Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, May 25th, 2025, and this is a special episode of the excerpt.

Think back. Do you remember the person voted class clown at your high school? Is that person still doing funny antics in adulthood?

One person who can nab that claim to fame is Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Dave Barry.

Barry has made a career out of being a jokester, writing a nationally syndicated humor column for two decades.

He's also a best-selling author.

His latest book is Class Clown, The Memoirs of a Professional Wise As.

Class Clown is on bookshelves now.

Thanks for joining me on the excerpt, Dave.

Thanks for having me, Dana.

You've written a lot of books.

Why this memoir and why now? Well, I was a little

nervous about writing a memoir. Why Now is like I'm 77 years old. If I don't write it now, I don't

know when I'm going to write it. So, and my editor at Simon & Schuster, Priscilla Payton,

and I agreed that maybe this would be a good time to write a memoir. I hope she was right.

I was a little nervous about talking about myself, which I don't usually, well, I do talk about

myself, but I'm usually kidding. In this case, I'm sometimes telling the truth.

How have your experiences in childhood shaped your career as a humorist?

My parents were really funny people. It's weird because both of them kind of had sort of tragic elements to their lives. My dad dealt with alcoholism, much of his life. He recovered.

My mom committed suicide after my dad died, which was brutal for everybody. But this is going

to be weird to say.

My mom was the funniest person I've ever known.

She had a very dark sense of humor,

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