Here's a warning to anyone who voted to strip gay Californians of their rights to wed, and 18,000 already-married same-sex couples of their licenses: You don't want to see a ticked-off Mr. Defamer. His eyebrow arches even higher than usual, and he's been known to accidentally fumble that intern-monitored mug of 140 degree chai latte into a nearby face. We, meanwhile, are busily polishing our pitchforks and stocking up on 99 Cents Only-brand torches for tonight's Prop 8 protest rally (7 p.m. on San Vicente Blvd between West Hollywood Park and the Pacific Design Center). After the jump: Could an earlier Milk release have made the difference?L.A. county has already suspended the issuance of marriage licenses and civil marriage ceremonies for gay couples, saying in a statement "based on the Secretary of State's Semi-Official canvass results from Election Night and the California State Constitutional provision that states '(a) proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election.'" The war, however, has already begun. Multiple legal challenges have been filed to subvert the measure—including one from high-volume feminist firebrand Gloria Allred on behalf of Couple Zero, Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen—arguing that this vote amounts to nothing more than an illegal constitutional revision. In Contention, meanwhile, asks a very good—if difficult to hear—question regarding Milk. The movie itself is about the legendary SF board supervisor's crusade against 1978's Prop 6, which would have banned gays from teaching positions. The parallels are impossible to ignore. Couldn't an earlier release of Gus Van Sant's film have pushed public opinion in this incredibly narrow vote onto the No side?

Sure, Seth Rogen used to be heavier and hairier, but you shouldn't take that to mean he had no luck with women. While divulging his diet secrets to his Zack and Miri director Kevin Smith for Myspace's "Artist on Artist" series, Rogen rebutted the oft-heard critique that he's far too schlubby to pull Heigls and Bankses in real life. "I dated girls who were way hotter and outside of my range, always!" he protests, decrying the skinny minnies who would take their sexual frustrations out on his on-screen persona. Duly noted, Seth — let's just hope that extra girth you're losing doesn't hide Samson-esque powers. [Myspace]

We've had an early glimpse at the joys to come later this week on The Tyra Banks Show, where the host will spend Friday with birthday girl Miley Cyrus and family at yet another Miley fête hosted by Disney. Beyond the nuggets of insight into Miley's poo-scrubbing child-labor days ("I worked at this place called Sparkles Cleaning Service and I cleaned houses, I was like 11. ... I can clean toilet bowls”), however, the true revelations begin when Tyra corners Billy Ray Cyrus into a discussion of "Miley Day" — a tradition of parental indulgence during which, says Cyrus, "whatever she said she wanted to do that day we was gonna do it, no matter what it was…" We'll let Billy Ray take it from there in the accompanying video; let it suffice to say they'll never again be allowed to sit beside each other in church. [Tyra Banks Show]

After last night's electoral catharsis, we unfortunately have to return to reality and a world full of malicious pirates and Jay Mohr sitcoms. WATCH Vanguard [10 PM, Current TV] - In this week's episode of Current's best documentary series, Kaj Larsen searches for modern day pirates in the Strait of Malacca. Larsen speaks to sailors who have been attacked and interviews pirate trackers who watch over one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. It's because of reports like this that we will never take a cruise. One minute you're sipping a Mai Tai, the next someone is screaming at you in Tagalog and kidnapping your bond company rep.

We know, we know: as you've read through our raft of election-related stories, your anxiety mounted as the pressing question, "But what does Larry Flynt think about all this?" remained unanswered. Now, though, you can relax, as an email has landed in our inbox entitled, "HUSTLER Publisher Larry Flynt’s Statement On Obama Election." The pornographer's missive was surprisingly well-written and earnest, but only Defamer has the original, revision-heavy first draft:

My Dad Cut Me Off, You Dumb Fuck: Courtenay Semel's turbulent path from press line to welfare line picked up speed this week when her father, former Warner Bros. and Yahoo! boss Terry Semel, reportedly yanked the cash underwriting her lavish, bisexual, epithet-spewing, security guard-thwacking lifestyle. Courtenay is now said to be "freaking out" and looking into reality-show alternatives. We think we have just the series for her, if she doesn't mind getting roughed up a bit. [NYP, photo via TMZ]

Last night's election coverage had it all: Holograms! Crying Oprah! A Michelle Obama dress we weren't too crazy about, but we think we like it better today? Anyway, the point is that there was something for almost everybody, and to judge from the new, complete ratings (with all cable networks added in), almost everybody tuned in:

On this bright post-election morning, let there be no diminishing Defamer's mission to bring you tomorrow's most influential political figures and movements today. A scan of our illustrious archives reveals nearly two-and-a-half years' worth of Barack Obama coverage, dating all the way back to that time in 2006 when we couldn't understand why the Illinois senator was hanging out at CAA. (Hint: He wasn't!) Take an early lunch and join us after the jump in remembering a few key moments from the President-elect's pop-culture trajectory.· June 1, 2006: Barack Obama makes his first Defamer appearance after an operative sent in a sighting from CAA. What was he doing there? Nothing, as one definitive tipster pointed out: "I find these theories equally hilarious, troubling, and ridiculous, seeing as how it WAS A CAA AGENT: newly minted agent Billy Hawkins- a tall, handsome, Barack-ish looking man who spent a good deal of time chatting in the atrium yesterday." Oops! Billy Hawkins gets that all the time.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/5 ZACH BRAFF just beat me to the door at the Laurel Canyon and Ventura Blvd. Coffee Bean a few minute ago. (I always pick up my pace when I see others entering, I hate lines.) Although he beat me, he was kind enough to hold the door open for me, after he entered. He looked like he just woke up and was dressed hip casual in basketball shorts and long sleeved sweatshirt. Very unassuming and polite. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

Things have been lonely for Anne Hathaway lately, who's found herself on a tough press tour without so much as a glossy thriller or Pope-swindling boyfriend to keep her company. Fortunately, Life & Style reports that Hathaway has found a new beau: actor Adam Shulman, whose sparse IMDb resume includes a multi-episode arc on American Dreams, a role billed just above The Real World's Trishelle in The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning, and a job as "Youth Voter #1" on The West Wing (timely!). The mag had this to say about the new couple:

· ABC came in first, NBC second, and CBS a distant third in their election coverage, which amazingly was slightly down from 2004. (Cable network coverage is blamed.) Regardless of where you watched it, however, it all ended the same way: "Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame acial barriers as old as America itself." There Variety goes again—always playing the ace card. [Zap2It, Variety] · Paramount is close to signing an agreement with Technicolor to build a new sound postproduction facility on the Melrose lot. It's a move that comes several years after similar upgrades from rival studios, making them "something of a laggard in the postproduction community." They were the postproduction community laggard laughingstock! [THR] · Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for an "end to media censorship" in his first public address, though the end of the word "censorship" was abruptly cut off when Putin snipped the cord on his microphone. [Variety]· Gore Verbinski is said to be looking to produce and possibly direct a movie based on this WSJ article about a guy obsessed with a Second Life-style virtual community. It sounds kind of interesting, unless it makes a wrong turn somewhere and starts giving off whiffs of S1m0ne. [EW] · The opening day of the American Film Market in Santa Monica brings a glut of movies in various states of completion looking for investors and distributors. Organizer Jonathan Wolf uses a lengthy pendulum metaphor to explain the economics of it all that put us in a light trance. [THR]

Earlier this year, noted GOP firebrand Stephen Baldwin vowed to flee the United States if Barack Obama was nominated as the Democrats' presidential candidate. He apparently got as far as Minnesota before settling down again for the end of the election cycle, but now that Obama has triumphed for the highest office in the land, we would like to personally reaffirm our interest in driving the moving van. How about it, Steve? Or were those crossed fingers not your own quirky variation on Hope, but just another way to get away with a garden-variety campaign lie? Tell us while you pack, why don't you?

We realize you might need a hope-infusion after seeing the voting results on Florida's Amendment 2, Arizona's Prop 102, Arkansas's despicable Measure 1, and of course our own little slice of backyard hatefulness, Prop 8. So it's time to bring out the big guns: Cocoon star Steve Guttenberg, running through Central Park without his pants on, for some reason that eludes us at the moment. Perhaps he was late for his Bottomless Ultimate Frisbee League game in the Sheep's Meadow. Swing free, Gutt! It's a new dawn in America. [YouTube via Videogum]

This comes as a sad shock: Megaselling author and blockbuster machine Michael Crichton has died at age 66 from what a spokesperson is calling "courageous and private battle against cancer." He's best known for his science-based cautionary thrillers like The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, and Jurassic Park, many of which he had a hand in adapting for the big screen. He also directed a few movies, including Yul Brynner animatronics-run-amuck classic Westworld and The Great Train Robbery, and created ER based on his own experiences as a resident. A statement from his representatives follows after the jump:

Palate Refresher! And now, we offer you something completely different: a picture of Jessica Alba in character as, uh, "a young woman who has retreated from the world and is consumed by numbers and math" in her upcoming film, An Invisible Sign of My Own. Here in California, we're still a little consumed with the number 8, so it's relief to lose ourselves in Alba's mousy brown hair, Ugly Betty garb, and shocking lack of makeup (this proves that she is smart because smart girls do not wear makeup, say the movies). Jess, we know you're trying to pull off the Oscar move known as "the Charlize," but we think we like you better when you're glammed up and muzzling the chick from Heroes. Click through for full-size. [Flynet]

Key Democratic disco-strategist and AARP leotard-model Madonna had much to celebrate as she brought her Sticky & Sweet tour to San Diego last night. The male species was offered a temporary Shit List reprieve as the singer led the crowd in rhythmic clapping, declaring it "a historical evening. This. Is. A motherfucking important evening! This is the beginning of a whole new world. ARE YOU FUCKING READY?!!!" She then shooed security away and encouraged the crowds to rush the stage and embrace each other in "one evening of togetherness." (Got that? Togetherness, America. Togetherness.) Shit. Now we want to see her at Dodger Stadium. [YouTube]

Oprah may have been vibrating out in Chicago, but Tina Fey nearly burst with relief at Sarah Palin's expulsion back to Alaska on Tuesday. "I have to retire just because I have to do my day job,” she told Entertainment Weekly this morning, suggesting Kristin Wiig as her flute-rockin', pageant-walkin' heiress apparent should Palin persist as figure worthy of late-night ridicule. We agree, if only to provide a cannier doppelganger for all those confused, frustrated European photo agencies. [EW]

Not a typo: The AP reports from Minnesota that out of 2.9 million votes cast, Al Franken fell 571 short of upsetting his GOP nemesis Norm Coleman in their U.S. Senate death match. Coleman claimed victory early this morning while the defiant politico comic pledged to fight on with a recount, taking one last tour around the state to rummage beneath couch cushions and car seats for the mislaid ballots that will send him laughing all the way to Washington. And with the caravan of lawyers behind him, that might take a while.Coleman's narrow margin of victory — 1,210,942 to 1,210,371 (a third-party candidate pulled most of the remaining votes evenly from Coleman and Franken) — would automatically prompt a recount, the results of which won't likely be known until next month. Especially with Franken and his attorneys hovering nearby and the SNL alum on the lookout for anywhere else he can close the gap — starting with conspiracies, natch:

So that happened last night! And by "that," we refer not to the historic presidential victory, nor to the nationwide propositions that we are still gritting our teeth about, but to CNN newsman Anderson Cooper interviewing Black-Eyed Peas frontman Willi.i.am via hologram. Let us unite as a nation to dissect this clip's best/worst moments, blow-by-blow, after the jump!· "We're joined now, uh, via hologram, uh, with, by, uh, Will.i.am," Cooper begins, clearly thinking, "I'm missing the Bravo Real Housewives marathon for this?" · Will.i.am is beamed in with a Star Trek transporter beam special effect. Cooper stares uncertainly into the middle distance because he cannot see the person he's interviewing, which is a tremendous new innovation. · "All this technology, I'm being beamed to you like it's Star Wars and stuff," says Will.i.am. Not to pull a Liz Lemon, but, uh, Trek. · Cooper corrects him: "It's basically exactly like Star Trek." Thank you, Anderson. Willi.i.am's cogent response: "Yeah, but...yeah." · "Will, we're doing this interview with you this way because it's a lot quieter than having you in that crowd [in Chicago]. It's very hard to hear in this crowd," Cooper lies. · As Willi.i.am rambles on about the "Yes We Can" song, Cooper mentally composes an angry email to the CNN producer who let his boo Donna Brazile go off to ABC so they could spend her hair and makeup budget making a hologram out of the man who produced "My Humps." · "Will.i.am, I appreciate you being with us tonight via hologram," concludes Cooper. Will.i.am thanks him, says, "Check it out," and then does The Worm. · Cooper takes an awkward pause, collects himself, and says, "All right."

Natalie Portman did it! Her eleventh-hour phone-banking put Barack Obama's campaign over the top, eking out a nail-biting victory of 349 electoral votes to McCain's 173, and ushering in a tidal wave of jubilation we were thrilled to let sweep us away.House parties spilled out into the noisy streets and local bars—if our own destination was any indication, all of America was marking this seismic moment by getting down to Jermaine Stewart's one hit, blissfully wasted on a heady mixture of well vodka and hope. There was of course that one gigantic bummer hanging over the proceedings, and the party would occasionally pause to hiss at a TV monitor showing a Yorba Linda Ramada ballroom of inbreds cheering wildly over their successful attempts at snuffing out the happiness of thousands people they don't know, and hope never to meet. "Prop 8 = Religious Freedom," read their signs. Well, then, free at last, free at last, thank God almighty they are free at last, and marriage's sacred definition as something that can only be shared between a Michael Jackson and a Lisa Marie Presley has been secured, for the time being at least. Hurray! But let's not let the bastards get us down, shall we? Let's focus on what we do have: A new President! One who possesses a kind heart, a probing intellectual curiosity, a masterful command of the English language, and a general air of giving a shit! In other words, everything we haven't had for the past eight years. A new era has begun. Let's see what famous people think about it: · If the night belonged to anyone whose last name isn't Obama, it was Oprah Winfrey, weeping during Obama's victory speech like a proud Mother Earth: "I'm vibrating. [I want] to be fully present. I'm just trying to take it all in. I can't even talk about it. This has been the greatest experience of my lifetime. I haven't seen a sense of unity like this since 9/11. Now, we're all brought together in the name of hope." [Us] · George Clooney: "I congratulate President-elect Obama on his historic victory and now it's time to begin unifying the country so we can take on the extraordinary challenges that this generation faces." · P Diddy: "I felt like my vote was the vote that put him into office. It was down to one vote, and that was going to be my vote. And that may not be true, but that's how much power it felt like I had." [AP] · Star Jones is filled with pride! [ET Online] · Harvey Weinstein: "It's a great day for America." [NY Daily News] · Jessica Alba: "I was surprised that McCain brought race into his speech. I guess he was trying to bring people together." NY Daily News]