• Madonna's "spiritual leader" in Kabbalah is demanding he and other sect leaders settle her divorce with Guy Ritchie out of court, since the bitter splt causing bad publicity for the religion. Wait, now they're embarrassed by Madonna? Really? [Mail]

♦ It looks like Modell's Sporting Goods CEO Mitchell Modell has picked up a bargain on the East End. He paid $6.95 million for a seven-bedroom spread in Bridgehampton, which is $1.545 million less than the home's original asking price. [Newsday]
♦ French author, columnist, and pundit Guy Sorman and his wife Marie-Dominique have paid $5.1 million for three-bedroom a penthouse apartment in the Metropolitan on East 90th Street. [Cityfile]
♦ Fashion designer Adrienne Vittadini has lowered the price of her five-bedroom home in Water Mill: After lingering on the market for a year, it's now down to $6.495 million from the original asking price of $7.6 million. [Newsday, Sotheby's]

Not everyone shuns Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he visits New York. Real estate mogul Joe Moinian and his socialite wife Nazee make it a point to meet with him to discuss politics! "When Mr. Amadinejad, the President of Iran was in town last year for UN Week, and again this year, Nazee was able to wangle an invitation to dine with him." says David Patrick Columbia. Hopefully Nazee also uses it as an opportunity to gift him some of those scent sprays and candles she sells at her Melonie de France on the UES. We're guessing he could use it. [NYSD]

On Saturday night, Allison Sarofim hosted her annual Halloween party at her West Village house, and the strict theme was Japanese anime. So how did social ubiquity Sarofim come up with such an inspired idea? You know, the same as anyone might: "I was at a dinner in Moscow for Larry Gagosian, and I was seated next to [Takashi] Murakami, and I thought, 'Oh, anime.'" If you were lucky enough to snag an invite, you'd have seen Allison herself as Japanese weapon-toting superhero DNA, Sony honcho Rob Wiesenthal covered in lights as comic book character Lightning, Cynthia Rowley as a Harajuku girl, and Chris Benz in six-inch pink platforms and a matching catsuit. (Other guests included Padma Lakshmi (left), Ann Dexter-Jones, and Jennifer Creel.) Hey, no one said that being on the A-list wouldn't involve some emotionally-scarring experiences.

There are certain guests Late Show host David Letterman just has to have on, by dint of popularity or importance, and you got the feeling he was getting the worst out of the way all at once last night. Letterman's lineup started with humor-challenged Fox News shouting head Bill O'Reilly before moving on to empty-vessel Hills star Lauren Conrad. There were plenty of painful moments. But then there were also delightful interludes in which Letterman couldn't help but slice into his guests. Click the video icon to watch the attached clip, in which Letterman basically calls Conrad an idiot before backing off in a fit of giggles and self deprecation.

"Olympic hero Michael Phelps — besides banking a bundle from endorsements — picked up $100,000 for appearing at an LA pool party for a TV network chief's wife and swimming some laps." [Post]

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft (and, sadly, only the third-richest man in the world these days) turns 53 today. Closer to home, Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi is also marking her 53rd. Others celebrating: Julia Roberts is 41. Joaquin Phoenix turns 34. Musician Ben Harper is 39. Bruce Jenner, the man to blame for bringing Brody Jenner into the world, is 59. Actress Lauren Holly is 45. And Dayanara Torres, former Miss Universe and former wife of Marc Anthony, is 34.

♦ You didn't expect to hear that Lydia Hearst actually wrote that column in Page Six magazine by herself, did you? In response to Hearst's accusation that Page Six fabricated her latest column—the one in which she bashed her family's publishing company—the mag now says that Hearst's writing process involved being interviewed by a reporter who then "put her thoughts into cohesive paragraphs." And they have the emails to prove Lydia's trash talk. [P6]
♦ Madonna is reportedly under pressure from the leaders of Kabbalah to reach a divorce settlement quickly, lest the mess cast a negative light on their freaky cult. Guy Ritchie, however, isn't making it any easier now that he's apparently rejected Madge's latest £20 million offer. [Daily Mail, ThisIsLondon]
♦ Michael Phelps got paid $100,000 to swim around at a pool party thrown by a TV network chief's wife. [P6]
♦ It's a match made in heaven: Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Jerry Ferrara, who plays Turtle on Entourage, are dating. [R&M]

It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the belligerent old Viacom and CBS owner: Sumner Redstone is facing the sort of debt that would send most people into a nervous breakdown. First he has to weasel out of paying an $800 million Bank of America Securities loan before the end of December. But that's not the worst of it. He then most get unanimous consent from 55 separate institutions to refinance another $800 million loan. The Post thinks he might be toast:

♦ Better news from abroad today: global stocks rebounded overnight, with shares in Hong Kong climbing more than 14 percent. [CNNMoney]
♦ Goldman Sachs will name its new partners today; it's expected to be the smallest such group in the firm's history. [Telegraph, Clusterstock]
♦ The average hedge fund was down 8.4 percent in October. Layoffs in the industry are mounting: Glenn Dubin's Highbridge Capital is the latest fund to announce cuts, trimming 10 percent of the company's staff. [NYP]
♦ Barclays is seeking to raise $10 billion from Russian banks. [WSJ]
♦ Fidelity may lay off 4,000 employees. [Boston Globe]

We were thoroughly confused yesterday by the feud that erupted between model/heiress Lydia Hearst and the Post. Why would the tabloid's gossips alter Hearst's Page Six Magazine column to make it look like she was trashing her family, then release a column preview exposing their fabrication to the world?Something seemed fishy. And indeed it was: The self-proclaimed socialite "journalist" has had her columns ghost-written all along. SHOCKER!

With the ascent of viral marketing and Web video, corporations increasing are trying to get customers to make advertising on their behalf, via contests . Trouble is, most customers don't care enough to create these spots in the first place, and when they do the ads tend to be terribly embarrassing. Enter Joel Moss Levinson, the college dropout who, after 40 other jobs, has turned low-budget YouTube ad production into something of a living. According to the Times' Stephanie Clifford, Levinson earned $200,000 in cash and prizes from videos promoting psoriasis research, watermelon and Israeli tourism. And the recession may make him even richer!

The Wall Street Journal is running a strange article about Twitter. Everything about it strikes me as bizarre, right down to the picture, which shows Jack Dorsey, the cofounder recently ousted as the company's CEO. Indeed, the article is more telling in what it doesn't cover than what it does.For example, it doesn't even allude to the company's office drama; cofounder Biz Stone subs in as spokesman for new CEO Ev Williams. It also skips over Twitter's latest privacy violation, which even affected the author of the piece. But it does, in a roundabout way, get at the heart of Twitter's problem: The tool for posting short text updates can be useful for businesses — just not Twitter itself. Cofounder Biz Stone suggests the company may find a way to charge business customers for "premium services." A great idea. If only it had tried it a year ago, before the market crisis made such a move look desperate, rather than a bold experiment. (Photo by Getty Images)

Despite the economic meltdown, and despite having its debt downgraded to junk status, the New York Times Company does not plan any more layoffs, Times editor Bill Keller told staff. There had been rumors of a 20 percent headcount reduction, but according to Keller's prepared remarks, as presented by the Observer, the paper thinks it can get by with some extreme belt-tightening. "There will be no luxuries and little comfort," Keller said rather darkly in the midst of a sugary pep-talk. That still doesn't explain how the Times Company will pay the half-a-billion dollars it has coming due over the next couple of years.

Just as news organizations and rock bands sue to keep their good names out of political mudfights, one might think Budweiser would seek to quash that clever pro-Barack Obama remake of its annoying 'Whassup' ads from 2000. But it turns out the beermaker has no choice: Budweiser only licensed the concept from Charles Stone III after the filmmaker created it as a non-commercial short. The expired five-year license cost just $37,000, but Stone told BusinessWeek he's now happy about how things worked out:

It seems like it was only last Halloween when investment banks were considered economic bedrocks, former Fed chief Alan Greenspan's legacy was intact and debt securitization was a good thing. But Americans now blame evil bankers for their economic problems as readily as they once embraced no-doc, no-money-down mortgages. 60 Minutes recently did a hit piece on Credit Default Swaps (the tools never should have agreed to that interview!) and This American Life proudly revived a May segment slamming Collateralized Debt Obligations. And now, just in time for Halloween Friday, an entrepreneur is offering $80 Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson masks like the one above. The demonization of Wall Street doesn't end there, of course:

The Wall Street Journal does not, historically, endorse presidential candidates. But the newspaper has a new owner since the last election, Rupert Murdoch, who said he was considering changing that policy. It's hard to imagine the rabid right-wingers of the Journal editorial page jumping in the tank for Democratic nominee Barack Obama. But if the WSJ were to be planning an Obama endorsement, it would seem natural for conservative blogger Matt Drudge to get ahold of the news first, as he seemed to be implying in one of tonight's headlines, pictured at left. (The graphic reads "Presidential Material/Barack Obama.")

An All Gays edition: · We were kind of hoping Alan Ball would throw us a bone by way of some hot all-man, V-juiced action, but instead we got Lafayette getting busy with Milton from Office Space. [True Blood] · Sam Jackson wants these motherfucking civil rights abusers off his motherfucking gay marriage legislation! · 90210 hunk Dustin Milligan wrote a very thoughful and sweet apology on his blog in reference to an internet sketch in which he called Elvis the "King of Homos." ("No one should be made to feel like they or their sexuality/lifestyle is synonymous with 'stupid,' and no one should be made to feel like they are less than anyone else because of who they love.") We also learned from his website bio that he hails from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. 9021O Canada! · Here they are, boys: Cosmopolitan's 25 Sexiest Men list! We didn't make it again. · And finally: the new Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer. Gay wizards galore!

After donating to the No on Prop 8 cause, noted movie star/activist/burger glamorizer Brad Pitt has thrown his political weight behind another disenfranchised California minority— tattooed members of the L.A. Fire Department:

ABC will remain the lone holdout in the Obama campaign's plans to hijack all of network TV this Wednesday, perhaps solidifying our "Watch TiVo Kill" authors' easiest day yet. To wit — 8 p.m on ABC: Pushing Daisies. 8 p.m. everywhere else: It's the Great Pumpkin, Barack Obama, or whatever the presidential front-runner has up his tailored sleeve less than a week until Election Day. Guess along with us after the jump.Obama picked up a half-hour of prime-time air from CBS, NBC and Fox on Oct. 9 for $1 million apiece. The Live Feed reports that ABC offered its own 8 o'clock block around the same time, only to be rebuffed by the campaign for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, the participating networks have yet to learn what the candidate has in mind for his special — whether he might stick with Ross Perot's tried-and-true "Pie-Chart Filibuster" model from the 1992 campaign, or something a little more contemporary, like a modified version of Jeopardy! where every uplifting clue yields the queries "Who is Barack Obama?" and, we guess, for those three Daily Doubles on the board, "Who is Joe Biden?" We'd hate to see anyone left out.