If the current zeitgeist can be summed up in a single movie Brokeback Mountain then it could arguably be further distilled into a single, highly recognizable bar of music. The first seven notes of composer Gustavo Santaolalla's melancholy main theme, "The Wings," made us cry (the final scene!) and laugh (it set off every beloved parody). The only thing it seemed incapable of doing, however, was make us shake our booty. Never underestimate, however, the magical disco powers of The Gays:

The above picture is, we hope, fairly self-explanatory, but we'll offer our recreation of what we think immediately followed the camera flash: Lindsay Lohan looked down at the coffee table to find her Blackberry (lower right), finally noticed the bong about a foot away, then delivered an impassioned speech to her friends about the dangers of casual drug use before storming out of the house, never to associate with them again. Well, at least until she later forgave them after she dyed her hair black, reinforcing that there were no hard feelings by posing for a series of photos in which the starlet cracked up her pals with various crude gestures. Once one abandons cheap, chemically induced thrills, one can rediscover simple joys like a well-flipped bird.

Our mediawhore sister Gawker already covered what this photo probably says about the darker side of Drudge's appetites (funny, we always had him pegged for a guy who'd prefer a full-frontal sword shot of Oscar), but we'll assume for a moment that there are many people out there who plan to celebrate Hollywood's Biggest Weekend by spray-painting their favorite rent-boy gold, encasing him in plastic, and having their way with him in front of an American flag. MyBDSM offers a helpful tip for keeping your kinky suffocation play from turning tragic:

· Jessica Alba still wants that Playboy pulled, but the magazine's people make a very good point: When Donald Trump was on the cover, no one expected to see him spread-eagle on one of his incredibly tacky dining room tables.
· Every backlash has its anti-backlash. Craignotbond.com, meet Givecraigachance.com.
· Cracked teaches you how to win your very own Oscar. Hint: Anal sex is the new ugly.
· If this morning's post didn't satisfy your craving for Eddie Murphy tranny stories, there's a lot more where that came from.
· We've never seen a Kirsten Dunst impression before, but this YouTuber kind of knocks it out of the park.

The Best Week Ever Blog reprints an exchange between Fear Factor host (or, according to some reports, ex-host) Joe Rogan and a MySpace "hater," whom when he e-mailed Rogan to offer constructive criticism about his comedic ability ("Joe Rogan, I hate you... you're not funny... "), probably didn't expect the prolonged flame-war that ensued. The back-and-forth gets a little repetitive, with Rogan perhaps falling back on the rhetorical A-bomb about the size of his bank account too much (though if we've learned anything from living in Hollywood, it's that one's personal worth is directly proportional to one's net worth), but here's a sample from the middle that will give you the gist:

· Associate Producer Michael Seligman has watched a run-through and says Jon Stewart has "some very funny stuff in his monologue, and it's only going to get better." That wasn't nearly overly-enthusiastic or superlative-laden enough! We're worried! [Oscar Beat]
· OscarWatch.com has compiled most of the major media predictions into one handy chart, which basically looks like a sheet of "Brokeback - Ang Lee - Hoffman - Witherspoon"-patterned wallpaper. [OscarWatch.com]
· The Vanity Fair party will be webcasting this year, allowing you to have a pathetic, 4x4 inch pixelated glimpse into what your life might have been like had you made smarter choices. [The O-Factor]
· The spectacular unfurling of a gold lame curtain manages to emasculate an entire crew of humiliated workmen. [The Envelope]
· Ever wonder what your mother would look like accepting an Oscar? Wonder no longer. [The WOW Report]

· Music round-up: Exene Cervenka and the Original Sinners at Alex’s Bar; Jesca Hoop at Spaceland; Project 86 at the Troubadour; Soda and His Million Piece Band at 14 Below. And OK Go and Motion City Soundtrack are at at the Fonda tonight, not last night, for those who caught the mistake before we disappeared it.
· Dian Hanson releases volumes five and six of The History of Men’s Magazines and discusses California’s sex industry with Larry Flynt at the Taschen Store. How could you possibly pass up the chance to hear Larry Flynt talk shop about the proper execution of beaver shots?
· The Echo Park Film Center screens Cabin Field, a documentary about historical and political change as evidenced on a cotton field in Georgia. The clincher: There will be cake and treats. Yeah, you heard us.

The little gay cowboy Oscar frontrunner that could seems to leave a trail of controversy wherever it goes. A round-up:
· Outsports.com reports on the matter of the NFL rejecting the filmmakers' request to use footage in the pivotal scene in which Jack Twist finally stands up to his overbearing father-in-law at the Thanksgiving table. The NFL insists they refused participation over the context of the scene and not the film's gay themes, to which Brokeback screenwriter and producer Diana Ossana responded, "What do you think? None of us are retarded." (Which suggests she might be better suited to telling sensitive gay stories than sensitive retarded-people stories.)
· Depending on what you read, the film's ovine stars were either callously abused or given more preferential treatment than Randy Quaid.
· Michelle Williams' ex-headmaster Jim Hopson beams with pride when he tells a reporter, "We don't want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie. Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution...Brokeback Mountain basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote. It's not the word of God." We hope she wins, if for nothing else, the outside chance she might out her old teacher in her acceptance speech, Tom Hanks-style. [via Towleroad]

Any thrill-seeker can slap down a ten spot for Ang Lee and watch as he reaps an entire dollar in profit, but it takes someone with a real thirst for gambling to bet that Philip Seymour Hoffman is going weep into the balled-up fist insufficiently concealing the strength of his overwhelming emotions. Betting site Paddy Power is offering some side bets for those bored with the constraints of their Oscar pool:

If nothing else, Oscars 2006 will go down as the year the media opted to have us choke on its coverage, with no tangential detail too small not to warrant an in-depth 1500 word feature accompanied by an array of infographic sidebars. Who needs to get bogged down in reading about the latest on the Iraq war when now, thanks to the AP, we can readily answer the far more pressing question of "Where is the Oscar red carpet woven?"

Perhaps emboldened by her knowledge that her absence at the Oscars will make a retaliatory bodice-ripping by handsy red-carpet instigator Isaac Mizrahi a difficult proposition, Scarlett Johansson has finally broken her silence on The Grope, that spectacularly uncomfortable moment at the Golden Globes during which America held its breath, looked at each other, then asked, "Hold on, he's gay, right? Oh, then that's hilarious!" before sighing with relief. Johansson tells the LAT:

So all-consuming was yesterday's obsession with Lindsay Lohan's peek-a-boo nipple shot from the General Motors Ten celebrity fashion show that Jeremy Piven's incredible breakdancing performance was almost lost to history. Seeing a still of The Piv getting down (when is that guy finally going to shake his crippling shyness in the spotlight?) over at Open All Night made us curious about what the rest of his routine looked like, leading us to the wire for this incredible sequence of photographs capturing the kinetic poetry of his worm in its appropriate glory. We imagine that the apparent unavailability of a dirty sheet of cardboard (and perhaps one too few preparatory vodka tonics) prevented Piven from capping his dance with his legendary headspins, but considering the potential follicular setbacks such a move might inflict, perhaps that's for the best.

Damon Wayans has been very busy lately, what with trying to get his catchily named clothing line off the ground while readying his new Showtime comedy sketch show, Damon Wayans' The Underground. We thought we'd pass along one of their recent Craigslist casting notices:

When life gives you a literary hoax, make hoaxster-ade: Weinstein Co. plans to bring a "biopic" about fictitious author J.T. Leroy, based on the articles by the NY Times reporter who outed the fakery. We fear that a tale of James Frey's tragic post-Oprah existence will be announced shortly. [Variety]
Zach Braff will reunite with his Garden State producer to adapt, direct, produce and co-star in remake of 2002 Danish romantic drama Open Hearts for Paramount. And just in case you were wondering on embattled Paramount president Gail Berman's role in this, she was "instrumental in bringing the project to the studio." There, now you know what she's been up to. [THR]
HBO just wants "to be in the Dane Cook business," signing the comedian to develop a series, headline a stand-up special, star in a tour documentary, produce and star in original content for non-traditional platforms, and if he so chooses, open up Dane's Joint, a stand-up comedy theme restaurant. [Variety]
Pilot news clearinghouse: Jesse Bradford is cast in in ABC drama Twenty Questions, Eddie McClintock in NBC's untitled Chris Sheridan comedy, Gerald "Major Dad" McRaney in CBS drama Jericho, and Mo Collins joins Patricia Heaton's untitled comedy at ABC. [THR]
· Crash's original song nominee, "In the Deep," will not be disqualified from Oscar contention. Also, an appeal to the Academy to disqualify the film from the Best Picture category under the arcane "You've got to be fucking kidding me" provision failed, and any votes cast for the movie will stand. [Variety]

We're struggling to think of the last time a single performer had an entire network by the balls the way Dave Chappelle is currently gripping Comedy Central's tenders. Jerry Seinfeld's mastery of NBC's domain in the 1990s? And yet Seinfeld managed to show up for work and provide them with a weekly ratings powerhouse. Chappelle, on the other hand, abandons his ridiculously well-compensated, creatively autonomous showcase; then, when the network has the gall to air what material he did manage to deliver, the comedian interprets it as a "bully move" and threatens never to return. And how does the network respond to this chutzpah-heavy game of chicken? With the "official written statement" equivalent of "Parking space still got your name on it, Big Dave Man!"

Today's LAT looks at two lawsuits swirling around Best Picture nominee Crash, at least one of which, sadly, forces us to consider the unspeakable possibility that Paul Haggis' (Oscar post-party t-shirt: "Do you have any racist in you? No? Would you like some?") heavy-handed race-relations fable might actually win the award. In the first suit, producer Bob Yari is suing the Producers Guild and Academy over the secretive process ("Who doesn't like Yari today? Show of hands...OK, he's not the producer.") that denied him a producer credit on the film; in the second, former partner Cathy Schulman puts the legal screws to Yari over their soured business relationship. Reports the LAT:

Sitting high atop Eddie Murphy's long list of lifelong regrets, above even The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Showtime, must be that fateful night in 1997 when he fell victim to his own bleeding heart and whisked a weepy transexual street walker off the mean streets of West Hollywood, only to be stopped by cops and questioned about what s/he was doing in his car. ("Taking a load off, officers!" we imagine him saying, before launching into his trademark wheeze-laugh.) Nine years later, he's still living his good deed down, and thanks to his recent divorce to Nicole Mitchell, the whole affair is about to bubble back up to the surface:

If you can no longer bear the thought of watching even one more Brokeback Mountain parody, take heart, for relief is in sight. The NY Times has taken it upon itself to finally deliver the death-blow to the seemingly endless procession of mash-ups, dispatching critic Virginia Heffernan to deconstruct the form, thus ensuring that any joy we once derived from the recasting of Marty McFly and Doc Brown as gay lovers unstuck in time will be instantly erased. Says Heffernan:

· Brandchannel.com hands out its Product Placement Awards (yes, it's really come to this), with the Charlie Kaufman Meta Award for Self-Reflexive Product Placement going to Calvin Klein and The Island for their mind-bending use of the real-life Scarlett Johansson, her clone character, and the actress character from which she was cloned (give up, it's not worth it) to make you believe you weren't being sold CK crap in the middle of a movie.
· Overlawyered looks at the havoc that some angry, litigious Claymates might wreak on possibly closeted celebrities.
· We didn't actually get to the part where the ninja explains why his people hate George Clooney, but we did find ourselves wondering why he sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
· The Gilded Moose also took a virtual stroll through the Oscars greenroom.
· Why do we feel like we know way too much about the kinky shit that turns on Quentin Tarantino?

Oscar telecast producer Gil Cates apparently isn't convinced that his threats about acceptance speech length were heeded at the nominees' luncheon two weeks ago, prompting him to enlist beloved actor's actor Tom Hanks in his jihad against overly thankful winners. Hanks stars in the Academy's "An Insider's Guide: What Nominees Need to Know," a DVD offering tips for avoiding the time-wasting sins that might incur Cates' wrath: