What Does The Bachelorette Want?

09/15/2004 at 06:00 AM EDT

We have some advice for the 25 guys who will soon find themselves vying for the affections of Jen Schefft on The Bachelorette: Act mortified. "I went onto the first show reluctant – my friends had to convince me to do it," Schefft says of her first reality-romance experience, as a contestant on The Bachelor. "I'm more likely to be attracted to the guys who are also reluctant to be on the show. The ones who seem too eager I probably will be less interested in." In other words, she didn't want to be on a reality show in the first place, but she's going on a second time and looking for someone who also doesn't want to be there. Got that, guys? The show begins filming in October and is set to air in January.

Now That's Harmony
With all the divisiveness going on around the upcoming presidential election, we're happy to report that at least two people on opposite sides of the debate are getting along. Singers John Mellencamp (a Democrat) and Travis Tritt (a Republican) this week got together in Nashville to film a video for their duet "What Say You," whose message is, well, Can't we all just get along? "I think one of the biggest problems in this country is the fact that there's brother against brother and aunt against uncle," says Mellencamp, one of 20 performers on the Vote for Change tour, which supports John Kerry. "I think it's a terrible place that we're in where people are at each other's throats over politics. That is not the America that I want my children to grow up in." Country star Tritt, who recently performed at an event during the Republican National Convention in New York, says: "The song basically says I have my own opinions and they're very strong, but I'm not so arrogant about my opinions that I'm not willing to listen to someone else's." The song is on Tritt's current CD, My Honky Tonk History.

At Least It's Legal ?
Actor John C. Reilly (Chicago) plays a con man in the heist flick Criminal – so, how did he get into the mind of a trickster? Turns out it wasn't too difficult. "The life of a con man is not that different from the life of an actor," he says. "In a way, you're a small, independent businessman who's trying to work in different places with different people. (My character) does it in a much more negative way. He preys on people. But an actor also cons people. But I let you know before you come to the theater, 'I'm conning you, okay?' You agreed to be conned. You paid for it."

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Caught in the Act
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• Martin Scorsese and Entourage star Kevin Connolly, at an afterparty following the New York premiere of the indie film Incident at Loch Ness.

• By SARAH PRESTON, BEVERLY KEEL, LINDA KRAMER and NICK WHITE