Charlie Rose. (Photo via Twitter).

Is waking up to Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning and ending a hectic weekday by watching Mr. Rose's interview show just not enough Mr. Rose?

Good news: starting in July, PBS viewers will be able to kick off their weekends with the well-respected newsman. Charlie Rose Weekend , a new 30 minute series hosted by Mr. Rose, will air on Fridays at 8:30, the non-profit public broadcasting service (funded by "viewers like you") announced this morning. 

“PBS is my first broadcast home and I’m excited to embark on a new project that, while distinctly different in nature from Charlie Rose, will build on its history and harness the possibilities of the future by a full use of technology and social media,” Mr. Rose said in a statement. "We will offer a fresh look at the people shaping our lives and the questions that demand answers and context.  By bringing together top newsmakers each week and engaging the audience in innovative ways, we will invite viewers to start their weekends on Friday with PBS."

The show, which will draw on Mr. Rose's nightly news show, will focus on "the events and conversations shaping the week and the week ahead"  in politics, science, business, culture, media and sport.

“Bringing Charlie Rose to Friday nights on PBS provides a natural bridge between our Friday evening news and public affairs programming and our arts and culture programming,” said Beth Hoppe, PBS Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming. “In his 20 years with PBS, Charlie has become known for his broad-based curiosity and ability to connect the dots—traits he will also bring to this new show. The show promises to be a fresh, dynamic addition to our Friday night lineup, and we are thrilled to bring Charlie to primetime on PBS.”

Kicking off the weekend by watching Charlie Rose should provide plenty of insightful opinion--perfect for sounding informed about current events at Saturday brunch or Sunday dinner.

Detective Ivan Marcano, Hilda Miolan and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

In the kind of grand-scale symbolism achievable only in this great city of ours, ordinary folks throughout Manhattan might have surmised from the Empire State Building being gussied up in blue, with red and white on the tippy-top (cop car, siren), that the swells who support the New York City Police Foundation were putting on their annual shindig last Thursday.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and others posed for glam shots on the red carpet at the Waldorf-Astoria, and on the minds of all those who’d gathered for pre-dinner cocktails—New York’s Finest in their finest, drinking gin and tonics, chardonnay and (yes!) Coors Light—was one pressing question: how would host Jon Stewart top his bravura performance of two months prior, when he had Commissioner Kelly on his show and opened the interview by taking a big gulp from a far-larger-than-16-ounce container, earning a mock stern warning from the commissioner? The soda-ban storm having passed, Mr. Stewart would have to come up with a new shtick—and after the tough-to-follow act of the NYPD’s Emerald Society Pipes & Drums, with its formidable bagpipes, the comedian more than delivered.

Taking the lectern for his introduction of this year’s Hemmerdinger Award winners—Detective Patrick Blanc, central robbery division; Criminalist IV Katen Desai, police lab; Nurse II Mary Gallo, medical division; Computer Systems Manager III Joshua Kaminstein, MISD; and Sergeant Louis Rapoli, commanding officer, school safety division—Mr. Stewart repeatedly asserted that he wasn’t hosting the event for any personal gain, all the while rifling through his vest pocket for his “notes” which, it soon became apparent from their telltale orange, were actually New York City parking tickets. The room exploded in guffaws.

Mr. Stewart went on to jokingly characterize a Hemmerdinger as a physical affliction, clutching his lower back and groaning, “I have a Hemmerdinger. It must’ve been the ice.” (The Transom happened to be seated at the table of businessman and former MTA chairman H. Dale Hemmerdinger, an impeccably gracious man who revealed to us that some 29 years ago, when he was formalizing his award, he received a visit from a young police captain—Ray Kelly himself.) Mr. Stewart also acknowledged the services of the NYPD in preparing his show for a visit from Pervez Musharaf. If there were to be a shooting incident, the police told Mr. Stewart, Mr. Musharaf would be forced to the floor. Asking them what he should do himself, Mr. Stewart joked that he was told, “Duck.”

For his hosting efforts, Commissioner Kelly graced Mr. Stewart with an NYPD bomber jacket, a good look.

After dinner, Charlie Rose and Commissioner Kelly gave the 2013 Honoree Award to real estate developer and longtime police supporter Arnold Fisher.

But the evening’s most dramatic moment came with the presentation of the Cop of the Year Award to Detective Ivan Marcano. The former beat cop’s story was told: last October, while off duty and riding in a car with his girlfriend in the Bronx, Mr. Marcano spied two men robbing a third and interceded, flashing his badge, only to be shot in the chest by one of the assailants. Back in his car, his girlfriend steering him to the nearest hospital, he happened to spot the bad guys in another car, at which point he hopped out of his and they out of theirs, and he was once again in hot pursuit.

Cut to video from a surveillance camera, and all assembled watched as then-Officer Marcano, cradling his injury in one hand as though it were no more than a valise and clutching his gun in the other, having felled one of the assailants, hopped into an ambulance that—no joke—just happened to be parked there. The coda, his promotion to detective, seemed, to the Transom at least, hardly sufficient. Knight the man, for goodness’ sake!

It was truly the stuff of instant legend, the kind of New York cop story that puts the most arresting police procedural to shame.

But the audience hardly had time to digest this tale of derring-do, never mind their tournedos of beef with wild mushroom semolina, because then from stage left emerged an exceptionally well-preserved Chaka Kahn. (“She’s 60,” Mr. Rose, who introduced her, boasted to the crowd.) Bedecked in a glittery, skintight, low-bodiced black body suit, high boots, a sequined red fire-breathing-dragon-emblazoned cape and a voluminous hairdo (how long do you think that took, murmured one of the Transom’s tablemates sotto voce), Ms. Kahn then proceeded to gamely belt out her own and others’ songs, pausing only to compliment the Waldorf’s chef on, in particular, the broccoli.

The Transom had noted earlier that when Detective Marcano received his award, there appeared near the base of the stage a raven-haired young woman with enviable poise and a digital camera. When she ascended the stage for a photo with the awardee, it became evident that this was none other than Hilda Miolan, girlfriend and, on that fateful night, driver to Detective Marcano. Raising our voice over Chaka Kahn, the Transom asked her: what was that night like for you?

“Very scary,” she said. “My adrenaline was going like crazy. But the outcome was great. He got everything he wanted.”

Alec's no good, very bad week (CBS)

You've already heard about Alec Baldwin's really crummy couple of days, which were kicked off on Tuesday when he allegedly snatched a camera (and possibly punched) New York Daily News photographer Marcus Santos. Really? You haven't? That's weird, because the Daily News is all over this, putting the picture of an enraged Jack Donaghy on the cover of yesterday's paper and keeping this story fresh in the headlines.

Now, this would have just been another Words with Friends mini-drama--something to be joshed about in good nature at some later date--which in PR terms is called "getting in front" of a negative media story. Unfortunately, Mr. Baldwin decided to get on top of his problem: running over several reporters on his bike, dropping his pants on Letterman, hitting Bill Clinton while riding on the sidewalk, and airing his political conspiracy theories on Charlie Rose. Looks like someone is trying to get Bret Easton Ellis to notice them!

Whether or not Mr. Baldwin actually punched Mr. Santos or merely made a grab for the camera will be decided in court. That's almost besides the point. We all know Alec Baldwin has anger issues. Alec Baldwin knows Alec Baldwin has anger issues. That's why it's a bad move, PR-wise, to give paparazzi any more reason to be litigious.

Now, on top of the punching, Mr. Baldwin will have to deal with the Inside Edition lady whose foot he ran over on his bicycle, as well as the two other reporters he shoved with his handlebars while trying to make a New York-style getaway from the crowd of journos outside his apartment early yesterday. (In L.A. it would have been an SUV, and then he'd really be in trouble.) Hours later, the actor literally ran into Bill Clinton on his bike, but the former president was totally okay with it because Alec Baldwin is going to host a big Obama fundraiser soon. (He better!) Someone needs to take away Mr. Baldwin's bike permit for riding on the sidewalk while intoxicated with anger!

Also, no offense to Mr. Baldwin, but these are not ways to handle a public relations crisis:

-Tweeting about how you totally ran over people on purpose. (“I am told I ran over someone’s foot on my bike today. I think it was that person who placed their foot under the wheel of my bike.”)

-Comparing your privileged celebrity issues to that of Trayvon Martin's.

-Wearing a sheet over your head, like a normal person.

-Taking off your pants on Letterman, also like a normal person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtkqzG1GPlo&feature=related
-Telling Charlie Rose all about your "political opposition" theory: the only reason this story is getting any traction is because you're a Democrat! (Who happened to run over a Democratic president, but oh well.)

Regardless, this is the week of Alec Baldwin just going balls-out. Hopefully next week he'll put in his bid for Mayor of New York. Shit, we'd still vote for him.

Facing the ladies' lunch party was Charlie Rose--not Sheen!--and HBO's Richard Pepler. They sat shoulder to shoulder at a wall banquet next to Sandy Weill and Vartan Gregorian, who were drinking Bloody Marys. At the end of their meal Mr. Pepler, who was looking reliably tan, made his way around the entire table of ladies saying hello to almost everyone and stopping to chat with Christina Cuomo and Tory Burch. Quite the Casanova! He said he was going to take the check for their whole table but then he reneged!

Charlie Rose, in a pinstriped suit with no tie, stood waiting near the stairs with his arms crossed talking to me, while his lunch partner shmoozed. Then Peggy Siegel rushed over to him and pressed a folded document into his hands. "You wanna hear the inside story of the Oscars? Here! It's not out yet!" Can you imagine? She was distributing advance copies of her Oscars scoop coming out in the April issue of Avenue magazine.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand lunched with a dark-haired man at what is usually the prince's corner banquet. She looked good in her black skirt suit and black-and-white-patterned shirt. They went over to say hello to Mort Zuckerman, who was at his table near the bar with an older gentleman. The two men stood up to greet the senator, and they must have said something funny because she was giggling like a schoolgirl!

On Thursday, we had a wonderful party for Larry Gagosian's opening of his show "Malevich and the American Legacy." It was quite the art crowd: Richard Serra and Ellsworth Kelly were both here sampling the all-white menu.

Pete Peterson was here last week eating a baked potato with caviar. He used to hate caviar, but now he has it all the time! Henry Kissinger came back this week--he wasn't around for a while, I think because he was upset about that Nixon opera. But he came for lunch on Monday with another gentleman and they were talking very intensely throughout the whole meal.

The prince has been coming every day. He sat at his table on Monday after Senator Gillibrand left. He told me he didn't want to be disturbed, so I took a big piece of paper and wrote in pink highlighter, "Do Not Disturb Einstein," and put it on his table! He ordered the Puntarella salad (a green root vegetable like chicory that we serve with anchovies), but he specified that he only liked the straight, asparagus-looking pieces--not the ones that branched out into two points.

"Oh, so you like little pricks!" I said.

It's an exercise in boundless enthusiasm.

in the house:jack welch, barry diller!

in the house: steven rattner,senator chuck schumer!

in the house: suzanne sommers!

The Twitter bio doesn't disappoint either: "Great Food! Great Drinks! Great Party!"

The types of people vary from the masters of the universe to the low-profile insiders, but the effect is always the same. What used to be a widely acknowledged seen-and-be-seen repartee enacted out within the confines of the midtown eatery has become a drama visible from all corners of the internet -- or, at least to the account's 989 followers.

And oftentimes there's a collision between these two eras. In the most recent installment of "Lunch with the FT," an infrequent series on the Financial Times' Life & Arts blog, writer Gillian Tett takes legendary PBS interview man Charlie Rose to the restaurant. No surprise at the choice of locale, but the subhead that appears on the site sets up a delicious irony: "Charlie Rose, the anti-Twitter?"

This sentiment is derived from a portion of the chat, during which Rose picked disinterestedly at a Cobb salad.

Moreover, at a time of frenzied bursts of short electronic news, Rose delights in offering an extended, all-too-human conversation.

So, I observe, you are the anti-Twitter!

At this, Rose laughed (he does, in fact, have a Twitter, though whether he is aware of this we don't know).

And then, as they are leaving lunch, "The Anti-Twitter" seemed to encounter Twitter's influence in a way that Tett couldn't have predicted.

But when I return to my desk, a colleague tells me that as we sat eating, Michael’s has proudly tweeted to the world: “In the house: Charlie Rose and Gillian Tett!” Those electronic sound bites have a way of intruding; even for a man who is trying to take the old-fashioned art of conversation to a new extreme.

We're waiting for a certain tweet that will bring everything full circle: "in the house: evan williams, biz stone!" Until then, we'll simply be entertained.

Click for Scandal Report: Champagne Mania Makes for A Boozy Golden Globes

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

There's a joke that I tell in the epilogue. It's about a guy who's caught in a flood. He gets on the roof of his house. And somebody comes by on a boat, and says "Come in. I will bring you to safety.
And the man says "No, the Lord will save me."
And then 20 minutes later, the water's coming up and a helicopter comes and says "We'll drop down a rope and we'll save you."
And the man says, "No, the Lord will save me." And then he drowns and he goes to heaven.
And he sees God. And God says, "I'm very surprised to see you here."

And the man says, "I thought you were going to save me."
And God says, "I sent you a boat and a helicopter. What did you want?"

Charlie Rose laughs very hard at this joke, perhaps because it's about a talking helicopter?

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

Though Mr. Rattner's been more open about his feelings for the man, now that Mr. Cuomo has finally sued him because of a connection to the New York State pension fund kickbacks scandal, it's now official that the two are nemeses. There are times in the interview — never mind that Mr. Rose's show is financially backed by the financier, and the men are friends — that Mr. Rattner practically twitches with disgust at the mere topic. (Watch his face just after the nine-minute mark.)

And though Peter Lattman did a wonderful job of recapping the highlights, there are so many glorious lines that it's almost inevitable some would be left out. Consider, for example, what is probably Mr. Rattner's finest moment: "You were friends, you and the Attorney General?" Mr. Rose asks, after Mr. Rattner uses the word "charade" to describe the investigation.

"No," Mr. Rattner answers.

"You would characterize as 'not-friends?" Mr. Rose presses.

Then Mr. Rattner really gets going. "I would characterize it as a distant relationship. I was never a part of the Andrew Cuomo fan club." Snap! "We knew each other from Democratic politics, he certainly tried to cultivate my support, going back to when he was at HUD, and had me into lunch in the Secretary's dining room, and so on and so forth. But I was frankly," he says, raising his eyebrows momentarily, "never president of his fan club, or even a charter member." Damn.

ABC News likes the quote, too, though its headline does not give Mr. Rattner's word choice its full due.

"Icon."

According to the press release for his Nov. 18 conversation with Charlie Rose — to be filmed for Rose's show before a live audience at the Brooklyn Museum — Jay-Z is all of these things. Sure, but obviously he is so much more, too.

The music and entertainment titan is sitting down with the PBS talk show host to discuss his new book, Decoded, which will be released two days prior to the event. The book, Jay-Z's first, will discuss the man's path to superlative glory after an adolescence of poverty and drug-dealing in Bed-Stuy's Marcy Projects — just a quick ride on the B-43 away from the talk's locale. 

An excerpt from Decoded is included in the press release.

When I first started working on this book, I told my editor that I wanted to do three important things. The first was to make the case that hip-hop lyrics — not just my lyrics, but those of every great MC — are poetry, if you look at them closely enough. The second was that I wanted the book to tell a little bit of the story of my generation, to show the context for the choices we made at a violent and chaotic crossroads in recent history. And the third piece was that I wanted the book to show how hip-hop created a way to take a very specific and powerful experience and turn it into a story that everyone in the world could feel and relate to.

Jay should to take a peek, then, at New York magazine's exploration of rap lyrics — absent of any music — as poetry: Sam Anderson considers Hova's flow one of his favorites.

nfreeman at observer.com |@nfreeman1234

For starters, he's not in favor of lavishing hundreds of millions of dollars on Elizabeth Warren and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Welch: Do I cut that silly consumer protection agency's budget when they gave that Harvard professor $450 million to run a consumer protection agency. Right out of the barrel! $450 million for a budget! Are you crazy?! You can't do that!

Rose: You're not in favor of consumer protection?

Welch: For $450 million as a budget?! ... Maybe for $50 million.

Welch is also opposed to government handouts, and he believes Obama has been bad at creating jobs. Here's the video:

Rose, who had a health scare himself fairly recently, asked Hitchens if he would do it all again, in terms of drinking and smoking, knowing that cancer was a distinct possibility for him. Hitchens said that he would, though he also added that he "wouldn't recommend it to others."

I think all the time I've felt that life is a wager, and that I was probably getting more out of leading a bohemian existence, as a writer, than I would have if I didn't. Writing is what's important to me and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me, sure.

Hitchens called the press he's received since announcing news of his cancer "as near as I'll get to reading my obituaries," though his recent outpouring of writing and interviews on the subject of his impending death have certainly provided fodder for the pre-mortems.