It doesn't appear as if we can get anyone to officially announce a run for mayor of Pittsburgh.

Meantime, "The Apprentice" is set to begin its second season tonight on NBC.

You don't need an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University to see where I'm going here.

Parallels between Mayor Tom Murphy and Donald Trump may not seem obvious. Murphy has way better hair; Trump's topside looks like a well-groomed muskrat. Murphy lives like a monk, Trump like a king. And while Murphy fires a couple of hundred people at a time and cries about it, Trump lops them off, one by photogenic one, and smirks like the devil himself.

That said, there are similarities. Both men seem born to wear a suit. Both are pretty darn sure of themselves. And both have swum in red ink for longer than either cares to remember.

Seven years ago, Trump wrote a book modestly titled "Trump: The Art of the Comeback," which chronicled the story of a guy born to money who flirted with bankruptcy and then came roaring back. (With Trump's books, there is no real need to get past the title.)

Now Trump's second season of primetime pink slips is opening even as he's about to get canned as chief executive officer of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. His Atlantic City gambling combine is headed for bankruptcy court again, and he's not expected to come out of it with a majority share.

"Down here it's just winners and losers, and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line, boy."

Sorry, but I never pass up an opportunity to quote Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City."

Anyway, this casino issue is supposed to represent a small portion of Trump's net worth, but I can't help but notice that the numbers are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and when I see huge numbers run red, I can't help but think of my hometown. Perhaps the way out of Pittsburgh's fiscal crisis is to turn it into a reality TV show.

Even mediocre television profits would go a long way toward filling the city's budget chasm. And there already has been some fine local television that might inspire the people behind "The Apprentice." I'm thinking of "The City Council Show" a couple of months back when shouting firefighters all but invited council members to make creative use of fire poles.

Obviously, "The Mayor" would need a slightly different plot line. Murphy couldn't just come out and say, "You're fired," because every contestant would just reply, "No, you're fired." That could get more repetitive than the last three years of "Frasier."

When I mentioned this to Sean Cannon of Shaler, he pointed out that on most reality shows, contestants run a gantlet of tests to prove their mettle. So what should a player on "The Mayor" be forced to do?

"Think 'Fear Factor,' " Cannon said. "Eating unpleasant things -- like the remainder of the Lazarus subsidy."

Now we're talking. A drive on the turnpike to Harrisburg to lobby state legislators, or a meeting with firefighters union President Joe King, might be more harrowing than anything on "Fear Factor." And what about daring a contestant to ask Gov. Ed Rendell if he'd give up half of his cheese steak sandwich? It would be easier to get millions for a North Shore amphitheater.

"The Mayor" would also need a gong. Game shows reached their zenith -- and also my Magnavox -- back in the 1970s when "The Gong Show" aired. Pick a citizen, any citizen, and give him the right to gong any would-be mayor who makes any promise that sounds like hooey. That gong would be ringing like the St. Mary of Mercy carillon at Christmas.