If you’re a woman in search of someone else’s emotional train wreck to make you feel better about your own life, film director Henry Jaglom has got a movie or two for you.

Maybe it’s his latest, Irene in Time, about a young singer with severe daddy abandonment issues. Or maybe you’d like his previous film, 2008’s Hollywood Dreams, about a would-be actress who oozes charisma but gets so nervous in every social situation she makes you nervous.

Tanna Frederick is the common thread between these films. She’s the star of both, a big presence on screen. It could be that huge mane of cascading red hair, but I think it’s actually the emotions that pour out from her.

The story of how she got to this point is pure Hollywood and I hope to entice her to tell it, but suffice to say that Jaglom already has plans for her to star in a sequel to Hollywood Dreams. And she’s currently appearing live in a Jaglom play, “Just 45 Minutes from Broadway,” at the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica, California.

The post-war baby boom is becoming something else, more than half a century later.

But is that something else a bust?

In his new book, Baby Boomer Bust?—and the title ends in a question mark—Roger Chiocchi (KEY-O-Key) says it may be a problem that the average baby boomer nearing retirement only has $68,000 in a 401k. And no, if you’re looking at the totality of retirement, and not just the first year, that is not much.

How has the recession impacted boomers? What are they spending money on right now, which messages resonate most with them, and what do they want from businesses today?

Apparently “deeper senior discounts at Denny’s” is not the correct answer.

I don’t know that the world was bouncing on its heels, waiting impatiently for someone to finally collect the last words of men and women subject to the death penalty in the United States, but now that we have it, Robert K. Elder’s Last Words of the Executed makes for a fascinating read.

But don’t take my word for it.

The late, great writer Studs Terkel, author of one of my favorite journalistic books, Working—I read and carried it with me everywhere during my senior year of college—wrote the first words for Last Words of the Executed shortly before passing away. Here’s what he said about it, in part:

“Elder is a journalist in the noblest tradition, getting at a certain truth. And the truth may come from the most ejected members of our society, the most reprehensible, and yet the humanity is still there… Perhaps there will come a time whena book such as this will no longer be needed but will be remembered as a history of a prehistoric time. It’s all moving stuff.”

Terkel went on to say that he found the book to be poetry of a sort.

As for Elder, he is a journalist and a teacher at Northwestern University. This is second trip to Mr Media Radio; he was here before talking about his websites, WhenItWasOver.com and ItWasLoveWhen.com.

The last time Christopher Gorham was on Mr. Media, he and a lot of other people were dealing with the sudden cancellation of ABC’s “Ugly Betty.” Gorham made an indelible impression on that show as Betty’s frustrating as all get out boyfriend, Henry, who was always just beyond her reach.

Gorham wasn’t yet sure if Henry would make a final appearance on Betty—he did—but what he really wanted to discuss was a new USA Network show he was shooting called “Covert Affairs.” This is a high-profile gig for Gorham, playing opposite Piper Perabo and Peter Gallagher; he plays Auggie Anderson, a CIA military intelligence agent who was blinded while on assignment. The show airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m.

And we’re going to talk about that today, but first I want to know the same thing that actress Alyssa Milano asked in her blog last week: what’s with the widely circulated picture of a shirtless Christopher Gorham getting his belt tugged by the hand of an otherwise out-of-sight female?

Christopher Gorham Twitter • Facebook

CHRISTOPHER GORHAM AUDIO EXCERPT: "I can't follow things on 'Covert Affairs' with my eyes; I have to follow sounds. I can't react to people's facial expressions There are some limitations in acting." 

Paula Garces is beautiful, smart and ambitious, which makes for a combustible mix is Hollywood.

PAULA GARCES AUDIO EXCERPT: "Eddie McClintock is fabulous. He is a really funny guy. A lot of what you see in his character are his ideas... When I was first approached about the role on Warehouse 13, there was a possibility it might extend beyond two episodes. After they saw our energy together, the producers extended us to six episodes. And they left it open for me to come back next season. It's lots of fun."