I'm starting this blog at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday. I should be in bed, since I have to catch a 4 a.m. shuttle to the Emmy Awards nominations (and, I hope, more blog fodder). It's not that far, it's just that they start very early so they can get attention on the East Coast morning-show telecasts.

But I'm not sleepy right now. In fact, I'm completely wired, because I saw Martin Scorsese's "No Direction Home," a documentary about Bob Dylan that airs on PBS in September. I loved it, and have written a column saying that for Friday's Beacon Journal. But for now, I wanted to tell you about how I saw it.

Supposedly because of a fear of piracy, PBS did not send out review copies of the film. Nor did it show it on the hotel's closed-circuit system, where someone might try to record it. Instead, PBS invited critics to sit in a theater on the 20th Century Fox lot for 3 1/2 hours — the length of the film, which will air over two nights.

Except for those of us old enough to remember when big-room screenings were common, this was an adjustment from watching videos at your own speed, or watching in the relative comfort of a hotel room. Some critics early on grumbled about having to take notes in the dark, so upon arrival we were handed clipboards with little flashlights on the top.

Group viewing has its hazards. One reason that networks got away from them is that a couple of disenchanted viewers could wisecrack an entire room into laughing disdain. Besides that, it also means having to deal with other people's viewing habits, as when the critic sitting next to me decided to sing along with a clip in the movie. But, hey, when you've managed to watch a tape in the middle of a noisy newspaper department, a little singing along is easily bearable.

Still, I don't know how much the environment affected my feelings about "No Direction Home." This was a top-quality theater. The picture was amazing, and the sound even better. When Dylan in the '60s is ripping, while members of The Band back him up (and push him along), the big screen probably makes it seem even more impressive than it will be at home. At the same time, when you're watching at home, you won't have to sit through the whole thing at once. And your seat will probably be more comfortable than mine.

I'm nonetheless giving the movie an unqualified recommendation. While Dylan is as elusive as ever,  his elusiveness has a context of ambition and determination; there's an old still photo where he looks like the hero on the cover of an Ayn Rand novel. Even if you come away angry at him, or baffled by him, the songs he delivers will carry you through.

This is the kind of production that makes me happy to do what I do. I had gone to the screening in a bit of a funk. I haven't adjusted to the time change here, and my sleeping habits are a mess. I had a bad bout of homesickness today. But as Scorsese's presentation of Dylan rolled across the screen, I was taken out of myself to a place full of ideas and sparks and energy. I'll pay a price for that tomorrow, but I'm glad to have the feeling tonight.

Before I tell you why Red Buttons is so great, I have to talk about Mickey Rooney.

On Tuesday, there was a press conference for a PBS show called "Pioneers of Primetime." It airs in November, and seems ripe for pledge breaks, but that's another story.

To promote the show, PBS had a press conference that included Mickey Rooney, Rose Marie, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Red Buttons and longtime director William Asher. Combined age: About 500. Every one of them is over 80. Rose Marie and Asher arrived in wheelchairs, and a frail-looking Caesar carried a cane.

Now, Rooney was an enormously talented actor. But he also loves to talk about himself, even when he is not the subject being discussed. Years ago, I saw him turn a press conference into a pitch session for himself and for projects he would like to do. On Tuesday — with his wife loudly applauding almost every time he spoke — Rooney pontificated, reminisced and generally tried to steal the show from the other show-biz veterans.

At one point, when a reporter asked about Milton Berle and Fred Allen, Rooney said, "Can I answer that?"

"I would be amazed if you didn't," a weary Reiner interjected.

Which brings me to Red Buttons. At 86, Buttons was the oldest person onstage. He was also the funniest and the most entertaining. He not only imitated James Cagney, he stood up and imitated Cagney dancing like George M. Cohan. And, as a smart performer, he read the room — and quickly sensed the impatience with Rooney.

He began needling Rooney for laughs, with Reiner joining in. A lot of the lines have a you-had-to-be-there quality on the page, and they don't include Buttons' facial expressions. But it was astounding, as well as mean. When Rooney introduced his wife from the stage, Buttons said, "Introduce your mistress, too."

Some of Buttons's jokes were ancient. (Recalling wartime service with Rooney, Buttons said, "One day, he saved our entire outfit. He killed a cook.") But he did not really need  Rooney as a foil. He also had jokes about his days in burlesque ("I was the youngest comedian in the history of burlesque. … I billed myself as the only comedian with teeth.") and other topics.

Most importantly, he had a sense of what worked at that press conference, with that crowd. Didn't matter if the jokes wouldn't work on the printed page, or even in the retelling by someone without Buttons's timing. That wasn't where Buttons was playing. He was working the room. And he knew how to work it.

  Most of the time, I deal with publicists by telephone. They're in Los Angeles or New York in the main, and I'm in a place that they rarely know — and sometimes can't pronounce.

Yes, people can mispronounce Akron.

It's a very convenient relationship. They listen to my questions, and I listen to their pitches, and on those occasions when we don't want to listen to each other, a telephone call can be ended tidily.

Imagine I said that in my best Claude Rains voice.

   It does not work so well in person, as I found out today. I was chatting with a publicist I've known for years, just general press-tour chatter, when she stuck one in my ear.

  "You haven't been writing about 'P.O.V.,' have you?" she said.

  She had me. On those occasions when I have sat down to watch the documentary series on PBS, I have found good things. I have in the past written about some of those good things. But lately, I haven't paid much attention.

   I tried to get out of trouble. I pointed out that there were times when I had wanted to write about the show, and the episodes were not airing at a decent time in Northeast Ohio. I know there have been situations like that, but I didn't know if there had been any recently. She insisted that things were different. Maybe they were. I didn't know, and had no bluff.

  I was about to take another approach, to explain that my job has changed, that I don't review shows as much as I used to because I'm doing the mailbag and other things instead. I didn't get a chance to make this argument, because the publicist was joined by two other people from "P.O.V." They were very nice, too. This did not stop them from piling on the guilt, at least until they decided to go off to dinner.

   I was left with a large plate of crow.

  I don't know if it was tasty enough that I'll actually watch an upcoming "P.O.V." After all, I admitted in a Beacon Journal column not long ago that good shows go unreviewed every week. But it's a lot easier to let something slide when you're on the telephone.

So much has been said over the years about the pack mentality in the press, it's almost comforting to see TV critics turn on each other.

I said almost.

Still, there was turning to be found today, the first official day of the TV critics' summer press tour, when PBS held the stage.

During a session on "Rx for Survival," an upcoming documentary about global health issues, one California-based writer set up a question by saying, "If I'm talking to, say, an uneducated person in Indiana or someplace …"

Which, of course, carried the implication that you only find uneducated people in the Midwest. Couldn't be any in California. Look whom they elected governor.

At a press conference with Pat Mitchell, the president of PBS, a reporter had asked Mitchell a question when another reporter called out, "Question for Pat –"

"Can I have a follow-up?" the first reporter said.

"You had a question already," said the second.

Making that even funnier: Both reporters worked for the same newspaper.

The exciting afternoon turned into a quiet night. The only event was a PBS reception and I passed on it. I wrote the Gretchen Wayne story, then spent a lot of time rewriting and trimming. As is so often the case with an interview, especially an on-location one, I had an abundance of material — but was well aware that I did not have unlimited space for it.

After that, I fell asleep watching TV and woke up early today — although my body thinks it's much later than Hollywood thinks it is. The change in time zones always takes some adjusting.

When I came out here, by the way, I brought a couple of books for airplane reading: "Charmed and Dangerous," an amusing novel by my colleague and friend Candace Havens (which hits stores in September), and Thomas Berger's "Sneaky People." I'll keep reading them now that I am here — since the airplane flight also included napping and watching "Miss Congeniality 2" on one of those tiny Continental screens — but I knew that reading matter would be around once I arrived.

Sure enough, when PBS had its press tour schedule delivered, it was accompanied by a copy of Real Simple magazine, Michael Wood's book "In Search of Myths & Heroes," P.D. James's "The Murder Room" and a book about Einstein's most famous formula, by David Bodanis. Each is connected to a  PBS show.

Well, I am now officially in Hollywood — actually Beverly Hills — and it did not take long to feel that I wasn't in Ohio anymore. Like other TV critics here for the summer press tour, I am staying at the Beverly Hilton. Plush digs. There's a 42-inch HD plasma-screen TV in my room, and a 13-inch set hanging by the bathroom sink. No getting away from TV that way, although I don't recommend trying to shave while watching the Weather Channel — or any other channel. Not used to that big TV, either. I keep thinking it should be a mirror.

I've already seen some colleagues, and therefore have already had the  first "What did you like/What did you hate" conversation about network series with some colleagues.

After getting settled in, I went along Wilshire Boulevard to the offices of Batjac Productions, John Wayne's company, now run by his daughter-in-law Gretchen. I went there to talk about the release of the restored versions of "The High and the Mighty" and "Island in the Sky," two long-unseen Wayne movies; more about that in a later filing. Batjac is in a tony spot, a hop and skip from Rodeo Drive, an area where you see storefronts marked Tiffany and Versace. And Gretchen Wayne is a classy, gracious lady. (I credit that at least partly to her Ohio roots; her father hails from Doylestown.) But I was also a little awestruck to see the Wayne memorabilia — the hat from "Hondo," old photographs, foreign-language posters of his movies.

Then I went back to the hotel, where AOL hosted one of those events that feed people's appetite for celebrity without including any real nutrition. The occasions was the announcement of the nominees for AOL's Top 5! Viewer Awards. (You can vote at AOL.) But to give people a reason to turn out, AOL had Jennifer Love Hewitt on hand to read the nominees. Which she did, with a smile.

About a dozen still photographers, backed up by a few TV cameras, took Hewitt's picture, with the photographers trying for a better shot with shouts of "Jennifer, over here!" or (from those who knew Hewitt goes by Love), "Love, second row!" Hewitt did her bit there, went to a monitor to cast her own vote in the Top 5! survey, then moved over to a backdrop with AOL and Top 5! logos on it for more shouting and picture-taking. And, in about 10 minutes total, that was that. That's less time than it would take me to type the Viewer Awards nominees here.

  As you know from today's Beacon Journal (or from www.ohio.com ), I am about to embark on my annual trip to California for the summer TV critics' press tour. In addition to stories in the Beacon Journal, you'll be seeing notes and remarks here. I hope to have the first posted late Monday, after I have arrived out west.

  While you know all that, what you may not know is that, before just about every one of these trips, there is a moment when I don't want to go.

  This year, I actually went through a series of moments, but was hit hardest around 8 this morning as I was getting ready for a busy day. It would have been busy anyway, with church and errands and the like. This day was busier than usual because I had to finish packing, a process that — with a trip that lasts almost three weeks — can be formidable. I don't just move into a hotel, I nest there, trying to make it a resting place and a workplace, one where the walls don't close in too much.

  But it wasn't the packing that made me especially unhappy this morning. It was the leaving. For three weeks, I will be away from my bride (a word I don't use jokingly; we've been married less than a year and a half) and from my sons. I will be away from the day-to-day issues that need attention, making a contribution only by phone and e-mail. I will be away from the household projects that take up my off-work time, unable to complete the things I have started. In other words, I will be away from my home.

  As I often say in the paper, it does no good to complain about going to Hollywood and hanging out with television stars. There are far harder things to do in the world. So I'm not regretting what I'm going to do out there; that's part of my job, and there will be times when I will be reminded what a neat job I have.

   But I do regret that I must leave people and things back here. That's what makes it hard to go. As much as I love my work, I love my home and family more.

My friend and colleague David Zurawik has a good piece in today's Baltimore Sun about the differences between American coverage of the London bombings and coverage on the BBC, which was available here on BBC America. You can link to it through the Sun but the site does expect you to register.

It's one of those wish-I'd-done-that stories, but I would have had one problem doing it: I was in the office yesterday and I don't get BBC America there, since the cable is limited to non-digital service and BBC America is on a digital tier. To see it, I would have had to stay home, where I have digital.

That difference makes for a handy reminder that the TV audience faces a lot of potential gaps if viewers are not willing to pay for everything out there. You may read about "The Sopranos," say, but you're not going to see it if you're not paying for HBO. You may have some cable, but are you willing to pay for digital services? Indeed, are you willing (and able) to pay for cable at all?  And if you have a satellite dish service, you could have access to some channels that your local cable company does not carry.

The result is a more fragmented view of television itself, since the show you're watching simply may not be available to your neighbor or office-mate. In some cases, this can lead to sweeping generalizations about the nature of television based on just a limited sampling of what's available. In others, it restricts the dialogues you can have about TV, because you're not sharing a viewing experience with the people you talk to.

  Of course, digital cable isn't the only reason that conversations about TV have become more difficult. Consider, too, the impact of multi-set homes, the availability of home video, the rise of video on the Internet. Yet in all this, there's a big-money issue: To see all that TV has to offer, you have to have a fat wallet. And if you don't, you're being left out of the modern media world.

I was curious about the Live 8 broadcast over the holiday weekend, but not curious enough to sit long through all the talking to get to occasional music. That was a pretty common perception, and MTV has decided to make up for it. Here's the official announcement:

MTV: Music Television and VH1 announced today that this Saturday, July 9, the two networks will collectively air 10 consecutive hours of commercial-free musical performances from the recent Live 8 concerts that took place July 2. VH1 will kick off the first five hours of “Live 8: A Concert to Make Poverty History” from 10am-3pm ET/PT. Continuing the music play, MTV will pick up with an additional five hours, beginning at 3pm ET/PT through 8pm ET/PT.

“Live 8 was a wonderful, peaceful, global and epic event involving over 150 musical acts playing their hearts out for the noble cause of eradicating poverty worldwide,” said Van Toffler, MTVN Music Group President. “At MTV and VH1, we’re in a constant and candid dialogue with our audience. Since last Saturday, our viewers have resoundingly told us on-line they want to see full performances from their favorite artists. As a result of viewer demand and thanks to the Live 8 organizers and performers, MTV & VH1 will air 10 consecutive hours from one of the most important musical events of our time.”

Additionally, premiering Friday, July 8 at 9pm ET/PT, MTV will air a half-hour news special titled “Live 8: Next Steps,” which will include news packages about the concerts, the G8 Summit and more. The special will repeat on MTV following the 5-hour music block on Saturday, July 9, at 8pm ET/PT.

…

VH1 and MTV’s presentations will differ somewhat, with each network airing those performances that best fit the interests of their audiences. For example, both channels will air performances from U2, Pink Floyd, Orchestra Baobab, Coldplay and Sir Paul McCartney, with VH1 airing Rob Thomas, Sting, Dave Matthews Band, and Maroon 5 exclusively and MTV airing Linkin Park & Jay Z, The Killers, Kanye West and Green Day exclusively. A full rundown for each network will be available on their respective websites, mtv.com and vh1.com, on Friday.

l woke up this morning to the news from London, seeing it first online, then checking on the TV coverage.

Although the cable news channels were all over the story, I expected more from broadcast news. Wall-to-wall reporting throughout the morning, say. Or at least coverage that wasn't interrupted by commercials.

The news was about a major terrorist attack, after all, and the casualty count has kept rising as the day has gone on. But since it wasn't a direct attack on the United States, it only intermittently interrupted regular programming. We still had Regis Philbin and "The Price Is Right" and "Texas Justice."

That shows that, as much as we talk about one world, we don't really mean it. In this case, the country involved was an English-speaking one. A longtime ally of the United States. A place whose history is entangled in our own. Also a place where Americans visit and work; I have a cousin who lives in London (and who, fortunately, is all right). But to the people who make television, this was still something happening too far away to get all that excited about — unless, maybe, someone could find a runaway bride in it.

Shortly before they announced the results on "Dancing With the Stars," the telecast here included one of those insurance commercials with John O'Hurley as a humorously pompous fool. That's his image, I thought, yet another variation on the "Seinfeld" guy. And it's hard to imagine people taking him all that seriously.

When it came down to it, the mysterious scoring system on "Dancing" determined that the champion was not, in fact, Hurley but the plucky, pretty Kelly Monaco.

From my watching of the show, Monaco was definitely a better dancer than O'Hurley, not only graceful but bringing a real passion to her dancing. And no, I'm not referring to her near-flash of the TV audience earlier in the competition.

Oh, I'd put O'Hurley ahead of most of the other competitors (who, in that "last shot of the losers" dance medley on tonight's show, reminded viewers why they weren't among the final two contenders). But Monaco could be taken seriously, while O'Hurley had to dance around the idea that he was a funny guy.

You may have noticed the story in today's Beacon Journal about staffers winning some journalism awards, myself among them. My wife didn't know about the awards. Neither did I. So it was a nice surprise. And nice surprises usually lead to my Happy Dance. (This is better left undescribed.) Not this time, though.   

"Aren't you excited?" asked my wife, who was indeed excited for me. "Well, yeah," I said.

Here's the thing. Although I have won some awards along the way, there have been plenty of competitions where I did not win. And, as a TV guy, I spend a certain amount of time checking on awards for television, or watching awards shows. As I said in a recent Beacon Journal column, TV can't go for long without handing a prize to someone. There is also one awards competition I vote in, the Television Critics Association awards. (You can find the most recent nominations and my picks here: TCA Awards .)

Since I have often disagreed with the winners of various awards, I have come to believe that all awards are flawed.  It's not unlike the way people view politics, or TV news, or reality show winners. If you agree with what's being said, then the speaker must be right — fair and balanced, even. If you don't agree, then obviously the process has been overtaken by bias and an utter lack of reason.    But the process is pretty much the same regardless of how a given conclusion is reached.

So, if  I think an awards system is flawed (because I haven't won), then I can't suddenly assume that it has gotten better because I did win. Maybe my clips were better. Maybe my work was actually better. Maybe it's the luck of the draw, but this time the draw went my way.                                  

Doesn't matter in the end. Hey, I won an award. Everyone on the floor for the Happy Dance!         

I'm still not describing it.

  I do a fair number of interviews by telephone and for that reason am not fond of cells. Yes, a cell phone comes in handy when I am on the road. I remember sitting in a parking lot in Cuyahoga Falls one hot day, talking by cell with Jonathan Prince of "American Dreams," because my schedule and his schedule meant that I had had to stop between a couple of places to catch him at the right time. So there I was, sweat rolling down my back, the cell jammed between shoulder and ear, scribbling on a pad and noticing once again how very fast Prince can talk.

But, as we all know, cells are not always the most reliable of devices. Not long ago, I was talking to Akron's own Angie Everhart about a role, and her cell phone kept cutting out as we talked, creating gaps in some of her answers. We soldiered through, but it wasn't fun.

  Same thing today, when I was talking to Dan Finnerty, leader of the Dan Band, which is Finnerty and two other guys doing songs more commonly associated with women. We were talking because the band is playing at the House of Blues on July 28 as part of the Scene Magazine Music Awards. And, because I had seen and written about a Bravo special with the group, I was designated to do the interview.

   That was fine. I liked the special, and Finnerty is a pretty funny guy. But since he was in Dallas to start the band's tour, I had a cell number to call. Our conversation was a little disjointed at first because Finnerty was standing in the hall of his hotel — a hall he said "looks like the one in 'The Shining' " — and he was having trouble getting his room key to work. Finally, he got into the room, and the conversation was going along, until Finnerty vanished in mid-sentence.

  After my repeatedly saying "Hello?" and the eventual sound of a dial tone, I called Finnerty back and we finished the interview. And I got him to complete that sentence he had started. But I'm still wondering if I missed something good; Finnerty said he kept talking for quite awhile before he realized I wasn't on the phone.

   For those of you who have not been to my original Beacon TV blog, which began in April, this is a continuation in a new location. I'm Rich Heldenfels, TV critic for the Akron Beacon Journal since 1994, and for other publications for many years before that. This blog is about all things TV, as well as about what goes into writing about television for a living, what that life is like when I'm not watching television and some of the things that have happened behind the scenes. Beginning next week, it will include notes from the annual TV critics' summer press tour. But I am sure I'll have things to post about before then, so take a look. And, if you want to respond to something I say, you can either post a comment here or e-mail me.