Florida: 'A Paradise Of Scandals'

And if you think he is exaggerating, there are plenty more examples in a folder he keeps in his office that's filled with South Florida news clippings.

"The court had ruled it 'Gators In Bed is Bad Idea,'" says Hiaasen, referring to one clipping. "This was a story about a guy who was sleeping with two full-grown alligators. And a court ruled that he had no constitutional right to sleep with an endangered reptile. And that happened in Florida."

"Was he sleeping with them?" asks Kroft. "Yes," says Hiaasen.

"In what way?" asks Kroft. "In the way that you're suggesting with your eyebrows," says Hiaasen.

"That's a good one," notes Kroft.

"Here's a guy who was stealing medical equipment, He surrenders. It's -- he was unhooking patients from their heart monitors and stealing the heart monitors. This was in West Palm Beach," says Hiaasen, referring to another clipping. "That's quite a crime when you think about it. The guys on a heart monitor. 'Excuse me while I take the machine.'"

If you ask Hiaasen why all of this stuff seems to happen in Florida, he gives a standard reply: "The most common answer that people give is if you took the continental United States and you tilted it a little bit, all the sludge would drip all the way down the peninsula, all the way down this highway … right past my house."

Hiaasen's house is in the Florida Keys, the American archipelago connected to the Florida mainland by a thin strip of Highway 1. He is almost as close to Havana as he is to Miami.

But even here, it is impossible to escape the crush of 40 million tourists who traipse through the state every year.

"It's a classic kind of Keys tourist stop. You stop and you buy a bucketful of dead fish and you walk to the end of the dock and feed these giant tarpon. Some of them are huge," says Hiaasen, pointing out one favorite tourist activity.

"And it's fun to do that. But inevitably, somebody gets their hand, you know, the fish, they keep their hand too long, you'll hear a scream and they'll have a big tarpon hanging off their hand. Which is entertaining for everybody but the tourist who -- the poor person."

The tourists eventually go home. But for Hiaasen, the larger problem is the thousand people who move here every day. Most of them, he says, are either running to something or from something. Many of them are retirees looking for a slice of paradise, and some are predators who consider them prey.

"Half the guys who get booted off of Wall Street by the SCC are now working in Boca Raton, Florida," says Hiaasen.

Another reason Florida has become so desirable for undesirables is it has the most generous bankruptcy laws in the country -- so people facing the prospect of jail or civil judgments buy houses here knowing they can't be seized. A number of former executives from Tyco and WorldCom have already moved here, along with a few down and out celebrities.

"You know, after the second O.J. Simpson trial, I see his lawyer being interviewed on the steps of court house," says Hiaasen. "You know, 'Mr. Simpson may have to leave California. He doesn't have this kind of money, and he may have to leave California.' And I turned to my wife and I said, 'He's coming to Florida.' And here he is, you know."

Unfortunately, the craziness of Florida provides a certain anonymity to all sorts of wackos, even terrorists. And if the place wasn't so dysfunctional, Hiaasen says maybe something could have been done about that.

"I was watching in the living room, and they started showing the pictures of Mohammed Atta and then the others in those photographs," says Hiaasen. "I said, 'I swear to God, those are Florida driver's licenses photographs.' At least nine of them, I believe, and possibly more had lived and worked and trained for their suicide mission here in Florida."

"And I always tell people, 'You think that was an accident? Where's the one place in the United States where the bar of bad behavior is so high that nobody's gonna notice these guys?'" adds Hiaasen. "Nobody's gonna think twice when they walk into a flight school and say, 'I'd like to get on a 757 simulator, but I don't need the part about where you land it. Just teach me how to fly it around.' And pay it in cash, and they say, 'Oh, right this way, Mr. Atta. Sit over here.'

"You know, the one guy, he goes to Minneapolis, he goes to Minnesota to learn and he's in jail in about 25 minutes. First I was surprised, and then it all made sense. It all makes sense when you think about it. Why not? Of course."

You might think that his take on the Sunshine State would upset the natives, but he has never been more in demand. A recent appearance in Jacksonville attracted nearly 5,000 people.

His first children's book, "Hoot," became a No. 1 bestseller and was produced for the screen by his friend, Jimmy Buffett. And director Mike Nichols has optioned his latest novel.

"How do you maintain the anger level?" asks Kroft. "I mean, things are going pretty well for you. I mean, this is nice."

"It is. It's very nice. And this has kept me on a plane," says Hiaasen. "My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water."

Most days when he's finished writing, he's out in Florida Bay, usually alone, poling his skiff and looking for bonefish on the edge of the Everglades.

"It's like church for me anyway. It's gorgeous," says Hiaasen.

"So we're away from the weirdness now?" asks Kroft.

"Yeah. We are totally away from the weirdness, except for me," says Hiaasen. "All these little fish and all the sting rays and little sharks and everything. You're right in the middle of it, which makes it so much fun. Even if you're not catching any fish, it's a blast to be out here. It's certainly therapeutic."

His agent says that Hiaasen is a fisherman who happens to write. "I would take that as a compliment any day," says Hiaasen. "I need to do it to stay sane, so I think that, you know, the official version is it's No. 3 on my list behind the writing and behind my family."

Hiaasen could spend a lot more time out here if he unhooked himself from the weekly newspaper deadline. But he says the column is still the most important thing he does. It's his connection to the real world.

And the adrenaline rush of writing a great column that ruins some low-life's lunch is better than a Florida sunset.

"Nothing's better than that feeling," says Hiassen. "Nothing is better than that feeling. Nothing is better."

---

That movie of Hiaasen's children's book, "Hoot," was released last month. And, he's finishing up another novel for adults to be published this fall.
Produced By Frank Devine

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