like the calm about Joshua Bell playing the violin in the metro. But again, that’s an old column.

Basically, it was time. Heck, it’s probably way past time.

Same

Third! Man, I used to be a HUGE fan of his. Loved his chats, loved the Post Hunt, loved his vibe with Dave Barry, loved his take on the existentialism of humor.

By it's all gone downhill, and Padma Lakshmi nailed the issue: "My issue is not his performative contrarianism (though it is tedious) or that the Indian cuisines he has tasted did not please him — but that his writing, besides being racist and lazy, is simply not funny."

That "performative contrarianism (though it is tedious)" is simply genius. Old white man performative contrarianism = tedious and unfunny.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is capable of great writing (Fatal Distraction also won a pulitzer and still breaks me even having read it multiple times) but I'm more than happy to see his attempts to be funny go away.

+1 to all of this. Fatal Distraction is stunningly painful every time I read it. He’s a much better feature writer than a humorist, IMO.

Yup.

His fans on Twitter are wringing their hands and rending their garments, fretting that he might have been forced out over his shitty column about Indian food, but I assume the shittiness of all his recent columns indicates that this was a long-planned departure

Good riddance to that tiresome dinosaur.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is capable of great writing (Fatal Distraction also won a pulitzer and still breaks me even having read it multiple times) but I'm more than happy to see his attempts to be funny go away.

+1 to all of this. Fatal Distraction is stunningly painful every time I read it. He’s a much better feature writer than a humorist, IMO.

I found some of his humor columns pretty good. But yeah, like 15-20 years ago.

There's nothing wrong with retiring. Maybe the septua and octogenarians running our country could take a hint.

Maybe we should stop electing them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is capable of great writing (Fatal Distraction also won a pulitzer and still breaks me even having read it multiple times) but I'm more than happy to see his attempts to be funny go away.

+1 to all of this. Fatal Distraction is stunningly painful every time I read it. He’s a much better feature writer than a humorist, IMO.

I found some of his humor columns pretty good. But yeah, like 15-20 years ago.

There's nothing wrong with retiring. Maybe the septua and octogenarians running our country could take a hint.

Anonymous wrote:He is capable of great writing (Fatal Distraction also won a pulitzer and still breaks me even having read it multiple times) but I'm more than happy to see his attempts to be funny go away.

+1 to all of this. Fatal Distraction is stunningly painful every time I read it. He’s a much better feature writer than a humorist, IMO.

He took a buyout from the Post many years ago and then was just writing a guest column. Or so I understood.

He is capable of great writing (Fatal Distraction also won a pulitzer and still breaks me even having read it multiple times) but I'm more than happy to see his attempts to be funny go away.

Anonymous wrote:Huh. I used to really enjoy his columns, about 20 years ago.

I also used to tune in to his weekly chats online.

He got progressively less funny, But it may have been a maturing a little bit and me also recognizing that he’s just a skeevy old man.

I like the calm about Joshua Bell playing the violin in the metro. But again, that’s an old column.

Basically, it was time. Heck, it’s probably way past time.

The Joshua Bell piece was a feature story, not one of his humor columns. He said he is ending the column to focus on writing feature stories for the Post from now on.

For those who haven't read that story, it is available here:

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/gene-weingarten

Anonymous wrote:Huh. I used to really enjoy his columns, about 20 years ago.

I also used to tune in to his weekly chats online.

He got progressively less funny, But it may have been a maturing a little bit and me also recognizing that he’s just a skeevy old man.

I like the calm about Joshua Bell playing the violin in the metro. But again, that’s an old column.

Basically, it was time. Heck, it’s probably way past time.

Same

Not retiring, just retiring the column. He tweeted about it.

I mean, yeah. It was time. Maybe the Indian thing was the nudge, I don't know. I think he's a great feature writer but his schtick really had gotten old a while ago.

He'll probably marry the young girlfriend, have a second family, and be the stay at home parent/grandpa figure. Then we'll get some memoir in 10 years about being an old man with young children.

Huh. I used to really enjoy his columns, about 20 years ago.

I also used to tune in to his weekly chats online.

He got progressively less funny, But it may have been a maturing a little bit and me also recognizing that he’s just a skeevy old man.

I like the calm about Joshua Bell playing the violin in the metro. But again, that’s an old column.

Basically, it was time. Heck, it’s probably way past time.

Just clicked on his column and he's retiring?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/gene-weingarten-i-wont-humor-you-anymore/2021/09/21/8c6e2ce6-0bf8-11ec-aea1-42a8138f132a_story.html

Kind of suspiciously close to his horrible Indian column. But he's also close to or 70 so maybe it's planned retirement? I used to be such a fan - and I still respect the hell out of his serious writing - but I pulled up the old thread about his then-new girlfriend and was said he turned out to be a creepy old man.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/809275.page

I still wonder what happened with The Rib. Anyone ever reveal the true story?