This week's Time magazine tackles the burning question bedeviling out-of-work breeder scribes all over town: "Hey, why are the gays so good at creating TV shows?" If you're currently toiling on one of the hit shows that is "most provocatively defining straight relationships," take a look around, for your showrunner is probably a Gay. Desperate Housewives? Gay. Nip/Tuck? Gay. Six Feet Under? Gay. And there's no relief if you're working on a show with gay themes, either: Will & Grace? 50 percent gay. The L Word? Lesbian! ABC's Stephen McPherson, whose network has been saved by Marc Cherry's [Ed.note—Yup, him too] Housewives, tries to dispel the theory that being gay grants you television-writing superpowers, but eventually succumbs to the barrel of the Velvet Mob revolver being pressed to the back of his head:

Someone managed to slip a sticker advertising the latest Hilton-flavored t-shirt (from the litigation-loving entrepreneurs who brought you the Save Mary-Kate shirt) on the celebutante's retail mothership. Not bad, but sales would really soar if they can find a way to sticker a higher-traffic area, like the inside of Hilton's vagina. Dream big, kids.

On Saturday evening, we briefly stopped by El Guapo to watch the next generation of Hollywood power players throw ping pong balls at each other, guzzle beer, and generally beat the shit out of their peers in the name of good, clean, intermural bloodsport. We didn't stick around too long, for the action had reached such a fever pitch that we feared we'd be forced into a naked pyramid by a serious-looking team wearing military fatigues. Reports from the tourney have trickled in, and this is what we've heard: Rich Demato's Endeavor team captured the trophy (Ari Emanuel must be tickled with delight), three different fights broke out, and Benderspink's JC Spink got in a punch-up with an assistant (from another company, uckily) that spilled onto the sidewalk. That feisty go-getter will probably be running a studio by close of business today.

· Sony America head Howard Stringer will take over as chairman and CEO of the entire Japanese company. America wins! Wait, Stringer's not American? Eh, we've stopped caring. [Variety]
· Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. in negotiations to star in Fur, a film about photographer Diane Arbus, written and directed by the folks who brought you Secretary. We have no idea is this means that Downey will bend Kidman over the edge of a desk for some spanking, but we can always hope. [THR]
· Shrek 3's not set for release until May 2007, but DreamWorks has already hired a writer to begin work on Shrek 4; Jeffrey Katzenberg is anxious to raise the necessary capital for his utopian all-film-executive colony on Mars. [Variety]
· We're a little tired of writing it, but they keep casting: Everyone works during pilot season! Lara Flynn Boyle, Henry Winkler, Jessica Capshaw, and Jason Priestley get in on the action. [THR]
· ABC wins Sunday with the ostensibly non-piece-of-shit TV movie, Their Eyes Were Watching God. [THR]

Before you start pawning all of your possession to rent a Hollywood-endorsed "dip n' dunk" photo booth, consider that Sunday's NYT piece contains numerous indications that the trend is already colder than a Republican in Carrie Fisher's guest room:

The Dapper Danger blog took a job as an extra on the New Orleans set of the Lindsay Lohan epic Just My Luck and learns some lessons about the background craft: There's a lot of standing around and waiting, suspect food, and the crew always hates the cast:

In case you've forgotten, today is "Fat Monday," Showtime's day-long Roman orgy celebrating the premiere of Fat Actress. If you're a subscriber, you can probably flip on the channel right now and see someone eating a pastrami sandwich. Or, if you can hold out until tonight, you can wait for Kirstie Alley to puke (figuratively, we think—maybe those new DVR cable boxes are projectile-vomiting enabled? ) all over your shoes. Writes the LAT's Paul Brownfield:

The gleefully profane Deadwood began its second season on HBO last night, and the West Virginia Surf Report blog once again has tallied the litany of f-bombs and "c-suckers" that artfully dance off the salty tongues of Al Swearengen and company. Really, you hardly notice it after the 36th "fuck":

Take your morning constitutional through the weekend box office numbers.

We know it's old news, but yes, we've heard (and if we don't post something about it, we'll keep getting e-mail): Fred Durst is suing Gawker Media (and various other entities, including, we think, the internet itself and Johnny Five from Short Circuit) for being among the first eight dozen or so websites to briefly spread his leaked sex video. The lawyers are asking for $80 million; here's how we think that breaks down:

Friday
· P-Towns, an art exhibit that quite logically includes work from Philadelphia and Providence, opens at New Image Art Gallery. Philadelphia and Providence, if you're curious, are cities on the East Coast.
· Friday night music: 4th Avenue Jones with special guest KRS-One at Temple Bar; Xiu Xiu at the Echo; Ok Go! (remember them?) at Spaceland; Tommy Stinson (of Replacements fame) at the Hotel Café.
Saturday
· 826LA, the new LA outpost of the Dave Eggers Literary Empire's tutoring arm, holds a reading at Beyond Baroque to benefit their shiny Venice digs. Open house to follow. Within weeks, they'll be turning out better writing talent than USC.
· HIN (Hot Import Nights) opens at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I’m not sure what this is, but cars and Brooke Burke are mentioned; we wonder which has fewer original parts remaining.
· Gape in horror/delight as Young Hollywood merrymakers throw ping-pong balls at each other and try to drink themselves to death at the Beer Pong Tournament of Champions at El Guapo (7250 Melrose at 6 pm). 80 teams enter, two hollow-legged assistants from CAA leave. Too late for a Defamer team, we suppose.
Sunday
·The LA Marathon: 20 years of bloody nipples, five-inch blisters, and fucked-up traffic.

Join us in a brief little dance in the lap of our advertisers, for without their munificence, we'd be driving a van covered in dirty knick-knacks to promote our various entertainment endeavors. If you'd like to advertise with us, see this page.

Needing a break from the stresses of winning her second Oscar and inconspicuously scarfing Astro burgers in front of blinding paparazzi flashbulbs, Hilary Swank and oft-emasculated house-husband Chad Something have earned a vacation:

In fairness, it seems that this story was pulled from the same Cosmo article that yielded Alba's apparent career suicide. But after the phone stopped ringing, we get the feeling that her publicist did some quick thinking and begged the tabloids to emphasize the more casting-positive aspects of the story. Nice save.

Our weekend box office predictions, in which we show superhuman restraint in avoiding puns on "cool."

· Martha Stewart goes home after life-affirming time in prison, ready to capitalize on her stay with a line of "Prison Bitch" lifestyle products. The napkin rings made from the phalanges of her former cellmate are certain to be a best-seller. [THR]
· Nic Cage signs on for the Neil LaBute's thriller The Wicker Man, which, sadly for all of us, appears to have nothing to do with the Josh Hartnett vehicle Wicker Park. [Variety]
·These stars will probably never reach your television with their pilots: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Stockard Channing, Jane Curtin, Fred Savage, and Don Johnson will collect paychecks for the next month. [THR]
· NBC orders at least 10 episodes of Treasure Hunters, a reality show that has teams solving puzzles, criss-crossing the globe in a quest, and trying to discover exactly how they became trapped in the 1980 Michael J. Fox movie Midnight Madness. [Variety]
· House gets a pick-up for a second season. E-mail from Fox head Gail Berman declaring the show to be an "enormous hit" to follow. [THR]

We're sure that the juxtaposition of headlines on Lindsay Lohan's W mag cover was just a coincidence. Also, we're intrigued by this talk of "the new breast implants." Are these the kind that seem to grow and shrink from month to month, and impel a starlet constantly to deny their existence to the press? We'd love to have a pair of those, although we'd have to buy a whole new wardrobe to accomodate them.

The Towleroad blog drives the blind-item truck down Wilshire Boulevard's fabled Corridor of Ten Percenters. Why, exactly, did the gay-porn stars of Bel Ami Entertainment pack their bags and decamp for LA during Oscar weekend?

These quotes in the NY Times from the contestants/future White Lotus waitresses on the WB's Apprentice/ANTM knockoff The Starlet make it seem like their casting staff merely coaxed some wannabe actresses from the porch of the Coffee Bean on Sunset Blvd into a van and called it a day:

As any east-sider who's dined alongside Giovanni Ribisi or Beck at The Alcove on Hillhurst Avenue knows, the Scientologists have very recently established a beachhead with their Mission of Los Feliz. From Scientology.org, L. Ron Hubbard's icy, outstretched hand on the web: