Dave Barry
Appearances
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Just couldn't. And so I vividly remember the last time I saw her, she called me up and said she wanted to go to Connecticut and look at this community in Connecticut that some friends of hers had lived in. You know, so I said, OK, you know, your mom's your mom. So I fly up and meet her in Hartford, Connecticut, rent a car. We drive to this place and all the way there.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I'm like, she's telling me, you know, stuff about she misses dad. She misses. And I'm like, Mom, you gotta you gotta look ahead. You gotta you know, you still have friends. You have money because you sold the house. And, you know, we you know, and she's like sad and and And I'm like pushing her like, Mom, you got to do that. You got to do like I know what she's going through. Right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
So we finally we get to I think it was Essex, Connecticut or whatever. And immediately I can see, you know, that she doesn't want to be there. That's not really where she went. What she wants to be is like a couple of years ago earlier back in our work with my dad, which will never happen. You know, he's gone. But I'm like, Mom, you got to.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And so like the next morning we have this really tense breakfast in the motel. And I'm like, mom, you have to, you have to make a decision. This is ridiculous. You can't keep moving from, you know, the brother to brother. Just stay with us if you want, but you got to pick, you got to pick what you want to do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
You got to do, because I know now, you know, I'm 40 and I'm a successful columnist and you don't know what you're doing. Anyway. And I bought her a map. I'll never forgive myself for this. A map of the United States. Like, pick a place. I'll take you there. We'll figure it out. Okay. And so she hugs me goodbye, put her on the plane.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
She's going back out to one of my brothers in Sunnyvale, California, which she also hates, to try to figure out what she wants to do next. And then a couple weeks later, my brothers and I all got birthday cards from her. You know, happy birthday, I love you. And it wasn't our birthdays. But she's just, you know, telling us she loved us. And the next thing I know, I get a phone call.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It's from my brother. My mom's in the hospital. She's taking an overdose of Valium and vodka. And she's on life support and her brain is functioning. And can we do they have permission to unplug my mom? So. That, you know, the lesson, which is still, you know, stings me, is don't ever think you know what your parents are going through.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Or don't ever think you know what anybody's going through, especially don't think you know what an older person is going through at the end of life. And, you know, the last thing I did was borrow a fucking map, you know.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
just so i can't remember what question you asked me that but that was that was just um that was the the low point for me of of being her her son now since that time i've made you know i understood she wasn't blaming me and i'm i wasn't the cause of what why she committed suicide at all but i will i will forever blame me for not at least being a little more aware of of what was going on.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Right. And Michelle was like hectoring you to marry this woman immediately. And the woman was like all for it, I think. Whatever she was. She was very practical. Not as attractive as your current wife, but very attractive. Please stop doing this. But you resisted. I was impressed. I would have eventually just given up and said, okay, let's go get married right now here at the restaurant.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I never really have. I mean, if I'm being honest, I... You know, I can write right now. I mean, the guilt, I can just sum it up in a second. The only thing is, like, I knew her really well, knew my mom really well. And my mom was not a judgmental person. I mean, she judged herself hardly, harshly, but she never judged anybody else. And, you know. Somehow she would have seen humor in what I did.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I hadn't experienced anything like that. I still haven't. I don't know. Like I said, I have not really ever totally resolved in my mind my behavior toward my mom then, except I know she didn't judge me. that she would have never judged me for that. She would have viewed it as totally her own fault that she was lost, didn't know where she wanted to go.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
She wouldn't blame anybody but herself for that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
30 something, 31 years, 30, yeah. How long were your parents together? Oh, longer than that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah, well. Yeah, that's what love is. This is also something everybody with kids has the same issue. You're hostage now to this relationship that will never, ever go away. You can't erase it. And in the end, nobody gets out of here alive. So sooner or later, any love you have, any kind of love you have, is going to result in unimaginable pain to either you or the person you love.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
How did we get to this level of conversation?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I have not had this conversation with you before. Also, just so you know, my dog is dying, Dan.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
You and... I did tell Pat, and I will tell you right now what I told him, and you judge whether you think it's right. I pointed out to him, I've been watching sports a long time. I know he's a big deal. He's Pat Riley. I've been watching basketball a long time. The team that scores the most points wins the game every single time, Dan.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It was the nugget that he took away. No, Pat. I know he's listening.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, yeah, but I really didn't invent any of these things. But yeah, Sophie, she's an incredible gift. But we went through an experience. The worst thing that ever happened, this is what I was just talking about, hostage, when you're a kid, you become a hostage. The worst thing that ever happened to me involved Sophie, which was when she had just turned 18 and she was going to go to Duke.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
She'd been accepted to where she wanted to go. Two days before, on August 18th, 2018, she's getting ready to go to Duke and she wakes up and she, she can't move. Can't move her from her chest down. She cannot move. And like at first we're like, this is like, okay, some kind of nervous panic, you know, it's not like her, but maybe that's what it is. Pretty quickly think, no, it's something else.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And so we take her into the hospital and a neurologist, thank God diagnosed immediately what it was. And it's something called transverse myelitis. And so like our daughter's in there getting scanned in this way. She comes out, this neurologist, and sits down with me and Michelle and says, it's not good. That's the first thing she said.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
She said, I think this is, I'm pretty sure this is called transverse myelitis, and it's when your immune system attacks your spinal cord. And a third of the time, people recover completely, and a third of the time, they only partly recover, and a third of the time, they never recover at all, never walk again.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
This is what we're being told as our daughter is in the other room two days from going to Duke. And so just to get quickly through to the good part, she did recover. It took, you know.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
couple of months a lot an intense therapy and everything and she recovered and got got to duke a semester late they wanted to make her a year late but she said no i'm class of 2022 and i want to be she and she graduated with honors and and is now fine but we went through the like the absolute like most unimaginably horrible time I mean, no, that's not true.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
People have lost their children, which is obviously worse. But at the time, I could not imagine anything worse. I remember like the day, the next day, Michelle never left the hospital. She stayed in the hospital like 45 straight days with Sophie until Sophie was able to come home. The next day, I would go home every night to walk the dog and bring clothes in to Michelle and Sophie.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I remember the next morning, I'm driving to the hospital, the Baptist hospital, and drove by Sophie's elementary school, and there were Little kids were walking across the street, just where Sophie used to walk across the street. And I'm thinking, like, I'm thinking, my daughter's never going to walk again. This is it. And I had to pull off the road. I was just sobbing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And every night when I would leave the hospital, I would just proceed to get in the car and just cry for, like, half an hour. I'm crying now. And so... The result of it was that, first of all, I decided she was the most amazing human being on the face of the earth. She never complained. She never said, why me? She, to this day, never says, oh, I'm a victim of transverse myelitis.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
She has become a person who counsels other people who have trans, but you would never hear her bring it up, ever. I'm bringing it up because it changed everything. But the lesson of that was going right back to what you were talking about, the amount of love you feel.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
the feeling that the three of us had michelle sophie and me in that hospital room day after day where there's all these tubes in and out of her and doctors come in all the time and can she move yet it was like 11 days before she even moved a toe like during which we thought she's this is it when she and every day they'd come and say she moved nope nothing they'd come and say sophie can you feel anything nope nothing you know day after day of that when it finally finally came through
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
What we all three came away from and we Michelle and I talk about this like almost every day is that if you think that you have trouble in your life, you probably don't. You know, like the things that we go around worrying about and the things people get upset about. They don't matter. Did you get up this morning? Can you walk around? Are the people you love still around? Are they alive?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
That's all that matters. It doesn't matter if your roof is leaking and your car is messed up. It doesn't matter who got elected president of the United States, whether you like them or you don't like them. That does not matter. What really matters is the things absolutely closest to you, your kids, your loved ones. And are they OK? You know, are you OK with them? That's all that matters.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah. Well, thank you. That is a nice way of putting it. And you're right, I did get a lot of grief. Because when you write a humor column, or any kind of column, you wrote a column for years, people... think they know you, and they really don't know you, they know what you present to them. In my case, the wacky, funny, hilarious guy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
When you say it changed your life, is it because you now live yourself since that hospital room? Absolutely. Every single day when something bad happens that I think is something bad, I think about Sophie and lying there. And she couldn't move. And that's, you know, that looked like for a while, that looked like that was it. You know, she'll never get to Duke and she'll never walk again.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And thank you, you know, because there are people, plenty of people who didn't, who were in the same situation and didn't get out of it. So every single day that anything remotely bad happens to me, I think about that immediately goes to there. I go to there. you were not like that before that hospital experience.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Okay. Well, I'm not like, I was never like a, just like an idiot about, you know, anything that bothers me is the worst thing in the world. I mean, we all know people like that. And I was never that, but I was like, I was, I could get, be upset for days about pretty minor things before it takes off.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
an incredible amount to get me upset about anything for more than 10 minutes now because my mind goes right back to that. So that did change me. That changed me more than anything else that ever happened to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And I had written for years about my family, my son, and everything. And then when I got a divorce, and I won't go into why, but I mean, it was 110% my responsibility, my fault. I got a lot. I mean, people were really not happy with me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I'm going to just say it. She is the best. My other kid is two. I have a son, Robin. He's an incredible kid, too.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, I picked him up in the Wienermobile at school. So like that was. Yes, he got the celebrity journalist Dave Barry as the father. Well, he told me he was he was went back to his school for the reunion last last spring. And he and he said the thing that most people still remember was that I picked him up in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. So that was a gift.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And like not many fathers can give their children that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah. No, I'm a big believer in having kids later in life because of that. Yeah. Because you you get more you appreciate it more and you have more. I think you have more time for them. But you're less selfish. I think so. And you also usually have more resources. The other view of it is if you have your kids early, then you can start partying in your 50s. Right, you can get your life back.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
You can move to the villages and get a really cool golf cart and drive around drunk.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Everybody here is 19 years old. That's right. They don't even know what newspapers are, Dave. Yeah, I used to have this thing that would happen to me when I was, like, there's fame and then there's newspaper fame, which is kind of like, you know, somewhere below the local TV weather guy, you know? Not everybody's reading the news. But I used to, I'll never forget, like I said, Nordstrom, I think.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I'm in Nordstrom trying to buy socks, I think. And the salesman just turns out to be a huge fan of my column. He's like, oh, God, you're Dave Barry. Like, oh, man. And this random woman is standing nearby. And he's like, do you know who this is? And she goes, no. And he goes, Dave Barry. And she goes, clearly knows. No, OK. And he goes, well, Dave, tell her. I'm really hilarious.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Like, I can't think of anything funny right now. I'm trying to buy some socks. But anyway, that's kind of what it's like. No, no. But that is not the connection between you and the reader. I had a lot of I have wonderful relationship with my readers. I always did. I relied on my readers for a lot of source material.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
They would send me, you know, if something would happen like, OK, Miami being Miami. I don't know if you remember this. But I got a call from a reader once saying, I'm on the PeopleMover. For those of you who don't live in Miami, PeopleMover is this train that moves around downtown Miami. It moves people. And he goes, I'm on the PeopleMover, and there's a shark on the PeopleMover. I go, what?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
He goes, yeah, and it's not dead, Dave.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
So I'm on that story. I mean, I'm on that story right away. You're doing real journalism. That is what I'm born to do, man. That's my kind of journalism. And it turns out there was a shark on the... I don't know if you remember this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
What happened, just to understand. It didn't get on by itself, okay? Let's not give the shark that much credit. But these two homeless guys catch a shark in Biscayne Bay, like a nurse shark, like six feet long. And they decide this is a chance to make some money. They're going to sell it to a restaurant. Now, why they think a restaurant is going to want A shark, I don't know. A live shark.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
A live shark. So they don't have a car. They're two homeless guys. But they get on the PeopleMover, which I think was free at the time. And it's not designed for marine life. That's why we call it the PeopleMover. That's correct. But it was rush hour. And there were people on there with this thing. And they go over to the river where there's a bunch of restaurants on the river.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And nobody wants to buy their shark. Predictably. Yeah. Like, who knew? So then they leave it on the streets of Miami. And then the Herald, it was the front page of the Herald the next day. Because people would come to work the next day, and there's a shark in downtown Miami. That's right. At that point, it was dead. They don't go that long. That's right. I mean, they're hardy animals, Dan.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Right, but not that long. Overnight, no. Yes. But there was a quote from a shopkeeper. This is so Miami. It's like... Yeah, when I first saw it, I thought, oh, damn, it's a dead body. And it's always really relieved it was just a shark.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
They do. And they all think they know me. And they think that I'm just wild and wacky all the time, which I'm not. But... But yeah, to this day, if somebody will recognize me in Publix, I'm maybe in the supermarket aisle, and they'll try and decide which size granola to get. And they'll say, the people who recognize me will go, you going to write a column about this, Dave?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, no, I'm buying granola. But yeah, people do feel they know you. I'm sure it was the same with you when you wrote a comic. Of course, in your case, they thought they knew you and they hated you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
How would anybody get that impression? Yes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I will not argue with that. I really do think that for this period from like mid-70s through mid-2000s, I had the best job in American journalism. I had the most freedom, I was well compensated, I was in 500 newspapers, and I could do anything I wanted.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
If I read that there was gonna be a sommelier of the year competition at the Waldorf Astoria, I could just tell Gene Weingarten, Gene, I gotta go to New York and rent a tuxedo, and go to the Sommelier of the Year competition. And he would never even question.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It's still a lot of money. To take a picture of a garbage barge from the air.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Can you imagine what you would have to do today to get the Miami Herald to give you $8,000 to do anything? No, it's not possible. We didn't even ask. We didn't even ask, would it be okay for us to rent a helicopter to take a picture of garbage? We just said, we'll charge this. Do you guys take American Express?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
No, I remember when I asked you, because I remember I was hanging around, we were hanging around the Marlins spring training, and we're talking, and I remember asking you, you know, do you want to go to dinner? And you're like, oh, okay, now you're going to ask me inside information. And you're like, you were fine with that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And you're like, okay, I'm the young sports writer, and you're the star columnist, so you'll just pick my brain. No, that's not what it was. That wasn't the goal at all. The goal was just to go have a few drinks. I mean, speaking of tropic things that we could do, I don't know how you could do them now, but when the Miami Heat – became a franchise.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
The only other franchise in Florida was the Orlando Magic, and they were both brand new, as I recall. And we decided to start a rivalry. When I say we, Tropic Magazine, So we ran a cover story of me spinning a basketball on my middle finger. And I wrote this just absolute vicious attack on the city. On Orlando. On the city of Orlando.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah. Yeah. I thank you. That is true. We have a wonderful marriage. We still have a wonderful marriage. But it was like, that was a good test right from the start. Like, wow, so many people. Think I'm an idiot for this and hate me for this. I must really be in love with this person to do this Which you which turned out to be true. So yeah, thank you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But this is where it was like went beyond just like a regular newspaper thing and just into performance art. We rented a bus. And we we we ran a competition in the in the in Tropic for people to come up with anti Orlando slogans. We were determined to start a bitter rivalry because we figured there's only one other team we could beat in the NBA, which would be Orlando.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And so we we we get a bus like 40, 50 people get on the bus with the winners of the the He would written the most vicious anti Orlando cheers, rode up to Orlando on the bus, had to stop on the way to get more alcohol because we ran out on the way up. And we get there and and we they had Pat. Remember Pat?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
So we show up having written this vicious story, and the Orlando Sentinel columnist, Bob Morris, they printed it, and here they come with these Miami people. And Pat Williams had... cordoned off a section for us to sit, and they put crime scene tape around it, and then they put baking soda all around, which they claimed was cocaine.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
You're saying that was why the newspapers went right down the toilet. That's correct. You bankrupted newspapers with your expense account.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But it's not just here. It's everywhere. I mean, it's really sad what's happened to – newspapers. I always say it's really bad to be in an industry run by English majors, but that's kind of what happened to us. You know, like, well, the internet? What internet? You know, we didn't really catch that wave is what I'm saying. And we ended up being destroyed by it. But it's everywhere.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I mean, there's no local journalism left. You know, there's big papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But There's very few successful local papers. They're just all struggling. They're all out of money. There can't be a new Dave Barry, correct? No, I agree.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I'm glad I inspired you glad you got married Well, I want to talk to you more inviting me to your wedding was a star-studded affair. Sometimes we should talk about that I want to talk about I explained it Pat Riley how What I think he's doing right what I think he's doing wrong and he had to listen to me because we're at a wedding What are you gonna do? right
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I mean, I think there are a lot of funny people, but they're writing substacks and they're writing Twitter and they're writing for TV shows. But there's no, yeah, I was pretty much the end of that line. And I was lucky enough to get to know like Art Buchwald and Russell Baker and Irma Bombeck, the kind of generation I had in me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
when it was, you know, every newspaper wanted to have a humor columnist and there were a million local humor columnists. And I was one of the more successful of those.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Women's Olympic team. And I'm just going to say, this is going to sound like I'm blowing smoke up your ass, but you wrote a funnier column than I did about that. I don't believe that. But just so the listeners know what we're talking about, Dan and I were covering the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, the bomb Olympics. And I think it was my idea, but you agreed to go along.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
He was wrong. You wrote a really funny column. But we went to the Emory University pool and both almost drowned trying to stay up with, I don't know if it was the U.S. National. Yeah, I kicked a girl in the face. It was bad. I was not good. I was not graceful in the water. Somewhere is my favorite picture of all time of me. And it's you and me trying to keep all around us are these women.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
like ballerinas with their hands over their heads and there's you and I disappearing beneath the surface of the Emory University pool.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
No, when my mom committed suicide, I wrote about that. And when my son Rob was in a bike accident, I wrote about that. And people said very nice things sometimes about when I wrote serious things, like, why don't you write more serious? Because the only times I did it was some horrible thing happened that I had to get it out of me. I don't want more horrible things to happen to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I want to go back to writing booger jokes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Paid to write humor. Yeah. It was kind of not quite the same. I went to work when I got out of college for a little newspaper in Pennsylvania, Westchester, Pennsylvania, the Daily Local News. which was tiny, which is by which I mean to say it's about the same circulation as the Miami Herald is today. But but but they it was like you did everything there.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
You know, you wrote a lot of obituaries and covered meetings and police and fire and stuff like that. But you could write what they called it, an ad lib, an op ed little column if you wanted to. and like a 500 word thing. Most people would write about their cat or whatever. And I wrote what I thought was humor. Wrote a couple of those. So technically I guess I was getting paid to do that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
What I do remember is I wrote maybe three or four of them and then the editor said, you know, they used to be funnier. Which is actually something I've heard for the whole rest of my life. Whatever phase I am in my life, somebody will come up to me and say, you used to be funnier, Dave.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, when I was in high school, I wrote humor pieces for my high school newspaper, like one or two, because it only came out one or two times a year. And in college, I wrote what I thought were funny things. for the Haverford College newspaper.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Years later I went back for a reunion and somebody had gotten my columns from the newspaper when we were students and blown them up and put them all around the wall of the gym and I went around reading them and I didn't get any of the jokes. That's because I was smoking a tremendous amount of marijuana, I think, back then when I wrote these columns. They didn't hold up.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I didn't get any of the jokes. But then what I really started doing was at the Daily Local News, these ad libs when I would write every week. And when I left the paper, I kept writing them. So that's really how I always wanted to write humor. I just never thought you could make a living doing it. You know, I always thought I would have to do something else.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I know. I am honored. I often get confused for Carl. People will tell me how much they love my book, and it'll turn out that it's actually Carl's. Okay. Do you go with it? What do you do? I say, no, you're thinking of Carl Hiaasen. Then they always go, no, I love you too. But anyway, Carl's my very good friend, has been for many years.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And I'm honored to be in any way mentioned in the same sentence as Carl. He's brilliant. The guy's brilliant.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Oh, well... This is going to sound obvious and corny, but my parents, both my parents had issues, problems. My dad was an alcoholic. He recovered and became, he was a great guy always. He was always a man of the community, a helper of people. He was a Presbyterian minister who ran an inner city organization in New York City and was active in the civil rights movement back then.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I mean, I really don't want to retire. My wife is an active sports writer. I'm not going to sit around the house. Well, I am still sitting around the house, but I'm writing while I'm sitting around the house. I don't know. I just you know, writing is it's you don't have to retire from writing because it's not hard. I mean, well, it's not physically hard. So I like it. I like writing novels.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I like writing others. I mean, I just finished a memoir, which is very much like this interview. Like many of the things we've discussed, I talk about in this is this memoir. But I can't stop writing. I like to do it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
That's a really good question. Good question. And I don't have a really good answer. I'm doing it because I discussed it at length with my agent and my editor, two women who I really trust and respect. And they both said you should write a memoir. And my big concern was and this is not this is not false modesty. It's like who's going to care about my work? You know, who is going to care?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
What do you mean? I appreciate that. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I just like it goes back to what you're saying about my parents from the Midwest. You just don't toot your own horn. Right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But it was always like a humorous persona doing that. This is like pretty serious parts of it. I mean, part of – I talk at length about my humor career and the – The things my readers got me to do look like going to Orlando and that sort of thing. David, Dave, you have a thousand of those like, you know, where I was born and raised and how I went to school. I just still do this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I mean, the book hasn't come out yet, but I am worried about that. Well, they can edit out the boring stuff.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, I'll tell you, I mean, the, the one, okay, this, um, name dropping here, but Steve Martin is a friend of mine.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah. So I sent him the memoir to get a blurb cause that's what you do. And, um, And, you know, usually it's like pro forma. They write a blurb. Like Steve wrote one of my books by saying, I love it. I haven't read it, but I, you know, it's like, and he wasn't kidding. He hadn't read it, but, you know. He's written a few of those. He's been asked to write a few of those.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah, he knows about blurbs. So anyway, but in this case, he wrote me an email and said, I'm really liking this. Can I call you? And I go, yeah. And he called me up and said, I just want you to know I really like your memoir. And I'll tell you why I like it. Because you talk about how it works, how the humor works. And he said, and people really like to know stuff like that, like how.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
So that gave me a lot of hope. If he liked it, then maybe other people will like it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
So he was this good guy, good man. Everybody loved him. Dave Barry was like the guy you called when your kids were in trouble and that he wanted, you know, your marriage was, they called my dad and my dad would always be there for them. And then he, when I was in my late teens, early twenties, became an alcoholic. He would always had liked to drink and he became, it took over. And, um,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
That guy, he's amazing to me. He is a wildly successful entrepreneur. Still, he has a hit TV show now. He's older than I am. Not many people are older than I am. And he was by far the most successful stand-up comedian who ever lived. He was the first guy to ever do stadiums and stuff like that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
threw it away just nope it's an amazing story he decided he didn't want to do the most successful stand-up career any of us have ever seen he just stopped and he said i'm gonna make movies now successful at movies art collects art very successful writes books anyway so yeah he's an amazing guy and you're right he i mean i don't know him intimately you know we're friends well you've written for him haven't you i have you wrote for the oscars yeah for him right yeah
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
which was really interesting. I mean, that was a, um, I was terrified, you know, cause I hadn't met him at that point. He had, he and I had corresponded for years, but I'd never met him. And I was quite surprised when he asked me to come, this is in 2003 when he was hosting the Oscars and he asked me to, to come write jokes for him.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And I had never written jokes for anybody but me, you know, I sit in a room and my name goes on it and, And so I got out there, and we're in this hotel room, conference room, and every single person besides Steve Martin and all the other people with Steve were all professional joke writers. I mean, the guys who wrote for the, Bruce Valanche was one of them, and John Max, who was.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
This is what they do for a living. This is what they do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yes. Only one who didn't live in L.A.?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah, because he likes my writing. And so I... I thought that the way it worked was you had to have a, you know, everybody's going to be hilarious. And they are. They're very sharp, very funny people. But I thought it was like immediately you sit down, you say a joke, and everybody goes, wow, and writes it down. Not at all what happens.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I mean, there's a little of that at the beginning because people have some stuff prepared. But it very quickly devolves into what about could we do something with, you know, and it's this real vague idea. And then somebody else will go, okay, well, we could do it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And then, you know, or somebody will say something that's really stupid, but somebody will say, well, we could maybe, and then tweak it and tweak it and tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. It sounds tedious. It does, but it's not. It sounds miserable. No, it's, well, it's not as fun as I imagined. No, it's not fun. It's not fun. It's really work.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But then every now and again, somebody comes up with something. And then Steve Martin gets up and delivers his joke and you realize 10 people wrote that joke. You can't even really name how it started. Did you get many of them on yourself? I did, I did. I mean, once I got used to the idea that I didn't have to be genius, funny guy immediately, I could just try something.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Because in my world, if you try something and it's stupid, everybody's going to say, that's stupid. That's right. In the newspaper business. You get one shot at it. The editor will go, that sucks. What's wrong?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But out there, it's much more supportive. And they call it being good in the room. He's really good in the room. That's to say, you may never have heard of him, but he has a good sense of humor. He has a good memory.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
So he kind of bottomed out, got into AA, and spent the rest of his life, the last 20, 25 years of his life sober, and again, helping people more through AA than what he had done before. So that was my dad. My mom, this is going to sound like I have the world's worst, was a really, really wonderfully funny person who suffered from depression. And ultimately, after my dad died, committed suicide.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I ended up... on stage playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen. All my life, I wanted to be a musician. I was never any good at it. That's what I wanted to be. I always wanted to be a rock musician. I was in rock bands in college. I've been always very mediocre. Still now, Rock Bottom Remainders is with Mitch Albom and Stephen King. Stephen King's in our band.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Amy Tan, Scott Turow, a lot of good authors. Matt Groening. Matt Groening. Warren Zeeman used to play with us back in the day. Roger McGuinn of the Byrds still does play with us.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
To me, that is to me like that was like if you always wanted to play shortstop or something for the Yankees, which probably you did not. I did not. No, I didn't.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Whatever sport you wanted to be good at, if you'd been on a professional level of that sport, that's what this has been like for me to be in this. Horrible band. You've heard a kind of a mutant version of us. I think I've heard Hyacinth in that band too, right? Carl plays with us. It's ten great authors. You just cannot play music very well. Right. Not great musicians.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But because of who we are, we get to do it sometimes. So this one time in L.A., Bruce Springsteen got on stage with us. And I gave him my guitar. So to this day, I can say, this guitar, Bruce Springsteen played this guitar. And we only had one song left at that point, which is called Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A, Gloria. And I happened to sing that song. It's not a hard song to sing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And so there's this, I wish nobody filmed it. This is before iPhones. But when we do this song, I'm singing G-L-O-R-I-A, and in my ears, Bruce Springsteen going, Gloria. In other words, he sang back up. To me, Bruce Springsteen did. See, like that was...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I thought you were going to go up the scale. You didn't do it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
That was it, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's been all wonderful, but it's kind of like you. You get to know all these famous people now because of what you do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I always felt like you always were very ambitious right from the start. Like when you did that high school sports show where – Where you had me on is your I think your first guest.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But you didn't just I mean, as soon as you could move from. a fairly limited print audience to a much wider electronic audience. You made that move.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
She could not stand life without him. Boy, I don't know how we got here so fast to this tragic... It happens around here. There used to be tissues around here. We did get here awfully fast. But anyway, my point is, if you just looked at my upbringing and said, well, his dad was an alcoholic and his mom committed suicide, it must have been a horrible... But it wasn't. I had a great childhood.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
We were always second tier, third tier newspapers.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
No. And I don't know that people even today realize how lucky we all were. I mean, I guess those of us who were there know. But do you think Miami ever really appreciated the Miami Herald? No, most of the people didn't read the English that were reading the newspaper. They thought we were communists.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It was it was interesting. I mean, I like I had to go back and dig up all these old photos and letters and stuff like that. And I mean, trying to be accurate, trying to and write to people who are there and say, this is the way you remember this happening. Like, you know, when you you were the editor of my high school newspaper, do you remember that?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I wrote a column for you that, you know, like that kind of stuff.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It was. I enjoyed it. But there was always this feeling, like I was saying earlier, who's going to, besides me, is going to care about this stuff? Well, we'll find out, Dan, won't we?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, I have thought about it, and I think that... Based on the humorist that I loved when I was a kid, there was a guy named Robert Benchley I was obsessed with when I was a kid. My dad had all his books. He was a very popular humorist in the 20s, 30s, 40s. He wrote for the New Yorker and he was a brilliant, brilliant guy and silly. That's what I loved about him.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
He was a very silly humorist, but brilliant, really smart. And I patterned myself after him more than anybody else. Now, nobody but me knows who Robert Finchley is. But you're the one referenced in his place, though. I understand. But that's my point. It's exactly that. I think that, you know, and this is not, again, it is not false modesty. It's just the way the world works.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
What is funny to one generation is less and less funny because the references become vaguer and less familiar. And with humor, that's the case. So I think that my main legacy is going to be that I popularized, I didn't think of it, I didn't invent it, but I popularized international talk like a pirate day, which is observed every September 19th.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Because I wrote a column once because two guys said, hey, we should all talk like pirates on September 19th. I said, that's funny, I'll do that. And it's still going on. Chum Bucket. Yeah, that's very good. 50 years from now, they'll still be doing that, but I don't think they'll know who I was.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
They were wonderful. They were funny people. Everything I know about humor, I learned from them, especially from my mom, who was like this really dark person, but she'd use her humor. She was just funny. And they loved each other. I mean, they really, really loved each other. In fact, that was kind of why my mom didn't keep going after my dad died. But that was my template for love.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
This was a young and sweaty, very sweaty.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah, and this woman is going to throw the ball very hard.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Nice. Good. But you take a good cut. Thank God we're not showing my at-bat, which is mostly me backing away. Here we go. Watch this closely.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I do point out to the other team. There you go. You were not going to leave until you hit the ball.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
That's about enough. Can we just end it?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
No, no, no. I enjoyed it. And I knew you were going to do that anyway because you always do. I do. Love you, buddy. Love you too, man.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It isn't about when things are great. It isn't about just the initial attraction which everybody experiences. But the fact that through really rough times, the only thing that really in the end counted for each of them was the other one of them. So that's like a strong role. But then, like, isn't that most people's parents? No. OK, give me this look.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah, and I've heard that a lot through the years. When people find out my backstory, they go, well, he's the... the clown who's hiding his tears. But the truth is, I mean, the truth is I was happy. I was a happy kid. I never, like when things went wrong for my parents, I was kind of out of the house.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, look at what my job was. I was getting paid pretty good money for a newspaper person to just do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with whatever expense.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Again, I'll credit my parents. They're both from the Midwest, and they're Nobody in our family was ever allowed to brag. I mean, what we did in our family was we made fun of that. You're never too big to say thank you to whatever person is waiting on you in a store. You're never going to be more important than the people around you. That was a fundamental value in my family.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I would have felt stupid when I achieved success as a newspaper person if I pretended that I achieved it because I was some kind of superior human being instead of basically a guy who was good at making people laugh, which is – it's a nice skill, talent, whatever to have. But it isn't like – It's not curing cancer. I mean, you were as surprised to win the Pulitzer Prize as anyone. Whoa, yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I did not expect to win the Pulitzer Prize. That is not false modesty because it's distinguished commentary. Look up distinguished. It's not what I was writing. I was writing about people discovering snakes in their toilet.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
The trick of humor, it's like magic. When the guy pulls the coin out of your ear and it looks like he really pulled the coin out of your ear, you don't see that the guy spent 16 hours practicing that one particular movement with his finger. Writing humor is the same way. It's supposed to look like it was just coming out of you, but it doesn't just come out of you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
When you read somebody who thinks they're funny, And I've read a lot of people who think they're funny, but they're not really putting the time, they're putting the effort. It's really obvious with humor more than any other kind of writing. So yeah, I'm gonna agree with you that even though that's what I did, writing humor is hard. When did you realize that you were good at it?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
When did you stop having doubt? Well, I thought I was funny a lot sooner than the rest of the world did. Because you were a class clown, right? I was literally elected class clown at Pleasantville High School, class of 1965. And I'm... I'm darn proud of that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, I told you to get married, but that's because I'm married to a Cuban Jewish woman who couldn't stand, could not stand the idea that you were walking around not being married. And I'm a guy, and I'm thinking, well, he's dating a lot of very attractive women. Why shouldn't he get married?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
Well, I was a little puberty impaired guy. And, you know, what I really wanted to do was be like a football star or something and like have girls really be interested in me just because I was – but I wasn't any of that. So what I could do was make people laugh. I was good at that. So that's what I – It definitely was insecurity that made me want to entertain people. It probably still is.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I think most people who do humor for a living Usually they're insecure. And the other thing is we're kind of deflectors. We don't want people to know too much about us because then they won't like us. So what we do is make them like us by making them laugh, which is kind of a good way to keep people friendly with you but not let them get too close.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
It's just asking people about themselves. I know. I notice that any time I say anything about your personal life, you immediately turn it back down.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
If you're listening, it wasn't you. It was Nan, Miss Venezuela. Was it Miss Venezuela?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
um when you say that uh insecurities in childhood what were they what well i couldn't you know like i wasn't good at sports um and you know that was what you wanted i mean i i did i played little league because that's what you did and a way to be popular yeah the easy access shortcut to however it is you get to popular sports is easier than laughter and i wasn't like one of the the boys that the girls all just seemed looking at him in some ways cute you know wasn't that guy you know so
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And like I said, I didn't reach puberty until I was in my early 30s. And I was just really a late bloomer. You were a child. Yeah. I still have no hair on my arms. Look. Look. Look at my arms. You still look. I'm hairless. People will not believe your age. I'm hairless.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But I'm now really old. How old are you right now? I'm 77 years old.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
nobody would believe that well but it's true and you ask me anything about what happened in 1953 and i was there man but anyway the the point is i wasn't you know i wasn't like good at anything except being funny so that really was a you know a logical thing for me to do and i always did it and i kept on doing it and i got told many times that you can't be just funny for the rest of your life but whoever said that's wrong
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
But I would not say that. But Michelle was pretty much determined that you should marry somebody, preferably immediately. Because I remember once, and I hope your current wife, who's a beautiful woman, is not listening to this right now, or ever, but... But we went out to dinner with you. You may not remember this. My wife, Michelle, and I went out with the woman you were dating at the time.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I was able to. I want to go. Yeah, I really want to go back. Mrs. Bassage. I want to go find her. She's dead a long time. But I'd dig her up. Dig her up just to tell her. Oh, you can't joke your way through life, huh, Mrs. Passage? Take a look. You're just yelling at her. Want to see my house, Mrs. Passage?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
I'm kind of hoping they didn't cremate her because then there'll be an accident. Because she was pretty skeletal when she was alive, and I don't think she would look all that different as a dead person.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
No, it was traumatic, but I was like in my 40s. My... I mean, I had become a successful humor columnist at this point. My dad died, and my mom just was not dealing with it well.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And we went through this phase, and like if you have older parents, then a lot of people know what this phase is, where the dynamic starts to shift from they're your parent to like you're both neutral sort of, then you become sort of their... So my mom had this house in Armonk, New York that my dad built with his hands and that I grew up in.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry
And we all told her, you can't keep the house because it's in the middle of the woods and it's too big. And you need to sell your house and move on with your life. And so she sold the house. And then she didn't know where to go. And she would come to Florida, live with me for a while. Then she would go out to California, where both my brothers lived, and live with one, live with another.