Cold Open: We find Dave sitting in the green room. Sitting next to him is Jude, our executive producer. She says, "New cologne?"
Dave: "Yeah, do you like it?"
Jude leans over and sniffs.
Jude: "No, I can still smell the gin."

Billboarding the show and our guests, Dave recaps what he knows about "The View" and refers to hosts as a lot of wacky babes whining. Paul counters with his view of "The View", referring to the ladies as "intelligent women expressing their views." Dave decides not to follow up on that. Dave is looking forward to the feud that is inevitable when Rosie O'Donnell joins the team and takes a seat across from Star Jones. He ventures a guess that it'll be a good donnybrook. Who would win in a fight? Dave is siding with Rosie.

And also on the show, Jeremy Piven and My Morning Jacket. Paul explains the correct way to say "My Morning Jacket" with a light whimsical "Morning." Paul says it over and over again hoping Dave will get it right. Dave counters with, "How do you say 'Pick up your check and get out'?" Hoo, boy, I liked that.

Dave saw something very odd on his way in to work this morning. It was right out there on the corner of 53rd and Broadway just outside the theater. We take a look at what Dave saw. It's a sign which reads, "Terrorism Prohibited: $50 Fine." Hey, every little bit helps. And it's the best we can do now that Homeland Security has cut its funding to New York City.

Have you seen Al Gore's documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth" about global warming? Although no one has seen it, everyone is talking about. We show a trailer of the film.
Announcer:

"From Paramount Classics comes a film that has shocked audiences all over the world. If you love your planet, if you love your children, you have to see this film. 'An Inconvenient Truth', featuring Al Gore. Presented in deluxe widescreen to fit Al Gore's sweaty fat face. 'An Inconvenient Truth' - Now playing at select theaters."

Just as Dave is about to go on to the next piece of business, a guy in a bright yellow Hazmat suit enters and approaches Dave's desk. With some tongs, the Hazmat guy picked up Dave's pencil and put it in a plastic hazmat bag. The guy then leaves without saying a word.
A confused Dave says, "At first I thought it was somebody Chiquita sent over."

Dave is receiving an up-to-the-minute special report. He's picking it up over his imaginary earpiece. He double checks for confirmation. It's official. CNN has LIVE footage of Patrick Kennedy at a golf outing. This is LIVE footage. We cut to CNN. We see a golf cart being driven out of control. It goes over a huge bump and flips over on its side. Dave calms us with this update: "I'm told he's OK."

President Bush urged immigrants to learn English in order to help them assimilate into our country. Governor Schwarzenegger is doing his part. We see a familiar and favorite clip of Arnold teaching a young lovely how to speak English. He places a carrot into the pretty mouth of the pretty lady. He says slowly, "biting. . . . biting." She repeats, "biting." He then slowly pushes the carrot into her mouth, then out, then in, then out. "Biting."
Yes, we've seen this clip a number of times, but I laugh each time I see it. I'm sure he thought it was a good idea at the time.

Uh oh, another interrupt. It's Late Show staffer Annette. Dave can't help but notice her standing just to his right. Dave asks if he can help her with anything.
Annette: "I don't know if you heard, but terrorist leader Al-Zarqawi died in Iraq."
Dave: "Yes, I heard. We were just talking about it earlier."
Annette: "Well, I'm collecting $20 from everybody on the staff. We're sending flowers."
Dave: "Uhhhh, you . . . you . . . you caught me at a bad time. I left my wallet upstairs in my office."
Annette: (beat) "Cheap bastard."

Well, like we just heard, we finally got the #1 terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. But why did it take so long? It's because Al-Zarqawi was a master of disguise. ABC News did a special report on it just this morning.
From today's "Good Morning America", the reporter reports:

"He was Iraq's most wanted man, with a $25 million bounty on his head. A onetime Jordanian street thug, Zarqawi was a master of disguise, able to stay one step ahead of the United States forces in Western clothes (shot of Al-Zarqawi in western clothes),
-in glasses (shot of Larry King)
-with a beard (shot of Kenny Rogers)
-or without a beard (shot of Carol Channing)"

And once again, Dave is getting a special report. We have LIVE footage of Congressman Patrick Kennedy driving home from his day of golf. We cut to the footage of a car careening down the street, skidding, and crashing into a tree. And that was some more stuff we had lying around the house.

Back from commercial, Dave says he was talking to his pal Bill Scheft who claims Rosie wouldn't finish the fight too soon against Star Jones because she would want to get her work in.

Costume designer Sue Hum enters and stands next to Dave. She is holding a platter of doughnuts. She says nothing. Dave notices her and says hello. He tried to continue with the show but can't help but notice Sue Hum. He asks if there is anything he can do for her. She simply says, "I have doughnuts." Dave smiles and goes back to the show. He soon looks back to Sue and says something about her behavior. Sue only replies, "I have doughnuts." Finally, Dave says he does not wish for any doughnuts. Sue looks at Dave and simply says, "A**hole." She exits.

Dave is confused. He wonders, "It seems like civility has broken down here."

TOP TEN: Signs That Your Relationship is Heading for a Break-Up. "The Break-Up" is the #1 film in the country, having earned $38 million its opening weekend. And to present tonight's Top Ten list, pretending to be LIVE from Australia, it's Vince Vaughn.
#6. You come home to find her handling the UPS guy's package.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: Meredith enters and gives Dave, the cheap bastard, $20 for the office collection. He quickly pockets it.
Friday is Meredith's final day on "The View." Dave is very curious how the new make-up of the program will shake out with Meredith gone and Rosie O'Donnell coming in. Dave says industry insiders say the show is bringing Rosie O'Donnell in to butt heads with Star Jones. Meredith says there is no truth to this and questions Dave as to where he heard this. Dave repeats, "Industry insiders." Meredith is leaving The View for NBC's "Today" show. Her first show will be September 13th. Has she heard a lot of "Oh, you're always going to be tired" and about how hard it will be to wake up at 3:00 AM every morning? She has but she'll manage. Dave offers his philosophy. He says that some people look at the world from the wrong end of the telescope. Instead of looking at the "Today" show as something she will do the first thing of the day, she should make it the final thing she does all day. Go home and go to bed right after the show. Makes sense to me.
Dave asks Meredith how the job at the Today show was offered to her. She says NBC honcho Jeff Zucker picked her up in a car and the drove around town pitching the deal. Dave does not know much about Jeff Zucker except that he is a tiny little man. "Is that true?" Dave looks for confirmation. Meredith laughs and doesn't agree that Jeff is a tiny man but she doesn't really say he isn't. "Besides, size doesn't matter" she counters. Of course, the words did not communicate the meaning she was hoping. Dave's eyes light up when he thinks he's learned something about Zucker he did not know before . . . and about Meredith, I guess. Dave admits that Zucker did make the right choice when he selected Meredith Vieira to replace Katie, referring to Meredith as the perfect replacement. She thanks Dave for his kind words. And then Dave suddenly changes direction and follows up on a previous topic: "Was he in a car seat?" I howled.
Friday is the Meredith roast on "The View." September 13th is her debut on the "Today" show. And she'll continue doing "Millionaire."

JEREMY PIVEN: He's on the HBO hit show, "Entourage." It's 3rd season premieres this Sunday at 10:00 PM. It's been over 10 years since Jeremy's been here on the show. I checked my records and I have him down for October 29, 1996. He was on "Ellen" and talked about malaria. Jeremy tells the back story of his last appearance. He would be booked for the show but then get bumped at the last second. This happened more than once so to make good, the show sent him out on a night on the town at our expense. Jeremy wasn't too pleased to be bumped from the show once again so he over ordered only the best. He ate too much, he drank too much, and he drank too much. He drank so much that the DJ at the club was even impressed. The next thing Jeremy knew, he woke up to a ringing telephone. It was after noon. He was being re-invited back to the Late Show for that night. Suffering from the worst hangover on record, Jeremy tried to get back to reality. The trip back was too far. He barely remembers the segment with Dave. He saw Dave's mouth going up and down but his brain could not register anything he was saying. Dave offered a bevy of questions for Jeremy to field, but Jeremy could not pick up a one. He was lost. He ended up telling a story about getting malaria. He then did pratfall. And he was done.
Jeremy is booked again to appear on the Late Show in 10 years. In 2016, he'll talk about his visit to the show in June of 2006.
Jeremy Piven - on "Entourage" this Sunday at 10:00 PM.

ACT 5: It's Alan Kalter munching on some peanuts.

MY MORNING JACKET, WITH THE BOSTON POPS ORCHESTRA. Conductor, Keith Lockhart. My Morning Jacket and the Boston Pops Orchestra performed "Gideon." Look for My Morning Jacket's CD, "Z", in stores now.

And that was our show for Thursday, June 8, 2006. Wahoo EXTRA!

The new carpet has been installed in the computer room/office at home. Now the new furniture has to be placed. Of course, when I say new furniture, I mean new furniture that has to be put together. There were 9 boxes in the garage waiting for me when I got home Thursday night. Denise needs to get on the computer ASAP so there was no waiting for the weekend. I needed to get started right away. I first put up the corner desk where the computer would go. I've long learned that before putting together a piece of furniture, you need to make yourself some space. You need to spread out and spread out the pieces. You need to organize everything that's been shoved into the box. I got my tools in one corner of the room; the screws and stuff in another corner, the boards and supports and sides and the rest of the desk spread out on the floor. I've also learned to expect problems. After everything is spread out, I get the directions and a big black sharpie pen. I go through the instruction booklet and put a big X through everything that's not in English. I hate having to search for the English when I'm in the middle of an important step. Eliminating the Spanish, French, and Japanese makes the whole process a lot easier.
So I put together the corner desk and . . . . . it went very smoothly! What a surprise! Any mistake made was my fault and could have been avoided if I slowed down and read the directions a little better. But the construction was a success. 1 piece was completed. Even though it was 11:30 PM, I decided to start on the next piece. This piece would house the computer CPU. It had a door and three drawers, which is often difficult to get perfect, but it was smaller than the corner desk. I opened the box and did as I did above to prepare for the CPU desk/cart. My heart sank when I saw that some of the rollers for the drawers were taped together with red tape. This immediately told me "I GOT A REWRAP!" I felt that someone else bought this desk, was unhappy with it, returned it, and the company then pieced together parts of other returned desks and repackaged the item. I now had someone else's headache. Was that the actual history of this desk? I don't know, but time would tell if I had a problem on my hands. My immediate reaction was I did.
Things went fine at the beginning but eventually problems arose. 16 screw holes were not big enough. Now, I have a drill and the right size bit for this project, but I imagine most do not. I guess those people would have to return the desk, which I suspect I now had. And I'm sure the company knew they screwed up but decided not to do anything about it. Could I have been the very first customer to notice this problem? Of course not, but the company decided to just go along and pass the problem on to the customer. I tried and tried to fit the screw but it was no use. Each failed attempt resulted in my getting angrier and angrier at the Quality Control of this company. I finally had to go to the basement and find my drill to enlarge the holes to fit the metal screws. I had to fix their problem which was now my problem. I always want to phone the company and demand payment when this happens, since I am doing their work. Anyway, this problem was soon solved and I ran into a few more minor problems along the way. At 1:30 AM, my mission was accomplished. Two pieces done; seven to go.

If I was in Congress, I would propose a bill that any item that needs assembling would have to come with directions worth 1% of the sales price. For instance, a $300 item should have directions worth $3. The directions should have big pictures, big writing, and easy to understand step-by-step instructions. I think it would be a bill that would appeal to both parties and to their constituents.

I saw this feature in today's local paper. The headline read, "How to Say Thanks to Teachers At End of School Year." And I said to myself, "We're giving them two months off! How much more 'thanks' do they want?"
Usually, school teachers get mad at me when I make jokes like that. But at this time of year, they just laugh and laugh and laugh.

Arizona Diamondback pitcher Jason Grimsley is about to reveal the names of other players who used steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned or a washed up major league baseball player whose career is just about over.
Looks like this guy Grimsley's a rat. Too bad the steroids didn't strengthen his backbone.
I remember Grimsley pitching in the World Series for the Yankee in 1999 or 2000. The young kid had a good outing on the biggest stage in baseball. I felt good for the little-known hurler on a team of all-stars.

When you cheat and get caught, you take the hit. Even if you know others are doing it, keep quiet and just take the hit.