D.C. COMICS TIMING'S EVERYTHING WHEN IT COMES TO DAVE BARRY'S NEW BOOK.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

Either Dave Barry is suffering from a case of really bad timing or Osama bin Laden has a thing against Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnists.

In his latest book, ``Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway,'' the humorist examines last year's loopy election and offers his incisive thoughts on, among other pressing political issues, taxes. Imagining an asteroid pummeling Washington, D.C., Barry suggests, ``Even if the entire District of Columbia were transformed into a gigantic, two-mile-deep hole, taxpayers would be required to stand around the edge and throw money in the smoking cavity.''

Not a bad line - except that the book came out a couple of weeks after there had been a smoking cavity in our nation's capital, which sort of diminishes the humor quotient. Add to that the film ``Big Trouble,'' based on Barry's first novel. Originally scheduled to open in September, it got yanked thanks to a gag involving sneaking a nuclear weapon onto an airplane. (The film, scene intact, will be released April 5.)

``When you get down to it, Sept. 11 was about me,'' Barry declares; ``My next book is another novel, and I'm very fearful that al-Qaida will find out about it and turn it into something.''

Yes, he's just kidding; there isn't a selmportant bone in Dave Barry's body, just a number of funny ones. But he isn't finding the national media debate on whether America's ready to laugh again all that amusing these days, particularly since he's trying to peddle a book poking fun at our government.

``I was on the 'Today' show,'' Barry says. ``I've been on a bunch of times, and beforehand the producer interviews you and comes up with 25 things to talk about; 24 of them were reasonably amusing and one of them was the 9/11 thing. But on the air, every question was, 'Is the country ready for this?' I was, 'You booked me on this show! Would you book a juggler on the show and ask, ``Is the country ready for juggling?'' ' What really got me was, later on they were going to have historic brassieres.

``The people most concerned about whether it's OK to laugh generally turn out to be the media. The national gloom is (more) in the minds of East Coast media people than anybody else.''

Indeed, the rumors of the death of humor were greatly exaggerated. We spoke to Barry - the Miami-based humorist whose column appears Sundays in the Daily News - about a bunch of stuff, much of it irrelevant and trivial and, therefore, right up his alley.

DAILY NEWS: Most people who are funny are angry and have an edge to their material. You, on the other hand ...

BARRY: Oh, There's a lot of anger here. (He's kidding.) Comedy is anger and fear. I'm more on the silliness side. My literary hero is Robert Benchley, and he was just silly. I'll gladly sacrifice a point if I can think of a joke.

I used to get a lot of probing analysis about what I'm really like. I think I'm pretty shallow - it's true. I don't catch myself being reflective when I'm alone. I had in-depth interviews where they go through the bad things in your life. So they'd say, ``There's a lot of pain in Dave Barry's life'' - no! When my dad died, I was 37 - it wasn't like I was sitting in my knickers saying (in a childish voice), ``Daddy's never coming home?'' It was so profoundly inaccurate.

DN: If Oprah wanted your book in her book club, would you spurn her like Jonathan Franzen did?

BARRY: I would not only gladly accept the endorsement, but I would pay somebody to print up fake stickers that said I was endorsed by Oprah. I've actually been on Oprah's show, but it didn't turn me into a mega-author. She says, ``That's really funny,'' but she never said, ``It's really meaningful and all you gals ought to buy it.'' That's what I need Oprah to say. If only I had some wisdom or had had a horrible childhood.

DN: Could you find your Pulitzer easily?

BARRY: I lost it for 10 years. It was in a box and it got moved and moved and I recovered it in my garage - it had stains on it, but I have it now. I know where it is, and I can produce it if I have to. I know at some point people will say, ``Come on - you didn't win a Pulitzer!'' But I've learned that as time goes by, you can say you've won a Pulitzer Prize and, odds are, it's possible. You go to some paper and they'll point to some guy drooling on his keyboard and say, ``Bud won a Pulitzer in 1952.'' And it could be true. It's the only defense against being fired.

DN: I visited Miami when the pope came to town, and a fistfight broke out in the line to get flowers that had been blessed by the pope. Miami seems to be a perfect place for a humor columnist, and yet you didn't move there for three years after getting the job.

BARRY: When I got the job, I arrived in the dead of summer; nobody spoke English, it was hot, it was loud, the news was full of murders and riots and trials that would cause more riots. I said, ``I'm not going to move here,'' and they agreed that I could stay in Pennsylvania. I'd come down to do stories and became more and more fascinated. If you can't find material in Miami. ... When the pope came, the Miami Herald ran a 20-page section; 98 percent of it was what to do if a bomb goes off. It was terrifying. So when the pope came, there was no one there. I was in a bar, watching it with some guys who had been there all day drinking, and when the pope went by, they went (in a drunken-guy voice), ``Hey! The pope!'' Then, they had this outdoor Mass where he was almost struck by lightning. I'm sure they'll never bring him back.

DN: What was the reaction down there when Florida threw a wrench into the election machinery last year?

BARRY: There was a sense of, ``Of course.'' Of course, we would be the ones to screw up the entire presidential election, not just for a couple of hours but for week after week. The dominant image was, ``These people cannot punch a hole all the way through a piece of cardboard.''

You know, as serious as it started out, Afghanistan has become the next story the media butchers. Last night, I was watching Geraldo (on the Fox News Channel). He was lying on his stomach and panting because someone had just shot at him. After making this whole thing about himself, he gets up off the ground and says, dramatically matter-of-factly, ``Well, war is dangerous.''

When you have Geraldo over there, managing to make himself the dramatic focus of everything, it can't be too long before the war's utterly trivialized. Does he still have any fans? Is there anybody who isn't laughing or isn't revolted? He is so far into self-parody. I favor military tribunals for Geraldo.

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