TVSquad

MTV News' Gideon Yago is bidding the network adieu to pursue "creative ventures" on the Left Coast. Yago has been one of the slightly more tolerable voices of MTV News for the past seven years, but a screenplay sale to Focus Features has him packing his bags.

Idolator published his farewell note to his co-workers, which included this classy send-off, "I have learned a great many things during my tenure here...There is one lesson, however, that I consider far more valuable than all the others combined: our audience deserves integrity and respect. Growing up in America is a difficult, sometimes traumatic, often alienating, very strange proposition. In between trying to figure out who they are and what matters in life, there is a chorus of parents, teachers, people and pitchmen telling them what to think and what to do...please keep fighting for them and thinking of them in the fine work that you all do."

Cops hate cop shows. Doctors hate doctor shows. Comedy writers hate Studio 60, and the media is loving to hate I'm from Rolling Stone. Everyone from Idolator to Salon is lining up to spank Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and his ridiculous charges, but that's just because they're jealous. When they started out as interns back in the day, they didn't get to rock the red carpet events and see their bylines the next day. They chose the path of hard work to achieve their journalistic dreams when they should have chosen the far more lucrative and entertaining path of reality television.

You don't have to repeat those bitter journalists' mistakes. You can choose a path somewhere in between. I'm from Rolling Stone has started an online writing contest.

The producers of VH1's Surreal Life and My Fair Brady have another card up their sleeves. They're currently casting twenty bachelorettes to live in a Hollywood Hills mansion and compete for the love of "one of the 90s hottest rockers." They're keeping the name of the rocker under wraps, but claim that he's a "famous, sexy, bad boy rocker" and "lead singer of a famous 90s rock band."

This Flavor of Love-type premise requires some real loons to make it work. Idolator has made a few guesses at who said bad boy might be. They've floated Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, Steve Harwell of Smashmouth and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. I'd find it way more humorous if someone like Eddie Veder or Billy Corgan had decided that they were going to try and undermine the genre by colluding with it, but Idolator's list makes sense. I'd say the smart money's on Durst or Duritz. Anyone interested in auditioning?