After spending over 17 years in prison for killing his temporary roommate over a drug debt, o.g. Club Kid Michael Alig is a free man. He left the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, NY, earlier today on a conditional release.

We're happy to report The View seems to have found its way back to the good-natured and ribald discussions that made it such a welcome oasis from our daily homemaking chores in the first place—as evidenced by some recent chiding by a visiting Caveguest, and a lively-but-never-personal debate over the true shape of the planet (Team Flat!). We therefore credit this safe-zone environment for rendering Barbara Walters comfortable enough to share the above anecdote, in which her darkest fears came true, and the septuagenarian TV icon suddenly found herself squeezing a $750 Frederic Fekkai hairdo through a 18-inch gap below a bathroom door.