Frank Rich brings back a Golden Oldie…Enron.

Like (I'm guessing) a good many of you, I thought Robert Blake was guilty of murdering his wife…though this is not an opinion I came to by scrupulously examining evidence, hearing all sides and deliberating the matter for more than about ten seconds. I felt he did it the way I feel it will rain this weekend. A lot of folks are saying so…and since a lot of them seem to know more about it than I do, I go with the flow. Even after the verdict, I'm not sure about Blake, nor do I have the interest to study up on it. Maybe he didn't do it or maybe there just wasn't sufficient proof that he did it. Not the same thing.

I did follow the O.J. Simpson case closely enough to have an opinion about which I felt strongly. I think the first jury — the one that acquitted him — had their heads up their judicial posteriors. But about the Blake case, I dunno. I feel like I was lied to by several articles I read. They said not just that he did it but that the evidence was undeniable and overwhelming. Clearly, it was not. He may have murdered his wife but the evidence could not have been as airtight as those articles made it out to be.

The Blake case differs from the O.J. case in a number of ways that may make it possible for him to function in society and — who knows? — even get some acting work again. Blake and his lawyers did not seem arrogant the way Simpson and his Dream Team appeared. There was no Race Card for them to play, nor did they particularly demonize the police. Blake was not turned loose despite a mountain of forensic evidence. Blake's supposed victim did not seem as innocent and mourned as the two people Simpson hacked to death. A lot of those who got mad at the O.J. verdict were mad on behalf of the highly-visible families of the deceased, Fred Goldman especially. There have been no conspicuous mourners of Bonny Lee Bakley. (Her sister phoned in to Court TV after the verdict and seemed mainly distraught that they now will probably not get anything from the civil suit they've filed against Blake.) Most of all, Blake seems rather sad and beaten, almost like he's already paid a fairly stiff penalty for a crime he may or may not have committed. If he's guilty, of course, it's insufficient penalty. But maybe we're so cynical by now about rich 'n' famous murderers getting properly punished that we'll settle for this much.

I love photos of Los Angeles, especially historic Los Angeles. This site has some great current photos of places that have been around for a long time.

My skepticism over reports that TiVo is doomed seems to be justified. This is good news for the company…good enough to put some of the Deathwatches on hold for a bit. They're still some distance from showing a profit but if the Comcast people are going to be equipping their zillions of subscribers with TiVos, there's going to have to be some sort of long-term support there. So things are looking up a bit.

I wonder if anyone has done any sort of study on Technological Frustration, which is my term for the restlessness of consumers to see their software or hardware improved. I use a program called Forte Agent for most of my e-mail, and I'm convinced that the only thing that prevented it from dominating the market is that it took its various makers (the company changed hands a few times) ten years to make improvements that could/should have happened in two. Its remaining users are still sitting there, wondering if certain promised new features will appear this year or next or the one after…but many have given up on it, the same way a lot of folks gave up on Betamax back when all the sexy new developments were over in the VHS column. One can understand a company being overly-cautious about perfecting a new feature before releasing it — that seems to have been what delayed Sony with its Betamax advances. One can also understand that some techological advances just take time…more than anyone could anticipate. Still, at some point, you just get impatient.

TiVo was introduced into the marketplace in March of 1999. I ordered my first (of many) a month later and it was really quite a wonderful invention. I demonstrated it to everyone who came by my house for about the next year because that's how long it took before most people had even heard of the thing. The company sold at least a dozen more of them because of my efforts but I didn't want a commission. I only wanted TiVo to improve its product…and they have. Just not fast enough. The new "TiVo to Go" feature is disappointing for reasons I explained here, plus many are finding the picture quality unsatisfactory. But the whole thing is probably a greater disappointment than it could have been because it took so long to arrive. For months and months, we heard, "It's coming, it's coming." That kind of thing increases expectations and breaks down brand loyalty.

A few of my friends have given up on TiVo and assembled their own, homemade versions using computers and some software like Media Portal or Snapstream. One said to me, "It took me two days to build a Personal Video Recorder that can do everything I want. Why has it taken TiVo five years?" There are plenty of reasons, of course, including the fact that TiVo keeps being sued or threatened with suits for the supposed damages it will wreak on the television industry. But the point is that in this era of Immediate Gratification, a lot of folks aren't willing to wait…or to trust TiVo to improve itself at a satisfying clip. If they could only manage to do that, we could get rid of all the Deathwatches, once and for all.

The other day, I linked to an extremely funny/clever video cartoon about prescription drugs. Here's a better link, direct to the page of the folks who commissioned it. I hadn't realized that it was Consumers Union, which is the organization that puts out Consumer Reports. I am a big fan of Consumer Reports, which has always struck me as one of the few truly untainted voices for consumers…especially now that Ralph Nader only seems to be crusading for Ralph Nader. You might want to read this page they've posted about some of the recent outrages in the field of prescription drugs. It's one of those areas where, I think, too many people shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, there's nothing we can do."

I can't make a whole lot of sense out of Rosie O'Donnell's weblog but perhaps you can. This woman is well-paid. Can't she afford a Shift key?

Nice article by Bill Zehme on the soon-to-open Monty Python musical, Spamalot. A half-dozen different folks I know have seen in it in previews and all predict it will make The Producers look like a one-night flop.

Isn't it interesting that the jury has now been deliberating for a whole week in the Robert Blake case? I have no idea whether they'll deadlock or vote to convict or what. But all the commentators covering this trial thought it was one of those cases where the jury would be unanimous for conviction on the first ballot and would only stay out for a token interval to make it seem like they'd really, really considered every nuance of the case. I didn't follow all the details but it seems to me that a week is more than enough time to really, really consider every nuance.

As I understand it, they have to decide on one count of murder with a special circumstance of lying in wait, and two counts of solicitation of murder. Several different men testified that Blake talked to them about killing his wife so I'm guessing the jurors aren't re-enacting Twelve Angry Men over the solicitation charges. But there does not seem to have been any forensic evidence — i.e., no identifiable prints on the murder weapon — that the actor actually pulled the trigger. The jury requested a read-back of testimony from the owner of Vitello's Restaurant about how the Blakes were acting just before the shooting. So one might assume that the jurors are debating just what happened that night, which goes to the first count…and maybe on that, one or more isn't convinced beyond that reasonable doubt.

But maybe not. Perhaps it's just that the jurors are taking their mission very seriously and are reviewing every syllable of every bit of the testimony several times over. That would not be a bad thing, even if they eventually vote Guilty, right down the line. It would also not be a bad thing if this triggered a moment of reflection in everyone who decided early-on that Blake was guilty as a body could be. Maybe it's not quite as open-'n'-shut as a lot of people figured.

Then again, maybe one of the jurors brought in a deck of cards and they've got a Bridge Tournament going. You never know.

Jay Mohr is a pretty funny stand-up comedian and a not-unsuccessful movie actor. It may surprise some folks to learn that he did two years on Saturday Night Live as a "featured player," an unusual job classification. It means you're in the cast but you're not a cast member. You're kind of on probation, auditioning in front of America to move up to full cast member status. Neither position means you automatically appear in sketches and neither guarantees you won't get fired at the end of the season. Full status just confers a bit more prestige and the presumption that you deserve to be on the show. Mohr did his two years without graduating to the senior class.

He sometimes went for weeks without getting into a sketch and when he did, it was often a one-line part or something that required so much make-up, you didn't realize it was him. His struggles are recounted in a book that I just read, Gasping for Airtime.

It's a disarmingly candid account of his life during that period, much of it focusing on a series of horrendous panic attacks that occasionally prompted him to bolt from the office, run the 42 blocks to his home and dive into bed. Eventually, medication ended these, though he had panic attacks that he would be caught without the pills to prevent his panic attacks. He also confesses to other matters that someone else might have omitted…like the time he was so desperate for a sketch to submit that he ripped-off an entire routine from a fellow stand-up comic. The bit went on the air, the other comedian sued, Mohr lied and swore he hadn't seen the other guy's act, and NBC settled the suit by paying money and cutting the sketch from reruns. It's not amazing that this happened; only that the perpetrator would admit to it in print.

There are anecdotes about others who worked on SNL at the time — Farley, Hartman, Franken, Lorne Michaels, et al. Some are flattering. Others are anything but, and some of those stories do not speak well of Mohr, either. The most interesting part of the book to me was following the dilemma of a guy who'd been handed this great opportunity and was never quite able to capitalize on it. Mohr's career later took off, to some extent in spite of his SNL gig, not because of it. You wonder if he'd have written this book if things had gone any of several other ways. In any case, it's a good, short read and a nice reminder of how difficult comedy can be, particularly in a high-pressure, competitive environment like Saturday Night Live. It ain't as easy as it looks.

If you're a fan of the Match Game TV show — the second version with Gene Rayburn, the one where celebrity panelists had to fill in the blanks with semi-naughty words — have we got a website for you!

I'm watching a little of the news coverage of the arrest of Brian Nichols, the Atlanta courtroom shooting suspect. It's another one of those situations, so familiar in the age of 24/7 reporting, where everything the reporters know could be summarized in about three minutes…but they have to keep stretching and repeating and wringing variations out of the information. I'm surprised no cable news channel has tried selling itself the way a lot of all-news radio stations promise to give you the whole world in 20 or 22 minutes. There are times you don't want in-depth coverage. You want the three-minute version.

I am amused by the occasional appearances of the words "alleged" and "suspect." Everyone is unhesitatingly discussing how Nichols grabbed a gun and shot this person or that person. Every ten or twenty mentions of his brutal crimes, someone — usually a law enforcement official — feels they're being responsible to toss in an "allegedly." On CNN, and I guess this is some sort of style guide thing, they also keep referring to him as "Mr. Nichols." Glad to see they're protecting the man's dignity and, every once in a while, the pretense that there is any presumption of innocence anywhere.

That's what a lot of us enjoyed last night, courtesy of the Museum of TV and Radio: An evening with a member of Monty Python. The museum is having its annual William S. Paley Festival which, once upon a time, was all about classic TV shows of the past. Now, it almost exclusively honors current shows (Lost, Boston Legal, Desperate Housewives, etc.) with Mr. Palin's appearance being a notable exception. That's the bad news for some of us. The good news is that after years of poor interviewers from the museum's staff, this year's seminars have more qualified, usually famous moderators. Palin was interviewed by Harry Shearer, who did a fine job of it.

Clips were run, not just of Palin's days with Python (The Argument Sketch, the Spanish Inquisition, et al) but of his work before and after. The excerpts from his travelogues for the B.B.C., to which I paid not enough attention when they first aired, looked especially wonderful.

Palin did not offer much encouragement to those yearning for a Python reunion of some sort. There has intermittently been talk of a new stage tour but Palin is against it because, says he, it wouldn't be the same without Graham Chapman. He also thinks the probable success of the new Broadway musical, Spamalot, will fill any possible need there might be to see Monty Python on stage. He said he had been interested in a movie idea that Eric Idle proposed — a sequel to Monty Python and the Holy Grail with them all playing the same knights several decades later — but the idea has never gone anywhere.

Mostly, he told wonderful stories and to the delight of the audience, kept lapsing into characters from Python routines — although when one lady asked, "What's your favorite color?", he and Shearer both seemed to miss the reference to a key scene in Holy Grail. He impressed most of us as very humble and very, very nice. When we left, he was still there signing program books for people and he looked like he was going to stay until he'd signed for everyone who wanted an autograph. For all I know, he may still be there.

Before you take any more prescription medicines, you might want to watch this nice bit o' animation. (If that doesn't play, try this link.)

This morning, a man on trial in Atlanta grabbed a gun from a deputy and shot his way out of the courthouse, killing several people, including the judge. Obviously, a great tragedy.

However, I have to share this with you. I hadn't heard about it when I turned on CNN and the first words out of my TV were: "…and he seized a weapon in the courtroom and shot at least three people, including the judge, before getting away."

My immediate thought, for about three seconds, was: Oh, no! Was this Michael Jackson or Robert Blake?