· Finally, unexplored territory regarding Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal's rough cowboy love in Brokeback: "When we kissed it felt like we were exfoliating."

· The Gallery of the Absurd accomplishes something heretofore deemed impossible: making Star Jones seem even more grotesque than she appears on television.

· Scientology helped her kick a coke habit, but it couldn't make Kirstie Alley skinny. With this news, Jenny Craig is destined to take the COS's place as the hottest cult in town.

· See, it's entirely possible for a celebrity to get knocked up without causing total media hysteria.

· NY's Craigslist is also plagued by "famous actors" trolling for sex.

Just in case you still held a shadow of a glimmer of sparkle of a doubt in your "Nick and Jessica 4-Ever" hoping hearts that their love was truly dead, comes this tidbit buried in today's AP wires:

· The Egyptian hosts Focus on Female Directors, a program including shorts by Sofia Coppola, Miranda July, Niki Caro, and others. A chat with directors Christina Beck and Emily Dell follows the screening.
· Authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin will sign Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous, a book about the dangers of succumbing to overlong, too-cute self-help titles, at Book Soup.
· Music Round-up: Darci Cash at the Troubadour; The Chapin Sisters at Spaceland; and for the Deadheads out there, Cubensis at the House of Blues on Sunset.

Yes, Mr. Blackwell and his "Worst Dressed" list have become the somewhat derided butt of many a joke for all of us living in our savvy, internetsy culture. But let us give the fellow his due! His annual what-once-passed-for-catty proclamations of the stunningly obvious, now in their 46th year ("Claudette Colbert? More like Clueless Colbert!"), have trailblazed a path for the Steven Cojocarus of the world, and for this, well, we acknowledge and quickly move on. But enough preamble: To the winners' circle! Number one with a zingy bullet was "over the hill Lolita" Britney Spears, followed by Mary-Kate Olsen ("Bag lady rags?!" As if!), and recent divorcee Jessica Simpson, whom, he writes, "resembles a cut-rate Rapunzel slingin' hash in a Vegas diner." This last description at first left us confused, then somewhat depressed when we realized that Mr. Blackwell is suffering from advanced geriatric dimentia. By the time we had made it to his description of Renee Zellweger looking like "a painted pumpkin on a pogo stick," much of the pleasure had been drained out of the entire proceeding. Yes, we love an occasional slice of sassy, but not when it's served between two pieces of crazy, rambling, old-people bread.

In a stunning move that we never could have anticipated, Lindsay Lohan is now officially denying the fashionable eating disorder she supposedly admitted once having to Vanity Fair. TeenPeople.com has Lohan's statement:

Like a father suddenly freed from the obligations of grudging parenthood by a negative paternity test, New Viacom CEO Tom Freston continues to withdraw the last vestiges of his love from his former CBS children. An operative on the Paramount lot relates the latest slight to the Untouchables of CBS:

With a celebrity's best interests always being the guiding light behind anything they ever publish, a concerned National Enquirer has released photos of a cracked out Whitney Houston making a 4 a.m. candy bar run at an Atlanta gas station. According to The Inside Track, the Enquirer reports that Whitney's "voice is shot from years of cocaine abuse," and that she and husband Bobby Brown are "running out of money." Good for all of us, then, that their Bravo series Being Bobby Brown, that loony bin of reality pleasures that introduced "dig a dootie bubble" and "hell to the no!" to the popular lexicon, is reportedly back for another season. The downward spiral of BBB Season 2 will be just what we needed to fill the suicidally-self-destructive- celebrity-voyeurism-as-entertainment hole that's popped up in our TV viewing schedule since Breaking Bonaduce went off the air.

For actors afflicted with the crippling, and relationship-hampering, effects of fame, there exists but one reliable outlet for companionship: the anonymous Craigslist come-on:

Thanks to his performance in Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger is no longer just "that dude who jousted to Queen remixes," but a bankable and respected leading man. But getting to sink your teeth into this calibre of material nothing says Oscar bait like his wrenching attack of love withdrawal, aka the "Jake shakes" comes with a price, which in this instance is finding yourself cast in the unexpected role of a gay rights media mouthpiece. If this interview from the Sydney Herald is any indication, however, Ledger is up to the task:

It's a proven fact: Even the least consequential gossip item becomes 200 percent more enjoyable when slathered in a healthy coat of inscrutable British slang. Take MegaStar's version of a story about Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' flirty on-set relationship while shooting Match Point, in which we learned at least two new euphemisms for breasts, we think:

· Michael Eisner finally finds some meaning for his post-Disney existence, signing up to host a bi-monthly CNBC talk show, the aptly named Conversations with Michael Eisner. The network says the show "will focus on the importance of creativity and innovation in all pursuits, from business to politics to entertainment," but with an eye toward "wistfully reminiscing about Eisner's days as the most powerful man in Hollywood, which I—excuse us—he totally was." [Variety]
· Rosie O'Donnell is producing a sketch comedy show for MTV network Logo. Think Saturday Night Live, but you know, gay. And probably funnier. OK, maybe not. [THR]
· Relieved to have big bully Monday Night Football out of the way, Two and a Half Men beats up on the premiere of Emily's Reasons Why Not, which we predict (as we must) will be gone by early February. [Variety]
· EuroSlump '05: European movie ticket sales were down in 2005, though revenue still increased a bit. Who can we invade to halt the slide? [THR]
· The TV Academy may change its rules to define its comedy category to include only traditional sitcoms, leaving "dramedies" (and please, for the love of God, don't use the term "comerama") like Boston Legal and Desperate Housewives to get hammered in the drama contest by Lost at the Emmys. [Variety]

Yesterday's announcement that yet another high-profile (well, half high profile) Hollywood marriage succumbed to the inevitable relationship-melting pressures of love in the public eye didn't catch Rush & Molloy by surprise, who report that people have been chattering about the couple's demise for some time:

Not satisfied merely to report who won what irrelevant critics award and what they were wearing when they collected the prize, Reuters is quickly becoming the go to newswire for half-baked Oscar prognostications. Consider their analysis of last night's Broadcast Film Critics' Choice Awards:

Former AK-wielding rapper and currently cuddly Are We There Yet? star Ice Cube jettisoned CAA almost a year ago, ostensibly spending the intervening agentless months adrift in a sea of infinite career possibilities. But according to Variety, the siren song of the William Morris Agency has lured Cube's rudderless rowboat ashore, no doubt with lilted promises that they will make sure the Ice Cube space stays meaningful for years to come. Showing their dedication to nurturing the entire Cube industry, WMA will also take on responsibility for his recording and touring careers, which should provide import revenue streams should they resist the impulse to sign their new client up for career-stunting, abandoned Vin Diesel franchises.

Put down that bagel and coffee. You're going to want to read this on any empty stomach:

· FamilyMediaGuide.com, online home to the naughtiness measuring Howard Stern Shockulator, tallied 68 f-bombs, 34 assholes, 17 cocks, and 10 cunts in Stern's first day on the job at Sirius. Eh, that shouldn't be too hard to top by the end of the week.
· Just so that you know, Billy Crystal says he was offered the Oscar hosting gig before Jon Stewart. He'd hate for you to think that the Academy got its first choice.
· Brad Pitt does sort of look like a monkey, though they probably could've dug up more compelling photo pairs if they spent a couple of more minutes on searching images on Google.
· While we languish at our regular keyboard all day, our buddies at Jalopnik are running amok at the Detroit Auto Show, and Fleshbot is recovering from a weekend at the AVN pornopalooza in Vegas.
· We just can't believe in any edgy writers anymore, can we? Tomorrow's news will probably unmask Dana Delaney as the true author of Bruce Wagner's novels.
· And is Macaulay Culkin writing his own books? God, we hope so.

Today's Page Six details some of Jamie Foxx's lovable antics at Teddy's, Amanda Scheer Demme's celeb-fellating watering hole du jour (and we're sure that ASD's publicist had no hand in planting the item whatsoever), where Foxx entertained some buddies by lavishing his generosity on the waitstaff:

Adapt or perish, the saying goes, and no better example has ever existed than that loose cluster of constantly regenerating and morphing biological matter better known to fans worldwide as William Shatner. Who else could take, as he famously described in an SNL sketch, "an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years," and parlay it into a fifty-year TV, movie, spoken-word recording, and internet "name your price" travel sales career? And now, his greatest venture yet: The William Shatner DVD Club, where a personally curated menu of science fiction, fantasy and horror "underground hits no one else has," is culled from the bins of the finest 99-cent stores everywhere and delivered straight to your home for the low, low price of just $4 (plus a reasonable annual membership fee). Just imagine your delight when Dragon Storm, starring Maxwell Caulfield, arrives on your doorstep, its glistening, taut shrink-wrap just begging to be torn off so that you may hungrily consume the Shatner-approved contents within.

· Free Monday night music round-up: Rocket at Spaceland and Future Pigeon at the Echo.
· Patton Oswalt assembles pals Howard Kremer, Dan Mintz, and Jarrett Grode at Largo, an event we're told is a "big relaunch" of some kind or other. In any case, skip at the peril of surrendering your alternative comedy fan card and languishing in the humor hell of an eternity of Leno monologue jokes.
· The Aero has Golden Globe foreign language nominee Tsotsi, a film about “a young gang leader in Johannesburg, who undergoes a surprising change after being involved in the shooting death of a young mother.” In a slightly exciting twist on the obligatory post-screening director Q&A, the listing allows that Gavin Hood may show up to introduce the film instead. We know!

A kind stranger reaches out a helping hand across the LAT Classifieds to Ben Affleck, whose recent movie career (zero 2005 releases, 2004 output of Surviving Christmas and Jersey Girl), hoping perhaps to save the actor from further bad career choices and a life hawking body spray in Argentina: