For some reason, my e-mail system lately decides to postpone delivery of some e-mails for 8-12 hours. Not all. Someone sent me two this morning, back to back, at 7 AM. I got the second one instantly. The first just arrived. I'm trying to figure out why this is and how to fix it but in the meantime, if you write to me, your message could get here by way of the Australian section of Antarctica.

Since I haven't been to New York in several years and have seen none of the shows involved, I don't have a lot to say about the Tony Award Nominations that were announced this morning. Mark Rylance is up for two and I hope he wins at least one. I have no idea how deserving he is compared to the others but the guy just gives the best damn acceptance speeches ever.

Over all, the list sounds like the Tony Awards telecast on June 8 will be less than enthralling. There are new nominations that will spur rooting interest outside the folks involved in the productions. Hugh Jackman is hosting this year because Neil Patrick Harris is busy starring in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (for which he is nominated) and Neil may have picked a very good year to skip. Broadway really hasn't had a blockbuster smash — the kind that generates interest outside Times Square — since The Book of Mormon, two years ago. I fear the greatest attention this time around will be paid to wondering whether Woody Allen will win for Best Book of a Musical for Bullets Over Broadway.

I suspect he won't. The show hasn't garnered the reviews and wasn't even nominated for Best Musical. Interestingly, the most nominations were for A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder, which isn't doing great business these days according to reported grosses.

I don't really care a lot about this whole thing with Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling getting fined and banned and humiliated by and for his racist comments. Okay, the guy's an asshole. I'm kind of amazed at the defenses being made of him by alleged friends, saying it's okay because he's always been like this…he may be suffering from dementia…he can be forgiven because his mistress was cheating on him…

Please, folks. If I'm ever in that much trouble over something I say, don't "defend" me like that.

The hatred directed by some at the mistress isn't much more noble than the sentiments Sterling expressed. And the excuse that she "set him up" and tricked him into saying those things is another example of damning Sterling while taking his side. People say things they don't mean all the time but someone oughta ask Donald Trump if anyone could trick him into saying, "Don't let blacks stay at my hotels."

This whole story sounds weird to me. Read this section of one news story…

"We can't have people like that representing the NBA," Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who once worked for Sterling and the Clippers, told CBS News. Abdul-Jabbar said the voice on the recording sounded like Sterling.

"It sounded like him to me, it really did," he said. "I wasn't surprised, because I just was aware of his track record, the discrimination suits against minority people trying to rent some of his properties." In 2009, Sterling paid a record $2.7 million to settle a housing lawsuit claiming he discriminated against African-American and Hispanic renters.

On Monday, the NAACP rescinded a lifetime achievement award it was planning to give to Sterling next month. "His organization gave more money to the minority community than others," Los Angeles chapter President Leon Jenkins said, explaining why Sterling was initially picked. Jenkins said Monday that the NAACP would return all donations from Sterling.

Aren't there a number of things wrong there? Just five years ago, the guy paid a record fine for discriminating against minorities…but he gave so much money to them — since then, I suppose — that the NAACP decided to give him a lifetime achievement award? Not a "most improved" award but a lifetime one…for the way he's lived his entire life. And a guy like Kareem who worked for the man wasn't the least bit surprised to hear racist garbage from him. What is with the NAACP on this?

Why are they giving that money back? Shouldn't he just give them more? He bought respectability once from them, after all. Sell him some more, get a lot more dough from the guy — he's going to have a lot of liquid assets if he's forced to sell the team — and put that cash to work helping more minorities.

I'm about half-kidding with this but really…if the guy was a racist and lots of people knew he was a racist, it's fine to take donations from him. That's how billionaires apologize — with money. But you shouldn't even think of giving him a "you are not a racist" award. Not until the day Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is surprised at what the guy is still saying.

We have here a 1977 interview with Neil Simon, who was out promoting his first autobiography, Rewrites. The interviewers take him through much of the book but don't ask him the question I would have asked: "Why, in telling your life story, did you pretty much skip over your days in television with the likes of Sid Caesar and Phil Silvers?" But he does say lots of interesting things — and looks a bit perturbed by one or two of the questions…

From Al Billingsley…

Like you, I am dismayed that Craig Ferguson is leaving late night. On his show last night, he emphasized the point that it was his own decision and basically said that anyone who said otherwise was a liar. Do you think this is so? Also, don't you think Neil Patrick Harris is too big a star for a 12:35 show?

I have no reason to believe Ferguson didn't decide of his own accord to exit the time slot. I also have no reason to believe that if he didn't, CBS would have kept him there indefinitely. Among the reasons one might decide to quit a job is that you believe your employer is losing interest in keeping you around.

Craig Ferguson is actually an enormous success story in late night. His show has always been hampered by a number of factors including its incredibly low budget compared to whoever was then on NBC and a weak lead-in from Letterman. The last fifteen minutes of Dave's show, viewership plunges. When you read that Letterman got a 2.2 rating, that doesn't mean that many viewers stuck around until the end of the program. (During the period when Letterman was clobbering Leno in the ratings, Jay sometimes won the first fifteen minutes, then lost so much of his audience that Dave won the hour. Jay's ascent over Dave was essentially a matter of reversing that so that more of those who tuned in to watch his monologue stayed around to watch what came after.)

It is also rumored that Ferguson had this problem, too: That he wasn't allowed to book as many Big Stars as he might have wanted to, lest he take away from the guy who preceded him and owned his show. Still with all that, he's managed some pretty good numbers. Given its low cost, his show may still be the most profitable in its time slot…but the days when it looked like he might dominate that time slot seem to have passed. If I were in his position, I'd start thinking about what I wanted to do next.

Unlike a lot of folks who do talk shows, he has many options. There haven't been a lot of people who've gone from having a successful talk show to doing anything else in show business. This is a topic that fans of Mr. Letterman have been discussing. Dave has never shown the slightest interest in doing anything besides that program. Ferguson, however, has options. The guy can act, he can write, he composes music, he's hosting a new game show, he's a published author, etc. I can sure imagine him starring in movies or a prime-time series of some sort. Until the right thing comes along, he can just tour with his stand-up act. Dave didn't even want to do his stand-up act back when he was doing his stand-up act.

So yeah, if I were him, I'd be thinking it was time to do something else. And I think he based that decision in part on hints, subtle or otherwise, that CBS was thinking it might be a good idea to try a different person at 12:35. It's always better to quit than to be fired.

As for Neil Patrick Harris…CBS has knocked down rumors that they were talking with Chelsea Handler about replacing Dave or Craig but there have been no denials about discussions or even offers to John Oliver or N.P.H. for 12:35. I don't know if Oliver's HBO show takes him out of the running for that. (I also find it a little hard to buy that they'd turn their whole late night schedule into a Daily Show alumni meeting with a Colbert/Oliver parlay but odder things have happened.) Harris is quite vocal on Twitter and hasn't tweeted (yet) that he isn't interested in the gig. If there was no chance of him going there, I would think he'd knock down that possibility now so as to not look like he lost out to someone else.

Hey, here's an interesting thought that occurred to me. Everyone's assuming Colbert, since he now lives and works in New York, will do his Late Show from there, probably from the Ed Sullivan Theater. What if he's looking at Hollywood? And what if they then put Neil Patrick Harris into that theater in the heart of Broadway? That sure feels like a natural fit. It would be tricky because apparently the new 12:35 host will be going on before Letterman vacates but they could find somewhere else to do The Late, Late Show with Neil Patrick Harris for a few months until Dave's ready to let him have that stage.

Oops, sorry. That's taking the speculation way too far. Harris may not be the one. CBS might have their sights set on someone cheaper — or female or non-white. 12:35 is traditionally the time to build a new star, not take on someone who's already about as famous as he's going to get…so I won't wager on anyone in particular. What I will bet on is that whoever it is, they won't have all the restrictions (budgetary, no band, few Big Guests) that Craig Ferguson had to work around. And it sure won't surprise me if the person who replaces him doesn't do any better in the ratings.

Soon, Jimmy Kimmel will be the longest-running late night host. That's because Craig Ferguson is announcing on tonight's show that he'll be leaving The Late, Late Show this December. As you can surmise from earlier messages here on this topic, that's not a surprise.

Well, the timing might be. Is Letterman still handing off to Colbert in 2015? If so, that means Ferguson's replacement will be in place before Dave leaves, perhaps many months before. Guess the theory is that Dave will get enhanced numbers for his farewell episodes and they want the new show to enjoy the bump from that lead-in.

So now we get to speculate wildly on another replacement host. Some of the reports say Neil Patrick Harris has expressed interest and I think he'd be great. CBS probably sees some value to breaking the "white guy" mold and might put a woman or a minority in there…but Mr. Harris, being gay, might qualify as enough of a minority.

If it's not N.P.H., it'll be someone whose name wasn't mentioned as a possible successor for Letterman…someone who was not well-enough established to be a candidate for 11:35. I don't think CBS wanted Chelsea Handler for either time slot and she knows it, which is why she's reportedly about to announce a new series for Netflix.

I'll be sorry to see Craig Ferguson exit because I think he's been doing the best of the late night shows for some time. Fortunately, he'll be around with a new syndicated game show and probably other projects, as well. And I sure hope they don't shoot the horse and that Geoff lands another gig somewhere.

HBO has put the entirely of the first Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on YouTube. It's here and it's exactly 29 minutes and 58 seconds long. Talk about filling the half-hour.

Okay, so last Christmas, NBC aired this live broadcast of The Sound of Music and got great ratings. They've announced that this year's follow-up will be Peter Pan.

Now, Fox has made a deal to air a live broadcast some time in 2015 of Grease. Not a bad idea. One assumes they'll cast some recognizable TV names, especially as faculty members, and that they'll include the songs written for the movie like "You're the One That I Want" and the title tune which seem to sneak into many of the stage productions done since the film. They might even stick in some actual fifties songs, too.

This is probably good for the theater in that it will introduce the idea of musical comedy to a new generation. I just hope they don't then go to the theater and think the idea is for the audience to sing along.

I can't stand "prank" and practical joke and hidden camera TV shows…usually. Every so often, a segment shows up that isn't about laughing at unsuspecting people…

This is what the Tea Party movement is all about: The leaders tap into (and stoke) anger and fear out there, get donations from those angry and fearful people…and then put most of the money in their own pockets. It's very much like what Max Bialystock did, including the part where a lot of elderly people get screwed.

This is, of course, how a lot of politics works in this country. One of my e-mail addresses has been getting a weekly message for something like fifteen years now. The sender recounts some new horrible, evil thing Hillary Clinton has done. If she's done anything in the preceding week, he exaggerates and spins it wildly into horror and evil. If she hasn't, he just makes something up. Then he says something like, "I have access to evidence that will destroy this person and put her in prison where she belongs and if you love your country and loathe this person like any good American does, you will send me money to help me develop my case against her."

And I guess people send him money…at least enough to make it worth his time to write and send out one of these messages every week.

If you are a decent, God-loving/fearing (take your pick) person and you care about America and don't want to see it destroyed and your children enslaved and your pets euthanized, you will help me stop this insidious, deceptive practice. You will send me large cash donations and I will use that money to save this country…and don't think for a minute this is the same kind of thing because I will spend every cent you send me. After I pay myself a fitting salary.

Okay, I went back and checked and I was wrong. The first installment of John Oliver's new series was not longer than 30 minutes. It was exactly 30 minutes, almost to the second. The problem was that the first time it aired — when I first TiVoed it — it started thirty seconds late due to promos so it therefore finished 30 seconds late.

It apparently did run long…long enough that they omitted the end credits, which must have delighted the staff no end. My guess is it was supposed to start 30 seconds or so after the announced start time and finish 30-60 seconds before the announced start time of the following program. By omitting promos, subsequent airings just fit into the half-hour. I'm still going to pad my recordings of future episodes.

Oh, good. We needed a one-man imitation of The Daily Show on Sunday nights. That is not meant with sarcasm. If Jon Stewart's fine with that, I'm fine with it. I guess I was just expecting something a bit different of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver beyond the absence of bleeps and voices other than the host's.

Then again, the host is very funny. I hope the program evolves away from being a Daily Show clone and I hope Mr. Oliver slows down and doesn't slavishly read the TelePrompter at a brisk clip every week. There were moments there on his first outing where I wanted to yell at the screen, "What's your hurry? You've got the job!" Then I realized his hurry was that they had more material than minutes. The show, which I TiVoed and watched soon after, ran over 30 minutes so I didn't catch the end. Fortunately, the various HBO channels are rerunning the show about eighty thousand times over the next week so I set up to record it again any minute now, just to see the goodnights and credits.

But that's my big complaint. The material was sharp and none of it felt like he was picking through what Stewart and Colbert threw away. So I've already set my TiVo for next week's episode…for 35 minutes.

Stop me if I've told this one here before. I don't think I have.

My first few years as a television writer, I was teamed with a bright gentleman named Dennis Palumbo…and he used to sometimes remark that we complemented each other well. I'm not sure what I did that he couldn't do but he was a whole lot better than I was at the salesmanship and "pitching" part of our jobs. After we completed our stint writing on Welcome Back, Kotter, we decided to go in different directions and we remain friends to this day. And by the way: Dennis, if you're reading this, aren't we about due for a lunch?

The morning after we finished Kotter, I was offered a heap of comic book writing work so I had that to do. A few days later, I met with our agent, who now had the unenviable task of selling us separately. He and others had warned us that when a team splits up, producers are hesitant to hire one member for fear they'll get the one who just typed up what the other guy thought of. That wasn't how Evanier and Palumbo functioned — for good or ill, we each wrote approximately half — but there have been teams like that.

Stu the Agent was really good at selling his clients, even clients who had a handful of credits and no sample of their solo work. In a matter of days, I found myself going in for a meeting with the producers of What's Happening?, which was a pretty popular show that followed Kotter on ABC on Thursday nights. Around the Kotter offices, most folks seemed to think What's Happening? was a pretty mediocre show that only got good ratings because it had us as its lead-in. As I quickly discovered, around the What's Happening? offices, they thought Kotter was a pretty mediocre show that only got good ratings because folks would sit through it as they waited for What's Happening? to start.

Nevertheless, I came up with an idea they said they liked and we had some meetings about it and I'm still not sure why I didn't end up writing at least that one episode. In the meantime, Stu sent me in to meet the producer of a new variety show that Richard Pryor would be starring in for NBC. (For some reason, he sent me out for almost every show that needed writers and starred black people. I also co-wrote an episode of a sitcom called Baby, I'm Back, which starred Demond Wilson back before he was the superstar he is today.)

There were a couple of problems with me writing on The Richard Pryor Show, not the least of which was that I wasn't a big fan of Mr. Pryor. Everyone told me he was the funniest man on the continent but if he was, I hadn't seen it. I'd seen him perform live once — a surprise set at the Comedy Store — and it wasn't very good. In fact, it was so not good, he gave up and walked off stage well before the next guy was ready to go on. I'm sure he was great on other nights but I wasn't there when that happened.

Not that I admired everyone I ever wrote for but that suggested I just might not be quite in sync with the Pryor style. Another problem was that much of what I had heard was about using drugs and/or being black and I had no experience doing either. So I felt I was the wrong guy for the gig but I also felt that since Stu had set up the meeting, I oughta go. It was in a big building up on Sunset a few blocks from Tower Records so I decided, "I'll park for the meeting, go in and have it and then, after I don't get the job, I'll walk down to Tower and buy some albums."

That was pretty much how it went. The producer was a smart, nice man named Rocco Urbisci, who has since been responsible for a lot of fine specials with stand-up comedians. He was smart enough to instantly know I should not be hired and nice enough to spend fifteen minutes talking with me and pretending I would be properly considered. For the last five or so, we were joined by Mr. Pryor, who was working on something elsewhere in the office. He poked his head in to say goodbye to Rocco and on a whim, sat in on the end of my interview, saying absolutely nothing to me.

Ah, but I did hear him whisper something to Rocco that sounded like, "I thought you were going to interview more black writers instead of this parade of white guys." If that's what he said, I had no problem with it. As it turned out, The Richard Pryor Show was written mostly by a parade of white guys and I was glad I wasn't among them. (I later got to know several of them and it was not, they all said, a happy experience. Shows that get canceled after four episodes usually aren't.)

As I left the office that day, Richard Pryor and I shared an elevator down and managed some polite conversation. Then we exited the lobby together and both walked east on Sunset. As it turned out, we were both heading for Tower Records.

Pryor talked a little about how nervous he was about this new series and how he knew the kind of show he wanted to do couldn't fit in with network prime-time television. Feeling as I did that I couldn't fit in with the kind of show he wanted to do, I could relate but I didn't say that. I was trying to think of something pleasant and polite I could say to the guy that wasn't "Well, I think you're very funny." Because at that moment, I didn't particularly think that. I respected his success but like I said, he'd never really made me laugh.

Then, suddenly, he did. As we walked down Sunset, we passed a small strip club named 77 Sunset Strip. It's no longer where it was…and where it was was not at that famous address.

On the front of it was a big sign that promised Live Nude Girls and under that was a smaller one. It advertised some man's name and billed him as "The World's Foremost Erotic Magician." By this point, I was grasping for something to say to Pryor so I asked aloud, "What does an erotic magician do?"

Without missing a beat, Richard Pryor shrugged and said, like it should have been obvious, "Saws the woman in half…fucks one half. Then he fucks the other half." I practically fell over laughing, as much from the instantaneous delivery as the line itself. I guess I don't have to tell anyone that with Pryor, it wasn't so much what he said as how he said it.

It was three more blocks to Tower Records and those were the three funniest blocks of my life. Pryor was ticking off one idea after another of things an erotic magician might do — increasingly-filthy concepts involving sex toys and pulling silks and rabbits out of different orifices. I was laughing so hard, I literally had trouble walking. I remember thinking (a) I'd give my entire Kotter paycheck for a tape of this, (b) he could do this verbatim on a stage and kill, and (c) I have got to see more of this man performing.

He ran out of ideas for erotic magic about the time we reached Tower Records. I mentioned something about thinking I should pay a cover and a minimum for the walk, thanked him for the entertainment and we went our separate ways within that vast business. Like most record stores, it's gone now but once upon a time, it carried everything. Everything. Some customers found so much to purchase there that the place actually had a few supermarket-style shopping carts available.

As I browsed, I noticed a gentleman a few years older than me and wearing nicer clothes loading albums into one of those carts, practically filling it. At first, I thought he was a well-dressed store employee but closer inspection revealed it was Elton John. He appeared to be purchasing one copy of every record they had that he wasn't on.

A few minutes later, I passed Pryor who was flipping through albums in the jazz section and I pointed out to him the man I thought was Elton John. He looked, said it wasn't, then he looked again and said, "Hey, that is him. Come on." He motioned for me to go with him and I did, having no idea why he was asking me along. I guess he thought it would be rude not to.

As we approached him, Pryor had the same thought I'd had. He said, "He looks like he works here." I whispered back, "Ask him where the Jerry Vale albums are." Which he did. He walked up to Elton John and said, "Excuse me…can you tell me where the Jerry Vale albums are?" Without even looking at his questioner, Elton said, "Aisle three…easy listening" and then returned to his browsing.

Pryor said, "Elton? It's me, Richie. Richie Pryor." Elton John turned around, greeted him with a handshake and about half a hug and they began talking…and I found myself in an awkward if amusing position. Elton John nodded to me since I was obviously "with" Pryor…but Richard didn't introduce me. (I would have been shocked if he'd remembered my name.)

So I just stood there for ten or fifteen minutes like I was a part of the conversation. When either man laughed, I laughed. When one made an interesting point, I shook my head as if to say, "Hey, that's an interesting point." I probably should have just butted in and said to Richard, "Hey, it's been great hanging out with you but I have to run" then split…but I was just kinda curious to see how long it would be before either one acknowledged my existence.

Glancing around, I noticed a cluster of people at the front of the store all looking and pointing at us. It was easy to read their minds. They were all thinking, "That's Elton John…and that's Richard Pryor…but who's the tall clown in the bad jacket?" And in my mind's ear, I could hear strains of the Sesame Street tune, "One of these things is not like the others…" What you had there were three men: One of the world's top musical artists…one of the world's greatest comedians…and the guy who was writing the Scooby Doo comic books. Yeah, there's three of a kind.

Further glancing caused me to recognize one person in the cluster of folks trying to identify me — someone I actually knew. It was a guy also named Mark from our old Comic Book Club. I gave him a little wave, then returned to the discussion of which I was not a part. I nodded a bit more, laughed a bit more and then — when the two men began to promise to get together soon — I shook hands with Elton John, said goodbye to Richard Pryor and left. I'd bet good money that before they parted, one of them said to the other, "Who the hell was that?" And the other just shrugged.

That evening, Mark called me at home. With great hesitation and skepticism, he asked, "Uh, were you in Tower Records today?"

I said, "Tower Records? Let's see…Tower Records, Tower Records…Oh, sure. Richie and I stopped in and ran into Elton John there." Well, that was true.

Mark demanded, "How do you know Richard Pryor and Elton John?" I told him I was in talks about writing on Pryor's new TV show. That was true, too. I didn't lie but I said nothing to disabuse him of the impression that I was always breathing the same air as guys like that, people with that kind of fame and income. (Today, Elton John has so much money, he has Annie Leibovitz on staff just to take his selfies for him.)

When people tell me they know someone a lot more famous than they are, I sometimes wonder: Do they know this person the way I knew Richard Pryor? Which is to say, "Barely." Years later, I worked with the man on a couple of other shows…but I never got to know him that well. I got the impression few people did.

On those shows and just watching him on the screen, my estimation of him as a comedian improved considerably, though I can't say I ever agreed with those who hailed him as the best of his generation. I also became less inclined to write off any comedian as unfunny based on a small sampling of them. I'm more likely now to think, "Well, maybe I haven't seen this person at their best."

One time on this blog when I mentioned that I didn't think Richard Pryor was the greatest comic ever, a friend who thought that called to talk some sense into me. We had one of those discussions that goes nowhere because there's no right or wrong about things like that. What you find funny might leave me cold and vice-versa. Finally, he asked me what I thought was the single funniest Richard Pryor routine. I told him it was the one about the erotic magician. He said, "Huh?" He actually said that word: "Huh?" Then he added, "I've never heard his erotic magician bit."

I told him, "Well, I guess you don't know Richard Pryor as well as I do."

Garry Wills believes that no matter what happens with Obamacare, no matter how effective it is at getting more Americans covered and at slowing the skyrocketing costs of health care, there will be some folks in this country who will go to their graves trying to repeal it. I think he's right.

It's the mid-thirties and Jimmy Durante is out there selling the N.R.A. No, not the National Rifle Association. This was the National Recovery Administration, a 1933 program introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to put the country back to work. It ended in 1935 when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional but for a while, it was very popular with some in this country…and advertising like this short with Mr. Durante made it more popular. You may note that one of the actors in this film looks and sounds a lot like Moe Howard. That's probably because it was Moe Howard…