Why Alycia Will Walk Away
ALYCIA LANE IS SCREWED no matter how this thing plays out. There's no putting this story back in the box. Either the KYW-TV anchor did or did not strike a New York cop. Either she did or did not call said cop a "fucking dyke" or a "dyke bitch" or both or neither. It doesn't matter. The truth won't save Alycia Lane, whatever the truth may be. She is the quintessential example of damaged goods in a business where nine out of ten female reporters are attractive and the ones who are most attractive seem to end up in front of the camera. Alycia Lane is a beautiful woman I couldn't pick out in a beautiful crowd of TV lookalikes. She is an empty bra in a world of empty suits.
Do you think anyone -- and I mean her bosses -- is going to "fight" for Alycia Lane? In a three-strike business she's just fouled off her fifth pitch. She's made several mistakes since coming to Philadelphia, the most important being that she told us too much before we asked or cared. She tearfully appeared on Dr. Phil in a show about divorce. She was the very image of a beautiful, successful, tormented user. The pain of Alycia Lane. How does she live with all that sadness and regret?
And what does she do? She gets married again, of course. Publicly to the man of her dreams who -- oops -- didn't work out. Strike two. Not that it matters if she's divorced twice. I just don't want to be aware of it, think about it, know more about her personal life than I know about the news. Last summer she got caught up in a creepy email scandal involving an outraged wife of an NFL network anchor, a former colleague, with whom she shared photos of herself in a bikini. Or as the New York press reported it in headlines, "BIKIN-E-MAILS RATTLE TV WIFE." Alycia apologized to the offended wife, swore innocent intentions, and wasn't in the New York papers again until Aug. 26 when she was featured under the New York Post headline, "BIKINI JOURNO HAS NEWSMAN IN HER LIFE." About a different guy. The newspaper actually staked out Alycia Lane's apartment in Philadephia to get pictures of who she's cheatin' with now.
The net gathered Chris Wragge, a local New York TV anchorman, who is married, the Post tells us, to "Swedish bombshell, Victoria Silvtedt." The Bikini Journo VS The Swedish Bombshell. Somebody get me a five gallon can of Hershey's syrup because this thing's gonna get dirty.
How many strikes are we up to? We were at two awhile ago.
And then comes Saturday night. Sunday morning. Wiff, wiff. Trouble finds people and people find trouble. The role of people is to see the trouble first. Finding a way to antagonize New York cops, let alone a strange vehicle, for moving too slowly at two in the morning is risking exactly what happened. And worse. And the worst is yet to come. "ANCHOR VIXEN BUSTED IN ASSAULT ON GAL COP" read the headline in the Post yesterday. (I stand in awe of any tabloid headline writer who can get the words "vixen" "busted" and "gal" into a seven-word headline). There were three by-lines on the Post story that was written like this:
"A foxy Philly anchorwoman -- who once e-mailed sexy swimsuit snaps to a married TV talking head -- became an anger woman yesterday calling a female NYPD cop a "dyke bitch" and slugging here in the face, law enforcement sources said."
You have to wonder at what point did the police sources kick in with that information; "foxy Philly" or "sexy swimsuit snaps?" We'll leave the "anger woman" to the psychiatrists.
