Horace J. Digby -- Humor Columnist -- Winner of the 2005 Robert Benchley Society Award for HumorDave Barry'sc 2006 Lexington Film, LLC. All rights reserved. No authorized duplication.
Money Secrets
 
by Horace J. Digby
 
 
    The reason for book tours is that publishers are thinking, "I'll bet this book would be worth a lot more money if the author was dead."  That's how Dave BarryListen to Dave Barry and Horace J. Digby Podcast from NPR station KUOW Seattle began his economic address to the standing-room-only crowd at Seattle's old Town Hall. 
 
    "Thank you all for coming.  I guess, since it's raining, there wasn't much else for you to do."  
 
    "There are  lots of books about money, by authors who may seem more qualified.  But those books all have a major flaw.  When people buy those books, I personally don't get royalties.  My book, Dave Barry's Money Secrets, available where ever fine books are sold, addresses this problem." 
 
    According to Barry, money was once based on cows.  This made armed robbery unbelievably difficult, but it was also hard to make change. 
 
    "You give me a cow and I'll give you three hamsters change." 
 
    Barry didn't spend the entire time promoting his book, Dave Barry's Money Secrets, available where ever fine books are sold.  He also shared insider humor secrets about his experience as part of Steve Martin's writing team for the Academy Awards. 
 
    "We met in Steve Martin's living room.  Everyone besides me, was either an experienced professional joke writer or Steve Martin.  I am used to spending an hour thinking about whether it would be funnier to use the word squirrel or the word weasel in a sentence (for those wondering, it's weasel).  But these writers worked as a team." 
 
    "They were very generous.  Someone would come up with part of a joke and the others would work with the idea.  Nobody really owned any of the jokes.  They knew they wouldn't get credit.  Steve Martin gets the credit." 
 
    "Being backstage during the Academy Awards was wonderful, and not just because I ran right into Halle Berry." 
 
    Following his talk, Barry stayed to sign autographs and hobnobbed privately with me (and about 100 other people).  We naturally exchanged the mandatory humor-columnist's secret handshake, and then visited briefly about friends in common, the future of the Robert Benchley Society, and of course, economic concepts.  Although Barry seemed to enjoy my suggestion that he beginning autographs with, "Pay to the order of . . ."  he didn't adopt the practice. 
 
    All too soon, it was time to leave.  "Tell the Louie Louie god hi," Barry said, remembering an event of two years earlier when my son Adam sang with him, on stage in Tacoma.  
 
    Later on Seattle's National Public Radio, news and information station, KUOW 94.9, Barry shared more of his ground breaking economic strategies, with me appearing by telephone. 
 
Horace J. Digby:    Dave, my son Adam has just been admitted to Whitman College.  It's kind of an expensive school.   
 
Dave Barry:     Can I tell you something sir? 
 
Horace J. Digby:     Sure.
 
Dave Barry:      You've made a mistake that a lot of people make.  Because college is very expensive.  A good college can run $40,000 a year.  And that's why I tell people, in my book, how important it is to start planning right now, to make sure your children attend a bad college, because those are way cheaper. 
 
The key is bad grades.  Bad college requires bad grades.  And they don't just happen by themselves.  You have to get on your kids. 
 
You say, "Kids, you will not do your home work until you're finished with these video games."  Be strict.  Be tough.  It's your financial future we're talking about here. 
 
Steve Scher:     How do you know what's a good college and what's not a good college?
 
Dave Barry:     Usually the length of the name.  Like Whitman is a short name.  You want a college that has lots of words like Polytechnic Agricultural Pharmaceutical Refrigeration School of Repair South . . .  And it helps if its sports team has a really dumb name like The Fighting Urinal Cakes. 
 
Horace J. Digby:    Then would you loan me $43,000,000? 
 
[Earlier in the interview, Barry explained that he had recently received a large windfall, when a Nigerian business man sent him $43,000,000, for sound business reasons which the e-mail didn't adequately explain.  The cash was delivered by UPS in hundreds of cardboard shipping containers.] 
 
Dave Barry:     Sure.  All I need from you—just for processing—it's just a little legal technicality—I'll need about a thousand dollars.  Also I need you to pay the shipper $3,000.   Once I get that, it's just a matter of paperwork and the $43-mill will be on its way. 
 
    Barry Also explained his system for making money in the stock market. 
 
    "Most people are afraid of the stock market, and they really don't need to be.  I have a system in my book for making money in the stock market . . .  Not only can anybody do it; it can't miss.  But you have to follow the system.  If you do, if you take the three simple steps of the Dave Barry Stock Wealth System, you will make money in the stock market . . ." 
Step 1:   Research the market and determine what stocks in the past twenty years have out performed the market;
 
Step 2:   Get a time machine. 
 
Step 3:   You go back in time and buy those stocks. 
    "Now a lot of people out there are saying, 'Wait a minute Dave, there's a flaw in your system, which is, some people are too lazy to do the research.'  That's not my problem.  I can't be responsible for everything." 
 
    -- Horace J. Digby --
Copyright © 2006 Lexington Film, LLC. All rights reserved