The New York Post claims that MTV founder/TRL superfan Tom Freston has the advantage in the race to succeed Sumner Redstone as CEO of Viacom. (Quick catch-up for those joining us late: President Mel Karmazin recently quit the Big V, and Redstone named Freston and CBS head/evil mastermind Les Moonves as co-presidents, setting up a King Lear-style succession quagmire. King Lear was a 1997 TV movie starring Ian Holm.) Did Freston beat Moonves to the Linens N' Things to buy the pillow that will decide when the superannuated Redstone is snuffed by suffocation steps down? That would be shame, as Les always struck us as a bare-hands-on-wrinkled-throat guy.

MSNBC's Jeannette Walls says that Barbra Streisand has been seen skulking around the Kabbalah Centre. Apparently, she's trying to get the Centre to use its clout to push her "political agenda." You had to know that eventually the Jews would finally take over Kabbalah, just like everything else in Hollywood.

It's been about ten minutes since we've heard any news about the status of a) J-Lo's uterus or b) her marriage to what's-his-name, Cleopatra. To fill the momentary void in J-Lo coverage, Trio releases the results of a poll (tied to their Flops! marketing) asking which of the copiously-buttocked, oft-married crossover diva's relationships should have succeeded. And, surprise! People long for the days of P. Diddy, when Lopez was getting dragged into court every other week to deny seeing this shooting or that pistol-whipping. Maybe they were hoping for some of the gunplay to go awry, with Ms. Lopez on the wrong end of a Diddy-intentioned capping? Clearly, the public is going to need some time adjusting to the new Dispose-A-Husband.

A reader sends in this account of a recent, real-life encounter with everybody's favorite borderline sociopath, Larry David. When he's not out saving dudes from bum murder raps, he's engaging in some kind of weird street theater with his family.

Writer Paul Davidson tracks the imaginary journey of a mediocre script by a writer with great, fabricated "buzz," from query letter to eventual mid-six-figure studio deal. Sounds about right to us, though he did leave out the part where the agent stops returning the writer's calls when he figures out all the buzz is gone, and the writer loses sexual function from his fear of inadequacy:

The NYT profiles some members of the New York Celebrity Assistants group. Nothing so great in this piece on the masochist assistant subculture; it's your run-of-the-mill mix of celeb bosses praising their wonderful helpers (in between beatings) and the tossed-in anecdote of a nightmare request from an unnamed star employer. The NYCA seems to be thriving, but where's the LA chapter? (There's a quick mention in the article: "A Los Angeles group originally was associated but now is independent.") Celebrity assistants are roughly one-fifth of the population in Hollywood, but we've never heard of the "LACA." We just assume that if they ever try to hold a meeting, a CAA/William Morris-sponsored hit squad would firebomb the happy hour, take all survivors to a Wilshire Boulevard mailroom, and scald their pretty, uppity faces with Starbucks macchiatos.

A local Miami/Ft. Lauderdale station says that some Floridians are up in arms over the use of Hillary Clinton's and Condoleezza Rice's images in a commercial for Paramount's The Stepford Wives. The spot shows Hillary and a (topless!) Condi morphing into Stepford-ized versions of themselves. Somewhere, a 20th Century Fox marketing director is kicking himself. If they weren't generating enough buzz by holding the line on Garfield's premiere on the National Day of Mourning, they could have digitally sandwiched the controversy-courting cat into a three-way with Hill and Condi. Not that either of them likes pussy.

The political documentary The Hunting of the President, about the Republicans' attempt to "systematically destroy the political legacy of the Clintons," has pushed back its release in deference to dead GOP symbol of light Ronald Reagan, saying it would be wrong "during a week of mourning to be throwing a party."

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Hollywood's smiles will be a little less sparkling on Friday, and its stylists will go unfeted, at least during the National Day of Mourning for Ronald Reagan. The Crest Whitestrips Style Awards have been postponed to an unspecified date.

Even The Simpsons aren't immune to the lure of wacky, Japanese ad dollars; after all, they're still creatures of Hollywood. In this disturbing clip, they drink some mysterious beverage that makes them take off their clothes and inappropiately cavort in the kitchen. Maybe after the vague alienation of some time in a foreign land sets in, Sofia Coppola can train a camera on them and win an Oscar for writing a sensitive, nuanced movie in which nothing really happens.

Fox president/ugly duckling mutiliation enabler/scheduling iconoclast Gail Berman talks to THR about the network's new year-round rollout of new shows. And she seems painfully aware that Fox's new scheduling plans are going to tear at the very fabric of our existence. Read these fascinating displays of a Biblical persecution complex (for the full effect, play the soundtrack from The Passion of the Christ in the background, cued up to the pained, ululating parts, and don't forget the hair shirt):

Just when we thought that this whole J-Lo situation had splooged itself out in one disappointing orgasm of media meat-beating, Page Six nudges the world and demands another go-around. They say that Lopez was so hot to get married because Marc Anthony's JV salsa-singing seed had already successfully found its quarry within a J-llopian tube. (She's knocked up.) And it's "Hollywood Official:" her business manager/guru just went with a "no comment," not even bothering with a transparent denial.

The ever-so- edgy Eminem exposed his bare buttocks during a performance with his group D12 at Saturday nights's MTV Movie Awards. (Naturally, MTV plans to edit out the barely-offending asscrack, as we've heard it threw a scare into FCC-fearing MTV brass.) What's he planning for an encore, eating cookies before dinner? We hope he was sporting some kind of exotic piercing through his asshole next to an "I Fucked Mary Kate" tattoo, or he's going to wind up matching rhymes with the Count on Sesame Street.

With all of the attendant hubbub surrounding the passing of our sole surviving nonagenarian actident (actor/President) this weekend, one thing has gotten lost in the shuffle: How is Bonzo taking it? Low Culture answers the question, printing this surprisingly heartfelt remembrance from Ronald Reagan's best known costar:

The LAT looks at Napa Valley winery Clos du Val's dominance in the Hollywood product placement game. The premium Clos du val Brand has crept its way into films and TV shows by giving away 240 cases of Clos du Val wine, and Clos du Val will soon be prominently displayed in the new Tom Hanks film The Terminal. Whatever mind-control mojo that Clos du Val has perfected seems to have worked wonders on the LAT, as the brand "Clos du Val," the wine with the "lens-catching terra-cotta-colored label," is repeated a hypnosis-inducing 12 times in the short article/boozy Clos du Val infomercial. Excuse us for a moment while we drink our Clos du Val lunch, then inevitably vomit it back up, pledging to never again drink Clos du Val on an empty stomach.

A blogger on the LA Blogs community blog has pictures of the Ronald Reagan funeral and accompanying media circus unfolding outside her door. And, not surprisingly, it's a fashion disaster. She cites the sartorial menace of "apparel jingoism," where everyone's swaddled in American flag clothes. God, let's hope they're not rocking the stars n' stripes with Ugg boots.

We were sick of this J-Lo wedding business since about oh, yesterday, but we're sure everyone wants to gape at some "secret" pics of the "secret" wedding. Stereogum has some up, and The Sun has a helpful gallery that includes happy-seeming photos of J-Lo's less successful forays into the sacrament.

It looks like the only X-rays coming out of Jake Gyllenhaal's eyes will be of the metaphorical, dreamy variety. A spy tells us that Jake's "not even on the list" for potential Supermen. We know that it's very hard to believe, but in their rush to declare the Super-Exclusive, Star magazine might have fallen prey to a publicist's ruse [Ed. note—Publicists! Drats!] to boost the young dreamy-eye delivery mechanism's stock after the critical ass-ripping that The Day After Tomorrow received.

Tech-dork sister blog Gizmodo unearths yet another celebrity eBay auction. This time, Kuffs fans can go bid on Star Wars toys from Christian Slater's collection (Slater's snow speeder: current bid: $5.50). It would probably just be easier to sign up Slater for food stamps by proxy. We hear that you can redeem them at the Ivy for five minutes in the dumpster.