Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth With Dave Barry 20170422 : c

for the next three hours gets underway now. >> host: author dave barry, let's begin where you begin in your book, "best. state. ever." what the heck is wrong with the state of florida? >> guest: we do have a levitation are stupid, where people. and there are many stupid, weird people are doing stupid, weird things. but my argument is it's not our fault. the example that i give, and i know this may offend you personally, and i apologize ahead but there was a famous example of florida craziness a couple years ago where a woman was driving south on the overseas highway that connects miami to key west, and she, according to this florida state highway patrol later filed on the synthetic and was in a hurry to get to key west because you wanted to see her boyfriend. she was eager to see her boyfriend. she wanted to shave her bikini region in preparation for the big reunion. so a lot of people went off to the side of the road to do that, but she come again and was in her associate outsourced this during the car to the person who was the passenger, who turned out wiser ex-husband, who is very florida detail. so they're going south pictures using the operating big seller in history the car and she is shaving. what could go wrong, right collects the car in front of them, and it won in a million fluke occurrence, slow down. and they ran into it and there's a big accident. this was international news once they got out. did you read about this woman in florida? that women was from indiana. [laughter] she was shaving her hoosier, and yet we got, florida got the blame. my point is willy ellis island to accept the tired and before we get the insane people from other states pick a summary decides he wants to get naked and pleasure himself into a stuffed animal at walmart, he doesn't do that in ohio. he doesn't do that in pennsylvania. he comes to florida to get that and it would become international. look at these instances come on these people, a lot of people, to just be weird. >> host: he writes lord has become the joke state, the state everybody makes fun of. if states were characters on seinfeld, florida would be kramer. every time it appears the audience automatically laugh knowing it's going to do some idiot thing. >> guest: we got that reputation. used to be more just miami. many years people mocked miami. i've been a longtime defender of miami and avon at bumper stickers made up the said come back to miami, we were shooting at you. years ago. then the miami vice days bit but then it expanded to the whole state and it happened, you can trace directly to the 2000 presidential election where every other state was able to determine fairly quickly whom it had voted for for president of the united states, but we didn't do it, you know, like early in the night. they called it for gore and been called for bush and they called it for granted again. lately i think william shatner was leading down here, and at the end of the night they were shooting heroin on television. nobody knew who he had voted for. then we had that like four or five week. we're all in but it talked about was florida because they're still counting the votes. they which are evident some pork palm beach county election official looking at about that event shooter by weasels or something. what was this person thinking when he did this to this piece of cardboard? i proposed at the time in florida voter approved ballot. apparently it was too much for florida voters to how to punch a hole in a piece of cardboard. i found i do what you would print photographs of the candidates faces on the ballot to vote by poking at your candidates eyeballs. but have we done that probably a lot of voters that it would've poked out your own eyeballs so we didn' could do it. but anyway that's when it started. that's in florida became the joke state. then all this come everything anybody in florida did anything come it makes the news. morning radio station all about the country would probably have nothing to talk about if it were not for florida. we provide a service, providing entertainment for the rest of the country. >> host: on the short drive from the airport down here to books and books in coral gables, there's a couple things i notice that it wanted to ask about there i saw a lot of -- >> guest: utero? >> host: i drove. >> guest: i felt like the way people miami drive, these people don't know the law. i now know everybody miami is right according to the law of his or her individual country of origin. there are many, many different interpretations of what a stop sign might mean but it doesn't mean stop in dade county florida. florida. that's the last thing it means. >> host: i saw quite a few slip and fall lawyer billboards, massage parlors and plastic surgery centers. >> guest: those are the big ones, all big ones. reptile sales also. if you need like a butt enhancement and of his snake at 2 a.m., it's going to be minutes away. it's like starbucks down here. -- venomous snake. lawyers are everywhere. basic if anything happens to the number to call write what you get millions of dollars. it's an -- another wonderful reason to live here. >> host: you write every group, immigrant groups had own foreign policies. >> guest: miami does have a foreign policy and has for many, many years. it's kind of lesson alone but now that we've open a relationship with cuba, but that's still a pretty big issue in dade county politics is where you stand on cuba. which is doctor, i think in most cities because cities are thank you susan stuff. we're not. we thinking about cuba. >> host: comedy times did you run for president transfer it's hard to keep track. it used to be considered a joke but not so much. [laughter] >> guest: not so much lately. i pretty much always running. i do but years on the bumper stickers, just to save money. my campaign, candace and most we consists of accepting cash contributions. not that that's different from other candidates, but i do have policies on some issues. glad to show my policies with you if you would like. >> host: go-ahead. >> guest: health care. a lot of discussion about obamacare, to repeal or replace? if i were present at highest priority would be get the medical profession to find a way to get to the prostate client other than the way they're getting to it now. [laughter] but i like to proceed with a doctor which chemically five yards away and says and looks good from here, dave, you know? [laughter] and then -- >> host: immigration. >> guest: again big issue, a lot of discussion. president trump's issue is the wall here can build the wall. how is it going to pay for the wall? i don't think we need a wall. what i would do if i were the president, i would take the florida department of transportation, send them down to the border and say repair the roads between us and mexico. no one will ever get through again. [laughter] >> host: in your book money secrets, you write social security problem number one, the younger generation is, with all due respect, worthless. social security problem number two, there are too many baby boomers. >> guest: yeah, yeah. i agree with both those statements. you want me to respond? >> host: you can add on. >> guest: i feel really bad. i'm old, not older, i'm an old person and i realize what we have done with social security. we putting this huge burden on the generations follow us. as we have with the environment. we do whatever we want and we are leaving -- i honestly think is going to be a lot of problems after i'm dead, so the hell with it, is my feeling, you know? payback for hip-hop is what i think. [laughter] >> host: you have a chapter about donald trump in your book, "money secrets" and you wrote it in 2006. >> guest: i read his entire book on the art -- it was how to make, something but getting rich. it was after the art of the deal and it was even more shallow. basically, you know, donald trump, a lot of bullet points about how great donald trump is. not unlike how it really is now but there were not a lot of specifics about just that he really, he demands excellence from everybody. like when he picks up silver patterns for his hotel, he gets the best silver pattern. that's the tip yet and i'm thinking if i had hotel i wouldn't really, you know, need any more tips i don't think. >> host: and this book is from 2002006 and is what you write. in 2000, donald trump considered running for president. and he had some terrific ideas but then he decided not to because that would've been a pathetic joke. just kidding. he decided not to because he is too darn blunt for politics. >> guest: that's right. he came here to miami. i do remember if it was before or after wrote that book, but i followed him around for a day and he was again exploring it. i do remember one thing he said, comparing himself to -- he said as any other president of united states made himself into 1 billion or? i don't think. like basically abraham lincoln, loser, right? [laughter] so yeah. well, we are just beyond the realm of humor nowadays. people seeking all the time, this would be so great for you, you know. and i go know, because the idea with you is you take something that everybody can recognize it because it really is exaggerated and make it absurd. but he's already doing that. you don't need me. it's like a brilliant piece of performance art. unfortunately he is the president. >> host: what is the year in review? >> guest: every year, and addenda for many, many years, i do it for "the miami herald" but also runs in the "washington post" and other papers. i take the year, actually i could it in like late november,, so i have to make up december. [laughter] that's the kind of journalism i practice. fake news i would call it if i do come up with -- i was in fake news way before it was cool. [laughter] and i take the events of the year that really happened and try to make a funny narrative out of it. i've done this for many, many years, at people like it a lot. a lot of people, someone here today just mention it. and so but i had to take them every processing process. i get a list of headlines for the year and they go through an echo my god, this is horrible. like terrorist attacks, natural tragedies and mass slayings, and there's nothing funny. and yet i'm supposed to make it into a funny narrative. in the end i figure out a way to do it, often by just leaving out stuff that was really too depressing to write about. it's a big project, probably the biggest project i do every year, kind of pathetic now that i think of it. >> host: how does it -- how long does it take to write it? >> guest: the truth, it takes a couple of months. i'm doing other things along the way but that's kind of nagging at me starting in really september through the end of november. that's amazing and thinking about and trying, working on. and then it's over real fast like depressing, this conversation. >> host: your year in review 2016, it's entitled what the -- but you and times try to avoid november in here. >> guest: skipping to december or going back to the previous month just to avoid confronting what actually happened in november, which america is still not processed what happened or will not even close. my wife and i were talking this morning, i would ever going to just settle back down in this country? i don't know. i don't know that we are. four years of everybody being like -- all the time. all the time? i mean, i'm in the news media. a lot of people i know our newspaper people. a lot of them and they are also -- all the time. >> host: when did you give up your weekly column? >> guest: a long time ago. i stopped writing a weekly, i think in 2005. now here's why get defensive and explained that i still work for a living. but i still write a lot. i write books. like last year 2016 i went to iowa, wrote about the iowa caucuses. i went to new hampshire and what about the new hampshire primaries. i went to both political conventions and what about those. and it went to the olympics and wrote every day for a couple of weeks. so really i work a lot harder than you do, mr. television man with that type, asking when i retired. >> host: from your 2010 -- >> guest: coal mining but harder. >> host: i will mature would i did. you write political conventions are excellent places to observe vithe ip area lost because they are teaming with high-level washington dwelling people chosen careers in public service specifically to avoid having any contact with the actual public. >> yeah. i agree it would i wrote that statement i agree with you completely. washington is all about status and power and there is no more clear example of that. it crystallized at the political convention all of these people who are obsessed with power and prestige and privilege come together and have two forget ways to exclude as me people as humanly possible, justify the own power and trustees. what specifically talk about their, i can't remember, i think it was 2004, political and convention in philadelphia, the republican convention, i think, so i'm there and i usually go, cartoonist, the only people who are true and michel as i am in journalism field, used to be. now it's pretty much everybody on twitter. we made it our mission to get into parts that we were not invited to. and that's kind of the sport of going to convention. the lowest form of human at the convention is a delicate. the delegates of the people who stand there holding up whatever stupid sign they were handed wearing stupid hats and nobody pays attention two delegates. they are not important. it's a vip set are important and have a lot of receptions and parties you're not invited you. there was this reception for somebody somewhere, and we're just determined to get it and we did. we talked her way past the initial your people. we're in this building now but then there's another vip area that's hard to get into. and we couldn't get into that but then we went into this, there was a thrill, i'll never forget, it was a strange, fairly large room like a ballroom and the middle was a platform which i guess have been used for speakers or a better something that is kind of in the middle of the floor like a raised maybe two-foot high, maybe the size of ping pong table, about this big. we got up on it. there's 45 of us and we found these cones that gender is used to keep you from getting on a wet floor. we put a coat on either side of the thing and we stood up on this and when people would wander through, people who were attending can we take you can't come up here. this is a reserve area. the first to people like, but by the people started coming over and why can't we get up the quick you can't. this is for us. but then dick armey who was then like the majority leader of the house of representatives came in. dick armey, do you want to get up? he said sure. and he got up with -- now it's like a cartoonist and me and dick armey. all these republican vips coming and dick armey, they don't know what it is but he's up on this thing, you know, and now suddenly they really do want to get up on the platform with us. we are like, we are manning the edges of the parameter and we are very reflective -- he was getting the joke. and hot women. more and more crowded out there, and more and more people come industry and wanting to get on -- it was a wonderful night really. i wrote about the next day, like one of the great night of the convention. but it really was in a nutshell what washington is, everybody tried to get up on this completely arbitrary little raised platform. >> host: common theme in a lot of your columns, your 30 plus books, cable news. are you a fan of cable news? >> guest: yeah. i do, i watch cable news because most of the network news now consists of like celebrity gardening tips. not so much news it when i wake up in the morning and turn on today, no offense to the day show, i love the today show,, special when you had the audit to promote my book, but it's generally like here's 38 seconds and is followed by 47 minutes of someone's gardening tips. whereas if you want to watch the news if you go to cnn, you go to msnbc or you go to fox. i want all of them because i find it fascinating that none of them is trying to be unbiased anymore, in my opinion. fox is like completely pro-trump. cnn, they are more subtle but they hate him. nbc hates him. "morning joe" which is a good show, i that sugar but everybody on is biased one way or the other. there isn't any show that if you like anymore is presenting unbiased -- i don't even know what unbiased means anymore. it's just so hard to find. >> host: at what point did you know that you were a humorist, that you're funny, in your life? >> guest: well, there were two things. when i thought it was funny was really young. my family valued humor more than any other quality as a human being. my parents were funny people, and so i thought i was funny as a kid. i got the joke, whether we were into sarcasm heavily an in our family. nobody ever said anything he or she ever met, ever. when i thought i could make a living as a humorist was way later. i wrote humor columns for my high school newspaper, for my college newspaper. got a job at a newspaper when i got out of college where, when i could, i wrote a humor column but that's not what they paid me to do. they paid me to go to incredibly dull municipal meetings, some which are probably still going on about sewage. so i wasn't, you know, and then i was still writing a humor column and i left journalism altogether for a while and taught effective writing seminars to businesspeople. that was my job but have still writing a weekly humor column for the full paper in pennsylvania. by then i'm in my 30s and it still hasn't occurred to me this is a job i could have. and then what really changed it for me was, if somebody had said to me at the beginning, you could have a job where all you do is write humor, that would've been my goal but it never occurred to me that was possible. that did happen to people i knew like art buckwalter i didn't think would happen to me. and then my son was born, and i'm writing a weekly humor column but "the philadelphia inquirer," the editor of the sunday magazine at "the philadelphia inquirer", had read a couple of my columns, maybe submit some stuff. i submitted some things that the inquirer ran, but then i wrote this big long piece, humor piece about the birth of my son. this was 198080 when he was born. the baby boomers were just in the process of taking over the world at that time. the thing about the baby boomers is, as everyone knows, we are very special and there's nobody like us and i will never be a generation like us because we are so freaking special. one of the special things we did was have babies. nobody had ever had babies before. certainly not the way we had them, the way we had them, like when i was born, the old system was like the mother had to be there. [laughter] the father was not anywhere near when it happened. the mother was there but they gave a lot of drugs. she didn't wake up until the job is like in the third grade. [laughter] nobody really participate in the baby having process except the medical personnel, you know, that the baby out and woke them up up and shoved to the data is out smoking cigarettes in the waiting room, if he was even around. and that was the old system. a lot of people were born under that system, abraham lincoln, you know? [laughter] but our system was natural childbirth where everybody really would appreciate it and enjoy it and it would be natural and i would be no drugs involve. we went to classes on how to have a baby which i don't know how did it before. [laughter] we had classes and they would pass around model of the service to admire like, you don't know what thing has been, you know? but the main thing to talk about was contractions, like the never use the word pain, never. and we're like okay, contractions, centered medical and clinical. you have contractions and when the contractions, a certain point apart and you can read a certain way, and her husband coach and it sound like it would be really great. natural. so then, of course, you actually get in there and it's, you know, indicate whether women are having the babies and it's all like -- screaming in pain. baking for drugs, you know? i wrote an essay about that, like the contrast between the classes and the actual childbirth and dave bolt, the editor rampant in "the philadelphia inquirer," and it was instantly, there was no such thing as viral event because there was no internet but it went as viral as someone could get in the newspaper world back then. all the newspapers back then had sunday magazines, and sending magazines were always looking for content and they would exchange, they would sit someone else ran a piece that they were interested in. and everybody, now like i said, journalism was now being taken over by people my age we are all going to the same thing, all having babies. they thought it was pretty funny. i started getting calls. i'll never forget the first call i got. again, i'm working, teaching effective writing seminars, that was my job. "the philadelphia inquirer" had paid me i believe $350 for that piece, which was a lot of money for me to get for writing something. i got a call at home from the "chicago tribune", the editor of the sunday magazine and he said, he read your piece in the choir, i thought it was great, i'd like to print it. great. how much do you charge? i think, i already made $350. i said, how about $50? he said, we will pay you 500. and i'm thinking like, if i had said 25, he might've gone up to a thousand, i don't know. [laughter] and then that process was repeated with a bunch, not always without extreme, i soon discovered this is -- they all ran it and then they all said what also be written? i set a this little column for the daily local news in west chester, pennsylvania. they said send it to us. that suddenly really based on that one story, we did in a couple of months i was in a lot of papers and people knew who i was. editors, magazine editors, one down here at come in miami at "the miami herald." and then within a fairly short period of time i was offered jobs at newspapers and took a job here in miami. so i went from being a guy writing a column trying to almost as a hobby, the daily local news which was the little paper that ran weekly that was paying $23.50 a week. a week there by actual income was from teaching writing to something i was a humor writer. but again, it kind of happened to me. it was like a set out, if i write the right piece of getting all these markets. i didn't think that way. it was more like it happened to me and that was wonderful when it did. but it was very much unexpected. >> host: what you're good at teaching effective writing to business executives? >> guest: i was good at teaching it. they were not that good at learning it. [laughter] no, here's the thing. it's probably still to come i don't know, but like the people, our clients were engineers, chemists, auditors. they were people who didn't, they were intelligent people and educated people, it didn't write for a living. they didn't think of themselves as writers so they wrote the way everybody in the company wrote an are error but at every compan america at the same way back then. i don't know if it is still too, which is the get something really, really important to say you would have figured out a way after three years of testing and experimentation, you like dupont employee or something, you would figure out a way to manufacture this plastic for 27 cents a kilogram cheaper than before and you could save the company $384 million a year without any real, without doing much at all, just changing a formula, the way you would write that if you would write and 87 page document that would start three years ago we undertook a program to determine whether substituting blah, blah, blah, and somewhere in there it was a week it's a $384 million a year by switching this to this. never at the end we could fight it. never at the beginning we could find it. somewhere in there it would be to after they dragged you through all the work they had done and all the studies they did. it was always worke worried tha. i would say to them, the first sentence of your report had to say we can save 340 million. they would say no, we can do that. why not? bats not how we do it here. and i go, but they are paying me to come in to tell you how to do it. that's how you should do it. it was a real battle. i would say that i won the battle 10% of the time and lost it 90% of the time. i didn't feel didn't feel bad about it because -- also talked a lot about how to structure a sense and stuff like that. i don't think i changed the way american business people right, but i did make them feel guilty anyway, which was something. >> host: back to discussion about -- >> guest: i want to add one thing. the thing that really benefited me personally about that part of my career which is almost i think some use of teaching effective writing seminars is like a good at talking to groups. because if you walk into, like you are at, you know, a plant, chemical plant in north carolina and a bunch of people have been told yet to go report to this for a week this, talking about writing, it was a week, they would shovel in and sit down and then you look at me and i looked like i was nine years old then. i had a mustache just to try to look older and it looked like a nine-year-old with a mustache. and i would say, i had to convince these people that, they didn't think i knew anything. they didn't want to be there and had to keep their attention and try to teach them. just at the beginning, i was terrified. i would throw up before, at the motel before i would go. but then i just learned to make it entertaining. they knew that there was going to be something funny coming along sooner or later and i got better and better at speaking to groups. that turned out to be invaluable when i became a writer. because as you probably know when you become a writer, writing the book is, in the might of the publishers, like maybe 50%, maybe less. the important thing is going out and promoting the book talking to groups of people. that was a useful expense for me to like an unwilling audience and have to win them over. when you get out to talk to people about your book, generally they are willing audience it's a lot easier but i felt much more comfortable doing that. >> host: do you enjoyed the book tour? >> guest: i do. i don't like the travel part. my joke has been, the purpose of the book tour is to kill off the cassette will make the book more valuable. but it can be brutal. really unbelievably brutal. i'll give you one example. i don't allow this imo. i used to be much more naïve about what i would laugh at a book tour but the thing i learned to avoid is we're going to have a film crew tagalong and they won't, you won't even know they are there, you know? a complete lie. they make you come out of the door three times. this was when i was more naïve and i was on a book tour in seattle and this film crew tagalong. i get off the plane and they are there. this was before 9/11 so they could be right at the gate. followed me through, i get picked up by the escort to take you randy they are in the van with me so we can even have like, we can't even say hi. i could say hi but everything you say, don't mind us. you know? cycle around, i did a bunch of talks, a bunch of radio interviews, tv interviews, a very packed day. i'm looking at the schedule and i can see that there's half an hour left when afton, filter it is going to leave and i couldn't have in the hotel and then i have to go do the bookstore event that night. i happen. i'm just looking for to this half an hour all day long. finally it gets, get to the hotel and they would leap at the hotel. i check in. they are gone. go to my room, opened the door and as a film crew. [laughter] they forgot to tell me that it would be another film crew in the hotel room to do an interview and a walk in and they go, i lost it. i go, what are you doing here? they are of course the leaders and the women goes you did know about this question it's on your schedule. i went, i'm really kind of angry but i'm trying not looking, well, what if i had to go to the bathroom? she said, do you? [laughter] and so that part of the book tour, you know, that could really get wearying. but the part of the book tour i like is, when you do a signing and people were actually buying your book, come to listen to you talk and buy a book and have you signed the book, like there's some real people there. because like the radio, tv people, they get your book for free and they're doing it because you're providing them with content, like this, you know? [laughter] but the bookstore people, that's not them. they can because they wanted to. i think every writer kenneth likes to know that there are readers out there somewhere. >> host: and good afternoon and welcome to booktv on c-span -- >> guest: we are just starting now? what was all the stuff going on? >> host: well -- [laughter] it's going to do hard to get through, i think. welcome to booktv on c-span2. this is our "in depth" program over talk to one author and talk about his or her body of work. this month is humorous and author dave barry. we are at books & books in coral gables, florida, and he is our guest, the author of over 30 books. here are some of them. dave barry talks back came out in 1992. dave barry does japan, 1993. dave barry is not making this up, 1994. you put your name and all your book titles? >> guest: i find it just as annoying as you do. [laughter] i once proposed that title be another dam dave barry book by dave barry, and that almost went with but they didn't. suspect may be your next one. dave barry's greatest hits came out in 1997. dave barry selector which is aimed at united states, also came out in 1997. dave barry hits below the beltway, 2002. dave barry "money secrets," 2006. dave barry history of the millennium, so far 2007. i will mature when i'm dead 2010. live right and find happiness came out two years ago, and then this year, "best. state. ever" a florida man defense his homeland. how long have you been living in florida? >> guest: 31 years. as i say i moved to miami from united states in 1986. [laughter] >> host: and we will figure out where you were before that after come want to make sure our audience can get involved. this is a call-in program as regular reviews the booktv know. we'll put the phone numbers up f you'd like to have a conversation with dave barry, 202-728-8200 for those in east and central time zones. 202-728-8201 for those of you in the mount a specific time zones. if you can't get through on the phone lines and you want to try social media, @booktv is our twitter handle. you can send a message in there. you can make a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv and file you can send an e-mail to [email protected]. we will begin taking those calls in just a few minutes. are you on social media? >> guest: yeah, yeah. i have twitter. a facebook. i have a daughter who is 17 who is like entire life is on snap something, you know. indirectly through her. sometimes she takes pictures of me. my daughter is base basal to frs with every other 17-year-old person in the planet thanks to social media. >> host: what is your twitter handle? >> guest: it's ray rayadbury. it's really the fault of gene weingarten was my first editor here at tragic magazine and of the humors columnist at "washington post" who was obsessed with anagrams. he pointed out a long time ago that dave barry with anagrams and always like that. so i use that for my twitter handle. i don't know why i should just call myself dave barry. that's the actual name. you know that, right? >> host: from your book live right and find happiness, to go back to conversation about baby boomers, above all, the greatest generation did not work about providing a perfect risk-free environment for their children. they loved us, sure, b they didn't feel obligated to spend every waking minute running interference between us in the world. has that changed? >> guest: yeah. i mean, that's still my view but my point and that essay was my generation, i was \60{l1}s{l0}\'60{l1}s{l0}, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. that was my generation. we thought of ourselves as a cool, cooler than her parents, more fun that her parents, courageous and repairs. but when i got older look back i realize that was just not true. first of all sex drugs and rock 'n roll as work progresses with kids we stopped and became nannies and became the people the skill of thing the kids do and make sure their kids have a helmet for every activity, including eating. we became much more worried than we were fun. but also i felt back to my parents generation. i grew up a little town called armonk, new york and the title of this essay was the real madman because it's the place where madmen, the tv show is set, westchester county, new york. my dad commuted to newark city every day. a bunch of my friends that's commuted to new york city every day. some of them are advertising people. it was that age group that people up into the great depression and world war ii who are now in her 50s becoming successful. but what i remember when i thought back about it is even though they were parents they had asked. they had kids, careers in anything like that. they partied much harder as grown-ups than my generation ever did. my parents, they had partied every friday and saturday. cocktail parties. the women dressed up. they made manhattan's. they smoked cigarettes like crazy. they ate gluten, you know, openly. [laughter] they didn't care. granted it was not healthy at a lot of them died a lot sooner than they should have but they had fun while they were going. that really didn't happen in my generation. we got much more staid and nervous as a cup holder. i guess it's because they alreadalwaysbeen, like they've h world war ii. they probably didn't feel like, that too much to worry about with raising kids. this is not a new observation, but kids are now much more sheltered. when i was a kid we just, i can't imagine allowing my daughter, my son to do what i did, to get delivered i had when i was a kid. i was just gone from dawn to dusk. my parents didn't know where i was. i don't know, maybe that was bad in some ways, but we had a lot of fun. we developed a great sense of independence from that. i don't know about now. these kids today. >> host: that's it? >> guest: that's it. these darn kids today. >> host: from dave barry slept here, mentioned the 60s and a middle age urban professional and he will transform himself into something worse than what of those depression nights. droning away about his memories and they think up of an excuse to leave guesstimate the baby boomers? yeah. >> host: that's what you wrote. >> guest: well, everybody is really sick of us and i can kind of get why. this 60s were a long, long time ago. i have to admit that still the music i prefer. one of my joys in life is to tell my daughter how crappy her music is compared to the music that i listen to. and nobody is going to still listen to her music 50 years later the way we listen. made i'm wrong about that. see, i'm already droning away about it, aren't i? >> host: what kind of work did your parents do in new york? >> guest: my father was a presbyterian minister, but he did not have a church party was was not a pastor he was executive director of an opposition called the new york city mission society, which was anti-poverty organization in new york that ran all kinds of programs to get when summer camps like every summer my sister and my brothers and i went to camp sharper room where we were the only kids from westchester kennedy everybody else was inner-city kids. my sister and i were the only white kids. what else come anyway, my dad band that kind of, ran that organization. so basically his job was to get money from guilty white people and funnel it to various programs in the south bronx, antipoverty programs, designed to get kids into college, that kind of thing. he went to new york everyday just like every other dad, but his job was very different ricky was very active in the civil rights movement also, so. my mom, everyone ask, not everybody but i'm often asked is where did you get your sense of humor? my dad was a funny guy. he appreciated humor but my mom was funny, and she was funny. she was very edgy funny. she was what they called a a housewife. she had four kids and raised four kids in new york. she cooked dinner for us every night. she wash the clothes, cleaned the house. but she was funny. she s college educated. she went the university of nebraska. she was a stenographer in the manhattan project, in chicago. she worked in the universe of chicago within the reactor in the basement. she claimed, i don't know why she would lie, she was not a person how she claimed she once took dictation from enrico during -- she had secured loans and everything, after she and i get married she moved to new york. dad worked in new york city and so she was raising us in this little town. she was not like other moms. i didn't know, i did notice this one is skewed because of my time and see normal normal but my mom was very edgy lady. like we had a pond near our house, at least pond. my sis and i would go swimming in something, an example of never allow my daughter to do, go off into the woods and go swimming without a helmet. and a lifeguard and some kind of insurance binder. we were just go off and go swimming. we go out, went to her mom out the window as her going off in communication and should open when i go don't drown, kids. we would say we won't. that's kind of thing we made fun of in our family. she would take us around to look down, it's kind of a boutique suburb of new york city, i pressed the address now. that it was just a little town that was near new york but wasn't of new york and it was a real small town, like there was the market we go do shopping and the anpr to some of your shopping. the cleaner should go, a drugstore. my mom would take us around on the errands and the tradesman like her, because she was funny. we go into chinese market and ray would be behind them counter slicing baloney. how are you doing? just shady, ray. [laughter] are we allowed to say that on c-span, i don't know. i apologize. and everybody would just, you know, so she was funny and there was nothing she wouldn't make fun of, nothing. i will give you an example that, maybe even sound a little shocking but it was a true story. when my dad died, we were devastated obviously nobody more so than my mom. there was a service for him but we had him cremated and so we had is earned and just my brothers, my sister my mom and i took the earn to the middle patina cemetery to bury my dad. so it was raining and it was a a sad day. we were all weeping. we go to and they have a little hole dug force already. we go out there, the four of us, the five of us, and put my dad in, is urn in and coming up and say some stuff and hug each other. we are walking away. we are all crying, it's raining. i had my mom on my arm and she looks down at one of tombstones and goes, so that's why we don't see him around anymore. like, we both started laughing, you know? we are still crying but we also -- even in that moment my mom, like she's not going to pass up that opportunity to make a joke. so that was my mother. she had her emotional missions and troubles and everything, but she was really, really funny. i was just raised in a tradition where you don't ever take anything too seriously and especially not yourself. that was my family. >> host: you mention your father was an ordained minister to the problem with about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes, you write. >> guest: along time ago i wrote that column, yes. i remember, contrasting viscount every religion things every other religion is insane. one of the examples, there is a guy in india who believe you should drink your own urine, you know. and over here we think that's really crazy that we do trust ourselves before we take -- like god will be concerned whether this foul shot goes in or not. over in india, do you think god cares about how shots? drink my urine. anybody else thinks and what else is crazy. >> host: lets get to calls. we will take calls from a audiee and we have an audience here at books & books. if you have a question, danielle is in the back with a microphone suggest raise your hand and we will get to that in just a second after we hear from allie catherine in bryan, ohio. allie catherine, you are on with author dave barry call back thanks for taking my call my question is about your sense of humor. you said you got a lot of your sense of humor from your mother and your family, but you seem to bring a lot of enthusiasm and good life to your humor or so where do get your enthusiasm? thank you. >> guest: well, thank you for the question. i guess i've always liked being, being able to amuse people. it's a form of, you know, performance in a way. i like to make people laugh. when people are amused, i guess i get that same vibe like a standup comedian gets from an audience, you know. you are enthusiastic about it. you like to make people laugh. it's fun when people are enjoying what you are saying. it's very different from writing humor and which is not that at all because you get no feedback, no reaction at all from anybody. you just staring at the screen and hoping someone out will find it entertaining. it's more rewarding to talk to people, but it's also riskier because you don't know that they're going to laugh or not. >> host: steve is in east brunswick new jersey. you are on booktv. >> caller: how're you? hello? >> host: please go ahead. we are listening. >> caller: pics i was wondering who some of dave barry's favorite authors are that write satire. >> guest: probably easily the writer of most influenced me, and it was thanks to my father, it was robert benchley. this is a guy that is almost unknown today as far as i can tell, but in the 20s, '30s was probably if you asked literally american who is the funniest person in the country they would say robert benchley. he was a brilliant guy. he went to harvard. he was a theater critic but he wrote just wonderfully funny, silly essays. and my dad was a huge fan of this. so we had when i was a kid, around the house robert benchley anthologies of his columns for "life" magazine, for "the new yorker." and i discovered him when i was maybe 10 years old and i started reading it. it was the best thing ever read. it was like i can believe a grownup wrote this. they were hilarious essays, and i wanted to write like that. from the beginning whenever i wrote anything for my high school paper, my college paper, when i got to write columns for the newspaper, i tried to write like robert benchley. so that's the guy more than any other. i also was a big fan of pg woodhouse. my dad again introduced me to him. later years, a friend of mine from down here, douglas adams, the late great douglas adams. i'm going to stop because i will eat or that it should allow. i just want to send one thing about the robert benchley thing that i always think is important for me to remember is, he wrote essays that were pretty topical. part of the pump of it is the reason today, i still do. i have robert benchley books in the house and her beat them, love stuff can't do anymore. the cultural reference is gone or it's just something about haberdasher that you don't relate to because we don't have haberdashery anymore. that's one of the reasons why nobody still reads robert benchley. i think it's important for anybody who does you were for a living is the kind of recognize you are not going to be around pretty much whatever cultural bubble you are in, that's it. when it's over, it's over. you're not not going to be remembered the way george orwell is down the road. >> host: a little bit later in the program today we will show you a more extensive list of dave barry's favorite authors and influences, but i do want to ask you one of the ones you sent us was mad magazine. >> guest: everybody my age i think red mad magazine. those guys were brilliant. the art was brilliant and the writing was brilliant. i don't know about now, i have not read mad magazine in years but when i was a kid that was sharp and it was like sharp and edgy. mad magazine, national lampoon and early saturday night live were like powerful influences of humor to my generation, and still are i think. >> host: we have a question in the audience. can we get the microphone? there we go. if you could tell us your first name. >> paul. my favorite issue of "the miami herald" is always, always your holiday gift guide. i just laugh myself until i can't laugh anymore. i'm just wondering if anyone of those insanely ridiculous gifts that stands out in your mind more than the others? >> guest: i have to say, every i do a holiday gift guide which is the most useless, ridiculous, stupid products but it can't be trying. if they are trying to be stupid, some of those get in but as a rule, are strict, my strict policy is if you're trying to be funny when not going to let you into iraq tried to think people would really want this thing. that's a much narrower universe but i do it every year. the one that i remember most vividly, and this is a phenomenon that happens often with the get-go. people actually want to buy these things merely as jokes. one year it was doc -- there was a manufacturer of decoys, duck decoy set foot on the water that look like ducks. the company decided that it was not realistic at all the docs always sticking out like this against docs sometimes but there had been. i can't really believe that docs, they're not that smart. they are not going hey, none of them are, they're all sitting up here i don't think docs are like that. anyway, hunters might be that stupid to believe the docs would think that though. so they made this thing, it was a doctor but it was just the butt of a duck sitting up. it would float in water so it looked like, to me the docs at the ricoh why is it not coming back up, you know? anyway, so we ordered a duck butt and what we did was actually recorded several and illustrations, par part of the t i've always like to do a funny photo, it's always a photograph. we decide to do the duck butt in the punch bowl. we had a big punch bowl and several duck butt in it, you know, and people looking appalled at it. so anyway, the issue runs, the duck butts are in there, and everybody in america wants to buy duck butts all of a sudden. there was a story, i think of wisconsin, even they didn't embed shut down production for the winter and they had to reopen the factory. to mate, to meet the demand for all the duck butts. they were concerned that people might put them in punch bowls because the alcohol would dissolve the paint or whatever and it would be toxic and it could be fatal, they said. they called it has been what i thought about it. i said, anybody who drinks punch from the volokh duck butts deserves to die. [laughter] italy, so that, there's been a lot of, you know. [inaudible] just i don't even remember the chicken brassiere. >> host: we need you to get on the mic sore television audience can -- >> guest: he said his favorite was the chicken brassiere spent the inflatable toast. black toilet paper. >> guest: black toilet paper makes some sense. [laughter] just reuse and nobody would know spit at the turkey like air freshener. >> yeah, yeah. you've given a lot of thought to the holiday gift guide. >> host: let's hear from gary in california. you are on with author dave barry. go ahead. >> caller: hi, dave. i want to run something by then i thought was funny. everybody who trump wants to ask about russia, why doesn't trump just check with his own fbi and see if they have any russian connections ahead of time instead of wasting all this time having the democrats ask all his nominees, you know, how did any contact with russia? on me, he's got own fbi. why doesn't he check that out? >> guest: are you saying he has the fbi? >> caller: he is president. can you just ask his own fbi if any of his nominees have had any contact with russia instead of having the democrats ask about that and -- >> guest: send out another tweet and i think that's the root is chosen to take. about the russians, i do have a little experience with the russians, which i learned about two years ago, a friend of mine and a co-author and been made, we wrote some books together, we went to russia for the state department, united states state department part of a program where this in authors to russia in hopes of improving relations. .. pretty confident and that our computers were hacked into and recently confident that they were listening. but anyway, when i learned and then i pass along to anybody that ever goes to russia, if you go to russia and i cannot stress the importance of this enough, do not eat the mexican food. [laughter] we went one night in moscow when we did an event and the only restaurant open near a hotel was a mexican restaurant run by russians which were not good at russian food i had what i realized a weponized chimichanga. if anyone was listening on that night, that person would need years of therapy. >> what was it like to meet with the union russian writers? >> that was weird. i had to learn when i was over there that russians, you know, specially english speaking russians seemed like us but they are not. official russians don't like us. they are up front about it. they think we are -- putin whole thing we are their enemy, these guys were like. they said you are going to meet with the writers, it wasn't like that at all. here is what we do here and much better than what you do there. what do you think? i write booger jokes. it was unnerving and at one point we were in st. petersburg. the big issue is we imposed sanctions. we imposed sanctions because of involvement in crimea and for the russians it's very personal. that we were interfering with their business. at one point trying to make it more nonideological,i ask one of the writers, in st. petersburg it was called stalin ride and there was a seeing that went -- siege that went on and it wasn't that long ago. does that resinate here because that wasn't long ago. nothing like that has ever happened in any city in the united states, here you are this beautiful city and looks very normal but this horrible thing happened right here and the guy says, yes, it's still very much part of our -- people ate card board, sawdust, people ate dirt so we did not worry about sanctions. they are like -- it was really hard core. they're still -- they don't like us i guess that's what i'm saying. >> let's hear from norm in washington. >> two questions, the first was are you worry that had trump could put you out of business because who says more outrageous or funnier stuff than he does? the second question is there was a professor at the university of oregon about the dumbing down of america and i wondered if you thought explain some of the weird stuff going on. >> well, the first -- i talked this about earlier, t difficult to write humor about donald trump because he generally gets beyond whatever boundaries you said he goes beyond them so often and also there's so many people writing about them. everybody -- every night there's 27 shows doing donald trump jokes. so if you're in the humor business, it's pretty crowded right now. the trump field. dumbing down. america is getting dumber ever since i have been alive. my daughter is 17 and she's in high school and i like to think that, you know, i'm as smart as a high school student and the last time i could actually help her with her math homework was when she was in fifth grade and then they got into the cosign and that was that. so if we are getting dumber, i don't know, i can't explain why my daughter and her friends are studying things much harder than we are. we must at some point forget everything we learn. i don't know. that's not a coherent answer, is it? >> we have another question from the audience. please go ahead, tell us your first name. >> my name -- another paul here. my family friends and i have been this part of our lives fans of yours for two reasons, one is your extraordinary gifts of the absurd and the other is your social commentary inside, like, you know, in the history of dorothy parker and dick gregory, calvin and this combination is unique and we've not only enjoyed but value your books, commentaries and articles and i just occurred to me, the question is the balance between absurd and commentary, it must be something -- i have been following some of the things you said challenging with tenuous grasp of reality that we have try today define has been administered and we find ourselves in a surreal world. have you ever thought of how to seriously use your humor to counteract that? >> no. [laughter] >> one of the things that people have said over the years and vs. very flattering. you really helped me, you know, i was having a hard time with my son or daughter and we read your books and brought us together, i went through rough patch and i read the books and made me feel better, thank you. the problem is i would do it if it made you feel worse. that's the only thick i know how to do. i'm always grateful when people say it makes them feel better. you mention calvin, a friend of mine, one of my favorite writers and i don't know why i need to say this but calvin were mugs once, attempted mugging. we were like -- we had done an event and we went to a bar after ward and we came back to his house in the village and we are standing outside his door and the guy comes up with a jacket and it's like this in the pocket. he goes, give me your money or i will blow your heads off and we later on deconstructed this, why would you have both guns. you wouldn't have two guns. [laughter] >> we were action heros. way we handled that -- let us in right now and he didn't mug us. we successfully survived the mugging and we didn't give him our wallets. >> speaking of guns, you talk about visiting walk and load. >> here in miami and all other places but miami seems appropriate place. in wynwood, a hip neighborhood, there's a place called lock and load where you can go and shoot machine guns. i don't know if that's the correct term technically for it but the guns where you pull the trigger and it's set up like a restaurant, you walk in and there's a menu of, you know, how many guns you want to shoot and what kind and the attractive young ladies in t-shirts coming around and taking your order and they have guns on the wall that you can, you know, they're -- they don't shoot but you can pick the guns and see how they feel and we shot machine guns and we walked out and were wired freak for hours and hours. i would not be a good soldier. i would be like -- if i had to shoot for real. >> please go ahead with your question or comment for dave barry. >> hi, dave, you've convinced me in your writing just how crazy florida is. i'm being forced to move to orlando to keep together with my wife, she has to go on assisted care rest home. here in new york in saracusei get messed a lot. the in and out game. but in the assistant care home i can't have anything bigger than a toy poodle. that's not going protect me. now i've -- just the other night there was an article about crazy new stand your ground law in florida and as fast as i can run away i look like i'm standing my ground and so i was talking to a guy that does carry a gun and he convinced me i could carry a glock42 and what caliber do you carry? >> i don't have a gun. i'm assuming everyone in my neighborhood does. i don't own a gun. we do have a stand on the ground law. you can shoot anybody as long as you are standing on the ground. when i first moved to miami, this was during the 80's, cocaine era, i remember driving and seeing cars go by with bullet holes. at first i didn't believe that was what it was. there were a lot of shootings, not so much anymore in miami as far as i know u, but that was going on. >> where is the line when it comes to humor and real life and do you feel that you've ever crossed that? >> i mean, are you asking in the sense are the things that you shouldn't make fun of -- >> sure. >> yeah, there's a lot of things. i don't make jokes about rape or the holocaust. i don't make jokes about child abuse, what you can do or sometimes you can make fun about, you know, around those things but the actual thing itself, nah, plenty of things that you can laugh about without hurting people. although i have found that nothing i ever write about, i can't write anything without offending somebody, i guess is the way i should put it. people -- you would be -- i mean, when i write a newspaper column, frequently nothing ever is true and if they appear in the newspaper there are people i call humor impaired who just assume that everything in there has to be true or why would the newspaper print it and i would always get letters like, if i say, you know, abraham lincoln invented the lightbulb. inevitable somebody would correct me on that and said it was not abraham lincoln, it was beb jam infranklin -- benjamin franklin. if you write anything in the newspaper, you have to be ready to offend people. >> is your meeting with vice president cheney, is that a true story? >> yeah that was an embarrassing moment for me involving alcohol. i have several of those. years ago the washington post used to have a cartoonist dinner and i got -- i was included. i was honored to be included. a small gathering of cartoonist and me and tedd, i don't know -- but we would meet and they would always invite some high-level washington person to be a part of the -- i don't think it was vice president, i think he was secretary -- secretary of defense. so it's a small room and the serving cocktails and i may have had a couple of cocktails so dick cheney is there and i go up to him and i go, hi, dave barry. very nice about it. i go away and then i don't know if this has ever happened to you, a little bit later i had forgot that i had introduced. he goes, yeah. yeah, yeah. but now it's striking me as funny, you know. i come up to him later and say hi -- now i'm pretty sure that the yes, somebody kill me. [laughter] anyway, i did do that. this is reminding where i had too much to drink. a friend of mine and a member of a band i'm in, i'm in a rock band called rock bottom remainders, we are a terrible band but we have a lot of fun. one of the reasons we are bad is because other bands rehearse ahead of time, identify been -- i've been told. that's their secret. when you see rolling stones go up on stage they know what they're going to play which is kind of cheating. [laughter] >> we do a show and almost every time fundraiser. we go to a bar in new york city and i'm sitting next to scott, but there's a lot of other people around and everybody is talking. scott is telling this long complicated anecdote involving his spleen. [laughter] >> and i'm talking toker people, here is the story. scott is, you know, good speaker, he's telling the story, do you have a spleen or not and he goes, no, i don't. that's the point of the story that's what i'm discussing here. oh, okay. then back in a little bit and it's a little confusing. do you have a spleen or not? no, i told you i don't have a spleen. ia third time i come back and again because of the way he's telling the story it's not clear even though -- and i said -- asked him again if he has a spleen. so, okay. so now i don't have to look. so anyway, the evening ends, everybody goes to bed, not together. early train the next morning in boston. the alarm goes off or whatever and i get up and i stagger towards the bathroom and i see a writing on my arm and i looked down and says no spleen. and i have no recollection of how that got there. and you know how there's an urban myth about the guy that wakes up in a hotel room and his kidneys have been harvested and i'm thinking, oh, my god, someone har visited my spleen. i don't know how to check because i don't know where my spleen is. they don't need a spleen. they take it for recreational purposes. you have to be a moron harvester to harvest somebody's spleen. the moral is kids, don't drink alcohol. [laughter] >> so roxanne freedman asked via facebook do you ever get to tallahassee, steaght legislators are much crazier than dc, how about the panhandle? >> i did. this was years ago. i did one about the florida state legislature. you're right. it's pretty funny. i was there the opening day of the legislature and they -- i don't know if they still do this but desks are covered with fruit and vegetables and flower, people bring them gifts and it's the silliest looking legislative body and then, of course, when they start passing laws they get even sillier. you're right, it's a rich source of humor but i have tapped it once. maybe i should again. >> david in tulsa oklahoma, hi, david, please go ahead. >> caller: hi, i am a middle school teacher and i would say 99% of my students are hispanic and in my 33 years i cannot think of a group of students who need to laugh more than they. i was wondering if mrs. barry has ever written anything on immigration and what would be his advice to my students under the current circumstances they find themselves in in the united states. >> well, if they are -- first of all, i feel for them if they are undocumented. i guess that's who you mean. >> i would say the vast majority of them are dreamers. parents that have been through situations where lawyers are documents where they would lead in the united states. it's been very traumatic for them and the middle school students and the middle school brain can be very frightening and -- >> all right, david, in tulsa, thank you very much. >> i've written -- first of all, i have nothing helpful to tell you about their situation except that i hope that they don't get -- i hope they and their parents get to stay. i've written -- i happen to be fond of the middle school audience as readers. i wrote some books with pearson and i always find them to be -- when i go to school events, a wonderful group, my favorite -- my favorite piece of fan mail from a reader was from 2 -- i think there were 2 fifth graders who had a book club and they read a book called science fair and they wrote us a letter which i have saved at home that says, we think your book is one of the most awesome subpoena ss books out there, just so you know two of the authors have died, we hope that the curse skips you. [laughter] >> anyway, that doesn't really help the kids in that situation. >> what's a typical writing day for you? >> it's so boring. [laughter] >> i get up, i, you know, read my e-mail, look at some websites usually and then i call up onto the screen whatever i was last working on that i gave up on despair and resume despairing and the myth about writing is that, you know, it relies on inspiration and that, you know, ideas just come to you and out they come out of your fingers and that may come to people but sometimes those people are all crazy and are writing gibberish. if you're crying coherent probes is just so much slower than that and so much less dependent on inspiration and so much dependent on willing to stay there on the front of the screen and keep trying, keep trying. it's true of all kinds of writing and my kind of writing is more ridiculous because i'm trying to write jokes. i will spend ten minutes agonizing whether to make it a whizle or a squirrel. usually there's one big idea behind the whole thing, but any given sentence or description, there's a lot of decision that is you make to make it better and that's a slow painful, i don't want to compare it to real work but it's slow and painful and takes a long time. some are plotters but what makes them writers is they don't quick, they keep going, day the screen and they don't give up even though it's pretty crappy the first time and they try to make it better. in most people that's the process they go through. probably with the exception steven king. >> so when your books are put together, is it a light touch by the editor? >> yeah. this is going to sound arrogant but i generally don't believe anybody knows whether know is as funny as i do. it's something that i have done all of my life. i think i have a good sense. if an editor tells me, this just doesn't work, then i will just tell him he's wrong. [laughter] i will seriously, if it's somebody i respect i will absolutely rework it and i will have discussions about individual things. generally, it's not a major reworking. you can't do that with humor. i don't care, as long as it makes you laugh, i don't care. if i start on one topic and end up on another topic. as long as you're laughing, i'm happy. so the real question is does it work, does it make people laugh. >> another question in the audience, if you wait for the microphone. >> my name is alice. how do you solicit the gifts in your christmas guide? >> it takes about ten minutes. during the course of the year people suggest the items or i see something and i send them all through my assistant judy smith, when it comes time to do the gift guide, it's basically is it stupid but is it somebody taking it seriously. if those -- if it meets those two criteria, then i'm likely antonio collude it in the guide. >> thank you, that's really valuable. >> are you planning to do a gift guide. >> holiday tradition is i read the gift guy out loud to ray here. no, he can't and so i have tears rolling down my face. that's what we do every holiday. >> i'm glad to be rt of your -- you are. >> layla in nevada. hi, dave. >> hello. >> layla, go ahead with your question or comment, we are listening. >> hi, dave. i just we wanted to let you know we have three generations of readers in my family, my mom reads your stuff and my brother is listening to his sons and they are really enjoying them. [laughter] >> layla, did you have anything ills you we wanted to add? >> yeah, i was wondering, do you miss writing for the weekly column in the miami herald or enjoy books better? >> i still get the write columns sometimes when i really want to but i don't have to every week write a column so i have more time to do books and since i stopped writing columns i have been able to young adult fiction, more function -- fiction which is more interesting to me. i don't miss the column. >> we haven't talked about those books, what are those? >> numbered of pages -- the base player. >> 12 years ago and the remainders were playing a gig at the miami book fair, gig is a musical term. f sharp, these are musical terms and he said that he had been reading peter pan, the original peter pan to his daughter and that she asked him, how did peter pan meet captain hook in the first place and really said, the barry books begins with the kid who can fly and he has tinkerbell and captain hook. i thought it would be fun to write a sequel to it. i said, yes, that sounds like a fun idea. you want to do it with me because neither one of us had written anything for kids, so i said, yeah, we thought we were going write one one short book and we ended up writing like 600-page book and disney published it and it did very well and we ended up writing five of those and we traveled all over and did many, many events promoting the star catchers series including one in this room, i have to tell you an anecdote involving this and we were at that end of the book reading a -- [laughter] >> there is an end. there it is. that's where it happened. we were standing against the shelf and we were reading a section of our book -- the place was packed and there were kids sitting on the floor, you know, a couple of hundred kids in this room and we were reading a -- a scene from one of our books that involved a gigantic snake and so mitchell kaplan who owns this bookstore knew that we were going to read that scene and didn't tell us this but he hired a guy to bring in a snake, a snake wrangler. one of the great things about living in miami is if you need a snake, you know, a rental snake, it's like birthday clown but it's a snake. instead of entertaining the children, it could eat the children. [laughter] >> this guy came in and i don't know how careful mitchell vetted him -- [laughter] >> but he had an 80-pound, 9 or 10-foot long python. there's a room full of kids and puts it on our shoulders and walked away and he was tired of carrying and it's heavy, it is heavy. we did not know this was coming. i'm not a big snake guy to begin with and so we were standing there, there's a snake kids. we were really thinking, i hope we brought spare underwear to this meeting. that happened in this very room. that was one of the low points of writing for kids, other than that, it's been a lot of fun. >> you write about the ever -- everglades. we have an invasion of pythons in south florida, they are not supposed to be here, they are supposed to be in vermont. people get them in pet. why do you want a large animal as a pet, i don't know. smaller pets, i guess they run out of crack and they go, oh, my god, we are living with a carnivorus and they let them go and they thrive, they fly down here in the everglades, tens of thousands, they don't have any enemies out there. they even eat al -- alligators. the state of florida came up with this idea to get rid of them by means a python challenge. we are the only state in the union that has a python challenge and goes on every year, the florida state fish and wildlife commission brings in people to kill -- invites people to come from anywhere they want to kill our pythons and they have rules and pay a 25-dollar fee. we are not just letting anybody do this. online course, it is the way to go. they have rules of how they kill the python. i thought the best way to hack off its head. no, you're not allowed to do that, you know why? according to florida fish and wildlife conservation, if you hack it off, the brain keeps thinking, they don't say what it's thinking, whoa, what the hell, you know. [laughter] >> you're supposed to kill it from putting a bow through its brain and will stop it from thinking. the first year -- i don't know if they released figures. the first year, okay, bare in mind the figures. tens if not hundreds of thousands of things out there. the first year they went on for months and they killed 68 pythons. [laughter] >> do your math. a mom can give birth to hundreds of eggs. in other words, in the same period that we got 68 of them they probably made thousands more. we are losing the python challenge is my point. the pythons are winning. if we are going to challenge anything, we can challenge an annual mall that i can defeat. >> are you a fan of the everglades? >> i'm not. i marvel the people that go out there. can you not smell it? are you not being alive by mosquitoes? i don't know. i'm all for it. >> christie beckham tweets, dave, i have been your biggest fan forever, i saw you play at la times book festival? >> yeah, we are still playing sometimes. as i said, we are not good. hard-listening music. [laughter] >> when i say we, we play, i call it the ruimor med of music and the way it works everybody in the band is holding an instrument and playing something and if rumor goes around that there's been a cord change. [laughter] on we go. all random. we really enjoy it. i would do this to kill the whales. we don't, i have not killed any whales that i know of because whales don't listen to know. we still do play from time to time. we haven't played in a couple of years. for us it's a normal hiatus. [laughter] >> when are we going to get the remainders together. >> well, we are going to show our audience from 1998 the miami book fair here are the rock bottom. >> a tragic song that stephen king doesn't sing. [laughter] >> are we ready for this song? it's hard to tell. we are ready. now we are ready. you know who this is, don't you? we are going to tell you who this is, ready? ♪ ♪ ♪ >> is he picking you up after school? ♪ ♪ ♪ [music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [music] >> dave barry, that was awful. >> i don't know why c-span would -- do you have a broadcast license? >> we have all sorts of things on our website. >> first of all that was amy, leader to have pack. staples of the remainders from the beginning. i didn't see -- we couldn't see here who was in the band. the qon figuration changes, kind of silly. but one night we performed the song in new york city at a benefit concert and amy's husband lou play it is leader to have pack and puts on leather jacket and one of those hats and comes out and pretends to be riding a motorcycle and the moment of the song where he crashes, the big crash, lou, would fall from the stage and we would all be sad. it was drama. trying to take people's minds off the actual music we are making. we are in new york and lou has gotten more and more dramatic with his fall and in this particular night he takes a dive to the stage and not only this, he is riding around like if he's in great pain. i thought this was funny, i will add amusement to the visual by kicking him. i walked over and kicked lou and stephen king seen that and thought it was pretty funny. starts kicking lou, the strong finishes and lou crawls off the stage and he finish it is concert and we go backstage and we are all where is lou, he's in the hospital. turns out he broke his collarbone. [laughter] >> and we were kicking him. so anyway, that's kind of a fun band we are. [laughter] >> we also showed viewers some of your favorite books and influences, i want to ask you a book about patrick o'brian. master in commander. >> it's kind of weird. i like semihistorical books. patrick o'brian wrote a series of books which developed and was made into a movie with russell crowe playing the main character, amazing books where the guy talks an incredible detail about sailing ships in the 18 -- 17th, 18th century, i think, and for some reason ri voting because the guy is such a good writer and he wrote ten or 12 of them. >> you're a bill fan? >> i like him a lot. i never met him. i think i read every book he has ever written. he's really funny and this is something i could never do. he's also very informative. when people read my books, they end up being a little stupider. i forget them all pretty quickly but i remember the little while thinking, i sort of understand molecules or whatever he's talking about. >> you won the pulitzer in 1988, have you won any since? >> no, have you win any since? [laughter] >> can i tell you my poster prize story because people say what's that like? first of all, it was a complete shock to me. i didn't expect it,i didn't think i was a finalist for it. i did, i won a pulitzer prize and it was nice because it happened early in my career that i never had to think about it. it happened unexpectedly and then it was over and i won it. the day i won it, the miami her -- herald, in the news room it's a big deal, pulitzer day and they wanted it to be a surprise, they were notified earlier in the day that i had won and michael had won, they wanted us to come in for the moment so it'll be a surprise for us and i that day had been planning, it was a friday, i believe, had been planning to go to key west and i told me son rob who was then 7 year's old, we are going to key west and he was very excited. he loved to go to key west because we always rented a scooter, he loved to go to key west. he was exciting that we were going to go to key west. i get a call and said we you have to come for a meeting, he said, nope, janet, the editor said you have to be at this meeting, it's an important meeting and i go, so, okay, tell rob we are going to key west but first we have to go to the herald, downtown. so we get there and the news room is all gathered around the machine for the big announcement. i remember say to go rob, this is cool, you're going to see announcing pulitzers today. i still didn't know it was me. i thought it was cool and he was going to see this moment and i figured that's why i had been called in there and want everybody for it and about 30 seconds before the announcement an editor who didn't know that was supposed to be a surprise came up to me and shook my hand and said congratulations, one i was going to win a pulitzer, two, that we weren't going to be able to go to key west because there's a whole lot of stuff you have to do and so i looked down at rob who is standing there. rob, i have bad news. we are not going to key west this weekend and his face just fell but i will get you a nintendo because he had been dying to get this nintendo game. i was being a good dad. he says, really, and i said, yes, he jumped up appear put his arms around me and hugged me really tight because of the nintendo and at that moment janet read that i had won a pulitzer prize and they took my picture, the next day the cover of the miami herald with me and rob with a huge smile on his face and everybody said the same thing to me, which is it's so great that your son was so excited. [laughter] >> he had no idea about the pulitzer prize. he was happy about the nintendo. anyway, but fast-forward till a couple of years ago, my son rob who is now grown man and has a kid of his own is a reporter at the wall street journal and he was on a team of reporters that did a story medicare fraud that won a pulitzer prize. see that. i didn't destroy them completely. >> back to your calls for dave barry and this is sue in gatesfield, texas. >> good afternoon, hey, dave, i've been a fan for a long time. you know me on the block as susie. i have a couple of questions about your new book. you have a new book coming out on tuesday, i think, called for this we love egypt, a passover for jews and those who love them . first, my question is how do you three guys get together and write a book rice -- like this, i'm not jewish and what's in this book for me? [laughter] >> okay, first of all, you're correct, i cowrote a book -- i don't know how many of our audiences know what hagada is, but on passover jews hold dinners which they commemorate the escape of the jewish people from egypt and it's a ritualized meal with various things symbolizing elements of the -- the exodus. anyway, this is usually accompanied by this book called jagada. it leads you through, there's prayers and discussions of why you eat this and why you eat that. so a guy name adams mansback who an author among other things who wrote a book whose title i cannot reveal even on c-span, i don't think, it goes the f to sleep, huge best-selling book and he and alan, friend of mine who i also wrote a book with once called lunatics. it was adam's idea cowrote a parody of hagada. i am also not jewish. my wife is cuban jewish. there's a lot of them in miami. my joke is they didn't come on rafts, they parted the craib -- caribbean. because of my wife is jewish, i was -- i was into this project and the question is in it for you, i don't know, but loyalties are in it for me. [laughter] >> by all means, susie, you should buy it. >> 202 if you want participate in our conversation. for those of east and central times zones, 478-2001. do we have any questions from the audience? wait for the mic and let's bring the mic up here. we have one here in the front row. >> hi, dave, i'm george. i just had a couple of comments. as a resident of florida 20 years more than you, i can definitive i will say that we were completely sane until you showed up. [laughter] >> it was my fault. all right. i will accept that. >> and now back to the holiday situation -- [laughter] >> my sister was at the coral gables congregation and she won an electric finger that shaves the hair and she regifted it and she gave me the finger. he gave me the finger for christmas and i'm blaming you for that. >> that's right. [laughter] >> well, i'm glad to have helped. >> well, let's go back to our calls then. hi, laurie. >> hello, hi, how are you? >> good, go ahead and ask your question or make your comment. >> yes. when you decided you wanted to write a book and where should you send your book to get reviewed and appreciate it? >> so just to clarify, you wrote a book? >> no, i am working on one now. i'm a widow. i have two 20-year-olds and things like that. i can't hear you because they told me to turn the tv down, so i'm not really sure what you're say to go me right now. >> yeah, you'll be able to hear through telephone. dave barry is going to talk so if you can just hang on and we will listen to him. >> well, if i gather the question is how do you go about getting a book published and then how do you get it reviewed and how do you get get it distributed, there are basically two ways to go and i hope i don't offend anybody when i say the way not to go is to self-publish. i say that because it's easy to do. many people do it. you pay money and they publish your book, the problem with that is almost impossible to get a self-published book distributed anywhere, reviewed anywhere, so many of them out there and there's basically no quality control. i'm not saying that they are bad. i'm just saying the way the industry is set up for better or for worse, people don't review them. bookstores don't stock them, so you end up with a stack of books in your garage and you can maybe sell them to your friends but that's as far as it would go. unfortunately, that's the way it is. maybe i'm behind the times, maybe there's some internet way and i assume there is to get your books known and if there is i retract everything i just said. i'm just saying from what my experience is. so the way you -- the traditional way to go and there are a lot of flaws in it and people have been critical of it is to get an agent. agents are kind of like the gatekeepers. most of the time will tell you they won't take you on, but they get it to a publisher and that's the second gatekeeper and then editor there will either decide to publish it or not publish it. the advantage of that is if they do decide to publish it, an organization that has sales staff, has promotional people, they can get your people distributed, they can get your book reviewed, maybe, a more professional job than most writers are able to do for themselves. that said, i know there are people particularly in science fiction who are able to reach huge audiences some way i don't know about and get a huge amount of cult interest in a book that's maybe self-published. i should stress that. the way i described it is the way the traditional way maybe that -- it's more difficult and less likely but -- >> do you still write every day? >> yeah, i write every day. almost every day of the week i will write something. >> is wikipedia valuable to you? >> yes. although i've learned learned from reading my wikipedia entry that it's highly inaccurate but i will use it like if somebody stole -- i'm dead in wikipedia. no. i use it because it's cheap and easy and fast and it's general and i have learned if you want to nail down, confirm it with some other source besides wikipedia because you never know. >> what's inaccurate about the entry on you and did you have any input in that? >> no, there are people i know who are always trying to fix things. the last time i looked at wikipedia it made two huge points about me, one is that i'm a libertarian and one that i'm an atheist. this is true. i don't write about politics directly. i don't advocate anything and i never write about religion, really, except generic jokes, but somebody who thought that was great, at least the way i read it, it made it sound that what i am an libertarian atheist writer. you can argue what i am but that's not what i do and do not think myself as and i don't know people reading would ever know or care about. i'm an atheist. >> and you belong to a temple? >> and you're an atheist. >> my dad was a wonderful guy. he was not a -- what's the word? it's not the word that i'm looking for. we are not that at all. he wasn't rigid. friends of all different faiths and the important thing for him is were you good or bad, not what church you went to. i i had long passionate arguments where i would get him to order me to be religious and he wouldn't. it's okay, you don't have to, i do. he was pretty easy-going about it. my dad was a presbyterian minister. i'm an atheist and probably going hell. [laughter] >> safe bet. fortunately and boy, will i be surprised. boy, i was so wrong about this. my bad, i will be saying to the devil. >> how you became libertarian? >> my assumption had been that people who go into government go into government because they want to help people and kind of like immediately when i started meeting political people, they often delightful likable people and some good people but generally i found that politics and government was really no different from any company that most of the people are in it were in for personal reason, power or money or both, or whatever and at every -- at each next level up, heading towards federal government and the presidency, i found it to be more the case. you're really involved in washington politics, my guess is you're not really involved in politics because you want me to have a happier life, is because you want something. and so over the years i came to the conclusion is i would rather me make decisions about my life and you make decisions about your life and then have somebody in washington pretend to go care about me. that's generally the position i take. i'm not a hard-core libertarian. i'm okay with -- i live in coral gables where we have zoning laws. illegally to do everything except breathe. i'm not -- but i'm not like in your face libertarian guy but my philosophy is generally if i have to choose before more government involvement and less government involvement in human activity i favor it less which means i'm not very big on drug laws, not very big on laws against who can carry whom. that kind of thing. >> have you ever met any u.s. presidents? >> yeah. i met both george bush's, i met bill clinton, i never met barack obama. i've been in the room with him but i never actually met him. abraham lincoln. [laughter] >> i was just a kid. >> on what occasions did you meet these? >> well, okay, george bush, the senior, how much time do we have? [laughter] >> i was -- i was at a -- i have to start with the previous anecdote. i was writing columns about the new hampshire primary in 1992 so i was on the campaign trail and barbara bush was on going around and i thought, for a column i would spend the day depressed entourage with mrs. bush. we were going all around new hampshire in a mote -- motorcade and at the end of the day there's a big event and we ended up with mrs. bush and the press on stage getting picture taken and i said to her, the most embarrassing thing. she didn't know me and i didn't know her, she blurted out, i shop at the same super market as your son jeb. she was like who gives a shit. and i said, really embarrassed and i said he's very tall. [laughter] >> one of those things where you just wish you would shut up and she goes, well, he didn't just grow this year. awkward moment and then a few months later i was in washington, d.c. at the correspondence dinner where i spoke. he was the president. and there's a little -- little room off stage where the people gather and he was there and i remember going, i have this vivid memory of my mind embarrassing myself in front of his wife, mrs. bush, and i'm telling myself i'm not kidding, don't be an idiot, don't be an idiot. a ryan to go up to meet him. shake his hand and i go, i shop at the same super market -- i blurted it out. he was really interested. [laughter] >> he was much different reaction from his wife. that's how i met him. [laughter] >> they have a big banquet every year in houston, fundraiser, i was invited and this was after senior bush was no longer president. but we ia wife went for lunch and i ended up sitting next to him at the dinner. i met him that way. bill clinton, i met him before he became president but i will never forget what he did -- this is why he became president, really, not because of me. it was a new hampshire again '92 and he's running for president, night before the primary vote and i'm with a bunch of columnists and reporters and we all drenched in this campaign. we were sick of it. we all had written story for the next day, column for the next day, there's no chance we are going to see a candidate or anybody involved in politics. just us, we are going to -- so we go to this italian restaurant. we are going to be the last party there and we are sitting in the table. the door opens walks bill clinton, myers and gwen and myers is press secretary. he's still campaigning. he comes in with energy, it's like he goes, he waves at us and goes into the kitchen and you could see him going around shaking hands. comes out shaking all the staff, goes around the table and he knew who every single person at the table was including me, i don't know. and then he walks out out into the night and he charmed us. wow. he knew where we were and he came up. so that was bill -- a couple of times when he was in the white house i was at an event where he was shaking hands. but that was really -- i was like, michael jordan-level politician. that's still that very few people have that he had. next call for dave comes from gay in adamstown, maryland. >> i'm a big fan of yours and i wanted to say that i appreciate your ironic sense of humor and since you live in florida, that must give you lots of for your books and i wonder if, maybe you could relay a story that read in one of your books, it was a while ago but it -- i think it was titled path logs dog and it was about your dogs and your porch or the absence of. >> yes. this is hurricane andrew 199 the which -- 1992 which was the worst hurricane i had been through that went through my house. i had two large dogs, ernst and small emergency backup dog named zippy, before hurricane andrew came i let ernst and zippy out every morning and as you know if you are a dog owner, dogs get excited about going out in the morning. they learn whatever the ritual is associated with it. oh, my god, i'm going to go out even though you do it every day. with ernst and zippy you would open the back door and we had a patio with screen enclosure which you need down here from mosquitoeses from pilling patio. they would run across the patio to the screen door and wait for me there. we did that every day for years, comes hurricane andrew and the screen closure is orbiting the earth, okay, it's gone but the screen door was still there. just a door on the end of the porch with nothing around it at all. it was like a two-week learning curve, i'm not making this up. i would open the back door and they would run straight to the door and wait because that was the procedure. get it open. go out in the yard. so i wrote so many columns about ernst and zippy and they basically all boiled down that these are not rocket scientists, these dogs. i wrote about them a lot because they were always in my office and typically i don't know why, i worked with the door closed and the door would be closed and ernst would be on one side often the inside and stipe outside and they would just basically lie there all day long and so over and over this would happen and i think there's a satellite, i call the dog satellite that passes over ted and makes sounds that only dogs can hear. you have a dog, there's nothing going on, nothing going on in your house or neighborhood, nothing going on anywhere and suddenly one of the dog wills go woof. so we would be sitting there, i would be tapping away on my keyboard and suddenly one would jump off and the other would hear that and say something is going on and woof. now they are barking each trying to get on the other side and i have to get and open the door. they are gone now but i still have a dog. in fact, my current book that i'm writing is about dogs and i have a dog named lucie who is a but she is more a dog about snow. on it. >> i'm just getting started on it. >> the next one from north carolina go ahead. >> caller: i just remembered that you dressed all in black and drove a black car and i got your autograph off t the university dr. where once in a while i was there for the cocaine cowboys and read your article every week and i just wanted to say please bring the flag. do you have any comments ont. that? those that spend their lives roaming the swamp is florida disappearing? it theoretically roams the everglades and nobody ever get a clear picture of it. but he has the research headquarters and my goal when i went out there is to make fun of it because i don't believe but i was kind of moved by it. this is a group from 50 years ago that had a community that roams the everglades and everything and now they are taking it one step off the land that is a part of florida. that sets the tone for the rest of the book. there is an element that is disappearing. many people go to a resource on the beach or they go to orlando and go to a theme park and don't see much also florida. there used to be the florida that was completely different. there was no interstates, no theme parks, there were no roadside attractions that were cheesy and i was like the research headquarters that people would be driving a couple hours. i was a big industry come here and now it is mostly gone. >> guest >> has anybody here been to weeki wachee? scenics in now with our tax. money we are paying for mermaids which i would rather pay for them the governor. [laughter] women wearing rubber tables, part of a natural spring and put on a show, the same show for 50 years. it used to be a big deal. arthur godfrey used to be there. so now it would be gone't for t altogether. tarpon springs was devoted to the change from 50 years that those changes are not going to last. last. therlast. it will be basically the magic kingdom and resort and i guess that is the way that it's going to be, but we are losing kind of a -- florida was always a different state and that is what made it different is all of those roadside attractions are gone now. >> let's hear from jerry. >> i would like to thank them for fun reading the book and i wanted to ask him about a yearoa ago though won a pulitzer for creating hamilton on broadway and i wonder what you thought about hamilton phenomenon. to me it seems great becausese they are expressing interest ofe learning through the use of their own music and culture that they have nowadays and i also thought that it was great because minorities are promoted in this and i am wondering what you thought of hamilton.a i am not a fan of crap that i do like hamilton and i wonder what you thought about the fact that it's made up of all different minorities of people. >> my answer is going to be disappointing. i've not seen a hamilton but i would love to. everybody says it is incredible and i think it is a wonderful idea. if you would have told people the biggest show on broadway will be a rap musical about alexander hamilton they would assume you were taking drugs. it's great if it gets kids interested in history. i understand that it's hard to get tickets and they are expensive. we are at books and books in coral gables florida. please go ahead. >> caller: it's interestingat that you mentioned religion because i went to college at florida state and tallahassee democrat. the column every sunday and i would splurge every week just to read your column and i remember one in particular you kind ofrt pokes fun at the basketball players who did free throws and i thought it was hilarious and my boss had never heard of you so i showed him that called him and he was a very religious man and he was mortified and i'm sorry but i blew a potential fan at him. what would you consider the most controversial column that got the most feedback? >> we discussed that earlier. there was a comment about everyo religion. everybody's religion seems stupid to somebody else. for example, they were mocking g this guy says you should drink your own urine. anyway, that did come up but i'm afraid i -- sorry i offended your boss. he sounds like an idiot. just kidding. it's controversial. but i would say the one that got the most mal mail of one that i wrote was rowand pond and this wasn't even the point of thego column when i suggested and i'mh going to see this first i just want to stress i am no longer think this. i said maybe neil diamond wasn't the best lyricist that ever lived. writing about the song where he writes and sings with great intensity and passion in his voice no one heard it all, not even the chair and i'm thinking about getting. the tabl people didn't react eir because its furniture. so anyway -- [laughter] that wasn't the point of theke column at all but i never liked that song because of the lyric. so that's call him ran and it was a trivial part of tha of itt infuriated neil diamond people. you think salman rushdie got in trouble. [laughter] i got all this mail from people saying how dare you criticize this genius neil diamond. liste i listened to his music 14 times hinted towards me, compassionate defense of neil diamond so i thought that was great. it's like when you are writing a column but somebody hands you something so i wrote another column about specifically the neil diamond people and how they have been offended and i quoted a bunch of their letters and a dataset of a new one. at the column ran and sets off new letters of people that agreed with me and wanted to back me up on the lyrics and talked about other songs they heated and so i started -- i wrote another column of songs people don't want to hear again on the radio and then that opened the floodgates for the next few weeks i received over 10,000 letters, this was back in the days of letters, of the questions of songs people hate. i ended up writing a book called the book of bad songs and still to this day people come up to mo and say you know the song the horse with no name, i hate that song. [laughter] the late comedian had a desert is a desert you have nothing to do, name of the horse. [laughter] there are others bu but that one set them off. i also wrote a column in which i made fun of north dakota which was a huge mistake. don't mess with north dakota because they invited me up there in january and dedicated a station in my honor. if you go to north dakota for any reason such as your plane crashes there. [laughter] there's a station, number 16. it's a little bit of a tourist attraction i have to say.ou go >> did go to the dedication? >> i did. >> why did they name it after you've? >> they were being funny..>> i h i am the son of north dakota and they were getting even with me. it was the coldest, it was like below zero and they put a piece of paper over the side of theuig building. the mayor -- a crowd showed upwe and actual news media an i tolde were standing freezing in frontg of the building.ti the mayor had a proclamation comparing my work to the human excrement and at the moment they had me tear off the piece of paper and i remember seeing my name on the side of the building and smelling the sewage in the cold north dakota air with the sound of people applauding in the -- mittens. >> is there anything you wanted to write about but didn't get time? tim? >> in florida there are a lot of places. p donna immediately are coming to mind but i have a list of thing. i wanted to do. i never got to the florida. panhandle. it's fun to go actually see a place and then make things up about it. >> can you go incognito? >> i'm not famous. somebody might occasionally recognize me in the cereal aisle but never where i get mobbed. so, yes. i never have to hide who i was. i went to a place called the villages, which is an amazing community in north central of florida couple hundred thousand retirees drinking and dancing and playing golf and having a good time and i got recognized a few times there. >> next call and is about from wisconsin. >> caller: hello? >> thank you for listening. >> okay. i have a question for dave. you haven't picked on old ladies in retirement homes yet. you have missed a huge, great place to pick up laughter. >> i actually kind of did a little bit in this section we were just talking about at the villages. i haven't really done retirement home humor and that's because i'm personally very close to being in a retirement home. i have a story about a retirement home. my wife's grandfather who has passed away, his name was henry kaufman and when he was in his 90s, he was born in poland and then moved to cuba and was there for a while but came to the united states, spoke many languages. he was a wonderful guy in a retirement home. my wife and i would go visit him regularly and he always wore a jacket and tie. a gentle man of that age tended to him he would sit at the same table with other gentlemen wearing jackets and ties at meal time. we would come visit them and he would always do the same thing. come up, recognize his granddaughter, my wife michelle and he always wanted toothis introduce us to the others. this is my grandfather and my grandson in law. he's a very famous writer. his name is -- what is your name again? dave barry, yes. he knew i wrote but he never read anything i wrote and always wanted to know how my books we were. so that might be good for humor but th the ideology they would forget everything i said. [laughter] are we allowed to make thate? joke, probably not. >> poetry matters project, i thought the worst class trip ever was hilarious. what was that first of all and then lucinda goes on to ask what made you go on to write a kids book? >> two books i had written one was the worst night ever they are both middle school books i i wrote on my own and the first class trip ever what inspired me is when my daughter was in middle school she went on a class trip and they had to peerr into chaperoneapparentchaperonen and there's something wrong when an institution with media responsible for children. things could go really bad of an idiot like me in a position of responsibility. so i came up with a plot where this kid goes to washington, d.c. on his class trip and as we say in the comedy business hijinks ensue. it was a fun book to write and kids liked it. >> we have another question from the audience. go ahead sir. >> your book is the funniest stuff i've read in my life and a just want to talk about onee's e section where v. is for guys got really drunk and went to a ski slope and decided to go down the slope in a canoe. they go down a ski jump, a slope slope is one thing but a ski jump. >> it wasn't in florida. we don't have snow in florida. >> the police after words that were investigating the accident obviously came across your. >> where do they come across it. >> things only guys do like in the history of the world of no woman has ever thought i want to go off a ski jump and a canoe where guys without any effort dozens of guys would be willing to. another one is the ultimate tese between men and women is go to youtube and look up the phrase shoot bottle rockets out of ass. can i say that -- out of butt. you'll find dozens if not hundreds of videos of that. it goes without saying no woman would ever think to do that. this is book tv on c-span2. >> two quick questions. will there be a movie version of lunatic? it's one of my all-time favorite novels up there with the hitchhikers guide tohe galaxy. have you thought abouted collaborating with stephen king [laughter] >> i don't think there will ever be a movie. we did sell a script but that doesn't mean anything. we did write a screenplay and they bothered that is as far as. it went. i would love to have my name on a book with stephen king, he could write it but i don't think that he needs any help from meme let me put it that way. i've thought about calling some of my books something something by stephen king but there is a legal issue with that. sh >> you e-mailed him right before the show. >> is part of the rock bottom remainders band that plays sometimes. at the bookstore in the men's room visit poster of the rock bottom remainders and 93 when we came for the booksellers association so i thought it was funny and took a picture of it showinof thechildren and a yeare poster and i sent it to a buncht of members of the band and he wrote back from a critical standpoint it's the most appropriate place to put it. >> another of your books the killer angels. >> i love historical fiction. it's different from what i do and it's a release for me. it's a book about the battle of gettysburg. i read it in the 70s after it was published it made me so fascinated while i was reading it i spe a couple days walkingau around and i like to hang arount there. because of how thoroughly documented it was. i ended up reading a bunch of historical fiction because the book. >> is there a serious book? >> i wrote a few columns. when my mom committed suicide i wrote a column about that and when my son was hit by a car that's one of the times i saw to make the point not to get too melodramatic but at the same night my son is the only one that lived so people like those columns and asked why don't you write more serious columns the only reason i like them is because something horrible happened and they needed to deal with the process by writing about it. i'm not going to make stuff that horrible i would rather not call on the bad things.i woul >> next call is from susie in, d montana. your former next-door neighbor. where is paul? >> h'so >> he went to meet his maker.thi >> you sound like you are still alive and that's important. >> yes, i am 80. >> what was it like living next door to dave barry? >> i could share stories but i won't. in the book he gave us he wrote stories about playing golf with my husband and i just wanted to say you forgot to mention to the religion thank you for calling in.a lot a lot of insight talk. >> he was a banker and a golfer and let's be honest it's the stupidest sport ever but he kept trying to get me to. when you try to find the ball after you hit it you write about visiting brazil and everything we've read about brazil is it true? >> when you say you're going to brazil they all say the sameto v thing. you're going to probably be robbed at that point. >> i'm not kidding. i had all the secret pockets witthese secret pocketswith monf anyone came within a thing like that happened. everybody was so nice and realized we could make some money by meeting americans coming off the plane and robbing them at that point. it would be the easiest thing in the world's >> i first discovered you on the show and i know that you are a big walking dead fans just wondering if you think they jumped the shark and how do you think they have the influence for writing text >> i'm a fan of the walking dead but i am committed to this now forever and ever.le these people have been walking around for seven years n. how come all th all their cloths haven't fallen off, they should be naked and it's not realistic. we need more realism to them.rey i grew up in the 50s with all the godzilla movies. now they are like reallyt horrible and i generally don't y watch them. >> how much time do you pay to what's going on in washington?e >> i agree that "the new york times" and washington journaloum but i don't write about it much. we have a few minutes left with our guest. you seem to be cut from the political bent i was wondering are you buddies, do you correspond. i don't see him that often, but we do correspond and whatever we are in the same generaareae get together and consumeon beverages and discuss political issues. james in california? >> it's dave from california. i'm not making this up you do have fans in california. by the way one of the favorite parts of the book is when you say i'm not making this up and then we know something amazing and humorous is coming after. you've wrote in a hilarious book dave barry turns 40 and then 50 and use gets key but i notice you are turning 70 this year when will you write dave barry turns 70? >> everything i write ends up involved. i'm writing a book about dogs and the premise of the book is i have a 10-year-old dog named lucy and she and i are both turning 70, she in dog years and me in human years and that will be the premise of the book. instead of writing it on television with this guy for hours. [laughter] >> do you feel 70? >> i don't know, i am, so i must. i don't think anybody believe that he's really as old as he is. i went to my high school reunioa last summer 800 high school -- fiftysomething, 50th you walk in there and it's like who are these people. [laughter] and they are moving around to some song. i guess i feel older especially when i get down on the ground and tried to get back up it's almost impossible for me and i used to do it very easily butt now i can't. >> any other audience questions before we go back to phone calls? lets here from michele in texas. >> thank you so much for your work and for doing this program. i just wanted to mention one of my favorites of your books is died to guys. it was great. thank you. >> that book is basically the premise basically says it's like having a relationship with a labrador retriever in other words the whole point of the book is lower yo standards [laughter] and it seems to visit made. >> every time i see crabgrass i think of you. i just have a quick question. i've been wondering why aren't you on the oscars i saw you several years ago and i was like there's dave berry at the osca oscars. >> i don't know that i was on them but i wrote for the oscars twice when steve martin was the host i was one of the writers but i don't know that i was ever on camera and if i was it was as horrible mistake that i did have a tuxedo so maybe they just thought i looked good. >> is he part of the temporary rock bottom remainders? 's's >> he has been on stage with us briefly but he is a goodis a r musician so and he's a smart guy so he knows better than to stay on stage with us. we had on stage with us roger many times he performs with ush regularly and bruce springsteen played with us one time. we have had some real musician but they've never rubbed off on us. >> where did the name come from? >> the remainder in the book, business is a book that never sells.ov it's a hardcover book and they have a lot left over. they print mor so they put it in front instead of $19.99, it's 99 cents. those are the remainders.so so it's making fun of ourselvesb >> can you share with us your address and have you ever been to georgia and if not, why not?y >> my web address would be dave barry.com. i don't know, i've been to georgia. does that count? >> i don't write much, people send me stuff and often i would write about bearded news items and people kept sending me stuff so i put it up on the blog so if a toilet explodes anywhere in the news it will probably appear on my blog. look down before you p., people. [laughter] >> do you spend any time in schools? i wouldn't call it teaching buto sometimes when i have a book for kids who go on a tour of theit'i various schools. adults tend to be more worshipful of authors and polite and kids are not like that for an example a school in miami i gave a presentation and then it was like who is a questio the qd a girl raised her hand and asked do you know you have bi big wet stains on your armpits come and of course i did. so i had her expelled. no, i didn't.don't [laughter] olympia washington, thanks for holding you are on. >> caller: i am a long-time falongtime fanand have enjoyed o for. i was wondering what you think if anything at all if you were aware of the phenomena and never read the outlander series. >> it's not really a historical novel is its? to that? the >> some people think it is. >> is it science fiction? >> no. it's about the scottish revolution and all that sort of stuff. >> i'm sorry i don't know about that. >> what are you reading? 's >> the road which is a follow-up on the first book and then a bunch of books about dogs. >> time for a few more calls lets here from alabama. >> it's great to be talking to you. i noticed you are going to be the judge next year for the writing contest. i tried my best and i didn't win last time so i'm wondering if you might have a tip on winning or maybe you could give a secret word sword so that you would kns me and then you can tell everybody what a great writer i am. >> by the way that this carol. >> guest: it would be the best way for you to send me some urgency. [laughter] not only was she a funny writer but a funny person so i was honored to be asked to do this. people always ask if wrote this what you read it and i don't want to be nice. but they asked me to do it for the organization and i said yes. and inevitably it comes back to what you like and find amusing. i'm sure if i do receive money from that lady she will get a special book. >> the history of the unitedi d states, i don't mean this in a negative way -- [laughter] how much work went into that? >> i will tell you exactly what i did. when my son was seven or 8-years-old and had a babysittea she would come over with her school books. she was a high school student and i started reading her history textbook and i thought it was hilarious it was not w meant to be funny but it was like everything that happened that they had to make sure there was one woman and minority group involved so i started to write a parody and then it became this book. >> wondering if there is a lot of free association because you rate the highest ranking office that is elected to a four-year-o term in which he is required to state the president's primary duties are to get on helicopters and send the vice president of god at the remains of the deceased organ leaders.on >> how long would it take to write the pictograph?w, >> i don't know, i would say 43 minutes. >> separation of powe of power e is a little bit longer creates a system of checks and balances that protects everybody by ensuring any action taken by the government would be rendered meaningless by an equal and opposite reaction from some. other parts. >> that isn't even a joke. [laughter]ouri. dairy in jefferson city missouri, we are listening. >> i've enjoyed your writing over the years and i remember some pieces he wrote about the federal decit i thinwe should probably all stand sometime for relief in what' going on these days in washington would you consider updating some of those?ho >> i've thought about it. this would be a good time to goa to dc and they might do that. i would have to get them to let me into the white house. >> we have time for one more call. >> ie and a retired middle school principal [inaudible]gr >> i will say i was something of a wise ass and i did have some discipline issues sometimes not because i was bad but i felt i needed to entertain the other students and more than once i was told by a teacher that's very funny that you can't choke your way through life. [laughter] it turns out that isn't true yoo can. you are the underachiever among your siblings isn't that right s clicks you have relatively prominent siblings. who would they be? i know all my siblings by heart. relatively prominent doesn't mean i love all of them. who do you think i am. i looked at your page. dave barry has been our gueste the last three hours at coral gables florida.co appreciate your time and books and books hosting the event we appreciate you all coming out to see this. dave barry talks that came outi9 in 1992, does japan, 1993, dave barry isn't making this up in 94, 1997 came the greatest hits, dave barry slept here, 1997 and another book dave berry hits below the beltway, the money secrets in 06. dave barry's history of the millennium so far came out in 2007 and the most recent book i will make sure when i'm dead came out about seven years ago, would write and find happiness, two years ago and finally hist most recent, best estate after a florida man defends his homeland. you are watching the tv on c-span2. this has been in depth.'s thank you. >> .. thomas jefferson was a political radical for his time. tom nichols discusses the death of expertise. now for complete schedule this weekend check out our website book tv.org. we will kick off the weekend with author todd starts talking about the deplorable guide to making america great again.

Related Keywords

Montana , United States , Alabama , Nevada , Vermont , Brazil , Turkey , China , California , Russia , Reunion , Mexico , India , Jefferson City , Egypt , Westchester County , New York , Iowa , West Chester , Pennsylvania , Cuba , Poland , Chicago , Illinois , Miami , Florida , Moscow , Moskva , Georgia , Japan , New Hampshire , North Carolina , Texas , Philadelphia , Boston , Massachusetts , Indiana , Wisconsin , Washington , Oregon , Seattle , Oklahoma , Iraq , Nebraska , Petersburg , Sankt Peterburg , Houston , Maryland , Ohio , North Dakota , Orlando , Italy , Italian , Americans , America , Chinese , Mexican , Russian , New Yorker , Russians , American , Dorothy Parker , William Shatner , Dick Gregory , Westchester Kennedy , Barbara Bush , Steven King , Stephen King , Salman Rushdie , Robert Benchley , Benjamin Franklin , Roxanne Freedman , Dave Barry , Russell Crowe , Arthur Godfrey , Henry Kaufman , Douglas Adams , George Bush , Dave Berry , Bruce Springsteen , George Orwell , Thomas Jefferson , Steve Martin , Mitchell Kaplan , Abraham Lincoln , Christie Beckham , Judy Smith , Barack Obama , Dick Cheney , Tom Nichols , Dick Armey , Alexander Hamilton , Allie Catherine ,