What was your name again. Carl hiaasen couldnt be here but im in his place. Thank you for coming, thank you to jamie. [applause] what we thought we would do in the few minutes we have left is we are going to briefly talk about our newspaper careers but first we think the festival for fitting 1,000,0001 2 people into this room with an incredible crowd. National park service estimate in this room. I would never see a crowd this big. Most amazing incredible crowd. Huge crowd. So we are going to tell you about our newspaper careers and then talk about florida or whatever. I started the newspaper business in 1921, worked for a newspaper in pennsylvania called the daily local news in westchester, pennsylvania. A local paper. On the front page, woman beats off would be rapists. That is the kind of paper we were. I was a general assignment reporter. I wrote obituaries and covered fires and a lot of municipal meetings. I went from there to the associated press. Left journalism for a while. And. I started writing it, the early 80s, more papers in 1983, the miami herald hired me. And and in 1986. I moved to miami. If you want to be a humor writer. A small paper in Central Florida carried to the miami herald and 76 on the city desk, worked in sunday magazine where dave and i crossed paths and work on the Investigation Team for a few years and in 1985 started writing a column which i still right for them having outlived all the editors and publishers who i aggravated over the years and my career got started a tiny paper in florida, and later became the prototype for usa today which is still around and you can read it but when a flight first assignments was a tv show called batman. There was a guy named adam west to played batman and the show endeded and adam west was doing tours, he would go to Shopping Malls and entertain kids so i got to go, they sent me an interview, adam west in a tiny dressing room in the Shopping Mall watching him try to fit into leotards and i just thought this is like woodward and bernstein, the whole watergate thing is happening and im sitting in this closet with adam west who is wearing like a sailor because he cant fit into this batman outfit this is where i am headeded. And i went to harold in 76 and i have been there ever since, south florida person, that seemed like the logical place to end up and there isnt a better news town or news place in the country. The material is boundless. Carl has written amazing books set in florida, something he has remarked on many times and so true, you cannot take things up that are weirder than the things that are happening. When example, it always struck me as the one that if you wrote it in a book the editor would tell you know, that would never happen. This involved citizens crime watch meeting in a little town south of miami and the chief of police was addressing the Crime Watch Group and they were reading outdoors at the inaugural meeting explaining how police work with crime watch and it is going really well until the chief of police is almost hit on the head by 70 pound veil of cocaine falling from the sky. It was smugglers coming over from the bahamas and they were intercepted, about 20 of them, another would hit a church and they dropped them and forced them down in naples and set up a treatment to the everglades the next day. If you wrote a novel and had a scene where the chief of police was almost hit by falling cocaine at a citizens crime watch meeting, the critics would roast you. The editor would say ridiculous, dont put it in, nobody would believe it. There were times i had to clip stories out of the herald and send them to my editors in new york and convince them the fix and im writing is not so farfetched. After the drug wars got started before Sonny Crockett came to miami, the herald they tried to do it in a subdued and tasteful way, the headline was a courthouse hires voodoo staff. Because all these religion am a semi religion that involves animal sacrifice and the courthouse every morning would find dead chickens, beheaded goats and things and a curse on the prosecutor and the judge. And janitors willing to clean up dismembered animals and citizenry arrived at the dade county courthouse every morning, slick with blood so the herald actually ran it and try this happens everywhere. Dont want to offends you remember the story when they got their own pr people and said they were going to make everyone think this is okay on the tv where they had a tv crew and they were going to show the efficacy and humaneness with which they did animal sacrifice. It was so the goat got loose in the middle of it and it backfired. It was terrible. There was a strong market for goats in miami it is not because we eat them. Every now and then there will be a camry on the expressway. It does still happen. Wildlife, we have a lot of wildlife that interacts the wildlife story. And fishing in biscayne bay. They caught a 6 foot nurse shark and decided they would sell it to a bunch of restaurants on the miami river, why they thought they could sell a nurse shark, theyd get it over there or have transportation so they took the people mover which is a hightech thing we have in miami that goes around and it is not really designed for a real life. Why we call it the people mover. And and theres a shark on the people mover and it is not dead. It was not in good shape. And the story of all no one would buy the shark. Hands the merchants showed up the next day, he said when i first saw it it was a body, and it was just a shark. It was from miami. My favorite story was the guy, a trailer park in west dade. The sets were not calling the police but the game wardens. Not calling disturbances at the house, they knew something wasnt right and his shirt is obligate, puncture wounds all over his torso and everything is fine. Everything is not find. It is a double wide, they start at one end and finally get to the master bedroom and clearly nervous and let me say there is only one bed in the house. They walk up to bed and pull the covers off and two adult alligators in the bed. The affidavit was the alligators were removed from the premises, quote, for their own protection. [laughter] in any other state, in california, if that happens in your neighborhood, whoever has two alligators in the middle of the night, they talk about in 10 or 15 years, not in florida. This guy hires a lawyer. And two years in Florida State court system. There is no constitutional right. No constitutional right to sleep with a wild reptile. It was under federal protection and they had to keep these for gators in custody in case the guy lost to the day the verdict comes on the game warden is thrown in the back of a truck and they drive them into the everglades to an undisclosed location because they didnt want this lovestruck guy to go find them. Those were consenting adult alligators. The current wildlife issues in miamidade county, burmese pythons, carl is the expert on snakes but they are large. They shouldnt be here, they should be in burma. They are an invasive species. People in south florida love reptiles. Carl is one of them. It is like starbucks down there was a snake at 3 00 in the morning in the area. People get these things and have them in their condominiums and at some point run out of crack. We are living with a carnivorous reptile. And they let them go and they are out of the everglades and they reproduce like crazy and with no natural enemies there are thousands and thousands of them. The state of florida decides to get rid of them and comes up with the python challenge. I the big thing with how you kill the python and you would think i would have thought the way to do it is to hack the pythons head off but, no, theyre very strict. Thats not how to you kill them. If you cut the snakes head off the snake keeps thinking. The brain keeps thinking. They dont say what its thinking. Holy sh. You have to destroy the brain and the python. The first year keep the numbers in mind. The estimates range in the tens of thousands, some people say hundreds of thousands out there. And we have people from all over the country come down for a month and the end of the month the total wag 68 dead pythonsment so, im not a biologist but im assuming at some time during the month, a mother python laid some eggs or whatever, produced more. The point is we lost the python challenge. We lose it every year. For the demographics, picture lots of people arriving with snakes and machetes and just for the demographic, if you held a duck dynasty look alike contest, for example, and you what you gave out was crystal meth in the beginning of the thing, then you got yourself a python rodeo going on, and everybody year they try something new. They lengthened the length of time and every year theres a few pythons but every female python lay up to 90 eggs. 90. And they have no natural enemies. So, this is a losing cause, and ive told dave one of the great every president ial year didnt happen last year. And i wish but usually president ial candidates come to florida, they do a photo op in everglades. Its obilge tory obligatoriy and you pose and people in floor care before the everglades so if your running for president you have go there. Even jeb bush did. Its in the everglades. So you have fan fan to si that during photo op a huge crete at the snatches one of them off the boardwalk. Who is the small one, michelle bachmann. She was small enough. I think thats in my fantasy. You have the this and theyre gone and thats the next step in the python invasion. Its an invasion. If were going to challenge a species we should challenge one we could win against. Pick manatees. We all love manatees but they dont do well in florida because the not that bright. All do respect. But they are brighter than the bolters of florida. Who boaters of florida who are not right at all. The keep running into manatees and theres always these slow down, manatee zone and never works, the idea is we cant slow the bolters down, lets speed the manatees up. And my idea was to put motors on manatees and get them up to 60, 70milesanhour and after a couple of boaters are killed by highspeed manatees theyll start slowing down. Speaking of humans, we should talk about the richest source of humor in florida and especially dade county, mime dade county, is the political system. We should do after the election swear them and indict them in one ceremony. Because we have the most amazing record. We there was a glorious period of about i dont know six years, whatever, when the two main political candidates, the two most powerful men in dade county were known as crazy joe and mayor loco. They were sitting its not too long ago, maybe two years ago, we had a twoweek stretch where three mayors were indicted. Three separate municipalitiesitn the space of two week us. A trifecta that anyone any life time theyve get indicted, get convicted go to jail, and get reelected. Im not kidding. The voters say this guy doesnt need in training. Ready to go. But mayor loco was xavier suarez, who i liked, but he was known as major loco their herald transcribed him at eccentric. A lady wrote a letter. A retired City Employee wrote a letter to the mayor criticizing something he had done, and his response was to go to her house at 10 30 at night and pound on her door help wanted to respond to her. It was miami, she went and got her gun. , which as she told the herald it has the bullets that do real damage. So, thank god she didnt open the door to the mayor, as i recall. He stood on the doorstep pounding and she is inside with a gun and his aiders are saying this isnt a good idea. 10 30 at night. We came this close to having another mayor. Ethe crazy thing he did he was pissed off the herald for something, maybe somebody i wrote or the Editorial Board wrote and he was so upset he showed up in this bagrobe in the lobby at 4 00 in the morning because thats the first place the newspapers were delivered. Newspapers are made of paper and have words on them. You dont see them much anymore. He was waiting for the fluke his bathrobe and security people are on the phone, theres guy in a bathrobe, its mayor loco. But you cant again, character better than anything you we mentioned the guns. I have to tell the roy black. Roy black is a famous defense lawyer in south florida and his partner oh, no, the something to. Yeah, the dog. This is great. I stole this from a novel. His partner gets home from work, frank, walking his dog in the neighborhood, and another dog comes over. The neighbors dog breaks off the leash and comes over and theres a confrontation, and being a lawyer in miami and of yours you carry a gun, so frank takes out the two dogs are having a little confrontation and frank takes out his gun and blow away the neighbors dog help happens, luckily to have his law partner, one of the most famous defense lawyers in the country. They tried to they didnt want to put him in jail. Just going to tack his law license away and it was the trial of the century. Roy sent helicopters up to do crime scene photos. They had reenactments. Little tape where the poor dog fell. Did a psychological profile of the other dog. It was unbelievable. All because and this guy had a but that is not the only lawyer shooting a dog story i have. Another one i have is a guy walking a dog and a pit bull got away, and from a neighbor and latched on to his golden retriever and he pulled out his weapon this wills the pit bull is dead but doesnt getgo and the golden retriever runs down the street with the dead pitbull on his back. The dogs jaws were locked and they had to shoot the dog off the golden retriever and. And the lawyer told me this and its a pitbull story. I said you just pulled out your gun he has a brief case and his gun, getting out of the car. The most normal conversation in the world to him. Of course i carry a gun. So why shouldnt i shoot the dog. A lot of people have weapons in miami. This woman was a literary escort, which means her job was when authors came to miami, she picked them up the airport and takes them around. One time the author was cleveland amrey, and the publisher requested she get a little vehicle for cleveland amrey, and the picked him up and took him to the rental car place. She gets the rem car. Hat Cleveland Emery in the rental car as she is leaving a man runs up and grabs her purse and runs over and gets in another car and starts to drive. So penny get out of the car and starts screaming, yelling. A man pulls to stop next to hemorrhage pulls out a gun and fires several shots the fleeing purse thief in his car. Doesnt hit him. Jumps back in the in his car and drives off. Leaving penny with no purse and cleveland amrey cowering on the floorboard. Welcome to miami, you know. We dont always present the best face to tourists. I had a Bumper Sticker made up that says, come back to miami exwerent shooting at you. This story created quite a stir abroad. A german tourist at an Airport Hotel was he checks in, spends the night, comes out the next morning and is complaining theres a terrible onor his room. Goes back to his room with the hotel person and they look under the bed and theres a body under the bed. And they made a big deal about that in germany. Didnt point out he was not charged for the extra occupant. Werent there more we january tourists norwegian toursis. They mean well. Miami is pretty. They dont realize theyre in a war zone. They dont know what a war zone is until the get there. The interesting phenomenon about florida, when miami vice started the chamber of commerce was whining and complaining this presented there were 12 homicides an episode and its not fair. They were complaining this was presenting a face of just the wild west or third world country. Tourists go to the best thing that ever happened in bought south beach. It was incredible and lot of them were Foreign Tourists and getting this in syndication and were fascinated. With were trying to beat orlando and failing bodily, and so when miami vice came, the city fathers were really, really angry. Made it look like every person in miami was a drug tealer when in fact its like one in three. Maybe one inthree. But i wanted to also mention we were talking about the political system and we did the herald did a story once where we this kind of an issue thats been raised by President Trump who feel is his elect was rigged even though, is a recall, he won it. But. We need an investigation. But anyway, in miami, the herald decided to do a story on absentee voters, people who vote in city of miami but dont live in the city of miami. And it turned out to be very easy locate people who lived out of the city. But the herald called them up dirk want to read you a couple of their explanations to the herald. This is people who are being told your voting in a city where you dont live. And they said stuff like i know this woman who has been voting for 13 years from not living in miami, voting in miami. Know i shouldnt be doing it but toyment would to forget people, my blood. Then heres another one. Its a tradition. The important things we do as a family together. They go back and vote. Vote with their friends. When we moved i couldnt vote for the people i liked here. And my favorite, i ive always felt more in tune with things in miami anywhere else. Im an american citizen. If you dont violate anything when you vote, its my right. Most of the corruption has been in municipal races and county races and often its candidates themselves dont live where they say they live. They find out they live miles and miles away and representing a district, but we talked about manwell voted twice in onelection and he didnt live in miami put he wasnt even alive. Three times. Theres a big controversy below restoring the Voting Rights to felons and we always argue who is Better Qualified to judge miami politicians than a front theyre the most knowledge inable and informed voter wes have in south florida. The guys get out of rayford, they know. Well, this election. We were debating where to talk politics or not. Lets in the time we have, lets take some questions. Oh, yeah, sure. Can we do that . Allowed to take questions . Well break the rules, damnit. Shout it out. Is that a bad thing we are doing to cspan . Cspan is on, thats right. Hi. Did he say i think he said shit at one point. No, i didnt. You said it. Well, bleep that out. [inaudible question] a guy was fend offering the bad guy with a frozen something from the freezer. A frozen his lizard. Thats a true story. A guy had been broken into several times and for rains cant go into he was not allowed to possess a final at that point in this life. He had a big giant lizard that had passed away and he used to feed it rats rats and it died ae put it in the freezer. Said why you keep thing his name was claws. I asked why he was keeping it. He said because if they break in again, thats what im going to go after them with. He would turn off all the houstonlights and sit there with the frozen lizard. He thought if he used the lizard on the burglar, and then got rid of no one would believe he would kill somebody with a lizard. Thats actually truism saw the damn thing in freezer. Was horrifying. Heres what happened. We had a cushing come through the keys knock all the power off so the freezer the last we saw ol the liers sadr he tied it to the back of his boat and took it out to the sound and cut it loose. Thats a true story. His lizard went soft. It happens. Happens to be dish cant begin to toll you how quested and sick and perverted carl is when it comes to lizards and snakes. When i got married, carl gave me as a wedding gift an egg. A mysterious little egg. And all he would say is, you better get a cage. Tell them what happened. It wasnt easy to get the damn thing, and then my wife killed the egg. She put it in the freezer. Just because i wouldnt tell her what it was. Whatever it was what good is a surprise, miss point. Some laws. It was illegal lizard. If you had a cage it would have been fine. It would have been fine. Yes, maam. [inaudible question] what do we use most often for inspiration in for me its the realization that if i dont come up with Something Else to write i might have to get a real job, and thats been a lifelong motivateyear for me. Jimmy breslin is great. A friend of mine. He would always say when people asked them thats a perfectly good question but would answer, my mortgage is my inspiration. It is a job. It is a job. But youre talking about is credittive inspiration. Just read the front page used to be just the miami herald but its not. He whole state of florida is completely insane. A this point. Dave gets the greatest eest clippings send to him and i get a fair number. Theyre disturbing, make you want to sleep with the lights on at night but its good material for your next book. But real life is the best. Were in a situation now politically, one of our most famous residents in palm beach, florida. A situation that none of us no novelist could have its like a tom wolfe and Hunter Thompson got together and created what we have now. And vonnegut. Youve get that from the daily stuff but by and large writing is a job a damn peculiar job. Most people who write, i think, spend the image you have is something just comes to you and its like this flash and its so rare. Its really more like it doesnt seem that good and then the next day seems maybe a little better and then but its like that. Slowly adding words, not just this blinding flash except for stephen king. But some people can write at that incredibly high prolific i dont know how he does it. I dont know how a lot of these people do it. But its pretty much tore tour torture for a lot of us. Like coal mining but much harder. Its a weird job. Ow go into a room oh, you use a room. Brilliant. And you go in with theoretically a stack 500 blank page outside have the audacity to think youll put words on it and somebody is going read commit enjoy it. You think about the nerve it takes to do that. But nerve somewhere your head you think im going to write something good enough that somebody wants to read and then the insecurity piles on with every page, and then the worst thing can happen we talked about this her in the middle of a book and you read a a really good book you feel like a total imposter and you feel like just putting a torch to the whole operation. And so thats why i dont read a lot of fiction when im writing fiction but it will send me over the edge. The other side of the coin you write something and you think its okay and it sell as certain amount and then 0 identify 5 shades of gray comes out and people buy and you think i could have done that. Why didnt die that . Yes . I want to thank you for [inaudible question] thank you. Thank you. But i said this many times because people very sweet of you to say that and i appreciate that. That people will the me, when i was feeling depressed or wasnt getting along with any kid and we read your book together and it made is feel so much better, and i am always grateful but deep any heart i think i would still do it if it hurt you. Because i dont really have any other useful skill. No other skills whatsoever. The cool thing about this festivals, dave and i talk about this, he travels when you have a book come out and youre on a tour, we always complain and whine about being on the road and away from your family, which is hard, but this is the only chance we get really to meet the people who read the books, because its a very isolating, lonely the writing is a lonely grind, and you never know how good or how bad it is when youre done and then you take a deep breath and get on the plane and good to different cities and start meeting people and getting a feedback and this is true with the kids becomes. That keeps you going, sometimes its not a happy job to be doing but the rewarding thing is when you get the feedback and this is the only connection with get. Even working for the newspaper now, unless youre a this is a privilege for us to get we have both written books for kids and i love the kid readers. Theyre different from adult readers. And theyre very direct. But i dont know if you have done school groups, and. Oh, yeah. 300 six graders and im talking about my book and does anybody have any questions, the girl in front says, do you know you have a big wet stain under both your arms . It was true. I did. Kids or honest. But it is fun to talk to. The. Theyre so slick so smart, and it is a good inspiring thing to be able to do that, and we need readers in this country desperately now. Readers of anything. They have to read. Knee need at least a million and a half maybe. Yes . [inaudible question] your question was, she said vvery nice. I wrote a book that came big trouble and do we have any plans to make more movies out of our books. This is completely out of our hands. They give you money and you give them your book and thats the end of your creative input. [inaudible question] not really. I did have one interesting experience, went to rich as part of an exchange program, they send authors to improve relations between the two countries. See how well that worked out. And they asked me in st. Petersburg, the consulate they have a program and show american movies to russians, and they asked me if i would bring big trouble over. Usually its White Christmas with bring crosby. But they have an actual author with movie. Would row dues the movie and the audience speaks some english. So i agreed to do it and im going around russia doing talks and one of the question is would always ask them is what do you think we think of you that bothers you . They all said the same thing. You think were all drunk on vodka and were all gangsters, and they didnt like the gangster thing. And then i get to st. Petersburg and i have my movie and im remembering the plot of the movie. Oh, theres actually two russians in the president of the movie and the plot of this movie and theyre gangsters. So i had to get up in front of a bunch of russians and tell them there are russianness my movie and theyre gangsterses but i said theyre sport and all the americans are stupid. But one thing just want to pass along because i lived in russia and if you ever go there there,e thing i learned, do not eat the mexican food. I say this because we were in a in moscow and all the restaurants open was a Mexican Restaurant run by russians who arent that good at their own russian food and i its what i late he can recognized as a weaponnized chimamanday chong chimichanga. It was long night for them if they were listening in on my room. The ritzcarlton . Yeah. The president ial suite. Oh, yeah. It was urine, free. Ill stress that. I didnt have anything to do besides cashing the check i had very little to do with strip tease the movie. Went on the set. Everyone was as nice as you do be. You realize dirk said this before all writer know that when you turn in your books over to hollywood is like turning them your kid over to Charles Manson daycare center. Thats what it is. So you go in with these very low expectations and you wish them the best, but theres a couple projects always kicking around and youre always nice to them on the phone and sometime this writers want to come dispark you say, come talk, and all you can do is be nice and hope that they get it, they sort of get it, and that the script turns out okay. In most cases the scripts do not turn out okay and the stuff doesnt get made, and were actually better off youre much better off with a bad script not getting made of your books than one getting made and get thing money because then you still have to spend the rest of your life answering things like, what did they do to your book . And i say the book is good. You went to see Something Different entirely. But most of them are sunrise they mean well. Its a of how thing. Writing a good screen play is really hard work. Has to have structure, continuity. All the thing is throw away when i write a novel. We are out of time. But thank you all for coming out. Thanks for waiting in line, too. [applause] in 1986 i moved to miami and have been there ever since, and carl and i are going to talk about it but its good place if you want to be a humor writer. Excellent place to go. Dave barry published over 30 bucks include dave barry schlep hereto, dave bars greatest hits and the recently released best state ever. A florida man defends his homeland. Watch in depth live sunday from noon to 3 00 p. M. Eastern