please welcome dave barry and alan zweibel. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you for the fairly lengthy introduction. those are going to go first. i am dave. first of all, we're thrilled to be here at the commonwealth club. i want to tell you a little bit about myself. i live in miami. i moved there in 1986 from the united states. [laughter] one of the things i always feel like i should do is to defend my city because it had a bad reputation, a bad image. the zogby does this organization -- and does this poll were they asked people about different cities. many respondents thought miami was a dangerous and violent place. that hurts. when we see that, we want to attract those people down and kill them. [laughter] it is a wonderful city, it really is. it is a question of learning to adapt to the local culture. for example, you would never say out loud in miami, i do not know, i think you have to admit that castro has done some good for cuba. [laughter] anyway, what ever you have heard, disregard. it is a great town. we have a new

[applause] >> dave barry and alan zweibel, they're not here all week, folks. we're going to take questions from the audience. we have written questions. this book "lunatics," how did you decide to write this book together? >> we were both -- we met in washington, d.c., when a steve martin -- in 2005 or to adults and six, he won the mark twain award -- it thousand five or 2006. there was a big show. i was one of the presenters. alan was a waiter. no. [laughter] no, alan was a writer. >> i helped larry david wright his speech. >> when we were far away from larry david, he says he wrote his speech. anyway, we like each other. we became friends and saw each other off and on over the next few years at conferences and stuff like that. alan kept saying -- >> we should do something together. >> i did not know what he meant. [laughter] he was very vague. he is kind of in the film-tv world, and people always say they want to do something. i said, ok, let's do something together. but i do not think we would. then he had this idea. >> his daughter played soccer. she was 1

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 dave barry and ridley peterson are here to discuss "the story of peter pan".ing, everyone, a wild weekend at mika's house, as far as what's going on today, nothing compares to what happened this weekend, the pictures are incredible. tornado chasers were dotted all over the map. many, many twisters were caught on camera. woodward, oklahoma, this is where we had the five fatalities. now as far as what we dealt with, 126 tornadoes, iowa, nebraska, but mostly there. from wichita to new york city. that's where we had the five fatalities. those thunderstorms have died off slightly. still some storms today in houston, eventually going down through new orleans and all through mississippi. we need that rain in the northeast, we can't get it. high fire danger today. it's going to be very dry and it's going to be toasty. temperatures in the upper 80s. it's starting to feel like the middle of summer obviously. we're not going to see anything cooler, it will be a one-day heat wave. a nice day in the southwest. but once again, 88 degrees today in boston for the boston marat

dave barry famously calls them megaturds. the current environment takes you in two directions. watergate was a running investigation where you are trying to get things, but you're also taking the time to nail them down. >> i think we have to talk about the current environment because the dominant fact of the current environment is the way the information is being received. the readers and viewers are very different today. we had a readership that is much more open to real fact than today. there is a huge audience partly whipped into shape by this 24- hour cycle that's looking for information to confirm their already-held political, religious, prejudices', believes, and ideologies. that is the cauldron into which all of this information is put. we had a bit of that. they tried to make our conduct in the press the issue and it worked for a while and they called us democrats and said bradley was a well-known liberal and all the rest. it did not work anymore. i have no doubt there are great reporters out there in news organizations that could do this story. what i don't think -- i'

dave barry famously calls them megaturds. the current environment takes you in two directions. watergate was a running investigation where you are trying to get things, but you're also taking the time to nail them down. >> i think we have to talk about the current environment because the dominant fact of the current environment is the way the information is being received. the readers and viewers are very different today. we had a readership that is much more open to real fact than today. there is a huge audience partly whipped into shape by this 24- hour cycle that's looking for information to confirm their already-held political, religious, prejudices', believes, and ideologies. that is the cauldron into which all of this information is put. we had a bit of that. they tried to make our conduct in the press the issue and it worked for a while and they called us democrats and said bradley was a well-known liberal and all the rest. it did not work anymore. i have no doubt there are great reporters out there in news organizations that could do this story. -- i'm not sohink sure i