You may remember news clips from last January when a reporter got into a debate over the Fourth Amendment with General Michael Hayden, our nation's Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Basically, the reporter kept saying that the amendment called for a standard of "probable cause" for search and seizure…and General Hayden kept arguing as if it didn't say "probable cause" in the amendment, as of course it does.

Hayden is the guy they're now saying will replace Porter Goss as the head of the C.I.A.

In 1976, a very odd program appeared on NBC's daytime schedule…and also in prime-time syndication. It was called The Gong Show, and I was never able to dislike it quite as much as my critical faculties told me I should. There was plenty to make one cringe, and I sometimes did…but I still tuned in from time to time with ambiguous feelings I never had with the other shows produced by the Chuck Barris Company. I thought the others — The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, The New Treasure Hunt, et al — showed an underlying contempt for anyone willing to appear on them…and maybe even anyone who tuned in to watch. At times, that seemed true of The Gong Show, as well. But not always, which I guess is what was so intriguing: The occasional joyous moments in the midst of such a shoddy program.

There was a bizarre feeling of fun about the original Gong Show especially since Barris, functioning as host, was willing to be part of the chaos. On Truth or Consequences, which had gone off not long before, contestants were dressed in funny costumes and hit with pies…but Bob Barker, who was the emcee, was always perfectly dressed and coiffed and it was understood that his dignity was not to be punctured in any way. I thought that was tackier than what Barris did on The Gong Show and The Gong Show could get pretty danged tacky.

Still, one time, I accepted an invitation from Gong Show director, John Dorsey, to hang around on tape day. I watched one episode from the booth, marvelling at John's ability to call shots faster and more skillfully than any other director I've ever seen. Then I went down to the floor to watch the next episode being taped…and something happened during it which I still remember with a tiny tingle. It was a regular bit they did involving a stagehand named Gene Patton who'd come on and dance under the name, "Gene Gene the Dancing Machine."

The minute they started playing his music — "Jumpin' at the Woodside," I think the tune's called — the studio positively erupted. Barris started dancing and the panelists jumped up and started dancing…and you could feel how much Gene Gene enjoyed what he was doing. Okay, fine, they're performers. It's part of the act. But the crew also started dancing — people not on screen. The guy operating Camera 1 was operating Camera 1 and dancing at the same time. Grips were dancing, lighting guys were dancing, the members of the band were dancing as much as they could and still play their instruments. And of course, the audience — an odd mix of younger Gong Show fans intermingled with old ladies who couldn't get in to the Hollywood Squares taping down the hall — simply had to leap up and boogie. Some of the show's performers and staffers were a little (shall we say) under the influence of something…but the crew wasn't and the audience wasn't. It was just an honest "high" of excitement.

I've been on many TV stages in my life. I've seen big stars, huge stars — Johnny, Frank, Sammy, Dino, Bob, you name 'em. I've seen great acts and great joy, and if you asked me to name the most thrilling moment I've witnessed in person, I might just opt for the Gong Show electrifying Stage 3 for all of 120 seconds. Maybe it was because it came so totally out of nowhere that it stunned me but everyone, including the stone-cold sober people, was suddenly just so…happy. There was something very, very invigorating and enjoyable about being in the midst of all that sudden happiness, however frivolous it may have been.

Here's a clip from The Gong Show showing Gene Gene doing his dance on another episode. The thing I find funny in it is that you can see everyone getting into the spirit of the moment — Barris, two of the three celebrity panelists (Arte Johnson and Jaye P. Morgan), the band…everyone except the third panelist, a new comic named David Letterman. You can see him decidedly not getting into it…though you can't see much of him because Dorsey seems to have tried to cut around him. I'll bet you the crew and audience were dancing, too…but Dave's just standing there, clapping along to not look like a bad sport, probably wondering how long it would be before he got his own show and didn't have to put himself in any situation he couldn't control. Watch.

This is kind of a "Note to Self," just to remind myself of something. About two months ago, my friend Sergio and I stopped at a little barbecue stand for lunch. The place had been recommended to me as proving the old maxim that I recently made up: The crummier the decor, the better the barbecue. If that was true, this place had to have the best food on the planet. You've never seen a more dilapidated, rundown place to dine. The aroma of burning wood, detectable from blocks away, also promised good eats.

Turned out, the cuisine was excellent. I had a beef sandwich and a side of potato salad. Sergio had either the same thing or a pork sandwich, plus we split a side of beans. Wonderful food. I was delighted to have found such a great "dive," though dismayed that the ambiance being what it was, I probably couldn't bring certain people there.

We then went back to my house and an odd thing happened: We both fell asleep. About forty minutes after we'd finished our lunches, Sergio and I were both getting so drowsy that naps seemed mandatory. He stretched out on the floor of my office and I staggered into the bedroom and went directly to dreamland for about an hour. Sergio's siesta lasted a little longer than that even.

It was very odd. I rarely sleep during the day. I sometimes don't even sleep at night, as some have deduced from the posting times on this weblog. And for Sergio and I to both feel the same way at the same time made us wonder: What was in that food? It made me a little reticent to go back to the little barbecue place…and no, I didn't have a beer or wine. Never touch the stuff.

This afternoon, I was in that area around 3:30 when my stomach suddenly reminded me I hadn't eaten since the night before. I decided maybe the little unexpected slumber was a fluke and that one shouldn't abandon a great barbecue restaurant without more proof. I stopped at the barbecue stand and ate the same thing I had the first time — beef sandwich and potato salad, plus I got a whole chicken "to go." The same thing happened. I was sitting here writing around 4:10 when I suddenly had a desperate need to be asleep. I went into the bedroom and dozed 'til around 5:30. When I awoke, I went downstairs and threw out the chicken.

I don't get it. I've enjoyed barbecue for years from dozens of different eateries. Never had this happen with any kind of food anywhere. I know some people claim that the tryptophane in turkey makes them sluggish but I eat turkey twice a week and it has never had that effect on me. (I've also read that that's a myth; that tryptophane doesn't really cause sleepiness. Whether it does in others, it doesn't affect me.) I don't know if it's the barbecue sauce or the wood-smoking that did it to me here. It could even, I suppose, be the potato salad, though I doubt it.

There's no real end to this story except that it's the end of my visits to that barbecue stand. One more and I could wind up an honorary Kennedy.

I don't know what happened with that traffic accident involving Congressman Patrick Kennedy and neither do you. But I do know that "I was taking a medication that made me drowsy" isn't any better than "I was drinking." If you get behind the wheel of a car in any condition that impairs your ability to drive, you're being dangerously irresponsible and oughta be prosecuted.

What's the deal with the economy? If it's so good, how come so many people think it's so bad? Ezra Klein tries to explain and basically, his answer is that it's only good if you were already rich.

The cordless phone they use on Deal or No Deal. It's a nice-looking phone but you'd have to go on that show and win big to be able to afford it.

I just found this over on YouTube. Someone took the opening and closing from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon series and dubbed them over with the theme song from the TV series, Falcon Crest. I think it works rather nicely. And if you look real fast, you'll see my name in there somewhere.

No word yet on when these are coming out on DVD but a fair amount of cash has been spent producing "extras" for the set so I assume it won't be long.

Michael Kinsley sorta/kinda defends George W. Bush on the whole matter of "signing statements" — you know, where he signs a law and then quietly issues a memo that says he can violate any part of it he doesn't like. Generally speaking, those who have defended this practice have said, in effect, "He's president…he can do what he likes." This is a position I don't buy and I suspect they won't either, the next time we have a Democratic president. I don't know that I buy Kinsley's argument either, but at least it's based on principle rather than partisan loyalty.

A little while ago at a speech, Donald Rumsfeld got into a verbal bout with an audience member. Here's the video and here's a transcript.

I'm pleased when any public official — even the ones I grudgingly support — are called out for inconsistent statements or apparent lies but I think this kind of thing misses the point. Rumsfeld and others said they knew where Saddam had his chemical weapons. There were no chemical weapons to be found at those locations. The question to them should not be, "Why did you lie?" The question should be, "Why should anyone who was so wrong about something so important still be calling the shots?"

He has the support of Ralph Nader. That's all it takes.

There was much ancillary damage on 9/11. Apart from the people who were killed or injured and the buildings that were destroyed, there were lesser but significant losses such as impacted many businesses. One was Broadway where attendance immediately plunged to a ghastly low. Five shows posted closing notices and there were many others that were in imminent danger because the cash flow dropped to a trickle.

To remind people that they were still performing, the stars of every show then playing got together and made an amazing commercial — amazing because of the logistics involved. Pulling it all together at all was impressive. Doing it so soon after September 11, in a city still in shock and at its busiest intersection, was close to impossible…but it was done. The audio was pre-recorded on September 27 and the scene in Times Square was shot the following day with an amazing cast. Just in the front row in the photo above, we see Bebe Neuwirth, Susan Lucci, Joel Grey, Michele Lee, Valerie Harper, Bernadette Peters, Betty Buckley, Elaine Stritch, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Elsewhere in the spot, visible in quick flashes, are Alan Alda, Harvey Fierstein, Brooke Shields, Adolph Green, Glenn Close, Brian Stokes Mitchell and quite a few other stars. (Dick Cavett's in there somewhere but I don't see him.)

Today's featured video is the 30 second version of that commercial. There was also a longer one — 60 seconds, I assume. And there was a little 3-4 minute featurette that was kind of a "making of" video. It used to run often on the Trio network and I somehow failed to save a copy of it. If you have it (or the minute-long version), please drop me a line.

Someone at a watch-making company sat down, I'm convinced, and said, "You know what's wrong with our watches? It's too easy to tell what time it is. How can we make it somewhat difficult?" Here's what they came up with.

Some of you may be sick of hearing about the Stephen Colbert speech by now but I find the various reactions kinda fascinating. And so is this, in a way.

The C-Span people have been apparently going around the Internet getting sites to take down online videos that use the C-Span coverage. They, of course, have every right to do this but I hope they'll realize that one of the reasons so many sites have posted it is that the online video feature on the C-Span site is awful. For one thing, it uses Real Player, which ain't as good as some other things. For another, their links only work about 25% of the time. Most of all, they only offer full events…so if you want to watch just Colbert, you have to deal with a three hour online video just to see the last twenty-four minutes.

I posted two sets of links to Colbert's speech earlier here, one of which no longer works. But these seem to. And in the meantime, ABC News has posted what they shot that evening. This is different coverage with no cutaway shots for audience reactions and, it seemed to me, a little more laughter in some places.

At the end, Colbert runs a video skit of how he'd fill the job of Bush's press secretary. ABC's coverage does not show this tape, though you hear its audio. Instead, the ABC camera (they seem to only have had one there) was trained on George W. Bush throughout the video and you see his reactions. He chuckles in some odd places and seems pretty uncomfortable when Helen Thomas is asking her eternal question about why we invaded Iraq. Here's that video. (An ad may or may not precede your viewing of it.)

I'm having trouble with e-mail today. About two dozen that I sent earlier do not seem to have arrived and I now cannot receive or send out at all. I can access the Internet and update this website and play Sudoku online…I just can't transmit or read e-mail. I assume the Comcast people will get this fixed soon…though if it's in the hands of the technician I spoke to earlier, I may have to abandon the 'net and resort to carrier pigeons.

Over on Salon, where you have to watch a lot of ads if you're not a subscriber, there's an except from Lapdogs, which is a new book by one of my favorite political writers, Eric Boehlert. His thesis, with which I agree, is that the press in this country was so afraid of being accused of being anti-American or pro-terrorist that they misreported the Iraq War (and certain other matters), bending over every which way to not challenge the Bush administration. Here's one paragraph from the article…

It's not fair to suggest the MSM [Main Stream Media] alone convinced Americans to send some sons and daughter to fight. But the press went out of its way to tell a pleasing, administration-friendly tale about the pending war. In truth, Bush never could have ordered the invasion of Iraq — never could have sold the idea at home — if it weren't for the help he received from the MSM, and particularly the stamp of approval he received from so-called liberal media institutions such as the Washington Post, which in February of 2003 alone, editorialized in favor of war nine times. (Between September 2002 and February 2003, the paper editorialized twenty-six times in favor of the war.) The Post had plenty of company from the liberal East Coast media cabal, with high-profile columnists and editors — the newfound liberal hawks — at the New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, the New Republic and elsewhere all signing on for a war of preemption. By the time the invasion began, the de facto position among the Beltway chattering class was clearly one that backed Bush and favored war. Years later the New York Times Magazine wrote that most "journalists in Washington found it almost inconceivable, even during the period before a fiercely contested midterm election [in 2002], that the intelligence used to justify the war might simply be invented." Hollywood peace activists could conceive it, but serious Beltway journalists could not? That's hard to believe. More likely journalists could conceive it but, understanding the MSM unspoken guidelines — both social and political — were too timid to express it at the time of war.

If you want to believe that coverage unfavorable to Bush's worldview is bias or that reporters sit around all day figuring how to subvert him, don't bother reading the piece. Some right-wingers will never turn loose of that way of denying bad news, just as some left-wingers will forever cling to the conspiracy theories they use to insulate themselves from reality. But if you're open to the idea that Bush's plunge in popularity is at least in part due to us now knowing things we should have known years ago, you might want to sit through the ads or, better still, buy a Salon subscription.