Anyone who's ever sacrificed three hours of their lives to the Grammys show know that no one actually cares who wins, only who plays; five minutes after the show, that year's Best New Artist disappears into obscurity, but the unholy noises created by the centerpiece mash-up performance of Bono, Tim McGraw, any former boy-bander with a new solo album, and the ghost of George Harrison will induce uncomfortable auditory hallucinations for months (and now, abetted by iTunes, potentially forever). According to the LAT, nobody knows this better than music executives and managers, who'll move heaven and earth to insure their clients get to lip-sync in front of an audience of millions:

Pity the life of the paparazzi-preyed celebrity. When a regular citizen has a moment of maternal carelessness say, halfway home from Rite-Aid suddenly realizing their infant is still perched on the roof of their Prius they merely need heed the frantic gesticulations of passing horrified pedestrians, pull over, sheepishly retrieve their child, and carry on with their day. But when Britney Spears recently threw her tiny son in her lap and peeled away from a Starbucks, the moment was captured by lurking photographers and instantaneously launched around the world, followed soon thereafter by an authoritative rap at her door:

· Never mind what we mused about earlier; Harrison Ford seems to believe his career is going to get a healthy dose of Indy 4 pretty soon.
· We knew there was something too perfect about all those luscious, luscious sheep in Brokeback Mountain.
· Goldenfiddle did it perfectly in seven words: Glenn Close marries male version of herself.
· Today's mystery: If it wasn't Marilyn Monroe, exactly which dead blonde was James van Praagh communing with through those hair curlers?
· You make the call: face transplant or Mackenzie Phillips?

We're not sure what it says about the state of your love life when you find yourself seeking advice in the form of an 8-part streaming video coaching session from a terrifying Star Jones homunculus, but assuming for a moment things have gotten that desperate, "your AOL love coach" is just a click away. But before you get too impatient, slamming your fists on your keyboard and shouting at your monitor, "Get to the part about how I rope my own man-stallion, already!" Star needs to teach you about what kind of guy you don't want to end up with:

Showing considerably better musical taste than he did when he tapped Limp Bizkit to update the Mission: Impossible theme for its last installment, Tom Cruise has chosen Kanye West to do the honors for MI:3. The noted hip-hop expert lauds West, via Access Hollywood:

· Because big-shot writer-directors seem unwilling to bear their souls to their fans in any other location, The 40—Year-Old Virgin's Judd Apatow submits himself to a question-and-answer session following a screening of the film at the ArcLight, bringing along actors Seth Rogen, Romany Malco, and Gerry Bednob for back-up.
· Steve Wasserman, former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, asks the question "Do Books Have a Future in the Digital Age?" at the Central Library. Show up and find out if there's an answer beyond, "Maybe, if Google and Microsoft allow us to have them."
· And not to get so bookish on you on a Tuesday evening, but Sarah Vowell, the coolest history nerd this side of Doris Kearns Goodwin (we say that out of love), reads from Assassination Vacation at Skylight Books.

Each time Paris Hilton's Crazy Parade takes another lap around Hollywood, we discover a new, exquisitely designed float. Today's rolling exhibit is topped by a statute of Lady Justice fashioned from hot pink flowers, exposing not only her traditionally uncovered bosom, but scandalously drawing aside her robe to give onlookers an eyeful of her exposed ladyflower. Thanks to Hilton, float sponsor Valtrex can now add "threatening to have social acquaintances killed" to fun activities one can once again enjoy when relieved of herpes symptoms by their medicine, as today Paris was slapped with a restraining order at the behest of an "event producer" who'd run afoul of the heiress:

In dubbing Uma Thurman a "knight in the Order of Arts and Letters" today, Cannes Film Festival Director Gilles Jacob did a marvelous job at demonstrating how the French have literally elevated the practice of the sleazy come-on to the realm of high art:

The executives at the network that brought us Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer Eye for the Straight Girl, Project Runway, Boy Meets Boy, Gay Weddings, Showdog Moms & Dads, Sean Hayes' Situation: Comedy, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, and Blowout have decided the time has come to start courting a gay audience:

At the afterparty for Thursday night's premiere of Firewall, living legend Harrison Ford addresses young buck co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: "Hey kid, hold my drink for a second while I go find my career. Haha. [beat] Don't laugh, it's not funny. I just needed a way to break the ice with you and talk about something important. You might be impressed with all these [gestures wildly to another part of the room] choc...o...late fount—fountains!—and the big wall of fire over there, but get over it quick. One day you're Han Fucking Indiana Solo Jones and the next thing you know, you're just protecting your family from a bunch of shit over and over... I said not to laugh, kid. You know what my next project is, besides getting out of these pants, why are they so goddamned tight?! It's called Doggy Door, kid, and I'm keeping my miniature pinscher safe from an evil kitten who can drive a tiny car. Get outta this business while you still can, I'm sure there are better jobs making—what are you, German? no?—industrial films about sausage factory safety or whatever it is you did before this. Gimme back my drink, I have to go punch and then hug my agent. I love that bastard. See ya around."

What do Hollywood's hottest starlets do when they need to make an awards season splash? That's right, say the folks at E!—they wear bright red dresses to indicate that they like having sex during their periods!

By all means, shed a tear for the ending of another celebrity relationship: that of cyclebot Lance Armstrong and his sun-soaked dittybird, Sheryl Crow. But life goes on, as do biopics, and the feature based on Armstrong's autobiography "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life" is no exception. Matt Damon is cast as Armstrong, and veteran producer and director Frank Marshall is at the helm, with footage already in the can of the actual athlete soaring past the finish line at the last Tour de France for a real-life happy ending. But Marshall wants everyone to know that this Lance-authorized and monitored production will not be a breezy, downhill, sightseeing affair:

· Hollywood seems disappointed with the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, which so far lacks enough sizzle and star power to get even a TBS movie greenlit. [Variety]
· The Super Bowl is the most-watched in 10 years, and the most-watched TV program since 1996, with 90.7 million viewers. Grey's Anatomy, rapidly becoming the most hit-protected show in the history of the medium, hangs on to 38.1 million of those viewers after the big game. Is all the special ratings protection just because ABC's Steve McPherson can't wait to see if the doctor who looks like Renee Zellweger will ever get back together with the pizza delivery guy from Loverboy, or are incriminating telephone recordings of the ABC topper involved? Eh, maybe we have Pellicano on the brain and McPherson just loves his stories. [THR]
· Disney sells their radio stations to Citadel Broadcasting in order to ease the $7.4 billion sticker shock from buying Pixar. [Variety]
· Here's as big of a casting about-face as you'll ever see: Steve Buscemi is in "final negotiations" to take Will Arnett's place in New Line's the-wacky-things-drug-dealers-will-do-for-money comedy We're the Millers. [THR]
· ABC and Endemol are importing the Spanish reality hit Operacion Triunfo, a "mash up" (we hear the kids love their mash-ups!) of American Idol and Big Brother, or, to simplify the concept for you, Making the Band with some judging bolted on. [Variety]

Whether or not you're a fan, there's something about Jack Black's particular brand of crazy-eyed, bouncing-off-the-walls appeal that can't be denied. But what are the mitigating factors that turn what is essentially a doughy, short, non-descript white guy into a "bow before me, I am the Zeus of Rock"-boasting scene stealer? Page Six offers some clues:

Not only is onetime It-Girl Brittany Murphy willing to flout the industry's standard rules about fraternizing with the underclass by getting engaged to a PA from one of her movies, she compounds the egregious social code violation by refusing to put out in a timely fashion:

A first viewing of this Maddox Jolie tattoo, inspired by the pic at left and inked onto the forearm of some guy in Texas, resulted in a queasy feeling that an A-list child abduction was about to go down. However, we quickly realized that this is not a mere ransom note that will need to be lasered off before a kidnapping trial, but a celebration of our society's foremost celebrity refugee and his infectious let-the-good-times-roll, sure-my-mom-is-nuts- but-I-still-like-the-fucking-mohawk-OK? attitude. Soon, this image of young Maddox will supplant the eternally urinating Calvin as the standard icon of rebelliousness on countless mudflaps and window stencils across the country, prompting his mother, equal measures sad at the loss and happy to begin the hunt for a new adoptee on the cutting-edge of cool, to abandon the overexposed toddler in the line at a truck-stop Hardee's.

We saw the photos, and like you, felt concern that perhaps it was still a little too soon for Sean Preston to be getting his first driving lesson surely those tiny feet couldn't reach the pedals yet! As it turns out, however, this wasn't a case of post-natal parallel parking instruction, but yet another death-defying escape of Britney and brood from the relentless flashbulbs of her paparazzi pursuers:

With all the reverence paid to the roll-out of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue, you'd expect that each subscriber would have his or her magazine delivered by a battalion of cherubim, an angelic cohort ready to blast triumphantly their celestial horns the moment one first unfurls the cover gatefold. This year's cover certainly delivers the accompanying flare of dazzling light, courtesy of the reflective properties of Scarlett Johansson's alabaster flesh, but with The Rack artfully obscured by an arm, no one will go blind from a long-awaited flash of her celebrated bosom. Much was made of Rachel McAdams' exit from the cover shoot, a conniption of modesty that resulted in Tom Ford, the special issue's art director, being inserted into her place. Only our imaginations can help us gauge the aesthetic impact of this distressing change; McAdam's presence would likely have elevated the cover to first-rate masturbatory material for the Hollywood obsessed. Instead, we get a pasty Johansson trying to ignore the well-dressed gay dude about to chew off Keira Knightley's earlobe. And if the cover hasn't already dampened your desire enough on its own, if you glance at it quickly, you could swear photographer Annie Leibovitz has perfectly captured the magic moment before Jeremy Piven moves a boozy three-way from the living room floor to the heart-shaped waterbed in the boudoir.

I was only away for a day (a Monday, no less), so I'm not going to bother with the usual story about how I chewed off my leg to escape the bear trap that keeps me at my post, thus freeing myself for a quick sex tourism trip to Tijuana or radical gender assignment surgery in a Scandinavian chop-shop. Besides, you wouldn't want to hear about how I spent Superbowl Sunday strolling Santa Monica Boulevard, claiming I'd directed Stealth, and finally trying to determine the going rate for a passenger seat blowjob from a C-list director in a beautiful Lane Bryant frock.

· We used to visit Grandpa's in Greenwich Village just to catch a glimpse of Grandpa Munster, and sure enough, there he was, smiling and making the rounds.
· Hanzi Smatter ("dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in western culture") takes a look at Justin Timberlake's scary Alpha Dog tattoos and wonders why he has the word "ice skating" on his left bicep.
· America's most fascinating couple no longer finds each other all that fascinating.
· A trailer remix to brighten your Monday: Sleepless in Seattle, now with boiling bunny rabbits!
· When did Eminem become a bloated wax figure?
· Will somone PLEASE find B.B. King's bundle of precious?!
· Is Jake Gyllenhaal preparing for all sorts of new big screen homoerotic acting challenges in the next Batman movie?