The format of Francine Brokaw’s breezy 182-page book Beyond the Red Carpet: The World of Entertainment Journalists, available next Tuesday, is exceedingly straightforward. Under various themed chapter headings, the veteran Family Magazine Group reporter and current member of the TCA asks a group of colleagues to recall Strange Interviews (Chapter 4), Twilight Zone Moments (Chapter 5) and Off the Record (Chapter 10) detours.

Her panel of junket-savvy experts includes everyone from David Sheehan (KCBS) and George Pennacchio (KABC) to Hahn Nguyen (tvguide.com) and Mike Reynolds (various). One journalist who stands out by virtue of being unafraid to name celebrity names is the New York Post’s Sean Daly. Here for example is the beginning of his entry for How Rude! (Chapter 9):

Harrison Ford is the rudest a-hole in show business. Followed possibly by Tommy Lee Jones. I have actually seen Ford call reporters out for asking what he thinks are “stupid questions”…

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Radio talk show host Carson Daly apologized Wednesday after he implied that gay people wouldn’t have been able to take down the JetBlue captain that disrupted a flight from New York to Las Vegas Tuesday.

TMZ has the audio and details of the joke:

It all went down on Daly’s L.A. radio show this morning … when he was talking about the flight and said, “Most of the people were on their way to some sort of security conference in Las Vegas … it was like a bunch of dudes and well trained dudes … thank god.”

He laughingly continued, “With my luck, it would be like … ‘this is the flight going to [the gay pride parade] in San Francisco … I mean, that would be my colleagues.”

Then, changing his voice to sound like a gay stereotype, Carson said, “Uh, we’re headed down to Vegas for the floral convention.”

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It’s been 17 years since Jay Leno took over Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. In all those 17 years Leno has personally groomed/mentored/launched exactly zero other comedians. But maybe now that he has an earlier show that will change, right?

Anyway, we like Andrew Wallenstein from The Hollywood Reporter’s commentary on All Things Considered about the move by NBC to have Leno at ten every night:

To understand what NBC is up to in late night, consider the comb-over. Some men paste the remaining hair on their heads over their bald spots. And NBC takes the few big hits it has and just stretches it over fallow sections of its schedule. Hey, it’s easier than what most networks do, which is try to launch brand new hit shows.

Wallenstein notes that with this add – there will be four funny white guys with talk shows every weeknight on NBC.

Hm. There’s an overdone premise.

Remember when we all laughed at the quip that Joe the Plumber had done more interviews than VP presidential candidate Sarah Palin? Remember back in October how funny we all thought that was?

Oh those were the days…there were just a couple of clips of Sarah Palin that the media played over and over again. Putin rearing his head. “I’ll have to get back to ya!” “All of them, again with a great appreciation for the media.” Blah blah blah.

So if there was any mystery as to why this unknown candidate wasn’t getting to do a too many interviews – now we know: words and facts are this woman’s frenemies.

But that won’t deter her now. Now she’s everywhere. Answering no questions but talking a lot. Like a female version of Ryan Seacrest only dumber and more power hungry.

The Greta Van Susteren interview. The first part of the Matt Lauer interviews and the upcoming Wolf Blitzer, Larry King, maybe Bill O’Reilly. We’ll guess Howard Stern, Matt Drudge and Carson Daly have to be on the list somewhere. The point is – her 15 minutes aren’t up. But she still doesn’t do follow up questions…

Is Adam Carolla succumbing to TabloidBaby’s mighty will?

Luckyscent sells a perfume named after a Korean tribute to Tarantino movie.

Actress and dancer Elizabeth Berkley hosts on Bravo’s new reality competition series, Step It Up & Dance (On the Grave of Your Career).

Marizpan Taco strikes again, this time with a British beauty.

Carson Daly fights off WGA ninjas.

(photo courtesy of the Advice Goddess.)

Want something to do while you’re walking in an oval with a red and black sign in your hands? Call 23/6′s Carson Daly Joke hotline. The site, which purports to cover “Some of the news, most of the time,” is collecting angry/funny/drunken messages from writers and others who are disgusted with Daly for becoming the first late-night TV host to return to the air.

More info here.

Carson Daly sneaks into NBC, but Nina Bargiel caught him, the scamp.

And the AMPTP offers a roll-back. Last 3 weeks? Never happened. Bryan Lourd stamps his tiny foot in frustration.

Conan O’Brien will pay the salaries of his non-writing staff members of his show for the immediate future. David Letterman’s doing the same through his production company Worldwide Pants. Staffers at NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, however, will be laid off as of today.

A location on Sunset, just east of Sunset Junction, attracted a picket line yesterday afternoon. Tell us about it, via the Tip Box.

No Clue: Friends are puzzled by the death of Quiet Riot frontman Kevin DuBrow. Maybe we’re going to hell for saying this, but the fact that a bunch of aging heavy metal heads are confused about something doesn’t strike us as news.

For Those Keeping Score: Democratic presidential contenders will not cross WGA picket lines. Carson Daly, however, will.

Ebook Love Re-Kindle-d? Reporter David Colker is largely unimpressed by the new Amazon electronic reader. Here’s his review, but for a quicker (and earlier) one, check out this one.

Director Peter Hyoguchi interviewed Michael Tabb, Wendy Mericle, Zack Stratis, Monica Henderson, Matthew Goodman and Damon Lindelof. Soulful flute music doesn’t do much for us.

The strike has a theme song: We Are the Writers. We like Look for the Union Label more.

Deadline Hollywood has a commenter calling for a picket line at Disneyland.

Maybe Carson Daly should just give up. Is anyone really demanding that he return?

Kevin Crust reviews Trade, which looks pretty forgettable. Tactfuly, he mentions that the film is based on Peter Landesman’s NYT magazine cover story, but leaves out all the Blogitopia argle-bargle about the accuracy of the story, the threatened legal actions, and all the rest of it.

Frankly, that aftermath should have been woven into the movie. While movies about journalists range from the sublime (His Girl Friday) to the gripping (All The President’s Men) to the godawful (I Love Trouble) the great blog movie has yet to be made.

FBLA thinks that the part of Slate’s Jack Shafer could be played by Carson Daly.