DAVE BARRY

'David Barry, Jr.' (born July 3, 1947) is a bestselling American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist who wrote a nationally syndicated column for the ''The Miami Herald'' from 1983 to 2005.

Biography

Barry was born in Armonk, New York, where his father, David Barry, Sr., was a Presbyterian minister. He was educated at Pleasantville High School where he was elected class clown in 1965. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Haverford College in 1969.
As the son of a minister and an alumnus of a Quaker-affiliated college, Barry avoided military service during the Vietnam War by registering as a religious conscientious objector.
Barry married his second wife Beth in 1976 and they had one child, Robert, in 1980. The Barrys divorced in 1993. In 1996, Barry married ''Miami Herald'' sportswriter Michelle Kaufman; they had a daughter, Sophie, in 2000. All are mentioned regularly in Barry's columns, though his divorce was notably not discussed. Barry's initial meeting and courtship with Kaufman were, however, widely thought to have been dramatized in an epilogue to his book ''Dave Barry in Cyberspace'', but with names changed: Barry is cast as 'RayAdverb' (an anagram of 'Dave Barry'), and Kaufman is represented as 'MsPtato'.

Journalism career

His journalism career began as a reporter with the ''Daily Local News'', in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he "covered a series of incredibly dull municipal meetings, some of which are still going on."^[1]
In 1975, Barry joined Burger Associates, a consulting firm. He taught effective writing to business people. In his own words, he "spent nearly eight years trying to get various businesspersons to ... stop writing things like 'Enclosed please find the enclosed enclosures,' but ... eventually realized that it was hopeless."¹ In 1983, Barry was hired by Gene Weingarten as a humor columnist for the ''Miami Herald''. Barry won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988, "for his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns."^[2]
For a 1992 American Booksellers Association convention, several authors including Barry formed a band for charity: The Rock Bottom Remainders ("remainder" is a publishing term for a book that doesn't sell). The members of the band, which has at various times included Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson, Mitch Albom, Kathi Goldmark, Roy Blount Jr., Barbara Kingsolver and Matt Groening, "are not musically skilled, but they are extremely loud," according to Barry. Several high-profile musicians including Al Kooper, Warren Zevon and Roger McGuinn have performed with the band, and Bruce Springsteen sat in at least once. The band's road tour resulted in the book ''Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude'', which is now out of print.
CBS broadcast the situation comedy ''Dave's World'' for four seasons, from 1993 to 1997, based on the books ''Dave Barry Turns 40'' and ''Dave Barry's Greatest Hits'', starring Harry Anderson as Barry, and DeLane Matthews as his wife, Beth. In an early episode, Barry was cast in a cameo role. The program was canceled shortly after being moved from Monday to the Friday night death slot.
Barry's first novel, ''Big Trouble'', was made into a motion picture; directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, it starred Tim Allen, Rene Russo and ''Dave's World'' alumnus Patrick Warburton, with a cameo by Barry. The movie was originally due for release in late 2001, but was postponed shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks because the story involved smuggling a nuclear weapon onto an airplane.
Articles written by Barry have appeared in publications such as ''Boating'', ''Home Office Computing'' and ''Reader's Digest'', in addition to the ''Chicken Soup for the Soul'' inspirational book series. Two of his articles have been included in the ''Best American Sportswriting'' series. One of his columns was used as the introduction to the book ''Pirattitude!: So You Wanna Be a Pirate? Here's How!'' (ISBN 0-451-21649-0), a follow-up of Barry's hand in creating International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Barry helps organize the Herald Hunt, formerly the Tropic Hunt, an annual puzzlehunt in Miami.
On October 20, 2004, Dave Barry announced that he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence of at least a year from his weekly humor column with the ''Herald'' in order to spend more time with his family. He said that he would continue writing humor and children's books and working on filming the screen adaptation of his book, ''Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys'', which was released in 2005; it premiered at several film festivals, to mediocre reviews, and is available on DVD, though a theatrical release seems unlikely. On December 28, 2005, Barry said in an interview with ''Editor and Publisher'' that he will not be resuming his weekly column, though he would continue some features such as his yearly gift guide, year in review, his weblog, as well as an occasional article or column.

Style

Barry has defined a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge."^[3]
When distinguishing fact from hyperbole, Barry frequently asserts: "I am not making this up". Among his favorite topics are exploding or flaming items (cows, whales, vacuum cleaners, toilets, Pop-Tarts, Barbie dolls, etc.), dogs lacking intelligence, live blogging the television series 24 and amusing government studies. He recently led the charge to save the Wikipedia exploding cow page, but other members of the Wikipedia community had that entry deleted. Barry also has libertarian political leanings.^[4] He labels various posts on his blog with long abbreviations, such as OIYDWYMTTY(NY)G ("or if you don't want your mom to think you're (not your) gay") and WBAGNFARB ("would be a good name for a rock band"), no doubt poking fun at unnecessarily long internet abbreviations.
The phrase "would be a good name for a rock band" is an observation Barry often applies to phrases that pop up in his writing, such as "The Moos of Derision,"^[5] "Decomposing Tubers,"^[6] and "Hearty Polyp Chuckles."^[7] In keeping with this, Barry's website contains a fairly sizeable list of phrases that would be a good name for a rock band.^[8]
In his humor books, Barry often cites a humorous phrase or image, which he then mercilessly repeats throughout. Notable examples include the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in and giant prehistoric zucchini in ''Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway''. He continues to reference these things, occasionally with fake subtlety (e.g., "The H
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Trivia

★ Dave Barry marched as a Lawn Ranger in the 1995 Broom Corn Festival Parade in Arcola, IL, and has also written about them in his column.

★ Since at least 1986, Dave Barry quotations have been included in many of the Unix fortune collections.

★ Dave Barry has a sewage pump substation named after him in Grand Forks, North Dakota. This event is documented in his book ''Boogers Are My Beat''.

★ There is a reference to Barry in the first level of the computer game ''Deus Ex''. There the player can find and read a newspaper with a Barry-like editorial by a fictional columnist named “Dave Warry”.

★ In an episode of ''The Simpsons'', Marge Simpson, stuck in traffic, refuses to change lanes, saying that “once I move to the other lane, this one will start moving. Erma Bombeck says so and Dave Barry agrees.” He is also mentioned near the end of the episode "Natural Born Kissers."

★ In an episode of ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'', a man is seen running through the rain with a newspaper over his head as a makeshift umbrella. Crow T. Robot observes “He's going to get Dave Barry all over his head”.

★ At the suggestion of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Barry once wrote a column on the anti-flatulence product Beano.^[9] Despite the high-profile inspiration, several newspapers refused to carry the column on the grounds that it was "tasteless and offensive". He later wrote an article on circumcision objectors in mock retaliation.

★ In 1996, Barry played the title role in the Eugene Opera Company's performance of the Pucinni opera "Gianni Schicchi" - the title character is a corpse and makes only a brief appearance in the opening scene.

★ Barry once picked up his son Rob from junior high school while driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.^[10]

★ On the TV Series ''The Office'' in Season 2, Episode 1 ''The Dundies'', the women of the office are laughing about something written on the bathroom wall. Dwight asks the question "Who wrote it? Dave Barry?"

Works

Films

★ ''Big Trouble'' (2002)

★ ''Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys'' (2005)

Fiction

★ ''Big Trouble'' (1999)

★ ''Tricky Business'' (2002)

★ ''Peter and the Starcatchers'' (2004, with Ridley Pearson)

★ ''Peter and the Shadow Thieves'' (2006, with Ridley Pearson) ISBN 0-7868-3787-X

★ ''Escape From the Carnivale'' (2006, with Ridley Pearson) ISBN 078683789-6

★ ''The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog'' (2006)

Non-fiction

Collected columns

★ '' (1987)

★ ''Dave Barry's Greatest Hits'' (1988)

★ ''Dave Barry Talks Back'' (1991)

★ ''The World According to Dave Barry'' (1994) includes ''Dave Barry Talks Back'' and ''Dave Barry's Greatest Hits''

★ ''Dave Barry is NOT Making This Up'' (1995)

★ ''Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus'' (1997)

★ ''Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down'' (2000)

★ ''Dave Barry: Boogers Are My Beat'' (2003)

Collaborations

★ ''Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America With Three Chords and an Attitude'' (1994) with Stephen King, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Al Kooper, Ridley Pearson, Roy Blount, Jr., Joel Selvin, Amy Tan, Dave Marsh, Tad Bartimus, Matt Groening, Greil Marcus, Tabitha King, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Dorris

★ ''Naked Came the Manatee'' (1998) with Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, James W. Hall, Edna Buchanan, Les Standiford, Paul Levine, Brian Antoni, Tananarive Due, John Dufresne, Vicki Hendricks, Carolina Hospital, Evelyn Mayerson

Audio recordings

★ ''A Totally Random Evening With Dave Barry'' (1992)

External links

★ The Official Dave Barry Website

★ The Official Dave Barry Blog

★ Dave Barry, The Miami Herald

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★ Complete Guide to Guys official website

★ Rock Bottom Remainders, "Don't Quit Your Day Job" Records

★ "The Last Laugh" (Final column)

★ Dave Barry quotes

★ See also Usenet Group alt.fan.dave_barry

Notes

1. 1999 Dave Barry Biography
2. Pulitzer Prize Winners: Commentary
3. An elegy for Dave Barry
4. All I Think Is That It's Stupid: Dave Barry on laughing at Very Big Government
5. Pouch Potatoes
6. Keeping an eye on crime
7. A sun, surf and sand castle safari
8. A GOOD NAME FOR A ROCK BAND?
9. “Quietly Putting a Product Called ‘Beano’ to the Supreme Test”, Dave Barry, appearing at or around 22 September 1991.
10. Since We're Getting All Nostalgic About Life's Big Parent-Child Moments

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