Surprisingly nice headline of the week:Fans love Doris Day's new album.

Publication: Globe
Date: 31 Oct. 2011

The dogs in the AMI kennel have been trying to kill off Doris Day for a couple years now, and when she decided to record a new album at 87 years old, they published a story that she was desperate for money.

Well, guess what? Doris still has fans and the fans are very happy with her new work.

Good for you, Miss Day.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week:Penny Marshall loses weight and beats cancer.

Publication: Globe

Date: 22 August 2011



Fresh trash on Thursdays! Last year, the Globe was beating up on Penny Marshall every way they could think of. She was fat, she was dying, you name it.



With a single headline, they say she is a lot less fat, losing 85 lbs., and has beat cancer, which I assume takes her off the Brave Last Days list.



Good for her and good for the Globe, which is not a phrase I type that often. It's nice to see them put a nice headline up, but it doesn't change the fact that there will be two Globe headlines battling it out for Meanest Story of the Week tomorrow morning.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week: Travolta's battle to save tragic "Taxi" star.

Publication: National Enquirer
Date: 30 May 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! Welcome to 2011 tabloid gossip hell, Jeff Conaway!

For those of you visiting the blog for the first time, know that AMI, the company that owns the National Enquirer and four other gossip rags, hates Scientology with every fiber of their being, hating John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Tom Cruise almost equally. So this week, it comes as a surprise that they put up a positive story about Travolta doing his best to help out his Grease co-star Jeff Conaway, whose problems with booze and pain killers have been well documented on all those miserable celebrity rehab shows.

I have no love for Scientology either, but anyone willing to reach out to help a pal from back in the day is doing the right thing in my book.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week: Pray for Annette Funicello!

Publication: National Examiner
Date: 4 April 2011

The low rent Examiner is experimenting with a new concept, the idea of being sympathetic to the people it plasters all over its cover stories. The Globe had her on the cover last week saying she narrowly escaped death in a fire. This week, the low rent Examiner covers the same story, but instead goes for a more believable pathos, saying the fire was a terrible financial hardship.

Both stories may be a little overblown. Getting rescued from a fire is not always a dramatic movie scene, and there is such a thing as homeowner's insurance. Still, when I count the positive and negative headlines in the quarterly review, I'd put the Globe story on the negative side and the low rent Examiner story on the positive side.

Nice work guys! Baby steps.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week:All about the girl who would be queen

Publication: National Examiner
Date: 4 April 2011

Fresh trash on Thursdays! There's been an editorial shift over at the low rent Examiner. While the Globe is convinced people standing in American supermarket checkout lines want to hear everything they can that's bad about the marriage of Wills'N'Kate, the low rent Examiner has decided to go with generally nice stories about the young royals. Here are the sub-headlines that would not look out of place on the cover of OK!, the nicest of the rags.

• Mom played matchmaker
• What you don't know about Kate
• secret "princess classes"

We are still about a week away from the next three month review, but when it comes to the horse race for what gossip rag is the meanest, the low rent Examiner is falling way behind the other Wicked Step Sisters, the Globe and Enquirer.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week:R.I.P. Jack LaLanne

Publication: National Examiner
Date: 14 February 2011

The low rent Examiner goes with the simple and dignified headline "R.I.P. Jack LaLanne" instead of telling us about dark secrets he took to the grave. They got to this story a week late, but given that they were nice about it, that has to be considered an improvement.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week:One of the dogs from the AMI kennel had something nice to say about Michael Douglas

Publication: Star
Date: 29 November 2010

Fresh trash... on Wednesday night? You betcha!

I usually don't start posting headlines until I've seen all of them. The entertaining but always lying Sun and low rent Examiner do not have an online presence, so I wait until Thursday mornings when all the supermarket rags can be found at the great local newsstand DeLauer's in Oakland on Broadway between 13th and 14th Streets. This week, I decided to give all y'all a little sneak peek, because this is hands down the Nicest Story of the Week.

The AMI magazines have been shoveling dirt on Michael Douglas' grave ever since he made the announcement of his throat cancer a few months back. They have left the low rent Examiner out of the constant dirge, instead using the Enquirer, Globe and the usually more independent Star. This week, the Star has the headline "Healing and Hope: Michael Douglas gains 10 Lbs."

The Douglas family has kept the news upbeat since they made the story public, and now even the vicious scavengers at AMI are admitting the guy could very well pull out of this, given the first-rate treatment he is getting.

As always, best wishes to Michael Douglas, his family and friends, from a fan.

*New/old picture of Michael from his Streets of San Francisco days put up as a shout-out to this blog's Numba One fan Karen Zipdrive. He was so pretty back then, even the Comfy Shoe wearing Ms. Zipdrive thought he was a super special dreamboat, just like his dad.

Surprisingly nice headline of the week:Kelly Preston has a baby shower

Publication: National Enquirer
Date: 30 August 2010

The Flagship, who just last month ran a headline reading KELLY PRESTON MISCARRIAGE DRAMA, now has a headline reading "Travolta's Wife Baby Shower". There was no nasty sub-headline, though it was slightly insulting to Kelly Preston to have to call her "Travolta's Wife".

A pregnant woman having a baby shower. Seems like a pretty nice and normal event, doesn't it? This headline would fit OK!, the nicest of the supermarket rags, much better than it fits the Enquirer, one of the Three Wicked Step Sister tabloids.