Havertown-raised producer Mike Tollin didn't expect Donald Trump to exactly love his documentary about the fall of the old United States Football League.

But for Trump to scrawl this reply on top of a note that Tollin had sent him with a courtesy copy of the DVD:

"Mike . . . A third rate documentary - and extremely dishonest (as you know) - Best Wishes, Donald Trump

"P.S. You are a loser"

Well!

Tollin, who got the message a few weeks ago, tells me that he didn't think Trump had actually watched all of Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?, which premieres at 8 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN.

Trump repeated the "third-rate" claim to the New York Post recently, and sports outlets picked up the squabble.

Small Potatoes explores why the league folded in 1986, a few years after Trump bought into the New Jersey Generals in 1983. In interviews with people affiliated with the league, blame is directed at Trump, who positioned the USFL as a fall sport and challenged the NFL in the courts.

Tollin, a sports junkie whose oeuvre includes last season's Barry Bonds documentary and the films Radio and Varsity Blues, was intimately familiar with the USFL, as he produced the game films of the Philadelphia Stars. One of the 32 people he interviewed was onetime USFL owner Burt Reynolds, who says of Trump: "You know, I hold on to my wallet when I shake hands." (Trump walked out on Tollin's interview after a half-hour.)

It's safe to say that Trump will not attend tonight's premiere in New York. A Trump representative said he was out of town.

Not that Tollin will let the matter rest. He sent Trump a note, ending with the jab of how Dom Camera, the league's marketing director, chose two words to describe Trump: "Great hair!" (See the letter at http://go.philly.com/tollin )

Phillies notes

Glenn Richmond, Aramark's chef at Citizens Bank Park, is thinking "hot" for the postseason home games. A stand called Hot Corner will be set up on the left-field concourse to sell (at $6 a pop) tomato bisque, chicken and wild rice soup, and something called Harry the K's Chili, plus ham, tomato, and cheddar and traditional grilled cheese sandwiches, and $3 hot beverages.

With luck, the World Series might be finished by Nov. 14, when Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino plans to marry girlfriend Melissa Smith. Wedding will be in Hawaii, which raises the question of where the Midaislin' Hawaiian and his wife will honeymoon.

. . . THIS . . . JUST . . . IN . . .

Fox's TV station in Washington is planning to install equipment that will allow news anchors to operate their own prompters by using hand levers and foot pedals, as the Washington Post reported last week. A source at Fox29 says it's only a matter of time before the Philly station gets the call from corporate to do the same. A rep for Fox29 said there was no word on its plans.

Radio activity

More than two months before Christmas, two radio groups have started playing holiday music, but they're doing it on their HD-2 stations and their Web sites. For now. CBS's, programmed by Tommy McCarthy, rolled it out Thursday on the HD-2 station of WOGL (98.1) and on WOGL.com, 610WIP.com, TheBigTalker1210.com, KYW1060.com, and 94WYSP.com. It will be on through New Year's. On Friday, perennial Christmas station WBEB (101.1) put yule tidings on its own Web stream ( www.b101philly.com ) and on its HD-2 signal. (Special HD radios are required to hear HD signals.) No one will say when Christmas music will begin on the conventional stations, or which stations besides B101 will carry it.

Briefly noted

In keeping with its love of nontraditional distribution strategies, Pearl Jam has selected Main Street Music of Manayunk as its exclusive independent music retail partner for its four Philly shows at the Spectrum this month. The retailer will have a stand next to the band's merchandise kiosk to sell its new release, Backspacer, on CD and vinyl.

Little Steven Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band will join Andre Gardner live on WMGK (102.9) at 3 p.m. tomorrow.

Director F. Gary Gray made sure that Del Frisco's steak house got a mention in his new film, Law Abiding Citizen. (It's in a scene in which Gerard Butler's killer character demands a steak dinner in exchange for info.) During Thursday's Philly screening at the Prince, Gray led a small dinner party at the steak house down the street. Cast members Bruce McGill and Regina Hall overnighted at the Hotel Palomar at 17th and Sansom Streets, which opened officially the same day.

Requiem for a classmate

Artist Robert C. Hunsicker of Princeton is behind a retrospective of the illustration work of his Philadelphia Museum School of Art classmate Roger Hane - a project that was nearly 35 years in the making. Hunsicker spoke Friday at their alma mater, now the University of the Arts, where the exhibition will be up through Dec. 19. Hane, whose surrealistic work includes illustrations for C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, was killed in a robbery in New York in 1974. In his spare time, Hunsicker assembled about 500 works and letters for a companion book. "I wanted to bring him back to life," Hunsicker said.

Quest over for now

Gladwyne adventurer Todd Carmichael was back at work at La Colombe coffee Friday, two days after abandoning his bid to walk more than 400 miles through Death Valley. Carmichael and his equipment cart were slowed by soft sand. He vows to try again a year from now. "It's clear to me that this is my dragon," he says, adding that he was telling his wife, Lauren Hart, about "the different reasons it wasn't doable." And then he changed his mind. Carmichael holds the speed record for walking across Antarctica to the South Pole.

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Contact columnist Michael Klein

at 215-854-5514 or mklein@phillynews.com.

Read his blog at http://go.philly.com/insider.

He's also on Twitter: @phillyinsider.