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William Shatner Deep Fries Turkey, Catches Fire (VIDEO)

2009-12-01T11:52:54Z

"Messy" was how William Shatner described his Thanksgiving to Conan O'Brien Monday night. Charged with cooking the family bird, Shatner said, he decided to deep fry it and something went terribly wrong.

"I had forgotten one major rule," he said. "You use peanut oil and you have this fire going under the five-gallon thing of peanut oil and you take the turkey and immerse it in the oil. You're supposed to keep the neck down and the reason for that is that with the neck up, it forms a spout. And boiling oil could come squirting up and catch fire and act like a volcano."

Of course that's exactly what happened, but luckily Shatner's family was on hand to help save him.

"The oil squirted up, and I ran for my life, and I caught fire," he said. "The whole family knew something amusing was going to happen so they all stood around and threw things at me, some of which were fluids. And they put the fire out."

After all that, the turkey was "quite good."

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In The Year 3000: John McCain's Libido, Speidi's Celebrity Status, and More! (VIDEO)

2009-12-01T10:24:01Z

After waiting on LaBamba, who seemed legitimately surprised to be taking part in the classic segment, Conan and Andy took a deep look into the future. What did they see? An opportunity to go to mock John McCain, "Dancing With The Stars," and Speidi, who will finally get their comeuppance.

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In The Year 3000: Sammy Sosa's Face, Lou Dobbs's New Job, And More! (VIDEO)

2009-11-13T12:19:04Z

The revival of the beloved "Late Night" segment (plus 1,000 years) gets off to a hilarious start with a wardrobe malfunction of sorts and, of course, LaBamba's sweet-sounding voice. Conan and Andy rip on Levi Johnston, Jon Gosselin and other current media stars who, apparently, are going to be alive for a very long time.

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Conando O'Brien Saves Distressed Damsel In "Tonight Show" Telenovela (VIDEO)

2009-11-12T09:57:52Z

In a stunning display of bravery Conando O'Brien rescued a damsel in distress last night from an
evil man with dastardly plans. Little did the mustachioed menace know that Senor O'Brien always gets the last laugh, even if has to use a stunt man to do it. Unfortunately, Conan saved the girl, but didn't get her. She reserved her love for a special guest.

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Levi Johnston Demands NBC Retract "Tonight Show" Skit Mocking Fake Tweets

2009-11-05T13:05:44Z

Levi Johnston's supposed Twitter account has received much attention — most recently on the "Tonight Show," where William Shatner performed a dramatic reading of @LeviJohnston05's tweets. However, Johnston's lawyer says it's not him tweeting, and now he's demanding a retraction from NBC.

TMZ reports that Rex Butler, Johnston's attorney, is demanding a retraction given Conan O'Brien's quote introducing the Tweets, when he said, "All real ... we did not make these up."

Butler told TMZ that he is "in the process of dealing with Twitter first. I think they have an obligation once something like this happens to make some kind of corrective measure."

Watch Shatner's dramatic reading here.

William Shatner Reads "Levi Johnston"'s Tweets (VIDEO)

2009-11-05T08:18:06Z

UPDATE: Levi Johnston is demanding NBC retract this skit, claiming that Twitter page is NOT Levi's, but a fake meant to make Levi look like a racist idiot. Conan introduced the skit saying the tweets were real and they did not make them up.

---

Last July, William Shatner appeared on the "Tonight Show," turning Sarah Palin's oft-nutty tweets into poetry. Well, last night he returned to Conan's side (along with his beatnik band) to give the words of Levi "I'm Famous For Having Pre-Marital Sex" Johnston the same treatment.

PS -- We're pretty sure that our friends at Buzzfeed has something to do with inspiring this idea.

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Puppies Dressed As Frankensteins: A Mini Dose Of Joy (VIDEO)

2009-10-31T07:49:17Z

To follow up on the raging success of "puppies dressed as cats", Conan unveiled a new Halloween-themed mini-dose of joy last night: Puppies dressed as Frankensteins.

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Kathy Griffin: I'm Pregnant With Levi Johnston's Baby, Barbara Walters Is My Chris Brown (VIDEO)

2009-10-27T08:54:16Z

Kathy Griffin appeared on the "Tonight Show" last night and talked in detail about her "relationship" with Levi Johnston, her time on the "View" and her one and only date with Conan--who apparently didn't know it was a date. Suffice to say, she claimed she preggers with Levi's baby and that Barbara Walters beat her regularly.

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Conan, NBC Universal Donate $100K To Newark Organization

2009-10-17T16:16:43Z

In the second half of Conan O'Brien's interview with Newark mayor Cory Booker on The Tonight Show, the pair discussed Newark Now, an organization that works with recently released convicts to help them reintegrate into society and family life.

Though Conan had poked fun at Newark in previous weeks, he revealed at the interview's end that he and NBC Universal had each written checks to Newark Now for $50,000.

"It was one joke," joked O'Brien, "and, man, was it expensive."

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Triumph The Insult Comic Dog Takes On Absurd Animal Products (VIDEO)

2009-10-17T13:03:09Z

Triumph visited a doggie boutique for the "Tonight Show" recently, and played with all the insane products for pups. After diving into some doggie beer and spritzing himself with puppy perfume, Triumph called other dogs gay and pushed a blond woman who works in the store to the edge of tears.

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Facetious Feuding: Cory Booker & Conan O'Brien Quash The Beef On The 'Tonight Show' (VIDEO)

2009-10-17T08:30:17Z

(VICTOR EPSTEIN, AP) NEWARK, N.J. — Conan O'Brien and Newark Mayor Cory Booker turned their frivolous feud about the gritty city into comedy on NBC's "Tonight Show" on Friday.

The chatty 40-somethings worked off one another like a comic duo. But the jokes eventually gave way to a plug for Booker's efforts to fashion a national blueprint for urban transformation in Newark, long an icon for urban decay, and a $100,000 donation to his Newark Now charity from O'Brien and NBC.

Booker's appearance on O'Brien's show culminated a facetious feud that began Sept. 23 with O'Brien joking that Booker's new health care program consisted of a bus ticket out of Newark, which is just west of New York City and is often scarred by violence. The mayor responded with a humorous video on YouTube in which he banned O'Brien from Newark Liberty International Airport.

"Many jokes are made about Newark by comedians," O'Brien said on Friday's show. "You honed in on me like a cruise missile. Why me, Mayor Booker?"

"When there's a herd going after you, you have to sort of look at the weakest gazelle," Booker joked.

The 15-minute segment, taped in California, confirmed Booker's newfound status as a national figure in U.S. politics, said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television and popular culture.

"They were like Abbott and Costello," Thompson said. "Those two could go on the road."

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The symbiotic relationship comes at an ideal time for O'Brien, who took over as "Tonight" host in June, after Jay Leno's 17 years on the job. The show averages about 2.6 million viewers a night with O'Brien, compared with more than 4.5 million for Leno, and has been trying to attract younger viewers.

Booker already is a darling of that demographic thanks to a new media pedigree that includes 839,000 followers on the Twitter online social network. His first response to O'Brien on the YouTube video file sharing site has been viewed more than 183,000 times.

Those numbers dwarf Newark's 281,000 residents.

The 40-year-old Booker is one of the youngest elected leaders ever invited onto the iconic show, whose usual political fare consists of senators and former presidents. U.S. Sen. John McCain, who lost to Barack Obama in the November presidential election, was the last political guest in the studio.

Booker has become an entertainment media darling the past year with appearances on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" and "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. He's also featured prominently in the Sundance Channel's "Brick City" documentary series.

He's the first Newark mayor to appear on the "Tonight Show" and the first to garner positive national attention for the city, said Steve Adubato, a local political power broker who allied himself with Booker this year after a lengthy rivalry.

"The only time a Newark mayor made national headlines before Cory Booker was when they were indicted or went to jail," Adubato said.

Booker's three predecessors have been in trouble with the law. One of them, Sharpe James, is in prison for his role in the cut-rate sale of city land to a former mistress.

O'Brien admitted admiring Booker, who described himself Friday as a longtime fan of the "Tonight Show."

"Sometimes on the toughest days you make me laugh," Booker said.

There's no shortage of tough days in Newark, whose port, warehouse, trucks and airport keep nearby New York City humming.

Homicides are down 36 percent since 2005, when James was in office. However, Newark is still periodically convulsed by shocking violence, like the execution-style slayings of three college-bound students in the summer of 2007. Its unemployment rate was 14.7 in August.

O'Brien, 46, is the latest in a long line of celebrities to embrace Booker and what the former Rhodes Scholar is trying to accomplish in Newark. Their ranks include Jon Bon Jovi, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, basketball player Shaquille O'Neal and actors Brad Pitt and Ashton Kutcher.

"It was one joke," O'Brien quipped, "and, man, was it expensive."

Cory Booker Vs. Conan: The Pre-Game Ustream

2009-10-16T10:04:31Z

In late September, Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien quipped that a program to improve the health of Newark residents would involve a "bus ticket out of Newark." The joke, referring to Newark's historically high crime rate aroused the ire of mayor Cory Booker, who immediately put Conan on Newark airports No Fly List. "Try JFK, buddy," Booker said.

Not one to back down from a potential feud, Conan has invited Mayor Booker to join him on The Tonight Show tonight. Before appearing with Conan, however, Booker hosted a live broadcast on Ashton Kutcher's Ustream account alongside Jason Pollock to discuss how Newark's communities are growing and how public service is helping to strengthen the city.

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Cartoon Characters Who Have Posed Nude (VIDEO)

2009-10-14T09:20:13Z

In a surprisingly gross segment, Conan O'Brien showed us other cartoon character who have posed naked for magazines in honor of the news that Marge Simpson will grace the November cover of "Playboy." Unfortunately, the characters Conan chose are the last ones you'd ever want to see in the buff.

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Jason Alexander Talks 'Seinfeld' Reunion, Still Gets 'Shrinkage' (VIDEO)

2009-10-13T09:19:52Z

Jason Alexander visited Conan O'Brien Monday night and talked about the 'Seinfeld' reunion on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' Conan asked if people still identify him as George Costanza ten years out.

"It depends where we are in the world," Jason said. "There's a lot of 'shrinkage.' If I'm in the pool I get a lot of 'these pretzels are making me thirsty.' If I'm in the Middle East I get a lot of 'Jew! Jew!' Nothing to do with the show, but it's what they yell out."

The 'Seinfeld' reunion began on Sunday on 'Curb' and will run for five of the season's eight episodes.

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Cory Booker To Appear On The 'Tonight Show,' Settle "Feud" With Conan

2009-10-12T21:52:53Z

(VICTOR EPSTEIN, AP) NEWARK, N.J. — Goodbye YouTube, hello "Tonight Show."

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who has garnered national attention for his passionate defense of New Jersey's largest city, is taking his act to the "Tonight Show." Host Conan O'Brien has been engaged in a playful feud with Booker since Sept. 23 and scheduled the 40-year-old mayor as a guest on his show Friday.

The exchange began last month when O'Brien poked fun at Booker's new health care plan for gritty Newark – long an icon for urban decay – saying it consisted of a bus ticket out of town. Booker fought back with a humorous response on YouTube in which he "banned" the 46-year-old redhead from Newark Liberty International Airport.

The back-and-forth continued until Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the nation's top diplomat, playfully broke up the spat Oct. 8.

"I look forward to our summit," O'Brien said in a statement. "My apologies for bumping Brad Pitt."

Political experts have lauded Booker's use of new media such as YouTube, where his response to O'Brien has been viewed more than 176,000 times, and Twitter, where he has 826,000 followers.

The "Tonight Show" averages about 2.6 million viewers.

"This kind of exposure is extremely rare for someone that's not a senator, governor or presidential candidate," said Joe Trippi, a political consultant who managed Democrat Howard Dean's Internet-driven presidential campaign in 2004. "This shows how savvy Cory Booker is about new media and how it can be used to leverage mainstream and old media."

Booker succeeded in reducing shootings and homicides in his first term as Newark mayor, which began in July 2006. But the city's unemployment rate was 14.7 percent in August.

Booker said Newark has been the brunt of unfair jokes and criticism for too long.

"We're making progress in Newark on problems that impact cities everywhere," he said.

Steve Adubato, a political power broker in Newark who allied himself with Booker this year after a lengthy rivalry, said the young mayor gives residents hope and makes them feel like they matter in a community long overshadowed by nearby New York City. For the first time in 40 years, people are not ashamed to wear a Newark T-shirt, he said.

Booker's predecessor, Sharpe James, is in prison for his role in the cut-rate sale of city land to a former mistress. James' two predecessors also have been in trouble with the law.

"It's a big thing for us to have some pride like this," Adubato said.

Ajay Bhatt: Conan O'Brien Interviews "Rock Star" Co-Inventor Of USB On The Tonight Show

2009-10-11T11:03:05Z

Now this is kind of amazing. Remember those Intel "rock star" ads -- featuring the co-creator of USB, Ajay Bhatt? Of course you do. What you might not know is that the Ajay Bhatt in those commercials is actually an actor. Apparently, Conan O'Brien made this discovery and felt compelled to sit down with the actual Ajay and pick his brain about technology... and, er, other things. Just watch the video after the break -- you'll thank us later.

Hillary Clinton Intervenes In Conan O'Brien-Cory Booker Feud (VIDEO)

2009-10-09T09:38:13Z

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance last night on the "Tonight Show," intervening in the Conan O'Brien/Cory Booker feud that's been festering over the past week and a half.

It all started when Conan joked that Booker was setting up a program to improve the health of his city's residents by giving them "a bus ticket out of Newark." Then Booker responded in a YouTube video in which he bragged about his city, then brought down the hammer: "I'm also mayor of the city with one of the largest airports in the United States...I'm officially putting you on the Newark New jersey Airport No Fly List. Try JFK buddy." Conan then shot back saying, "We're located only five minutes from Burbank Airport, which (in case you didn't know) you are now banned from." And it just went on from there.

Last night in her official capacity of secretary of state, Hillary Clinton staged an intervention to make peace between the men saying, "The time has come to make peace. Let's just chalk it up to Conan's head injury and be done with this whole mess. Then you can end this silly feud and you can go back to what you both do best. For Mayor Booker that means leading Newark toward a new era of growth and prosperity. For Conan that means dancing around the stage and making lame jokes about my pantsuits." (Her part starts 1:15 into the video.)

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William Bradley: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton and That Crazy California Governorship

2009-10-08T16:49:44Z

Six years ago last night, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in a 17-point landslide. It was the dramatic California recall election, and I spoke with Schwarzenegger in his suite at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles before he went downstairs to deliver his victory speech in the ballroom below.

The sun was setting, in the rather nice view from the presidential suite, into the Pacific and what proved to be more than capacity crowd was gathering downstairs. Schwarzenegger, naturally excited even when he's not all that excited, told me he intended to do big things for California, and end the gridlock that ground state government to a halt less than a year after the re-election of Gray Davis.

Five years earlier, in 1998, I spoke with Gray Davis in his rather less cinematic election night suite at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. He had just won a 20-point landslide election as governor of California.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is egged while campaigning for governor in 2003.

Davis, a less excitable fellow than Arnold Schwarzenegger, was nevertheless quite pleased at gaining this goal of a lifetime. He told me that he intended to do big things for California, but wanted to avoid spending commitments that the state's revenue -- then flush from the dot-com boom -- couldn't sustain over time.

Despite all the drama, and landslide election victories for governors of two different political parties -- who are nonetheless friends now notwithstanding Schwarzenegger ousting Davis in the recall election six years ago -- including another 17-point landslide victory for Schwarzenegger in 2006, the state's budget is a mess, its political gridlock seemingly intractable.

Now California is heading into another gubernatorial election. And according to the brand new Field Poll, and everything else I know, the likely next governor is someone who's already won a landslide election as governor, albeit 30 years ago. That's Jerry Brown, who won his latest landslide in 2006 when he was elected California's attorney general, the state's top law enforcement officer. Brown is a former two-term governor, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Brown has huge leads over everyone, from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, his lone remaining Democratic challenger (who's seen a ballyhooed fundraiser with Bill Clinton come and go to little effect), to all three Republicans. Brown leads ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman, national co-chair of the McCain campaign, which was wiped out in California by President Barack Obama, 50-29 percent. He leads two other Republican hopefuls, super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and ex-Congressman Tom Campbell, by similar margins.

Jerry Brown receives a rave introduction from Gavin Newsom, who is now attempting to run against him, at his 2007 inaugural as California's attorney general.

Brown, a 71-year old perpetual livewire who I've known for decades, knows the promise of California. His legendary father, the late Governor Pat Brown, who I found to be a delightful person, is credited for building much of modern California, its infrastructure, schools and universities. Jerry Brown moved California into the post-modern era, bringing unprecedented diversity to government, as well as energy and environmental policies for California that Barack Obama now cites as a model for America.

Brown, first elected governor at 36, also knows the peril of California. The knee-jerk anti-government movement emerged during his time as governor and first time around as a presidential candidate, with Prop 13 passing and Ronald Reagan winning the presidency. (Though Reagan was actually more pragmatic than his idolators imagine, having pushed through a big tax increase as governor.)

As mayor of Oakland, Brown had to keep the unglamorous city's budget afloat admidst the chronic fiscal instability of California state government, first under Davis, Brown's former chief of staff, then under Schwarzenegger.

Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrates his second landslide election as governor of California in 2006.

Last fall, Schwarzenegger thought he might finally be on his way out of the dark woods of California's chronic budget crisis. In another stand-off with the Legislature, he'd gotten some incremental budget changes through and was muddling his way forward. While there were cuts, state spending did not actually go down. It simply didn't go up as fast as automatic escalators would otherwise have it. That doesn't mean there wasn't a deleterious effect on some state programs, as California is a growing state. Schwarzenegger told me he thought he might again be able to spend more time on infrastructure, having gotten through, in 2006, the biggest infrastructure program since Pat Brown.

Then Wall Street melted down, the economy went into a steep global recession, the world lost a third of its wealth, panicked consumers stopped spending, and California's revenues, already very challenged, dropped through the floor.

Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders from both parties took months early this year to hammer out a new compromise state budget, which included big cuts, borrowing, and, for the first time, big tax increases. Hamstrung by California's unique among any major state requirement for a two-thirds legislative vote on budgets and taxes, and with majority Democrats still well short of that mark, the Capitol scene struggled mightily to find a relative handful of Republican votes. Once that was done, with accompanying successful revolts against the conservative Republican leaders who made the compromise possible, much of the package still had to be ratified in a special election.

Public employee unions naturally hated the state spending limit Schwarzenegger included -- backed, ironically, by former Governor Gray Davis -- and campaigned against it, with TV advertising saying the spending limit wouldn't be tough enough! Anti-tax/anti-government groups hated an extension of the tax increases. Not surprisingly, voters weren't pleased with increases in their taxes during a recession. The package went down, and as a result the state budget, which is better now than it was, albeit with terrible cuts, will get worse again.

Former Governor Gray Davis discussed Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown, and the state of the state of California last year.

As Gray Davis told me a few months ago, "California may be at a tipping point." On the other hand, as Davis has said on many occasions, California is "about the business cycle." There is a history of boom and relative bust in the tarnished Golden State, with attendant changes in budgetary fortunes.

As Schwarzenegger told me, most California governors in the post-war era, no matter the party, have ended up having to raise taxes. One who didn't was Jerry Brown. One who tried was Gray Davis. But he couldn't get it through.

California acquired what's called its "structural budget deficit" when Davis was governor. Though he told me the night he was elected that he wanted to do big things but didn't want to go beyond the existing revenue structure in the exuberance of the dot-com boom, and said much the same thing during his first year as governor, Davis did approve programs that were in part based on dot-com revenues. Good programs, worthy programs that helped people. And Republicans got some tax cuts. One of the usually unmentioned causes of California's budget problems is a massive system of tax loopholes.

So, with dot-com revenue drying up, it was time to cut some programs and raise some taxes. The chair of the Assembly budget committee told me she was sure that Republicans would go along. I told her that I really doubted it. They, of course, did not. Which left Davis with the option of raising the state's car tax, or vehicle license fee, which Davis's administration had the power to do as a ministerial matter.

Davis told me he was reluctant to raise the car tax, because he expected a big populist backlash. After mulling it over for months, Davis pulled the trigger on the car tax. And got the backlash he had expected, much of it stirred up by a far right legislator named Tom McClintock, who vowed an initiative to repeal the car tax.

Instead he ran for governor in the swiftly burgeoning recall of Davis.

Davis is a very intelligent guy, highly accomplished, but not a natural public commentator. By the middle of 2003, he was skating on the edge of the abyss. The car tax gave him an extra push. But it wasn't just the budget crisis, it was an air of bad feeling from a hardball political operation that made his 2002 re-election over a not terribly impressive right-wing Republican a lot closer than expected. And, of course, it was the famous electric power crisis.

Davis's popularity, once so high that he was touted for the vice presidency, never really recovered from the power crisis, which I covered intensively for the LA Weekly. There's no question that it was caused primarily by power companies like Enron manipulating an idiotic set-up emanating from Davis's Republican predecesor, Pete Wilson, who championed a complex partial deregulation scheme that left California at the mercy of unscrupulous players.

When mysterious outages and market manipulations cropped up in 1999 and especially 2000, Davis looked to the Clinton Administration's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for help. He didn't get it. The Clinton Administration was then in its own deregulationist fervor, as we've seen with Wall Street, and that extended to electric power in California.

Getting no help from his fellow Democrats in Washington, Davis could have pushed for long-term power contracts to cut down on the daily gaming of the system. That would raise electric rates, making for some short-term unpopularity, but it would also stave off potentially ruinous price hikes down the line. Davis could also have seized a power plant or two, exercising eminent domain to dramatically inform market manipulators that there were bad consequences for their greed. That would have gotten yelps from the right, and rumblings on Wall Street, but such is life. It would also have been popular and scared the hell out of the perpetrators.

But Davis exercised caution, perhaps hoping that President Al Gore would be more helpful than Clinton. We know what happened there.

The closing ad for Schwarzenegger's 2003 campaign, by consultant Don Sipple.

So Davis's margin for error was at the vanishing point when Arnold Schwarzenegger parachuted into the race on The Tonight Show. Among other things, he seized on the car tax hike. His first official act as governor was to cut the car tax, which ironically had barely gone into effect.

Talking with Schwarzenegger after, I pointed out that that meant he had a big hole in his budget. He could tide over the situation in the short term by getting voter approval of massive deficit bonds that Davis had already enacted, but what he really had to do was cut spending, raise other taxes, or both.

In the campaign that led to his election six years ago last night, Schwarzenegger was armed by private polling showing that most California voters believed that one-third of state spending amounted to "waste, fraud, and abuse." Which, of course, is nonsense.

Schwarzenegger didn't believe that, either, but he did believe there was inefficiency, so throughout his campaign he promised an "audit" to find it. Once in office, the audit melded into something called the California Performance Review, which Meg Whitman claimed in February -- quite inaccurately -- would have eliminated the state's budget deficit. (More recently, Whitman claimed she has a plan to cut another $15 billion. But she won't say what it is until after she's elected.) Yet the performance review faded away amidst Schwarzenegger Administration infighting.

And what of other taxes, temporary or otherwise, which would have the virtue of not applying to everyone who drives in car-crazy California? Perhaps an oil severance tax (California is the only big oil-producing state without one), a temporary surcharge on the rich, an expansion of the sales tax to selected services, a surcharge on some forms of commercial property (which enjoy the same relief as homeowners under Prop 13), an end to some corporate tax breaks?

On the Friday before his landslide election as Attorney General of California, Jerry Brown shares some family memorabilia and blue-chip art in his Oakland loft.

Contrary to myth, Schwarzenegger hadn't actually said in his 2003 campaign that he wouldn't raise taxes. But he told me in 2004 that he'd decided to rely on economic expansion to grow more state revenues. Had he gone in another direction, he'd have had a big struggle on his hands with legislative Republicans, dominated by anti-government ideologies, elected from gerrymandered districts.

None of this is new for Jerry Brown. Though one wonders why he wants to be in the center ring of the clown show of politics in the great circus that is California.

He loves being California attorney general, a post his father held before him. Grounded in a marriage to his witty wife, Anne Gust Brown, he enjoys hiking in the Sierra.

Unless Dianne Feinstein suddenly decides two virtually impossible things: That she wants to run in a messy campaign, something she hates, and that she wants to abandon her successful years-long quest to be at the center of geopolitics as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Brown's path to the Democratic nomination, and a likely general election victory, is clearcut.

All the other Democrats who want to be governor -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, super-rich former state Controller and big-time Obama backer Steve Westly among them -- have concluded they can't beat Brown. And it turns out that they like Brown. Only Gavin Newsom is sticking it out, at least so far, though he's not doing at all well.

Things got heated in a 1992 presidential debate between Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown.

There was a burst of badly-informed excitement around Newsom's candidacy when Bill Clinton said he'd appear at a fundraiser for him, which occurred on Monday night in LA. Much of California's much-diminished political press corps went for the spin that Clinton was "a game-changer" for Newsom And since Clinton and Brown ran acrimoniously against each other for president in 1992, maybe there was even a big feud between the two.

The reality, which I reported last month, and which is now very apparent, is quite different. Bill Clinton is on a long loyalty tour, repaying politicians who were very helpful to Hillary Clinton's campaign last year with fundraising appearances. Newsom, who has styled himself a California version of Obama, was actually a national co-chair of Hillary's campaign. He campaigned extensively for her, and also attacked Obama.

And Newsom's backing was very useful to the Clintons. As the man who legalized same-sex marriage in San Francisco, though not for long, in 2004, Newsom is an icon in gay rights circles where Clinton himself was a problem. As president, Bill Clinton was responsible for the controversial "don't ask/don't tell" policy with regard to gays in the military and signed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. And Newsom, though he emerged last fall as the inadvertent TV star of the successful campaign to repeal same-sex marriage in California, had major backstop credibility for the Clintons in the human rights community.

In any event, Clinton is doing events like this with politicians all over the country. After appearing with Newsom in LA, where he issued a very tepid endorsement and appeared at a low-key fundraising event, the former president was in San Francisco for the next two days. But did no fundraiser for Newsom in his own city.

As for the big Clinton-Brown feud, it was pretty heated at times back in the day. But there are no quotes from this century and Brown and Clinton actually had an amiable meeting last year. The two have known each other for a long time; there was even some serious talk of Clinton, after he was defeated for re-election as governor of Arkansas in 1980, moving to California to become Brown's chief of staff. When I met Clinton in this period, he joked, accurately, that he was "the youngest ex-governor in American history."

Clinton, of course, decided to give it another go in Arkansas. After Brown's longtime advisor, Mickey Kantor, got Clinton a gig with the Democratic National Committee in order to keep a high-profile and move around the country, the future president got himself elected again in Arkansas.

The 1992 Democratic presidential campaign got nasty at times, sometimes even nastier than was publicly apparent. Clinton and Brown are two very smart, tough politicians. But after beating Clinton in a half-dozen primaries, but losing in pivotal New York, Brown knew Clinton had the upper hand. He stayed in the race but took his foot off the gas.

Clinton was well aware of this, as my old friend Warren Beatty and Clinton's main man in California, John Emerson, who was the best man at my wedding, served as emissaries between the two camps. Brown stayed in the race to guarantee he'd have the second highest number of delegates at the Democratic national convention in New York. But in more backed-off mode, running no TV advertising in the California primary to avoid a possible late embarrassment for Clinton, who ran all-out and finished first here.

I talked with Emerson about the California governorship the night of Clinton's LA fundraiser for Newsom. He was headed for an event, but not for Newsom. Now an investment banker and chairman of the LA Music Center, Emerson -- who was a national finance co-chair for Hillary and headed up Clinton's California delegation to the Democratic national convention last year in Denver, in addition to having run both of Bill Clinton's California campaigns -- is helping Brown.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

In The Year 3000: Conan Mocks McCain, NBC, And Jon Gosselin For Their Sad Futures (VIDEO)

2009-10-07T10:37:34Z

Conan and Andy looked into the future once again last night and saw that while Sarah Palin's upcoming memoir "Going Rogue" will be highly successful, John McCain's memoir "Going Commando" will not be. The pair went on to mock Paris Hilton, Jon Gosselin, and even their own network, joking that in the future NBC will be a pay TV channel--they will pay you to watch it. The highlight of the segment was a shot Andy took at David Letterman and Conan all at once.

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Booker-O'Brien 'Feud' Using New Media To Rewrite Political Rules

2009-10-05T14:22:11Z

NEWARK, N.J. — The old media story for politicians: Television show slams city, outraged mayor pens complaint, controversy fades away.

The new media story for politicians: Television show slams city, tech-savvy mayor stokes the fire by distributing humorous video response via YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and is invited to make a guest appearance.

Conan Caught At Cockfight With Knife-Wielding Baby (VIDEO)

2009-10-02T10:50:33Z

Conan keeps trying to cash in on his new West Coast fame by creating his own tabloid scandals. He used the opportunity to take any other shot at Newark, staging his illicit cockfight in the New Jersey city.

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"Late Show" Beats "Tonight Show" By Widest Margin In Years

2009-10-01T19:54:51Z

With President Obama as his power-hitting leadoff man, David Letterman posted his biggest score in recent years in the late-night ratings, dominating NBC's "Tonight Show" last week by the biggest margin in more than 15 years.