The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Dave Barry

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Dave Barry is so funny, he won a Pulitzer Prize for making people laugh.  In this episode of South Beach Sessions, Dan and Dave explore their decades of friendship– including all of the inspiration Dave has given Dan… With extreme honesty, Dave speaks about losing his parents, the source of his humor and warmth, early on in life. He opens up about his regrets over his mother’s death, all the while explaining why family was such a source of joy despite the loss. But life is full of joy alongside sorrow, and there’s plenty of joy here. Dan and Dave also reminisce about the good old days of journalism and opine on the beauty of romance, including a story about how Dave convinced Dan to get married. Dave’s upcoming memoir, CLASS CLOWN: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass, is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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A dinosaur from the golden age of newspapers, when a man can win a Pulitzer Prize for being funny. He's a New York Times bestselling author. He's a colleague of mine for decades. He is Dave Barry. He's a novelist whose last novel i will tell you i'll give you one of the greatest compliments i think i can get you actually read

made me feel like i was reading carl hyacinth and is that and it's a good right that i think that but it it you would say that swamp story i want to talk to but your career i want to talk to you about your life because i find you beyond the laughter to be uncommonly wise about what matters in life. Well, that's not accurate, but okay. That love, that love is what matters. You have been, you in seeking marital bliss, were a bit of a mentor to me on what could be possible. Well, I told you to get married, but that's because I'm married to a Cuban Jewish woman who can't, who couldn't stand, could not stand the idea that you're walking around not being married

and I like, I'm being, I'm a guy and I'm thinking well he's dating a lot of very attractive women why should he get married? That was my feeling but I would not say that. Right, no you cannot. But Michelle was pretty much determined that you should marry somebody in preferably like immediately. Yes. 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 we went out to dinner with you. You may not remember this. My wife, Michelle and I went out with you

with the woman you were dating at the time. I do remember this. It was like Miss Venezuela. We were in Miami beach and it was, I remember several lovely evenings with you having too much to drink. One at Marlin's Spring Training, and this evening that you're talking about.

Right, and Michelle was like, heck during you to marry this woman immediately. And the woman was like, all for it, I think, Mrs. whatever she was. She was very attractive. Not as attractive as your current wife, but very attractive. Wait, please stop doing this. And, but you resisted, I was impressed. You're like, I would attractive. Please stop doing this and and but you resisted

I was impressed you like I would have like eventually just given up and said, okay, let's go get married right now here at the restaurant Okay, so but aspirationally I will tell people that your marriage was Aspirational now you wanted to you wanted to marry my wife the happiness that you two had the camaraderie that you two had The happiness that you two had, the comradery that you two had, the friendship that you two had, the understanding and acceptance that you two have,

the laughter that you two have, you seemed, from where I was standing, to have found bliss after someone who had written about his previous marriage in print, and it seemed like the reader felt totally betrayed by your first marriage not succeeding. Like somehow you had done something wrong when all I saw you do was choose bliss.

Yeah. Well, thank you. That is a nice way of putting it. And you're right, I did get a lot of grief. Because like, you know, when you write a humor column, well, 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. And I had written for years about, you know, my family, my son and everything.

And then when I got a divorce, and I won't go into why, but I mean, there were, you know, it was 110% my responsibility, my fault. I got a lot, I mean, people were really not happy with me. And to this day, there are people who... Well, but they feel, let's talk about the connection a newspaper writer makes through laughter because the audience somehow felt let down by you. But I was watching, I don't know you at this point.

I just know what you're getting into and how much happier it seems to make you. So none of that is important to me, I just see a colleague who seems to be really happy with a friend of mine who also seems to be really happy, why wouldn't I celebrate that for them? But then you waited a long time before you personally got married, I have to say.

I did, yeah. I, well I didn't believe in, I didn't believe in the institution. I'm telling you, I'm not kidding when I say, I have I didn't believe in I didn't believe in the institution I'm telling you I'm not kidding when I say I have seen precious few marriages that I look at and say There's a level of depth there of love that could survive Just about any test to its strength. Yeah. Yeah, I thank you that way That is true that we did have we have a wonderful mayor We saw 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 now to be true, so yeah, thank you. I'm glad I inspired you glad you got married Well, I want to talk to you. Thank you for inviting me to your wedding was a star-studded affair Sometimes we should talk about that. I wanna talk about. I explained to 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. That's right. What are you gonna do? Right? I'm sure he was pretty annoyed by all of the guests like you that were doing the same thing that you were doing. Your learning around love and the things that

are important. Can you share with the audience some of the teachers that you have had on love? Oh, well, this is going to be sound obvious and corny, but my parents, both my parents had issues, problems. My dad was an alcoholic. We 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. 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 20s, became an alcoholic.

He would always like to drink and it took over. 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 gonna 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. She could not stand life without him. I don't know how we got here so fast to this. It's tragic. It happens around here. There used to be tissues around here.

We did get here awfully fast. But OK, but anyway, my point is, if you just looked at that, my upbringing said, well, his dad was an alcoholic and his mom committed suicide. It must have been horrible. But it wasn't. I had a great childhood. 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, she was just funny. And they loved each other. I mean, they really, really loved each other. The fact that was kind of why my mom didn't keep going after my dad died.

But that was my, I think, my template for, you know, like love is like, it isn't about like when things are great, That was my template for love. It isn't about when things are great. It isn't about just the initial attraction in 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. Okay. Give me this look. Well, I don't want to just dismiss him as just an alcoholic, but if I give you just the bare bones of someone who committed suicide and ran depressant and another person who had alcohol, I could just say Without judgment people are flawed people have weaknesses They did the best that they could but no the way that you frame that a lot of people could do a quick snapshot

And said oh his funny comes from pain, but not necessarily right yeah And and I heard I've heard that a lot through the years, you know when when people find out like my my backstory They go well it like he's the the, he's 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, when things went wrong for my parents, I was kind of out of the house. You always gave off happy as an adult, though.

I think that's part of why maybe even your newspaper readers felt somehow like, what do you mean his marriage isn't totally 100% happy? Like you, in my experience, you always gave off happy. It was nice to be around you. Yeah. Yeah. And I, well, first of all, look at what my job was, you know, like I was getting paid pretty good money for a newspaper person to just do whatever I wanted whenever I want anywhere with whatever expense newspaper person to just do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with whatever expense I could. But grateful though, all the time.

Not everyone's grateful. I've told you this before, but what I marveled about you was you were this amazing giant in the industry, and it seemed to come without ego. It was always with humility. Well, again, I'll credit my parents. They're both from the Midwest, and 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 too big. You're never gonna be more important than the people around you. That was a fundamental value in my family. So I would have felt stupid when I achieved success as a newspaper person

if I had 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, I did not expect to win the Pulitzer Prize. That is not false modesty, because it's distinguished commentary is the, look up distinguished in the, it's not what I was writing, I was writing about people discovering snakes in their toilet. You were writing about Florida, you were writing about just funny things that were, everything provided funny for you.

I've told people before, writing funny is the hardest thing. It's the hardest kind of writing. And we've talked before about, it's not exactly easy for you. You will spend a day on a joke. Oh yeah, writing, the trick of humor, I suppose it's like to, it's supposed to, it's like, like magic, you know, when, when the guy pulls the coin out of your ear and it looks like you

really pulled the coin out of your ear, you don't see that the guy spent, you know, 16 hours practicing that one particular movement with his thing. 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. 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 going to agree with you that, even though that's what I did writing writing humor is hard When did you realize that you were good at it? Like when did you stop having doubt? Well, I thought I was funny a lot sooner than the rest of the world did But like as you are class clown, right? I was literally elected class clown Pleasantville High School class of 1965. And I'm darn proud of that. Is it just because your mom was funny? Like there wasn't any deflection going on there? You weren't trying to avoid intimacy?

Your mom was just dark humor funny, and so you were funny? Well, I was a little puberty impaired guy. And what I really wanted to do was be like a football star or something and have girls really be interested in me, just because I was. But I wasn't any of that what so what I could do was make people laugh I was good at that so that's what I you know it definitely was insecurity that made me want to entertain people it probably still is I

mean you I think most people who who do humor for a living are usually they're insecure we're you know 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. Excellent way to avoid intimacy.

I do it with questions. It's not even that. It's just asking people about themselves. I know I notice that anytime I say anything about your personal life, you immediately turn it back. Well, you made it about Miss Venezuela. Like, I don't need that in my life. Let's knock it off.

If you're listening, it wasn't you, it was Nan, Miss Venezuela, was it Miss Venezuela? Um, can we move on, please? Thank you, I do appreciate you burrowing in there. Maybe we'll get back to it later. Did she have like a sash on that night? No, only a sash. It was such a wild night.

When you say that insecurities in childhood, what were they? What were you? Well, I couldn't, you know, like I wasn't good at sports and you know, that was what you wanted. I mean, I did, I played little league cause that's what you did. A way to be popular.

Yeah, yeah. The easy access shortcut to however it is you get the popular sports is easier than laughter. And I wasn't like one of the boys that the girls all just seemed looking at him and some boys cute. You know, wasn't that guy, you know? So and like I said, I didn't, I didn't reach puberty until I was in my early thirties and like it's just really late bloomer. You were a child. Yeah, I still have no hair on my arms. Look, look, look at my arms. You still look, people will not believe your age. I'm hairless.

You've always looked, the entire time I've known you, you've looked young for your age. Well, yeah, but I'm now really old. How old are you right now? I'm 77 years old. 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 point is I wasn't you know, I wasn't like good at anything except being funny So that really was a you know the 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 they're whoever said that's wrong It can't be just funny for the rest of your life, but whoever said that's wrong. It's like, because I've never turned the corner into maturity. Who is the teacher that you have to most show?

You know what? You're really wrong about this. 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 choke your way through life, huh, Mrs. Bassage? Take a look. her up just to tell her, oh, you can't choke your way through life, huh, Mrs. Basich? Take a look. You're just yelling at her corpse. Wanna see my house, Mrs. Basich? Nicer than your house. You're just gonna physically dig her up to scream at her face.

I'm kinda 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. Do you look back at the time when you're talking about, because I don't know what age this was, that your mother kills herself

and you're making it the romantic story of, well, she loved my father so much. Oh no, but the time, okay, when my, okay. A terrible segue by me, admittedly, while we're laughing. No, let's go right from Mrs. Bassett. A terrible, an admittedly terrible segue by me, but I've been stuck there since you said it because you just sort of skipped past it as if like,

oh, there's no trauma there, and I'm like, well, wait a minute. No, it was traumatic, but I was like in my 40s. My, I mean, I, wait a minute. No, it was traumatic, but I was like in my 40s. I had become a successful humor columnist at this point. My dad died, and my mom just was not dealing with it well. And we went through this phase, and if you have older parents, then a lot of people know what this phase is,

where the dynamic starts to shift from there, your parent, to like you're both neutral sort of then you become sort of there. So my mom had this house in Armagh, New York that my dad built with his hands and that I grew up in. 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 to live with me for a while.

Then she would go out to California where both my brothers lived and live with one, live with the other. Just couldn't. And so like 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. And then, you know, so I said, okay, 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, I'm like, she's telling me stuff about, she misses dad, she misses, and I'm like, mom, you gotta look ahead. You gotta, you know, you still have friends, you have money, cause you sold the house. And, you know, and she's like sad.

And I'm like pushing her, like, mom, you gotta do, you gotta do, like I know what she's going through, right? So we finally, we get to, I think it was Esse like, mom, you got to do that. You got to do like, I know what she's going through. Right. 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 what she wants to be is like a couple of years ago, earlier back in our rank with my dad, which will never happen. You know, he's gone, but I'm like, mom, you gotta.

And so like the next morning we have this really tense breakfast he's gone. But I'm like, Mom, you gotta 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. I just stay with us if you want. But you got to pick you got to pick what you want to do. You got to do because I know now you know, I'm 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 I, and, and, um, so she hugs me goodbye. Put her on the plane. 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 you know, I got a phone call from my brother, my mom's in the hospital, she's just you know telling us she loved us and the next thing you know I got a phone calls 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 cease-functioning and can we do they have permission to unplug my mom so that

you know the lesson which is still you you know, stings me, is don't ever think you know what your parents are going through. 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 the last thing I did was border a fucking map. You know?

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 why she committed suicide at all, but I w I will forever blame me for not at least being a little more aware of what was going on. I'm deeply sorry about all of that. I want to ask you some questions about how you go about forgiving yourself. But I will tell you this about my own father, because you know him, you know some of the family, and with your wife, the Cuban Jew,

you also know some of my family dynamics. My father, when he was going through whatever it is he's gone through twice now, where he has some sort of short-circuiting that has to do with losing his identity or his job, I was minutes away from, and I've told this story on our show before, but I was minutes away from going to pick him up to take him to a psychiatrist because he was acting in ways the family didn't recognize. And as I was headed to go pick him up, my mother called me from the hospital. Firefighters have come and gotten him off a balcony. He doesn't remember how it is. He's, know, 76 77 78 years old He's hanging from a balcony and so I came very close to pulling up on my father on a sidewalk Minutes too late to get him the help that he needed and that could have been yeah where I

Started re-examining all the things like a map that I had given him Incorrectly while trying to reach him a number of different ways How do you forgive yourself is 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 summon it up in a second The only thing is like I knew her really well knew my mom mom really well, and my mom was not a judgmental person. I mean, she judged herself harshly, but she never judged anybody else. And somehow she would have seen humor in what I did.

But at that point, the reason I'm finding forgiveness from over here is just at that point, what knowledge can you really have of what it is to love so deeply that grief would be a loss that you cannot replace like you didn't you hadn't you hadn't lost like things like that I still haven't I don't know I I don't I like I say I have not I have not really ever totally resolved in my mind what you know my my behavior toward my mom then, except I know she didn't judge me, you know. 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. She didn't, she wouldn't blame anybody

but herself for that. But you would recognize that, how long have you now been married to Michelle? 30 something, 31 years, 30, yeah. How long were your parents together? Oh, longer than that. The thing that my brother's death taught me among many is that when I now look into the eyes of my wife who represents the greatest love I've known that wasn't my brother I now have the understanding that whatever loss is there either She loses me or I lose her is going to be the most

Unimaginable pain that I am risking and that is what the deepest of love is. Yeah well yeah that's about that's what love is. This is also something and everybody with kids has the same issue you know someone like you have been you've you've you're hostage now to this relationship that will never ever go away you cannot ever you can't erase it and in the end never you know what he has the old saying 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. How did we get to this level of coverage? We will get to the funny stuff in a second. I have

not had this conversation with you before. My dog is so you know, my dog is dying, Dan. The original question was, what did you ask Pat Riley at my wedding? You and... I did tell Pat, and I will tell you right now what I told him, and you judge whether you think he'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 him I've been watching sports a long time I know he's a big deal he's better I'm watching basketball a long time the team that scores the most point in the game every single time

yes yeah I told you took it away from my wedding it was the thing was that I don't know but has he has he employed no yeah I know he's listening he came with a gift to my wife story opponent and left with that gift uh... thanks to you uh... another thing that you taught me that i saw with great intensity just watching you is because you had so free your daughter uh... later in life the amount of the intensity that you and michelle brought to the love of her was something

awe-inspiring to behold. Thank you. Write down another... That's right. Another deep, another deep... I want, but the reason, listen, Dave, Dave, we'll get to the funny in a second, but I want people to know in this setting some people that I have learned from and what they've learned because i'm not kidding you when i tell you beyond being an inspiration in a lot of ways you've lived a life that from over here seems to have things in it that are the nutrients everyone can gain something from well yeah but he's not and i really didn't invent any of these these things uh... but yeah i like build sophie she's she's

an incredible gift. But we went through an the worst thing that ever happened this what I just talking about hostage when you when you're a kid, you become a hostage. The worst thing that ever happened to me involved Sophie, you know, which was when when she she turned, had just turned 18 and she was going to go to Duke. She'd been accepted to where she wanted to go. And the day or two days before, on August 18th, 2018,

she's getting ready to go to Duke and she wakes up and 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. And so we take her into the hospital and, and neurologists, thank God, diagnosed immediately what it was.

And it's something called transverse myelitis. And so like our daughter's in there getting scanned and she comes out, this neurologist, and sits down with me and Michelle and says, it's not good. I said, first thing she said, 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. 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 a couple of months, an intense therapy and everything, and she recovered and got to Duke a semester late. They wanted to make her a year late, but she said, no, I'm class of 2022, and she graduated with honors and is now fine. But we went through the absolute,

most unimaginably horrible time. I mean, no, that's not true. 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. 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 walking across the street,

just where Sophie used to walk across the street. And I'm thinking, like, I'm thinking, 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'm just sobbing. 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. She has become a person who counsels other people who have trans, but she'll never, you would never hear her bring it up, ever. I'm bringing it up

because it changed, changed my life. But the, the, the, the lesson of that was going right back to what you were talking about, the amount of love you feel, 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 did she, and every day they'd come and say, has she moved? Nope, nothing. They'd come and say, 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 what we all three came away from and we Michelle and I talked 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.

None of, did you get up this morning? Can you walk around? You know, do you have, are the people you love still around? Are they alive? 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 states where you like him or you don't like them that does not matter

what really matters is that the things absolutely closest to you your you know your kids your loved ones and are they okay you know are you okay with them that's all that 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. And thank you, you know, because there are people who, 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 there. You were not like that before that hospital experience?

You carried yourself as somebody who had some wisdoms about how to be happy in life. Okay, well I'm not like, I was never like, 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 could get, be upset for days

about pretty minor things before. It takes 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. Folks, did you know that sleep

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One of the reasons that I say that your happiness seemed to be aspirational, at least as that love ran through Sophie is because, uh, all the time I was overwhelmed at how proud both of you were about talking about this isn't the normal parents stuff of our kid is the best. Our kid really is the best. She really is though. I'm going to just say of our kid is the best. Our kid really is the best. She really is though. I'm gonna just say it, she is the best. My other kid is two. I have a son, Robin, he's an incredible kid too.

He really gets the short end of the stick. He said, you wrote about him, he got the different, he got the Dave Barry. Well I put him up in the Wiener Mobile at school. So like that was. Yes, he got the celebrity journalist Dave Barry as the father. Well, I picked him up in the Wienermobile at school. So like that was a gift I gave. He got celebrity journalist Dave Barry as the father. Well, he told me.

He went back to his school for the reunion last spring. And he said, the thing that most people still remember was that I picked him up in the Oscar-Meyer Wienermobile. So that was a gift. And like not many fathers can give their children a gift. No, it's great when the father gives the child the gift of your father. Yes, your father being funny.

The gift of humiliation. Here's your father not caring at all about you and your experience, but your father gets the applause of being funny around his son. Hey, that's what put him through school. Firstborn second favorite, yes? This is the way that we're, well, but you also,

you have more appreciation in your 50s for the honor and responsibility of being a parent in a loving household that doesn't have conflict between the parents. Yeah, no, I'm a big believer in having kids later in life because of that, yeah, because you appreciate it more and I think you have more time for them. 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, you can move to the villages and get a really cool golf cart and drive around drunk. I don't think that the audience necessarily knows how intimate, rare, and antiquated the funny local columnists relationship with his community is you make me laugh in print I will love you forever because you're someone who makes me for those moments the medicine of laughter I like reading

that guy can you articulate it as someone who's lived it what it's like to be in this area for 50 years, a voice that reaches people with laughter and what that connection is. When you meet the people, when you walk in today and everyone's saying, do you know what a legend this person is? Well, that just made me feel old here.

Everybody here is 19 years old. That's right. But they don't even know what newspapers are, Dave. Oh my God. 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 reading the news. But I used to, I'll never forget, like I said Nordstrom, I think. 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. He goes, Dave Barry. And she goes, clearly knows. I know, okay. And he goes, well, Dave, Dave Barry. And she goes, clearly knows. I know, OK. And he goes, well, Dave, tell her. Tell her.

Yes. Like, tell her who you are. What am I supposed to tell her? I'm really hilarious. 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 I do want to.

That is not the connection between you and the reader. I had a lot of, I I have wonderful relationship with my readers I always did I relied on my readers for a lot of source material. They would send me, you know, if a Something would happen like okay 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 people mover For those of you who don't live in Miami, the people mover is this train that moves around downtown Miami, it moves people.

And he goes, I'm on the people mover, and there's a shark on the people mover. Like, I go, what? Yeah, and it's not dead, Dave. And what? They call you with these kinds of tips all over Miami. So like, I'm on that story, I mean like 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 journey. And it turns out there was a shark on the piece too. I don't know if you remember this. Yes, I do remember this. There was a live shark on the people mover. 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. A live shark. So they don't have a car. They're two homeless guys, but they get on the people, which I think was free at the time. And, and like, and it's not designed for marine life. That's why we call it the people. That's correct. But it was rush hour and there are people like on

there with this thing. And they go over to the river where there's some, a bunch of restaurants on the river and nobody wants to buy their shark predictably. So yeah, like who knew? So then they leave it on the streets of Miami and then Harold, it was the front page of the Harold the next day, because people come to work the next day and there's a shark in downtown Miami. At that point it was dead. They don't go that long.

That's right. I mean, they're hardy animals, Dan. But not that long. Overnight, no. But there was a quote from a shopkeeper. This is so Miami is like Yeah, like when I first saw it, I thought oh damn It's a dead body because you know, and it was just it's always really relieved it relieved it was just a show Again this does not speak to your relationship with your no

It's at all except that they call you they call me and they they probably call you because they think they have your sense of humor, which is why they think they know you. 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 yeah, to this day, if somebody will recognize me in Publix, I'm like maybe in the supermarket aisle

and they'll try and decide which size granola to get you know and they'll say the people who recognize me well you're gonna write a column about this Dave and I'm like well that's not very no I'm buying granola but yeah they people do feel they know you think I'm sure it was the same with you when you wrote a column of course in your case they thought they knew you and they hated you uh correct that is they thought you. I'm sure it was the same with you when you wrote a comm. Of course, in your case, they thought they knew you and they hated you. Correct. They thought you were very arrogant. How would anybody get that impression?

Yes. The opinionated, strident, obnoxious, counterintuitive player apologist was popular. I had a different relationship with my readers, I would say, than you did. Your relationship with your readers feels like a real feel-good thing. It is up to to me you have aspirationally one of the best careers a journalist could ever have. I that will not argue with that. I I really do think that I 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. And I wanted to, if I read that there was gonna be a sommelier of the year competition at the wall door for story

i could just tell gene weingarten at the mike i gene i gotta go to new york and rent tuxedo and go to the sommelier of the year competition you wrote never even question you wrote often about wasting expensive gas money like that you were just doing things to fund your curiosity laughter habit yeah i went to uh... new york with with uh... chuck fadely uh... any photographer laughter habit. Yeah I went to New York with Chuck Fadley a photographer and we this was in 1986 we and we rented a helicopter for $8,000 I don't know what

it costs now but back then that was a lot of money eight thousand dollars to take a picture of a garbage barge from the air. You told a great story though it ended up being worth it because you were making fun of New York because they said Miami was paradise lost and so you showed here's New York, just a garbage ship in your water. That's right. And you so you were that was worth $8,000. Can you imagine what you would have to do today to get the Miami Herald to give you $8,000 to do anything?

Like they don't know there's it doesn't it's not possible. We did it 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? Well, but you had, wait a minute. We just said, we'll charge this. Do you guys take American Express? Hold on, you had a carte blanche.

I need to explain to people. It's not merely the golden age of American newspapering. This man at a place that has Tropic Magazine, which is an award-winning ancillary journalistic arm of the Miami Herald, where all the best journalism was done by the best journalists this market has ever had. You had a carte blanche that not most people had. I remember being introduced to it.

You came to spring training. I was the first year covering the Marlins and you're like, let me take you to dinner. And I thought it was because you wanted me to give you Marlins information. And all we did, we took an agent out to dinner, spent way too much money, and you ended up writing about alligators

who jump up and grab bait off of a line. And you didn't end up writing about baseball at all. Gatorland, no, I didn't, I didn't. You just spent money, like you spent, you spilled over the bar, that seemed to me like journalistic excess too. I had never seen somebody spend like that with newspaper money.

No, I remember when I asked you, cause 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 you want to go to dinner and you're like okay now you're gonna you're gonna ask me you know like inside information you're like you were pined with that and like this okay I'm the I'm the young sports writer and you're the you're the star columnist so you'll just pick my brain but the goal at all the goal was just was just to go have a few drinks.

I mean, speaking of Tropic things that we could do that I don't know how you could do them now, but when the Miami Heat became a franchise, 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 but then when I say we Tropic magazine so we ran a cover story of me spinning a basketball on my middle finger and and I wrote this just absolute vicious attack on the the city of Orlando and but this is where it was like when and beyond just like a regular newspaper thing and just into performance art

we 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 and so we we we get about like, like 40, 50 people get on the bus, who the winners of the, the few who had 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, we, they had Pat, remember Pat. Pat Williams was their general manager a deeply religious man

Who had about 18 adopted children and was a very kind man, but he loved the whole idea of the rivalry Well, he loved your column and he loved the fact that you were for no reason Creating a rivalry with the Orlando Magic you specifically Yeah So we show up having written this vicious story and the Orlando Sentinel columnist Bob Morris, they printed it and they, here they come with these Miami people. And they had, 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. Of course, yes, yes, subtle humor. But I was like, yeah, but my point is like they claimed was cocaine. Of course. Yes, subtle humor. But my point is like that was fun. It was. That was really fun. The glory days of money newspaper thing. We just rented a bus. Yes it was great. And we rented a hotel up there. Yes it was great fun and now newspapers are dead. You're saying that was why the newspaper went right down to the toilet. That's correct. You bankrupted that was why the newspaper went right down the toilet.

That's correct. You bankrupted newspapers with your expense account. I never thought of it that way. Of course they don't spend money that way anymore. Why would they spend money that way anymore? Well, that was so much fun. You must be mortified by the state of American newspapers. Like for as much as you are a humor columnist

You saw the Miami Herald to be an inspiration to the nation's Journalists on how to tell truth to power how to stamp out corruption and now there's just an infestation of it in South Florida That can't be stopped because there are no governors. It's but it's not just here. It's everywhere. It's I mean, it's really sad what's happened to Newspapers like I always say it's really sad what's happened to newspapers. I always say it's really bad being an industry run by English majors, but that's kind of what happened to us. Well, the internet? What internet?

We didn't really catch that wave, is what I'm saying. And we ended up being destroyed by it. But it's everywhere. I mean, there's no local journalism left. There's big papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But there's there's very few successful local papers. They're just all struggling. They're all out of money. There can't be a new new Dave Barry, correct? No, I agree. I mean, I think there are a lot of funny people, but they're writing, they're writing substacks and they're writing Twitter and they're, you know,

they're writing for TV shows, but there's no, yeah, there was, I was pretty much the end of that line. Um, and I was lucky enough to get to know like Art Buchwald and Russell Baker and Irma Bombeck, the kind of generation I had to me when it was, you know, everybody, every newspaper wanted to have a humor columnist and there were a million local humor columnists and i was one of the the more successful of those no you were the most i was for a while tony cornheiser told me one time we did

at the atlanta olympics i think you and i both wrote columns doing rhythmic uh or synchronized swimming with the u.s women's olympic and i'm just gonna say this is gonna this is gonna sound like i'm blowing smoke up your ass but you wrote a funnier column than I did I don't about that I did but just so the listeners know what we're talking about we Dan and I were both were covering the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta the bomb Olympics and I think was my idea, but you agreed to go along Tony Kornheiser told me don't do that You don't want to be writing comedy opposite Dave Barry. That's Tony Kornheiser told me, don't do that. You don't want to be writing comedy opposite Dave Barry.

That's Tony Kornheiser. He was, if he wasn't the second best humor columnist in America, he was pretty close. Yeah, 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 US 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 like ballerinas with their hands over their heads and there's you and I disappearing beneath the surface of the Emory University pool. By accident, I've also got my nose pin upside down because I didn't know how to do a nose pin.

I don't think that's what it's called either. I don't think it's a nose pin. But Tony Kornheiser mentioned to me that you don't wanna be writing opposite Dave Barry as a humor columnist. There was nobody doing it as well as you were doing it. I was just the lane of all I do is write funny. The expectation of it's always gonna be funny,

even though in fact, it was so, this is one of the things I remember about your range is that when you wrote on dark heavy stuff, as you sometimes did and did extraordinarily well, they'd have to put your name at the end of the article instead of at the beginning because your byline meant it was gonna be funny. Okay, if you say so.

They did, I remember you wrote a couple of dark, or more serious pieces. 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 write, you know,

get it out of me. I don't want more horrible things to happen to me. I want to go back to writing booger jokes. player props. Your DraftGames customers bet $5 to give $150 in bonus bets instantly. Take it to the rack with DraftGames Sportsbook. Every point counts. Download the DraftGames Sportsbook app and use code BEACH. That's code B-E-A-C-H for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks. Only at DraftGames. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling.

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remember that I got fifteen dollars an article to cover city council meetings about sewage for the River Cities Gazette. Yeah, paid to write? Yeah, the first time you realize the possibility, wait a minute, I can make money doing this and think of it as a career? That you can be funny for the rest of your life. I'll pay to write humor. Um, yeah, it was, it was like, it was kind of not quite the same.

Sure, I went to work when I got out of college for a little newspaper in Pennsylvania, in Westchester, Pennsylvania, the Daily Local News, which was tiny, which is 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, you know, you wrote a lot of obituaries and covered meetings and police and fire and stuff like that. But you could write, well they call that 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. 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 and say, they used to be funnier, Dave. Is that how your career started? Like what are the real roots of how this became a career for you? Well when I was in like 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. 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 like 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. 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. I always thought I would have to do something else. I wondered when I started if it was somehow awkward praise for me to tell you that your novel sounded hi-as-en-esh, ish, excuse me. Esk.

Yes, either one. Ish or esk, both of them. That obviously, as a work of fiction, he's extraordinary. You grew up here in South Florida. It was the golden age of an unbelievable amount of talent that we had at our newspaper. And I just realized though that comparing you to him because he was first might not be the best way

to compliment you, even though I mean it as the highest of compliments. I know, I am honored. I often get confused for Carl. People will tell me how much they love my book and and it'll turn out that it's actually Carl's. Okay. So do you go with it? What do you do? I say no, you're thinking of Carl Heisen. Then they always go, no, I love you too. You know, like, but anyway, but no, Carl's my very good friend has been for many years and I'm honored to be in any way mentioned in

the same sentence as Carl. He's a genius. He's a he's brilliant. The guy's brilliant as are you though. But what what do you feel about the writing of novels? Like what are the things that move you professionally now to spend your time doing something as difficult as writing?

You don't have to do it, right? I do kind of though. I mean, I really don't want to retire. My wife's an active sports writer. I just go, I'm not going to sit around the house. So I, well, I am still sitting around. I'm writing while I'm sitting around. I don't know. I just, you know, writing is,

you don't have to retire from writing cause it's not hard. I mean, well, it's not physically hard. So I like it. I like writing novels. I like writing others. I mean, I just finished a memoir, which is very much like this interview. Like, you know, like many of the things we've discussed, I talk about in this memoir. But I can't stop writing.

I like to do it. Let me ask you this question because I have not been able to summon either the strength or the bandwidth to tackle what would be the loneliness of a project like writing a book or a memoir. When you decided to tackle your life as a memoir, who are you doing that for? Why are you doing that? Who are you doing that for? Why are you doing that? That's a really 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 is like who's gonna care about my you know who is gonna care more deep feelings are things that decades worth

of listeners will care about your your deepest feelings and I'm a life well lived written well a lifetime of readers will care what do you mean I appreciate that I hope you're right I hope you're right I just you know like, it goes back to what you're saying about my parents from the Midwest. You just don't toot your own horn. Well, but we were taught by journalism. Don't make it. I, I, I don't make it first person, but you were breaking some of those rules and everything that you were doing. But it was always like a humorous persona doing that. This is like pretty serious parts of it. I mean, part of, I talk a length about my humor career and the things my readers got me to do. It looked like going to Orlando and that sort of thing.

But the early stuff, like where I was born and raised and how I went to school, I just stilted this. I mean, the book hasn't come out yet, but I am worried about that. Well, they can edit out the boring stuff. It's too late, it's too stuff. You can, you can, you can, you've lived an interesting life. And the reason I would be interested in reading a memoir of yours is at least in

part, because I would be curious how it is that you are about finding joy now, what it is you've learned combined with, uh, mortality, just in general, a life lived, written now, 50 years you've been writing, right? 50 years you've been writing? Yeah. That's 50 years of connection with readers.

Well, I'll tell you, I mean, okay, this name dropping here, but Steve Martin is a friend of mine. I know that about you, hold on just a second. The soundboard doesn't work because the producer of the show, Matthew Coogler, is pretty, look at that, pretty incompetent. Look at me moving

I'm sorry, yes, you're friends with Steve Martin. Yeah, so I sent him the memoir to get a blurb because that's what you do. And you know, usually it's like pro forma, they write a blurb because that's what you do. And you know, usually it's like pro forma, they write a blurb. Like Steve wrote a blurb in one of my books by saying, I love it. I haven't read it, but I love it. 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. 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, actually, you 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 how, you know, he said,

and people really like to know stuff like that, like how. So that gave me a lot of hope. If he liked it, then maybe other people will like it steve martin not unlike you by the way gives off from afar something of flight boy that person's figured out how to be happy in life person is figured out some of the things that really matter so that they're not as affected by some of the superficialities as they might be that guy he's amazing to me he He like, is wildly successful still.

He has a hit TV show now. He's older than I am. Not many people are older than I am. And he's like, he had the, he was by far the most successful standup comedian who ever lived. He was the first guy to ever do stadiums and stuff like that.

And he threw it away. He just, nope. I'm gonna go make movies. It's an amazing story. He decided he didn't want to do the most successful standup career any of us had ever seen. In his 30s, he just stopped and he said,

I'm gonna make movies now. Successful at movies, collects art, very successful at writing, writes books, writes, anyway, so yeah, he's an amazing guy. And you're right. I mean, I don't know him intimately. We're friends. Well, you've written for him, haven't you?

I have. You wrote for the Oscars for him, right? Yeah, which was really interesting. I mean, that was a... I was terrified, you know, because I hadn't met him at that point. 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 come write jokes for him. I had never written jokes for anybody but me. I sit in a room and my name goes on it. And so I got out there and we were in this hotel room, conference room, and every single person besides Steve Martin and all the other people with Steve we were in his hotel room conference room and every single person besides steve martin and and uh... all the other people

were all professional joke writers i mean the guys who wrote for the bruce philanch was one of them in john max who's this is what they do for a living is what i do for him and others like this they only right for you're the only one in the room was an outsider yes only one who's not didn't live in l selected by you just because he thinks you're funny and he's read your newspaper column yes yeah cuz you like smite you like my writing always you know he's done and and uh...

i would i thought that you the way it worked was you had to have a you know that everybody's gonna be hilarious and they are they're very sharp very funny people but i thought it was like immediately as you sit down, you say a joke and everybody goes, wow, and writes it down and not at all what happens. 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 would go, okay, well, we could do it.

And then, you know, or somebody will say something is really stupid, but some of us say, well, we could maybe and then it's weak and tweak it and tweak it and tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. And it sounds tedious. It does what 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. But then every now and again, somebody comes up with something you know it and then and it's the martin gets up and delivers his joke and you realize ten people wrote that show right

you can 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 because in my world if you try something it's stupid everybody's gonna say that's stupid like that's right in this paper one shot editor will go that sucks yes but out there it's like much more supportive you know and and 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's you know he has a good sense of humor he has memory for Joe, you know, so where are the places that you've arrived that you look at as sort of the landmarks of how the hell did I get here doing this? Like I imagine that would be one of them, but you were a regular guest on the late night circuit. So you had a TV show after you, right? You had for how many years did the TV show in your name last? Just called Dave. Dave's World. Four years.

Okay, forgive me for not knowing the name. That's all right. That's all right. That's Rest In Peace Harry Anderson. Yeah. Four years about your life. Yeah. What are the bronze, silver, and gold medalist

of like career perks where you're like, how the hell did this little thing I was doing over here become this? 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 a very mediocre. Still now Rock Bottom Remainders is with Mitch Album and Stephen King. Stephen King's in our band, Amy Tan, Scott Terrell, a lot of good authors. Matt Groening. Matt Groening, Warren Zemine used to play with us back in the day, Roger McGuinn of the Birds still does play with. But anyway. Are all of these names not going fit in bronze silver and gold like

This is such a common part of your life that the music part of it that the rock part of it Okay, that is to me like that was is we like if you always wanted to play shortstop or something for the Yankees Or which probably you did not I did not know. I did. I wanted to be good at sports but it wasn't. It wasn't. 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 us, you've heard a kind of a mutant version of us but. I think I've heard Hyacin in that band too. Yes, yes. Right? Carl plays with us. It's 10 great authors. That just cannot play music very well.

Right, not great musicians. But because of who we are, we get to do it sometimes. So this one time in LA, 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, 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 was called Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A, and

I happened to sing that song. It's not a hard song to sing. So I wish nobody filmed it, this is before iPhones, but when we do this song I'm singing GL-O-R-I-A in my ears, Bruce Springsteen going, he sang back up to me, Bruce Springsteen did. See, like that was, that's pretty good. That's my goal. That's your goal. What about silver and bronze? Well, I thought you were, I thought you were going to go up the scale. You didn't do it. You just gave me the best one right out of the box.

That was it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's, I've, it's been, 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. It is a good amount of fun. It is something that was wildly unexpected from just wanting to be a sports writer. All I wanted to do was be able to make some money writing about the games. I didn't think there was anything else in it. I was never seeking money or anything else from it other than the doing of it. I always felt like you always were very ambitious, right from the start.

Like when you did that high school sports show where you had me on as your, I think your first guest. I'm going to get the video of that right now. I wouldn't say that I was necessarily ambitious. I was simply super Cuban exile motivated to work so that I could have the freedom of a career, right? So I- But yeah, but you didn't just,

I mean, as soon as you could move from a fairly limited like print audience to a much wider electronic audience, you made that move and always just a curiosity though about what growth could look like right like i didn't uh... i didn't come into newspaper in thinking that aspirationally uh... television career would ever be possible in fact mitch album was a guiding light in terms of like watching a television show

simulcast in detroit like watching a television show simulcast in Detroit that was a radio show and not understanding how it is that any of that existed for him in Detroit. I was fascinated by the sports reporters by how do I get into some of these places that these other journalists have gotten into so that I can expand whatever my career is outside of just Miami because as as much interesting stuff as there can be in Miami can also be very limiting. It's not something that feels of the rest of the world. It seems like it takes longer to discover things in Miami.

In fact, the newspaper age that we were growing up with, we had to be great and greater than the Washington Post and the New York Times for 10 years for people to recognize us as great as those places. Yeah, we were always second tier, third tier. But not in the work. The work was just as good. I simply will not have anyone tell me that the Washington Post or the New York Times was doing anything better than what you guys were doing in the 90s. We had one of the best newspaper staffs ever assembled.

I agree with all that. It can't be disagreed with, I don't think. 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 girls? No, most of the people didn't read English

that were reading the newspaper. They thought we were communists. No, we were writing for Cubans from Miami who thought that you were a communist. Yeah, true, true. The memoir though, can you take me through the going through the process of going through the pages of your life as a writer? It was interesting. I mean, I had to go back and dig up all these old photos and letters and stuff like that,

I mean, trying to be accurate, and write to people who are there and say, does this way you remember this happening? You were the editor of my high school newspaper, do you remember that I wrote a column for you about that, you know, like that kind of stuff. That's cool, it's a cool rummaging though, no? It was, I enjoyed it, but there was always this feeling,

like I was saying earlier, it's like, who's gonna, besides me, is gonna care about this stuff? Well, we'll find out, Dan, won't we? What about your legacy, Dave? Like, you've got a legacy in this market, and you're leaving one with a memoir that details your life. That's my legacy.

You do have, like, I don't wanna take it too seriously, because you're always self-deprecating but your legacy, like how do you imagine you're going to be remembered? And I asked this question as someone who understands that Conan O'Brien will stand over the grave of Calvin Coolidge and be like, when was the last time anyone talked about Calvin Coolidge? Like we're, we're all dust here. There's not much of a legacy, but we don't have to be that nihilistic about it. I have thought about it.

And I think that based on the humorous that I loved when I was a kid, there was a guy named Robert Benchley I was obsessed with when I was a kid. Well, my dad had all his books. He was a very popular humorous in the 20s, 30s, 40s. He wrote for the New Yorker and he's a brilliant, brilliant guy and silly. That's what I loved about him. He was a very silly humorist in the 20s, 30s, 40s. He worked for the New Yorker and he's a brilliant, brilliant guy and silly. That's what I loved about him. He's a very silly

humorist but brilliant, really smart. I patterned myself after him more than anybody else. Now nobody but me knows who Robert Finchley is. But you're the one reference in his place though. I understand, but that's my point is exactly that. I think that, and this is not, again, it is not false modesty, it's just the way the world works. What is funny to one generation is the less and less funny is because the references become vaguer and less familiar. And with humor, that's the case. So I don't, I think that my main legacy is gonna 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, 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. Like 50 years from now, they'll still be doing that, but I don't think they'll know who I was. Let's go ahead and play this video that he wants to play here. You want to do the play-by-play here. This is the Miami Herald High School Sports Show.

You say this is a very ambitious Dan Lebatard. This was a young and sweaty, very sweaty. And I'm going to face an Olympic softball pitcher. Look how much sweat. Look how good I feel about myself though. Yeah, and this woman is gonna throw the ball very hard Claire Sua, she sets me up with a fastball first. Nice good, but you take a good cut you gotta thank God We're not showing my act, which is mostly me backing away. Yeah, here we go. Watch this closely

Perfect there. Oh, wow a snort from you And as I recall when I was sitting on the floor, I also got a snort. That snort echoes 25 years. I was gonna show those girls what's what and there it is right there. She threw me a change up and the most embarrassing thing that can happen is me stumbling down the entirety of the third base line.

I do point out to the other team, there you go, you were not gonna leave till you hit the ball Wow, but she threw about 70 more past me after that. I am very sweaty here and Who knew what where this man was gonna go from there Dave it's lovely seeing you. It is always lovely seeing you. I'm sorry that we got you all emotional off the top instead of just doing the fun stuff, the lighthearted stuff, the superficial stuff

you wanted to do. 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 big game happened.

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