Annie Leibovitz should probably just file for bankruptcy before her $24 million loan to Art Capital comes due. But could she have repaid the loan already, if she'd just sold her damn houses? Bloomberg thinks so!

In your unnerving Monday Media column: The paper of record cannot stop talking about Skye Parrott (??), the Tribune Co. sells a losing team, JPMorgan takes over publishing by accident, and the great political talk show ad debate. No worries!

As information continues to drip out about Annie Leibovitz's disastrous financial situation, her own personal D-Day is fast approaching. What happens on September 8, when her $24 million pawnshop loan comes due?

In your sweltering Monday media column: Reader's Digest is going bankrupt, Ted Nugent loses his journalism gig because he is too hardcore, Dan Rather's madness debated, and Mediaite traffic numbers.

In your green shoots-filled Wednesday media column: Vibe's coming back, a "magazine" holds a "launch party," Brian Tierney is unwanted, and Fox Business is unwatched.

In your commendable Thursday media column: Nick Kristof is the perfect columnist except for his writing, the NYT acknowledges its photo scandal, USA Today teaches us how to write a story that adds up to zero, and Lenny Dykstra's bankrupt.

Lenny Dykstra, the former member of the New York Mets who tried to pass himself off as all-knowing financial guru, real estate investor, and magazine entrepreneur in recent years, filed for bankruptcy protection today. [Reuters]

Eddie Bauer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this afternoon. Not that you've ventured inside an Eddie Bauer store over the past decade or anything. But we thought we'd mention it anyway. Carry on. [CNN]

A tipster tells us—and we have since confirmed—that Insitu, the Gramercy salon founded by stylist Paula Casano and known for its Japanese hair-straightening expertise, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It's not just the salon's curly-haired clients who will suffer if it's forced to close it doors: Insitu is one of the few salons in Manhattan that works with the Locks of Love project year-round, offering free haircuts to women willing to donate their tresses to economically disadvantaged cancer patients. The grim evidence is below.

General Motors is bankrupt. Whoops. It was probably going to happen no matter what, but lots of people hoped that bankruptcy would remain a threat that would encourage everyone to band together to save the company. Who is to blame for the death of the American auto industry?

The Way We Live Now: With the shame of the defeated. We're too dumb to even figure out how to make our biggest companies go bankrupt properly. But we will obstinately stand on the power of our "luxury" brands until they sink in the financial muck and drown us, triumphantly!

In last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Times economics reporter Edmund Andrews wrote a piece about how irresponsible lenders had essentially ruined his family's life titled, "My Personal Credit Crisis." Megan McArdle of the Atlantic then went digging around and found some major issues with Andrews' story.

Crunch filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today. The chain won't be disappearing, though. The chain reports it has a buyer lined up and willing to take over, and only two locations willl close as the company reorganizes. As part of the filing, Crunch also revealed that it owes more than $100 million to 50,000 creditors. So if you check your credit card statement next month and you see you were "accidentally" billed you for the next three months, that probably means you're one of them. [Reuters, Crain's]

Chrysler will file for bankruptcy protection later this afternoon, the White House announced moments ago. "It marks the first time a major American car company has tried to restructure under bankruptcy protection since Studebaker in 1933." [NYT]

In your springy Friday media column: a maybe-savior for the Boston Globe, traumatized journalists are everywhere, Newsweek bites HuffPo, and more!

• Citigroup posted its first profit in 18 months today, which made Wall Street very happy and sent Citi shares up to a whopping $4. [WSJ, DB]
• GE's first-quarter profit fell less than expected, dropping 35% compared to a year earlier, results that gave shares a boost in early trading. [BN, WSJ]
• AIG chief Ed Liddy still owns a big stake in Goldman Sachs, info that will be most pleasing to Goldman conspiracy theorists out there. [NYT, NYT]
• Is the banking business showing signs of recovery? [NYT]
• Carl Icahn and Kirk Kerkorian are locked in battle over MGM Mirage. [WSJ]
• General Growth Properties's bankruptcy will make hedge funder Bill Ackman a very rich man. And he already happens to be a very rich man. [NYT]
• The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco now says it was a mistake to allow Lehman Brothers to collapse. Now you tell us? [BN]

• JPMorgan Chase reported a $2.1 billion profit in the first quarter, exceeding estimates. Unlike Goldman, though, Jamie Dimon says the bank hasn't decided whether to return the $25 billion it's received in bailout money. [DB, WSJ, BN]
• General Growth Properties, the second-largest mall operator, filed Chapter 11 today, making it one of the largest real estate failures in history. [AP, WSJ]
• AIG is close to a deal to sell its auto insurance business for $2 billion. [FT]
• Investors remain concerned about the situation at GE and whether the company will be forced to go out and raise additional capital. [WSJ]
• Foreclosure filings jumped 24 percent in the first quarter. [CNN]
• Blackstone boss Steve Schwarzman says he's really worried about the "decline of capitalism." But he's got $25 billion sitting on the sidelines, and he's ready to pounce at any second assuming the world isn't ending. [Fortune]

Weil Gotchal is one of three major law firms that has asked new associates to hang out until 2011 before showing up to work. The firms are encouraging recruits to push back their start dates on account of the recession, naturally, but Weil may have a harder time pleading poverty as of this afternoon. The firm just requested the largest quarterly fee in bankruptcy history for its work on the Lehman Brothers meltdown. Weil is asking a judge to turn over $55.1 million for the the work it has done over just the past four months—plus expenses, of course—and insiders say it will probably get every penny of it. And Weil is expected to earn another $200 million in the event General Motors files for bankruptcy protection. It isn't often that we wish we'd gone into bankruptcy law. But it looks like today is one of those days.

In your hopeful Tuesday media column: Portfolio.com hires(!) people, NYT op-ed-speak translated, Philly papers make an offer you can refuse, and journalists in peril:

It's just the thing to do these days: the Sun-Times Media Group, which owns the Chicago Sun-Times and dozens of smaller community papers, filed for bankruptcy this morning. Thanks, Conrad Black!