years. a couple of kids, about three grandchildren. >> woody allen wrote jobs for local newspapers and comedians. you wrote for comex. does that still happen? >> that is a good question. >> leno, letterman -- they all have staffs. but if you're talking about starting up, most comics writer their own stuff. but they buddy up. that is what larry did with jerry. >> can you teach somebody to be funny, to write comedy? do you have it or do you not? what about being funny? >> no. [laughter] >> either you have it or you do

not. >> you do not. [laughter] >> no, i do not believe you can teach people to be funny. i think people can hone it and get better. but i do not think anybody who has no sense of humor is going to get one. do you? >> this is so exciting. the youngest member of our studio audience has submitted to the microphone. i have to say one thing. please keep your questions short and to the point. >> what point? comments. with that, the floor is yours. >> i have a quick statement before my question. it is not like there is a line. >> he is funny.

you cannot teach that. >> actually, dave, i want to thank you. when i was in high school, my cousin gave me one of your books, "dave barry talks back." i have not read anything like it before. i was on my couch laughing out loud. i went to college couple of years later and said i wanted to try this. i was at usc. i wrote a weekly humor column in a similar style to yours. i ended up writing 100 of these every week, every night. >> and you are homeless now. >> sincerely, it was one of the most rewarding experiences i had done, so thank you for that. >> is that the statement or the question? >> the statement. >> he is so much more a fan of

mine and yours. if anybody has any questions about deli, i am here for you. sliced meat? i am here for you. hitler, bin laden, and this kid. i hate him. >> you're right about that head comment. >> and you are standing pretty far away. [laughter] >> in transitioning from writing your short for humor to yearlong for narrative, what was the biggest challenge? >> being brave enough to try it. i was in my 40 pause before i even tried to write a novel. i said i did not know how to do it. if you read a lot, and you can

figure out what you're supposed to do -- the hard part is -- the difference is, in the novel, the long form, you need some sort of plot. when i wrote a humor column, i never a word about any structure. there was no point. it was pretty clear. you read them. >> thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> now we have another question. >> i do not have a statement. >> actually, that was a statement. [laughter] >> my question to both of you is -- dave, your books have such a breath of topics. alan, saturday night live is such a huge thing in terms of the topics.

where you get these ideas, where do they come from? >> we have no useful skills. i am dead serious. we have talked about this. 3o was t thing, and the code got crinkled, i could not do anything. >> the mental energy the other people are using to make useful products in the world, things that people need, we have spent our entire lives trying to amuse ourselves. that is all we know how to do. so we are better at it than people who have real jobs the them i think that is absolutely right. if you want to feed your family, let's say, you have to discipline yourself. there is also a way of looking at the world once again, my friend larry

david, he would take a little more salt and make a whole meal out of it. it is about looking at the world with a certain attitude. >> there are a lot of people who are funny and have a sense of humor, but they get sidetracked into productive work. we do not let that happen. [laughter] >> i am afraid we are out of time. as hard as it is to believe. [applause] >> thank you. >> i do not even think we can ask a final question because it would take us past our time. >> our thanks to dave barry and alan zweibel, authors of "blue knit 6." -- lunatic."

we also want to remind everyone here in the room that copies of the book are on sale in the lobby, and our guests will be here to autograph them. >> anyone have a pen? >> we appreciate your allowing them to make their way to the lobby as quickly as possible. this meeting of the commonwealth club of california is adjourned. [applause]

good morning san

franciscans. >> good morning. >> we will not be deterred in memory of sandy hook and boston. we are making chicken salad out of chicken bleep. so we are going to start with a great flourish from our san franciscans. [ applause ] >> nicely done. how about a nice hand? >> now because it is 5:11. it's time to remember 1906. we need a moment of silence. a minute of silence begins now. moment of silence.

there is our minute of silence. [sirens]

there it is. to remember those who perished and survived the earthquake in san francisco. now we are going to remember a song from san francisco. do you remember? some of you can sing. here we go.♪

[ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, in honor of the 24 th year of

producing this event. here is the housekeeper. let's hear it for him. [ applause ] . >> in just a few short minutes, 107 years ago, this city was devastated by the earthquake, by the gas fires that followed. there was nothing. there was no internet, there was no cell phones, there was no phones. people gathered. we are gathering here today to honor those who survived, those who perished and those who built this city out of the ashes. so please with me, sing again as we hold up the memorial to our fallen comrades, three of whom are alive today and watching from home. george cluchey, bill dell monte, and billy hook. san

francisco, please. crabtree. >> c'mon, everybody.♪ [singing san francisco] ♪

>> [ applause ] . >> courtesy of city college of san francisco's great culinary department. hot soup. where is our soup? who knows. who knows where the hot soup is. >> right here on polk street. is that where it is? hot soup on gearey. good. first, some words of wisdom from our supervisors. take us to our leaders, please. >> hi, everybody, london breed representing district five and

i'm so happy to be here today. we are here doing what san franciscans do best. we are improvising. we made what? actually we made soup out of out of lemonade. i want everyone to remember that back then san francisco was pretty dark. i know some remember that. we have an incredible fire department. the fire department and police department are the strongest safety units anywhere and i know in any situation we can get through it because we are san franciscans. my colleague

president david chiu. >> good morning san franciscans. i can't believe you were here in 1906. i would like to welcome you. we know in 1906 this was ground zero. i want to thank all of you and want to thank our men and women in uniform from our fire department and police department who have sacrificed over the years and been part of our early response system. when the alarm woke me up this morning, i didn't know exactly what was going on and i think that is appropriate because when the earthquake happens there is a great deal of confusion. unlike 1906, we are much better prepared. with th beg still ve

nightmares that at some point in the future we know there is a 2 in 3 probability that the great one is going to hit us in a few years . i have a grandmother that is not prepared, i have many family members who are not prepared. thank you for san francisco who is ready for the big one. mayor lee is going to be here shortly and he's going to sign a piece of legislation that supervisor wiener and i worked on to make sure the three story soft story buildings that have people living and working in them get repaired. i want to thank many of you and our officials who worked with us to get that done and with that, let me turn it over to tallest colleague

supervisor scott wiener representing the castro valley and great areas. thanks for being here. >> thank you. in this city we know how to get things done. this is one more example. we are going to be ready for the next one and we are going to rebuild from that one as well. i know we are going to be able to get it done and it's great that we do this every year and i want to say how proud i am that we were able to get this soft story legislation done. earthquake preparedness is never easy, it's always controversial, but we did it. thanks, everyone. [ applause ] >> before we bring our mayor up, a quick word from the department of emergency services. a hand for --an.

>> thank you, good morning for coming. the entire government and city of san francisco is summed e word and we showed it thmorning. resilience. we were resilience in 1906 and in 1989 and will be resilient the next time. we love san francisco. we are ready and prepared. each one of you have to be prepared at home and at work. look at how flexible we were. look at what resilience is all about. thanks for coming. >> [ applause ] . >> san francisco is lucky to have two native born san franciscans from our fire

department. welcome joanne. [ applause ] >> good morning, everyone. thank you. thanks for coming out. this is a great crowd as we commemorate and celebrate 107. i'm proud to be serving as your fire chief. we have many here that have shown up from the fire department. on behalf of the fire department we are proud of the city and the city's resilience and today is a perfect opportunity to remind everybody the importance and particularly the mayor who truly gets it, the importance of preparedness and helping each other out and knowing everyone's emergency plan and having plans for your family if you are not together and for your pets and we are also grateful to have three of the members of the board of supervisors. i think that maybe a record. thank you. they work

hard. president chiu, supervisor wiener and our former fire commissioner london breed. a big shout out to the murphy family. [ applause ] we have the murphy family and the morris family. mike morris is going to be retiring after 37 years. he's our chief at the airport. this is what history is about and never forgetting that history and remembering that morning in 1906 to come back and restoring our beautiful city. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, chief. it shows we appreciate more than just irish people this morning. [ applause ] >> i appreciate everybody's

patience this morning. the device is not dangerous. the bomb squad just forwarded. we'll be opening up market street shortly. you should give yourself a hand this morning. it just shows our resilience. we are not going to be denied our traditions. this is important to remember what happened. our level of preparedness even got better this morning. [ applause ] . i want to echo what the fire chief said. we continue to prepare all the time. we have a mayor who i know it's all about resiliency and getting back to where we were when and if and when it happens. with that, i'm going to give it over to bob to give it over to the big guy. >> all right. the mayor we have

today, please welcome mayor ed lee. [ applause ] . >> good morning, everyone. i thought when bob said he was going to introduce more irish people he was going to introduce me. i'm so glad you are all here today. i was checking to see if everybody was here. i want to thank you. we are coming together on the 107th anniversary. it's a constant reminder. i'm so glad to be working with everyone, the men and women from our department of safety and even today after we speak, we are signing in legislation that the entire board of supervisors and certainly shows with us this

morning evidence that we continue to work hard to make sure our city is safe. soft story buildings is next up and we do a top off for the safety buildings for the bonds. we are on it. we are working, we are vigilant. this is the way we honor all of our survivors and the people we remind about the earthquake. thank you again for coming together on this great anniversary. great to see you again, everybody. >> i know emperor norton is hanging around. where is the emperor? please come up and give us a proclamation. [ applause ] >> they are somewhere around here. to remember this

commemorative day, earthquake preparedness day. i invite you all to come after the painting of the fire. bloody mary. let's hear it for him. >> it's right now time to turn it to mayor lee. he's going to sign the soft story legislation. we are going to sign that. >> board of supervisors in a unanimous vote led of course by our president chiu and skont wiener and and our engineer, we

are all on this. mandatory soft story building ordinance certainly will make our soft story buildings have a backbone that will stand firm against any earthquake shaking and this is what we've learned through many years of study since not only 1906 but 1989 loma prieta and i sign this for not only for the things we have to do, but we have over 200 projects that are under way because the voters know we have to do a lot more preparation and we'll continue doing this. i'm glad the board has hearings. this ordinance also takes care of tenants who feel that maybe the cost might hurt them and we have devised a plan that will

assist them that needed some economic help. average building will spend about $60-130,000. everybody has been involved to preserve our housing stock. if there is a seismic event because of this ordinance and implementation they will stay in our city and make sure they survive and not be hurt by a soft story building structure. with that, are we ready to sign? all right. let's get it done. >> there we go. [ applause ] . thank you.

>> san francisco is home to some of the most innovative companies of the 21st century. this pioneering and forward looking spirit is alive in san francisco government as well. the new headquarters of the san francisco public utilities commission at a5 25 golden gate avenue is more than just a 13-story building and office ablation. instead, city leaders, departments and project managers join forces with local architectural firms ked to build one of the greatest office buildings in america. that's more than a building. that's a living system. ♪ ♪rst bought

this land in 1999, it was home to a state office building. >> this was an old eight-story brown building the state owned and the workers' comp people were in that building. it was an old dee correctvth it building for decades. when i was a member of the board of supervisors, all of us wondered why we hadn't done anything there and the mayor thought the same. >> if an earthquake happened, the building was uninhabitable. it sat there vacant for quite a while. the city decided to buy the building in 1999 for $2. we worked and looked at ways that we can utilize the building for an office building. to build an icon i can building that will house a lot of city departments. >> the san francisco public utilities commission has an important job. we provide clean, pristine public drinking water to 2.6 million people in the san francisco bay area from the hetch hetchy regional water system. with also generate clean renewable energy for city