This excited (though secondhand) report just landed in our inbox:

As Nip/Tuck's long suffering Julia McNamara, Joely Richardson has for four seasons now been subjected to the bizarre and often sadistic whims of that series' writing staff, including a major arc this season in which we follow the stay-at-home plastic surgeon's wife carry a baby she knew would be born with flippers for hands to term. Richardson now finds herself reluctantly having to abandon her deformed TV child to tend to the needs of her actual child, as the London Daily News is reporting that Richardson has alerted producers that she would need to take leave from the series in order to accompany her teenage daughter back to England for a series of serious medical procedures to treat a circulatory birth defect:

· The UCB Theatre's Drug Month tonight offers you "I Wuz a Druggie," featuring comedians who "used to over-indulge but no longer do," such as Marc Maron (coke!), Mishna Wolff (crack!), and Eddie Pepitone (pot?). We imagine they won't judge you if you haven't managed to knock the monkey off your own back quite yet.
· Tonight and tomorrow, Cube on La Brea features an 8-course menu centered around artisan-crafted foods to benefit Slow Food in Schools.
· Music round-up: Minus the Bear at the El Rey; Ray Lamontagne at the Orpheum; Joseph Arthur at the Troubadour.
· Network with the future leaders of the Gay Mafia at Fallout 06 at the Standard in West Hollywood. Ambitious breeders may want to crash to see if they can infiltrate the Velvet Mob before their heterosexuality is discovered.

A reader just submitted this video, a demo reel he said he obtained from its star at a commercial shoot during the SAG strike of 2000, confident that it would make a fine companion piece to the now-infamous Brian Atene audition tape. Our tipster noted that the video contained no contact information, making it nearly impossible for a prospective employer to utilize "Channing Lair's" estimable edged-weapon, bo stick, and extreme-mullet skills in the kind of action vehicle that would've fulfilled the actor's ambition of being "one of the biggest stars in the world." Perhaps now that the footage has been resurrected, someone will be able to find Lair and assist him in finally realizing his dream—or, at the very least, offer him a gig standing in for Steven Seagal on the set of whatever low-budget film he's currently shooting in Romania, where he could further hone his craft by studying with a true master.

This week's NY Observer profiles the founders of Fortress Entertainment, the company behind the upcoming Terrence Howard film Pride, using the twentysomething showbiz aspirants to illustrate the industry's recent infestation by producers looking for projects upon which to lavish hedge-fund cash. Of course, not everyone in town is particularly excited by the prospect of this new kind of player gaining influence in Hollywood:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, which we try to post several times per week—so be sure to send them in as often as possible. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let the everyone know about the time you spotted Dustin "Dirty Sanchez" Diamond putting Prius-riding pussies to shame by lugging his bicycle onto the LA Metro.

Apparently, some Colombian rebels have decided that Tuesday's Democratic takeover of Congress means that the American public has also delivered Hollywood personalities into positions of direct influence, as they're exhorting new political power players Denzel Washington, Michael Moore, and Oliver Stone to help them negotiate the exchange of some guerrillas for hostages they've captured. Should their plea initially fall on deaf ears, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is prepared to reach even further up the ranks of the entertainment industry's new policy-makers, confident that new Secretary of State Alec Baldwin will be more sympathetic to their cause.

Kevin Federline took to the stage of Chicago's House of Blues last night as scheduled, just a day after being informed by text message that his studding and couch-warming services would no longer be required at the Spears Malibu compound. Playing to a packed house composed of a sprinkling of actual "fans" (of ironic pop culture appreciation in general), interspersed among hundreds more who accepted the last minute offer of free tickets in exchange for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being able to point and laugh in person at the lone pimp on his day of curbside reckoning, Federline was quick to let the honeys in the crowd know that he was immediately available to be theirs for the taking:

The entertainment industry is predictably enthusiastic about the Democratic gains in this week's elections, especially MPAA head Dan Glickman, who expects that his organization's agenda will be immediately adopted by the Hollywood-loving, liberal legislators that now control Congress. [Variety]
ABC wins Wednesday with Dancing with the Stars and Lost, while a special Wednesday night airing of The OC doesn't manage to improve on last week's "horrible start." We suggest more cagefighting with Chino. [THR]
Call it a "vote of confidence" or "a desperate move to save a poorly rated show," but ABC is moving Men in Trees to the well-protected post-Grey's Anatomy timeslot on Thursday nights. [Variety]
Time Warner pulls out of China, searches for a more hospitable place in which to insert its throbbing cinema operations. Yeah, we're not proud of that one, but it is what it is. [THR]
Believing that American Idol also-ran Kellie Pickler's adorable inability to pronounce the words "calamari" and "salmon" is sufficient evidence of comedic talent, Fox is now developing a sitcom to take better advantage of her photogenic bimbitude. [Variety]

After months of being battered by Borat's publicity generating cultural offensive, the glorious nation of Kazakhstan, the Central Asian pubis-exporting giant and leading producer of potassium, can finally claim a victory against its greatest tormentor, as neighboring Russia has at least temporarily banned the film to protect its neighbor from the further hilarious tarnishing of its image. Reports Var:

In a Vancouver suburb shooting Blonde and Blonder (a movie co-starring Pamela Anderson, and described, for those of you too blonde and/or dumb to figure it out, as "Legally Blonde meets Dumb and Dumber"), former Charlie Sheen trampoline partner Denise Richards went on a computer-hurling rampage when she discovered two paparazzi had managed to infiltrate the movie's closed set:

Continuing this morning's emerging theme of Hollywood's Less Celebrated Siblings Acting Out, Page Six reports that Luke "Still No Cute, Equine-Related Nickname That Will Stick" Wilson, brother of Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson, is making life on the set of Vacancy unpleasant by arriving on set with stories of his every drunken hook-up, as well as engaging in general anti-Beckinsale behavior:

Perpetually troubled, lesser Baldwin brother Daniel has already posted bail in conjunction with yesterday's arrest for drug possession and the theft of an SUV (though one could convincingly argue that it isn't really stealing if one is just borrowing a friend's car without permission to go on a quick crack run, with the intent to return if it isn't somehow lost in the transaction), putting the most self-destructive member of the celebrated clan back on the streets of Santa Monica. It's now up to you, the sharp-eyed residents of the beachside municipality where Baldwin is most likely to fall back in with undesirable elements, to monitor him for suspicious behavior. Should you see Baldwin either entering or exiting a motel or in the act of driving an automobile—two activities that almost certainly indicate that he's in the middle of a dangerous relapse—it's your responsibility to contact the local authorities and do your part to keep your community free of the scourge of unemployed actors trying to score drugs, a social blight that should be confined to less desirable neighborhoods like Hollywood.

Finally brought to book on charges that he kicked a reporter on the way out of court the last time he was brought to book on charges, Kate Moss cocaine-impregnatron and Babyshambler Pete Doherty was ordered to pay $2,255 in various fines. The aspiring fashionistard

· What happens when one of the producers of Drawn Together pounds some ipecac before being interviewed by Kennedy? Exactly what you'd expect: prodigious vomiting. Enjoy.
· We're willing to bet being instructed to write Roman Polanski into Rush Hour 3 doesn't even rate in the top ten most frustrating things that Brett Ratner has asked of screenwriter Jeff Nathanson during their collaborations.
· Someone at Mastro's seems to have near-perfect recall of what Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes recently ordered for dinner. Fascinating stuff, yet we find it odd the spy failed to mention the crucial detail that Holmes' ankle was shackled to a five-hundred-pound weight the entire meal.
· The real challenge for the product placement consultants wasn't getting their client's Treo phones a pivotal role in A Good Year, it was convincing Russell Crowe not to bludgeon a mouthy PA with it.
· Comedy Central's Insider blog has a timeline of how they broke the news that Rumsfeld was accepting an honorable shitcanning for last night's Republican bloodletting. All hail basic-cable-based citizen's media!

We knew that by outsourcing our Britney Spears & K-Fed Sex Tape authentication needs to the cutting-edge porn-analysis lab over at sister site Fleshbot, we'd eventually get a reliable verdict about whether what we witnessed (over and over again, in the name of serious-minded research) was a loving video diary entry depicting one of the most intimate moments between an orally generous pop-star and her layabout, trucker-hatted househusband, or just a well-timed ruse meant to take advantage of yesterday's headline-grabbing divorce news. Unfortunately, Fleshbot has tracked down the source footage and come to the conclusion that the clip is a fake that preyed on our willingness to believe that a Spears-Federline sex tape could possibly be released into the world without K-Fed's official—and proud—profit participation. For a second straight day, the star-crossed couple has brought us nothing but unfathomable sadness. Would it have killed them to give us this small thing? No, it would not have.

· Music round-up: Pet Shop Boys at the Wiltern; Republic of Loose at the Troubadour; The Cinematics at Spaceland.
· The surviving members of The Doors, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and Jim Morrison gather at Book Soup to sign their new autobiography and celebrate their 40 anniversary. Yes, we know that Jim Morrison isn't still alive (unless you're one of those people who believe he's secretly jamming with Jimi Hendrix and laughing at us all), we just wanted to see if you were paying attention.
· LAT book review editor David Ulin converses with screenwriter/playwright/profanity stylist David Mamet at the Central Library. Please, save your admiring repetition of the steak knives line from Glengarry Glen Ross until the end of the evening.

Yesterday, THR columnist Ray Richmond interviewed beleaguered showrunner Aaron Sorkin and gave Studio 60 fans hope that their favorite, serious-minded weekly examination of the culture-salvaging possibilities of late-night sketch comedy shows is on the verge of a season-completing back nine episode order, news contrary to earlier reports (like this one, we imagine) that the series is teetering on the precipice of primetime oblivion. Blogged Richmond:

Every so often, we're able to convince our bosses to devote some blog-time to promoting the sale of some t-shirts they've coincidentally just reprinted and would otherwise be content to let languish in some dusty cardboard boxes in the Gawker Media Warehouse. Accordingly, today we're happy to announce the rearrrival of our wildly popular "It's Like, Yeah, Motherfucker, I'm Fine" shirt, which long ago completely sold out but has now returned to tantalize you, the savvy, voracious consumer of garments featuring defiant expressions of spiritual and physical health once spoken by Lindsay Lohan. Buy, and buy now, for failure to do so would be madness itself.

Showing an admirable dedication to making sure that every possible angle in the Britney Spears divorce story is covered, Extra trekked all the way to the hinterlands of Fresno to interview—and we really hate to use the expression "we shit you not," but we really, really shit you not—the guy who owns the background dancing studio where the Artist Who Would One Day Be Known As K-Fed honed the Roger Rabbit and Running Man skills that would later propel him to international, pop-star-impregnating fame. This K-Pal helpfully confirms that Federline didn't hear he was dumped from Spears herself, and as any true friend would, pretends to believe that his fledgling music career can withstand the trauma of being separated from the reason he's famous in the first place. Unfortunately, investigative reporter Jerry Penacoli didn't think to ask Johnson to opine specifically on whether his longtime buddy would be able to maintain an acceptable level of ridiculousness in his watch and kick games in light of this profound personal setback.