· Having recently provided the venture capital that buoyed the business of a pair of North Carolina lemonade magnates, do-gooding Ocean's 13 star George Clooney is now helping to launch multimillion-dollar musical careers.
· Being the most recognizable motorcycle cop to an entire generation of law enforcement officials has put a target on Ponch's back.
· Apparently, Judd Apatow is a big Britney Spears fan. Do with this information what you will.
· Stuff on My Lohan: Like with the cats, only drunker and much less cute.
· Nicole Richie was just kidding about that 100-lb weight limit on her party. The fatty cut-off was only supposed to keep out porkers over 85.

The Best Week Ever blog has pulled the above clip from Sunset Tan, E!'s latest documentary-style celebration of all that is glorious about life in our somewhat image-conscious city. Be appalled if you must that a doting mom would drop $1300 on having her daughter irradiated and spray-tanned to a hue favored by Lindsay Lohan; we, however, are disgusted only that the parent didn't march her neglected child over to Dr. 90210's office for an on-camera consultation for the pre-teen breast augmentation that's wildly popular in fifth-grade classrooms this year, or, at the very least, a quick Restylane treatment to preemptively paralyze the various facial muscles that will soon rob her of her youthful good looks.

From time to time the news cycle offers up an event of such import and complexity that it can only be comprehended through the medium of musical theater. This week resident composer Ben Greenman ponders recent events surrounding Lindsay Lohan.

With Lindsay Lohan safely chained to a solid-gold radiator at Promises Malibu and the orderlies assigned to her care instructed never to spike her delicious wheatgrass-and-ipecac detox smoothies with Bacardi, no matter how extravagant the bribe offered, all Lohan coverage for the next 28 or so days will probably be limited to recaps of the events leading up to this weekend's spectacular flameout or forward-looking attempts to discern What It All Means for Other Substance-Abusing Starlets Who'd Kill For This Kind of Media Attention, Even If They Have To Drunkenly Mow Down A Valet at Hyde To Get It.

• The Daily News tracks Lindsay Lohan's decline via family snapshots! Dina Lohan's 1986 hair is the best news we've read today. [NYDN]
  

And with one palate-cleansing Britney Spears post, we return to our regularly scheduled Lindsay Lohan Meltdown (May '07) coverage, which we shall divvy up in handy, bulleted fashion:
· In troubling times like these, there's nothing like a reassuring NY Post headline to put things into perspective. [NY Post]
· Fragments of the accident wreckage recovered from the scene have appeared on eBay, and currently have a top bid of $800. Just to make it clear: You are bidding on pieces of her crashed Mercedes. The two items on the right aren't her ribs. [eBay]
· Leslie Sloane Zelnik's much-anticipated official statement on the matter is something of a letdown: "Lindsay admitted herself to an intensive medical rehabilitation facility on Memorial Day. Because this is a medical matter, it is our hope that the press will appreciate the seriousness of the situation and respect the privacy of Lindsay as well as the other patients receiving treatment at the facility." Sure, the press gets a light scolding, but it's woefully lacking in accusatory venom. [TMZ]

"The drunk driving arrest of Lindsay Lohan on Saturday reminds us yet again what lousy role models our culture offers its population of teenage girls. And that's just when that demographic group has proven itself more valuable than ever to the entertainment industry. Nearly every time Ms. Lohan appears on screen, it's a hit — and every time she crashes her Mercedes convertible, it's a cautionary tale of how Hollywood breeds movie stars too young, and unleashes them on the world before they're ready." Well, true enough, David! Except the part about her movies being hits. Oh, and the other part. We remember how much we loved polemicists who assumed that we were dumb and needed to be protected from "lousy role models" when we were teenagers! But it's not just Lindsay Lohan who's damaging our young persons, David claims.

· As we mentioned earlier, there's a new Golden Boy at NBC: Jeff Zucker reconfigures the executive structure at the once great, now consistently fourth-place network, essentially drop-kicking Kevin Reilly and luring Ben Silverman away from his successful production company to take over West Coast operations. [Variety]
· The aptly named Still Rolling Prods. says principal photography on grannie heist movie Poor Things is to begin Wednesday as planned, which means either co-star Lindsay Lohan will be recast, or the script will be rewritten to incorporate an actual L.A. courthouse and Malibu detox facility. [Variety]
· CBS greenlit six episodes of Do You Trust Me?, a game show that's betting audiences will show up to see if a player falling backwards will be caught by his co-contestants, or if they'll pull their arms away at the last moment, allowing him to be impaled on the Spikes of Death. [Variety]
· Miss Universe takes a beating in the ratings, trampled by a Two and a Half Men rerun. Miss USA, meanwhile, takes a beating of her own, tripping during the evening gown competition and getting booed loudly by the Mexican audience during the interview portion. Terrible! Kind of funny, but just terrible! [THR]
· In keeping with recent trends of premiering major Hollywood releases abroad (hey—they know on which side of the Atlantic and/or Pacific their popcorn flick is buttered), Michael Bay's blowing-shit-uppingest movie in ages, Transformers, is to get its first public showing at Rome's Taormina Film Fest. [THR]

For those of you perhaps just stirring out of a three-day coma or recently trapped in a coal mine: Lindsay Lohan, gravel-voiced screen icon and role model for legions of America's wayward youth, hit a minor developmental stumbling block just a few months short of her 21st birthday (no longer, it just so happens, to be sponsored by Svedka Vodka): She was arrested, after law enforcement found a "usable amount" of cocaine—flavor indeterminate—in her abandoned, crashed vehicle. Unstoppable party juggernaut that she is, however, Lohan was photographed a day later being transported, nearly unconscious, out of Teddy's in one of their V.I.P. courtesy wheelbarrows, and dumped into an awaiting SUV piloted by D.J./confidante Samantha Ronson. Now In Touch Weekly is reporting that Lohan—who, after a year of AA meetings, has recently expressed leeriness in labeling herself an out-and-out "addict"—has checked herself into Promises' seaside facilities for another shot at rehab:

Last week, in a frenzy of streamlining, we killed the morning gossip roundup. Well, we were crazy! Now back by popular demand!

Weary as we are to rouse ourselves out of our long weekend torpor, the call of a scenemonkey starlet's DUI arrest beckons: At approximately 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning, beloved screen icon and local nightlife stall fixture Lindsay Lohan once again found herself involved in a suspicious accident, having crashed her seemingly death proof convertible into a Sunset Blvd. sidewalk. Then, according to a 911 call from an eyewitness, she peeled away from the scene. After inspecting the tires and grille for tell-tale hair, tooth, and camera fragments, police quickly ruled out vehicular paparazzicide, but a search of the car turned up a "'usable amount' of a drug tentatively identified as cocaine." The Georgia Rule star, who only recently endured a supererogatory stay at a local rehab facility, was then arrested at Century City Hospital (where she was being treated for minor injuries), for "investigation of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs." Beleaguered flack Leslie Sloane Zelnik has yet to speak out on the matter, but is undoubtedly at this very moment holed up in an office, blinds drawn and surrounded by a foothill of crumpled paper as she attempts to compose the Statement of Her Career: a 44-word missive squarely placing the blame for her client's pre-21st-birthday rock-bottom moment on the media's nefarious shoulders.

Lindsay Lohan has been arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence. After her Mercedes mowed down some palm trees at 5:30 a.m., she left the scene of the crime for a hospital in a private car, and was apprehended there. The coke was found in the car, but not on her, though possibly in her.

Video clips from I Know Who Killed Me prove that Lindsay Lohan can really work a stripper pole! [Egotastic]

Having ultimately decided that inviting Generalissimo Hugo's Bolivian Marching Powder™ to sponsor alleged wardrobe-pirate Lindsay Lohan's 21st birthday bash [Ed.note—They grow up so fast after multiple, suspicious dehydration episodes, don't they?] in Vegas might draw unwanted attention from federal drug enforcement agencies, her event planners have decided to go with the second-most logical patron for a recent rehab graduate and noted AA groupie's coming-of-legal-drinking-age party: a mid-range vodka company. Reports today's Gatecrasher column:

It's been reported that accused closet-raider Lindsay Lohan won't be charged with felony grand theft for allegedly boosting clothes from a local woman, as there's insufficient evidence a crime was committed and the Los Angeles County justice system has already dedicated all of its celebrity-prosecuting resources to the ongoing Paris Hilton case. With this avenue closed to her, the accuser, model Lauren Hastings, has taken her case to the internets, dropping by the offices of Buzznet to describe (in painstaking detail—get comfortable, you're going to be here for a while) how the supposed theft went down—and, far more chillingly, revealing the ensuing campaign of Blackberry-enabled terror (there are photos!) waged against her by Lohan, Nicole Richie, and Samantha Ronson for Hastings' choice to go public with the matter. We applaud her willingness to stand up to this intimidating, wardrobe-pilfering triad, a brave effort that calls to mind the sage words of entertainment newsmagazine philosopher William Hall Bush, "All that is required for the triumph of celebutard evil is that good models do nothing."

• Because of the "good behavior" she displayed by showing up in court, Paris Hilton will only serve about 23 days, and she'll be separated from the general inmate population. Just like at Hyde! [AP]
  

Concerned that the recent betrayal of a camera-phone-wielding "friend" who exploited a private moment of bathroom stall bonding for her own financial gain might have fragile starlet Lindsay Lohan, like, totally bummed out and junk?, Us Weekly checks in with momager and Enabling Celebrity Parent Of the Year frontrunner Dina Lohan to see how her daughter is handling this latest blow to her post-rehab image:

• Remember that incredibly fake-seeming video of Lindsay Lohan "hitting" a paparazzo with her car? The guy is suing. [Page Six]
  

Lindsay Lohan, so often a helpless victim of her enormous, completely talent-derived worldwide fame, once again finds herself locked in battle with a member of the paparazzi underclass that's so hellbent on destroying her charmed life. Fans of the critically adored actress ("Ann-Margret, Meryl Streep, and Sophia Loren rolled into one," says cinephile journal Maxim) no doubt remember the harrowing March incident in which an innocent photographer somehow wound up splayed upon the hood of Lohan's BMW, a moment of ugliness that has now resulted in a lawsuit alleging that she was "negligent, careless and reckless" in operating the Bavarian death machine in the crowd of swarming shutterbugs and seeking monetary damages "for his pain and suffering and his lost wages." Should the pap succeed in extracting some cash from the embattled defendant, we fear that camera-clutching local grifters will exploit the situation by throwing themselves beneath the wheels of her vehicle each time she attempts to leave Hyde, hoping that TMZ's omnipresent cameras will capture lucrative footage of the lead-footed Lohan's callous disregard for their safety as they just try to make an honest living.

• Paris Hilton got her shrink to say that being forced to testify in that Zeta Graff defamation suit would "exacerbate her current mental condition," and the trial was postponed. [TMZ]