Random Acts of Satire

If you were seated next to Bill Clinton at a dinner party, what would you want to talk to him about?

What the hell is going on with that marriage! I should add, by the way, that I think Bill has been unfairly pilloried for his personal problems, and that we expect a lot of political figures. Partly because we don‘t have some dunderhead with a crown on his head, the presidency gets freighted with all kinds of inappropriate stuff. We do have faux royalty in this country, thanks to all our movie stars, but it’s not enough. Nonetheless, the idea that you would turn to the world of politics for moral leadership is laughable. This is the greasiest pole in the country, and yet we expect the guy who gets to the top to walk away with clean hands.

How do you explain the explosion in awards shows? There used to be a few every year, and now there are several a month.

It‘s the accomplishment explosion -- there’s more good stuff going on! Those are easy shows to package, and they make a lot of money for the organizations that put them on. You‘ll notice that there are almost no awards shows during sweeps months, so they’re not a sure-fire source of ratings, but during those months when there are lots of reruns on, awards shows are like little exclamation points.

What‘s the scariest place in Los Angeles?

To me personally? Probably the executive offices at NBC. I say NBC for no good reason -- they’re no better or worse than any of those executive offices. I‘ve been to meetings in all those offices, and they’re infuriating because those guys start the meetings by telling me what big fans they are. They‘ll really be serious about it, and quote chapter and verse from my radio show, but giving me a show is the last thing they plan to do. This business is full of people who think that if they like something, that disqualifies it from something they’d actually put money into. They flatter themselves into thinking that their taste is so elevated that it‘s beyond what the masses could grasp. These guys will put $50 million into a Super Mario Bros. movie because that’s business, but the fact that they enjoy my radio show is part of their personal life. These are the gatekeepers who stand between artists and their audiences, and somewhere along the way they got the idea that they‘re more important than the artists.

Will O.J. kill again?

Yes. He’s already had problems with one new girlfriend who reportedly looks just like Nicole Brown Simpson, and there‘s already been a 911 call. Any woman who gets involved with him has a death wish.