Greg Ehrbar, whose fine book on Disney records you should own, informs me of a documentary that airs later today on BBC2 Radio and sounds interesting. It's called Life with Lucy and Desi. I can't figure out what time it's on right this minute but they usually keep these things online for at least a week for later listening. As soon as there's a link, I'll post it…and some of you may want to tune in live. Personally, I'd rather hear about Ethel and Fred but that's just me.

Within the Broadway community, one occasionally finds a basic prejudice against performers and writers who are best known for their work on television. Every so often, some producer casts a "TV actor" and noses are quickly elevated. Remarks are made that the show in question is despoiling the grand tradition and standards of the Great White Way by booking someone for their name…someone who is presumed not to have the credentials or chops to trod the sacred boards. If you don't have an extensive background in stage work, you're kind of presumed unworthy until proven otherwise and some people won't even allow you the chance to prove otherwise. Should a complete unknown be cast…well, that's fine. The producers obviously discovered someone of great talent. But hire an actor who used to be on a sitcom or other TV series and clearly they've "sold out" and are pandering to exploit the star's reputation.

I'm not particularly in the Broadway community but I sometimes find myself in those arguments saying things like, "Why don't you wait until the actor actually starts performing the role until you decide they can't do it?" Often, it's a matter of the critic just not knowing. When it was announced that Bebe Neuwirth was going to Broadway in a revival of Damn Yankees, I found myself at a party of stage actors, all of whom were sneering that a "TV actor" had been handed such a plumb role just because she was on Cheers. I informed them that Ms. Neuwirth had done a lot of stage work, including roles on Broadway…but even if she hadn't, so what? If she can do the part (she was terrific in it), what difference would her past credits make?

I'm a big believer in not reviewing work that hasn't even been done yet. I also believe that most people can do more than one thing and it's silly to "type" them forever based on the first thing you knew them for. Steve Allen used to tell the story of being in some South American country in the fifties and being asked who was the number one comedy star on U.S. television. He told them, "Probably Jackie Gleason" and they were startled. People asked, "The bandleader?" because that was the sum and total of his reputation down there. The Honeymooners hadn't been imported but his records had been.

So when I read that someone who's famous for being on TV is going to do a play or musical, I don't race to assume they can't possibly handle it; that some shameless producer has engaged them because, even though their performance may suck, their fame will sell tickets. "Give them a chance," I say. "Maybe they'll be wonderful in the role."

Every so often though, it's really tough to be that open-minded. Jerry Springer playing Billy Flynn in Chicago?

Rush Limbaugh maintains his usual level of accuracy.

Hey, I thought I'd tell you about seven great free (!) programs I've found on the Internet…software that makes my life at this computer a lot easier. These are just for us PC users and you download and use these at your own risk. In other words, I wouldn't listen to me if I were you.

• There are now about eight skillion file formats for audio and video…and even when you have software that will play FLV files, it sometimes won't play all FLV files. Well, so far I haven't come across an audio or video file that VLC Media Player couldn't handle. I've directed all my file types to ignore Windows Media Player and other such programs and to just open with VLC. [UPDATE: Yes, there is a MAC version of this program.]
• My hard disk got cluttered with multiple copies of files, especially ones I'd downloaded from the 'net. The answer? Doublekiller will search the folders you specify and show you which files are exact matches even if they have different filenames.
• As I clean up my hard disk using things like Doublekiller, I wind up with a lot of empty directories. That's why I need Remove Empty Directories.
• Many programs like to add themselves to your startup groups so they'll load every time you boot or reboot your computer. You probably don't want all of them there and you sometimes don't know where they hide themselves. You can find out what's loading and from where with Startup Optimizer.
• I had a lot of files that I needed to rename and I didn't want to sit there doing it hundreds of times. So I downloaded Bulk Rename Utility and it enabled me to rename them quite rapidly. It takes a few minutes to learn but once you do, watch out.
• I've been through a number of font utilities, some of which cost serious bucks. But the utterly free Font Xplorer does everything I need.
• Need to convert your Mozilla Firefox Bookmarks to Internet Explorer Favorites? Or vice-versa? Or do you need to convert Chrome or Opera or Safari or some other browser's placeholders? Then you'll like Transmute.

Like I said: Use 'em at your own risk. But they've worked for me so maybe they'll work for you.

I just read a couple of articles about the budget crisis in California. I think someone owes Gray Davis a big apology for about half of the reasons they gave for ousting him as governor.

When Jud Meyers was a young boy (he doesn't say how young) he snuck away from home and without his mother's knowledge or permission, ran off to visit the offices of DC Comics. You might enjoy reading his story.

Speaking of Stan Freberg, as I was just yesterday here, there's a company called DRG Records which, of course, does not make records. But they do make CDs, and they've just issued a new 2-CD set of Freberg gems. It's called Stan Freberg: The Capitol Singles Collection and it features 35 of the best things Stan ever did. Thirty of them are recordings he did for Capitol as singles. (In a few cases, one was the flip side of another in this set.) The other five are routines he did either for his radio show or for his legendary album, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Vol. I…but they're cuts that were later released as singles so I guess they qualify.

Wherever they came from, they're joyous creations and they're also very funny, too. Stan did smart material but he also — and this is easy to forget when the work is smart — was very funny. He's still very funny. I was over at his house last month and he was very funny.

In the meantime, a British company has brought out a CD called International Lampoon that has some of the same material on it but also has something else interesting. Stan did a lot of parodies of contemporary (then) records. He did a send-up of Mr. Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" that would qualify him, I maintain, as the first-ever Elvis Impersonator. He did spoofs of Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte and Les Paul & Mary Ford and others. This new CD includes not only Stan's take-offs but the original material, as well. You can hear the hit Johnnie Ray song, "Cry," and then you can hear Freberg's burlesque of it…and so on. A clever bit of packaging.

One of the impressive things about Freberg was that it wasn't always necessary to know what he was parodying to enjoy his work. The Dragnet satire he did with Daws Butler, "St. George and the Dragonet," was a smash hit in Australia even before the Dragnet show was ever broadcast there. As a kid, I loved a lot of his records without even knowing they were based on anything pre-existing. Still, it's a great idea to match 'em up so folks who aren't familiar with the original can compare the mockery.

So these are two great CD packages. The only things wrong with them are the weird covers. The Capitol Singles Collection uses this bizarre caricature of Stan that was done for a British album of his work more than twenty years ago. It didn't look anything like him then and it doesn't look anything like him now. The International Lampoon sports a photo of Stan showing his flying saucer prop to Dick Clark. The saucer was the one that Stan's puppet Orville used to live in…but Orville isn't on the cover or, for that matter, on the CD. But Dick Clark, who isn't on the CD either, is on the cover. I don't understand any of this.

You can order the Capitol Records Collection from Amazon by clicking here and you can order the International Lampoon from Amazon by clicking here. Both come with great contents and stupid covers.

A few weeks ago one Saturday morning at 4 AM, I was driving around, looking for something to eat. Don't ask what I was doing up at that hour. You don't want to know.

But I was and I had a sudden need to eat something (anything) and not a lot of time to locate it. I remembered an "open 24 hours" diner in the area and headed there only to find that it's now a "closes at Midnight" diner. I wound up pulling into the only thing I saw that was open — a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl shop.

At 4 AM in this part of town, you can't get a prescription filled. You can't buy medicine or emergency supplies or even get Breakfast. If the future of mankind was riding on it, you couldn't get your hands on a Holy Bible. But you can get a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl.

A lot of them are open all night, I've noticed, and I wonder why. When all the other restaurants and fast food establishments have closed, why does it make economic sense for Yoshinoya Beef Bowl to be open? Do people have a lot of sudden, middle-of-the-night cravings for Yoshinoya Beef Bowls?

Apparently so because the place was semi-packed, albeit with people who looked like they had nowhere else to go. I found myself mentally asking them, "Why are you people here at four in the morning?", forgetting for a moment that if I had a reason to be there, it wasn't so impossible that they did. There was one couple there that looked like they were on a date. Is there anything more romantic than sharing a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl at 4 in the morning? Where's he going to take her when they want to go to someplace fancier? Arby's at dawn?

I bought myself a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. In case you've never savored the experience, it comes in a styrofoam tub and part of the fun is figuring out where the styrofoam leaves off and the beef begins. They fill it full of rice and then they add in a load of fatty beef strips about the thickness of oxygen and there's also an oniony juice and little pieces of mushy onion. The onion parts are pretty good and the rest is…well, filling. Then again, so is eating the bowl, I'd wager.

I ate about a third of my sumptuous repast, which was more than enough, and pitched the rest. On my way out, I saw a homeless (obviously) fellow approaching and I immediately imagined what was about to happen. He'd ask me for a couple of bucks to get something to eat and being a generous sort but not wanting to give him cash he'd use for liquor, I'd offer to take him in and buy him a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. To this, he'd say, "Thanks but I'm not that hungry."

It didn't go like that. He walked right past me and as I got into my car, I heard him ask the security guard out front if there was anyplace else around to get a meal. The guard told him no, not within walking distance. As I pulled out of the lot, I saw him wandering off. Even the homeless have some standards, I guess. And they're apparently higher than mine.

In honor of Joaquin Phoenix's, uh, memorable appearance with David Letterman last week, Time Magazine offers us a "Top Ten" list of what they call disastrous interviews with Dave. Some of them, like Drew Barrymore flashing her breasts at Dave, don't strike me as particularly disastrous by any definition…but the odd inclusion is the one where Andy Kaufman was slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler. A sightless aborigine could tell that the whole thing was a stunt cooked up by Kaufman and Lawler but Time actually says, "…many have claimed that it was staged — just another Kaufman goof," suggesting that they're uncertain.

150 years ago, Oregon became a state. And 50 years ago, the Oregon Centennial Commission commissioned my hero, satirist Stan Freberg to create an original work to celebrate the glory of their state. It was called "Oregon, Oregon" and it was nothing less than a 21-minute musical comedy performed as a record and debuted on radio.

NPR reports that Stan has been asked to compose a new fourth act for what was formerly a three-act play. You can listen to a short story about this on that page but even better, there's a link via which you can hear the original version in its entirety. Take the time. It's quite wonderful.