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This is later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you

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hear weekday afternoons on the Drive.
Do You Know? Dave Barry as an

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author and humorist, Bulletzer Prize winner, also the inspiration for the TV show

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Dave's World. He's written many books, including Lessons from Lucy, The Simple

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Joys of an Old Happy Dog,
The Starcatcher series for young adults, and

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his newest swamp story, Dave It
sounds so ominous it is as it takes

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place. The swamp in question is
the Everglades, which is right next to

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Miami, which is where I live. I live in Miami, moved there

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in nineteen eighty six from the United
States, and it's a strange place.

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Miami strange, and the Everglades are
strange, and in this book they sort

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of come together with I hope comic
effect. But anyway, if you've always

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looked at Miami as kind of a
crazy, dangerous place, this book will

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not change your mind. I was
driving on the Miami Turnpike doing I guess

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a casual lazy eighty eighty five miles
an hour and still had people honking at

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me. Dave so yes, I'm
aware of how strange at least the turnpike

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is. Yeah, well, my, my, my theory. When I

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first got to Miami, I moved
I moved there a long time ago,

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in the eighties, And when I
first got there, I thought, nobody

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here knows the law to drop for
driving. Nobody knows. And now now

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I know better. Everybody in Miami
is driving according to the law of his

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or her individual country of origin.
Yes, so many many interpretations of what

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lane you should be in, how
fast you should be going, what a

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stop sign might mean, and in
Miami that that doesn't mean stop necessarily,

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and a yellow light really means you
still have a couple of minutes. I

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felt like I was driving in Vana
circa nineteen fifty nine. Yeah, when

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my kids, both my kids,
I had to teach them how to drive

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in Miami, and in both cases
I had to say, there is okay,

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there's the laws which you have read
about in the book, you know,

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for the driver's manual everything, and
then there's the way we actually drive.

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You really need to be aware that
it's not the same thing. Like

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sometimes I got a four way stop, you don't necessarily you yield to the

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person with the Gun. Dave Barry
joining us now. His book is Swamp

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Story, and it's about a woman
who is trapped deep in the Everglades.

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Well, yeah, this it opens
with this. There's a woman. She's

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out there living with these two guys
u one of whom she is the father

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of her child, and she wants
to get out of there. She's she

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got sort of trapped there by these
guys. They're trying to make a reality

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TV show and and she just wants
to no part of them. She's like

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one around the every day stumbles across
a very valuable thing which a lot of

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people are trying to get. And
so the story revolves around her efforts to

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figure out how to get out of
there with that. These guys are trying

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to breus. Guys are trying to
make their reality TV show by inventing a

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monster. And meanwhile there's this thing
going on called the Python Challenge, which

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is a real thing which the state
of Florida. Are you familiar with?

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I am, yes, it's horrifying
if you ask me. Like these giant

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Burmese pythons all over the place in
South Florida, and they're not supposed to

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be They're supposed to be in Burma
wherever that is. But there, you

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know, they got. What happened
is people had these things as pets and

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then they ran out of crack and
realized they were living with the Burmese python.

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Let them go and they love it. Oh Miami, They're like New

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York. They thrived. So anyway, all of these things come together,

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the Woman, the Treasure, the
reality TV show, the Python Challenge,

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a bunch of other things, and
it's sort of a mad cap are of

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a book. Um, but entertaining, I hope, oh, very entertaining.

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It sounds as though ended up you're
not You're no stranger to entertainment.

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I'm wondering what took you so long
to come up with a story like this.

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Well, it's one of these percolated
in my brain for a while.

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There's this, Uh, there's this
place out in the middle of the Everglades

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called the skunk Ape Research Headquarters,
which is like it's really just a sketchy

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roadside tourist attraction, like there used
to be lots more of in Florida,

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And basically the skunk Ape is this
imaginary well not they found a maginary.

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It's like big Foot. Yeah,
it's alaim to have seen it, and

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and there are pictures of it,
but they're never they're always out of focus.

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Yeah, I don't know. And
and anyway, so it's like the

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skunk ape is this thing that people, these guys are selling t shirts for

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the skunk and so anyway, that
gave me an idea, like I'd like

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to have, you know, some
guys try to create one of those.

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And so the reality TV guys came
up with the idea, We're going to

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invent our own version of the skunk
ape and big on on TikTok, and

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it gets it gets completely out of
control. TikTok has plays a big role

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in the book, TikTok being this
uh app invented by the Chinese to keep

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everybody in America from ever doing anything
productive. Ever. Again, no kidding's

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over there. They're making things,
you know, and we're over You're going,

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hey, look at this picture lad
in this video of this cat.

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Look at hey whoa, look at
people doing this dance. Look at this

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person making a tennis racket out of
mayonnaise. You never know where you're going

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to find on on on TikTok,
but you start looking at it and the

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next thing, you know, it's
the following day and you're still you know,

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swiping through it. Amen. Brother, Speaking of a reality television Dave

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berries with us, and the name
of the book is Swamp Story. Reality

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television seems to have been, at
least and as far as the television executives

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are concerned, the best thing to
ever happened to them. They have all

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this content, nobody has to write
anything. Yeah. And the other thing

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about reality television is just the most
unreal television. Yeah, you know,

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you watch it, you know that
isn't really that didn't really happen that way,

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you know, you know that they
my my daughter's favorite show is The

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House Real Housewives of whatever, which
she likes to hate watch. But I

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don't know if you've ever watched that
show. But it's just like not through,

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not through and through. No,
well it's hard on hard on the

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eyes. But anyway, you know, they just non these non real situations

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after non real situation and contrived drama
after contrived drama, and that's you know,

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that's reality television. Well, no
wonder the writers are striking. Hey,

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wait a minute, we're supposed to
be writing that stuff, not you

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Yeah, isn't that though? How
reality television sort of got started though,

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there was a writer strike I think
back in two thousand and seven something like

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that, and they said, Okay, we don't need writers. We can

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just get people to come here and
be stupid without you be idiotic, without

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anybody writing it for them. They
you know, and it seems to have

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worked pretty well. Swamp Story is
the name of the new book that was

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written by Dave Barry, and it's
available everywhere you get books. Do you

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painstakingly outline your novels or you just
kind of let them collide with your life.

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It's sort of a combination. I
do like to have an idea how

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it's supposed to end, because otherwise
you end up just sort of forever trapped

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in it. But so there's a
little bit outlining, but not too much.

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I think it's kind of part of
the fun or writing a book is

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figuring out, you know, as
it's happening, what are they going to

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do next? And sometimes the characters
sort of take over on their own and

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do things you're not really sure that
you would have thought of on your own.

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Yet you're the one writing it,
so clearly you did. But yeah,

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some outlining, but mostly trying to
just let it happen. And in

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the mind of Dave Barry, I
imagine taking on their life of their own

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is a is a wonderful romp Swamp
story is the name of the book.

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Dave Barry is the writer and he's
joined us. Thank you so much for

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the story and for joining us today. Thanks for having me on, appreciate

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it. Thanks for listening to Later
with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,

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and remember to listen to The Drive
Live weekday afternoons from five to seven

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and iHeart Media Presentation