TRAFFIC WOES DRIVE US CRAZY

DAVE BARRY, Herald Columnist

Our traffic problems are getting worse, according to a recent study by the Institute of Discovering Things That Make You Go "Duh."

How bad is our traffic mess? Consider these alarming facts:

FACT: Commuting by automobile now takes so long that many workers have no time to do any actual work. When they reach their place of employment, they grab a cup of coffee, spend a few minutes discussing the previous night's episode of The Apprentice with their co-workers, and immediately start the long commute home, unaware that their jobs were outsourced to Asia months ago.

FACT: In the past year alone, commuters whose car radios were tuned to "classic rock" spent an average of 347 hours - more than two weeks - just listening to the song Takin' Care of Business, by Bachman Turner Overdrive. The statistics are even more chilling for Black Magic Woman.

FACT: Gridlock is so bad that as many as 15 percent of women drivers now pass the time by picking their noses. (The figure for men remains steady at 100 percent.)

FACT: In greater Los Angeles, the only documented instance in the past two decades of anybody actually getting anywhere by car is O.J. Simpson.

FACT: Traffic is now a problem even in rural areas such as North Dakota, where this year, for what is believed to be the first time in the state's history, two motorists arrived simultaneously at the same intersection (North Dakota has six). They were stuck there for several days, each motorist gesturing, in friendly Heartland fashion, for the other to go first. Ultimately they both had to walk home.

FACT: Bachman Turner Overdrive was originally named "Brave Belt."

Clearly, we have a serious traffic problem. The question is, what can we do, as a nation, to get motorists off the roads?

One obvious answer is to allow them to drive on the sidewalks. This is the system used in Greece, where the entire motor vehicle code consists of a single law: No stopping. This law requires Greek motorists

to use a loose interpretation of the term "legal right of way, " which in Greece is basically defined as "Greece." I learned this while I was in Athens for the Olympics, and on two occasions a moving taxi made direct physical contact with me while I was sitting at a cafe table. The second time the contact was pretty firm, so I gestured at the taxi driver to indicate "Excuse me, sir, but your taxi has struck me, " and the driver shouted something that I assume was Greek for, "What do you expect?! You're SITTING AT A CAFE TABLE!!"

But the point is that, without a bunch of "red tape" laws requiring motorists to stop or yield or avoid humans, traffic in Greece moves quite freely everywhere, including inside the Parthenon. If we adopted such a system here, we could speed up our traffic flow, and as a side health benefit really perk up the average pedestrian pulse rate.

Another possible solution to our traffic problems is "car pooling, " which is when a group of people ride together in one car, saving gasoline, inhaling each other's bodily emissions and arguing over which radio station to listen to ("Hey leave it! I LIKE Black Magic Woman!") So we can rule this solution out.

A far better solution is mass transit, which has been proven to be effective in Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., all of which have excellent mass transit. (They also all have really horrible traffic, but I am asking the jury to disregard this.)

The problem is that mass transit is very expensive. Washington, for example, would never have been able to build its superb subway system without billions of dollars generously provided by federal taxpayers like you. Most cities - probably including yours - don't have that option. So what can you do? The answer is surprisingly simple and affordable: You can steal Washington's subway!

I don't mean the whole thing, of course: That would be illegal. But if everybody in your city were to visit Washington as a tourist, and each of you just happened to take a Phillips screwdriver, and you each took just a few minutes, between visiting monuments, to unscrew a small piece of the subway and bring it home, before you know it, guess what? That's right: A large sector of your city's population would be in prison. This would ease highway overcrowding.

Whatever traffic solution we decide on, we need to do it soon, because as a nation, we need to get out of gridlock and start takin' care of business, every day! Takin' care of business, every way!

Please shoot me.

THE HAIR APPARENT

DAVE BARRY Herald Columnist

I have a letter here from Mrs. Belle Ehrlich, of San Jose, Calif., who feels I should get a new hairdo. To quote her directly: "I enjoy reading most of your columns . . . but your hairdo in your photo sure looks DATED and NOT at all flattering or becoming, to say the least. If you are still sporting that awful hairdo, I suggest you go to a good hair stylist to give you a new and better hairdo. I hope you don't mind my criticism, it's nothing personal -- just a suggestion."

Mind? Ha ha! MIND? Of course not, Mrs. Belle Ehrlich of San Jose! As a journalist who seeks to inform his readers about topics of vital concern to the nation and the world, I welcome insulting remarks about my hair!

OK, perhaps I am a bit sensitive about my hair. I have been sensitive about my hair since second grade, when the Kissing Girls first swung into action. You probably had Kissing Girls at your elementary school too: they roamed the playground, chasing after selected boys and trying to kiss them. We boys carried on as though we would have preferred to undergo the Red-Ants-Eat-Your-Eyelids-Off Torture than get kissed, but of course we wanted desperately to be selected. And I almost never was. The boys who were selected had wavy hair. Wavy hair was big back then, and I did not have it. I had straight hair, and it did not help that my father cut it.

You should know that my father was a fine, decent and sensitive man, but unfortunately he had no more fashion awareness than a baked potato. His idea of really el snazzo dressing was to wear a suit jacket and suit pants that both originated as part of the same suit. He would have worn the same tie to work for 42 consecutive years if my mother had let him. So the way he would cut my hair is, he'd put me on a stool, and he'd start cutting hair off one side of my head with the electric clippers, then he'd walk around me and attempt, relying on memory, to make the other side of my head look similar. Which of course he could never quite do, so he would head on back around to take a stab at Side One again, and he'd keep this up for some time, and all I can say is, thank heavens they had a little plastic guard on the electric clippers so that you couldn't make the hair any shorter than a quarter-inch, because otherwise my father, with the best of intentions, trying to even me up, would have started shaving off slices of actual tissue until eventually I would have been able to turn my head sideways and stick it through a mail slot. As it was, in photographs

taken back then, I look like an extremely young Marine, or some kind of radiation victim.

It also did not help that in third grade I became the first kid in the class to get glasses, and we are talking serious 1950s horn rims of the style that when you put them on a third- grade child, especially one with a comical haircut, you get a Mister Peepers effect such that everybody assumes the child must be a Goody-Two-Shoes Teacher's Pet science-fair-oriented little dweeb. And it also did not help that I was a Late Bloomer, pubertywise. I was ready for puberty. All of us boys were. We wanted to catch up to the girls, who about two years earlier had very suddenly, in fact I think it was all on the same day, shown up at school a foot taller than us and with bosoms and God knows what else. So I was definitely looking forward to puberty as the Dawn of a New Era in the looks department, and you can just imagine how betrayed I felt when it started happening to the other boys, even boys whom I had considered my friends, well before it happened to me. They got ahead of me then, and sometimes I think I never really caught up. I am 38 years old now, and I have yet to develop hair on my arms. Isn't that supposed to happen, in puberty? I see men much younger than myself, with hairy arms, and I think: Does this mean I'm not done with puberty yet?

I realize I sound insecure here, but if you really wanted to see insecure, you should have seen me in eighth grade. I was a mess. That was why I developed a sense of humor. I needed something to do at parties. The other boys, the boys who had wavy hair and reasonable hormone-activity levels, would be necking with girls, and I would be over by the record player, a short radiation victim in horn rimmed spectacles, playing 45s and making jokes to entertain the 10-year-old brother of whomever was holding the party. Now that I'm grown up, I keep reading magazine articles about these surveys where they ask you women what you really want most in a man, and you always say: A Sense of Humor. And I think to myself: Right. Sure. Great. NOW you want a sense of humor. But back in the eighth grade, back when it really mattered, what you wanted was puberty.

And I am not even going to mention here that for several years my hands were covered with warts.

So anyway, Mrs. Belle Ehrlich of San Jose, what I'm trying to say here is: Thanks, thanks a million for taking the time to drop me a note informing me that my hair looks awful. Because now that I'm grown up (except in terms of arm hair) and have contact lenses, and I have finally come to think of myself as very nearly average in appearance, I can handle this kind of helpful criticism, and I will definitely see if I

can't find a good hair stylist. This is assuming that I ever leave my bedroom again.

H-E-E-E-E-RE'S BARRY!

DAVE BARRY

My biggest fear about going on The Tonight Show was not that I would throw

up in front of 40 million people. No, that would have been fine. In fact,it would have been the kind of hilarious and spontaneous televised momentthat they save to show on The Best of The Tonight Show, like the time EdAmes (I think it was Ed Ames) threw the hatchet at the plywood humansilhouette and hit it square in the crotch. They'd repeat the tape of myappearance for years to come. "In this next segment," Johnny Carson would say, introducing it, "watch the hilarity that ensues when a guest trying to plug an obscure book launches his lunch all over Dick Cavett."

So that was not what I was worried about. What I was worried about was thatI would get up there, shake hands with everybody, sit down in theprimary-guest chair, and turn to Carson expectantly, waiting for the firstquestion, and suddenly it would dawn on him that somebody had made aterrible mistake, putting me, as opposed to a Well Known Personality, onthe show. So he'd suggest that maybe I'd be more comfortable in one of thechairs down at the far end, past even Ed McMahon, down where you have toset off marine flares if you want to get a word in edgewise, and Carson andCavett would go back to having witty repartee. Then I'd have to go home andface my wife and friends and neighbors and mother, all of whom I had prettymuch obligated to stay up late and watch. "You were great, Dave!" they'dsay, trying to be nice. "During some of the repartee, we could see part ofyour leg!"

That was my biggest fear.

*

The way I got on The Tonight Show was that I wrote a book, The Taming ofthe Screw, which is supposed to be a humorous parody of do-it-yourselfbooks and which is no longer available in bookstores anywhere. But it wasavailable last fall, and I went on a local TV talk show to plug it, and the publisher sent a tape of my appearance to The Tonight Show, and then everybody pretty much forgot about it. Then about two months ago, Shirley Wood, who is what they call aTalent Coordinator for The Tonight Show, called me up and asked me a bunchof questions about home repair to see if I would give funny answers. Thenabout six weeks ago, on a Thursday, she called up and asked if I wanted tobe on The Tonight Show the next Tuesday, and of course I said yes andcalled my mother.

I flew out to Los Angeles Tuesday morning, surrounded on the plane byordinary mortals who were not going to be on The Tonight Show and thus wereable to read magazines rather than just sit there and develop armpit

stains. I was taken from the Los Angeles airport to my hotel in a limousinedriven by a man who struck me as being much funnier and more relaxed andentertaining than I am, much more worthy of being on The Tonight Show, andhe was just the limousine driver, for God's sake. The hotel people calledme "Mr. Barry" and gave me this little card that said I was to receiveDistinguished Customer Service, which means I got a room next to the pooland they brought me a basket of fruit. I was really feeling awful now.

I spent the next hour or so on the phone with Shirley Wood, going over thequestions that Carson might ask me and the answers that I might give. Shehad done this a million times, and she knew exactly what she wanted. "Nah,"she'd say, if she didn't like something. "Too long. Not funny." She neveractually laughed at anything I said; if she liked something, she'd saysomething like, "Okay. We'll do that." By the time we were done, none of itseemed even remotely funny to me.

She told me I should talk slowly. She also told me, maybe a dozen times,"Don't be a wise-ass." This worried me greatly, because I have always been a wise-ass. When I was born, the doctor pulled my parents aside and said: "I'm very sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Barry, but I'm afraid your son is a wise-ass." It is my distinguishing personality trait, and here was a talent coordinator for The Tonight Show, disapproving of it.

They tape the show at 5:30 p.m., and at 4:30 a limousine came to the hotelfor me. This limousine was even bigger than the first one. It had a colortelevision, a bar and a telephone. It was clearly intended for someone withfar more elaborate limousine needs than I have. It whisked me to thestudio's Artists' Entrance, where there were lots of other limousines and severalguards. "I have Mr. Dave Barry, for The Tonight Show," said the chauffeur,referring to me, back there with the phone and the bar and the colortelevision. I would say this was the low point of my entire life.

In the studio, a dapper, articulate, witty, confident, handsome person in asuit greeted me and escorted me past dressing rooms that said "Dick Cavett"and "Jimmy Brogan" to one that said "Dave Barry." I asked this person whohe was, and he seem surprised. "I'm nobody," he said. "I'm a page."

My dressing room had a television, a couch, a desk and a bathroom. In the

desk were some notes for jokes that I figured out had been written by JoanRivers. I didn't do any actual dressing in there, because I already had mysuit on. It wasn't nearly as nice as the page's suit. Maybe they stuck mein there because they wanted me to do some more dressing. At 5 I went across thehall to Makeup to have a makeup person smear my face with a cosmeticsubstance that people used to call "flesh- colored" back before thediscovery of minority groups. Doc Severinsen was in there, reading thepaper, and then Carson himself walked in, wearing jeans and looking very lean. He winked at me on the way by. That was my only contact with him, other than on the actual show.

After I was made up, Shirley Wood gave me typed notes listing the questionsCarson would ask me, and the things I'd said in our telephone conversationthat she liked. It was very reassuring to hold this piece of paper, eventhough I was too tense to actually read it. It also helped that Wood, whoturned out to be, despite her tough, no-nonsense phone manner, a kind andmotherly sort, took me to the backstage bar and gave me a large glass ofwine, which I drank the way football players drink Gatorade on commercials.

Wood told me that until it was time for me to go on, I could sit and watchthe show in the famous Green Room, which is where guests and hangers-onwait for their turns. A surprising number of people have asked me what theGreen Room is like, so just for the record: It's a non-green room with twotelevisions in it and some sofas, and off at one end are some guys who areon the telephone all the time. I'm sorry I can't give you a more detaileddescription, but at the time I didn't realize it was such a famous room, soI didn't spend much time in there.

Mostly I wandered around backstage, which was crowded with people, mainlyCalifornians by the look of them, tanned and healthy from avocadoconsumption. I imagine they had some reason for being there, but most ofthem just stood around and watched the show.

At about 5:20, McMahon started warming up the audience. Watching the showfrom home, I had always had the impression that the audience is alate-night crowd of Los Angeles sophisticates, but it's actually anafternoon crowd of tourists and honeymooners from places like Iowa, andthey have to be warmed up. "I know it's a Tuesday night," McMahon toldthem, looking very sincere, "but you people -- and I mean this with all my

heart -- you people sound like a Friday night crowd." The crowd went nuts.They knew this was high praise.

And then it was 5:30, and Heeeeeeeeeere's Johnny! A dense knot ofCalifornians gathered backstage to watch the monologue. They laughedviolently at everything, even the jokes that bombed, the ones where Carsonwinds up making a joke out of the fact that the joke bombed. The jokes comefrom brief notes on pieces of cardboard in front of him, and he makes itlook easy, turning the notes into jokes. After the monologue, there was acommercial, during which he talked a bit with the audience, cracking jokesabout newlyweds ("If you need any advice...") and thanking them for coming.They loved it. Just before the commercial ended, Carson sat down at hisfamous desk.

The set where Carson and his guests sit is off to the side of a largestage, with a photograph of Los Angeles at night behind it. The band, whichis very good and plays during commercials, is on the other side of thestage. Right in front of Carson are a half-dozen camera, sound andproduction people, and some folding chairs where high-level staff such asthe producer and director sit, along with the talent coordinator whocoordinated whatever talent is performing at the time. The audience, about500 people, is off in the darkness, heard but not seen.

The first guest was Dick Cavett, who came on and had about 25 minutes ofrepartee with Carson. The main thing I remember about Cavett was that hesaid you can rearrange the letters in Spiro Agnew's name to spell "grow apenis." For some reason, this helped calm me down.

Next they had Jimmy Brogan, a standup comedian, who stood up and didcomedy. It was his first time on The Tonight Show, too. As he was finishinghis act, Shirley Wood came looking for me and led me to the curtain youwait behind while Carson introduces you. When Brogan finished his act, hewalked by us and said "I am so glad that's over." Then the commercialstarted, and I was next. Shirley Wood grabbed my arms, wished me luck, toldme to talk slowly and talk to Carson, not the camera, then she disappearedto take her seat in front of the set. The commercial ended, Carsonintroduced me, the band started playing, a man held open the curtain, andthere I was, out there shaking hands with Johnny and Dick and Ed.

What everybody asked me later was: "What's Carson like?" The answer is: How

the hell would I know? In the entire seven minutes during which I sat nextto him on national television, he did not once lean over and confide in mewhat he is like. But he was wonderfully professional, I will tell you that.He set me up for all the jokes, and he let me have the laughs. He didn'tget the least bit annoyed when, in my eagerness to answer him, I keptinterrupting his questions. I mean, he could have said: "Dave, I know thatyou know these questions, inasmuch as you and Shirley Wood discussed themfor an hour today via telephone, but it's conceivable that some members ofthe audience may not know them." But he didn't. So after the first minute Irealized I was in good hands and it was going to be fine, and by the end ofthe show I was actually enjoying myself, right up until I threw up on DickCavett.

Just kidding. Maybe on my next appearance.

So anyway, after the show I got back into the enormous limousine and poureda large glass of scotch and turned on the color television to watch theCeltics play the Lakers with the sound turned down because the chauffeurhad bet $100 on the Celtics and couldn't bear to hear the game in progress.From time to time other motorists would pull up next to us and look insideto see if I was Somebody, riding around in this enormous luxury vehicle,then they'd see that I wasn't, and they'd move on. The hell with them, Ithought. For the next 25 minutes, this is my scotch, and my limousine, andmy color television. I would have made a phone call, but I don't know

anybody in the Burbank area.

DECAF POOPACINO

BY DAVE BARRY

I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money for coffee that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive tract.

And you just know there are plenty of people who would. Specialty coffees are very popular these days, attracting millions of consumers, every single one of whom is standing in line ahead of me whenever I go to the coffee place at the airport to grab a quick cup on my way to catch a plane. These consumers are always ordering mutant beverages with names like "mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette lattespressacino, " beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy products and what appears to be a small nuclear reactor.

Meanwhile, back in the line, there is growing impatience among those of us who just want a plain old cup of coffee so that our brains will start working and we can remember what our full names are and why we are catching an airplane. We want to strike the lattespressacino people with our carry-on baggage and scream "GET OUT OF OUR WAY, YOU TREND GEEKS, AND LET US HAVE OUR COFFEE!" But of course we couldn't do anything that active until we've had our coffee.

It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin addicts. I bet that when serious heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they do not tolerate waiting in line while some dilettante in front of them orders a hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles.

The reason some of us need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes us alert. Of course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and, like any drug, it is a lot of fun.

No! Wait! What I meant to say is: Like any drug, caffeine can have serious side effects if we ingest too much. This fact was first noticed in ancient Egypt when a group of workers, who were supposed to be making a birdbath, began drinking Egyptian coffee, which is very strong, and wound up constructing the pyramids.

I myself developed the coffee habit in my early 20s, when, as a "cub"

reporter for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., I had to stay awake while writing phenomenally boring stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all three liquids squirted out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty much the same. But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I've had several cups. (I can't do anything useful afterward , either; that's why I'm a columnist.)

But here's my point: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I say this in light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo Bishop. He sent me an invitation he received from a local company to a "private tasting of the highly prized Luwak coffee, " which "at $300 a pound . . . is one of the most expensive drinks in the world." The invitation states that this coffee is named for the luwak, a "member of the weasel family" that lives on the Island of Java and eats coffee berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a "natural fermentation" takes place, and the berry seeds -- the coffee beans -- come out of the luwak intact. The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted and sold to coffee connoisseurs.

The invitation states: "We wish to pass along this once in a lifetime opportunity to taste such a rarity."

Or, as Bo Bishop put it: "They're selling processed weasel doodoo for $300 a pound."

I first thought this was a clever hoax designed to ridicule the coffee craze. Tragically, it is not. There really is a Luwak coffee. I know because I bought some from a specialty-coffee company in Atlanta. I paid $37.50 for two ounces of beans. I was expecting the beans to look exotic, considering where they'd been, but they looked like regular coffee beans. In fact, for a moment I was afraid that they were just regular beans, and that I was being ripped off.

Then I thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might be ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a weasel?

So anyway, I ground the beans up and brewed the coffee and drank some. You know how sometimes, when you're really skeptical about something, but then you finally try it, you discover that it's really good, way better than you would have thought possible? This is not the case with Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee, in my opinion, tastes like somebody washed a dead cat in it.

But I predict it's going to be popular anyway, because it's expensive. One of these days, the people in front of me at the airport coffee place are going to be ordering decaf poopacino. I'm thinking of switching to heroin

NAKED CITY: DAVE BARRY EXPOSES MIAMI

DAVE BARRY

It was the kind of assignment that journalists dream about if they lead fairly limited lives: The editors at Tropic wanted me to fly down to Miami and become intimately familiar with every aspect of the city--its culture, its history, its people, its joys, its sorrows -- in short, its very soul. They figured I would need three days. I had never been to Miami, so before I left Philadelphia I did extensive research in the form of talking to several of my friends. None of them had ever been to Miami either. I recalled reading somewhere that one-quarter of the murders in Miami are committed with automatic weapons, which is an indication of a highly technological society, but that was really all I knew.

Now before the Chamber of Commerce gets angry at me for mentioning murder so early in this story, let me stress that in the entire time I was in Miami I never saw anybody murdered in any way. So I want all you potential tourists out there to ignore what you've heard about the murder problem, although you might want to give some thought to the killer toads. But more on them later. First, let's briefly review the history of Miami.

"Miami" is an Indian word meaning "place where Indians no longer live." The Indians were the principal inhabitants until the early 19th Century, when white settlers began to arrive. The Indians reacted to the white influx by making jokes, ("Will the last Indian to leave Miami please bring the totem pole"); this angered the whites, who responded by killing the Indians or, worse, sending them to Oklahoma. After the whites came other influxers: northerners, southerners, poison frogs, tourists, Cubans and Haitians, but by that time it had become illegal to send people to Oklahoma without just cause, so they all stayed, and today Miami is a marvelous mixture of different races and cultures, living together in peace and harmony in different sections of the city.

The first thing I did after I got my rental car at the Miami airport was get lost, so I pulled off the road to get directions from an elderly man, which gave me an opportunity to brush up on my Spanish. I took several years of Spanish in high school, and the only sentence I remember is Vamos al cine ("Let us go to the movies"), but I figured it would all come back to me in a jiffy, except that my Spanish teacher always paused for four or five seconds after each word, and the elderly man spoke in what sounded like one long word, which I believe was calliamenterrenialitocentramamanosarrrrrrrrria. I didn't know this word, but I tried to look grateful. I would have asked him to the movies, but I didn't want to run the risk of getting murdered with an automatic weapon. I never did get the hang of Spanish in my three days in Miami. I listened a lot to the Spanish radio stations, but they, too, used mostly long words, although occasionally they said something in English, so I could get a rough idea what was going on: NEWS ANNOUNCER: Mediocayuagarillacentro Nancy Reagan hermanacitollinatalamolitanarrio Bert Parks agunamenteillorrrrrrrrrrentijinallamente Jolly Goat Motel. I figured my first task was to familiarize myself with the incredibly complex varieties of plant and animal life that make up Miami's ecosystem, particularly those varieties that can kill you. I started with alligators. Nobody knows for sure how many alligators live in the Miami area, but just for the sake of having a figure that everybody can cite from now on, let's say there are three million. This is not as bad as it sounds,because alligators mainly eat dogs, which is fine with me. On my first night in Miami, I drove out the Tamiami Trail to the Everglades, a famous local swamp. After I had left all signs of civilization behind (except the one that said "FROG CITY 3/4 MI"), I pulled off the road, turned off the motor, got out of the car and crept stealthily down the bank to the water, hoping to spot an alligator, until it occurred to me that I might actually spot an alligator, at which point I strode briskly back to the car loudly humming My Girl by the Temptations, my reasoning being that an alligator would be unlikely to mistake a person humming My Girl for a dog. Miami also has killer toads. I know this because I read The Herald's file on frogs and toads, which is probably the most extensive such file of any newspaper in the free world. The killer toad (code name "Bufo Marinus") secretes a deadly venom, but is dangerous only if you bite it, and as far as I am concerned anybody who bites a toad deserves to die. Killer toadsmainly kill dogs. This is a tough town for dogs. The file also had a series of stories about a poison-frog robbery back in 1968, when somebody broke into a pet store-- Miami has pet stores

the way other towns have hot dog vendors-- and stole 200 deadly South American frogs. This leads to the obvious question, which is: How did the thieves make their getaway? Did they just saunter off down the street, poison frogs bulging from every pocket, completely unnoticed? The story doesn't say. It does say that the venom from a 1-inch frog can kill "scores of people." This led to efforts by local and federal legislators to enact tougher frog control laws (I am not making any of this up), but eventually the public lost interest in this issue, probably because of the general excitement over the construction of the Metrorail system, scheduled for completion around the time the Earth establishes permanent colonies on Neptune. Today, nobody seems to know what happened to the killer frogs, but I don't think it's anything to worry about, now that I am back in Philadelphia. The Herald's file contained one other interesting frog story (I am not making this up, either): "DETROIT -- A giant frog with a mouthful of teeth has vanished from its home and may be wandering the streets of western Detroit." I quote this story for the benefit of those potential tourists who, because of their concern about poison frogs and toads, decide they should vacation in Detroit rather than Miami, although anybody who vacations in Detroit is probably too stupid to be able to read anyway. The only other major natural killers in Miami are hurricanes and palmetto bugs, although I think the palmetto bug danger may be somewhat overrated. The Tropic staff claimed palmetto bugs grow to the size of toaster-ovens, but when I got there the only one they could produce was about an inch long and was dead and missing a leg. So I doubt that palmetto bugs are really all that dangerous, except maybe to dogs. Hurricanes are worse. If a major hurricane were to hit Miami, it would delay completion of the Metrorail system. I strongly suggest that all you Miamians rush right down to your local Burger King, which is apparently responsible for hurricane preparations, and pick up your free copy of "The Hurricane Handbook," written by Channel 4's weatherman, Bob Weaver. Bob offers a number of useful hints as to what to do in a hurricane, such as protect yourself and stay tuned to Channel 4. That takes care of Miami's natural environment; now for its economy. Miami's economy is mostly small businesses--pet stores, exterminators, pet stores, etc. This is because of the climate. Every time they build a large office building or factory, the sun beats down on it until it reaches a critical temperature, at which point it explodes into 400 small businesses, each of which has a liquor license. The economy has been slumping lately because tourism is down, which is why Miami recently held the New World Festival of the Arts. The idea was that people would flock to the festivalfrom all over the country, then realize that South Florida is a very

cultural place, despite the fact that it has a road named after Arthur Godfrey. Unfortunately, the festival organizers made two serious mistakes. First, they put on mainly symphonies and operas. This is no way to attract Americans. One of the major reasons Americans fought so hard in World War II was their fear that if the Germans and Italians won, everybody would be required to listen to symphonies and operas. The other major mistake was that the festival was held in the summer when Miami is very hot, so that even if large numbers of tourists had shown up, most of them would have died anyway. I think Miamians do not realize how hot their city is in the summer, probably because the television weathermen are very defensive about it: ANCHORMAN: And here's Thad Thorson with the weather forecast. WEATHERMAN: Well, Jim, we had another classic southern Florida day today, and we look forward to another.... ANCHORMAN: Wait a minute, Thad. It's nearly a hundred degrees out there for the 17th straight day. People are droppingfrom heat stroke all over the city. Lizards are bursting on the sidewalks like little brown balloons. When will it end, for God's sake? And don't tell me "It beats freezing." If you tell me one more time that it beats freezing, I swear to God I'm going to shoot you right in your plaid sportjacket with a semiautomatic weapon. WEATHERMAN: Jim, do you realize that the average daytime temperature on the surface of Mercury is over 1,000 degrees? But Miami is more than just weather, businesses and dangerous reptiles. Miami is also people, and the only way to get to know the people of a city is to get out of the safety of the air-conditioned rental car and rub shoulders with them as they lead their everyday lives. I think my findings on the people of Miami are best summarized by this conversation on the street: ME: Tell me, what are Miamians really like? MIAMIAN: Well, I would say they are a juxtaposition of many peoples, really--people of many ages, many races, many cultures. True, this juxtaposition creates great tensions at times yet, paradoxically, it is also what gives the city its great vitality. ME: Hey, that's terrific. What's your name? MIAMIAN: I don't have one. You just made me up so you could get a good quote without having to get out of your rental car and talk to a bunch of people who carry open umbrellas when it's not raining and might try to shoot you with an automatic weapon. I did meet some actual Miamians at the dog races, but they were unable to give me any major cultural insights because they were busy cursing at greyhounds with stupid names. The greyhounds deserve to have stupid names, because night after night they chase an object that could not possibly look less like a rabbit. If you were to show this object to 100 persons chosen at random on the street, they would all say: "I

don't know what it is, but it's not a rabbit." A dog that can be tricked into chasing this object night after night could have no more than eight brain cells, which is why greyhounds are bred for stupidity. Every day, the breeders take a batch of hopeful greyhounds out to the track and let them go: The ones that chase the object become racers; the others, thousands of them, flee into the streets of Miami, where they would be a major problem if it weren't for the alligators and toads. Another place where Miamians gather at night is the jai-alai fronton ("fronton" is a word from another language). Jai-alai is a fast-paced game in which players try to avoid being injured by a small, violent ball while people bet on them. The betting system is very complicated, but I got a rough idea of how it works from this actual conversation with a man clutching several betting slips: ME: Could you explain how this game works? MAN: Well, see, I got six and three (waves slips at me), so I can't lose. I can't lose. ME: I see. And how do.... MAN (peering at slips): Wait. Wait. I got EIGHT and three, dammit. I don't WANT six in there. Get six out of there, dammit. ME: I see. And how.... FRIEND OF MAN WITH SLIPS: You ain't got no eight. You got six (holds up slip). MAN (peering at slip): Oh. Come on six, dammit. ME: I see. Thank you. With this explanation in mind, I bet on team six in the next game, but I don't think it won. There was no clear-cut way to tell. On my second day in Miami, I went on a tour conducted by Gene and Leon, who work for Tropic magazine, which comes out only once a week, which is why Gene and Leon have a lot of time to drive around Miami. Our first stop was the Tamiami Gun Shop, whose motto is, "We Aim To Please." This is a store that can meet all your gun needs, from small guns that you might use to shoot a palmetto bug, to medium guns that you might use to repel an intruder, to large, semiautomatic guns that you might use to repel the North Korean army or vaporize a deer. (In fact, that very day the state had decided to permit hunters to kill half the deer in the Everglades. This was to prevent these deer from needlessly starving to death.) Leon demonstrated how the various guns worked (in most cases, a bullet comes out of a predesignated end of the gun at a high rate of speed). Leon is familiar with guns, because he goes camping a lot and needs a gun in case an alligator tries to attack him, although so far none has done so, probably because Leon is the size of a Quonset hut. If he ever is attacked, it will have to be by a major alligator, the kind of alligator that could write its own ticket if it ever decided to get into terror movies. The Tamiami Gun Shop also sells back issues of Soldier of Fortune

magazine, which is must reading for anyone who needs clarification on the question of why people in a major city need semiautomatic weapons. The guiding philosophy behind Soldier of Fortune is that you must be prepared at all times to defend your freedom and your freeze-dried food, so it's really OK to own a lot of crossbows and machine guns with silencers and wear Army-style clothing in your basement even if you live in a subdivision house with lawn ornaments. Soldier of Fortune advertises many fine products you would need to fight for your freedom, such as walking canes that turn into swords and T- shirts bearing pictures of Erwin ("The Desert Fox") Rommel. It also has articles by men who were fortunate enough to get into actual wars, with prose such as this, from the August issue: "We quickly raised our heads enough to see something plop heavily down in front of us midway between us and the woodline. It was a leg."

I urge all of you who are seriously interested in preparedness to pick up an issue of Soldier of Fortune after you get your Hurricane Handbook at Burger King. After we left the Tamiami Gun Shop, we went to Miami Beach and saw the historic Art Deco Historic District. Art Deco is a kind of art that was very popular in the '30s, then was considered very ugly for a number of years. But now it is considered attractive again, and the Art Deco buildings in Miami Beach are being restored to their original condition, which means it's only a matter of time before they are considered ugly again. As far as the Miami Beach hotels go, they are all superb, and I highly recommend them in hopes that if I ever come back they will give me a room for free. On my last day in Miami, I went back out into the Everglades to watch an actual Miccosukee Indian wrestle an actual alligator, to the extent that you can wrestle a reptile whose sole goal in life is to escape back to the safety of the muck. It was very much like watching a man trying to bathe a large, reluctant, green dog. But it did give me an opportunity to reflect on the contrast between the Miccosukee Indians, who were the first residents of Miami, and the people who live there now. I realized that although there are many differences between these two groups, in the end, when all is said and done, they both have profound problems with mosquitos. All in all, I really liked Miami. I realize some of you Miamians are sensitive to criticism, and may feel I've been harsh, but bear in mind that I didn't even mention the drug problem. Illustration: illustration: guy with popcorn and guy with gun