As both Will Leitch and New York Magazine have acknowledged Woody Paige’s Appetite For Alpo recently, I do have to wonder which is more pathetic, someone being paid to eat dog food on television , or anyone who openly admits to having watched “Cold Pizza” without a gun to their head? Said infotainment spectacle was shot here in Austin this morning, and needless to say, if I’m not willing to watch this monstrosity on television, I’m certainly not gonna get out of bed to see it in person.

I can, however, confirm that Leitch’s claims that “Quite Frankly” is absolutely desperate to fill the studio audience, are for once, entirely accurate. On a stroll in and around the MSG/Pennsylvania Station area yesterday morning, I was accosted no fewer than 3 times by young women offering tickets to the “Quite Frankly” tapings. On one such occasion, the gal pitching the tickets for Stephen A. was blocking my view of a group of Falun Gong protestors, some of whom were re-enacting the sort of torture their comrades had suffered at the hands of the Chinese government.

It does seem a shame that these two worthy causes — Falun Gong’s explicit street theatre and Stephen A. Smith’s struggles to become a chat show superstar — cannot be combined in some way.