Bernie Madoff's in jail! The stock market is up! Enjoy the temporary dose of relief, because the recession is just getting bleaker. Even fun is now bankrupt:

If you've had a crappy week/month/year, here's some profound and heartfelt advice from novelist-philosopher Plum Sykes: "It's good to remember to laugh at life, especially when times are hard." Before you groan and ask exactly how hard times can be when you're a pathologically overconfident and overpaid writer who's drowning in designer clothes and married to a man with millions, remember that Plum once worked for Anna Wintour, so she too has walked through life's dark and tragic abyss. And why not follow her noble example of appreciating the little things in life? "When my black tulips in a bed of blue forget-me-nots flower at my country house," she shares, "the pink champagne will come out!" There, aren't you humbled and inspired?

Thoroughly discredited PR man Mark Penn enjoys being dominated by Rachel Maddow, and charging outrageous fees to package common sense as insight for out-of-touch corporate mouthbreathers. Today: poor people like cheap things!

Today we have a chivalrous rapper, a Special K-addicted comedian, an old-timey Oscar winner who's doin' it with a 20-year-old, and a model pretending to be gay.

Corcoran brokers will no longer be able to use words like "professional," "exclusive," and "quiet" in apartment ads. "Professional" is a no-go because it implies the apartment is only available to people who work in a specific industry; describing it as "exclusive" might be construed as "racially exclusive." No one seems to know why "quiet" and "safe" were added to Corcoran's new list of 200 banned words, although deception is still totally fine: "It is not against the law for brokers to describe a coffin-sized studio as 'cozy.'" [NYP]

Apparently it takes more than the worst economic meltdown of our lifetimes to cure America of its cheerily naive belief—still disproven by statistics—that success in life is more due to hard work than the random lottery of who your parents are. The results of a survey released yesterday showed that people still widely believe in "the American Dream," with the majority of respondents saying that they expected to get ahead despite the economy, and that ambition was more important than external factors. So in the spirit of our rose-tinted brethren, we will view this as the very optimism that will bring our country back to prosperity, rather than a psychological defense mechanism evolved to suppress what would otherwise be an irresistible urge to riot and pillage on Park Avenue.

• David Krell, who founded the International Securities Exchange and retired as the company's CEO in 2008, has paid $7.6 million for a 34th-floor apartment the Trump International on Central Park West. [Cityfile]
• I Trulli owners Astrid and Nicola Marzovilla have sold their six-story townhouse at 129 East 36th Street for $7.28 million. The buyer: The Republic of Chad on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Chad to the United Nations. [Cityfile]
• Artist Robert Wilson has put his one-bedroom duplex at 3 Great Jones Street, where painter Mark Rothko once lived, on the market for $2.75 million. [WSJ]

Jamie Dimon (left) is the CEO of JPMorgan. Byrdie Bell (right) goes to a lot of parties. What do the two have in common? Absolutely nothing, except they're both celebrating birthdays today: Dimon is 53; Bell is turning 24. William H. Macy turns 59 today. Kathy Hilton, the woman who brought Paris Hilton into this world, is 50. Emile Hirsch is 24. Mets pitcher Johan Santana is turning 30. Political commentator Charles Krauthammer is 59. Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby is turning 46. Common is 37. Danny Masterson is 33. Dana Delany is 53. And Neil Sedaka is turning 70. Weekend birthdays after the jump!

• Did Kelly Killoren Bensimon ask her boyfriend to lie about getting beat up so she could use it as a PR ploy to "better her chances of being asked back" on Real Housewives next season? That's what her bitchy co-stars are saying as part of a PR ploy to get the attention turned back on themselves. [NYDN]
• Estée Lauder CEO William Lauder is being sued by Taylor Stein, who gave birth to his baby in 2007, for stopping child support payments. [P6]
• In an interview with Matt Lauer, Michael Phelps says he made a "bad mistake" in South Carolina, although he's still not saying what this mistake was. [People]
• Lindsay Lohan has settled the lawsuit filed by a woman whose $11,000 coat LiLo took from 1OAK last year. Also: She left her poor bodyguard stranded in Las Vegas earlier this week. [P6, P6]

• Investors are finding "wisps of hope" in the current not-so-bad economic news, so the three-day winning streak on Wall Street may continue today. [DB]
• AIG reached out to Warren Buffett twice before ultimately collapsing. [BN]
• Citigroup is looking at adding four new people to the company's board. [WSJ]
• Ken Lewis seems to be sending signals he wants out of BofA. [Dealbreaker]
• H. Rodgin Cohen is out of the running to be deputy Treasury secretary. [DB]
• There's already chatter that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may get pushed aside in favor of—yes, you guessed it—Steve Rattner. [BI]
• How bad is it for hedge funds? John Paulson was up 38 percent last year and he still lost 16 percent of his assets during the last half of 2008. [Portfolio]
• Two things you never expected to see: A meek, frightened Jim Cramer on national television. And a comedian talking about CDOs. [The Daily Show]

Bernie Madoff was locked up in a jail cell last night. But David Patrick Columbia has a photo of Bernie the evening before, when he was sitting in his penthouse and facing the prospect that this would be his last night in his own bed. Note the lack of the going-away party. It was just Bernie in his easy chair, watching TV. We'll go ahead and assume his first night behind bars wasn't quite as leisurely. [NYSD]

It's Friday, how about some reconciliation? Lindsay Lohan finally resolved that little problem of being photographed in someone else's missing fur coat, and Chris Brown and Rihanna completed an inspiring duet.

The only thing that stopped last night's Jim Cramer-Jon Stewart battle from becoming a total bloodbath was that it was such a rout, with CNBC's Cramer in steady retreat.

CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg didn't warn investors about financial armageddon, and they're not providing much catharsis now. Which is why it's fantastic that the likes of TMZ and Extra now chase financial stories.

She died two years ago, but we're still addicted to Anna Nicole Smith. Now there's a new excuse to talk about the trashy Marilyn Monroe of our age:

After thirty years at Time Inc., Jim Kelly is stepping down as the magazine group's managing editor, according to an email he just sent out, reproduced after the jump.

What happened to Jim Cramer? CNBC's Mad Money host screams stock-market tips with alpha male abandon, but he looked like he was going to wet himself in his Daily Show grudge match tonight.



Having been slammed repeatedly by host Jon Stewart over the past few days for one-sided journalism, Cramer fled any real direct confrontation in his lengthy interview and instead went contrite — absurdly contrite. His voice went high and cracked, his thoughts fragmented as they left his mouth.

Here's the thing about losing your journalism job and starting your own internet/freelance business: Suddenly you work, eat, sleep, drink and even exercise in one tiny space. Laura Rich almost went crazy.

Dave Winer, the old guy who takes credit for blogging, podcasting, and other tech trends, is mad at Twitter CEO Ev Williams. Why? Because Williams is making people — people who are not Dave Winer — famous.

It sounds like Jon Stewart will be giving Daily Show guest Jim Cramer the Tucker Carlson treatment: The Daily Show's Thursday taping ran way over schedule as Stewart "repeatedly chastised" Cramer, AP reports.