I was in a hair styling salon yesterday (9.29) and, for the first time in a fairly long while, actually sat in a chair and read recent issues of People, Us, the Star and In Touch cover-to-cover. We all know they’re essentially the same rag aimed at a not-terribly-bright female readership. (I worked as an in-house freelancer for People from ’96 to ’98, when it occupied a slightly higher editorial station than it does today, so I have a certain insight.) And we all know they’re essentially glamour porn. What’s changed is that they’ve gone from being hard R to XXX, and it’s nauseating. It makes you want to wash your hands. These rags distort, degrade and generally vulgarize the lives of celebrities (not to mention the human condition) as surely as gynecological X-rated films pass along some extremely rancid imressions about what goes down between men and women they get close and naked together.