Well, the future is back. According to an investor presentation filed with the Securities and the Exchange Commission yesterday, Psychic Friends Network is gearing up for a second act; in fact, PFN 2.0 is already in soft launch, with—pending a capital raise—a full marketing campaign planned for early next year. What's more, the company is predicting an even rosier performance the second time around. Leveraging lower costs and greater reach made possible by the Internet, not to mention the current economic landscape (global turmoil=$$$), PFN's financial soothsayers are prognosticating profits that put its earlier incarnation to shame, including projected income of $64 million in 2015.

As Jonathan Weil, points out at Bloomberg View, the company is no better than any other (and you know, quite possibly worse) when it comes to guaranteeing its future performance: "Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements, because PFN can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct."

Nonetheless, we invite you to take a look. Even if it's not right for your portolfio, there might be an article ("Do it Yourself Tarot Card Readings," anyone?) or an expert (Daniel the Oracle?) to catch your fancy.

After all, in these tumultuous times, who doesn't need a friend?

Fan messages for Whitney Houston outside New Jersey church (Getty Images)

Tomorrow, the memorial for Whitney Houston will take place in Newark, NJ at the New Hope Baptist Church. Speculation for the funeral's guest-live began almost immediately after the news of Ms. Houston's death: Would ex-husband Bobby Brown be invited? (Yes he would.)

What about Clive Davis, the music exec and mentor to Ms. Houston, who continued to throw his pre-Grammy gala downstairs in the Beverley Hilton the same night the star passed away several floors above? (Also a yes, and he'll be speaking.) Kevin Costner, Stevie Wonder, Godmother Aretha Franklin, Aunt Dionne Warwick, Alicia Keys, BeBe and CeCe Winans, and Donnie McClurkin are also expected to perform in the ceremony. Marvin Winan will deliver the eulogy. The star-studded guest list includes Chaka Khan, Brandy, Ray J, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

With a lineup like that, the funeral for Whitney Houston is shaping up to be bigger than the Grammy's themselves. Unlike the Grammy's however, fans without a television set will be able to watch the proceedings from their computer, as the funeral will be live streamed, starting at 9 a.m. on NBC's website.

While the phrase "live stream funeral" makes us want to throw up just a little bit, at least this way the family of Ms. Houston don't have to worry that much about paparazzi or gawkers trying to elbow their way in: the send-off for the Grammy winner will be available for all to see, provided they have enough bandwidth.

Boehner and Obama.

It would almost seem that the stars had finally aligned. After weeks of stalled talks and contentious meetings between House Republicans and Democrats that escalated into a public spat between Speaker John Boehner and President Obama, a bill finally made it through the House and into the Senate, where it was speedily approved Tuesday morning thanks to backing from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid, just in time for the Cinderella-esque stroke-of-midnight deadline. The anthropomorphic bill from Schoolhouse Rock! had nothing on this drama.

So, the good news is that the country isn’t going to default on its debt obligations, which puts us at least one step ahead of Teresa Giudice from the Real Housewives of New Jersey. The bad news is that just as everyone was making nice and learning to compromise, Vice President Joe Biden made an offhand comment that Congress’s Tea Party Republicans “acted like terrorists” during negotiations, an ill-timed gaffe that not even the heartwarming sight of Gabrielle Giffords casting her first vote on the House floor after nearly getting assassinated in January could correct. Oh, Joe. To paraphrase The Princess Bride, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders—of which the most famous one is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,” and an only slightly less well-known one is: Never go in against the Tea Party when debt is on the line.

But at least the Dems aren’t buying Twitter followers, which is more than we can say for beleaguered 2012 hopeful Newt Gingrich. After bragging to the Marietta Daily Journal that, despite abysmal poll numbers, he has “six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined,” a former staffer submitted an anonymous tip to Gawker claiming that 80% of Mr. Gingrich’s 1.3 million followers are either inactive or dummy accounts (this figure was later amended by networking firm PeekYou to a whopping 92%). File this under #YouKnowYouWon’tWinTheNominationWhen …

Also stepping in it this week: Bronx principal Frank Borzellieri, a white supremacist who, despite having published racist essays, somehow worked at a largely black and Latino Catholic school for two years before anyone noticed; Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who did not do a very good job of apologizing to the vacation rental company’s disgruntled clients whose apartments were trashed (it’s O.K., now you can rent swaths of Lower East Side grass for $50/hour, courtesy of N.Y.C.’s own Timeshare Backyard!); British comedian Johnnie Marbles, who got sentenced to six weeks in jail for memorably pie-ing Rupert Murdoch during July’s News Corp. hearing in Parliament; and the M.T.A., which is responsible for screwing up repairs and slowing service, according to a joint report released last weekend by state and city comptrollers Thomas DiNapoli and John Liu. (And here we thought we were just getting a complimentary sauna with our subway fare.)

So perhaps we were too hasty about the whole “stellar alignment” thing. Turns out mercury is in retrograde, and not to get all Dionne Warwick on you, but something has seemed … off the past few days. First, in the midst of an oppressive heat wave, baseball-size hail rained down on Queens (adding insult to injury for the hapless Mets). Then, a peacock escaped from the Central Park zoo and began terrorizing (read: sitting calmly on) a Fifth Avenue window ledge. Not one but two adult men made the news for wearing inappropriate full-body animal costumes (but on the upside, only one, David Wu, was a member of Congress). Mark Zuckerberg added a creepy pregnancy feature to Facebook. And just as the debt ceiling legislation went through, assuaging Wall Street’s fears about market stability, the Dow dropped 265 points. Maybe it’s just our bad fortune.

"It is going to be an incredible evening," said Mr. Weber, the event's emcee, rattling off the names of the many luminaries scheduled to make an appearance: "Costello, Warwick, Dash, Jackson, O’Hara, Pagano, Dorn, Hall..Burt!”

The theme of the evening: “What the World Needs now… Featuring The Music of Burt Bacharach.”

Mr. Weber put one of his hands in the side pocket of his well-fit suit, promising, “There isn’t going to be one dry eye or one empty seat in the house!”

Later, on stage, Mr. Weber would thank the Y "for turning me into the man I am today," adding, "You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”

Couples strolled arm-in-arm, sipping champagne, as they filed into a marble hallway filled with enormous white orchids, leading them into the vast performance hall.

Fredric Mack, president of the Y, thanked donors for being so generous, especially this year. "Giving is just not as easy now," he said. Mr. Mack and wife Tami Mack joined fellow gala chairs Helen and Bob Appel, Dana and Michael Goldstein, Lori and Marc Kasowitz, on stage to say a few words about the place's importance.

The crowd clapped and cheered as the singer Dionne Warwick took the stage, leaned against the piano and said, “It is a pleasure to be here. I flew in from Brazil this morning so you’re looking at a very tired women.” Ms. Warwick went on to perform "Walk On By” and "Anyone Who Had a Heart."

Mr. Weber later came out singing “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” spraying water on people in the first few rows and potentialy ruining all those fancy, freshly done Upper East Side hairdos.

Sarah Dash and John Pagano performed a duet; her bright gold dress glarefully shimmering upon the glittery stage.

Jill O’ Hara joined the Young Peoples Chorus of New York, receiving numerous applauds upon utterings the first few words of “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again.”

Elvis Costello sat in the last row, one hand on his lap, and the other massaging his forehead, as Cheyenne Jackson performed. When it came time for his own performance, Mr. Costello glided around the stage, covering Mr. Bacharach’s “God Gave Me Strength.”

Later, Mr. Costello offered a few thoughts about the heralded songwriter: “I can honestly say the music is beautiful and erotic, which is not something people usually call his music, but we’re all adults here, so I can say that.”

Mr. Bararach himself closed out the evening, slowly sitting down to a piano and launching into "Alfie," which brought on the longest applause of the night, and a standing ovation.

“Hey, that’s Elie Wiesel,” said NYPD detective turned big-time security consultant Bo Deitel. Mr. Deitel was standing by the bar during the party for Loews Hotel chief executive Jonathan Tisch’s new book, Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough, at the Four Seasons on the evening of Wednesday, March 7. The wiry-haired Nobel Prize–winning author was a few feet away with his wife. “He’s one of my idols,” Mr. Deitel said.

The Transom concurred, mentioning Mr. Wiesel’s recent brush with a lunatic in a San Francisco hotel elevator (not a Tisch hotel, thank gawd).

“What? Get outta here!” exclaimed Mr. Deitel. “I didn’t hear about that. That’s my business.”

“There was no coverage because I declined every interview,” Mr. Wiesel said moments later. “I am a writer and a private person, but also I don’t want to give this guy the attention.”

“Part of our assessment of these hotels is the vulnerability assessment,” Mr. Deitel said. He was wearing a dapper gray suit and a well-maintained 10 o’clock shadow. “A lot of time, we’re finding out people from within are your biggest problem …. Security is someone who can effectively combat someone who has a weapon—i.e., a knife or a gun. We don’t deal with the big-bouncer people. What we want to do is eliminate the problem. A security professional, former law enforcement, can sense a problem—it’s a sixth sense that they have in their mind—see someone acting stupid, acting fidgety. Where you look around the room at one person who’s acting very abnormal, that’s the person you key on to make sure that they don’t get to your principal.”

The room was crammed with would-be “principals” such as Barry Diller and Steven Rattner, who were chatting intently in a corner, as magnates will. Mr. Deitel’s sixth sense, however, appeared to be focused on the various delectable hors d’oeuvres that were making the rounds.

“These contracts come down to the bottom line, dollars and cents,” Mr. Deitel said. “You get what you pay for. I always get this: ‘I want the best security guard for the cheapest price.’ That’s, uh, uh—what’s that word when it’s stupid? Whenever Jonathan has a problem, he calls us up.”

Mr. Deitel said that Donald Trump, another client, also insists on top-notch security.

“Especially in the post-9/11 world,” the evening’s honoree said later, “when people leave the safety and security of their home, they expect us, as the hoteliers, to make sure that they’re in an environment where they feel very comfortable. It’s just one of the reality of today’s world.”

“He’s definitely an amazing person—very original,” trilled songwriter Denise Rich of Mr. Tisch. “I’ve never seen a title like that. It makes me want to buy the book and find out what it’s all about.”

Lessons From Sessums! Celebrities Celebrate Celebrity Journalist

Writer Kevin Sessums is still smarting over the negative notice that his memoir, Mississippi Sissy, about growing up gay in the American South, got in The New York Times Book Review. “I don’t understand making a name for yourself just being mean, to get back to Norah Vincent,” Mr. Sessums said at Indochine on Monday, March 12, at a party thrown for him by friends Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller. Mr. Sessums has made his name as a friendly confidante to the stars, for years at Vanity Fair, currently as a contributing editor for Allure. “Some people criticize my stories because I’m not mean, but I’m not interviewing Nazi scientists,” drawled the glabrous author. “You have to seduce them, and they seduce you. There’s sort of this courtship that goes on, almost like a marriage. And then you sit down and you have to divorce them. It’s an oxymoronic term, ‘celebrity journalist,’ because if I thought of myself as a journalist, I’d have a real inferiority complex. What I do is much more. I know how to write a sentence, and I know about the arc of narrative. I’m unintimidated by fame. But I’m not a journalist.”

Fellow not-exactly-a-journalist Dominick Dunne, still at Vanity Fair, praised Mr. Sessums’ affability and wit. “He’s funny and he’s fun to be with,” Mr. Dunne said. “What can I say? He has a way of intimacy with people. He doesn’t say, ‘What happened on the set today?’ He reveals a lot about himself, and they reveal a lot about themselves in return.” (Mr. Sessums on one of his subjects: “I loved Angelina Jolie … if I were straight, I’d be elbowing Brad Pitt out of the way, but maybe that’s because she’s a top.”)

Designer Calvin Klein was standing at the bar wearing a scarf, blazer and gold-rimmed glasses. “I’ve known Kevin for a long time,” Mr. Klein said. “I discovered Miami at a time when he was leaving and we were both in the same building. And no, I will not give you the address!”

Standing away from the mass of fame frottage surrounding copper-haired actress Julianne Moore was the comedienne Sandra Bernhard. “I think he knows a lot of people, and he’s very personable and kind of gets inside people’s heads,” she said of Mr. Sessums. “And I think he understands celebrity.”

Ms. von Furstenberg, meanwhile, was flying around the cramped restaurant in a big, loose, Pucci-like silk bag that was drawn tight at the waist, neck and arms, trying to get guests to sit down. “Today, we celebrate him as a literary person,” she crooned of her honoree. “He wrote [Mississippi Sissy] with his blood and his heart and his soul, and I think it’s wonderful.”

Mr. Sessums’ parting bon mot: “Read my book! Go on Amazon.com, ’cause I want a Top 10 book right between Barack Obama’s Bran Diet and Suze Orman’s Lesbian Love Affair.”

—David Foxley

Maury and Connie Have Tips For Tiki: Don’t You Go Changing

Husband-and-wife TV veterans Maury Povich and Connie Chung, who were also at the Jonathan Tisch book party, have some sound advice for retired running back turned on-air personality Tiki Barber.

“Don’t change a thing,” Mr. Povich said.

“Right,” Ms. Chung said, nodding.

“Don’t let them model you,” continued Mr. Povich. “Don’t let them change you. Just be the way you are right now.”

“You know, Walter Cronkite gave me the best advice when I got the job to co-anchor the CBS Evening News: ‘Be yourself,’” Ms. Chung said. “And we all love Tiki, so he should be himself, too.”

“It’s something that I found a passion for about six or seven years ago,” said Mr. Barber of his interest in broadcasting. “And I kinda took my hits—I did the slow thing; I didn’t want to jump right into the big screen and the spotlight. I worked at WFAN overnights at 10 o’clock and got up in the morning to do WCBS, just so I could build credibility. And I built some plateaus that I’m now standing on as I get to take the next step to NBC.

“It’s been something that’s been in my mind, to set myself up to the next thing always, because what you are doing very rarely lasts forever—especially in the National Football League,” he continued. “If you’re not preparing for your future, then you’re doing yourself a disservice. So I was always preparing for the next thing.”

There was a time when Mr. Barber had contemplated acting as his next thing. “I did it a couple of times in Off Off Broadway, and it was very challenging,” he said. “My next step may be in business or politics.”

In the meantime, he said he looks forward to learning from his new mentors, including NBC Universal C.E.O. Jeff Zucker, Today co-host Matt Lauer and HBO sports commentator Bob Costas.

“I think Tiki’s a natural star, a great performer on the field,” Mr. Zucker said. “I think he’ll be a great performer off the field for us.”

Close to Chew: Dionne Warwick, Ashford and Simpson Honor Harlem School of the Arts

On Monday, March 12, a cadre of African-American power-brokers gathered at the Supper Club on West 47th Street, including Monica Azare, a senior vice president at Verizon, actress Tamara Tunie of Law & Order: SVU and Isisara Bey, vice president of corporate affairs for Sony Music. The occasion, a fund-raiser for Harlem’s much-lauded School of the Arts, honored alumnus Ray Chew, the boyishly handsome musical director of Showtime at the Apollo.

Sporting a freshly shaved scalp and dressed in a custom-made navy suit by Ruben’s London, Mr. Chew mingled in the crowded lobby before dinner. Near the bar, the lithe and elegant Ms. Tunie was holding court. A neighbor of the art school, she waxed poetic about its power to inculcate the younger generation with a sense of “how critical art is to human development.” The Transom, however, was more interested in the fitted black blazer that was accentuating her tiny waist. Whose was it, we asked? “I don’t know,” Ms. Tunie said, “But since I bought, it’s mine.” Amen to that!

The evening was M.C.’d by Harry Smith, anchor of CBS’s Early Show, who commenced the festivities by making kissy-faces at featured performers Dionne Warwick, the singer and Psychic Friend, and her fellow R&B legends, husband-and-wife songwriting team Nicholas Ashford (wearing an ill-advised set of glittery black trousers) and Valerie Simpson.

After the herb-encrusted salmon and mashed potatoes had been cleared, Ms. Warwick took the stage, clad in a white pantsuit with a lapel that looked like it’d had an unpleasant encounter with a BeDazzler. “I finally managed to get four days to myself—this would have been the fourth,” she said, before training fond eyes on Mr. Chew and singing a sweet, slow rendition of “Close to You.” “If it had been anybody but Ray, this night would have been without Dionne Warwick.”

—Orli Van Mourik

Just Joey: Former Britney Spears Stylist Goes Solo

Four years ago, waaaay before Britney Spears’ meltdown, the singer’s erstwhile stylists Joey Tierney and Tanya Tamburin formed a fashion company called Joey and T, built primarily around revealing skirts. Ms. Spears attended their first show, but failed to hoist the brand to retail success.

Not long afterward, it turns out, the two stylists quietly parted ways. “We just peaked,” Ms. Tierney said over the phone on Monday, March 13. “I’ve been working with so many other people, learning and growing.” She moved from New York back to L.A. and began styling for the red carpet and commercials, and her solo, eponymous line will debut at L.A. Fashion Week on March 16. “The line is not celebrity-based,” Ms. Tierney said emphatically. “It’s about patterns and well-crafted pieces—no smoke and mirrors. The inspiration was somewhere in between Helmut Newton and Bianca Jagger. It’s a high-end, full line: It’s Chantilly lace and it’s leather, Italian wool, and it’s cashmere and silk.”

Ms. Tierney doesn’t miss the spotlight of celebrity association. “The line is dedicated to my grandparents,” she said. “But I am grateful to Britney—she gave me my first big break.”

The all-star sendoff--featuring Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder--was seen by an average of about 89,200 households, with a peak around 104,700 households.

For the same time period the previous week, NY1 had scored a rating of 0.2, meaning about 14,000 households. Head to head, the memorial beat NBC's Starting Over, which got a 1.1 rating.

NY1 spokesperson Edward Pachetti said the last time he could remember ratings that high was during last year's transit strike threat.

A rebroadcast of the service at 3 p.m. Saturday received a 1.1, meaning it was seen in some 77,300 households, with a peak of 115,000.

Despite the ratings success, NY1 has no plans for another airing of the service. The station has recieved approximately 400 requests for video and DVD copies of the program. Fans seeking a copy should send an e-mail to library@ny1news.com. The price for a VHS or DVD dub is $65.

--Rebecca Dana