Mushroom Soup Friday

This may be the only post here today. At the very least, it will be the only post until I finish up a script that is, of course, not as important as blogging for you, dear readers, but it's one of those bits of writing that will pay me money. Wouldst that I could write for you and only you.

Before I go do what I must, let's pause to wonder: What must the conversations be like these days between Bill and Hillary Clinton. I'll bet Bill says a lot of sentences that start with "My God, if there was even the slightest rumor that I'd cheated on you with a porn star and paid her hush money…" And Hillary says things like, "Jeez! That man calls me Lyin' Hillary?" What I'd kinda like to see happen is for Paula Jones to turn up and claim that Trump sexually harassed her. Then we could watch all the Trump supporters turn backflips to explain why in his case, it's different.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has voted to expel Bill Cosby and also, since they can't explain why they're kicking him out when they didn't kick out Roman Polanski, Roman Polanski. I have an e-mail from someone asking me why they also haven't expelled Woody Allen and I think that's, first of all, because Woody Allen has never been formally charged with a crime, let alone convicted of anything. Secondly, a lot of us (and I'm among the "us") think the case against him is very weak. I haven't had the time yet to write that long post (might be posts, plural) explaining why we feel that way.

And lastly, it might have something to do with the fact that Mr. Allen is not and has never been a member of the Academy. It's kinda hard to toss someone out of an organization to which they've never belonged.

Lastly for now:  It's been announced that Conan O'Brien's show on TBS will be trimmed to a half-hour.  I've never quite understood why it was cost-efficient for them as an hour since its ratings have never been spectacular, nor has it spawned a whole turnaround of that channel's image and audience as was once hoped.  But cutting it to thirty minutes will presumably make it more expensive than half of an hour show and make it less dominant and noticeable on their schedule.  Unless they pair it with another half-hour show that will attract a helluva tune-in, it sounds like the prelude to cutting it altogether.

At the same time though, it's been announced that Conan's old NBC shows will become highly available on the web.  I like that.  I thought that was a terrific program for about its first ten years.  If they'd equaled that standard on the current show, they'd probably be making it ninety minutes.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to work.