here is a book. it's called wonderland. how play made the modern world. it's very interesting and colorful and busy. steven johnson is the author thinks for being with us on book tv. >> and the live in the live coverage of the miami book fair continues author dave barry a local down here in florida is speaking next in the book tv room. his newest book best state ever. a florida man descends his homeland.

>> i don't think there is one single empty seat here if i look out. so welcome to miami book fair and it's truly a pleasure to see so many of you here i've seen many of you all day long but we are in for another outstanding session here. i am emily harrison and i want to thank our sponsors. first of all the knight foundation. the grout foundation. i'm sorry the do grout foundation. i would also like to acknowledge friends of the miami book fair. thank you so much for your support. in your ongoing comrade rehear with the miami book fair international. they are the convener. that has been three decades plus.

thank you to miami dade college. .. >> i firmly believe we all know exactly who dave barry is. [laughter] [applause] you know, having a chance being

born and raised here in miami and really loving miami, florida, in general, it truly is an honor that we have an author who not only gets us, but actually writes it and writes it so well. so i don't want to keep boring you with me, because i have nothing to give except an introduction today. it is my pleasure to introduce to you mr. dave barry. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you all for coming out, and thanks to the miami book fair which is the best book fair in the united states, and it's -- yeah. [applause] i have an announcement to make. there will be no concert by the rock bottom remainders this year. >> oh! >> the people booing never heard of the rock bottom remainders. [laughter]

no, we are -- we have played here more than any place else, which is not really a tribute to -- [laughter] no other city will have us that many times. we play, it's a genre we call hard listening music. [laughter] but it just, it's the logistics. it's difficult to get everybody, people can roam all over the country that are in this band, which is why we sound the way we do. we never -- other bands, i've been told, practice the songs ahead of time. [laughter] and we don't. we go and play the songs, and then we go, we should have practiced that song, you know? [laughter] which is not the same thing. but what we do, the reason we're still together after 27, 26 years, anyways, the reason we're still together is that we love each other's company. we particularly, after we play we always go out. we go to, usually, a hotel room or a bar, and we consume adult

beverages and talk. [laughter] and that is usually my favorite part of being in the remainders, although one time it produced a scary moment for me. this was in new york city, and we had played a gig. that's a musician term for -- [laughter] we played a gig with chords in it. [laughter] too many chords. and afterward, we went to the hotel bar. i may have had a few too many vodka gimlets. and i was sitting between roy blunt jr. and thot thorough -- scott thoreau, two of my favorite people in the band, and i was torn between the two guys. scott was telling this really long story about his spleen. [laughter] detailed. to the people, you know, kind of listening. and i was tubing in and tuning

out -- tuning in and tuning out and talking to roy and other people, and i kept forgetting whether he had a spleen or not -- [laughter] which was critical to the story. so i asked him, like, can you just remind me, do you have a spleen? he goes, no, i don't have a spleen. that's the point of the story. okay. and then i asked him again, no, i don't have a spleen, that's the point of the story. are you listening? i asked him a third time, and he took a sharpie and pulled up my sleeve and wrote "no spleen." [laughter] in big letters on my forearm. but wait. [laughter] so we all finally finish and go to bed, and we had an early train the next morning to boston from new york. and i get up, and i'm really not in a great state. and i stagger toward the bathroom, and i catch sight of myself in the mirror, and i see there's something written on my arm, which i have no memory of. and and i look down, and it says

"no spleen." [laughter] and you know that urban legend -- [laughter] where the businessman wakes up in a hotel bathtub packed in ice, and his kidney has been harvested? [laughter] i, i'm not kidding, it was a moment of utter terror followed by confusion because i didn't know where to look, i don't know where my spleen -- [laughter] i don't know where my spleen is. [laughter] and also then it occurred to me, it's not really that vital an organ, the spleen. i mean, i think it's a handy organ, but it's not a vital organ which -- nobody would harvest spleens. [laughter] you'd have to be in the spleen-harvesting community, there's probably an expression he's so dumb, he'd harvest a spleen. [laughter] so anyway, that was -- i had a lot more memories of that kind of thing with the remainders than actual musical ones. [laughter]

anyway, we're not here this year. maybe we'll be here next year, i hope. it's kind of hard to get everybody together. i'm really here to talk about a book that i wrote about florida called best.state.ever, and i am going to talk about that book, but i do feel because of recent events -- [laughter] [applause] that i need to address something that happened that's got a lot of people down, including me. i'm referring to the fact that last week my daughter got her florida driver's license. [laughter] and i, i don't know how many of you -- all of you drive down here. my joke always about florida is everybody here drives according to the law of his or her individual country of origin. [laughter] but it's terrifying when your child is out there. we're all used, kind of used to it. but she has, you know, she read the manual. [laughter]

the florida -- it's a pack of lies. [laughter] it says, like, when you come to a stop sign, everybody's going to stop. [laughter] not in miami, they're not, you know? [laughter] so i wanted, i wrote an essay for my daughter. it's actually in a book i wrote called live right and find happiness, although beer is much faster. and i just wanted to read a little essay. this was dedicated to my daughter when she got her permit. i wrote a reality-based florida driver's manual q&a. q: florida law strictly prohibits texting while driving. does this law apply to me? a: haha, of course not. q: if i stop at a red light, how will i know when it turns green? a: you will hear honking behind you. [laughter] this is your cue to start wrapping up your current text

unless, of course, it is important. q: i've noticed that some roads have more than one lane. what is the purpose of the extra lanes? [laughter] a: to provide a place for you to swerve into while texting. [laughter] q: when i come to a stop sign, do i need to stop? a: you personally? q: yes. a: no. q: how is the turn signal used in florida? [laughter] a: it is used to indicate to other motorists that that you do not realize your turn signal is blinking. [laughter] q: could it also be used to signal your intention to change lanes or turn? a: interesting. [laughter] nobody has ever tried that. q: what is the best kind of food to eat while driving? a: any food such as a sandwich, turkey leg, oyster or ding dong that can be eatennen one-handed so you still have a hand free for texting. [laughter]

q: what if an emergency situation arises that might require me to operate the steering wheel? [laughter] a: use your forehead to honk the horn. [laughter] until the emergencies has passed. q: my car's engine seems to have stopped, and i hear a busheling noise. -- busheling noise. what should be causing this? a: are you a senior citizen? >> q: yes. a: you have driven into a swimming pool. [laughter] q: i've had a few drinks, how can i tell if i should drive? a: take this simple test. are you wearing your underpants on your head? [laughter] q: not my underpantses, no. [laughter] a: then you are good to go. q: what is all that shouting? a: are you a senior citizen? q: yes. a: you have struck a pedestrian. [laughter] and i can make senior citizen jokes, because i am one now.

and let's be honest, we're not all the the best drivers. you'd probably -- i believe i've told this story before that they, this was a few years ago, miami police stopped a 72-year-old man driving a chevrolet cobalt which is not that weird except where they stopped him, runway nine, miami international airport. [laughter] that really did happen. apparently, he burst through a perimeter gate without realizing it and was on the tarmac when they finally caught him. which, to me, shows a lack of awareness. [laughter] i don't know about you, but if i'm driving and i notice i'm tailgating a 757 -- [laughter] i say, whoa, i'm not on the lejeune anymore here, am i? rah. [laughter] also, again, not to be knocking the seniors, i am one, but the couples that drive by the seeing-eye wife system? [laughter] you know what i'm talking about? it's a couple. the man drives, why? because the man drives. all right?

man's been driving for 70 years, but he can no longer see. he has outsourced the seeing to his wife. [laughter] it's like, it's an arrow. no, it's not, turn, that way. no! that kind of finish -- anyway. [laughter] so i will talk a little bit about the florida book, and then i'm going to, i'll take questions and we can talk about whatever you want. i have a feeling i know what we want to the talk about, although i don't know that we really do want to talk about it. anyway, the book is called best.state.ever. i moved to miami in 1986 from the united states, and -- [laughter] no, i've lived here a long, long time, and i feel immersed in the community. my wife, michelle, is cuban-jewish. yeah. they didn't come on rafts, they parted the caribbean. [laughter]

but i, you know, i kind of immersed in the culture. i speak fluent spanish. not the whole language, just -- [speaking spanish] i can say that fluently. and i have long been a defender of the city of miami. and for most of the time i've lived down here, florida really wasn't the joke. miami was the joke. people made fun of -- you know, people back from the miami vice days, people thought of miami as dangerous, cocaine cowboys, crazy place, you know? a violet place. violent place. i actually had bumper stickers once that said come back to miami, we weren't shooting at you. [laughter] which for some reason the chamber of commerce didn't adopt, but i still think it'd be a good slogan. but it was miami when i first got here that people, whoa, how could you live there? not so much florida, miami. really it's this sort of the feeling of otherness begin to

expand and cover the entire state of florida was the 2000 presidential election. which, when florida lived up to its motto, florida, you can't spell it without duh. [laughter] those of you who were here then remember it was not a good time to be a floridian. the err states -- other states were able to figure out who they voted for pretty quickly -- [laughter] but this completely baffled florida. nobody had, you know, that night i was up all night, many of us were. first they called the state for gore, then they called the state for bush, then they said, no, no, it's gore again. then i think for a little while william shatner was leading. [laughter] by morning, nobody knew. it was a complete mess, and they, for the next few weeks, we were the butt of every joke there was every night. and they kept showing on the news, you know, the collections officials holding up the ballots

that had been chewed by weasels. [laughter] we didn't know what these people had done to these things. i at the time proposed -- the problem was florida voters were unable to successfully poke a hole in a piece of cardboard. that really is what it came down to. [laughter] so i, at the time, proposed that we have a florida voter-proof ballot which would be you would print photographs of the candidates' faces on the ballot, and you would vote by poking out your candidate's eyeball. [laughter] another great idea that nobody took me up on. so anyway, that was when we became the joke state, and we are to this day the joke state. i think you're probably all familiar with the florida man thing, florida man. there's this web site called the florida man devoted to weird stories out of florida, and there are so many of them, it's almost impossible to believe.

i was going to read you, these are actual florida man headlines. florida man poses as superman on side of the road while pantless, urinating. florida man says he danced on patrol car in order to escape vampires. florida man seen masturbating into stuffed animal in walmart bedding department. [laughter] florida man shoots sister in butt with bb gun because she gave him a penis-shaped birthday cake. and those are all real headlines, and that's just every day of the year over and over again. florida is, we do produce an amazing amount of weirdness. my statistic is we have 6% of the nation's population and produce 57% of the nation's weirdness. [laughter] which is a statistic, right? you can quote it. and the thing that bothers me about that and one of the defenses i mount in the book is

that, yes, yes, this is going on on. there are just more weird stories happen here than happen in other states. i think pound for pound, nobody's going to dispute that. but it isn't necessarily florida's fault. and i will give you an example of why i say that. this is a story, true story that you may remember when it happened. it was, made international news, went viral, and it happened in florida. what happened was -- and this involved a woman, not a man. woman was driving south on the overseas highway going to key west. and she was, according to the florida state police highway patrol report filed on this incident later, she was in a hurry because she wanted to see her boyfriend in key west. and she wanted to look good for him. and this is all, again, according to the police report. so she decided to shave her bikini region. now, some people would have pulled over to the side of the road -- [laughter]

as i say, she was in a hurry, so she decided to keep driving, operating accelerator, but let the steering be done by her passenger who was, and this is one of the things that makes this a florida story, her ex-husband. [laughter] i'm not making any of this up. this is a true story. so they're going southbound at about 45 miles an hour. she's operating accelerator but not looking at the road because she's shaving her bikini region. he's steering, the passenger, ex-husband. what could possibly go wrong? [laughter] in a one in a million, fluke, the car in front of them elected to slow down to make a turn. [laughter] and they slammed into it at 45 miles an hour, and that was the accident that became international viral news. do you believe the woman who was

shaving herself? here's the thing, that woman was from indiana. [laughter] [applause] she was saving her these your, if you -- laugh -- her hoosier, if you -- [laughter] if you wondered all this time what that word moment. [laughter] but my point is, we, florida, gets the blame. florida, oh, florida. but this is true of many of these stories. people like a guy decides to pleasure himself in a stuffed animal in the bedding d. of walmart -- department of walmart, he's not going to go to ohio to do that. [laughter] he's coming here, okay? we are ellis island for these people, okay? [laughter] so there's that. that's part of my defense.

many of the people doing these things are not really from here. very few people are really from here, let's be honest. and there are some wonderful things about our state. we have terrific weather down here except during hurricane season which runs from june through the following june. [laughter] how many of you got taken in by matthew this year? i was holding out, because i'm so used to this. same drill, yeah, right, it's coming here. no, really, it could. you know, don't -- everybody be calm, but this could kill you. and so, you know, you're staying calm. finally, you know, they keep showing the cone and the thing, and even though you know it's not coming here because it never seems to come here, you just have to go to publix. [laughter] there's a true story. my wife and i both went separately to publix, we both just couldn't stand it anymore. and all the other people buying things they don't. my wife came home with 9 volt

batteries, and i said, we don't have anything that uses 9 volts. and she goes, well, that's all they had! [laughter] but other than that, the weather here is lovely. we love it. the taxes here are low. we have no state income tax here, which is one of the reasons -- that's probably why two of thirds of you are here right now. no state income tax. and, okay, what kind of government do we get for that? [laughter] [applause] >> wait, wait diswhree we get incompetent and corrupt government. new york has high taxes, they also have incompetent, corrupt government. we're getting it for way less, is the point i'm making here. [laughter] but most of the book is, in fact, a travel log, a love letter to the state of florida.

i, you know, a lot of people when they come to florida now, they go -- to them that means they land at the airport in orlando, they go to one of the big theme parks, they go back to the airport and go home. and that is part of florida, but there's a lot more to florida than that. and i wanted to write about it, kind after a charmingly weird kind of florida, an older florida. so i asked a bunch of people i know, many in journalism, tell me some places to go to that are -- one of them was tim dorsey who is here at this very book fair, kind of a student of the state. i made a list of places that are very florida, some old, some new. just different and unlikely to be, exist in another state. and i went to those places and wrote about it. and i went, i ranked the -- they mostly are tourist attractions. and i ranked them on a scale of 1-5, out of order machines. i don't know if you've ever seen

these machines, they -- back in the, i don't know, probably in the '50s some guy went around and sold these things to every tourist attraction in florida. they look like jukeboxes, and you feed money in. now it's $2, i think, and nothing happens because they're always out of order. [laughter] i did find one that works. and it hisses and steam, it's pneumatic, and it produces what looks like a ball of mucus. it's the stupidest thing ever. anyway, i love it. [laughter] i went -- every place i went, i would almost always find one. that was my ranking system. and mostly i went to tourist -- i talk about some of the other things you can see in the state. one of my favorite, there is, you may have seen this, at the wildwood exit of whatever that highway is, i can't even remember, maybe the turnpike, there's a giant billboard. it's one of these souvenir stores. and it says, and it's been this way for years, it says wind chimes, gator heads.

[laughter] how many times have you said to yourself -- [laughter] i need a wind chime, and i need a gator head? but i don't want to make two stops, you know? [laughter] that's what that billboard is there for, you know? but i went to, i went to the skunk ape research headquarters. anybody ever been there? route 41. if you ever drive to naples on route 40, you've driven past it a million times. it sounds like a laboratory. it's actually, it looks more like a, the tiki bar frequented by motorcycle gangs, but it's this legend general dare creature that lives out in the everglades that nobody has ever seen except for the guy who runs the skunk ape headquarters. [laughter] no, some people have claimed to

have seen it. we don't know how drunk they were when they did. i did purchase a really nice skunk ape research headquarters t-shirt for my wife, which she appreciated. [laughter] i went to wee key watch chi. started in 1947 by a guy named newton perry who was a famous underwater swimmer back in the day. he, actually, coached the guys who swam in creature of the dark, black lagoon, you know? i don't think he was actually in the rubber suit, which is a movie about people are attacked by a guy in a rubber suit. [laughter] but newton perry could hold his breath forever, for eight minutes underwater, and he could eat an apple underwater which makes sense because after a few minutes down there, you get hungry. [laughter] but he converted this spring, this gushing underwater spring into an underwater theater with a plate glass window and mermaids.

they're women wearing rubber tails. they come swimming up, and they swim in front of you and breathe through air hoses occasionally, and they drink beverage and eat an apple underwater, and this was a big deal in the '50s and '60s. and then along came disney world and just wiped out these place, although it's still there. i mean, you think about it, you say to your kids today, hey, kids, you want to see harry potter? go on space mountain? or should we watch women in rubber tails eat an apple underwater? [laughter] these kids today, you know? but it's still going as a state park. your tax dollar ares are paying for it -- dollars are paying for it. they're also paying for rick scott, so -- [laughter] you decide. you decide how you feel about that. i went to a place called the villages. >> oh! >> yeah. where there's wild sex going on day and night. from senior citizens. actually, there isn't -- that's,

like, one guy wrote a book, and in it he has one chapter where this guy brags about he has sex a lot up there. and it just drove america crazy, the idea that senior citizens -- by which i mean people my age -- are actually having sex. whoa! you know? [laughter] there's like 300 magazine articles written about the villages all of which mention sex and stds in the first paragraph. so i went up there and spent a couple of nights. [laughter] there's line dancing, that's what's going on up there. there's a tremendous amount of line dancing. i don't personally want to live there, but it's kind of charming because you know how if you go to a wedding nowadays and there's, like, younger people and older people, and they start to play, like, old person music like jeremiah was a bull frog -- [laughter] all the old people get up. [laughter] and all the kids, this place is nothing but -- no young people

laughing at them. it's like they're enjoying themselves up there. they have a few inexpensive cocktails, they do line dances, and nobody makes fun of them. i kind of found it charming. i liked the villages. i went to gatorland. anybody been to gatorland? i gave it three and a half out of order mold-o-matics. they dangle chickens, and gators snatch them, and tourists cheer like crazy, you know? it's stupid. [laughter] but i liked it a lot. [laughter] i went to lock and load miami. i don't know -- if where you can rent ma machine guns. and i rented a machine gun, and i wet my pants. not really, but -- [laughter] i was too scared to wet my pants. you know, they let me have a machine gun. but, you know, there was a big, strong man right behind me ready to punch me senseless if i did anything stupid. [laughter] i went to live nightclub.

and let me just say, nobody in this room could get in. [laughter] 'cuz it's like, it's like this impossible to get into hot nightclub. i got into because i pulled strings. but if i tried to get in the right way which is by standing in line and trying to look young and attractive, years from now there'd just be my corpse there, like dell on the, you know? [laughter] -- skeleton. still waiting to catch the eye of the bouncer through my eye sockets. went to key west with a friend of mine, tried to drink all the beer in key west in one weekend, and we came mighty close. but the one i wanted to read you a little bit of one essay i wrote about what i think was probably the most interesting and weirdest place i went in the state of florida. which is a town called casadega. o.k., some of you are familiar -- [laughter] let's hear it for casadega!

it's a community of spiritualists, mediums and psychics. so when you drive, it's this little kind of out of the way little town, and i went there the week before halloween which is the creepiest time to go there. you drive back into this little road, and every house says psychic. if your water heater blew up at 2:00 in the morning, you get no help, but if you needed an emergency tear row card -- tarot card reading, help would be minutes away. i stayed at the casadega hotel which is this really creepy hotel. the shower in my -- the psycho shower in my bathroom. i was afraid to go to the bathroom in my own hotel. [laughter] and anyway, i wanted to get a tarot card -- i mean, a reading from a psychic. so i went, and what you do, there's a spiritual center there, and they have a whiteboard where the psychics and mediums have written their names and phone numbers, and

there's a phone right there that you can use to call, and there's also a cash machine right there because a lot of psychics don't take credit cards, it turns out. and it says to decide which psychic or medium you should use, use your intuition. [laughter] so i'm going to just read you about my reading. using my intuition, i started at the top of the list. after getting several voicemail machines, i reach a live medium whom i will call judy. she just had a cancellation, so she has an availability right away. she says the session will last 30-45 minutes and will cost $60 in cash. following judy's directions, i walk a few blocks to a small house on a side street. judy you ushers me through a kin into a darkened living room where candles are burning and new age music is playing softly. she sits on a chair in front of me with a maul table. judy tells me a little bit about the history and explains she is

affiliated with the spiritualist camp. in casadega the immediate qualms tend to look down on the psychics who claim they have the ability to see into the future along with other powers. judy produces a sheet of paper and says she will be writing down thing as she goes, so i'll have a record of our session. she writes my name in large letters on the paper and begins talking. as she speaks, she often looks past me as if she's seeing a spirit i can't see. sometimes she talks to the spirit. thank you, she'll say. judy says she's seeing canisters and asks if that has any significance to me. i try to think of canister ors that have been significant in my life. [laughter] but nothing comes to mind. to be honest, i can go for months without thinking of canisters. [laughter] judy says it might have something to do with oil or an auto shop and that placement is important. he goes on for a while talking

about the placement of the canisters, but it's not ringing any bells. i'm starting to feel bad, like i'm letting judy and the spirit community down. [laughter] jude key says she's -- judy says she's seeing the number 76. i wrack my brain, but all i can come up with is the song, 76 trombones, which is a rousing show tune but not one with which i feel a deep personal connection. judy says she's picking up something about bowling balls and brings up placement again. i shake my head again, i'm not a bowler. i am totally failing at this. judy asks me if i had trouble eating. i wish, i say. [laughter] this is turning into a nightmare. [laughter] judy says she's getting something about a woman who maybe has something to do with race cars. i shake my head again. my wife happens to be a woman, and she's a fast driver, but not of race cars. she's an suv woman. i begin to think the dead people judy's talking to have me confused with somebody else.

[laughter] then judety says she's getting something about a turkey, about turkey. the bird or the country, i ask. [laughter] the burden, she says -- the third bird, she says. i like turkey, i say. [laughter] judy seems pleased. [laughter] finally, we're getting somewhere. [laughter] judy says she's getting something about music. i tell her i'm in a band. this is true, i'm in an author rock band. we are not good at music, but we do attempt to play it. judy asks about the name ron. i tell her my wife's cousin's husband is named ron. [laughter] we are on a roll now spiritually. [laughter] then judy brings up my parents. have they transitioned, she says? have they what, i say? died, she says. i tell her they have, in fact,

transitioned. she asks we if i would like to try to contact them via a spirit box. i say, sure. she goes to a closet and brings back a small electronic device which she connects to a tiny speaker. she explains it picks up radio transmissions and the spirits piggyback on these transmissions to say things to us. she's going to record me asking some validating questions to prove that it's my parents i'm connecting with. speaking into the spirit box, i ask a few questions like my warrant parents were born. then we go through a process where judy plays back my questions, and we both listen intently trying to pick out messages from beyond as the box emits static, random sounds and fragments of radio broadcasts. to you, this probably sounds like a load of hoo by, but i can say for a fact as a person that witnessed it firsthand that you are absolutely correct. laugh of that there -- [laughter] it is a large, steaming, fray

gant pile of hooey. i have a hard time keeping a straight face. judy would say, did you hear that? i'd say, what. it sounded like, "love you," listen. [laughter] then she'd play a random sound that could have been love you but also could have been trampoline, neil is she dhaka, montpelier or anything else. and i go, huh. [laughter] we do that for a while. judy hearing my parents telling me that they're happy being dead and they love me, me hearing static. finally, mercifully, our session ends. i pay judy and leave with a piece of paper on which she has written notes about canisters, placement, etc. as i walk away, i find myself thinking about my participants. they both had excellent senses of humor, and they would have been immensely entertained by the spirit box, so i guess in a way judy did connect me with them. it was totally worth $60. [laughter] so anyway -- [applause] thank you.

so that's a little bit about my book. i will now entertain your questions, and it can be about anything. out really -- i have a feeling i know some of the topics that might come up. or if you have a problem at home you'd like to share with the group, we have -- we're here for you. [laughter] >> when you first moved here from the united states, did you have any major experience of culture shock? >> yeah. i mean, for me the really biggest shock really was the driving. i mean, i already i knew on abo, you know, there'd be a lot of people speaking spanish. that didn't bother me. but i was not prepared for the idea for a person who missed an exit on an interstate would back up. [laughter] [applause] to make that turn. so it is, that is still, in a way, the part that i find hardest.

but i love, i love miami. most of what shocks people i find funny most of the time. yeah. >> thank you. i haven't heard you speak about traffic circles. they're proliferating. now, in a place like england, round abouts work because people respect. here it seems to me i dare you to hit me, and the other car says i double dare you. >> yeah. only miamiansing would make traffic circles into a hostile thing. [laughter] i think there's people that wait until you're close and then go out into -- [laughter] the people that i don't get are the people that go into the traffic circle and then stop. i understand if you stop before, you're confused. there's a lot of things that are confusing to people. down here, people, i've seen this so many times, they're in a lane that's got a giant arrow pointing left, and above it it says left turn only, and then the light goes on with the green arrow pointing left, and they're like, what the hell do we coabout this situation?

[laughter] let's wait for a few more cycles while we think. you know, that i'm used to. but why would you stop in the traffic once you've already gotten into -- you know, anyway, i agree with you, is what i'm saying. [laughter] but they go the wrong way in england, admit it. [laughter] they're going that way in england. which would work here, i think. i'm going to try that, just kind of go in the circle and just turn left instead of right and see what happens. [laughter] >> you worked for the miami herald, and i -- >> thank you for pointing that out. >> yes, your welcome. -- you're welcome. [laughter] when you go on to their online site, you click on news, there's a menu that says, like, state, international, local, and then weird. [laughter] >> sorry, sorry. cnn, you know? >> was that your idea? >> no, no. i finish. [laughter] it makes sense, you have to admit. it makes a ton of sense.

>> would you care to expound upon the subject of low flow toilets? >> allow -- low flow toilets, god. [laughter] we used to have great toilets in this country. [laughter] we had powerful toilets. we had toilets that were the envy of the world. they could suck down a mature sheep. [laughter] and then some idiot in congress, we're going to save water with these toilets that don't work! you flush them like eight times to get a ping-pong ball to go down. [laughter] and if you're seeing a ping-pong ball in your toilet, you probably should see your -- thank you for asking. i'm opposed to them. i favor the death penalty for anyone responsible for them. [laughter] the other thing i feel strongly about, and i was running for president on this. i apparently didn't win, that's what i'm hearing. i think that we need for the medical profession to find a way

to get to the prostate bland other than the way they're -- gland other than the way they're getting to it now. [laughter] who's with me? men, who's with me on that? [laughter] it's easier when the doctor stands 85 yards away and goes, looks good from here, dave. [laughter] men hate that procedure. my doctor, you're like tents. the doctor hates it, you hate it. they wait until end of the exam because they're hoping there'll be a nuclear war. imagine, civilization's destroyed. good news, we don't have to do that. [laughter] they always wait until the end, and my doctor -- maybe even in this room, curtis hamburg, he's a wonderful doctor. but the first time we get to that moment, i'm turning around, my pants are down, he's putting on the glove and i'm all tense. here's what he said to relax me at that moment. he said, you know, dave, when you get really nervous is when

you feel both my hands on your shoulders. [laughter] that is not, that is not my joke, that's my doctor's -- [laughter] that's curtis hamburg's joke. laugh sorry, hi. >> hi there. my father worked for a newspaper and writes -- >> your father works where? >> he works for a newspaper. >> okay. >> he's the editor of our local newspaper in vancouver, washington. but i wanted to ask what you thought of the column as, like, a form of writing and where that's going in the next generation. >> your dad's a columnist? [laughter] >> yes. >> it's a great thing. [laughter] no, i fear, i fear it's, you know, not do bring everything down, but the way journalism's going, there's just less and less space, it's harder and harder to get a column into a paper anymore. it's harder and harder to make

it a living as a newspaper columnist. there are just fewer and fewer of them. so -- but i'm sure your dad will be fine. [laughter] >> why won't you run for governor? [laughter] [applause] >> i think that's a wonderful note to end our session on. let's give a round of applause, david barry. >> thank you! >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you all. >> thank you. [applause] >> and, of course, the autographing area on this floor is on the other side of the elevator. you can purchase dave barry's book and get it autographed. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> and that was humorous dave barry owning the booktv room here at the miami book festival. best.state.ever: a florida man defends his homeland, was the name of the book. well, coming up in our live coverage from miami, a call-in program with senator bernie sanders, a call-in program with andrew bacevich whose newest book is called "america's war for the greater middle east." those are both coming up, and the miami book fair has now become a week-long event. and earlier this week daily show host trevor noah was in town to talk about his new book. it's called "born a crime." we're going to show that to you now. [applause] >> thank you, thank you. well, welcome to the 3