Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus
Read Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus Online
Authors: Dave Barry
The Taming of the Screw
Babies and Other Hazards of Sex
Stay Fit and Healthy Until You’re Dead
Claw Your Way to the Top
Bad Habits
Dave Barry’s Guide to Marriage and/or Sex
Homes and Other Black Holes
Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits
Dave Barry Slept Here
Dave Barry Turns 40
Dave Barry Talks Back
Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need
Dave Barry Does Japan
Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up
Dave Barry’s Gift Guide to End All Gift Guides
Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys
Dave Barry in Cyberspace
Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs
Dave Barry Turns 50
Big Trouble
Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down
Tricky Business
Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway
The Avenging Death Killer of Doom
Weight Loss Through Anti-Gravity
The Incredible Shrinking Brain
This photo, from around 1952, shows me
(left)
with my sister, Kate, on a tricycle outside the house where we grew up in Armonk, New York. Between me and Kate is a child I do not recognize. So I’m just going to say it’s Bill Clinton, and if he wants to deny it, let him sue.
I
, alone, could never have produced this book. I say this mainly in case there are lawsuits. But also I want to give credit to the institutions and people whose help is invaluable to me, yet whose names never appear in my writing, unless of course they do something silly.
First, I thank my readers, a wondrously alert group of people who keep me posted on world events and who, every time I read my mail, remind me that I could not possibly make up a world weirder than the one I already inhabit.
I thank the
Miami Herald
, and particularly my editors at
Tronic Magazine:
Tom Shroder, Bill Rose, and John Barry, courageous journalists who do not hesitate to stand up for me when an angry reader calls the paper to complain about something I have written.
“He’s not here,” they say.
I thank Doris Mansour,
Tropic’s
office manager, a loyal friend who painstakingly proofreads my writing, which is no easy task because the Official Stylebook does not list spellings for words such as “bazootyhead.”
I thank my editor at Crown, Betty A. Prashker, who’s savvy and supportive, and who can make a person feel right at home even when she’s taking the person to lunch at the Four Seasons, a New York City restaurant where the asparagus costs approximately $85 per spear.
I thank my agent, Al Hart, who is a rare combination—
wise
and
enthusiastic—and whose letters are always funnier than mine.
I thank my irreplaceable assistant and research department, Judi Smith, who can find out anything and talk to anybody, and who usually knows what I’m thinking, so I don’t have to.
Above all, I thank my son, Rob, who’s still willing to go out with me and help me test the world’s most powerful head-mounted water gun, even though, unlike his dad, he’s really gotten too mature for that kind of thing; and my wife, Michelle, who makes me endlessly happy
and
takes me to basketball games.
All these people helped make this book possible. But let me make one thing clear: If there are any errors or omissions in this book, these people are
not
responsible. In the end, there is only one person responsible for what I write, and that person, of course, is: Donald Trump. Thank you.
F
irst, a few words about the title.
It isn’t easy, coming up with book titles. A lot of the really good ones are taken.
Thin Thighs in 30 Days
, for example. Also
The Bible
.
Another restriction was that the publisher wanted a title with my name in it. Over the years, most of my book titles have had my name in them
(Dave Barry Turns 40, Dave Barry Turns 41, Dave Barry Develops a Nasal Polyp
, etc.). I realize this sounds egotistical, but it’s not my idea. I’d be a lot happier if the book titles had a name with more appeal to the mass public, like “Stephen King” or “The Beatles.” If it wasn’t for the potential legal hassles, this book would be called something like
Develop Washboard Abs in One Hour with John Grisham and Madonna (As Seen on Oprah)
.
Anyway, the first title actually considered for this book was
Another Damn Dave Barry Book
. I liked that one, because it was punchy, yet at the same time it said absolutely nothing. But then Crown changed its mind and decided against this title, presumably on the grounds that the word “damn” would offend some people, who would therefore not buy the book. Of course you could argue that this was a good reason to
use
the title, because people who’d be offended by the word “damn” would probably suffer cerebral hemorrhages if they read the book’s actual contents.
But
Another Damn Dave Barry Book
was definitely out. Instead, Crown wanted to use
Dave Barry Exposes Himself
, featuring
a cover photo of me wearing only an overcoat, which I would be holding open to display my body, with my strategic parts covered by the title (insert your font-size joke here). After a certain amount of hemming and hawing, as well as faxing, I rejected this title. My argument was that the cover concept was a stale old sight gag, but the real reason was that I didn’t want to expose my body I do not have Washboard Abs; I have Stealth Abs, protected from detection by a strategic layer of radar-absorbing flab.
For a while my editor at Crown, Betty Prashker, tried to argue me into accepting
Dave Barry Exposes Himself
.
“The way we see it,” she said, “every time you write something, you’re exposing yourself.”
This is the kind of thing editors can say, secure in the knowledge that
they
won’t be appearing on a book cover wearing only an open overcoat.
But I was firm in my opposition. And thus began a spate of title brainstorming. My agent, Al Hart, came up with what I thought was a winner—
Dave Barry Wants to Chew Your Hair
—but Crown was not receptive. Crown also rejected one of mine that I thought beautifully captured the spirit not only of this book, but virtually my entire body of work:
Armpit Noises from the Heart
. I also had no luck with:
Who Are You Calling Immature?
By Dave “Booger” Barry
Here are some of the other titles that didn’t make it:
While You Were Holding Down a Real Job,
Dave Barry Was Writing This
A Funny Title Goes Here
Dave Barry Lowers His Standards Even More
How to Remain Sophomoric in the Coming Millennium
This Book Is All True
And Other Lies by Dave Barry
This Book Has Nothing to Do with the 01 Trial
Humor Writers Who Run with Wolves
The Wisdom of Dave Barry
Would Be a Really Short Book, So We Printed This One Instead
And of course:
Moby Dave
But none of these was acceptable to everybody. Finally, just when it was beginning to look as though we’d never come up with a title, and the book would never get published—which would be a tragedy for civilization—we agreed on
Dave Barry Is from Mars
and
Venus
. It combines the two most essential elements of a classic book title:
Nobody has any idea what it means.
I don’t have to get naked for the cover.
In addition to a title, this book also has contents, and I’d like to say a few words about them. Mostly what you will find in this book are short essays on a wide variety of important
topics that are of concern to the informed, concerned citizen, such as turkey rectums. Because of the breadth of topics I cover in my
oeuvre
,
1
people often ask me what methodology I use in my research and writing. Here it is:
After a hearty breakfast, I scan the
Miami Herald
and other major daily newspapers, looking for important news developments and making mental notes. (“Huh!” is my exact phrasing.)Lunch.
I fire up my laptop computer and, after some thought, type out the subject, or “topic idea,” of an essay, such as: “Robot cockroaches.”
Nap.
I fire my laptop computer back up and start “fleshing out” my topic idea by developing possible themes for discussion and amplification (“Robot cockroaches—a bad idea?”).
Lunch.
At this point, heeding the old maxim that “all work and no play makes Jack Nicholson try to kill his family with an ax,” I generally knock off for the day, only to return the next day and start the whole “grind” all over again, taking a harshly critical look at my work output from the day before, revising and polishing it, not stopping until the words convey precisely the message that I have formulated in my mind’s eye (“Robot cockroaches—a bad idea? Or what?”).
Sometimes I also do field research. For example, in researching the essays in this book, I climbed a giant scary tree in a beaver-infested area; experienced Total Brain Lockup while competing on the TV show
Wheel of Fortune;
played the role of a corpse in an opera in Eugene, Oregon; got hit by a car; nearly drowned with the U.S. Synchronized Swimming National Team; became the only person I know of to be sent to the emergency room with a laser-tag injury; threw up in an F-16 exceeding the speed of sound; and, of course, set fire to my toilet.
I’m not trying to impress you; it’s my
job
to do this kind of research. I’m no different from other leading columnists such as George Will or William Safire, both of whom set fire to their toilets on virtually a daily basis.
Why do we do these things? I can’t speak for Bill and George, but as for myself, I do them because I believe—call me an idealist if you want—that even in this incredibly complex global society, one lone person, using only his mind and the power of information,
can
make a difference.
And I definitely do
not
want that person to be me.