Bigtime TV writer/producer Tom Fontana is a mensch -- he does well by doing good! All the time.

If he's not making hundreds of Xmas wish-lists for kids come true, he's hosting benefits and contributing big bucks to rebuild houses for Hurricane Katrina victims. His incredible new...

I recently traded a sunny day in Central Park to witness David Hyde Pierce's tour de force performance in the Manhattan theater club revival Accent On Youth.

The only downside -- this dazzling old gem whizzed by too fast in the dark theater.

Accent On Youth's the story of successful,sophisticated...

I'm stunned to discover that one dusty philosophy problem I pored over-- from Pre-Socratic fragments all the way to Albert Camus-- is totally happening.

Until recently, I believed the most pertinent thing I'd picked up from half a decade of study was the fact that Schopenhauer pushed his mother down...

I flip past Jimmy Fallon--really fast.

Not an unpleasant person, you say.

But here's my issue: I'm a Craig Ferguson junkie--and Ferguson and Fallon are now late-night talk show rivals at 12:30.

Craig is very different from-- I swear--you, me, or anybody.

But,...

I first saw Renee Zellweger pushing a rack of luggage uphill on a West Side sidewalk--no entourage, no aides. Like most stars, she instinctively stops traffic. We ogled (discretely) as she strained against stacks and stacks of suitcases, her skinny body forming a wide triangle with her luggage and the...

Six weeks ago, I wrote a column for the West Side Spirit, a Manhattan community newspaper, describing my years of sharing cabs--saving myself and strangers time, money, and even emotional distress.

Then about five weeks later, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed official rules for splitting rides. Coincidence?

In my view, our...

Yesterday Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff ruled that prosecutors who investigated Emperors Club VIP -- Eliot Spitzer's source for prostitutes -- must make public all wiretap data.

Except the names of the club's other 66 rich male patrons.

Will I live to see the...

A NIGHT IN TINSELTOWN DELIVERS BIGTIME

I am on a mission. A ballsy mission, if I say so myself. I've written a funny script with roles for three members of Jerry Stiller's acting family, and I plan to accost him about it.
I'm limping to 42nd Street...

MUGGING, THRIFT, AND URBAN ATRUISM

Here's a riddle: how did I get mugged, overhear a tv executive get fired by cell-phone, and get called the best person in all Manhattan by a holocaust survivor?
Answer: By making split-second decisions to share taxis.
The following is a...

Bill Ayers is a has-been terrorist, but in his confused life, he's associated with many do-gooders like Senator Barack Obama.
For my book, Family Circle, the Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, I pored for years over FBI documents, and Ayers' press releases taking credit for...

Bill Ayers is a show-off and a publicity hound -- and yes a criminal, but while living his complicated sociopath life, he's associated with many do-gooders like Senator Barack Obama.

For my book, Family Circle, the Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, I pored over...

I used to love Bill Clinton. I am in his thrall when he talks issues. But by so clumsily not supporting Obama he makes Hillary look bad over and over.

I believe Bill's not in his right mind. He needs a muzzle and a therapist. When he was campaigning...

Read Jerry Seinfeld's essay on the passing of George Carlin. It appears on June 24 as an oped piece in the New York Times. People keep telling me how great it is.

It's better writing than anything else in that newspaper. Seinfeld says that for comics even death is...

The John McCain New York Times profile is not about sex with a lobbyist--indeed very little of it even mentions that icky chapter in his life.

Much more horrible, is the rest of the carefully researched article. It described a man who believes he's a moral hero, a war...

Why are people so hot and bothered about Hillary? Is it just because men are freaked by the prospect of a powerful woman? A black male cab driver in Washington told me, "My wife runs things in bed. I love Bill, but I don't want Hillary running things in the...

I adored watching Marion Jones break the tape at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. And I followed her career closely enough afterward--her marriages and divorces, her sudden and strange withdrawals from competitions--to get the idea she was one troubled lady....

After reading the recent Times obituary of Victor Rabinowitz, I'd like to add a personal note.

I write this after researching and talking to Victor for ten years for my book Family Circle, published by Alfred Knopf.

Victor was a great lawyer---on his own and with Leonard...

I am stumped.

I am trying to come up with a second good new name for a woman's "private parts", the priggish way I've always alluded to the vaginal area--until last week, that is.

Have you heard the word "vajayjay",...

I offer a small, telling example of the phummphy, self-censorship of The New York Times.

I see this phenomenon when researching old newspapers for books I write.

First, quick background:

On October 22, the Times featured an horrific but beautiful photo of...

Germaine Greer says Hillary Clinton will never be president because American women are locked in subconscious erotic relationships to Bill Clinton.

Greer thinks we're subconsciously competing with Hillary. She says we're too competitive to elect Hillary.

Is this crazy?...