This is from last December. Nathan Lane appeared on Late Show With David Letterman and performed scenes from a forthcoming musical based on Brokeback Mountain. If Richard Rodgers hadn't died in 1979, this would have killed him…

Last week, the C-Span show Q & A had an hour-long interview with Keith Olbermann. I found it quite interesting. Whatever you think of Olbermann (and obviously, I like him a lot), he's been a pretty persistent and outspoken competitor in the businesses of sports and news broadcasting. I can't link directly to the video — and wouldn't, since it's an hour long — but if you want to watch it, it's viewable on this page. There's also a transcript there if you don't want to go the video route.

I think George W. Bush has been a disaster as a president but I also don't think much of moves to impeach or even censure him. Why? Well, censure seems like an excuse for not doing one's duty. If you think the guy really broke the law, you impeach. If he didn't break the law, you don't. Make up your mind, people. Which is it? If I'm accused of robbing a bank, I either go to prison or I don't. The judge is not going to split the difference and censure me.

But impeachment isn't much of an option, either…and it's interesting that most of the online articles that advocate this do not mention one unavoidable fact. It's that this guy Cheney is next in line. No one who wants to impeach Bush thinks Cheney would be an improvement so they just sidestep that little problem with their dream.

The problem the Democrats have, as I keep saying here, is that you can't beat something with nothing. Bush is at somewhere between 33% and 41% approval. I bet that number would drop at least ten points if his current supporters could see a viable alternative on the horizon. The trouble is that even most folks who think Bush is a terrible Chief Exec have trouble completing the sentence, "I would feel so much more confident with ______ in the White House" with a proper name. "Anyone else" is not a proper name. And even if we had a likely candidate, we have to wait until January of 2009 to inaugurate anyone who isn't currently in the presidential line of succession.

Face facts: We're stuck with Bush. Democrats should be running on the platform of "You need an opposition Congress to stop this guy." And they shouldn't be pretending that censure resolutions and talk of impeachments that aren't going to happen are the kind of opposition they're ready to supply.

Today is the last day to sign up for the TiVo lifetime subscription on any machine you own.

Eighty years ago today, Joseph Levitch was born in Newark, New Jersey. He grew up — to the extent he grew up at all — to become one of the world's most beloved comedians, Jerry Lewis.

But he's a controversial beloved comedian. I know people who love him, people who hate him and people who feel some of both at the same time. It's not just the wide range of quality to his films or the way in one interview, he can ping-pong back and forth between humility and arrogance. There's just something electric about the man…something that makes him fascinating to watch.

In 1995, Jerry made his Broadway debut playing the devil in a revival production of Damn Yankees. My friend Paul Dini and I snagged tickets for his opening night and it was well worth the time 'n' trouble. The audience, packed with Lewis fans, gave him a huge ovation when he made his first appearance, popping up on an elevator from a hole in the stage. They gave him an even bigger ovation at the end when he took his bow, which he followed with a lovely, modest curtain speech. In between, they cheered and laughed at everything, but especially when he did something that just screamed, "JERRY LEWIS!!!" — a move, a reaction, even one "Hey, laydeeee" that somehow made its way into the dialogue. The star power was incandescent and I doubt anyone who was there will ever forget that evening.

As mentioned here, I saw Mr. Lewis speak recently. He looked in remarkably good shape, not only for a man his age but for one who's been through a chilling array of medical problems. To add to the list of things that make him special, you have the way he's defied all odds and the calendar. Throughout his life and career, he always told people he was six years old and it seems to be working.

By the way: Every history of Mr. Lewis, including those he authored, gives his birth name as Joseph. A few years ago, a devout Lewis fan checked the 1930 census data and found that it listed the son of Daniel and Rachael Levitch as Jerome. Could have been a mistake or it could have been his real moniker…who knows? I just think he's always been Jerry Lewis and always will be. It's nice to have one around.

A few weeks ago here — here, in fact — we were talking here about how the Monty Python TV series made its way onto American television. Here's a relevant relic: A videotape from a pledge break on the PBS station in Dallas. It's from 1975 and it's not complete but it's a rare interview from that era with Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman. As you'll see, it ends abruptly as Terry Jones is about to explain about "Owl Stretching Time," which was an early but rejected name for the series but you might enjoy what comes before…

The appearance of Neal Adams on Coast to Coast appears to have been moved to tomorrow night.

Ever listen to George Noory's radio program, Coast to Coast? That's the one that always seems to have someone on who's convinced that robots are stealing their luggage or that shifting glaciers will soon be running us all down on the freeways. On tonight's broadcast, a featured guest will be comic book legend Neal Adams, who will (I assume) be discussing his theories about the construction of our universe. You can see some of them presented with impressive graphics at Neal's website.

I've got to run out to a recording session of my own (they're doing commentary tracks and special features for the forthcoming release of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoons on DVD) so I haven't the time to research this better. But I think you can either listen live to the radio show at this website or hear it archived there after the fact. You can also probably turn on your radio but that's the low-tech way to do it. Thanks to Todd Bowland for the Head's Up on this.

Ladies…are you tired of cleaning corners? Or being cornered by some lecherous acquaintance? Then maybe you need to live in a round building.

And soon, that may be possible. The historic Capitol Records building, located not far from Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood, California is up for sale and the interested parties are all talking Condo Conversion. Designed by Wilson Becket and built in 1956 as the home of the most powerful record company on the west coast, it was intended to resemble a stack of records…reportedly, a suggestion made by Nat King Cole, who recorded for the label. For a long time there, you either recorded for Capitol or you just quite weren't in the music business.

The 13-story building always kind of said "Hollywood." In fact, there's a red light atop the building that blinks on and off all night, spelling out "Hollywood" in Morse Code — a fact known only to any very old telegraph operators who happen to wander by. It's a structure that has been much photographed and of course, whenever anyone makes a movie about a disaster in Los Angeles, it's one of the first things we see destroyed.

I guess I'm glad no one is proposing its implosion. There are precious few things in Hollywood worth snapping a picture of, and tourists are always disappointed that the physical area is so lacking in glamorous sights. I don't think I ever walked through the intersection of Hollywood and Vine without noticing some outta-towners with cameras standing there and muttering, "This is it?" I used to think the Chamber of Commerce should hire a good Marilyn Monroe impersonator and have her stand there over a grate with air blowing up her skirt…just to give shutterbugs something to shoot. But at least the Capitol Records building was just up the street, and it looks like it'll remain that way. So the tourists will have something to take pictures of, and all they'll have to do is explain to their children what a "record" was.

Paul Krugman makes the case that John McCain, the Republican that even Democrats like, is not much different from the Republicans that Democrats don't like.

I hope you're enjoying these. Today, we link to a one minute commercial for a company called EDS. This is a great commercial in the sense that it's well-shot and funny and memorable. It may be a bad commercial because I have no idea what they're selling or who they think they're selling it to. But now, experience the tale of the Cat Herders…

Last night, David Letterman's show with Howard Stern discussing the lawsuit CBS has filed against him got a 4.2 rating whereas Jay Leno, with no big guests, got a 4.9. That's got to be disappointing for the Letterman people, especially since Monday is usually one of their strongest nights. Perhaps it was because CBS barely mentioned Stern in the promos for the show but I don't think that was it. I think it was because America doesn't care about outrageously wealthy people and companies suing each other.

Stern has a problem. It's one that we'd all love to have but it is a problem: His money has become too conspicuous. Johnny Carson used to wince when guests remarked on how much money he had. It was fine to make fun of his suits or his monologue bombing or even his many divorces. But when they mentioned that he was the highest-paid performer in television, they made it that much harder for him to keep audiences liking him, as opposed to resenting him, and laughing at remarks about the things that annoy us all. It was funny for a while there when Johnny was kvetching about how he'd gotten stuck with a DeLorean automobile that didn't run and which no one wanted to buy. It was a little less funny if you remembered that Johnny was making enough money to buy five new cars a week.

The last time I heard Howard Stern on the radio, he was complaining about all the potholes in New York City streets. Once upon a time, this kind of talk was articulating the gripes and concerns of his listeners. But now there's been so much written about his contracts and deals that there must be people thinking, "Poor Howard…has to ride over a few potholes on his way to get paid a few million dollars a week for talking airhead strippers into taking their clothes off for him." At some point, a multi-millionaire complaining about little things sounds very much like Marie Antoinette or Leona Helmsley. People who can't afford to pay off their Visa cards sit there muttering, "What are you bitching about?" A lot of people, I gather, listen to Stern because they think, "He's one of us." Well, he won't be "one of us" for long if people keep getting reminded that he makes more money in one day than they'll see in five years.

This is for those of you interested in comic book history: Run, do not walk, to this link where Ken Quattro has written the definitive article on the long-defunct comic book company, St. John. Actually, that's faint praise since there have been so few articles about the firm so let me ratchet up the compliment a bit: It's a terrific, well-researched article on a publisher about which little has been known. Unlike a great many outfits that vanished and left no remnants behind, St. John published titles which other companies grabbed onto, and material which others later reprinted. The work for them by Joe Kubert and Norman Maurer alone guaranteed a high standard for the firm and many other titles lived up to that standard.

There's a lot of wonderful "scholarship" (I'm using that word loosely) being done these days about comic book history — much of it, alas, begun after too many of the participants have passed away. I'm sure glad someone decided to research St. John, and Ken did a first-rate job of it.

Let's all thank Marty Golia for sending me this link to an NPR story about Allan Sherman.

Here at news from me, one of our recurring complaints about network television is when they lie about start and stop times. If you TiVoed Deal or No Deal last night, you lost the last three or four minutes of the show. It was supposed to run from 8:00 to 8:59 but it actually ended around 9:03. This was not a huge loss since they were in the middle of a game. But if they'd been at the end, it might have been like sitting through an entire murder mystery and then getting robbed of the scene that tells you whodunnit.

I'm still a little fuzzy on why they think this helps their ratings. Let's say you're watching Deal or No Deal on NBC. It's followed by The Apprentice but you'd planned to switch over to Fox after Deal or No Deal and watch 24. When you do, because of the overage, you find you've missed the first few minutes of 24. Is the idea here that you'll go, "Shucks. Well, I don't want to watch this now so I might as well switch back to NBC and watch The Apprentice"? Do people actually think that way and switch back? Especially since in the process, they've probably also missed the first minute or so of The Apprentice"?

Or are they presuming you won't even switch at all; that you'll get to the end of Deal or No Deal, look at your watch and realize 24 has already started so you might as well stay put? I don't recall ever watching TV with an eye on the clock. I figure that when one show ends, the next ones are just beginning. Is the idea here to eventually disabuse America of that presumption? If so, to what end?

Is there evidence that this fudging of start and end times works? I'm trying to think what kind of testing or surveys a network could conduct to determine if this helps or hurts them. It seems pretty obvious it can only piss off folks who TiVo or tape a show for later viewing. How might it help the ratings enough with those who watch live to more than make up for that?

I asked one network person a few months ago and got back a shrug and an "I dunno." It may be that it's all anecdotal; that there's no proof it helps but it's been tried and some ratings are good, so someone sees a connection. Television programming is the most inexact of sciences, and there have been plenty of seemingly-successful strategies that turned out to be silly superstitions. This one may rank up there with rubbing a rabbit's foot, kissing a horseshoe or even hiring Tom Arnold to star in a new sitcom.