History Creator / DaveBarry

!Books

—>Oh, Loretta,
—>Why did I let ya
—>Stand unattended
—>Near the [[DeadBabyComedy threshing machine]]

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible:[[invoked]] Barry constantly jokes about modern art. There was one column about an exhibit in Miami called ''The Lights Going On and Off'' which was ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Another column referenced an artist who sold cans of his own feces as art.

Really. I kept it in my guest bathroom for a couple of years, to amuse guests.''

David [=McAlister=] Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American humor columnist, his weekly column in ''The Miami Herald'' was also syndicated nationwide. Despite the national attention, many of his columns had a quirky, OnlyInFlorida vibe to them. In addition to his status as a journalist, Barry is also a bestselling author. The majority of his books are humorous nonfiction or compilations of his columns, but he's also written several novels. The three stand-alones are ''Literature/BigTrouble'' (which was made into a movie), ''Literature/TrickyBusiness'' and ''Literature/InsaneCity'', as well as co-authoring a novel called ''Literature/{{Lunatics}}'' with Alan Zweivel. He also co-authored a series of Literature/PeterPan inspired novels with Ridley Pearson, beginning with ''Literature/PeterAndTheStarcatchers''.

-->"The irony, of course, is that a lot of people would pay BIG money to hear Billy Joel sing. But of course these people are not Billy Joel's adolescent offspring. To his adolescent offspring, Billy Joel apparently represents the same thing that all parents represent to their adolescent offspring: Bozo-Rama. To an adolescent, there is nothing in the world more embarrassing than a parent...and I, grasping the Torch of Dorkhood, became a hideous embarrassment to my son -- especially when, like Billy Joel, I try to sing. (I don't mean that I try to sing like Billy Joel; I try to sing more like Aretha Franklin.) If you want to see a flagrant and spectacular violation of the known laws of physics, watch what my son does if we are in a public place and for some reason I need to burst into the opening notes of "Respect" (" WHAT you want! Baby I got it!"). When this happens, my son's body will instantaneously disappear into another dimension and rematerialize as far as two football fields away. The results are even more dramatic with "Got My Mojo Working."

* TheParody: "Fangs of Endearment" from his book ''I'll Mature When I'm Dead'' amounts to a parody of the ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series and borders on TakeThat. He also has a joke script to an episode of ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'' that reads more like a deconstructive AffectionateParody (for one, the President is a kangaroo… and a female one at that).

* MatzoFever: Enough to marry a Jewish woman and respectfully attend her synagogue despite being an atheist.

** Later he says that people think Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By the Light" goes "Wrapped up like a douche, another runner in the night", when in face it goes:

* OlderThanHeLooks: Barry joked about this once by telling ''People'' magazine that "I reached puberty at 30. At 12, I looked like a fetus."

* LargeHamRadio: PlayedForLaughs in "Garbage Scan", where a [[AsTheGoodBookSays parody of a Bible passage]], an EmergencyBroadcast, an AttackOfThePoliticalAd, a NothingButHits classic rock station, and a KitschyLocalCommercial are all spliced together to hilarious effect. Plus everybody rapidly undergoes SanitySlippage.

* BilledAboveTheTitle: Because of his fame you'll see his name in big letters above his book titles, like [[https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51KFrLi6TeL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg here]].

* ''Escape From the Carnivale'' (2006)
* ''Cave of the Dark Wind'' (2007)

* ''Blood Tide'' (2008)