When the Good People of Television periodically run out of awards to give to one another, our preferred fallback pastime is getting on panels and talking about ourselves.

And so it was today, when your faithful Mayor was invited to attend the Hollywood Radio & Television Society's Newsmaker Luncheon, featuring CBS CEO Les Moonves in conversation with talk-show host Charlie Rose, who was multi-tasking (he taped the discussion for airing at a future date, perhaps as early as tomorrow night). The Mayor was honored to be a guest of the HRTS, but really, guys: Table 79?

Moonves, of course, is a favorite of those who cover the semiannual Television Press Tour: He's funny and he's caustic; alas, CBS has somewhat muzzled Moonves, giving his executive-session chores over to the assiduously bland Nina Tassler. Fox's Peter Liguori is now the straightest-shooter of network entertainment presidents, but he doesn't slag the competition enough.

Much of the conversation was given over to things Moonves has said before: "Katie Couric brings accessibility" to the new evening newscast (maybe, but she's already lost more than half her audience from last Tuesday), "Julie Chen is phenomenal" (I think he was referring to her work on "The Early Show"), "It's the story" that's important in creating television, "You still need that content" whether you're a broadcast network, cable channel or broadband internet outlet and so on.

Moonves admitted that during CBS's trudge through the dark days of Memogate, "Things couldn't possibly have been worse for (CBS News employees) at that time," but that was by way of contrasting the Couric-fueled mood today: "Now, we are competitive. That's all you can ask for. Morale is high." Couric was brought in, he said, because the average evening newscast viewer is 60 -- "That means, in a few years, they could be dead," he pointed out diplomatically; Couric hopes to draw younger viewers, "and by younger, I mean 47."

This year's TV development was across-the-board better, Moonves crowed; "Best development year in decades." Why? Rose asked. "If I knew the answer to that, I'd be very rich," Les replied. The requisite, perfectly timed beat. "I am very rich."

Charlie told Les, "You seem to be a bit cocky." Um, Charlie: It's Les Moonves.

At one point, Rose got Moonves to stop talking so he could finish a question, something I had not seen a journalist manage before. Nor had the audience, which laughed at the anomaly. Later, though, Charlie got a little too fawning: "You get up in the morning and you're excited about the day." Not a question really, just an intimation that Rose knows a little more about Moonves' mornings than anyone previously suspected.

It was moments like that, not to mention the copious questions about Wall Street and Rose's incessant name-checking of MySpace and YouTube and Google, that I had trouble focusing; the four or six glasses of wine may not have helped. (But before you scoff and say, "Ah, the Mayor cannot hold his alcohol," let me point out that at the Mayor's mansion, there is no bottle of wine with a vintage younger than 1998, while the grog set out at the table -- odd that the wait staff didn't provide anyone else at my table with a bottle -- was a 2004. Practically Thunderbird. My cultivated palate wasn't prepared for such uncouth grapes.)

Woozy, I looked down at my pen, and noticed that it sported NBC's peacock logo. In my hazy state, I began to fear that I had been transformed into some sort of "Manchurian Candidate" hitman without my knowledge or cooperation, and, quite likely, the man responsible was Jeff Zucker, who no doubt wanted Moonves dead. Desperately shaking the cobwebs from my brain, I realized that Moonves hadn't taunted Zucker in quite some time, and that not even an NBC executive would leave behind such damning evidence, so I concluded that the real puppet master manipulating my actions was former Viacom executive Tom Freston, who had been engaged in a power struggle with Moonves until his ouster last week, and was diabolically framing Zucker.

I then realized I had no weapon with which to perform the task for which I had been dispatched. I considered my butter knife, but it had salad dressing upon it and Les was wearing too nice a tie to get dirty. I decided to improvise, and lunged toward the stage, hoping the NBC pen was perhaps a gun in disguise.

"Que?" blurted my bodyguard, one I had hired away from a Panamanian strongman or two ago. "Que pasa? Put that pen down! Are you loco?" (I had trained my bodyguard to speak like all Latino characters on TV -- using Spanish only where even the dimmest viewers could figure out what they're saying, and English at all other times.)

I was wrestled down at table 77 before I reached the stage. After several indignant, well-pitched cries of "Don't you know who I am?", order was restored, and I was released on my own cognizance.

"Path to 9/11"-style disclaimer after the jump.