Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, who will be at Live Talks Los Angeles on September 22 at Track 16 in Santa Monica, recently appeared in Mission Viejo at the public library.  Dave Barry was interviewed by Jane Smiley last May at Live Talks and here’s the video of that pairing. Here’s an excerpt from AOL Patch — some “choice comments from Dave Barry from the evening”:

• We’re here to talk about our book … Skippyjon Jones. (another famous children’s book that they did not write)
• Neither Ridley or I thought of ourselves as writers of children’s books. In fact, for most of our careers, neither one of use wrote anything we would want a child to read.
• I wrote a humor column. I sat around in my underwear and made stuff up. Little tip: You can sit around in anyone’s underwear and make stuff up.
• It’s not when your child moves off to college that’s the big moment in your life. It’s when your child gets his own medical benefits.
• Ridley is very good at thinking of ways to kill people–in print, so far. But we have to keep buying his books, so he has a healthy outlet for this tendency.
• He (Capt. Hook) loses his hand in a duel with Peter Pan, but our book started before that. So what are you going to call him? You can’t call him Capt. Hand.
• I live in Miami. I moved there in 1986 from the United States.  I know you think we have a bad reputation, but it’s a great city. We have a new attitude down there, a new tourism promotion slogan: Come back to Miami, we weren’t shooting at you.
• There are six Wienermobiles. Lot of people don’t know that. This nation leads the world in Wienermobile technology. Although Iran is developing one.
• We did a lot of research in London (for The Bridge to Neverland). Ridley and I went over there on tax-deductible trips.
• Your main job as a parent is to embarrass your children. That’s how you control them. You have to remind them that at any moment you could burst out into song and ruin their lives. It’s a very effective tool.