The Awards Shows

I was Miss America in 1997. Anything that's happened on the pageant after that, is simply gravy. I didn't cry nearly as much when I won.

I won the Emmy for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1989, for my work on L.A. Law, as Victor Sifuentes. I cried a whole lot more than anybody else when I won that. I mean, seriously, I was a blubbering mess. Timothy Busfield and Burt Young had to haul my off by my coattails.

Also, the views on Television's Self-Congratulatory Ceremony:

It was nice to see Tony Shalhoub get some recognition for Monk. It's probably my favorite show that I never get to watch. And while you don't want to chastise a show for having too much characterization, I think that's what's keeping Monk from being a great show: too much attention upon Monk and his relationship with the other characters, not enough on the mystery portions of the show.

Conan O'Brien's segment on tonight's Emmy's was probably the funniest. When he growled at the dancing girl, not knowing if she'd be paid or not? That's good comedy.

And normally I like Wanda Sykes. But her segments in the audience were among the most irritating in recent television memory. Was it just me or did Bill Cosby and Larry David put her down in succession?

Most of the show, I read my book (Ferrol Sams' When All the World was Young), which I'm terribly close to finishing. Can't remember taking this long with a book in a while (a couple of weeks). Sams packs a lot of words into his phrase-spinning. Don't know why this one's taken me so long. I think I didn't want to miss anything. Sams spins a good phrase.