This image was lost some time after publication.

Ah, there's nothing like Independence Day as celebrated inside the super-privileged gates of the Malibu Colony, where underwhelming fireworks displays crackle above (no one wants a stray bottle rocket turning their home into a $15 million tinderbox), the A-list cavort patriotically without fear of holiday-related peasant contact, and bags of blow flutter happily to the ground like unexploded blooming flowers. The Defamer Special Fourth of July Correspondent files this report from the 'Bu Colony:

Our friends invited us to a party in the Malibu Colony, and I wasn't totally sure what I was getting into, but I was assured that the fireworks would be delicious. So, we headed over there, parked near the PCH with the rest of the plebes, and headed in for the evening. People were descending into the neighborhood like packs of sluttily-dressed wolves, so I began to figure something was up, and I got my first taste of it inside the colony when I noticed a heavyset woman heading towards us with a teenage girl and a few other peeps. A closer look proved to show Courtney Love in all of her patriotic glory. Yeah, she looks bad.

Next, Jim Carrey led the way as he and two friends walked down the street towards their lair of choice. He is very tall. We passed a few parties where I remain convinced there were hookers for hire, took a walk on the beach and saw Rachel Hunter sitting on her friend's porch. I so wanted to bust out some tango moves, but I thought it might be too painful for her and get me ejected from a day of glorious sightings.

After sitting through a completely anti-climactic fog-filled fireworks display, we started to walk out of the colony, and passed Pamela Anderson and a group of friends standing inside of her garage. She was looking better than she does in all of those horrible paparazzi photos, but still looked just like you would expect her to look. Big blonde hair, white button down shirt.
Earlier in the day we saw one of the Anderson-Lee hybrid children speeding down the street with one Ugg-covered foot on the handle bar of his razor scooter. A few people in my group missed that spawn sighting because they were so distracted by a man dropping a Ziplock bag of cocaine in the middle of the street. That just couldn't be scripted any better.

Well, perhaps if Courtney Love then appeared out of nowhere to dive onto the fumbled bag of booger sugar, we'd all be experiencing a more perfectly-scripted holiday miracle. But either way, God bless America.

UPDATE: Another reader weighs in on the oddly star-starved scene at Carbon Beach:

Usually it's the reverse, The Colony has more d-listers and Carbon has the A group, but not this year.

Sitting on the beach in front of two catered and full-bar parties (one a TV station owner, the other a music label owner) from 3-10, it was a virtual parade of the b through d group. Gone from the walking tour this year were regulars Leo and Tobey, Courteney and David, various Osbournes and others. Easiest to just list them, the comments almost write themselves:

Kenny G
Melissa Rivers
Daryl Hannah
Jonathan Antin
Bruce Jenner