Do I care about who’s hosting which morning program on television? No, not really. I haven’t watched a morning program with any regularity since ABC’s first network show, the short-lived AM America in 1975. (I can really pick ‘em when it comes to early morning and late-night television; the one late program I watched regularly was Thicke of the Night.) I’ve been a morning radio person ever since I can remember; my mornings have been spent with all-news WCBS-AM, Harry Harrison, Gil Gross, Spike O’Dell, and NPR’s Morning Edition.

So I’m looking at CBS’s announcement that it’s bringing over most of the cast from their Saturday morning edition of The Early Show to the weekday edition with a little bit of amusement. Certainly, the first comment on The New York Times’ blog post on the story was accurate. In its entirety: “Deck chairs.”

But I’m sure CBS had some other reasons for doing this. Here are a few theories of mine:

-          Harry Smith has been hosted this show from 1987 to 1996, and from 2002 to now, a total of 17 years in the last 23. If people haven’t warmed up to him by now, they never will.

-          Since The Talk doesn’t seem like a disaster, Julie Chen (a.k.a. Mrs. Les Moonves, president of CBS) will have a job for the immediate future, so we can get rid of everybody else.

-          Hey, if we’re going to be in last place anyway, we might as well be there with a lower-salaried cast.
 

I’m  I'm not sure if all of you know how long CBS has been trying to get a morning program to be competitive with Today. The answer: most of the last 57 years. Understandable for two reasons: there’s lots of money to be made, and CBS (especially William Paley, founder and first president) hated losing to NBC in anything. Here’s what they’ve tried:

-          1954-57 – The Morning Show/Good Morning!, with (respectively) Walter Cronkite, Jack Paar, Dick Van Dyke, and Will Rogers Jr. None of them clicked with viewers, which leads me to think there wasn’t room for two morning shows at that point (certainly we can’t say that Cronkite, Paar, and Van Dyke didn’t have any TV appeal).

-          1957-65 – no news/entertainment, just Captain Kangaroo.

-          1965-79 – CBS Morning News, with (in chronological order) Mike Wallace, Joseph Benti, John Hart, Hughes Rudd/Sally Quinn (disaster #1; Quinn was not adequately prepared to be a television journalist/host, and it showed), Hughes Rudd/Bruce Morton, Lesley Stahl/Richard Threlkeld. All from 7-8 AM, so as not to interfere with the Captain. (Every time CBS threatened to take away some of the air time for Captain Kangaroo, Bob Keeshan threatened to expose CBS for the horrible, anti-children scum he thought they were.)

-          1979-82 – _______ Morning (e.g. Monday Morning, Tuesday Morning, etc.) with Bob Schieffer, then Charles Kuralt, and finally Kuralt and Diane Sawyer. In 1981, CBS finally shoved the Captain to 7 AM and expanded the program to 90 minutes.

-          1982-86 – Captain Kangaroo moved to 6 AM on weekdays, and the title shifted back to The CBS Morning News along with a two-hour length. Bill Kurtis replaced Kuralt, and in 1984 Diane Sawyer left and was replaced by Phyllis George (disaster #2, George’s famous “How about a hug?” query upon interviewing a recently-released prisoner and his accuser of rape, who’d recanted her story, effectively ended her television career). Kurtis quit, George was let go, Schieffer was brought back temporarily, then Forrest Sawyer and Maria Shriver took over.

-          1987 – The Morning Program, with actress Mariette Hartley and Rolland Smith, along with comic Bob Saget. Disaster #3, a bad happy-talk program, with Hartley’s career taking a fatal nosedive as a result.

-          1987-2010 – CBS This Morning/The Early Show with Smith, Kathleen Sullivan, then Paula Zahn, then Mark McEwen and Jane Robelot, then Bryant Gumbel and Jane Clayton, then Smith again with a parade of co-hosts. And here we are today.

Assuming my suggestion of having Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford as cohosts with Rachel McAdams producing isn’t viable, I’ve got a few thoughts.

1. The initial comment was correct; this is simply rearranging the deck chairs. The last time CBS tried something resembling a major breakthrough was Bryant Gumbel a decade ago; they apparently didn’t realize that Gumbel had worn thin on viewers over the years with his grouchy and somewhat egotistical attitude.
2. Unknowns have never made a big splash on a morning show unless there was someone established sitting next to them (Dave Garroway was the exception, but he was also the pioneer, so someone had to become popular first). Bringing in a whole group of unknowns isn’t going to make anyone change their morning routine, and that’s what is needed.
3. The most successful hosts for both Today and Good Morning, America over the past few decades have been people who have been on network television before, give the viewer a sense of familiarity and comfort, and aren’t necessarily journalists. Anyone who is zany or grating doesn’t work – that’s for radio, when you need to stay awake during the drive to the office or before the first cup of coffee arrives. No one wants that on early-morning television – so people like Hugh Downs, David Hartman, Bryant Gumbel (when he was known as a sports guy), Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson (the second time around for both) have all had a lot of success moving from other roles to the 7 AM beat.
4. Accordingly, here are two suggestions for hosts:
   1. Jane Pauley. She’s certainly familiar, but she hasn’t been on television regularly for a few years; she’s not tied to a contract, and she’s used to the early morning routine. She might not want to dive back in, and at age 60, she may not be what advertisers want (although, heck, she’s younger than Diane Sawyer and only three years older than Meredith Viera). But she knows what she’s doing, and people genuinely like her.
   2. Tom Bergeron. He has hosted local morning shows, a Fox morning show that went the way of all Fox programming that isn’t instantly successful, and was a finalist for Good Morning, America before being vetoed by cohost Lisa MacRee (anyone remember her?). Now, at age 55, he’s familiar, comfortable, and has made a pile of money. He could be back on the East Coast full time (his home is in Connecticut), and he gets a chance to do something that best fits his skills.

 Just a thought, CBS, before you bring the next group of victims in.

What: Fantasy Football Live Draft

When: Thursday night

Where: my wife’s study, on her computer, since my computer crashed on Sunday during the other draft

Study Aids: Sports Illustrated Fantasy Football special issue, Athlon’s Fantasy Football magazine, last week’s USA Today Sports Weekly, CBS Sports’ “expert rankings,” and a piece of paper with the positions I need to pick – because the last time I did this league, I got it in my head the number of picks and players active weekly were the same as ESPN’s league (they aren’t), resulting in a 3-11 season.

With Whom: some of the same gang with whom I play Fantasy Baseball, and a few others with whom I’m not so familiar

Format: Snake Draft (picks go 1-12 first round, 12-1 second round, and so on), 90 seconds to pick, 14 rounds. Standard weekly head-to-head league, no points per reception.

Pre-Game:  I’m set up about 20 minutes early. I’m juggling two pieces of leftover frozen pizza and my son upset that he’s not getting any attention (my wife has a colleague over for dinner). Other people get on line. I’m in Position 9, which does not make me happy – 3-5 is probably the best, 11-12 isn’t bad.

Teams (in draft order):  GB Packers, Bangers-n-Mash, Berrys, Stockbridge Eagles, Muckrakers, Derby Destroyers, Weehawken Weird Wombats, Downers Groves, Naperville Raccoons (that’s me), Silver Springers, 1070 Crushers, Austin Astex.

Round 1

Apparently three people aren’t on line – the Weird Wombats, the Derby Destroyers, and one other guy. The Muckrakers sign on 15 seconds before the pick expires.

First pick: Adrian Peterson. Because the guy who picked first didn’t realize he’d accidentally set his draft to autopick, so his minute and a half of clicking on Chris Johnson proved pointless.

My pick: With the expected running back going in six of the first seven spots (Drew Brees was by the 15-second guy) and Aaron Rodgers going eighth (or, as the Grovers noted to me, “No Aaron Rodgers for you!”) I chose Andre Johnson, wide receiver, Houston – who was also the first pick in my ESPN league draft four days before.

The “Huh?” Pick: Either Peyton Manning to the Springers or Randy Moss to the Crushers – both good players, but a little overvalued in Round 1. Moss stands a good chance of going downhill fast this year. I picked him high two years ago – and watched in horror when Tom Brady went down for the year in the first quarter of the first game.

Great Pick: Steven Jackson lasts until the end of the round, which allowed the Astex to get him and DeAngelo Williams back-to-back, forming a very solid corps of running backs.

Round 2

My pick: Cedric Benson is the top rated RB on the board, but I really, really don’t want him on my team. He’s a goofball, he probably played better than he really is last year, and Cincinnati doesn’t look very organized. I go back and forth for a minute, and go for Rashard Mendenhall, running back, Pittsburgh.

The “Huh?” Pick: Either Jamaal Charles to the Eagles, who will split time with Thomas Jones, or Tom Brady to Bangers-n-Mash, who probably should have been bypassed until the third round.

Great Pick: none, really.

Round 3

Trend: By the time the pick gets back to me, the 33^rd pick of the draft, eight teams have chosen quarterbacks. Actually, this works for me, since all of my top-rated QBs are gone, I can wait until the middle rounds to pick a mid-tier QB.

My pick: I spend 1 min. 29 seconds debating between Larry Fitzgerald and LeSean McCoy, after seeing Brandon Marshall and Ryan Grant picked. McCoy has dropped a bit, and I can’t find Fitzgerald in the first three rounds of the SI and Athlon mock drafts, so I assume he should go lower. I choose McCoy. This morning, I find Fitzgerald went in Round 2 of both mocks, and curse my inability to read.

The “Huh?” Pick: Carson Palmer, QB, Cincinnati, to the Eagles. I don’t have him above Round 9 in any of my mock drafts.

Great Pick: Brandon Marshall as the seventh pick in the round to the Wombats – he could have an unbelievable season in Miami.

Round 4

My pick: Now I really wish I had taken Fitzgerald, but at least I have one top receiver. With NY’s Steve Smith, Fitzgerald, and Anquan Boldin going off the board, I swallow hard and take Carolina’s Steve Smith, telling myself it isn’t too early.

The “Huh?” Pick: It seems a little early to take either Ronnie Brown (Destroyers) or C.J. Spiller (Packers). I took Brown in the ESPN draft, but in Round 7 or 8.

Great Pick: Larry Fitzgerald to the Astex, because I’m an idiot.

Round 5

Trend: Tight ends and wide receivers are dropping like flies.

My Pick: But Jonathan Stewart has dropped to round 5. He has an Achilles issue, but he’s definitely worth picking here, and I do. I now have lots of RB flexability.

The “Huh?” Pick: It is way too early to take Reggie Bush, but he went to the Muckrakers, with Stewart still on the board.

Great Pick: Not to pat myself on the back too much, but Stewart is a bargain in Round 5.

Round 6

Nine teams have now taken QBs (Brees, Rodgers, and Manning in Round 1, Schaub and Brady in Round 2, Rivers, Romo, and Palmer in Round 3, and Flacco in Round 5).

The Wombats finally get on line. “I had the time we started marked down for 9, not 8:30!” they note.

My Pick: Jason Witten, TE, Dallas. Followed by howls of protest from Tom.

The “Huh?” Pick: Malcolm Floyd of San Diego is supposed to go around the 11^th or 12^th round, but he is nabbed here by the Crushers. I guess Phillip Rivers has to throw to someone.

Great Pick: Michael Crabtree to the Eagles. He’ll move to the top of the class this year.

Round 7

My Pick: I note that of the three teams that haven’t taken a QB, two are behind me, so now is the time. I swallow hard and take Kevin Kolb of Philadelphia. It’s about the right spot – the mock drafts have him in Round 6 or 7 – but I’m still nervous about his lack of experience.

Trend #1: Three defenses (three?) are chosen here.

Trend #2: And I’m right; two QBs are chosen in the next three picks after Kolb.

The “Huh?” Pick: One of whom is Matt Ryan – as a backup to Manning for the Springers. Manning hasn’t missed a game in, what, 12 years?  It's not like anyone will project Ryan to have a better week than the best quarterback in the history of the game.

Great Pick: Jeremy Maclin to the Berrys. I was hoping he’d drop to me.

Round 8:

Karen is driving her colleague to the train station; Danny is sitting in the study with my playing the Didj (kind of like a handheld Nintendo, except it takes breaks to ask math questions, so we feel like he’s learning something). He’s full of questions, but he’s not familiar with football (“Is the quarterback like the goalie?”).

My Pick: I need a third wide receiver, since we play three in this league, and I usually have lousy receivers since I make running backs three of my first four picks. (I’ve improved only slightly in that regard this year.) Under the theory that the Saints score a ton of points, I grab Robert Meachem, WR, New Orleans.

The “Huh?” Picks: Two kickers go in Round 8, Garrett Hartley to the Wombats and Ryan Longwell to the Muckrakers.

Great Pick: Matt Forte to the Berrys. He’ll be a steal at this point if he can play halfway between his rookie year and last year.

Round 9

You can sense the flop sweat all over the keyboards. Three more kickers chosen in this round, five overall. In the SI and Athlon mock drafts, no kickers were taken until the third to last round, which would be three rounds from now for us.

It occurs to me I haven’t been checking when everybody’s bye week is. I finally check – and miraculously, there are no conflicts.

My Pick: Clinton Portis, who I hope I don’t have to play.

The “Huh?” Pick: Aside from the aforementioned kickers, Portis is a lousy choice, especially when I discover there were better running backs around.

Great Pick: Brandon Jacobs, who was snagged by the Wombats two picks before Portis.

Round 10

My Pick: It’s time for a defense. I’ve heard the 49ers are a potential steal, so I grab them, amidst much gnashing of teeth from other teams who are still defenseless. Hey, you guys were the ones who insisted on taking kickers early.

The “Huh?” Pick: Jay Cutler, to the Wombats, would actually have been a pretty good backup QB pick – if he didn’t have the same bye week as Joe Flacco, his starter.  (Sorry, Kolb has the same bye week as well, so don't bother dangling him in a trade.)

Great Pick: Darren McFadden, to the Eagles, could surprise people.

Round 11

Danny’s miserable, so I take a quick break to get him a doughnut and a glass of milk. I make a mental note to do something nice for him the next night; he’s such a good little guy.

We’re getting punchy. After one team takes nearly the full 90 seconds to choose, I type “The tension is underwhelming!” into the comments box.

My Pick: Happy to see Braylon Edwards still on the board – he’s not a great wide receiver, but he’ll be the Jets’ main target for the first few games, and I took him two rounds earlier in my other league. I grab him here, then find out his bye week is in conflict with one of the other receivers.  Not the end of the world, but I make a mental note.

The “Huh?” Pick: Two more kickers are chosen; seven overall with three rounds left.

Great Pick: Ben Roethlisberger is a poor human being, but he’ll be a good choice, especially since his sentence was reduced yesterday.

Round 12

When will this end? Everybody is waiver wire fodder at this point anyway.

My Pick: Backup QB pickings are slim. I take Chad Henne of the Dolphins, which means I have two unproven young QBs. This is not great – in the other league, where elderly and indecisive Brett Favre was my first choice, I went with Eli Manning as my safety QB to avoid this situation.

The “Huh?” Pick: With Henne, Matt Cassel, and Vince Young still on the board, the Crushers take Derek Anderson, who’s been awful the last two years.

Great Pick:  Kellen Winslow falls to Bangers-n-Mash. He lasted this long?

Round 13

I assure Danny we only have two rounds left. He doesn’t seem convinced. The Eagles have decided they’ve had enough and switch to autodraft.

My Pick: I debate between several WRs, and finally go with Julian Edelman of the Patriots. The preview magazines printed in June have him taking the Wes Welker role; more recent reports have Welker back at full strength from his ACL injury, but I know the Patriots lie in their injury reports, and they use three receiver sets a lot anyway.

The “Huh?” Pick: Five rounds after taking kicker Ryan Longwell, the Muckrakers take Adam Vinatieri – which means they now have two kickers. Also, the Destroyers (on autodraft) get Vincent Jackson, who may hold out the entire year, and has a suspension waiting for him when he does return.

Great Pick: How did Thomas Jones and Ricky Williams fall this far? Kudos to the Berrys and Grovers for noticing, and I curse myself for missing out on those two when I took Clinton Portis.  So much for my "everybody is waiver wire fodder" theory.

Round 14

It’s almost over. Kicker time (for me, anyway; 10 teams have already taken 11 kickers).

My Pick: I ignore my “don’t take any Bears because they seem awful” pre-draft edict to take Robbie Gould. Maybe they’ll have a lot of field goal opportunities.

The “Huh?” Pick: Surprinsingly, none.

Great Pick: If Sidney Rice gets back on the field, the Grovers got a good receiver.

And let the season begin!

"I wouldn't say that I would never not absolutely not rule that out."

-- Actress Debbi Morgan, asked at the Daytime Emmys if she would consider commuting from New York to Los Angeles to tape All My Children.
 

I’ve been listening to Garrison Keillor’s audiobook Homegrown Democrat, based on his 2004 book, in the car on my way to and from work. It’s reminded me one of my favorite pastimes is writing – and how little of it I actually do.

My problem lately is I want notification of an update to go into Facebook as well. This doesn’t seem like a major problem relative to everything else that goes on in the world, but I would like my blog updates to be reflected there somehow. It can be done, but one must be logged into both Facebook and Live Journal simultaneously – and Facebook is blocked at my office, where I do most of my writing. (One mind wanders when sitting behind a desk.) I’ll probably do some entries during the day, more at night – the better to do a “hey, look at me!” type of thing.

Anyway. One of the things Keillor points out is how much he enjoys going to the local café to write, read, or people watch. I can see enjoying that. Keillor lives in St. Paul, MN, population 287,151. I live in Naperville, IL, population 147,779. They sound similar, but they’re not, in that maybe 10 percent of Naperville’s homes are actually within realistic walking distance of its beautiful downtown.

Naperville’s a big city, but we are spread out. For us, a walk downtown would take a couple of hours, by which time we’d likely take a taxi back home before doing anything else. We do have a small strip mall within a 10 minute walk of our house, but there’s very little in the mall worth walking to – a convenience store, Convenient Food Mart, with a gas pump outside and a selection and occasional faint aroma inside that usually makes me think it’s better to buy what I’m after elsewhere. Zeppe’s Italian Market, which is what it claims to be, and has no tables. And a pizza place that had not-great pizza the one and only time we went. It would be a great place for a small coffee shop, but there are businesses you’d never expect there, like floor tile, and a dentist office, and a Curves – which probably has little space to actually exercise.

So we settle for the strip malls along Washington Street, which are about a mile away. There’s the takeout-only Chinese place, and the takeout-only Domino’s, and the takeout-only Jake’s Pizza. There’s Crème de la Crumb, a breakfast and lunch only restaurant with okay food and the ambiance of a nursing home cafeteria. There’s Scarpacci’s, which I have not yet tried, because it has no web site, no reviews, and looks more like a catering place, but does promise pizza by the slice. There’s Big Apple Bagels, which is a standard bagel place in a city that has a lot of them. (At least they’re better than the bagels in Durham, NC, which made me long for New York more than I thought I would.) There’s Gino’s East, which is acceptable but not nearly as good as Lou Malnati’s, and certainly not as good as Brooklyn pizza by the slice. There is a TCBY, of which Danny noted, “This isn’t bad, actually,” during his trip yesterday.

Since there are no true places where one can sit and linger for awhile, if I get the urge, I may have to settle for Dunkin Donuts, which just opened a location, to the delight of my son. The day after we got back from Cambridge, the two of us walked there – well, I walked; he used his Razr scooter – and he got a marble doughnut (blue icing with red stripes, for the 4^th of July). The next night, Karen, Danny, and I walked, after I told Danny he should use the bathroom before we left, which he declined to do. Halfway through the walk, he said, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and then made a show of collapsing every 75 yards or so in agony. By the time we were close, we switched our original destination of TCBY to Dunkin Donuts, knowing the latter had a bathroom. We got there, with Danny rushing up to the counter to check out all the doughnuts before I dragged him off to do God’s work.

I don’t particularly want to make Dunkin Donuts my home away from home, and perhaps it would make more sense to find a café with less than the 6,400 locations DD boasts. There’s a place called The Fat Bean Bistro, or something like that, about a five minute drive from our house. But I want to do more writing – preferably not necessarily from my cubicle.

And Michael -- obviously, no one saw this one coming, although like Elvis, he left us young.  The Jackson 5 was my first favorite band; my first three LPs were all J5 albums (Greatest Hits, Diana Ross Presents, Maybe Tomorrow), and I still have all three.  (Almost sold them all at a garage sale in 1980 but reconsidered and let The Osmonds and Partridge Family go instead.)  Bought the albums, watched the cartoon (very disappointing make the connection years later than the voice of Berry Gordy was the same as Santa Claus in Frosty the Snowman, and it wasn't the actual Berry Gordy), watched the TV series a few years later.  I was the first guy at my fraternity to spring for Off the Wall (even though I will never like "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough") and Thriller.

After that, though, it was too much Michael, and too much for him.  I'm one of the people who thinks no one ever told him, "Uh, Michael, that's a really bad idea" except his dad, who no longer held sway at some point.  When you're anointed the King (of Pop), you do what you want, even if it turns out that having a gigantic ranch with a Ferris wheel and live animals might be a bit of a cash drain.  His albums after Thriller all suffered from the inevitable comparisons and "disappointing" sales (there was nothing like Thriller in terms of album sales, and likely never well be, plus it's been a good catalogue album).  He was planning a series of concerts in London, but obviously we're left wondering what those would have been like.

That's a lot of day for today.  Maybe we'll have a normal day tomorrow.