• Filming of Sex And The City 2 has gotten "chaotic," with crazed fans "bombarding the set." An eyewitness says:

"At one point, teenage girls were practically trampling each other trying to get to Sarah Jessica as she was walking back to her trailer, but her security team was shoving everyone out of the way." Security has been stepped up, but a source says there are so many guards "They looked more like they were protecting the President than Sarah Jessica Parker." OMG SHOES COCKTAILS CARRIE OMG. [Gatecrasher]

• More than two months after his death, Michael Jackson's burial will finally take place. Today. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Apparently the LAPD are only focusing on Dr. Conrad Murray in Michael Jackson's homicide investigation. [TMZ]
• Janet Jackson will grant an interview to Harper's Bazaar — her first since her brother's death. Plus, she'll land the cover. [Page Six]
• Jon Gosselin bought a "bunch of blondes" a round of shots at the Mirage in Las Vegas; later he was seen with the same group having champagne at a nightclub and while the ladies massaged his neck. Then the universe collapsed on itself and we all died. [Page Six]
• Madonna has broken her own record for a top-grossing tour by a solo artist: The Sticky & Sweet world tour pulled in $408 million after playing to more than 3.5 million fans at 85 shows. That breaks the record set by her Confessions tour, though the Rolling Stones had the top-grossing tour overall. [Reuters]
• On final night of Madonna's tour — last night in Tel Aviv — Rocco and Lourdes were on stage with their mom. Rocco "bounced up and down" to dance tracks; Lourdes danced and played piano. Blurry pix at the link. [Daily Mail]
• Whitney Houston's first album in seven years is expected to sell about 250,000 copies: Not exactly a huge hit. [Gatecrasher]
• Before his death, DJ AM was working on an MTV show, Gone Too Far, about helping young people get sober. It was slated to premiere October 5; but when asked if that is still the case, an MTV spokesperson said: "No decision has been made at the present time." [People]
• DJ AM was buried yesterday in a small funeral in L.A. attended by family members and close friend Travis Barker. [People]
• Travis Barker and DJ AM were the only survivors of a 2008 plane crash in South Carolina, and this picture of Travis standing aloof at DJ AM's funeral is sad. [TMZ]
• Cate Blanchett was injured when a prop radio hit her head onstage Wednesday night in Sydney, Australia, during a scene in A Streetcar Named Desire. A theater company spokesperson says: "I've spoken to Cate. She's absolutely fine." [Reuters]
• Sandra Bullock — who has who has donated generously to Warren Easton Senior High School since Hurricane Katrina — just purchased a historic home in the Garden District in New Orleans. The manse is 6,000 square feet, replete with gables and iron-work. [NOLA.com]
• The former assistant of Tyra Banks claims she owes him $5,820. [TMZ]
• Alec Baldwin is not, repeat, not interested in Bethenny Frankel. He says: I don't know her and wasn't looking to meet her, but somehow this ends up in the Daily News — manufacturing a nice gesture into a total BS item suggesting I want to date this woman. Nothing against her, but I'm not dating anyone." [Page Six]
• "Tom Cruise has packed his magnificent luggage and left the country. The Hollywood star flew back to Los Angeles on Monday night, leaving wife Katie Holmes and their daughter Suri in Melbourne." [News.com.au]
• Tom Cruise will narrate a documentary called Together: The Hendrick Motorsports Story, about car owner Rick Hendrick and his 25 years in NASCAR. [Mirror]
• Lisa Loeb: Pregnant. [People]
• Keanu Reeves claims that he doesn't even know the Canadian woman claiming he fathered her children. He's willing to take a DNA test. [TMZ]
• As mentioned in Midweek Madness, Holly Madison says, "Plastic surgery changed my life." She used to stuff her bra, and once she started living with Hef, she had low self esteem. A nose job and implants changed everything. [Life & Style]
• Oh no: Former teen heartthrob Andrew Keegan (10 Things I Hate About You, Camp Nowhere) is being accused of abusing his girlfriend. A model named Kristi Parrales is requesting a restraining order against him, claiming that he threw her across the living room. Keegan denies everything. [TMZ]
• From a review of Jay-Z's new album, The Blueprint 3: "There was a time when a rapper couldn't expect to last past his 20s. Jay-Z, who is nearing 40 and releasing his 11th studio album, shows that for someone who is measured mostly against himself, lyrical dexterity doesn't have an expiration date." [USA Today]
• Look for Dan Akyroyd to sign purchased bottles of Crystal Head Vodka at a Philadelphia liquor store next week. Did you know Dan was a distiller? Crystal Head is his vodka that comes in a cool skull-shaped bottle. [UPI]
• Tony Romo is dating Chace Crawford's sister, Candice, a former Miss Missouri, who unfortunately has total crazy eye in the picture at the link. [NY Daily News]
• Tom Hanks is the narrator and executive producer of a "4-D experience" at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, and got an all-star cast to join him: Brad Pitt, Kevin Bacon, Patricia Clarkson, Kevin Connolly, James Cromwell, Viola Davis, Tobey Maguire, Gary Sinise and Elijah Wood. [Page Six]
• Project Runway's "catfighting catwalkers" have their own gossip item! [Page Six]
• "If Björk Is Nearby, No One Will Notice You Are Peeing in Public." [NY Mag]

• After shooting a fight scene for The Bounty, a source says Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler were "lovey-dovey" and "we saw him give her a little kiss." He was also throwing peanuts and popcorn in her mouth. [Radar Online]

• Jennifer Aniston feels "rejected and upset" because Bradley Cooper chose Renee Zellweger over her. "She wanted to turn her date with Cooper into something...she honestly feels screwed over," says a source. [Us]
• It's only been a few days since Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn announced that they're divorcing, but he's already been spotted partying with two different women. [TMZ]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are fighting on the set of SATC 2 because Kim's upset that she just broke up with her boyfriend Alan Wyse. "Sarah is too busy to comfort Kim or worry about her problems at the moment, and she basically told her as much," says a source. "Kim has been moping around, feeling sorry for herself and Sarah basically told her to snap out of it and buck up her ideas." [This Is London]
• Ryan Jenkins has been charged with the murder of Jasmine Flore by the Orange County D.A. [TMZ]
• The murder complaint against Ryan Jenkins says his bail recommendation is $10 million and a wanted poster warns that he's "armed and dangerous." [TMZ]
• The police got a "Ramey Warrent" for Ryan Jenkins that lets them bypass the D.A. and go directly to the judge, which is often used in cases when a suspect is on the run. [TMZ]
• Police have confirmed that Ryan Jenkins has entered Canada. It seems he took a boat from Washington State to Canada, then abandoned the boat and entered the country on foot. [People]
• Ryan Jenkins has business ties to Honduras and that may be his final destination. [TMZ]
• A criminal complaint had been filed against Ryan Jenkins for allegedly hitting Jasmine Flore "in the arm with his fist" in June. [TMZ]
• TMZ has an email Ryan Jenkins sent to Jasmine Fiore three weeks before she was murdered. He wrote: "Your [sic] my angel, despite what we've done to each other." [TMZ]
• Joe Jackson says Michael Jackson's burial has been pushed to August 31, two days after what would have been his 51st birthday because there are still things the family needs to get in order, that apparently they didn't get to in the past two months. [TMZ]
• Katherine Jackson asked a judge to let her show a confidential AEG Michael Jackson memorabilia deal to her financial advisors. AEG has threatened to pull out because the company is worried people are losing interest in MJ. [TMZ]
• Tito Jackson and Gladys Knight will do a U.K. tour called the "Midnight Train to Love," as a tribute to Michael Jackson. Tito will perform songs by MJ and the Jackson 5, as well as music from his upcoming album. [Reuters]
• Promoters for the global Michael Jackson tribute concert in Vienna say the web site crashed half an hour before ticket sales were set to star because a million people had logged on. 85,000 passes are available for the September 26 concert. [AP]
• David Copperfield said (through lawyers during an interview because the reporter started asking her, "Who's your favorite Australian..." The manager thought the reporter was going to ask about Australian designer Katie Perry, who Katy was in a legal battle with earlier this year, but the reporter says she just wanted to know who her favorite Australian artist is. [The Sun]
• Snoop Dogg had to poll the audience during Who Wants To Be A Millionaire because he didn't know the name of the character with an inkblot on his face from Watchmen. He said, "Man I seen that movie too and I fell asleep on it." [The Sun]
• Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Oz are suing a websites for products like "Colon Pro Cleanse, Power Colon Cleanse, Colon Max" that feature their images, names, and voices. Their lawyers say the companies are cashing in "on the false premise that [the products] have been tested or recommended by Miss Winfrey and/or Dr. Oz when they have not." [TMZ]
• Oprah Winfrey is planning a huge party for the 10th anniversary of O, The Oprah Magazine, in May. She may hold a concert at Radio City Music Hall or close down New York's West Side Highway for a charity event. [E!]
• At first the owner of the Centerville Pie Co. on Cape Cod denied that she sold Oprah Winfrey's entourage 20 pies, but Oprah herself called the Cape Cod Times to say, "the pie-gate escapade actually did happen." [AP]
• Paula Abdul was in negotiations to play Helen on Ugly Betty but was replaced with Kristen Johnston due to her list of demands, which possibly included a private jet. Johnston said, "I've always considered myself the poor man's Paula Abdul." [Entertainment Weekly]
• Richard Hatch was serving out the end of his sentence on house arrest but was returned to prison on Tuesday when he gave an unauthorized interview to NBC and now the ACLU is getting involved. A spokesman said, "It's appalling to think that he has been sent to jail merely for speaking to the media about his own court case." [AP]
• Bjork and her husband Matthew Barney are buying a co-op in Brooklyn. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Jordan Scott, who wrote an obscure vampire novel called The Nocturne is suing Stephenie Meyer because she says she stole ideas from her book for Breaking Dawn. [Reuters]
• Though it was reported that Lady Gaga would be toning things down when her tour stopped in Israel, at her last performance she faked an orgasm onstage and screamed, "Get your dicks out. Cause I heard there some pretty big cocks here in Israel!" [ONTD]
• Claire Danes is wearing fishnets and a leotard on the cover of BlackBook here: [BlackBook]
• "Life, that's what this record is about... It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing." — Avril Lavigne on her new record. [Rolling Stone]
• You can watch the new video for "Run This Town" featuring Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West here: [Just Jared]
• Jared Kushner asked for Donald Trump's permission to marry his daughter, Ivanka Trump. She says, "I thought it was adorable." [People]
• RHOA's Nene Leakes says despite co-star Kim Zolciak's accusations, she hasn't been cheating on her husband, Gregg Leakes, with NFL player Charles Grant. Nene says, "Charles is not anybody I'm seeing. I want to know where Kim gets the information from." [Star Magazine]
• Bill Cosby will be presented the Mark Twin Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by Jerry Seinfeld in October. [AP]
• Mickey Rourke says of filming The Wrestler, "I'm not 20 years old any more and when they throw your ass down, something is gonna hurt. My back would go out, my knee would go out. I had three MRIs in the first two months. If they would say they want to make Part 2, I would say, 'No, thank you.'" [AP]
• Lucy Clarkson, the model for Lara Croft says she had bulimia. "It makes me angry when I see very thin celebrities who are clearly not their natural body shape denying it. That sends out the wrong message. There are girls as young as five saying they think they are too fat," says Clarkson. "The industry wants you to look a certain way. For Lara Croft they wanted me to be quite muscular, so I was working out with a personal trainer. My curves were in demand from lingerie companies and men's magazines, but the fashion world pressured me to be skinny." [The Star]
• Kourtney Kardashian gives a run through of all the baby gifts she's already received at the link, but says she and boyfriend Scott Disick are also studying up on childbirth online. She says, "We watch these videos together on some random Web site I found called healthguru.com. They have videos which tell you what to expect, like the size of the baby at different stages, what the baby is doing inside. They're cool. Neither of us have read a book, but we're going to." [People]
• Apparently it's standard now to ask pregnant women if they'd pose nude. Kourtney Kardashian said: "I think so. I'd have to think about it." [Us]
• Heidi Klum says she and Seal won't be having any more kids after their fourth child is born. "We're outnumbered," say Klum. "Four is perfect. Three is a lot. But four? It's a lot of work. We're hands-on, and we feel like this is what we can handle." [USA Today]

• Madonna and Jesus Luz are reportedly planning a "commitment ceremony" in front of a rabbi at the Kabbalah Center in New York. Oooh, and a source says:

"Lourdes mocks him by calling him The Babysitter, because he is so young. She likes him, but also likes winding him up." Hee hee, "get off the babysitter!" [Mirror]

• Robin Wright Penn talked to Gotham magazine for the June issue — obviously before Sean filed for divorce — and said: marriage is "real work, but that's what you sign up for. And it pays off beautifully, it really does. The outcome, the reward is so great because then your love grows out of those hard times." Now Sean Penn is allegedly seeing Natalie Portman. So. [Page Six]
• Oprah! At Duke! Doing a commencement speech! And getting an honorary degree! She told students to "stand proudly in your own shoes while you help others stand in theirs." And! "One of the best ways to enhance your own life is to enhance somebody else's." [Breitbart]
• Oprah sent a film crew over to Blackburn, Scotland, to Susan Boyle's house. In the interview, which will be broadcast today, Boyle says: "I am not lonely. Everyone has been so nice. I've got millions of new friends now." [Telegraph]
• Paris Hilton spent a romantic week in Anguilla with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt, and updated her Twitter page constantly, with messages like "Love being in Love :) Best feeling in the world" and "Playing some golf together :) Golfing is fun" and "Loving life with my love" and "Lovers in paradise" and "My smooches from a secret island." Lots of pix of her kissing the dude, too. [Daily Mail]
• Christian Bale's part in Terminator Salvation was originally much smaller; the film's main character is not actually John Conner, played by Bale, but Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. Director McG said the script had to be adjusted to "integrate" Bale more. [Hollywood Reporter]
• When Jennifer Lopez's daughter Emme was about three weeks old, she discovered a lump on the child's head. "We both got very nervous, very very nervous, and I just remember my heart sinking to my feet," Lopez says. "I looked at [Marc] and I said, 'You know if anything happens, I'm not going to be okay, you know that right?'" Emme was fine but Lopez was inspired to work with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to help medical services to the less fortunate. "I started to wonder," Lopez said, "what if I couldn't afford a doctor, or receive the medicines, the procedures?" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Who were the stars at the White House Correspondents Dinner? Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Eva Longoria Parker, Owen Wilson, Donatella Versace, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Kerry Washington, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick, Kenneth Cole, Jason Wu and "a smattering of mayors, diplomats and ambassadors." Donatella went in 2008 and says ths year "was much better." Then she told everyone to "get ooooout." [WWD]
• More from the WHCD! Rahm Emanuel seated next to Barbara Walters! Jon Hamm was there! Donatella Versace was hanging out with Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Political pundit Craig Crawford asked Jason Bateman a question! Ludacris had a "long talk" with Bill O'Reilly! [Politico]
• According to this report, at the WHCD, "No matter who's in the room, the Obamas outshine all challengers." [MSNBC]
• Noted political junkie Ben Affleck missed the WHCD! He was sick. [mediabistro.com]
• New York Mag: How did you deal with everyone in the room eating steak?
  Kate Hudson: Oh, I ate it.
  Stella McCartney: If you just give up meat one day a week, it has, like, the biggest impact environmentally.
  Kate: Well, I'm interested in change.
  Stella: You can do that! Unless you're like some kind of caveman carnivore...Or are you a cavewoman?
  Kate: Uh, me? I don't eat meat every day! Are you out of your mind? I'd have a heart attack!
  Stella: Jolly. So she's fine. She's good. [NY Mag]
• Re: Rihanna nude pix: This paper points out that she has many tattoos, none of which are see in the images purported to be her. [NY Daily News]
• Chris Brown says he didn't leak the Rihanna pix. [The Sun]
• All that cardio pays off between the sheets! A stripper says Michael Phelps "should get another Olympic gold for marathon love-making!" because "the sex lasted for about three hours." [NY Post]
• Miss California Carrie Prejean's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to the website hosting her underwear pix saying she was underage and that one shot is a Photoshop manipulation; the site has responded: "Your client's publicity rights are substantially inferior to the right of the public to consider, discuss, agree and/or disagree with Ms. Prejean's actions and views. This is not conduct for which your client's consent is required." Oh snap. [TMZ]
• By the by, Carrie Prejean has recorded a phone message for National Organization for Marriage, asking people to donate money and sign a petition against gay marriage. [TMZ]
• And! Those "topless" pix? Taken well-after Carrie Prejean turned 18, not when she was 17, as she claims. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse had a crappy performance at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, but the tourism minister says: "It's a shame it did not go better but we will bring her back in the future. We fully support her and hope she can get well. We have a lot of admiration for her." [The Sun]
• Swine flu be damned! Hugh Jackman will head to Mexico to promote Wolverine. [Mirror]
• Quentin Tarantino talks Inglourious Basterds, 70% of which is in French or German. "When you see the Germans speaking English with a German accent or sounding like British thespians, it just seems very quaint," he says. "That's one thing I don't want this film to have." Execs at the studio are not worried about the heavy use of subtitles: "Tarantino is a universal language," said one. [NY Times]
• Rachel McAdams has an environmental website, green is sexy, and says: "It's funny because when people come to my house they think everything is broken because I don't have anything plugged in. Guests are always saying things like: 'You need a new light bulb here' and I go around to the lamp and say: 'You've got to just plug it in!"' [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "WARNING: This may hurt your eyes... Beth Ditto strips down to her Spanx." Eh, fuck you, Daily Fail. [Daily Mail]
• Kim Kardashian is getting married! Eventually. "So many people rush into it and it's all this pressure because they see we've been together for a while," she says of beau Reggie Bush, whom she has been dating since 2007. "But, we're heading there. When we're ready, we'll know." [People]
• Boy George has been released from jail — early — and lost a few pounds during the four months he was in the slammer. [Daily Mail]
• This report says Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell are secretly engaged but don't want to make a formal announcement lest Heather Mills make some kind of scene; McCartney's rep is quoted about the rumor, saying, "There is no truth in it whatsoever. They have not become engaged in any shape or form. It is utter nonsense." [Daily Express]
• Jerry Hall was writing an autobiography — being called an "explosive, tell-all account" of her life with Mick Jagger — but the book has been abandoned. Apparently the publishers were "disappointed" with the lack of Jagger dirt. In JERRY'S autobiography. There was, however, a lot of gossip about Carla Bruni… [Daily Mail]
• Bjork sang with the Dirty Projectors at "her smallest gig of the year" Friday night in a bookstore in NYC, in front of 300 people. [NY Times]
• "Serial dater Geri Halliwell's relationship gets serious as she meets aristocrat lover's parents." [Daily Mail]
• Nineteen year old JoJo Simmons, son of Rev Run Simmons of Run-DMC, was caught rolling a joint in his BMW and has been arrested and charged with a bunch of stuff. [UPI]
• Awww, on Mother's Day, Florence Henderson, aka Carol Brady, says, "I get mail from all over the world, 122 countries." [UPI]
• Shirley Jones, 75, who was the mom on The Partridge Family, may pose nude for Playboy. Her husband/manager says, "Mature women are relevant." [Page Six]
• Is Kylie Minogue gonna get hitched to her hot hot Spanish boyfriend? [Daily Mail]
• Nia Vardalos talks about becoming a mom of a toddler — overnight. She adopted a 3-year-old from a foster family agency and says her daughter "arrived without an instruction manual. I didn't know if she had a sleep schedule, food allergies – there wasn't even a note pinned to her shirt. She just walked in and looked up at me, like "got lunch?" [People]
• Barbra Streisand's personal assistant: Busted on drug charges in Malibu on Wednesday. Cops found cocaine, methamphetamines and a weapon in her car. Sometimes people who help people who need people need a bump. [LA Times]
• Label exec Irv Gotti says he is dropping Ashanti from The Inc. They haven't been on speaking terms for some time; in 2007 Gotti told Wendy Williams he and Ashanti had sex even though he was a married man. [MTV]
• Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell tore his calf muscle during the first song in a concert in Atlanta. He finished the show and then took an ambulance to the hospital; doctors are telling him to stay off the leg for a few days. [AP]
• If you have £500,000, you can buy David Beckham's "modest" childhood home in east London. [BBC News]
• Blind item! "Which married TV actor used the Correspondents Dinner as an excuse to meet up with his occasional mistress?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I wasn't familiar with rugby league beforehand and I don't profess to be an expert now. But everything I do know about rugby league, I know from Russell Crowe." — Rachel McAdams, who became friends with the Aussie while shooting State Of Play and even watched a game with him via satellite at three in the morning. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I wanted audiences to think, ‘This guy could easily rip someone's head off', so I worked hard to achieve that physique. I ran and had to lift very heavy weights. Every morning I'd get up and there was a part of me that just wanted to collapse, but you just have to keep going, it's full-on testosterone. When I'm training, I'm fairly obnoxious, I really make a big thing of it and there is a lot of noise. I play driving music like Metallica that I would never otherwise listen to. I consulted a bodybuilder and what I realized is that how you look is 30% how you train and 70% how you eat. No carbs after lunch. Six to eight chicken breasts a day, two at each sitting, 4,000 calories in total. I really enjoyed eating pizza at the end of the movie, trust me, and I had half a dozen beers on the final day of shooting." — Hugh Jackman, on achieving the look of Wolverine. [Mirror]
• "I knew I had to build a body, and I ate a lot of wheat and chain-smoked. That will do it! The woman had to feel like she really had been drinking for 25 years. Now, I have not been drinking for 25 years. I'm a relatively healthy individual, so the first thing I had to do was make myself look like I was super-wrecked, which took a bit of time." — Tilda Switon, on playing a "ferociously dedicated alcoholic" in Julia. [USA Today]
• "I see Amelia as that fast-talking, Katharine Hepburn type of woman. She's powerful and authoritative with some chutzpah. I am much more cautious, I don't take as many physical risks as her. I see her as a woman who's ahead of her time but also having fun, embracing that sense of adventure; it's about believing in yourself and your passions and making the most of the time that you have in life." — Amy Adams, on playing Amelia Earhart in Night A The Museum 2. [Daily Mail]
• "Jack is gun crazy. Over here you can buy real guns. I have this horrible thing: I can see this movie in my head where he's messing around and shoots himself in the foot. Sharon goes to me, ‘Oh darling, he's been surrounded by guns all his life.' But there is a difference between an air rifle and a 45-calibre pistol. I said to Jack, ‘If someone got into your house would you be willing to use the gun?' He said, ‘Sure.'" — Ozzy Osbourne. [Daily Express]
• "We visited Panzi Hospital where IMC is training doctors and which has become world-renowned because of its incredible work with thousands of women who are in need of surgical repair for a condition called 'fistula,' a severe gynecologic rupture. It's a frighteningly common condition in eastern DRC because of lack of obstetric care, and the epidemic of rape. Panzi Hospital's Founder and Director is Dr. Denis Mukwege, often referred to as "the savior of women " and was named by a prestigious Nigerian newspaper as African of the Year in 2008. He shared some of his experiences with us and as you can imagine, they are horrific. The youngest rape victim he has had to treat was a three year old girl." — Sienna Miller, who is in the Congo, working with International Medical Corps. [Huffington Post]

[Image by Steven Klein via W Magazine]

• Emily Blunt and John Krasinski: totally sitting in a tree, kissing and whatevs. Perez suggests "Bluntinski" as their celeb couple nickname, but we feel we can do better! How about Krunt? Or EmJo? [Perez]

• Jim Carrey wanted to clear up the comments he made the other day on Larry King about Prozac's lack of long-term efficacy. "There are a lot of different ways to skin a cat," Carrey tells People, "It's important to think on our own…There is drug company money that goes into the educational system. I'm saying you have to look outside that, and consider the other possibilities for people." Thanks Jim. There's no possible way I could think for myself unless a celebrity told me how to. [People]
• Hugh Jackman says that Hollywood was not fun for his wife Deb, especially at the beginning. "When we first went to Hollywood people would ignore her. She’d call it the chopped liver syndrome. She would be literally hit away as [women] tried to get to me. It takes adjusting for me too. Sometimes I don’t understand why I am getting this attention." [Telegraph]
• Hugh Jackman's director in Australia, Baz Luhrmann, has a new project lined up for himself: a remake of the Great Gatsby. This could either be fantastic or a garish Technicolor travesty. Can't wait to find out which one! [Deadline Hollywood]
• William H. Macy will replace Jeremy "Thermometer" Piven in the David Mamet play Speed the Plow for part of the run. The role will be shared with Norbert Leo Butz. [NYM]
• There will be an Icelandic venture capital fund named for Bjork. The fund "will invest in sustainable businesses that create value through leveraging Iceland's resources, nature, culture and green energy." Who wouldn't want to buy into Bjork with those values! [AFP via Yahoo]
• Chris Brown and Rihanna: on a luxurious Hawaiian vacay. Us: jealous. [Perez]
• Cisco Adler, best known for his elephantine balls and dating Mischa Barton, will now be known as a dude who got arrested by another citizen in Fargo, North Dakota. Quoth Michael K. of Dlisted, "Following his performance at The Hub, Cisco got into a fight with a dude and while he was being kicked out of the club by security, he punched one of the employees in the nose. Before the police showed up and arrested him, the employee who got punched out performed a citizen's arrest on Cisco. CITIZEN'S ARREST! I love a good citizen's arrest." [Dlisted]
• David Bowie's stepdaughter, Stacia Lipka, won an $80,000 settlement against the City of New York after what sounds like a harrowing ordeal. "Lipka claimed Detectives Richard Vecchio and John Holbert violated her rights by photographing her nude body after she reported having been raped and was on suicide watch in October 2003…In addition to the lewd photo shoot at Staten Island's St. Vincent's Hospital, Lipka also claimed Vecchio molested her during one official visit." Vecchio was acquitted of criminal charges but was fired from the NYPD. [NYP]
• Which Celebs have the most followers on MySpace? Zach Braff, Kim Kardashian and Selena Gomez. A truly distinguished trio! [AP]
• Music icon Quincy Jones is sad about kids today and their lack of knowledge about music history. "I was in Seattle about a month ago, and I asked a kid, 'What do you think about Louis Armstrong?' And he said, 'I've heard the name,'" Q laments. "I said, 'What do you think about Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and Coltrane?' He said, 'I've never heard of them.' And that hurts me a lot. Because it's easier to get where you're going if you know where you came from." Then he added, "Now get the hell off my yard!" [CNN]

Pink - "Sober"

Björk - "All Is Full of Love"

Tweet - "Oops"

Britney Spears - "Touch of My Hand"

I love myself
It’s not a sin
I can’t control what’s happenin’
‘Cause I just discovered
Imagination’s taking over
Another day without a lover
The more I come to understand
The touch of my hand

Tori Amos - "Icicle"

And when my hand touches myself,
I can finally rest my head.
And when they take from his body,
I think I'll take from mine instead,
Getting off, getting off while they're all downstairs.

Divinyls - "I Touch Myself"

The Pussycat Dolls - "I Don't Need a Man"

I don’t need a man to make it happen
I get off being free
I don’t need a man to make me feel good
I get off doing my thing
I don’t need a ring around my finger
To make me feel complete
So let me break it down
I can get off when you ain’t around

Madonna simulated masturbation during "Like a Virgin" on her Blonde Ambition tour.

Janet Jackson has like a million songs about sex, and I'm sure that a bunch of them include themes of masturbation, but the most popular is probably "If."

How many nights I've laid in bed excited over you
I've closed my eyes and thought of us,
A hundred different ways
I've gotten there so many times

And then of course there's Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop," but for some reason, it's not embeddable from YouTube. So you can watch it here.

• Cloris Leachman was booted off of Dancing With The Stars. "I'm not leaving," she said. "I'm going to get a pretty costume and be here next week. I'm going to sit over there. I can't go home. Are you serious? This is a joke." [UPI]
• Despite at first being told she was too old, Cloris might be Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein on Broadway! Producer Mel Brooks originally told her she didn't have the "stamina" and said "We're afraid the show could kill [Leachman]. We don't want her to die onstage." [Page Six]
• Dina Lohan on Dancing With The Stars? Just the kind of trainwreckery this country needs. [New York Mag]
• Speaking of Lohans, Lindsay's former bodyguard has settled a lawsuit he filed against her. [TMZ]
• This report claims that Lindsay has lost 14 pounds and is "thinner than ever." Really? She doesn't look the way she did when she was hanging with Nic Rich back in the day. [Boston.com]
• By the by, Dina Lohan calls the reports of a Lindsay/America Ferrera feud on the set of Ugly Betty "just silly." She says: "America's a doll. And they said [Lindsay] brought a posse. It was my mother and myself, and [sister] Ali. It was not a posse. We had sushi and no one trashed the room." Dina does admit: "It was long hours and when you're on a movie set it's a lot different. She's not used to television, but it was fun." [People]
• Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in a sitcom together??? Sign, apocalypse. [News.com.au]

• BREAKING: Joaquin Phoenix is retiring from show biz. He will be working on his music now. [Extra]
• Here is a photograph of David Beckham ogling cheerleaders. (Again.) [The Sun]
• Is Angelina Jolie "burning up with jealousy" over Brad Pitt's Inglourious Basterds costar, Diane Kruger? She did star with him in Troy. [Star]
• Keanu Reeves and the paparazzo who's suing him took turns on the witness stand yesterday. Reeves told jurors he moved his car forward very slowly to try and get the photog to move out of the way, but never hit him; the photog testified the opposite, saying the car hit his knee. [AP]
• Did Madonna and Guy Ritchie have a marriage contract? In which he promised not to shout at his wife and to devote time to sex? [Daily Mail]
• Madonna has allegedly offered Guy £20million. Of her £300million fortune. Pennies! [Daily Express]
• Hey, look, Guy Ritchie's flick RocknRolla got a good review! [Yahoo News]
• When Angelina Jolie showed up at Monday night's Hollywood Film Festival Awards Gala — where she payed tribute to director Clint Eastwood — it was a total surprise. The A-list crowd reportedly "gasped audibly" when she was introduced. [People]
• At Mary-Kate and Ashley's book signing, there were incredibly elaborate rules one had to abide by, or else! [Racked]
• Here's a liveblog of the book signing. "The paparazzi are shouting 'Mary-Kate!' and 'Ashley!' and people are freaking out." [Racked]
• Oh, and there were PETA protesters outside the book signing, with signs calling the twins "fur hags from hell." [Page Six]
• Watch Britney Spears work out! Warning: Incredibly dull video of Brit repeatedly lifting weights. [MollyGood]
• Amy Poehler will not be replaced on the SNL "Weekend Update" segments; Seth Meyers will go it alone for a while. Because Amy cannot be replaced! [ET]
• First we heard that Julianne Hough from Dancing With The Stars went to the hospital for unknown reasons. Then we heard it was her appendix. Now she reveals it was something more personal, but her managers wanted her to lie. "It turned out I ruptured a cyst that was on my ovary. My management and the other people around me were trying to think of something else I could say that was wrong with me, but I was like, don't worry. I want to be a good role model." [TMZ]
• Julianne says: "I didn’t know but I have endometriosis. I’ve apparently had it for a long time because I’ve had this pain for about the last five years. I’m just glad I’m taking care of it now because I want to have babies some day." [People]
• Check out Bjork's well-written column about Iceland's financial meltdown. [Times of London]
• Daniel Craig jokes that if the economy's bad, glamorous locations could be dropped from Bond films. "There are plenty of places we could shoot in the British Isles," he says. "If the credit crunch hits the movie business, who knows? Bond in the Lake District, Liverpool… or Birmingham." [Telegraph]
• The case against William Balfour, the primary suspect in the murder of Jennifer Hudson's family, is building quickly. His alibi is falling apart and he was seen carrying a bottle of liquor Friday. [TMZ]
• William Balfour is a felon; he was busted in June for a "rock of cocaine" and served time for a 1999 attempted murder and vehicular hijacking conviction. [AP]
• Jennifer Hudson and her mom were "very close, very tight." Jennifer's mom hosted a block party for the whole neighborhood a few months ago. Jennifer wanted her to move, but, a neighbor says: "She didn't need a bigger house. She didn't need anyone to buy her a new car. She didn't desire or want those things. She was just supportive and stood by her daughter." [People]
• Jennifer Hudson's sister Julia writes on her MySpace: Thank you for your prayers, thank you for posting his picture on your pages as your default picture, thank you… But his lil soul is at ease, I take comfort in knowing that Julian is with my mother and my brother and most of all The Lord and now he's my angel he's protecting me…" [Perez Hilton]
• Rosie O'Donnell on Jennifer Hudson's awful ordeal: "The family tragedy of Jennifer Hudson — no words will do — a grief too hard to comprehend. Guns and domestic violence are a lethal combination — injuring and killing women every day in the United States. A gun is the weapon most commonly used in domestic homicides. In fact, more than three times as many women are murdered by guns used by their husbands or intimate acquaintances than are killed by strangers' guns, knives or other weapons combined. Contrary to many public perceptions, many women who are murdered are killed not by strangers but by men they know." [UPI]
• Coldplay dedicated a song to Jennifer Hudson at a concert in NJ on Monday night. [Perez Hilton]
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck gets more death threats than anyone else on The View, says Whoopi Goldberg. Well, no one wants to see anything happen to Joy! [Page Six]
• Jerry "Turtle" Ferrera and Jamie Lynn Sigler — Meadow from The Sopranos: It's on. [Perez Hilton]
• Peter Andre, husband of Kate "Jordan" Price, is in L.A. Alone. Don't know what it means. [The Sun]
• Poor Paris Hilton. She used to get paid to show up at clubs, sometimes $100,000 "appearance fee." The recession has dropped the sum she can get to $40K or less. Tragic! [Daily Mail]
• An Austrian woman allegedly sent more than 100 letters to CSI: Miami star David Caruso, stalked him, asked him for an autograph, and then sent death threats when he refused to give her one. Authorities are looking for her; they've got an international arrest warrant, and officials said she could be hiding in Mexico. Very Special Episode? [Yahoo News]
• Hmm, Hairspray 2? John Waters is in; John Travolta's not. [Perez Hilton]
• Lauryn Hill was spotted taking her kids to see Martha Stewart at a Williams Sonoma store in New Jersey. [Perez Hilton]
• This article states, "A Canadian mathematics professor says he's used his science to solve mysteries about how the Beatles created two unique musical sounds." Someone has a lot of time on his hands! [UPI]
• Headline of the day: "AC/DC blamed for dark economic times in Britain." [News.com.au]
• On the heels of 90210, next comes Melrose Place. Would Heather Locklear come back? [LA Times]
• Half nekkid pix Naomi Campbell at an art show. [Page Six]
• "The thing that gets me the most about this country is that it’s called a “free country” but everyone is a slave to their car. From my place I can walk to my loft, but nobody walks here, everyone has a car. If I walked down there in the evening, I’d be stopped three or four times by someone who thinks I’m a prostitute, inviting me to get in their car. This is why I left the States when I was 22. I saw that I was going to be trapped into buying a car so I could get to work so I could pay for my car, and I thought, that’s not for me. " — Chrissie Hynde. [BlackBook]
• "I didn't come across too well either in the majority of reviews and even with the audiences — people did not respond to it. It was a film that was made to be seen by many people. Not many people saw it and they weren't particularly fond of it, and that was shitty, it was really shitty." — Colin Farrell, on Alexander. [Reuters]
• "Bernie and I were pals. We've known each other for a long time and we had a great relationship… If you had to pick a perfect way to be remembered for an artist, especially a guy like Bernie — the joy that this film has in it, and the kind of love and adoration that people had for him, and the kind of joy he brought people is evident in this film. [The audience] will discover that he can do things that they didn't know he could do, like sing, dance and carry this dramatic arc. I'm always finishing films and looking forward to seeing them, and I know Bernie didn't see this movie. It's kind of like 'wow.' " — Samuel L. Jackson, on Soul Men, Bernie Mac's last film. CNN]
• "I watched kids of differing physical abilities and different backgrounds from around the world lose themselves in imagination and make believe. And I was moved to tears. All I can tell you is that I cried like a baby. I couldn't stop crying." — Mike Myers, on performing at Rusk Institute in The Bronx with Only Make Believe, a theater charity group that puts on plays for young children in hospitals and care facilities. [People]
• "I like to wear formfitting things because I work very hard to keep my gorgeous figure. I’m very happy to show it off and I honestly go to the women’s department often because I know I’ll find very interesting patterns and formfitting clothes. It’s an old rock ’n’ roll trick for guys to shop in the girl’s section. I’ve recently gotten some great things at Miss Sixty, Betsey Johnson and G-Star. In the women’s department, I go for size large and in men’s, I go for small." — Perry Farrell. [BlackBook]
• "For Halloween, I'm going to look like a normal girl, put some bronzer on, some spray tan on and wear some jeans. People will ask me where my costume is! I would never do this in normal life, that's why I'll do it at Halloween. It's a bit funny and people think I'm not wearing a costume but I really am." — Dita Von Teese. [ONTD]
• "How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you’re a dead man? You go to work." — Patrick Swayze. [NY Times]
• "I feel like I’m a pretty normal 22-year-old. An actor friend told me the best way to deal with attention is to exist in the 3 feet around you when you’re out with friends — you can’t be worried about people watching you." — Lauren Conrad [Cosmopolitan]

[New York, October 4. Image via INF]

• In an interview on Glamocracy (also known as "the other place I blog") with Glamour's Cindi Leive, Barack Obama said that he's infuriated by right-wing attacks on his wife. Maybe he and Bill will actually have something to talk about next time they talk. [Glamocracy]
• The Nation has a new sex columnist, JoAnn Wypikewski. JoAnn thinks that there are "legions of little girls jumping out of their panties" for Obama, which manages to be stupid, demeaning, creepy and sexist all at the same time! "Ugh" is right. [The Nation, Salon]
• Oh, and conservative talk show host Michael Savage thinks that autistic children are just "[brats] who [haven't] been told to cut the act." Why the fuck do people listen to this asshole again? [Media Matters]

• But the FDA says it's cool to eat tomatoes now, just not peppers. Fools, the last thing Americans need to be told by the government is to eat fewer fresh veggies. Right hand, left hand? [CNN]
• And the first Obamite to sell out is coming to town soon. Dan Shomon masterminded Obama's 2004 Senate campaign and is now selling his connections to Obama in Washington. He won't be the last, that's for sure. In Washington, Democrats sell out just as quick as Republicans. [Politico]
• China has issued new regulations by which artists will be allowed to perform there, following Bjork's Tibet shout-out. Guess a good Olympic half-time show is totally out. [NY Times]
• In good news, though, Kay Ryan is set to be this country's 17th poet laureate on Thursday. [NY Times]

• Angelina Jolie MAY have given birth to twins in France this morning. Stay tuned. [Just Jared]
• Former American Idol star Paris Bennett is pregnant, you guys. She's 19 and the father "chooses not to be in the public eye." But! Paris "has a ring." So everything is fine. [People]
• Is Sandra Bernhard over Madonna? Apparently she ranted about Madge at a show in Toronto, taunting celebs who brag about exercising for three hours: "Why don't you rub some salt in the wounds of the people who have to work 14 hours a day?" Plus! Madonna's been traveling from her home in Manhattan to rehearsals in Brooklyn and apparently her drivers "race like madmen" and run red lights to get her there and back. [Page Six]
• Guy Ritchie is in New York now, too. And neither he nor Madonna have been seen wearing wedding bands. Madge's spokesperson, Liz Rosenberg, says: "Madonna has rarely worn a wedding band over these last six years, so there's no secret message about that." [People]
• But! This report says Guy is in the Big Apple to discuss finances, assess assets and plan out the divorce from Madonna, sigh. [Mirror]
• Madonna's childhood home was destroyed by a fire over the weekend, and the blaze is "suspicious," uh-oh. [Breitbart]

• So Madonna's been rehearsing for her new tour, "Sticky and Sweet," at this non-airconditioned space in Brooklyn. She'll do some moves and then say "That sucked! I have to be better." Then she'll look at her dancers and say, "And so does everybody else." Plus! She has some girls dressed up in iconic Madonna outfits of the past: "Truthfully, I wanted drag queens, who does me better? But I figured that might be too much drama, you know — those girls love their scenes. And I provide enough of that!" [Variety]<
• George Clooney is still single, repeat, George Clooney is still single. [E!]
• Jennifer Lopez may not have a nanny for her twins, but she obviously has "people" working for her who keep an eye on the kids. Duh. [E!]
• James Gostelow, 25, says he was the one punched by Amy Winehouse at Glastonbury: "I saw a hat being thrown from behind me and it hit Amy's beehive. She looked down, saw me looking up, and her elbow went for me. She caught my forehead, then someone may have shouted something from the back, which is when she went in again." James doesn't plan to press charges because "It's part of the experience." [The Star]
• He also says: "I'm just pleased I got to see her. She did a great act. Not everyone can say they have been hit by Amy Winehouse." [The Sun]
• Meanwhile, Amy has left the clinic she was in because she was going stir crazy. [The Sun]
• After Amy checked out of the hospital, she partied until 4:30 am. [Daily Mail]
• Wait, it seems that Amy has checked herself back in to the hospital. [TVgasm]
• Oh! And a wax figure of Amy, replete with tattoos and behive, will be unveiled at Madam Tussauds in London next month! Will it be the curvy Amy? Or the, um, other one? [Yahoo News]
• Bjork's only UK festival date? Canceled. [Mirror]
• This headline, "Maggie Gyllenhaal Chooses Baby Over Box Office," says it all. [People]
• Maroon 5's Adam Levine hearts yoga. [People]
• After weeks of being single, Liv Tyler realized it wasn't much fun and wants to give marriage to Royston Langdon another try. Sweet? [Janet Charlton's Hollywood]
• Someone snapped a picture of Jason Lee in line for a marriage license at a Norwalk, CA courthouse. Guess he's going to marry his knocked-up galpal? [TMZ]
• The premiere of Dark Knight will not be a tribute to Heath Ledger. Michelle Williams will not attend. Her rep says: "There is misinformation all over the place." [MSNBC]
• Jessica Simpson met Tony Romo's parents! They had dinner at an Olive Garden in Wisconsin! [People]
• Is Lauren Conrad actually a nice, well-spoken person, edited by MTV to seem conniving and dumb? [Perez Hilton]
• As previously reported, Corey Haim and Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham dated back in 1995. Posh says: "We didn’t have sex or anything. In actual fact, he didn’t seem to want to try. The most we did was kiss… Looking back it’s hard to work out whether I really fancied him or if I was just a bit of a sad fan." Hahaha, wow. I always liked Feldman more. [Perez Hilton]
• The Mary-Kate Olsen/Spencer Pratt feud started in high school. Selling drunk photos of your classmates is kind of a douche move, Spence. [People]
• Producer Rodney Jerkins is going to "reinvent" Britney Spears on her next album. Yawn. [People]
• Rapper Young Jeezy is impressed by John McCain. [Page Six]
• An anti-Scientology group claims that the church's intelligence agency, OSA, threatens, harasses and intimidates critics of the religion. [Rush & Molloy]
• Blind item! "Which singing ex-husband of an A-list actress would rather have people think he's gay than admit that he cheated on her with a groupie?" [Rush & Molloy]
• Jessica Biel has started blogging, sorta. She writes: "I definitely did not make it onto the debate team in high school so I'm feeling extremely insecure about communicating publicly for the first time via the blogosphere (how about that word for a novice?). I’m still getting the lingo down. I have been “internet challenged” long enough and am thrilled to join the tech revolution! Plus, I only have four friends and am in dire need of more. Just kidding, I have six." [MySpace, via People]
• "When I said that I make out with dudes, there was a slight sense of sexual rebellion in that. I probably even made it a bigger deal than it was. If I was gay and I saw people playing with it, being ambiguous, I don't really know how I would feel. I look back at Elvis [who appropriated black music] and I'm like, 'Was Elvis a [bleep]?'" — Pete Wentz, naturally. [Page Six]
• Gossip Girl's Blake Lively swears she is not like Paris Hilton: "Since I have a dog and blond hair, that must mean we're alike. It's a dumb thing to say. I don't think that makes us similar. I don't know her, but I don't like being compared to anyone by somebody who doesn't know me. I'm my own person. I don't go to clubs, I don't party, I don't dance on tables and I don't like sex tapes." [Page Six]

Though the New York Times pop music section is edited by the incomparable Sia Michel, almost all of the writers are dudes. The editorial staff — particularly on the higher rungs — of Rolling Stone is mostly male. Of the twelve editorial staffers listed on Pitchfork's website, there are 2 women. Of course, the paucity of females writing about music in the most influential publications bespeaks a larger sexism in the music business. Yes, 50% of the top selling artists this week are female, but they're all, to a woman (Rihanna, Natasha Beddingfield, the abhorrent Katy Perry, etc.) beautiful, under 25, and singing pop. Several of them do not write their own songs, and their popularity is largely driven by their packaging, not their music.

In her review of whitechocolatespaceegg, Laura Sinagra writes, "Phair's genius has always been for fantasies sprung from the precise pen of the passive observer. Her first songs weren't about thinking on your feet, or slinging zingers at the straw-man rockboy she called Johnny Sunshine; they were about crafting retorts later in your bedroom and living off their power." Perhaps the future female music critics, as well as the future music makers, should use Phair's specific genius as guide.

Why Can't Women Be Geniuses Too? [Times of London]
What Makes You Happy [City Pages]

MOE: Hey hi what's up shit is pretty fucked huh.
MEGAN: It makes me a little glad I never leave my house. Hooray for blogoraphobia.
MOE: Okay, first things first: there are violent protests in Tibet, and China has to quell them in a way that doesn't make Stephen Spielberg look good, and now the protests have spread to other provinces.
Tibet has long been a pretty sweet separatist province to have, what with the exiled leader advocating nonviolence and spending most of his time with Beastie Boys etc. etc.
MEGAN: And getting to meet practically every head of state in the world, albeit unofficially...
Except for, obviously, those countries in Africa rapidly becoming Chinese client states.
MOE: China has a whole other separatist province called Xinjiang and no one pays attention to those guys. Because they're angry Muslims. Hey Sudanese Islamofascists? How's about some CONSISTENCY??
MEGAN: Wait, didn't we care about that for like 2 seconds last week when Al Qaeda did a video of training there? I didn't realize that we'd forgotten to care about that.
MOE: Hey, look, a story about a recent thwarted hijacking attempt by a Uighur Al Qaeda girlbomber! I think the Chinese government thinks you should care again.
MEGAN: Oh, thanks nameless Chinese propagandists newswriters!
Anyway, so, how soon until they start beating monks in the streets and we issue some sort of vague milquetoast protest about it that in no way compares to our reaction to the monk beatings in Myanmar? Or did I blink and miss it?
MOE: Oooooh, think Laura Bush drop her cookie sheet again and get on the phone with Hu Jintao?
MEGAN: Maybe she could send him cookies? I'll bet some chocolate chip ones could go a long way toward repairing US-China relations
MOE: I
Yikes, that disappeared.
MOE: Okay yeah so, it's very tricky what is happening with Tibet, but either way, it led to an incredibly cerebral discussion of Bjork on the comments over the weekend, did you see? My father was impressed with Bjork's timing on that one, but perhaps if he knew Bjork's tears cure cancer (too bad she never cries) he wouldn't be so surprised. Interestingly, this week Taiwan is holding elections, and he's headed out there. Taiwan is interesting because, you know, they really have it best, as "splittist" provinces go. Elections, democracy, a decent standard of living, no painful shared history of, like, cannibalism or Cultural Revolution or any such thing. The pro-China Kuomintang party is supposed to win though.
MEGAN: Interesting. Wait, now, Taiwan's pro-China even though China considers them a rogue provice? Taiwanese politics are so hard to understand. Is it possible that China's financing the Kuomintang or something
MOE: hahahaha well China's financing the entire economy, sort of like ours. The thing is that the Kuomintang came from mainland China and fled to Taiwan, with numerous palace treasures and such, in 1949. There they found a happy population of ethnic Chinese who spoke another dialect and also, Japanese because the Japanese colonized it, and proceeded to pretty much subjugate them until the seventies, when a democracy movement began burgeoning and our relations with the mainland made it a lot easier for Jimmy Carter to pressure the Kuomintang to treat the "ethnic Taiwanese" better. Somewhere in there Chiang Kai-shek died, his much nicer son Chiang Chingguo took over, and a kind of slow, steady democratization took hold. The thing is that most Chinese, no matter what dialect they speak, are pretty pragmatic and rational and no one wants war with China, but while they have us around a lot of them also don't feel like taking shit from China. On the other hand, of course, Taiwanese control most of the factories in China. It's complicated.
MEGAN: [Awkward segue alert] As complicated at Dina Mattos McGreevey's sex life?
MOE: Hey, good call. That conversation was certainly venturing into prurient and meaningless territory so I'm glad we can now focus our attention on The McGreevey-driver threesomes. I think my favorite part is that they were described as "intense" "hard-core consensual sex orgies".That sounds so...cardio! It's a good thing too I guess if they all started with get-togethers at T.G.I.Fridays.
MEGAN: Like, taking a date to TGI Fridays is so Jersey and let us not pretend that it is not because it is. Also, their intense 3-way orgies (which, can an orgy really only involve 3 people?) always involved one of the guys jacking off while one of them fucked Dina.
But what's sort of really interesting to me is that in earlier publications, he's said not to have started working for McGreevey until 2000, which throws off his timeline I think, and that Dina's divorce lawyer wants financial records about financial records and correspondence with McGreevey's rich boyfriend. Also, apparently, they're due in court soon to litigate over the money McGreevey is hiding from Matos so that he doesn't have to pay as much in child support and alimony. Fucker. Like, aren't gay men supposed to be the good ones?
MOE: Um yeah they shared a room at the TRUMP PLAZA in Atlantic City. Here is what I have to say about that; okay, there is a hotel room shortage in Atlantic City, sure. But if if you are the governor you get the "casino" rate and that is seventy bucks. "It became almost laughable — I would never have my own hotel room," Pedersen said. Okay, so a few things: what does this mean about Silda Spitzer? How long has the New York Post been sitting on this story just waiting for everyone to remember that they once for a brief moment cared about Dina Matos McGreevey?
MEGAN: I'm personally hoping that Silda's sunning herself on a beach somewhere foreign and being served tropical alcoholic beverages by inappropriately young but attractive cabana boys.
And that she and Eliot didn't fuck around with 3rd parties because it's one thing imagining Gay McGreevey jerking off and another entirely grosser thing to have to picture Eliot Spitzer in a wide variety of sexual situations
Excuse my while I go wash my brain out with bleach. Maybe you could talk about the financial markets and i'll try to think of something to say that makes it sound like my summer interning for the Bank of New York wasn't a complete waste of time for everyone involved?
MOE: Okay, well, the government is going to have to print money to bail out the banks because they made the financial instruments so complicated no one has a fucking clue how much, if anything, they're worth, and everything is so interconnected that it could all collapse like in the Asian Financial Crisis unless the Fed steps in and offers a quarter trillion dollars to save it. Or something.
Here it is explained by someone named Dave Wilson who is on some email list that my ex-boyfriend is on.

There's currently a kind of cascade failure happening throughout the financial community, spurred
both by extraordinary levels of borrowed money that was used to speculate (it's like those mortgages that were issued for 110% of the value of the house, except that type of "investment" has, unbeknownst to most people, actually been taking place in pretty much every investment sphere you can think of); if those speculative investments go South, investors have to come up with lots of cash, fast, (this is known as a margin call) meaning they wind up selling everything they own to raise cash, which then depresses the value of the stuff the investors had to sell (as well as similar stuff owned by others) since suddenly there's a lack of scarcity combined with a suspicion on the part of would-be buyers that perhaps this stuff is being dumped for reasons other than a need for quick cash...

Last fall, the former Treasury secretary confessed to Fortune magazine that until the mortgage storms broke over his head in the summer of 2007, he was unfamiliar with the kinds of complex mortgage structures with which Citi's own balance sheet was packed. Almost certainly, the gulf between competence and compensation on Wall Street has never been wider.

"Why not set an example of Bear Stearns, the guys who have this record of dog-eat-dog, we're brass knuckles, we're tough?" asked William A. Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital in Issaquah, Wash., and co-author with Fred Sheehan of "Greenspan's Bubbles: The Age of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve." "This is the perfect time to set an example, but they are not interested in setting an example. We are Bailout Nation."

• It is not the best time to visit the capital of Tibet. A peaceful monk-dominated demonstration gave way to angry looting/arson/chaos/etc. over the past few days, and now the streets of Lhasa are full of tanks and teargas and fires. Probably a hundred have died, which makes this worse than Tiananmen kinda. It's a good thing our government is so unpreoccupied and globally respected right now so we will be able to respond in a way that is decisive and credible and hopefully ends the violence soon! [NYT]
  
• China is blaming the Dalai Lama's "clique" for "masterminding" the riots from his exile in India. He's urging his clique not to resort to violence. [Reuters]
  
• Oh yeah, and China is also blaming Bjork. [NME]
  
• Our government gets to spy on us easier now, though not as easy as the Senate would have it. [Wash Post]
  
• Oh, yeah, and now the fuckers who brought civilization A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila care about democracy? [IAmTRex]
  
• Hugo Chavez did not declare war on Colombia. [Bloomberg]

• Bear Stearns is fucked. You care because: the whole time the investment bank was figuring out what to do with its massive holdings of subprime mortgages everyone was suddenly getting nervous about, the CEO was getting toked up, and also because, after their credit rating got downgraded today it borrowed $3 billion from JP Morgan, which in turn borrowed $3 billion from the Fed under some "Depression Era Law" or something like that, I really don't know Marin79 because I've been watching footage of whores all week, but the Fed thing is just the sort of unusual desperate measure that makes all those pricks on Wall Street feel really vulnerable all of a sudden, so...keep that in mind if you're looking to hate fuck. [WSJ]
• And that potsmoking CEO...is at a bridge tournament! [WSJ]
• "And ... And ... And! God! Has got! To be sick! Of this shit!" More on Obama's crazy but sometimes enjoyable pastor. [Fox News]
• ""The love of money as a possession...will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease." Hey look! Keynes was right about a lot of things, but not that. [Project Syndicate]
• Americans living in Asia are voting in huge margins for the candidate who spent his childhood in Asia, writes an American who lives in Asia! Identity politics: not just for poor folks and middle aged women! [WSJ]
• Chris Rock and Anthony Pellicano. Honestly, we didn't talk about this because I don't think Chris Rock is a rapist. Do you? Seriously. So anyway, he hired Pellicano. Not the classiest move, but whatever, he was afraid. There are these tapes. Pellicano is scum. The lady seems like she gives real rape victims a bad name. Also she wears white. I dunno, you discuss. [Gawker]
• Ashley Alexandra Dupre played Sandy in Grease. At some point, you won't care anymore. [Huffington Post]

• Read this new book on how comic book McCarthyism of the 1940s. [NYT]
• Find out more about the five year freeze on funding to the National Institute of Health I've been hearing so much about from doctors and scientists who, for whatever reason, do not trust the private sector to cough up money to research all the ways you might save lives. [Broken Pipeline]
• Borrow this book from the roommate I convinced to buy it and then maybe...
• FIND AN ACCOUNTANT OMG. Um, maybe I should actually do that one! Have a good weekend guys!
• Think of a funny comment re Bjork/Paul Janka/Ben Bernanke that will show up marin79 and also, "woodland creatures."

• Spencer Pratt is getting an advice column in Radar. "Yo Spencer!" will debut in the April issue; the idea is so dumb it's genius. [USA Today]
  
• The Beckhams went shopping at the Pleasure Chest adult store in Hollywood and stocked up on supplies. "They seemed to know exactly what they wanted," a witness says. What do you think was on their list? Vibes? Lube? The purple penetrator? [The Sun]
  
• Watch Britney's new anime video! [People]
  
• "It pains me to report that on the first day of the shoot, Britney knew her lines better than I knew mine," How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor says. "She's been great to work with." [People]
  
• The CW network is developing a contemporary spinoff of Beverly Hills, 90210. Maybe think of it as a mashup of The OC and Gossip Girl. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Nicky Hilton says: "There's no truth to any starvation, eating disorders rumors. I think the press has been printing a lot of pictures of me from unflattering angles. My friends see the pictures and they're like, 'Oh my god are you OK?' And then they see me, and they're like 'Oh...' It's really not that interesting or true." [MSNBC]
• Amy Winehouse's father says the fact that he had an mistress when Amy was young is partly to blame for her troubled life — he had a "work wife" while he was still married to Amy's mom. Sigh. [The Sun]
• Is Rachael Ray's syndicated show going off the air? The ratings suck. She'd still have her Food Network shows, though. Unfortch. [Page Six]
• Anne Hathaway: Into absinthe. [Page Six]
• Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi and actor Skeet Ulrich? Hot. [Page Six]
• Three blind items! 1. "Which friendly actor recently fell off the wagon? Though he's been in rehab several times, he was spotted stumbling out of a Hollywood hotel at 7 a.m. looking totally 'wasted.'" 2. "Which young soap starlet made networks execs extremely nervous when she was starting out? She was known for fooling around with her much older producers." 3. "Which Hollywood hunk cheats on his gorgeous model girlfriend all the time? They've been together for a while but he's clearly not ready to settle down." [Page Six]
• Is Paul Newman OK? He's having back problems. Be well! [Rush & Molloy]
• Melissa Joan Hart popped! The actress and her hubs welcomed their second child, a son, on Wednesday. Welcome to the world, Braydon Hart Wilkerson. [People]
• The final Harry Potter book will become two movies; the first is due in November 2010 and the second in May of 2011. [ET]
• Paul McCartney is appearing in ads for PETA — the organization that dumped his estranged wife Heather Mills last year. [Mirror]
• Speaking of Sir Paul — the judge should be ruling on his divorce — and deciding how much cash Heather will get — on Monday. [Yahoo News]
• China's Culture Ministry says it will tighten controls over foreign artists after Björk shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at a recent concert in Shanghai. China forbids artists from performing content that "harms national unity." [Reuters]
• Patrick Swayze's mom on her son's cancer: "He just doesn't deserve it. He's got such a big heart. He's been such a good and generous and thoughtful person. It breaks my heart to know he's suffering." [Perez Hilton]

• Nicole Richie's People magazine cover is outselling Christina Aguilera's. What's up with that? [MSNBC]
  
• Winona Ryder: Not engaged. Well crap. Is that guy going to feel pressured to pop the question now? [Us]
  
• Also not engaged: Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson. [People]
  
• Video: Pete Doherty, smoking crack-like substance. Out of a pipe shaped like a chicken. This is not a joke. [Perez Hilton]
  
• Tom Cruise: Seen washing his hands for 5 minutes, "as thoroughly as a surgeon preparing for surgery" after using the restroom. Here's to LHR! [Times Of India]
  
• That "guru" Paris Hilton was hanging out with? He's a Hollywood actor who has been in flicks like Pirates Of The Caribbean. That's doesn't explain why she's spending time with him, but whatevs. [TMZ]
  
• Bjork made Chinese fans "uncomfortable" by shouting "Tibet! Tibet!" at a show in Shanghai. [CNN]

• Jennifer Lopez's twins have 600-thread count Egyptian cotton linens, classical music piped in, and professional baby masseuse who come once or twice a week. Yawn. [Mirror]
• Carey Hart says that Pink is "the love of my life." Although they are separated, "We talk all the time." [People]
• Sarah Jessica Parker's unreleased movie, Spinning Into Butter, might just suck: It's lacking a distributor and she says, "One enters these endeavors with the best of intentions, but sometimes they don't work out." [Page Six]
• Justin Long says girlfriend Drew Barrymore "smells good." Also: "She's beautiful and funny. The most compassionate person I've ever met." [People]
• "Part of the bar mitzvah is that you become a man supposedly at 13 years old. And as I was a man, I decided never to go to a synagogue again" — Jack Black. [Page Six]
• Village Voice columnist Michael Musto will appear on the cover of the paper spoofing the Lindsay Lohan nude photo shoot. Musto says: "Lindsay did 250 crunches the night before her shooting. Well, I did 250 Nestle's Crunches." [Page Six]
• Thursday night, Barack Obama will attend the opening of the all-black revival of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof on Broadway. He'll have mad Secret Service, of course. [Gatecrasher]
• Cashmere Mafia: On the verge of dunzo? [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which singer turned Broadway star is miserable along the Great White Way? Although he privately gripes that he hates the show he's in, he has to ride out his contract." [Gatecrasher]
• James Blunt showed video footage of bombed homes, dead bodies and graves during a his concert on Friday. "The film was my footage," the former armed NATO peacekeeper explains. [Rush & Molloy]
• Lauren Conrad moved into her new house (with Audrina and Lo) and got a new puppy! [People]
• Actress Jeri Ryan has a new baby girl, Gisele Eme. Welcome! [People]
• Bai Ling was formally charged with petty theft from that incident last month in which she stole two Star magazines and some batteries and then blamed a bad break up. The value of the items? $16.22. [People]
• John Ritter's widow testified yesterday, detailing the events surrounding her husband's death. [USA Today]
• Rumor has it that Mischa Barton turned down a role on Gossip Girl to make it seem like she is too famous for that; her rep says the info was not leaked for publicity. Ugh, so glad she won't be hanging with Serena and Blair. [Perez Hilton]
• Eddie Van Halen is undergoing medical tests, causing the band the reschedule its upcoming concerts. Eddie has fought cancer and alcoholism in the past, this issue has yet to be disclosed. [Reuters]
• Disney Channel star Miley Cyrus will perform at rival network Nickelodeon's Kids Choice Awards??? It's like a tear in the space-time continuum. [Reuters]
• There's a rift between Steve Irwin's widow and his father, if you give a crap about that kind of stuff. [Independent]
• British "glamour model" Jordan, aka Katie Price, is purchasing a plane, which she plans to paint pink and pilot herself. Awesome? Or crazy? Or crazy awesome? [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Is Cindy Crawford coming to Good Morning America or The View? [Variety]
• Madonna may be turning 50, but there's no stopping her: "I'm sure I wasn't put on this earth just to make records. There are a lot of things I want to achieve. I'd like to be a better human being. I'd like to be a better parent. I still have my children to raise. That's a big responsibility, I'm not done with that. I would like to direct more films and write them. I've only done one. To me that's the beginning of that career and I want to make more records. I love music." Go ahead, girl! [Mirror]

What's even scarcer are male-fronted bands with women who play bass or guitar. If there is a woman in a band, she's generally the gorgeous face out front a la Jenny Lewis in Rilo Kiley. Bassists Tina Weymouth in the Talking Heads and D'arcy Wretzky from the Smashing Pumpkins are notable exceptions to the rule.

Joan Jett, one of only two women in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists and former member of the all-girl band the Runaways, thinks that male critics are threatened by female rockers, which could explain the dearth of head bangers in bras. "My personal opinion is that rock'n' roll is very sexual, and when you're playing it, you're owning your sexuality," she tells the Guardian. "And I guess that's very threatening to a lot of people - that's the only thing I can figure why we ran into so much resistance."

My secret hope is that the Rock 'n Roll Camp for Girls will usher in a riot grrrl redux, and we'll return to the halcyon days of the early 90s when people cared about Sleater Kinney and the Breeders and Bikini Kill. Looking at a recent cover of Blender which features a half naked Pussycat Doll, I don't have much hope. Maybe someone needs to a tampon at the American audience to get shit riled up again.

The New Girl Power [Telegraph]
Queen Of Noise [Guardian]