This good news is, if Charlie hasn't played in your city yet, or gets replayed the next afternoon as it does here, set your tape or Tivo now. She's on right now here. I actually got to the show while it was still live.

The bad news, she might not say much. I just saw the opening, have to get back to (paid) work, but here's the deal. Lou Reed was scheduled, she went with him to the studio, Charlie asked her to join him and she agreed. That explains the dog. But so far (10 minutes?) after the intro it's been all Lou, mostly on Andy Warhol. That's OK, but no Laurie Anderson. Charlie is very anal about planning out the whole conversation, and having massive research on on the person's history, so he might not bring Laurie in a whole lot. Let's hope he takes a chance and wings it.

Speaking of Laurie, where has she been? Am I just missing out on her existence here in The Hinterland?

Nice! The FDA is forcing food labels to include the content of those horrible trans fats.

Finally! What takes them so long?

Will be nice to know which guilty pleasures are most damaging to me. And perhaps nicer still that the bastards will quit pumping that poison into so many foods. Now that they have to admit it, they're already starting to pull it. Frito Lay is yanking it from the Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos recipes.

(If you're not familar, the AP story says they're at least as dangerous as saturated fats, but that's an extremely conservative statement. Data has been pouring in for years that they're worse, much worse.)

Surprising conclusion to For Love or Money last night. (I watched glimpses during meal breaks, and while I did several sets of crunches to try to revive myself at 2:30.) First reality show I've watched to end on such a sad note (aside for the games where we just hate the winner).

That bozo. I do respect him for going with his heart, but what a pathetic sad sack to completely misread her complete lack of interest. That guy is so sad. Seems like he's been out on a date three times in his life. It has been so pathetic to watch him go through high school. I guess everyone looks pathetic going through high school, but most of us don't have it filmed, and even fewer wait till our 30s to do it.

It was so high school, and that's partly why I was so sure he'd go for the junior high girl. It was like watching the schoolboy profess his love to his stunned teacher. Hard to watch.

Unfortunately, there's a really cruel side to his cluelessness, unintentional as I'm sure it is. He has no idea how to let a woman down easily. Paige did not want to hear him ramble for a literal five minutes before he dumped her. Her face was painful to watch to, like she might reach up and slap him at any moment: "Just tell me!" She wasn't listening to a word he said, all she wanted to hear was yes or no. At least he didn't drone on after he had dumped her, like he did to one of the other women. But he did invoke the other woman's name as he told Paige she was the castoff. That was thoughtless.

First time going out with girls, though, you don't know these things. Why on earth did they cast somebody still looking forward to high school? Because they wanted somebody hot and moderately successful (though apparently he/they distorted that too), and the only will ones from that pool were the wallflowers? He was heading toward 40 and still wondering what a date would be like, so he jumped at the chance to have them set up for him?

Sad, sad guy. Sad, sad ending.

Hopefully they'll cast better on the next version. At least they won't have such a loser as the chooser, though Erin has never done all that much for me. Pleasant and pleasant looking, but that seems about the extent of her. Were the women in this cast all incredibly bland, or did he just toss out the interesting ones immediately?

They've got a great experiment on their hands, and the next twist for the next show is even better. If they can only cast it!

(My other complaint with these bachelor shows, is why the hell does the dating period have to be so short? The series doesn't have to be any longer, but why can't they give the people enough time to click for real? Because that would be long enough for the honeymoon to be over, and discover they drove each other crazy? Probably.

This one seemed particularly short, though, when it needed to be that much longer, to bond tightly enough to give up a million dollars (or half a million, the lying cheapskates). Maybe that's it: they thought it would play better if the chosen chick went for the money, so they didn't want to give her time to pull a Trista. This one seemed really rushed, though. They needed more time for each plot twist to play out a little more.)

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p.s. I feel bad knocking Paige after her humiliation--and I really did start to feel bad for her, and really appreciate her sincerity, even if she still made my eyes roll. But this line was just too funny not to post: 

"Decisions are very important!"

I kept feeling like she had walked onto the wrong set. Shouldn't she be winning a spelling bee or something?

. . . I bet Michael Savage would still be on MSNBC.

His were up slightly, which is not what they hired him to achieve. A little better than pathetic is still a ratings disaster. And combine the low ratings AND humiliation of having him, they were probably just waiting for a reason to dump him. Great ratings and humiliation, I bet they'd have put up with anything.

I'm not usually--they all suck! everyone's out for money!--whiners, but where cable "news" outlets are concerned, I don't have a lot of confidence.

And what a pig he was. The sad part is it took them five months to figure that out.

AP story here.

Just having a Sally Field moment here. I'm always terrified new editors will hate my stuff.

And this story. Don't know why I tortured myself with it, just wanted it to be perfect. And of course I couldn't stick to my word limit, so fresh terror he'd be pissed about that. It was supposed to be 1000-1200, with strict orders not to bog down in too many details. I sent 1,450, asking him to help me figure out where to cut. Sometimes editors hate that, but usually they seem OK, as long as it's good. I'd rather have them guide me a bit, because once I get emeshed in a story, it's a bit hard to get the 40,000-foot view.

But I went to bed picturing him yelling at me, asking why I thought they'd accept that. Other visions of him just not liking the approach. I was told to structure it around and argument, very differenly than my Salon stuff--where they've trained me to keep most of that to a minimum. I was surprised at how awkward it felt to be writing in a such a different style, and how unsure I was a my narrative. By 5:30 this morning, I thought I had a winner, but not sure I was qualified to judge.

So I just called to pester him--actually I had a new development I needed to let him know about, but it sure was good to get the feedback. He likes it! It's going to run. He did say I "bogged down in the weeds" a few times, but he's helping me fix that.

I so relieved. And exited. A new magazine! Haven't added one of those in a long time (except the one coming this September, but it's great to suddenly have two.)

So that's my news that only matters to my friends and family. The story should be out late tomorrow, hopefully, and then I can say who's running it, and all that crap.