"Dave Barry is the funniest man in America." - New York Times, me, most anyone else who's read his books.
Born in 1947, Dave Barry grew up in Armonk, New York. He attended Pleasantville High School, and graduated in 1965, being voted the class clown.
He then moved on to attend Haverford College. While there, he learned a lot of useless information such as the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. His advice to young students is to "be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers." So, keeping with his own advice, he majored in English, graduating in 1969.
After getting that degree thingie, he moved on to West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a reporter for The Daily Local News, covering very boring stuff that goes on in a very boring town.
It was around this time that he married his first wife, Beth. He got a job in 1975 with Burger Associates, a consulting firm that attempts to teach writing skills to businessmen. Yeah, right. Like Dave knows anything about writing.
His son Robbie was born in 1980.
In 1983, they packed up and headed for Miami. Dave found himself writing a column for the Miami Herald. It was funny. It made people laugh. It features a lot more exploding whales, toilets, and flaming toasters than the average newspaper column.
Since then, the column became syndicated, and now appears in over 500 newspapers worldwide. If no paper near where you lives carries the column, it can also be found on-line at: www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry
In 1988 Dave won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. According to pulitzer.org, it was awarded "For his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns." Personally, I think they just all got real drunk before they picked the winner.
Throughout this, Dave had been writing books as well as his columns. They're really funny, and he sold a lot of them. I only have four of them myself. There's a big list of all of them at the bottom.
In 1993, CBS started a show based quite loosely on Dave's life, and two of his books, "Dave Barry Turns 40" and "Dave Barry's Greatest Hits." It starred Harry Anderson as Dave, and DeLane Matthews as Beth. However, sometime after the show started, Dave and Beth got divorced. The show was cancelled in 1997. It wasn't nearly as funny as his articles or books, probably because it had to stick to the constraints of family television.
Dave married Michelle Kaufman, one of the Miami Herald's sportswriters, in 1996. In 2000, the two of them had a daughter, Sophie. Dave wrote some funny articles about her, as he had done with Robbie before her.
Dave is the lead vocalist and guitarist for a rock band, "The Rock Bottom Remainders." The other members of the all writer band are Stephen King (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ridley Pearson (bass guitar), Amy Tan (vocals), Barbara Kingsolver (keyboards), Robert Fulghum (backup vocals), Roy Blount Jr. (backup vocals), Dave Marsh (backup vocals), Tad Bartimus (backup vocals), and Kathi Goldmark (backup vocals). First formed at a writer's convention in 1991, they claim to "...play music as well as Metallica writes novels." Somehow I doubt they're even that good.
This is the list of Dave's books. Go buy them. Anyone this funny should be encouraged.
Dave's Books: Reverse Chronological Order:
Sources:
http://home.earthlink.net/~mesteele/dbarry/
http://www.educause.edu/conference/e2000/speakers.html
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