Who Is Florida Man? | Beyond the Scenes

You're listening to Comedy Centralow. All right, Look, let's say you bring in a family out for a meal, right, and then let's just say it's Italian and you have this large Italian style gathering. Everybody's got a bucket of pinae, a gallon of alfredo to pour on top of it. But that's not all. You also get a little bit of bread with that, because when you're at the Daily Show, your family and this podcast is the unlimited breadsticks that

Florida God's waiting Room. It's home to theme parks, the Everglades, your peepole, and of course Florida Poli.

Report before committing a sexual act on a tree, yelling he was a.

Doctors trying to start a fire. He saw karate kicking those birds we attack.

Every week, there's a new headline out of Florida wild shocking, unnecessarily.

Sexual masturbating at a bus stop, told police he was Captain Kirkkirk.

But have we ever stopped to ask the question why something's happening to men in Florida, and it can't just be a coincidence.

As a future.

Pulitzer winning journalist, it's my responsibility to uncover the truth, to reveal what lies beneath the swamp, to answer the question what makes a man Florida man, Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man.

That's right, we're talking America's favorite hero, Florida Man, aka people going buck wild down there in America's penis showing up on the local news then going viral. Later on, we're going to be joined by journalists and author Craig Pittman. But first I'd like to bring on two of the folks who brought this Florida Man piece to life. Dave Show producer Sebastian Demattal, how are you doing good, sir?

I'm doing great, Thank you, Roy. And I'm extremely offended by that olive Garden Italian slam at the beginning of this podcast, but otherwise I'm doing.

Extremely sorry to insult food of your people. It's Penny.

I don't know how you say it, but it's Penne.

I'm from Alabama. We call it penee okaye see. And then the other voice you hear is my fellow Southerner who's about to come on right now and have my bag daily show corresponded. But more important, Kentucky bluegrass runs through her blood. Deasy lighting. How do you pronounce Penne?

I also pronounce it penney, but I'm also roy not to correct you or embarrass you, but it's Kentucky. So I'm going to start to intrigue.

Who pardon me? I am so prepared now for the people who don't have the Internet. And let me preface it by saying this. You know Sebastian as a field producer, like it's one thing to go out and cover the piece, but you have a way I don't know how to say this in like the most PC way, but you like it's in your heart when you go out to gather these pieces in this information. It's like, no, we've

So I like to do field pieces that are a little bit more abstract and don't necessarily have like a good guy bad guide dynamic that a lot of our field pieces do so well. And I had this idea for this Florida Man theory piece for quite a while, and I was trying to pitch it correctly and trying

And so many dms said, there's tons of DMS very inappropriate.

Well, you know, and one of the memes that has been around for as long as I can remember is this Florida Man meme. There's like a Twitter account which is like this bot that basic we can aggregate Florida Man stories. They're subreddits dedicated to them, and they were just and they've been around forever. I worked on The Old Show with John and we were doing Florida Man act ones way way back when, so it was definitely

It's this mysterious Bigfoot type thing, because there isn't a Kentucky Man, a Kentucky Man. The only thing I think close as Texas where they just go Texas, but Texas just kind of covers everybody as a whole like, this is very specific. It's like it's Florida and its men who are screwing up. As a former Florida resident, what are the qualifications, Daisy to be a Florida man? Because you know, I lived in Florida for five years for college.

Well, I think what we learned from our expert that we got to sit with, Craig, is that there's there's a lot more underneath it.

There's a lot going on in Florida.

And there's a quite a few reasons why we see those headlines so often. But I think it usually involves a gator, something illegal, usually beer, and something unnecessarily sexual. Usually every Florida man story has all.

Of those elements.

That's right accurate, Ye.

But no, I think like my favorite pieces that that I get to do on the show are pieces where we think it's about one thing and then somewhere in the piece we discover it's about something else entirely.

So we kind of go into this piece.

With our with envisioning these you know, Florida Man memes and think that we're going into kind of poke fun at Florida men, and then quickly realize like, there's a lot more underneath it. There are a whole list of reasons for why we see these headlines in the news, but most importantly, towards the end, we discover the Sunshine Act and we end up kind of landing in this place of you know, it's it's not just.

That these things are happening.

In Florida, but we are hearing about them a lot more in Florida because of the Sunshine Act. And really there's a little bit of Florida Man everywhere, which I didn't know coming into it. So that's I mean, that was my favorite thing about that piece? Or was this nice arc and discovery that people aren't really talking about.

I want to go back, Sebastian to what you said a little bit earlier about you liking to live in an abstract, which is true. You did one of my favorite pieces on the show that I mean, of course, every piece that I'm in is my favorite, but one of the favorite pieces that I was not in you Runnie Chang, and you had Runnie in the Uma Thurman kill Bill Too Yellow. What was it the nunchucks were illegal? Berustally?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did like a kung fu movie basically for a piece that's very tertiarily about kung fu.

Hey, is it a little weird that I'm playing this guy? He's like super white running. If a white guy does, it's problem. It's cultural appropriation.

If you do it, it's fine, is it?

I honestly I don't know.

Okay, whatever, let's fight. So with this piece, you went into it creatively, with this true detective angle. Talk to me a little bit about that production style and when you're actually sitting down with these actual because you all went and talked to actual Florida men who have been the focus of news stories while at the same time you're trying to have this conversation but also trying to frame it in a way that the viewers haven't seen before so that they can at least feel like they're

I am a hack when it comes to originality or creativity, and I truly consider myself just like bound to parody as much as I can be because everything's been done all the time so much better than I can do it. And so rather than trying to reinvent or recreate something, I lift from a lot of things. And so for this we were going into it with a True Detective vibe. The first season had been out for a couple of years, and I loved the first season of True Detective. Originally

Forget is that you know this We're not the local news. It's not just a reporter and a cameraman and go like this is miniature, full short film production type shit going on here. Desi, When you were talking with these people, how much did it feel like to you? Because the question we always get is correspondence, allre the people you're talking to and on it where to me, it's never been that that style of conversation. It's just tell me your truth and we're going to have a conversation about

I don't think so.

I think all of them were extremely confident in their Florida maneness. I think they felt really good about who they are and what they had to say, and that makes it so much fun for us. I mean, for me, it was like the perfect cocktail of Sebastian being so specific about his vision of what this piece should look like, the style of it and the tempo of it, in the mood, and then casting all of these great, really genuine and authentic and very funny characters to just do

It was like, I mean, you know, that's.

Why, which for this was not an easy test to do. I mean, Desi's credit, I was throwing her into these situations with these a lot of the times, actually crazy men and there were. It was not the amount of straight facedness that Dosi had to perform for this is astounding compared to what these people were talking about off camera and on camera. So that was no easy fee.

This is where Nick comes into play, because Nick could edit out all of my breaks and mental breakdowns in between each shot. But no, I got that alligator man. I'm sorry, but he was. He was just the greatest.

He's been hit with charges after pictures in this video showing him handling an alligator, which he posted.

We're seen by law enforcement a real.

Name Jordan Bedford, but I go by the alligator man.

Okay, alligator man.

What's the common factor among all Florida men were all different?

Well, I'm different from the rest because I do the wrong thing in the right way, if that makes sense. No, no, see you're not for Florida, so you don't understand my language what I'm talking right now. But I do the wild things. Anything you think of, I'll probably do it. Catch like I tell you, anything, I catch gators, anything, anything, well, not anything, but basically anything.

He was definitely my favorite. I to this day wonder what he's up to. I almost left my family, but he wouldn't have me.

I thought that Costa and I got kind of the short end of the stick when they were a sign in Florida field Pieces for Florida Week, because we have to cover the green algae.

Yeah, I remember that. Oh there, it is a dead fish.

It's pretty gross. Yeah. What's the smell like to you?

Smells like dead fish.

And we rowed a boat into some of the algae plumes and like our eyes were watering in shoes. Like we had planned to be there thirty minutes, and like ten minutes in we were like, mmm, I think we got everything we need. Let's let's fucking get out of here. How what was the worst part of your shoots? Because I noticed that a lot of yours were outdoors. Costa and I at least had a couple of indoor situations.

Yeah, it was hot. It was really hot.

It was I can remember sweating just and I am not I know, I'm from the South, I am not a lady when it comes to heat and sweat. I was dripping and sweating profusely. And for some reason, I chose to wear a black heart wool suit in the in the ninety degree weather with that humidity in the middle of an orange grove.

Yeah, that was I mean, that's partially my fault because I wanted to look. I wanted you to be this kind.

Of yeah, look like a detective. Detective. Detective we were.

And that Yeah, that day was so hot. And Craig will tell you the guy that's on the show later because we were interviewing him. We wanted to be at outdoors because we had an orange grove available to shoot in very Florida and Droll's really good at working with natural light. But man, that was so hot. I needed to, like between takes, like go into the car cool down a little bit.

We all were running into this tiny pickup truck just to get like a little taste of the ac and then run back into the field. At one point, we're in the middle of filming towards the end, and I looked down in my sweat stain on my chest just like grew to about this size.

It was. It was a problem. It was very hot.

And then do you remember Seth you came up with this. We were we were clearly going for this true detective, very noir feel, and at some point we were like, DOESSI should smoke?

Does he should smoke cigarettes during this piece.

Yeah, and I thought, yeah, that's that's a great idea, and I'm going to commit, like I'm really gonna show them that I'm a smoker. And I really committed to it all the way through. I'm coughing, I can't breathe. Yeah, at what point, Sev, did you decide that's let's dosi, let's put the props down and not do that anymore.

Well, we got the one shot of you smoking I needed. But yeah, I was definitely like there were a lot of suspect props. We had unpasteurized orange juice that like we were gifted from an orange grove that I was like, DESI just start chugging this orange juice on camera.

And it's just fresh out of a field, fresh out of a field.

So there were a lot of questionable props and probably dangerous things that not to mention, you know, putting Deisi in like the middle of nowhere with this pirate man that had guns and knives on him.

Wait, but he was also a landscaper.

He was also a landscaper though.

The pirate who was also a landamer.

Yeah, oh, missy, I am Captain Silki super.

Chips cool and you're pirate.

Well, I'm a pirate most of the day. When I'm not, I'm a landscaper, I.

Think to your point.

Without him, Roy, I think the big draw of Florida men is that they a lot of them want and like notoriety, and two of our guys kind of were like all three of them were kind of like that, but our first guy, Robbie, was definitely more on like the I don't know how much of this I can talk about, but Jordan the alligator man and Jamie the landscaper pirate were very like. They loved it and they want They talked to us forever and we had to

Well, after the break, we're gonna be talking with a man from Florida. That's there, you go, that's the appropriate way to separate the two. There's Florida man. But then we're gonna talk to a man from Florida who's a journalist and Arthur and I feel like he knows Florida the way Miami knows cocaine. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. Beyond the scenes. We are back. We're talking about Florida Man. We already have Desi Lighter and Sebastian Dina Towle in the chairs joining us now.

Thanks for having me now when.

We talk Florida. And this is the thing that I learned when I was at Florida A and M for college up there in the Panhandle. The Florida that people think kind of happens south of like Orlando and all points south. That's postcard Florida, that's TV Florida Panhandle was kind of a different feel like where in Florida are you from? Are you from North Florida? South Florida. They split that shit up like the dakotas well.

I'm from Pensacola, but I now live in Saint Petersburg, so I've been on both sides of that line, and I think it's I think it's more of a coastal versus inland thing. You know, people people see the postcards. They think, you know, it's all beaches everywhere, and they don't realize, Oh wait, you know there's cattle ranches and uh, you know, lumber mills, and you know, crazy people doing stuff at the at the liquor store.

Got people trying to speak into horse stables in Okalla, all of that in Areana. You've been Highway ninety on me right there, Florida. I know all of that. Ship Baby Walton Beach destin Florida, Baba. So let me let me start with this Daisy Sebastian kickback and watch two Florida boys kicking second.

Got it?

Why are these New York elites always coming for us?

Because they envious? They want to be us, They want to have that freedom. That's why they want to.

Florida cocaine and then judge Florida.

Yeah, exactly, it's all it's all. It's all hating. They're just hating because they're indianas man, That's all it is.

But in all seriousness, what is it that makes Florida seem crazier than the rest of America? Like? Is that? Is that reputation justified? Or is it really that much crazy?

Yeah? Oh heck yes, oh definitely. Listen. My basic principle is you find weird stuff happening anywhere you find humans, but more of it happens in Florida, and it tends to be weirder. And I think that's because we have

It is grows in iguanas falling from trees when they were.

Showing up in toilets. They show up in toilets too. I mean, the crazy stuff just happens here all the time, and people in Florida who've been here for a while are like, oh, yeah, that's just you know, that's just Thursday. Man.

You know, I can't remember Sebastian if it was you a daisy earlier that was talking about the sunshine laws. But can you go into that a little bit more for us? Sure?

So, uh, you know, I read Craig's Book of Florida for this in preparation for this piece, because that was like my bible for a lot of this because it basically.

Had my son thank you it had.

It was like also the first nonfiction book I had read it like ten years, so I was really just absorbing all this new information.

Did it still feel like fiction? Though?

It did?

Well?

It did absolutely. I was like, there's no way. But Craig really broke down very nice and neatly all of these factors, like the ones that he just said and the one that stuck with me the most was and Craig will also tell you it's certainly not the the the reason we kind of elevated it for the piece to you know, end the piece basically because we needed

Craig, I'm about twenty years out of you know, last pain rent in Tallahassee, but I remember distinctly in the corner stores. I don't remember what it was called, but it was like the crime paper.

In oh yeah, the most mugshot paper.

Yeah, okay, So like, I don't know of another state that just publishes mugshots for just random misdemeanors and solicitation of prostitutes. You taught me with the crown of myth. Like, does that pulling into it as well in normalizing that behavior for locals?

Uh? Somewhat. I mean, you know, obviously somebody figured out, hey, we can use the Sunshine Law and make money off of it by publishing these these little ratty pulp mags full of the latest mug shots because people will buy it and go, oh, yeah, it's mister Johnson. I knew he was up to something, you know. But there's been a sort of an ethical debate about that too, where there were some newspapers that were making money off of

Basically, Florida's a weird place, though, man like it's this weird intersection of retirees, tourists, a lot of a lot of immigrants, locals, and then you just have like regular agriculture people. Like there's certain states like Nebraska's for fucking farming. That's what we're here to do.

That's one of those boring square states, you know that how can they heck can they be fun?

So there isn't this convergence of different agendas, not to mention droves of it's where Nickeloney, the fact that Nickeloney is a Viacom property, which we love very very much. Please watch the Paul Patrol movie on Paramount Plus. But like, I'm bewildered by so many different things all happening in that place at the same time. Like, is there a way to decrease these types of incidents?

No, In fact, I think they're going to continue to increase as the population continues. This will this despite our efforts to kill people off with COVID. That is the you know, the our population just keeps getting bigger and bigger, bigger, and we have you know, we have like one hundred million tourists coming every year too, on top of the regular residents. So and again they're all kind of crammed into that same narrow area. So and people come here

To that point too, Craig, I think our pirate Silky Silver Tips, that was actually his story. He was like he was a transplant, even though he kept saying like he was. He kept talking about being like born and raised in Florida and then immediately says, well, I'm a transplant.

But that was the Chicago Chicago.

But the other point that I thought was really cogent and a part that I wanted to try to make a big center piece for this particular piece is the mental health issue.

And we even.

Get our first I mean our first Florida man willingly tells us like DESI asked, what do you think it is? And he just says, right off the bat, unprompted mental health issues.

Isn't there something that all Florida men share. There's something behind it mental health issues.

Then in the piece we get you to elaborate on that, Craig that Florida has one of the worst I think mental health.

We consistently rank forty ninth among the states and spinning on mental health, which I can only say, thank God for Texas.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think that that's probably if you wanted a really quick, ten second Florida Man piece, that's probably it is that there's almost no mental health resources and a lot of these people need those resources.

Yes they do.

Yeah.

So then to that point, DESI, when you were down there talking to these people, and like I've often felt like when you go and cover pieces of correspondent and then you go back and you become a consumer of media again, on the other side of that, it can sometimes change how you view people. Like do you think that the people that are in these Florida Man stories that are highlighted every day in media are they victims

I'm no expert.

Craig is certainly the expert, but it seems like there are all of those issues at play. I think the stories the men that we talk to down there were certainly wacky characters without a doubt, but I think in the booking process we were also pretty conscious of finding subjects that did not have horribly.

Dark stories in their past.

So, you know, we didn't want to be making Florida men who have mental health issues or addiction issues the butt of the joke. Instead, I think we tried to very specifically book people who had funny stories who kind of were just like a victim of their circumstances, and then also on top of that, start a little bit of a conversation of the problem in the way that the media was portraying some of these headlines in these stories.

Yeah, Desi's whole like b plot was that she wanted to win a bunch of like Pulitzers for this because.

Well, it's coming. It's coming. I haven't yet, yeah, but we have some time. Part two.

So Craig to that point, like some police departments post Florida man stories in the way, Hey look who we arrested. This guy was doing some wacky wacky wacky we gotam Everybody laugh in the comments. Make sure you like and review our police the podcast Lake is there a change in perception.

That I didn't realize that's a real thing.

Oh yeah.

Well, and the funny thing that they actually caught a guy because he came in and made comments on their Facebook posting about him and was haunting them, and so then they rible to track him down and arrest him. Wow, and he became a Florida manswering.

All right, Well, after the break, we're going to talk about where we can go going forward with this issue, or do we just need to solve Florida off? Or will global warming solve this problem for us? It's beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. You know, we could just wake this shit out.

You never know, das just a matter of time.

We're talking Florida man, Florida men's. A group of Florida men together is called a goddamn. I don't know if you need that or not.

I'll notify websters.

Yea more than three Florida men together is called a y'all. More than five as a god.

Craig, I think it's called a jail technically.

Sebastian As a non Floridian, do you think it's fair that Florida is a punching bag or it's earned.

Yeah, you know, I think it's fair that it is a punching I mean, I'm from New Jersey, so I get the idea of the Florida No, no, no, it's very very different. But I will say I guess punching back. It really depends on how you approach and view these stories. Obviously, if there's a mean spirited, shodenfreude element to people enjoying these a lot of the times horrific stories, I think that's very problematic and that's not what we wanted to

That you didn't. You did want to focus on the myth band biting faces off in mind. Yeah, yeah, we're still try this comedy in eating someone's face under a bridge on Tuesday.

Although to a point, I do think that Florida people and Craig could probably confirm or deny this. There is a sense of not pride, but there is a sense of, yeah, that is us, kind of like we are that insane and crazy and colorful and caricature. And I think that a lot of the times they lean into that. So it's kind of a it's I think it's a celebration of that. I might be way off, Craig.

No, No, I think there's a there's a split. I have some friends who like me, or Florida natives, who every time they see some wacky story come out nationally, they're like, oh God, please don't let it be Florida. Please don't lead to Florida. And of course it's always it's always Florida. There's always some Florida element, Like the woman in New Jersey who was getting on the plane with the emotional support peacock. The peacock was from Florida.

How incendiary though, is it for outsiders to attack Florida and make fun of Florida and make Florida man jokes, which, to Sebastian's point and to your point, even makes people wear that difference with a sense of pride to the point where they become contrarian. You know, when you look at what's happening right now in Florida, would just anti vaccine and and well first anti masking, then anti vaccine.

Well, I think that's the tapping into this. You know, Florida has always had this really strong libertarian streak. You know, we don't want the government telling us what to do. We were an open range state long after any of the Western states, I mean, up until nineteen forty nine. You didn't have to fence your cattle here, you know.

Daisy. Do you think that everything that happens in Florida is it a Florida problem or an American problem or is it just the Internet making things seem worse than what they are.

Probably all of the above.

I think the thing that I loved about the peace so much, and like Sebastian said, we definitely highlighted this probably more than you could factually say that this is the entire reason, but that the Sunshine Law really gave me a new perspective on what was happening in Florida, and that's it is talked about more because of that law. We just happened to see those headlines a lot more, and that these things are happening all over the country.

But well, we've got a writer here named Tim Dorsey who I like a lot, and one of Tim's lines is Florida is the pace car for national dysfunction, which I think is a pretty accurate.

Incredible. That's incredible, Craig. Then we'll we'll we'll end with this. Well, we've got one more thing, but it's silly, but I want to do it. But first we'll end with the more serious qua less serious question. If we know that you cannot shame or embarrass people into better behavior, how do we create a sense of empathy for other people,

Man, if I knew that, they'd give me the Nobel and the Pulitzer. But but you know, you're you're absolutely right,

All right, and so then last question, and this is for everyone. Does everyone know their Florida birthday?

No?

Yes? What is your Florida Man birthday? First we have to explain, Craig, can you explain that to people?

What the Florida This was a thing that went around a couple of years ago where you plug in the terms Florida Man and your day of birth and do it in Google and it spits out whatever was the Florida Man story for that particular day, because of course there is a Florida Man story for three hundred and sixty five days, including and maybe even leap day as well. Mine turned out to be a fairly tragic one and which I don't want to talk about. But that's the

I mean, you can I just I just did my Florida man birthday now, And I think this is a nice, not super dark one. But as police arrest Florida man for drunken joy ride on motorized scooter at a Walmart, that.

Hits a lot of poss I think, yes it does.

Yeah, here's two from my birthday that I I guess. One's decent ones a little a little darker. Florida man beats at m said it gave him too much cash.

I remember that. I wish I had that problem.

I think that's a really good example. Sorry that there's almost no logic to any of these stories, because you're like, oh, he beat him up because he didn't the machine didn't give him enough money, but that he beat him up. It's just all of these stories defy any logic or sense, and I think that's what's so great about them.

The other one, the other one, Florida man throws cherot child in dispute over.

Donut over donut.

Yeah, I only read that because he didn't connects fine as long as as bad aim.

That's the important thing.

You guys.

I just plugged my birthday in and it came up nothing found.

So wow.

Is that the saddest Florida Man story of all time.

Well, that will happen. Something will happen then on that date and sometime the next week. I oh yeah, it's like a candy man.

Tis Florida Man.

Well his book is The State You're in Florida Man, Florida Women and Other Wildlife. Craig Pittman, thank you so much for coming beyond the scenes with myself, Daisi Lighted and Sebastian Dentel.

I've enjoyed it.

This was great man. Well we did it, and for more Beyond the Scenes go to Dailyshow dot com slash Beyond. Got to get back down to Pensacola. Man, it was some good barbecue. Now, hey, Beyond the Scenes listeners. If you haven't rated and reviewed us yet on Apple Podcasts, I need you to stop right now and do that. Drop us a rating, let us know how you feel and write a review. Write a review too, because I read those to my child at the end of the night. Because I'm out of books, I gotta go buy the

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