On the rocks alert: Dolly's shocking secret!

 Publication: National Examiner

Date: 12 Dec. 2011

Fresh trash tomorrow!  Last trash of the week... right now!

The Examiner thinks its readers want to know bad things about Miss Dolly Parton.  Here are their headlines, the villians.

• She no longer lives with hubby (Carl Dean)
• He's in mansion, she's in cottage

Saying bad things about Miss Dolly Parton gets a visit from the disapproving rabbit.

Ellen wants to be Oprah.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 12 Dec. 2011

The low rent Examiner says they have all the details about how Ellen DeGeneres wants to be Oprah Winfrey.

I see three challenges in this understandable life's wish.

1. There's the whole skin tone/ethnicity thing.
2. You, Ellen, actually have a skill as a comedian, while Oprah's skill is more difficult to define.
3. You, Ellen, are gay, while Oprah is...

Okay, maybe I only see two challenges.

Meanest story nominee: Hollywood's nastiest Mother-Daughter feuds!

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 12 Dec. 2011

After going missing from Oakland newspaper racks last week, the low rent Examiner is back and ready to compete in the Meanest Story competition with a grab bag story about the moms and daughters who just don't get along.  With moms listed first, the three pairs named on the cover are: 

• Nancy Reagan and Patti Davis
• Martha and Alexis Stewart
• Susan Jordan and Meg Ryan

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Fussin' and Feudin' Alert: Tanya's olive branch to Glen rejected

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

 

Tanya Tucker and Glen Campbell used to date back when Reagan was president, but it did not end well. (Neither did the Reagan presidency, but that's a story for another day.)  In any case, the hatchet is not yet buried and the low rent Examiner wants us to know about it. Here are the headlines.

• Tanya begs ex-love Glen
• "Let's make up!"
• "No way" - he says

Secrets taken to the grave alert: Another story about Jackie O.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

The low rent Examiner goes for nothing but Hey Old Timer Gossip this week, including a story that claims Jackie O took some secret to her grave.

Honestly, won't everybody take at least one secret to the grave?

Meanest story nominee: The low rent Examiner has another Sad Last Days collection.

 Publication: National Examiner

Date: 28 Nov. 2011

For the fourth time this year, the low rent Examiner goes on a hypothetical killing spree and tells us who is going to die soon.  As usual, their list has a lot of TV stars from the 1960s and 1970s and only one true Hollywood legend.

Welcome to gossip hell, Robert Conrad!

Welcome to gossip hell, Andy Williams! He announced his cancer on stage a few weeks back.  That must have been a fun night out for his fans.

Miss Lauren Bacall has been mentioned before, but this is her first time being slated for death.

Don't worry too much, Miss Bacall.  They aren't that good at predicting these things.

This is also Rose Marie's first time on a tabloid death watch list.

And then there's Penny Marshall, by far the youngest person on the list but the only one who has already been marked for death by the gossip rags.  If fact, she has an expiration date in the spring of next year.

If it's any consolation, they aren't particularly good at guessing the date people will die.

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Stars without make-up for Nov. 2011

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 21 Nov. 2011

The low rent Examiner borrows a story idea from Star, one of its better funded AMI kennel mates, and devotes most of the cover to celebrity women not wearing make-up. Being the low rent Examiner, the list of course includes some older women, notably Barbara Walters and Katie Couric, but it also has several women less than 50 years of age, including Kate Hudson, Debra Messing and Edie Falco

Meanest story nominee: The Secret Life of Barack Obama.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 21 Nov. 2011

The low rent Examiner publishes details from Mondo Frazier's new book The Secret Life of Barack Obama. His blurb on Amazon.com says he works for Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism and for RadarOnline, which is owned by AMI, the publishers of five of the gossip rags.  It is telling that this story is not on the cover of the flagship Enquirer, but instead relegated to the low rent Examiner.  Here are the headlines.

• New blockbuster book by Mondo Frazier
• Shocking Russian "arrest"
• His strange CIA cover-up
• Sinister Pakistan ties 30 years ago!

Just in case you had some doubts about this story, the quotation marks around the word "arrest" should give you an idea of how serious the charges are.

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Kick a corpse, why don'tcha? Spencer Tracy's bizarre love life.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 21 Nov. 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! Welcome back to 21st Century gossip hell, Spencer Tracy.  He's only been dead these past 44 years, so the writers (or is it writer?) over at the low rent Examiner decided now would be the perfect opportunity to drag his name through the mud one more time, just like they did last year. The headline continues "Wife's revenge on Kate Hepburn".

It's a corpse kicking triathalon!

Madonna's brother is homeless.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

 

The low rent Examiner reports Madonna's brother is homeless and living under a bridge.

I don't know what is worse for Madge, this story that makes her look heartless or the fact that it's being reported in the gossip rag about people whose careers are either waning seriously or completely over.

On the rocks alert: Chelsea Clinton's marriage in trouble.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

 

Back in February, the Star and the Enquirer ganged up on Chelsea Clinton, saying her new husband was having a breakdown and the marriage was through.  Now many months later, the low rent Examiner gives us an update, probably less reliable than the original stories which have yet to pan out.  Here are the headlines.

• Chelsea's marriage on the rocks after only one year
• What went wrong!

JFK Jr.'s crash mystery solved

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

Did you know the crash of JFK Jr.'s plane was a mystery that needed solving?  Me neither!  Apparently, the writers (or possibly writer, singular) over at the low rent Examiner had a little time on his hands and made up this peppy little corker.

• It was a bomb!
• New evidence of cover-up
  

Kick SEVERAL corpses, why don'tcha? Paul Newman's secret affairs.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 14 Nov. 2011

Welcome to gossip hell, Paul Newman!  The low rent Examiner caters to its target demographic with some seriously old Hey Old Timer Gossip.  They say Newman, who was just about too gorgeous for words in his younger days, had secret affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood.  I count Hey Old Timer Gossip as trash about anyone famous before I graduated high school.  With this foursome, all their careers got started before I was born and I'm old.

Hey Old Timer gossip: Linda Evans loves getting older.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 7 Nov. 2011

The headline this week in the low rent Examiner reads 

"Linda Evans, 69: I love getting older!"

And of course we believe her.  Who wants to stay young and pretty forever?  So much better to look like the female version of Mickey Rourke.  If you don't grow older, you don't get the wonderful experience of your creepy husband John Derek, already sixteen years older than you are and on his second wife, dumping you and marrying a woman who could be your twin, except she's fifteen years younger still.

Yes, dear.  We definitely believe you.

Brave Last Days alert: Larry Hagman's last wish.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 7 Nov. 2011

The low rent Examiner tells us Larry Hagman is cancer stricken and that his last wish is to outlive his dying wife.

Bun in the Oven Alert™: A baby for Garth and Trisha.

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 7 Nov. 2011

The low rent Examiner says there is a baby in the future for Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.  It was not explicitly on the cover stated if she was pregnant or they planned to adopt.

Kick a corpse, why don'tcha and Meanest Story nominee: Buddhism killed Steve Jobs!

Publication: National Examiner

Date: 7 Nov. 2011

The low rent Examiner tells us there is a "Harvard report" that claims Buddhist beliefs killed Steve Jobs.  It's a sign of how well known Jobs was that the low rent Examiner thinks their demographic, which skews older, more Southern and more dense, will know who he is and judge him on his scary non-Christian beliefs.

This is a nominee for Meanest Story of the Week.

Fussin' and Feudin' Alert™ and On the Rocks Alert: Oprah incensed as Gayle steals Stedman!

Publication: National Examiner
Date: 31 Oct. 2011

The Oprah/Gayle/Stedman triangle has been an unstable situation for some time now according to the gossip rags, but how about a curveball to throw it completely out of whack? Yes, Stedman is seeing Gayle according to the low rent Examiner. They call this "breaking news", the latest fad in these slow moving publishing dinosaurs, and of course, Oprah is furious.

The latest Ashton and Demi drama. With a little extra Bruce Willis goodness thrown in.

Publications: National Examiner, National Enquirer, OK!, In Touch
Date: 31 Oct. 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! And a special welcome to gossip hell to Bruce Willis, his first mention on the cover of a supermarket rag this decade. Here are the headlines.

• National Examiner: Demi wants Bruce back
• National Enquirer: Tortured by Ashton's secret double life…
  Demi suicide shocker!
  Inside: details of her visit to this church for help
  humiliation pushes her to brink
  Bruce rushes to Demi's side
• OK!: Ashton's cheating: What Demi's kids think
• In Touch: Demi kicks Ashton out!

The big surprise in this one besides the suicide warning is the low rent Examiner getting in on this story. Their audience skews older than most, and it might be the addition of 80s TV star Willis that makes this story of any interest to them at all.

And the camera noses in to the tears on her face: Monica Lewinsky's sad and lonely life re-hashed.

Publication: National Examiner
Date: 24 Oct. 2011

Fresh trash tomorrow! Last trash of the week... right now!

I have no idea how large the writing staff at the low rent Examiner is, but I'm guessing it's much smaller than any of the other gossip rags except the completely fabricated Sun. My guess is because the magazine has no online presence and they re-cycle stories of their own or steal from their more well off stable-mates the Enquirer and Globe on a regular basis. This week, they re-cycled their own "re-open the Natalie Wood" case story and they ripped on the Enquirer's story from last month about how bad Monica Lewinsky's life is. They say she is lonely, miserable and living with her parents, which is a very little different from the Enquirer's headlines last month.