Posted on 03/11/2006 10:06:30 AM PST by SmithL
FOR DAVE BARRY, proof of a higher being came in the form of an exploding whale captured on tape.
It's a story that just never gets old. Sitting in the lobby of Walnut Creek's Renaissance Club Sport on Tuesday, Barry starts laughing. His feet come up off the ground, and his body clenches like he's doing crunches. Well, it is an athletic club.
Someone just told him the whale story circulated through their wedding reception eight years ago, making guests laugh so hard at least one threatened to get sick. That's funny enough, without remembering the actual story.
In a nutshell, some folks in Oregon tried to dispose of a beached whale in 1970 by using dynamite. No one predicted the screaming chaos when large chunks of whale rained down, some of which crushed cars.
Of course, Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, made the story famous years ago by relaying it in his column. And it just never gets old.
"I still have that video at home," says Barry, a couple of hours before taking the stage at the nearby Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts. "It remains to me the single funniest thing that's ever happened. That there was someone there with a camera is proof that there is a God."
When the conversation starts shifting, Barry still wants to talk exploding whale.
"I still love that video more than anything," he says. "I still watch it. The moment they go from pure joy to remembering gravity, is just amazing."
The same qualities that make Barry, arguably the most beloved humor writer in America, is also what makes him so easy to sit down and chat with for a half-hour. He loves telling stories and always has a quip. He's easy-going, articulate and never once makes anyone around him feel like he's anything but an ordinary guy.
Which is probably why he went for years not knowing where his 1988 Pulitzer Prize was.
"I lost it for a while," he says, laughing. "My wife got so tired of not knowing where it was, she conducted a search. I think it was in a box somewhere."
Barry, 58, is officially on hiatus from writing the humor column that earned him the semi-missing Pulitzer. He released "Dave Barry's Money Secrets" in January, and is working on a follow-up to last year's fictional Peter Pan prequel "Peter and the Starcatchers."
He's also working on a deal for his first screenplay and doing a lecture tour, which is more like stand-up and is why he's in Walnut Creek. "I get up and talk," he says. "There will be an audience ... I hope. If not, it'll just be easier.
"I'm never going to start writing my weekly column again," he says. "I'll still write for the Herald; I still write some occasional things. But I did it for 30 years. I just feel like I've done it. I still write a blog and have my office at the Herald."
His eyes widen when told the Times re-runs his columns on Sundays.
"They still run my column in your paper? Wow. Like Classic Dave Barry? Man, I feel like I should be dead or something."
At this point, a polite young female hotel employee comes over to tell the photographer he needs permission to take pictures. Barry asks if "we must now destroy the camera?"
"People are funny about photographs," he says. "I was on a book tour once and a photographer wanted to take a picture on the Santa Monica Pier. Some guy starts running at us yelling we can't do that. You would've thought I had a bomb strapped to me."
The proper manager shows up, confirming no one is taking pictures of members. "So the locker room is out, then?" Barry asks him, straight-faced.
Technically, he's still a newspaper reporter, though he pretty much writes his own ticket. He still plans on doing columns at special events, like the Olympics. Which brings up the question: Are his editors afraid of a guy, who can find humor in a houseplant, tackling controversy or tragedy?
"Sometimes they would say 'Dave, please don't go to this.' I remember being there during Super Bowl week, when the 49ers played the Bengals the last time. At the beginning of the week there was a riot. They said, 'Please don't write anything tomorrow.'"
The dilemma worsened after Sept. 11. "I remember sitting around thinking, 'What am I going to do with my life? My career is over.' Then I wrote a serious column and all the mail was the same. 'Thank you for that, but go back to being funny.' This is America, and people don't quit laughing."
His latest book, "Dave Barry's Money Secrets," seems funny for a journalist to write, he says. "Considering journalists don't make any money. Yeah, it doesn't make sense." He says it's more of a commentary on corporate America. "Every person I know who works in corporate America is convinced their managers are the dumbest people in the business, that they're morons. In newspapers, they hire consultants, lose circulation, then spend more money on consultants, only to lose more circulation. It's hilarious."
Which doesn't seem to be his problem anymore, as he's writing another Peter Pan book.
"That was one of the reasons I stopped writing the column," he says. "There were other kinds of writing. I've never really written a book my kids could read. Disney published the book and it did very well, and we had so much fun promoting it, talking to kids, and kids dressing up as pirates and stuff."
As a writer who may or may not always portray exact, analytical truth in his work, Barry feels for James Frey, the recently disgraced author of best-sellers "A Million Little Pieces" and "My Friend Leonard."
"All of a sudden you can't make stuff up," he says, mock-shaking his head. "The sad thing about the book business is they don't care. They'll publish a book about people abducted by aliens and call it true. They don't care."
No one can accuse Barry of making up exploding whales. He has the tape to prove it.
Anyone know where to find the exploding whale video on the net?
altavista.com?
or, if you are too lazy to look it up yourselve,
http://www.ashtonusa.com/video.htm
Dave Barry, Libertarian:
http://reason.com/barry.shtml
Dave Barry pong
If I interviewed Dave Barry, I wouldn't waste half the article on his politics.
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