November 26, 2025 • 25 mins
Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist Dave Barry joins Karol to share his journey from small-town Pennsylvania to becoming one of Florida’s most beloved writers. He reflects on how humor has evolved, the art (and nerves) of public speaking, and why laughter matters now more than ever. With his signature wit, Barry offers timeless life lessons—don’t sweat the small stuff, cherish real connections, and never underestimate the power of humor in navigating everyday challenges. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, and welcome back to the Caryl Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
My guest today is Dave Barry. Dave is a humor writer.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Who has written many books, including the novel Swamp Story,
which I read while giggling my face off on trains
and airplanes. His substack is called Dave Barry's Substack. You
should definitely check it out. So nice to have you on, Dave.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Thanks girl, Thanks for being for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm a really big fan of yours, and I've read
a lot of your books and just a lot of
your work over the years. I think you are hilarious,
and I have to say that the one book I
haven't read is best Date ever. A Florida man defends
his homeland only. I'm a relatively new Floridian.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
It'll be four years in January. Why do you love Florida?
What is it about this great state?
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Well, first of all, I'm a humor writer, and I
moved here like forty almost forty or thirty nine years ago.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
I've moved. My joke is, I moved to Miami from
the United States in nineteen.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Eighty six, and originally I was terrified about it when
I first came to Miami.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
I worked from the Miami Herald for many years.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Where did you move from?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
From Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, old Bucolic suburb of Philadelphia. And
it just couldn't have been more rural, and you know,
low key. And I got offered this job at the
Miami Herald and they flew me down and like this
was at the height of the cocaine cowboy era. There
(01:35):
were some literally bails of cocaine falling out of the sky.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You know, it's like, did you grab any or no.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
I was never in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
But actually that was one of the first columns I
wrote when I got here, which was that literally did happen.
There was a it was a Citizens Crime Watch meeting
in a place called Homestead, Florida.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh I know Homestead. Yeah, okay, shot guns in Homestead.
Well that's a.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Thing you can do there, right and and uh and
so this guy, Kurt Ivy was the chief of police
there and he was talking in this backyard of this
nice little development about how the Citizens Crime Watch is
supposed to work.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
And then there's this noise overhead.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
It was like it was a plane coming over to
the Bahamas with smugglers in it, and a custom service
jet was trying to force them down. So these guys
are flinging these bales of cocaine out and one of
them lands almost and you know it almost Like I
later said, I wrote a come about this. If you
were to write a movie and you have a scene
where a citizens Crime Watch meeting is interrupted by falling cocaine,
(02:39):
all the people ex that would.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Never happen, but it did. It happens anyway.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
So that was what was going on in Miami when
I first got down here. And my initial feeling was I'm,
you know, okay, I'll work for the Miami Herald, but
I'm never going to move here, and they said okay.
So for a little while they I lived in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania,
and I was the humor commist for the Miami Herald,
but I would come down every now and then to Miami,
(03:07):
and at first I got to know people, I got
to see the city a little different parts of the
city where you could actually live without.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Getting shot, and.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
It just came to kind of like it. And so
after a few years I moved here to Florida, and
at the time, everybody said I was insane. Now people
don't say that, but they did then.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And you know, I've been through here, through hurricanes and everything.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
I love Florida now, and partly for you know, the
reasons everybody says. I like that there's no income tax.
I like that age lot.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Everyone likes that.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
I like the weather, except for now when I hate it,
but I'm used to it and I'd rather have.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
This than cold. But mostly I kind of like that.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
It's it's entertaining and it's like anything can happen here
does happen here.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
It's a lot of really different places. Key West is not.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Anything like Miami, which is not eating like Fort Lauderdale,
which is not ayting like Orlando, which is not anything
like Naples, which is not anything like Gainesil. It's all
these different places. Yeah, and it's kind of crazy, but
I like it a lot.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And as I say, if you're a humor writer.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
There's a lot that's funny here.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
There's a lot of material. It just keeps cappening down here.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
It's funny that you refer to moving to Miami from
America because also people in Miami don't consider themselves like
part of Florida, like you'll say, oh, I'm from Miami
instead of I'm from Florida, because it's its own kind
of entity.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Do you find my joke for a long time. Yeah,
and that's kind of true of the whole state, though,
You're absolutely right, Miami feels people in Miami they're Miami
people or whatever. But like, one of the things I
love about Florida, one of the many is we have
no state pride. You know, like people from Texas are
all like, yeah, just so much with Texas.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Florida is like people say, well, that state is crazy. Yeah,
yes it is. It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think we do have state pride. Now, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Maybe again, I'm new, you willing to believe, you know, yes,
Converts are always the most you.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Have to you have to be proud of you.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Everybody around me.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Like my neighbor who moved here after I moved here,
where's a little Florida chain around his neck, you know,
has the outline of the state. And so many people
wear the Florida flag hats and have the sticker on
their trucks.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
And yeah, and I mean to the extent that I
feel like it's like all the states that make fun
of us are the states where the people that are
moving to most. Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna. I'm not gonna be too upset if somebody
from Illinois says something bad about Florida or or on
(05:43):
New York or California. But but but I guess my
point was, like we generally don't all we don't all
have there's nothing we all have in common, really, and
we really don't like income tax.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
And we do like whenever it's really horrible in elsewhere
in Boston, we just love to let those people know. Yeah,
we're in a short stand. So we all agree on that,
and that's good enough.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, that's about it for now. So how did you
become a humor writer? Did you just realize you were
really funny early on and that you had a writing skill,
because it is two different things, it's.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
Two very different things. And I mean I always like
to write.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I was a you know, an English major in college.
I was.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
The kid who was the good writer in high school
and English class and everything. And I always loved humor.
I mean I was obsessed with my idol when I
was a kid was Robert Benchley. He was an essayst
nobody listens reads anymore. But I loved him. I love
PG Woodhouse, I love Mad Magazine, I love humor.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I love Mad. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Yeah, So I was just a big fan of humor
and I love to write, but I never thought that
I could make a living doing it.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
That didn't occur to me. There's like no eye at
path to that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
So when I got out of college, I went to
work for a newspaper because at least that was writing,
and I liked it, and I thought, I'll, you know,
be a.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Newspaper person for the rest of my life.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
And it's sort of like I crept in to my
professional life. I was able to occasionally write a humor piece.
They were reasonably well received, and then it just got
more and more and then like I was in my thirties,
really before I could possibly make a living doing it.
(07:31):
So it was something I always would have like if
you'd asked me when I'm sixteen, what would you want
to do? Make stuff up and make people laugh. That
would be what I want to do. But I saw,
I know career path.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That way, and I didn't like, you you don't even
tell your parents.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
I just didn't think it was even possible, so it
just kind of happened organically. I was very lucky that
it was a time when newspapers printed syndicated columns. They
don't really do that much anymore. Like Art Buckwald was huge,
IRMA Bomback was huge, So there was sort of that
market existed. But it just could have happened to me
more than I made it happen.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, you know, I used to, like, even twenty years ago,
a lot of writing was very funny, even if it
wasn't specifically humor writing, Like somebody would write a column about,
you know, something serious, but would include funny lines. I
definitely try to do that in my work because of
that's that's where you know, I first wanted to be
a writer reading stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
But I feel like it's gotten everybody's gotten less funnier.
Is that? Do you notice that? Or is that just me?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I just think nobody includes humor in kind of more
serious pieces anymore.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
In serious Yeah, I would say it is. It's not
true online, It's not true on Twitter or.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Something that we're all still hilarious on Twitter.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Yeah, but yeah, I think you are right that in
terms of essays that people in serious publications. Yeah, it's
less likely that people will just go for it. And
I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One
is just the general bifurcation of our culture year on
one team or the other team, and god forbid, you
should make to make fun of the wrong team or
(09:06):
you know, or you know, offend anybody, So that there's that,
And then there's just this sort of I think fear
these days of not looking cool because if you always
say this, if you the scary part about human writing
is it's like the only kind of writing where you
tell the reader this is what.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I'm expecting you to get from this. Like, am I right?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
If I'm like, you know, serious columnist, I can write
about anything and it can be horribly wrong or boring
or whatever, but nobody's gonna think I didn't do what
I was supposed to do and I express my pinion.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
But if I tell you I'm a humorist and.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Then you're not funny, anybody in the world can anybody
has the right to go that that's not funny.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I didn't think that was funny.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
You suck, you know, So you you're dealing with that,
like fear of not being cool?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Now me, I don't have that fear so because I'm too.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I also, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
It's a good quality to have. If you're going to
do what you do and what I do, you kind
of have to have it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So what if humor writing hadn't worked out? Did you
have a plan.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
B underwear model? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Yeah, I mean you can't tell the whole path. Yeah, no,
you know, I would have just continued to be like
what I was actually doing when I when my humor
writing career really took off, I was teaching effective writing
seminars to business people. I had left the news, the
newspaper business altogether, and uh for complicated reasons. Mainly I
(10:29):
went to the Associated Press and I just hated it
so much.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
That I had to leave, just because it was such boring, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
So this this friend of mine, his dad, had this
consulting company, little tiny consulting company. I go around to
companies all around the country, a bunch of engineers or
chemists or accounts or computer programmers, and I was I
would teach this week long seminar and how to write better,
you know.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
And That's what I was doing. And it was the
opposite of being a humor rare except.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That I was standing up funny about that.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
No, well, except that I did learn I had to
keep their attention for a week, and they all hated it.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Nobody wanted to be there.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Yeah, so I made a lot of jokes, and so
that was I had that going forward.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Do you teach them to make jokes? That's another thing
I think like they could be.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
If you're even slightly funny when you're giving a serious speech,
everybody loves it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It's like the best thing they've ever heard.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I have.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
This has been my argument forever about public speaking. I said,
you don't have to do much at all, Just just
don't do what everybody else is doing. Do not be
the most boring human being on the face of the earth,
which seems to be the goal of most people.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Get up in speak. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Anything you give them, any bone you throw them, Yes,
except the one.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
And I'm just going to say.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
This now, and I'm on a lifelong crusade about this.
There's a joke that every speaker that I hate makes.
If you make this joke, I will hate you no
matter what else you do.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
David Hate. Let's hear it.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
If you start by saying good morning, and everybody goes
morning and you, oh, we can do better than that.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
If you do that, I hate you.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, don't make me talk.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Maybe we did our part. We say good morning back
you know you want. We don't owe you this yet,
are anyway? So and that's not even a joke. But
that's like, that's.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
The that person is trying and failing to be funny
in like the worst way possible.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I hear you.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Many people do. Many people fail. Yeah, so that's why
they don't try.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, with people taking chances, that's just corny, Like take
your own chance, say something unexpected and funny, and if
it fails, it fails, and that's fine. But don't be
like everyone else. I think that's that's a real good
tip from you.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Also, don't don't talk for more than five minutes. Yeah,
pretty much about anything. Yes, it's people always. Everybody talks
too long.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Nobody ever, Nobody ever says at the end of a speech,
I wish that going on along, yea.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Almost almost nobody ever said that.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I will say, like, you know, I guess speeches and
stuff people want to book you for. Like the people
will sometimes be like, can you give an hour and
a half speech and I literally cannot so like not capable.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
I do forty minutes, top, I do what you do.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
And yeah, and the other thing I have to deal
with is like they will always do a Q and
A and I always go, look, I'm not going to
say one useful thing.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I'm not going to impart any information. People will actually.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Come out, people are going to write.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
But that's because you have something to say. I always
say I have nothing to say. People are going to
come out of this stupider than they went in.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Don't answer.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
They're not really going to ask you or anything. It's
going to be like this is more of a comment
than a question. And yeah, you know, it's just going
to fill the time.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, coming up, we'll have more from Dave Barry. But first,
it was nearly two years ago that terrorists murdered more
than twelve hundred innocent Israelis and took two hundred and
fifty people hostage. Today, it seems as if the cries
of the dead and dying have been drowned out by
shouts of Antisemitic hatred, and the most brutal attack on
(14:05):
Jewish people since the Holocaust has been forgotten. Yet as
the world looks away, a light shines in the darkness.
It's a movement of love and support for the people
of Israel called Flags of Fellowship, and it's organized by
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And on October fifth,
just a few weeks away, millions across America will prayer
(14:26):
fully plant an Israeli flag and honor and solidarity with
the victims of October seventh, twenty twenty three and their
grieving families. And now you can be a part of
this movement too. To get more information about how you
can join the Flags of Fellowship movement, visit the Fellowship
online at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org. More
(14:49):
from Dave Barry on The Carol Markowitz Show is coming up.
Switching gears is more serious.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
But what do you worry about?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Is this one of the three quests? Ask everybody questions?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I snuck it in, you get in right, you know,
you don't see it coming. It just it just it's
just one of the things I ask.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Okay, Well, I I wrote a book, a memoir, my
most most recent book, probably my last book. But anyway
I end the book, it's like it's it's meant to
be a funny book, but it's it has probably more
serious content than most books that I write, because like
part of it, I had to tell the truth.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I don't like to do, but I have to.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
But anyway, at the end of the book, I do
talk about actual things I have learned, things I let
and the I am answering your question.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
I know it doesn't seem like take the long way around.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I'm getting there. I'm getting there.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
But the end of the book, the lesson that I say,
the most important lesson I think that I would impart
that I would say to people if I you know,
at risk of sounding like an old guy pretending to
be wise, is it's.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Going to be okay that you know?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
And when I talk about all the time, like I'm
seventy eight years old from my early childhood, when we.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Were gonna have to say you're seventy eight years old, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Say, no, you're not. Yeah, I am stop it, No,
I really am.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
No?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I mean you look super super young for seventy eight.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Well I'm not super young. I'm seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
So anyway, I started.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
I'm going to need your skincare regime.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
After this, I thought you're gonna ask my driver's license,
I believe you.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's just crazy. Wow.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
My entire life, starting with early childhood. You know, I
actually did literally go under the desk to you know,
because the nuclear war might come.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Mean add us do that? We did it, you know.
And then from from then on, there's always been something
that was going to you know, the communists, we're going
to take over.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Sure, Yeah, global heating, global cooling, you know, the comic's gonna.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Take with the government. Nazis has taken over the government.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Yeah, It's always always been something and it never happens,
you know, Like, and yet I know a lot of
people who think it's happening right now.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
They think it's happening, and they but the same people
thought it was happening before.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
It just and it never Actually the thing that you're
worrying about so much never happens, which is to say
nothing bad will happen to you. And it's nothing to
say that bad things on a major level, a macro
level don't sometimes happen. They do, but in the end, yeah,
if things work out pretty well for most people, and
that's a pretty good assumption you can make and you
(17:33):
know why. That's why you should have kids when you
grow up, you know, and not so I can't have.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Kids because the world's so bad.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
The world so bad, you know.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
And I always want to say, like, you were not
around in the sixties when there were snipers on the
roofs uh, and the cities were burning down and there
was a war going on it they weren't and the
president was shot and then the people running for president
got shot.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
It was pretty shitty, right, and.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
People still have kids.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Yeah, and we got through it, you know, and that
was worse than now. And then in our generation, that
was nothing compared to my parents generator. You know, all
of the sixties didn't even begin to add up to
one year in the forties when people are dealing with
depression and World War so things bad things do happen,
but things generally work out. So so I'm trying to
answer your question, what do I worry about? And I
(18:20):
really might My honest answer is I don't worry about
that much.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
If I have to pick one.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Issue thing to say that I do worry about now,
it's the fact that the federal government cannot seem to
control it's spending.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Oh yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
I think I'm not smart enough to really understand all
the reasons I should be terrified about that.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
But people who seem right, people who people who seem.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Really smart, yeah, do worry about that. And I have
kids and grandkids, and I do worry about that.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I mean, my joke is i's been oh, well, I'm
going to be dead, right, not my problem.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
No, I worry about that too.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I just feel like I've said this on previous shows,
but I feel like we've lost that argument. Like it's
just like nobody you can't get anybody to care about
that anymore.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
So, No, we just had this giant I just I
may I write this year and review every year and
year my favorite thing.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I read it every single year.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Thank you. It's what a painting he asked to write
that is. But it's just it's I've made.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
The same joke you after hear, and I'm gonna make
it again this year. Like they have this huge budget battle,
but you know, between the Republicans and the Democrats budget
battle it's huge, it's you know, and one side wants
to spend way more money than we have, and the
other side wants to spend way more money, and then
they finally reach a compromise and we're spending way more.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Money and then we move on. You know, I think,
what that's doesn't seem right? Wouldn't there sitting there be
one side that doesn't want to you would.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Think, right. I thought that that was the Republican side.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
It used to be.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, and then Musk like went into the government. It
was like, oh, I'm sad they don't really care about this.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, So like I I do worry that nobody worries
about it except really really smart people.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
And they seem to.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Say, well, we're we're screwde you know, but anyway, we'll
be dead whatever, We'll be dead.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It's fine.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, I'll be I'll be way dead. I'm seventy eight already.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I'll be a little bit behind you, hopefully dead, you know,
something to shoot.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
For somebody else's problem. You know, not no.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Reason why I met death. You could.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I'm Russian. You can't scare me with death.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I know my kids are always like, can you not
talk about your death so much?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
But I've been to Russia. I want to wow, Yeah
I had. I went there for our State Department.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Really, yeah, take you over to make you better.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
To improve relations. What a mistake that was.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
But anyway, they don't amazing. I think I think I
was the last one they.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Said that wouldn't be a bad idea though, sending funny
people over to Russia to improve relations.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
They got the jokes that the audiences did.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Anyway, Yeah, they're funny people.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
They are are They're pretty funny. I thought so too.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
You have to you have to have humor.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know through that history.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
So looking back on your life, what advice would you
give your sixteen year old self, Like what a sixteen
year old dave need to know?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Well, I was going to say, you know, don't don't
be such a wise ass, because I really was.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
I was insufferable. But in a way that would have
I would have had no career.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Kind of you know, maybe still say a wise as.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
I think I would have said, like, you know, you
can continue to be a wise ass, but you should not.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
You should be nicer.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I don't think I was a very nice Like I
think back to like does does everybody do this? And
like in high school when it's you're just feerial and
and I was really good at insulting people putting people down.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Good at that I was, and and.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
I kind of feel I want to go back to
some of some of the people and just say I'm sorry,
even though you were an asshole.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Right, I'm sure they mean too. That's the thing.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You get very good at insulting people because you were
being insulted.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Probably I was, yeah, because I was a response.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
It was a defensive defense. Was the only weapon I had.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I was a small, hairless young man, and I was like,
I wasn't good at sports.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Girls didn't like me.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
I was in you know, I was class clown. I
was literally elected class colwn.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
So so you had you had the words to make
them think twice about messing with you.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I did.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
But well, you know, like I I've read a million
times in magazine articles when they used to have magazines,
and I still read it online that one of the
things women most prized in a man is a sense
of humor.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Definitely, what a lie? You lie?
Speaker 5 (22:38):
So true?
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Well I had you.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
It can't be funny if I can't laugh.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
It's carol, Where were you when I was in high school? Well,
you were not born. You were not born yet, you know.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
But they're like, they say that, but when I was
in high school, I had a sense of humor.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Didn't do me.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
The girls didn't care about when you got older.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Now it worked out better when I.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, I think maybe high school isn't the greatest example.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
But now happily married grandfather. Though it doesn't do many,
it doesn't help anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
My husband definitely my funny guy attraction to him.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Was he's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
He's really funny, makes me like crack up, and that
I think that's the most important thing in a relationship.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Okay, yeah, I mean mostly right.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Well, yeah, one of one of the things.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
One of the things, definitely. Well, I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of
my favorite interviews.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I've ever done. Oh thank you, Yeah, this has been great.
I could talk to you.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I think we're already over the time and I could
just keep going.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
But leave us here with your best tip for my
listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
I have two, Okay, all right.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
The first one is, and this is like old wisdom
that you probably have imparted yourself many times.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
It's just like, just.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Don't confuse anything you see on the internet. Ever, with
real life, they much more attention to your real life,
your family, you.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Know, definitely, don't get out of that. And the other
is you don't need to refrigerate ketchup or mustard.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But of course you do.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
No, you don't welcome to any restaurant in America. Where
is the ketchup and where's the mustard?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
But shut up, Carol, just listen. Listen to me.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I hope they put it in a fridge at the end.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Of the night.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
No, they do not.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
It sits out on the table, day after day, day,
week after week.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
No it it's fine.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
You don't need to You're putting cold condiments on your
hot dogs and hamburgers for no reason.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Cold ketchup tastes so much better than warm ketchup.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
That must be a Russian thing, isn't it. I'm gonna
know they don't even have refrigeration. They don't even have refrigeration.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Now, if the listeners think about it, and I know
they will, they'll come to the right conclusion.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You don't think so, I think we're okay. I'm gonna
we're gonna find out.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Those two pieces of advice, The first one is probably
more the more important.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
One, but the second one is more controversial.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Yes, yeah it is, but I'll go to the grave
with that.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Thank you so much, Dave. He is Dave Barry.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Check out his substack. You are just fantastic. Read all
of his books. Every one of them is so funny.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Or just buy them you don't need to read them.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
No, buy them and read them, okay, or.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Send me money in a box. Either one.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Thank you, Dave. Thanks my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Thank you.
Hi, and welcome back to the Caryl Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
My guest today is Dave Barry. Dave is a humor writer.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Who has written many books, including the novel Swamp Story,
which I read while giggling my face off on trains
and airplanes. His substack is called Dave Barry's Substack. You
should definitely check it out. So nice to have you on, Dave.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Thanks girl, Thanks for being for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm a really big fan of yours, and I've read
a lot of your books and just a lot of
your work over the years. I think you are hilarious,
and I have to say that the one book I
haven't read is best Date ever. A Florida man defends
his homeland only. I'm a relatively new Floridian.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
It'll be four years in January. Why do you love Florida?
What is it about this great state?
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Well, first of all, I'm a humor writer, and I
moved here like forty almost forty or thirty nine years ago.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
I've moved. My joke is, I moved to Miami from
the United States in nineteen.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Eighty six, and originally I was terrified about it when
I first came to Miami.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
I worked from the Miami Herald for many years.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Where did you move from?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
From Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, old Bucolic suburb of Philadelphia. And
it just couldn't have been more rural, and you know,
low key. And I got offered this job at the
Miami Herald and they flew me down and like this
was at the height of the cocaine cowboy era. There
(01:35):
were some literally bails of cocaine falling out of the sky.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
You know, it's like, did you grab any or no.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
I was never in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
But actually that was one of the first columns I
wrote when I got here, which was that literally did happen.
There was a it was a Citizens Crime Watch meeting
in a place called Homestead, Florida.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh I know Homestead. Yeah, okay, shot guns in Homestead.
Well that's a.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Thing you can do there, right and and uh and
so this guy, Kurt Ivy was the chief of police
there and he was talking in this backyard of this
nice little development about how the Citizens Crime Watch is
supposed to work.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
And then there's this noise overhead.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
It was like it was a plane coming over to
the Bahamas with smugglers in it, and a custom service
jet was trying to force them down. So these guys
are flinging these bales of cocaine out and one of
them lands almost and you know it almost Like I
later said, I wrote a come about this. If you
were to write a movie and you have a scene
where a citizens Crime Watch meeting is interrupted by falling cocaine,
(02:39):
all the people ex that would.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
Never happen, but it did. It happens anyway.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
So that was what was going on in Miami when
I first got down here. And my initial feeling was I'm,
you know, okay, I'll work for the Miami Herald, but
I'm never going to move here, and they said okay.
So for a little while they I lived in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania,
and I was the humor commist for the Miami Herald,
but I would come down every now and then to Miami,
(03:07):
and at first I got to know people, I got
to see the city a little different parts of the
city where you could actually live without.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Getting shot, and.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
It just came to kind of like it. And so
after a few years I moved here to Florida, and
at the time, everybody said I was insane. Now people
don't say that, but they did then.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And you know, I've been through here, through hurricanes and everything.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
I love Florida now, and partly for you know, the
reasons everybody says. I like that there's no income tax.
I like that age lot.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Everyone likes that.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
I like the weather, except for now when I hate it,
but I'm used to it and I'd rather have.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
This than cold. But mostly I kind of like that.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
It's it's entertaining and it's like anything can happen here
does happen here.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
It's a lot of really different places. Key West is not.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Anything like Miami, which is not eating like Fort Lauderdale,
which is not ayting like Orlando, which is not anything
like Naples, which is not anything like Gainesil. It's all
these different places. Yeah, and it's kind of crazy, but
I like it a lot.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And as I say, if you're a humor writer.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
There's a lot that's funny here.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
There's a lot of material. It just keeps cappening down here.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
It's funny that you refer to moving to Miami from
America because also people in Miami don't consider themselves like
part of Florida, like you'll say, oh, I'm from Miami
instead of I'm from Florida, because it's its own kind
of entity.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Do you find my joke for a long time. Yeah,
and that's kind of true of the whole state, though,
You're absolutely right, Miami feels people in Miami they're Miami
people or whatever. But like, one of the things I
love about Florida, one of the many is we have
no state pride. You know, like people from Texas are
all like, yeah, just so much with Texas.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Florida is like people say, well, that state is crazy. Yeah,
yes it is. It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think we do have state pride. Now, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Maybe again, I'm new, you willing to believe, you know, yes,
Converts are always the most you.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Have to you have to be proud of you.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Everybody around me.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Like my neighbor who moved here after I moved here,
where's a little Florida chain around his neck, you know,
has the outline of the state. And so many people
wear the Florida flag hats and have the sticker on
their trucks.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
And yeah, and I mean to the extent that I
feel like it's like all the states that make fun
of us are the states where the people that are
moving to most. Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna. I'm not gonna be too upset if somebody
from Illinois says something bad about Florida or or on
(05:43):
New York or California. But but but I guess my
point was, like we generally don't all we don't all
have there's nothing we all have in common, really, and
we really don't like income tax.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
And we do like whenever it's really horrible in elsewhere
in Boston, we just love to let those people know. Yeah,
we're in a short stand. So we all agree on that,
and that's good enough.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, that's about it for now. So how did you
become a humor writer? Did you just realize you were
really funny early on and that you had a writing skill,
because it is two different things, it's.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
Two very different things. And I mean I always like
to write.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I was a you know, an English major in college.
I was.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
The kid who was the good writer in high school
and English class and everything. And I always loved humor.
I mean I was obsessed with my idol when I
was a kid was Robert Benchley. He was an essayst
nobody listens reads anymore. But I loved him. I love
PG Woodhouse, I love Mad Magazine, I love humor.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I love Mad. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Yeah, So I was just a big fan of humor
and I love to write, but I never thought that
I could make a living doing it.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
That didn't occur to me. There's like no eye at
path to that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
So when I got out of college, I went to
work for a newspaper because at least that was writing,
and I liked it, and I thought, I'll, you know,
be a.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Newspaper person for the rest of my life.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
And it's sort of like I crept in to my
professional life. I was able to occasionally write a humor piece.
They were reasonably well received, and then it just got
more and more and then like I was in my thirties,
really before I could possibly make a living doing it.
(07:31):
So it was something I always would have like if
you'd asked me when I'm sixteen, what would you want
to do? Make stuff up and make people laugh. That
would be what I want to do. But I saw,
I know career path.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That way, and I didn't like, you you don't even
tell your parents.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
I just didn't think it was even possible, so it
just kind of happened organically. I was very lucky that
it was a time when newspapers printed syndicated columns. They
don't really do that much anymore. Like Art Buckwald was huge,
IRMA Bomback was huge, So there was sort of that
market existed. But it just could have happened to me
more than I made it happen.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, you know, I used to, like, even twenty years ago,
a lot of writing was very funny, even if it
wasn't specifically humor writing, Like somebody would write a column about,
you know, something serious, but would include funny lines. I
definitely try to do that in my work because of
that's that's where you know, I first wanted to be
a writer reading stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
But I feel like it's gotten everybody's gotten less funnier.
Is that? Do you notice that? Or is that just me?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I just think nobody includes humor in kind of more
serious pieces anymore.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
In serious Yeah, I would say it is. It's not
true online, It's not true on Twitter or.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Something that we're all still hilarious on Twitter.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Yeah, but yeah, I think you are right that in
terms of essays that people in serious publications. Yeah, it's
less likely that people will just go for it. And
I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One
is just the general bifurcation of our culture year on
one team or the other team, and god forbid, you
should make to make fun of the wrong team or
(09:06):
you know, or you know, offend anybody, So that there's that,
And then there's just this sort of I think fear
these days of not looking cool because if you always
say this, if you the scary part about human writing
is it's like the only kind of writing where you
tell the reader this is what.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I'm expecting you to get from this. Like, am I right?
Speaker 5 (09:24):
If I'm like, you know, serious columnist, I can write
about anything and it can be horribly wrong or boring
or whatever, but nobody's gonna think I didn't do what
I was supposed to do and I express my pinion.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
But if I tell you I'm a humorist and.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Then you're not funny, anybody in the world can anybody
has the right to go that that's not funny.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
I didn't think that was funny.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
You suck, you know, So you you're dealing with that,
like fear of not being cool?
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Now me, I don't have that fear so because I'm too.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
I also, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
It's a good quality to have. If you're going to
do what you do and what I do, you kind
of have to have it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
So what if humor writing hadn't worked out? Did you
have a plan.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
B underwear model? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Yeah, I mean you can't tell the whole path. Yeah, no,
you know, I would have just continued to be like
what I was actually doing when I when my humor
writing career really took off, I was teaching effective writing
seminars to business people. I had left the news, the
newspaper business altogether, and uh for complicated reasons. Mainly I
(10:29):
went to the Associated Press and I just hated it
so much.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
That I had to leave, just because it was such boring, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
So this this friend of mine, his dad, had this
consulting company, little tiny consulting company. I go around to
companies all around the country, a bunch of engineers or
chemists or accounts or computer programmers, and I was I
would teach this week long seminar and how to write better,
you know.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
And That's what I was doing. And it was the
opposite of being a humor rare except.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That I was standing up funny about that.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
No, well, except that I did learn I had to
keep their attention for a week, and they all hated it.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Nobody wanted to be there.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Yeah, so I made a lot of jokes, and so
that was I had that going forward.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Do you teach them to make jokes? That's another thing
I think like they could be.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
If you're even slightly funny when you're giving a serious speech,
everybody loves it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
It's like the best thing they've ever heard.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I have.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
This has been my argument forever about public speaking. I said,
you don't have to do much at all, Just just
don't do what everybody else is doing. Do not be
the most boring human being on the face of the earth,
which seems to be the goal of most people.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Get up in speak. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Anything you give them, any bone you throw them, Yes,
except the one.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
And I'm just going to say.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
This now, and I'm on a lifelong crusade about this.
There's a joke that every speaker that I hate makes.
If you make this joke, I will hate you no
matter what else you do.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
David Hate. Let's hear it.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
If you start by saying good morning, and everybody goes
morning and you, oh, we can do better than that.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
If you do that, I hate you.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, don't make me talk.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Maybe we did our part. We say good morning back
you know you want. We don't owe you this yet,
are anyway? So and that's not even a joke. But
that's like, that's.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
The that person is trying and failing to be funny
in like the worst way possible.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I hear you.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Many people do. Many people fail. Yeah, so that's why
they don't try.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Okay, with people taking chances, that's just corny, Like take
your own chance, say something unexpected and funny, and if
it fails, it fails, and that's fine. But don't be
like everyone else. I think that's that's a real good
tip from you.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Also, don't don't talk for more than five minutes. Yeah,
pretty much about anything. Yes, it's people always. Everybody talks
too long.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Nobody ever, Nobody ever says at the end of a speech,
I wish that going on along, yea.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Almost almost nobody ever said that.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I will say, like, you know, I guess speeches and
stuff people want to book you for. Like the people
will sometimes be like, can you give an hour and
a half speech and I literally cannot so like not capable.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
I do forty minutes, top, I do what you do.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
And yeah, and the other thing I have to deal
with is like they will always do a Q and
A and I always go, look, I'm not going to
say one useful thing.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
I'm not going to impart any information. People will actually.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Come out, people are going to write.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
But that's because you have something to say. I always
say I have nothing to say. People are going to
come out of this stupider than they went in.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Don't answer.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
They're not really going to ask you or anything. It's
going to be like this is more of a comment
than a question. And yeah, you know, it's just going
to fill the time.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, coming up, we'll have more from Dave Barry. But first,
it was nearly two years ago that terrorists murdered more
than twelve hundred innocent Israelis and took two hundred and
fifty people hostage. Today, it seems as if the cries
of the dead and dying have been drowned out by
shouts of Antisemitic hatred, and the most brutal attack on
(14:05):
Jewish people since the Holocaust has been forgotten. Yet as
the world looks away, a light shines in the darkness.
It's a movement of love and support for the people
of Israel called Flags of Fellowship, and it's organized by
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. And on October fifth,
just a few weeks away, millions across America will prayer
(14:26):
fully plant an Israeli flag and honor and solidarity with
the victims of October seventh, twenty twenty three and their
grieving families. And now you can be a part of
this movement too. To get more information about how you
can join the Flags of Fellowship movement, visit the Fellowship
online at IFCJ dot org. That's IFCJ dot org. More
(14:49):
from Dave Barry on The Carol Markowitz Show is coming up.
Switching gears is more serious.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
But what do you worry about?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Is this one of the three quests? Ask everybody questions?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
I snuck it in, you get in right, you know,
you don't see it coming. It just it just it's
just one of the things I ask.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Okay, Well, I I wrote a book, a memoir, my
most most recent book, probably my last book. But anyway
I end the book, it's like it's it's meant to
be a funny book, but it's it has probably more
serious content than most books that I write, because like
part of it, I had to tell the truth.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I don't like to do, but I have to.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
But anyway, at the end of the book, I do
talk about actual things I have learned, things I let
and the I am answering your question.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
I know it doesn't seem like take the long way around.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I'm getting there. I'm getting there.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
But the end of the book, the lesson that I say,
the most important lesson I think that I would impart
that I would say to people if I you know,
at risk of sounding like an old guy pretending to
be wise, is it's.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Going to be okay that you know?
Speaker 5 (15:58):
And when I talk about all the time, like I'm
seventy eight years old from my early childhood, when we.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Were gonna have to say you're seventy eight years old, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Say, no, you're not. Yeah, I am stop it, No,
I really am.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
No?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I mean you look super super young for seventy eight.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Well I'm not super young. I'm seventy eight.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
So anyway, I started.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
I'm going to need your skincare regime.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
After this, I thought you're gonna ask my driver's license,
I believe you.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
It's just crazy. Wow.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
My entire life, starting with early childhood. You know, I
actually did literally go under the desk to you know,
because the nuclear war might come.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Mean add us do that? We did it, you know.
And then from from then on, there's always been something
that was going to you know, the communists, we're going
to take over.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Sure, Yeah, global heating, global cooling, you know, the comic's gonna.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Take with the government. Nazis has taken over the government.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
Yeah, It's always always been something and it never happens,
you know, Like, and yet I know a lot of
people who think it's happening right now.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
They think it's happening, and they but the same people
thought it was happening before.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
It just and it never Actually the thing that you're
worrying about so much never happens, which is to say
nothing bad will happen to you. And it's nothing to
say that bad things on a major level, a macro
level don't sometimes happen. They do, but in the end, yeah,
if things work out pretty well for most people, and
that's a pretty good assumption you can make and you
(17:33):
know why. That's why you should have kids when you
grow up, you know, and not so I can't have.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Kids because the world's so bad.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
The world so bad, you know.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
And I always want to say, like, you were not
around in the sixties when there were snipers on the
roofs uh, and the cities were burning down and there
was a war going on it they weren't and the
president was shot and then the people running for president
got shot.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
It was pretty shitty, right, and.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
People still have kids.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Yeah, and we got through it, you know, and that
was worse than now. And then in our generation, that
was nothing compared to my parents generator. You know, all
of the sixties didn't even begin to add up to
one year in the forties when people are dealing with
depression and World War so things bad things do happen,
but things generally work out. So so I'm trying to
answer your question, what do I worry about? And I
(18:20):
really might My honest answer is I don't worry about
that much.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
If I have to pick one.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Issue thing to say that I do worry about now,
it's the fact that the federal government cannot seem to
control it's spending.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Oh yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
I think I'm not smart enough to really understand all
the reasons I should be terrified about that.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
But people who seem right, people who people who seem.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Really smart, yeah, do worry about that. And I have
kids and grandkids, and I do worry about that.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I mean, my joke is i's been oh, well, I'm
going to be dead, right, not my problem.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
No, I worry about that too.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I just feel like I've said this on previous shows,
but I feel like we've lost that argument. Like it's
just like nobody you can't get anybody to care about
that anymore.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
So, No, we just had this giant I just I
may I write this year and review every year and
year my favorite thing.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I read it every single year.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Thank you. It's what a painting he asked to write
that is. But it's just it's I've made.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
The same joke you after hear, and I'm gonna make
it again this year. Like they have this huge budget battle,
but you know, between the Republicans and the Democrats budget
battle it's huge, it's you know, and one side wants
to spend way more money than we have, and the
other side wants to spend way more money, and then
they finally reach a compromise and we're spending way more.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Money and then we move on. You know, I think,
what that's doesn't seem right? Wouldn't there sitting there be
one side that doesn't want to you would.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Think, right. I thought that that was the Republican side.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
It used to be.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, and then Musk like went into the government. It
was like, oh, I'm sad they don't really care about this.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, So like I I do worry that nobody worries
about it except really really smart people.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
And they seem to.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
Say, well, we're we're screwde you know, but anyway, we'll
be dead whatever, We'll be dead.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
It's fine.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, I'll be I'll be way dead. I'm seventy eight already.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I'll be a little bit behind you, hopefully dead, you know,
something to shoot.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
For somebody else's problem. You know, not no.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Reason why I met death. You could.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I'm Russian. You can't scare me with death.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I know my kids are always like, can you not
talk about your death so much?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
But I've been to Russia. I want to wow, Yeah
I had. I went there for our State Department.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Really, yeah, take you over to make you better.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
To improve relations. What a mistake that was.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
But anyway, they don't amazing. I think I think I
was the last one they.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Said that wouldn't be a bad idea though, sending funny
people over to Russia to improve relations.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
They got the jokes that the audiences did.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Anyway, Yeah, they're funny people.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
They are are They're pretty funny. I thought so too.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
You have to you have to have humor.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, yeah, you know through that history.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
So looking back on your life, what advice would you
give your sixteen year old self, Like what a sixteen
year old dave need to know?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Well, I was going to say, you know, don't don't
be such a wise ass, because I really was.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
I was insufferable. But in a way that would have
I would have had no career.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Kind of you know, maybe still say a wise as.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
I think I would have said, like, you know, you
can continue to be a wise ass, but you should not.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
You should be nicer.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I don't think I was a very nice Like I
think back to like does does everybody do this? And
like in high school when it's you're just feerial and
and I was really good at insulting people putting people down.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Good at that I was, and and.
Speaker 5 (21:48):
I kind of feel I want to go back to
some of some of the people and just say I'm sorry,
even though you were an asshole.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Right, I'm sure they mean too. That's the thing.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
You get very good at insulting people because you were
being insulted.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Probably I was, yeah, because I was a response.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
It was a defensive defense. Was the only weapon I had.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I was a small, hairless young man, and I was like,
I wasn't good at sports.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Girls didn't like me.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
I was in you know, I was class clown. I
was literally elected class colwn.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
So so you had you had the words to make
them think twice about messing with you.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I did.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
But well, you know, like I I've read a million
times in magazine articles when they used to have magazines,
and I still read it online that one of the
things women most prized in a man is a sense
of humor.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Definitely, what a lie? You lie?
Speaker 5 (22:38):
So true?
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Well I had you.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
It can't be funny if I can't laugh.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
It's carol, Where were you when I was in high school? Well,
you were not born. You were not born yet, you know.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
But they're like, they say that, but when I was
in high school, I had a sense of humor.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Didn't do me.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
The girls didn't care about when you got older.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Now it worked out better when I.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, I think maybe high school isn't the greatest example.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
But now happily married grandfather. Though it doesn't do many,
it doesn't help anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
My husband definitely my funny guy attraction to him.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Was he's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
He's really funny, makes me like crack up, and that
I think that's the most important thing in a relationship.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Okay, yeah, I mean mostly right.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Well, yeah, one of one of the things.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
One of the things, definitely. Well, I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of
my favorite interviews.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I've ever done. Oh thank you, Yeah, this has been great.
I could talk to you.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I think we're already over the time and I could
just keep going.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
But leave us here with your best tip for my
listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
I have two, Okay, all right.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
The first one is, and this is like old wisdom
that you probably have imparted yourself many times.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
It's just like, just.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Don't confuse anything you see on the internet. Ever, with
real life, they much more attention to your real life,
your family, you.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Know, definitely, don't get out of that. And the other
is you don't need to refrigerate ketchup or mustard.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But of course you do.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
No, you don't welcome to any restaurant in America. Where
is the ketchup and where's the mustard?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
But shut up, Carol, just listen. Listen to me.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I hope they put it in a fridge at the end.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Of the night.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
No, they do not.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
It sits out on the table, day after day, day,
week after week.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
No it it's fine.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
You don't need to You're putting cold condiments on your
hot dogs and hamburgers for no reason.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Cold ketchup tastes so much better than warm ketchup.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
That must be a Russian thing, isn't it. I'm gonna
know they don't even have refrigeration. They don't even have refrigeration.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
Now, if the listeners think about it, and I know
they will, they'll come to the right conclusion.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You don't think so, I think we're okay. I'm gonna
we're gonna find out.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Those two pieces of advice, The first one is probably
more the more important.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
One, but the second one is more controversial.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
Yes, yeah it is, but I'll go to the grave
with that.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Thank you so much, Dave. He is Dave Barry.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Check out his substack. You are just fantastic. Read all
of his books. Every one of them is so funny.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Or just buy them you don't need to read them.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
No, buy them and read them, okay, or.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Send me money in a box. Either one.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Thank you, Dave. Thanks my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Thank you.
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Buck Sexton
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