I Wanna Be Dave Barry

I Wanna Be Dave Barry

I wanna be Dave Barry.

I mean, what kind of life is that? You're published in a major metropolitan newspaper, your weekly submission is syndicated and published all over the world, and half the time, you get to use the words "booger" and "Nixon" in the same article!

You get to write all kinds of fluff, including re-hashes of strange things that go on around the world (which you preface with "I am not making this up..."), and physical limitations of normal human beings, such as death!

You write about your dogs, your children, and even the state you live in. As for Florida, you promote it or make fun of it, but either way, your readers will be laughing their @$$es off!

Heck, I make one crack about the Detroit Tigers and twelve guys come over to my house and burn an Atlanta Braves jersey on my front lawn!

You have the most interesting friends. You go kayaking with friends in Idaho. I work at home, so the most "friendly" relationships I have are with the mailman, the UPS guy, and the guy from the county that comes and sprays for mosquitoes....

You get to write about how funny the Japanese are in their home land, I make a glib remark at The Motley Fool discussion message boards about a red-headed Asian and I'm banned for a week.

Must be nice to be Dave Barry and get away with this stuff....

At first I started off reading old Field and Stream magazines, sitting by my Dad's chair, piled on top of his Playboy's, but I read them anyway, and got my introduction to humor writing via Patrick McManus ("They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?"). Ah...to tell a simple story about a simple hunting/fishing trip and have it become the funniest thing I've ever read while in junior high school. Boy I wish I could be as funny as him. Alas, Dad got too cheap and stopped subscribing to Field and Stream (but he didn't quit the Playboys...).

Years passed, I got into other things. I started to notice a few people writing funny things...and they were in the newspaper! As a kid, I always thought newspapers had only serious crap, except for the comics, so humor columns started getting my attention. Irma Bombeck? Dave Barry? Who are these weirdos?

I got my first job, I got married, then we got our first HOME PC. I had been working on PC's since they came out, but I never owned one until 1988. After I got bored playing games, I discovered the "online" world. No, not the Internet, but the local Bulletin Board Systems (BBS's) and Compuserve. I eventually got "connected" all around and started to locate friends and relatives and I'd send them outright ripoff's of David Letterman's Top Ten Lists. I'd combined them with the local news and/or what's happening around the Duck house and the misadventures of yours truly, usually involving beer and motorcycles (not usually in that order, though).

I would keep posting them to more and more friends. Quite a few times, I would get a comment here and there, "Hey, ya oughta do this for a living!" or "Hey, maybe ya oughta send this in to 'Readers Digest' or 'to the local paper'..." or some place where I'd get more of the public's attention (short of jail, of course).

When I joined the Motley Fool, I would first start talking about some of the REAL adventures in the Duck household, and many folks would find it funny. Later, I would write up new stories, based on real things that have happened, but I'd "embellish" them. (Or in other words, make up sh*t just to make the story funny...) Still, more folks gave me some encouragement (or at least the death threats started started to diminish...).

Well, okay, I have a website. I copied over some of my good stories and I'm trying to put in NEW original stories.

Why?

I dunno.

I think I crave attention.
I think I am fairly funny (at least before the first 3 beers kick in as I write).
I think I'd like to do this and make it a living, but don't know how.

Then I see Dave Barry. Mr. Barry. The Dave. The King of Weekly Written Wonderment. Gee. Must be nice. Must have a decent income. He's got several books out and must be getting some residuals or something like that.

But he's famous. Gee. I'd like to write something funny AND be famous.

So I'm hoping for at least one out of two.

At the moment, the only thing that comes to mind is that my mother-in-law’s dog, Sh*thead, has come to stay with us for a couple weeks and has just trashed my guest bathroom. (How do you get DOG POOP 5 FEET UP THE DOOR?!?!?)

But I can always dream.

And someday somebody will pay me for using the words "badger poop" and "John Ashcroft" in the same article.