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Dave Barry

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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, and at Haverford College, where he played in Federal Duck (a student rock band) and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English 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 even though, as he declared in a 2001 interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he had decided he "was an atheist early on."

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." 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 his students to stop writing things like `Enclosed please find the enclosed enclosures,' but... eventually realized that it was hopeless." 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."

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. 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 alum 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 terrorist attack because the story involved smuggling a nuclear weapon onto an airplane.

His Complete Guide To Guys was also made into a film, in 2005; it premiered at several film festivals, to mediocre notices, and is available on DVD, though a theatrical release seems unlikely.

Barry and his first wife, Beth, had one child, Robert, in 1980. The Barrys divorced in the mid-1990s. 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 Michelle were, however, widely thought to have been dramatized in an epilogue to his novel Dave Barry in Cyberspace, but with names changed: Barry is cast as 'RayAdverb' (an anagram of 'Dave Barry'), and Michelle is represented as 'MsPtato'.

Barry once picked up his son Rob from Junior High School while driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

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. One of his columns was used (without his permission or objections, or possibly even his knowledge) as the introduction to the book Pirattitude!: So You Wanna Be a Pirate? Here's How! (ISBN 0451216490).

When distinguishing fact from hyperbole, Barry frequently asserts: "I swear 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, and amusing government studies. Barry also has libertarian political leanings. He labels various posts on his blog with long abbreviations, such as OIYDWYMTTY(NY)G ("or if you don't want your mother to think you're (not your) gay") and WBAGNFARB ("would be a great name for a rock band", an observation Barry often applies to phrases that pop up in his writing, such as "Italic Squirrels"), no doubt poking fun at unnecessarily long internet abbreviations. Barry's website contains a fairly sizeable list of phrases that "would be a great name for a rock band".

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."

Barry helps organize 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. On December 28, 2005, Barry said in an interview with Editor and Publisher that he will not be resuming his weekly column, though he will continue some features such as his yearly gift guide, year in review, his weblog, as well as an occasional article.

Trivia

  • Many Dave Barry quotations occur in the fortune cookie collections of Linux distributions.
  • Dave Barry has a sewage pump substation named after him in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Works

Films

Fiction

Non-fiction

Collected columns

Collaborations

Audio recordings

  • A Totally Random Evening With Dave Barry (1992)
Wikiquote has quotations related to Dave Barry.
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