Gary Dahl (pet rocks)

Gary Dahl is the inventor of the Pet Rock. Dahl, an advertising executive from Los Gatos, California, conceived the idea of selling rocks to people as pets, complete with instructions. The 1975 fad only lasted about half a year, but that was enough to make Dahl a millionaire. From the proceeds of his fad "pets", Dahl opened the Los Gatos bar, Carry Nation's (named after the famous bar smasher).

In 2000, Dahl won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, the San José State University sponsored competition that awards authors for crafting particularly bad "purple prose." Dahl's winning entry:

:The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their pints. [ [http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm Bulwer-Lytton Awards.] ]

Dahl was also featured in a 1970s documentary film by Orofino High School students as a man with large 1970s-style glasses and a deep voice. This video can be accessed on YouTube.

Dahl is the author of "Advertising for Dummies" (ISBN 978-0764553776), part of the popular ...for Dummies series.

References