MEDIA DARLINGS: Q: When do you know...

MEDIA DARLINGS: Q: When do you know a trend is finally over? A: When Esquire magazine writes about it. (That’s the same Esquire whose “Women We Love” honor roll included Tipper Gore and Elizabeth Dole). So Bruce Springsteen fans, take heart. Having survived a barrage of critical blasts over the past year, Springsteen is now under attack in a December Esquire cover story which bashes the Boss as a pop idol whose career was built on “borrowed emotion” because he “had no interesting experiences of his own.” Written by rock-crit elder John Lombardi, the piece mocks Springsteen’s charitable urges (accusing him of giving to faddish causes), laughs at his work-out regime (“he pumped so much iron he practically clanked”) and questions his working-class roots (“Bruce and his crowd were bored, not desperate”). Said Lombardi: “I don’t say Springsteen doesn’t feel for those people he purports to support. I’m trying to show how he’s as much a manipulated political image as the presidential candidates.” . . . And reclusive pop star Prince made the London ‘loids again, this time thanks to Brit model Starbird Jackie St. Clair, who “confessed” to the Daily Star that Prince lured her into bed. Instead of having sex, she said Prince “ate popcorn and honey” off her stomach. The couple also read the Bible as St. Clair took a bubble-bath and weighed themselves together (the only touchy moment came when St. Clair noted she was five inches taller than Prince--he asked that she wear flat shoes). St. Clair claimed the relationship soured when she refused to visit the “tiny guy” in Minneapolis, where he wanted her to meet Molly, his pet poodle. She said she told him: “I have to keep my modeling commitments.” Asked to comment, Prince’s management said Prince does not own a pet poodle named Molly.