Reporter Sabrina Siddiqui will talk about the debates surrounding the automatic budget cuts and how it is affecting americans views toward government. Alison young talks about her recent articles on security lapses in labs at the centers for Disease Control and prevention. They could pose bioterror threats. Then, a discussion about the centennial of the 1913 women suffrage march in washington d. C. Washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern, on cspan. I was fascinated by her feminist view. Remember the ladies or you are going to be in trouble. She warned her husband. You cant will without rule without concluding what women want and what they have to contribute. This is the 1700s. Abigail adams, this monday night on cspans new history series first ladies, influence and image. She was outspoken about her views on slavery and womens rights. As one of the most dramatic writers of any first lady, she provides a unique window into colonial america and her life with john adams. Join in the conversation on abigail adams, live, monday night on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. Four years ago, rob reiner spearheaded the legal battle against proposition eight would ban samesex marriage in california. Mr. Reiner recently visited the Commonwealth Club of california to discuss his career in hollywood, Marriage Equality, Climate Change, Immigration Reform, gun rights, and violent movies, as well as why he chose not to run for governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. This is an hour and 10 minutes. Good afternoon and welcome to todays meeting of the Commonwealth Club of california. The place where you are in the know. You can find us on the internet at commonwealthclub. Org. Im a news anchor for abc 77 television in San Francisco and a member of the Commonwealth Club board of directors and your moderator for todays program. It is now my letter to introduce our distinguished speaker today, rob reiner. [applause] thank you. From his starring role as meathead on the popular 1970 you are the first person to call me that today. [laughter] it is still early. True. On that Wonderful Program on the family to his blockbuster films. When you look at at his list of films, it is remarkable. The Princess Bride, when harry met sally, a few good men. As a director, he has worked with alist actors, jack nicholson, tom cruise, kathy bates, as well as celebrated writers nora efron and aaron sorkin. He grew up in a political family were still right for a frequent topic around the kitchen table. As such, he has become not only a hollywood legend but a political activist as well. After november 4, 2008 when california passed a constitutional amendment banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples, he cofounded the foundation for equal rights as a way to challenge proposition eight in the courts. In light of the recent decision to hear challenges to prop eight and dome of this year, we are delighted to have him with us today to discuss his views on the future of Marriage Equality and his incredible contributions to the Entertainment Industry. Please, once again, a warm welcome to rob reiner. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. For small, what i would like to do is to talk about the Entertainment Industry and your background. How was your dad . Thanks for asking. My dad is doing great. He is 90 years old. He will be 91 in a month and a half. He is bill sharp as a tack. He walks around the block every day. He is still sharp as a tack. Does the work still . He writes. He just wrote an autobiography called i remember me. It is just coming out now. She writes every day. He and mel brooks, every single night they get together. Mel comes over to the house every night, they sit and have dinner and watch a movie. They say, every movie that has secure the perimeter in it, they will watch. They have fun with each other and they have each other, it is great. Mel is 86 or 87. He is doing great too. How fortunate to have a lifelong friendship. They have known each other 60 years. I met him when i was four years old. And that mel brooks when i was four years old. We had a little place in fire island, off the coast of long island, and i doubt me and my sister who is two at the time, we were going to go to bed and a man would be staying over. If we woke up in the morning and found a strange man, just know it he is a friend of ours. This man will be sleeping. At 5 00 a. M. , this was the introduction to mel brooks. Two kids standing, and he is sleeping in this window seat. I turned to my and go, is that the man . Yeah, that is the man. That man is the man. She goes and takes his eyes like this. Mel brooks, he was the man, and he is still the man. [applause] what a wonderful upbringing to be around such characters. Did it dawn on you anytime that it was unusual . No. My house was mel brooks, norman lears, some of the funniest people in the world. As a kid growing up, you dont think of yourself as different. You are just in your house as a kid. It was not until i went to my friend stephens house where i realized it wasnt so funny over there. Not nearly as funny as my house. [laughter] did you know early on because of that environment, that you wanted to be in the entertainment . I didnt know i wanted to be in the entertainment business, but my dad tells the story, i do not remember it, but he tells i was eight years old, and i went up to him and said, dad, i want to change my name. He went he felt so bad. He thought, oh my god, this poor kid has to live up to carl reiner and the fame and the success. And he says, what he want to change her name to . And i said carl. [laughter] i obviously wanted to be like him. I didnt think about show business, but i wanted to be like him. It was supportive. He always was. Very proud of me when i did all in the family and all of that. When i was 19 years old i started when i was about 17 in summer theater and an Improv Theater group when i was 19. I directed a production of no exit and Richard Dreyfuss within it. My father came to the show and looked at me this was the first time that i knew he looked at me in the eye and said, that was good. No bs. I knew at that point, if he was saying, you are going to be ok. Then went to visit him at his house and he said, im not worried about you. Whatever you decide to do, you will be ok qui. I felt so good about that. I did look up to him. He was like a god to me. He had done the Dick Van Dyke show and all these shows. He was my idol. And he said that to me, it meant a lot. This is a great story. When i was a little boy, and this is true. My father was on television before we owned a television. Its true. We got a television when i was about four or five years old. So we could watch him. He was doing shows. We had a tiny blackandwhite, screen that big, and i thought i used to say to me, at the end of the show they would have the good nights. The cast would come out to have the final bows. My father said, cant wait that you. Im not allowed to. I dont like that. When they come out at the end, im going to go like this with my tie, and that is me telling you that i love you and it is time to go to sleep. Though every saturn i saturday night, he would go like this with his tie. He was a great guy around the house. He was a regular dad. Oddly enough, we had a real normal life in a way. The show was on 13 weeks 39 weeks a year live. Then they were off 13 weeks. That was 13 weeks during the summer, we spent the summers together. So, i probably had more time with him than a lot of parents. Most people dont get 13 weeks in a row. When he was working, i remember one time going down to the show of shows and the writers room neil simon and willie allen and mel brooks woody allens and mel brooks, some of the most brilliant, and my dad and everybody, i remember being five or six and waiting for him. I only remember screaming and crazy screaming at each other. They were fighting for their jokes or whatever. I said, that is, the . It sounds like they are that is comedy . It sounds like they are killing each other. [laughter] the second half of the 20th century, you can trace back to anything you ever laughed at, really came out of that room. All of woody allens work, neil simons work. Larry gelbart who wrote mash and tootsie. My dad, mel brooks. Everything, basically the second half of the 20th century, comedy was coming out incredible writers. When you put it like that, it is remarkable, it was a magic time with a unique regard people creating this. Yes. They called the golden age of television because it was. It was a brandnew medium and you had to have some money to own a television set. The fair was more highbrow. It was an extension of theater. Reviews and satire and very upscale titles theater type of theater on television. Then it became a mass media and you saw all kinds of dumbing down of things. I contest that right now we are in our second golden age of television. Because of the cable tv, and you are looking at mad men and breaking bad and homeland, it is almost like the second golden age of television right now. I tell people, yes, there is a lot of junk, but there is also more quality on television than there has probably ever been. I think there is. When you look at amc and hbo and netflix, all of these deferred ways of accessing these niche type shows, they are really smart shows. Nothing that would have been put on the networks we were lucky in that we got all in the family on which was a fairly elevated type of show at the time it was on. When we came on the air, you had the beverly hillbillies, all of the rural type shows. All of a sudden, we had this urban comedy that dealt with issues that came on. That was a rare thing at that time. Now you see all kinds of really Good Television on. No question. Lets talk about on the family for a moment. Do you find people then or even. Ow it was progressive are do people understand it was not celebrating bigotry . Shone the light on the bigot. We did not just go outside the box or go to the edge of the envelope, we destroyed the envelope, we broke the box. Everything. Cbs had a disclaimer on before we came on which essentially said, we dont have anything to do with this show. You want to watch it, its up to you. [laughter] we dont know what the heck this is. Despite that, we were able to succeed. I think in large part, aside from the fact it was funny, they were real people that people could identify. They saw themselves in archie or mike. We presented two points of view. Norman lear talked about is favorite clay was by George Bernard shaw. Who was a liberal. If you didnt know he was a liberal and went to see the play, both the hawk and dove point of view are presented with eloquence and intelligence, and it was up to the audience to make up their minds. Lets throw this out there and get a dialogue started. At the time, there were no vcrs, no dvr, no tivo, so it didnt promote a dialogue. If you wanted to watch the show, you had to watch it when it was on. That meant that you were having a shared experience with everybody else who was watching it at that time. I made this point before. At the time, we were a country of about 200 Million People. Of the 200 Million People, anywhere between 30 and 45 Million People at one time were watching that show. Now we are in a country of over 300 million, and if you have a show that does 50 million viewers, that is a major hit. And you are not watching it at the same time as everybody else. But on your dvr, but saturday night. If you watch the show print them and, monday people were talking about whatever you talked about. X it is hard to cut through the noise now as a programmer. It really is. There is so much out there. I feel, with the internet and 24hour a day cable news service, the potential of being less informed than more informed. When judy became tv became a Profit Center, it changed everything. It was a big deal, when Walter Cronkite was on cbs and the broadcast went from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, that was a big deal. A halfhour . That meant that cbs was throwing away a halfhour of revenue. News outlets were a lost leader. You did not make money on news. All they did was report the news. No commentary. You can get your oped from newspapers. Then 60 minutes came along. A brilliant show. They started making money. All of a sudden, they realized we can make money off the news. Then you had big corporations taking over the tv and news outlets. Adult became about Profit Center and bottom line. I think it has made us less informed. I really believe that. It is hard to find real, accurate reporting. How many people read new york times. This sounds like one of the talks i give. Lets move now to i want to back up and ask you one question. Referred to your character, meathead, does that bother you when people referred yet t atco it does not bother me. I always found it odd i made the joke, first person to call me meathead today. I get called that virtually every day. Even now, and i dont even look anything like and looked like. My kid watch the show and said, it sounds like you, but it does not look like you. I get called that all the time. It would strike me funny that the guy who was espousing my point of view, whether you agreed with him or not, was probably more schools and intelligent and archie, was in called the meathead. Look at the source of where that came from. That was just accepted. I am a meathead. That ignorant person called me that. I become that. Norman lears father used to call them that. That is where he got that. Youre dead from the neck up or he is a nice father for you. People calling you that now, it is a term of endearment. Yes. They recognize it. Iconic. You acted in the early days. You still lacked some. But i just acted in a movie. A little part in a Martin Scorsese movie, the wolf of wall street. Leonardo dicaprio make the joke, i played his father. What is more unbelievable, that Leonardo Dicaprio was a jew or that i am his father . [laughter] is that out yet . No, we just finished shooting. Under the year. Do you like acting still not a you are a director . I love to act. It is fun and i dont have a. Directing is a lot of responsibility. I enjoy directing more. Acting is fun. I remember years ago, ron howard was making a movie called ed tv was quote and said there is a part if you want to act. I said, ok. Let me send you the script and see if you want to do it. I said, if it stinks it is not my fault. I want to do it. I look at it that way. I will do whatever they wanted to do. I am not responsible. I did a woody allen film years ago called bullets over broadway and i dont say anything. To be director i know, i dont want actors giving me grief. I have too many problems. Just do your job. I show up there and look around, it is an outdoor scene with john cusack and alan arkin at night. I look out and said, gee, if i dont there must be some. Im not aware of. It is too dark. It will never show up. I will not they anything because it is woody allen. Redo the scene, they calmly the next day at the hotel, we watched the dailies, it is a radio show. It is totally black. I should have spoken up then. [laughter] you are listening to the Commonwealth Club of california radio program. We are talking to hollywood legend robert reiner. I am dent laid dan ashley, your moderator today. You have some many remarkable successes in several different genres. I try to find spinal tap and the Princess Bride were satires. The Princess Bride was my Favorite Book as a kid. Normally i will look where is my way into the story . Is there a character i can identify with that i can tell the story through . Like in stand by me or a few good men. When harry met sally was born out of my ability to make a go of it with women when i was going through a divorce. I had been single for 10 years. It was totally autobiographical. I was making a mess of it. How you get with a woman, middlesex room the friendship . I said, this will be a good movie. Will sex ruin the friendship . Is it a joy to be a director or is it stressful . It is both. I love doing it. As a director, i am not great at anything. You have to be good at a lot of little things. The writers are better writers, the actors can act better, the music guy can make music better. But if you have a little knowledge in a lot of areas, you can do it. I have one of those kind of brains. A little musical ability, a little artistic thing, i contacted little, i can write a little and it all kind of comes together. So i can use all of the parts and dont have to be good at anything. One thing i will do, i will ask my colleagues, notnessly reporting colleagues but people i work with in the building, im going to see rob reiner tomorrow, anything would you like to ask . I asked our floor director, whos been there a number of years and worked a lot of movies he said ask him this, he never worked on a movie you had done. He has a reputation being tough on the crew. Are you a demanding boss . Boy, thats a weird one. Im the easiest guys crews, they want to take me home because i dont work more than nine or ten hours any day. They say wow, we dont get overtime but i get to be with my family so they always like it. Its weird to hear. I have never heard that one. I have been tough on some people but not the crew. Never the crew. Heres the question from the audyernings rob audience, rob. Interesting. If you could have played a leading role in any movies you directed, which would it have been and why . I think it probably would have been when mary met sally. Harry met sally. My mother in the deli, the woman who says, ill have what shes having, thats my mother there. Oh, boy. Great story because we have this scene and meg rye yazz was a little nervous about doing that because she had to fake orgasm in front of the crew and extras ever everybody. Did it the first cull of times and it wasnt so good and she was kind of weak and half hearted. We did it again, again. She couldnt do it. Meg, let me show you what i want. And i sat down at the table opposite billy im goin