The feud-friendly, thuggish, and apparently bulletproof rapper 50 Cent, born Curtis James Jackson, became famous with his single, "In Da Club." He's also an actor and famed purveyor of flavored waters.

Curtis Jackson, more commonly known as the rapper 50 Cent or "Fiddy," has sided with the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails in the ongoing search for a proper model for the recording industry. During an interview in Oslo, Fiddy said that "[file sharing] doesn't really hurt the artists." It hurts the studios. As an artist and G-Unit record label owner, Fiddy's in a unique position to understand that concerts and merchandise sales are where the real money is at. The industry has to learn to maximize its income from them. But what does Jackson care? He made $100 million when Coca-Cola bought Glacéau, the maker of Vitaminwater.

Publicity averse hip-hop artists Kanye West and 50 Cent, as you may have heard, have mutually agreed to participate in a "feud" over the sales of their just-released albums, wherein 50 has promised to retire if West's CD outsells his, and West has pledged to suffer a marginally more intense conniption of wounded self-regard at the next awards show that fails to recognize his greatness if outdone by his rival. As we're deeply invested in the outcome of this competition, we dispatched Defamer videographer Molly McAleer to Hollywood's Amoeba Records for an update on the early results of the local sales race and some incisive analysis of the rapping frenemies.

Kevin Federline's swift and illustrious rise up the Spears Industries ranks—humbly starting as a background dancer, then being promoted to Chief Bongwater Replacement Engineer, and ultimately landing a corner-office position as their Director of Knocking-Up Services—was as remarkable a transformation by any celebrity couchhusband in recent memory. Even once he was terminated, nothing could stop his lofty pimp ambitions, and it wasn't long before Super Bowl endorsement deals and meaty roles opposite industry giants like Chad Michael Murray began to pour in. So how Shorty-feting, bullet-riddled rap star 50 Cent could somehow lay the blame for Britney's recent troubles on K-Fed is anyone's guess:

Rod Townsend records the gays in and around their natural environment of Fire Island and reports back. This is the time, and this is the record of the time. Put your hands over your eyes.

If you love literature and have some free time tomorrow, you might want to head up to Columbus Circle, where a new imprint makes its debut. That's right, it's G-Unit Books, which will bow with five titles. The authors will be there, as well as G-Unit head/noted memoirist 50 Cent. What's the drive behind the new house, Fiddy?

• The DEA—yes, that DEA—has a top-10 list of their very own this year. [Complex]
  

• After an extended period of darkness, 4-year-old Suri Cruise finally reveals herself to the world as a beautiful Asian-American.
• Katie Couric sashays onto the CBS Evening News, and the world is amazed that vaginas can read.
• And in other kind-of-vagina news, Rosie O'Donnell assumed the position on The View.
• Paris Hilton gets cuffed and it's got nothing to do with a sex tape.
• Cuddly rapper 50 Cent trades in his shiny Lamborghini for a trip to central booking.
• Glamour asserts itself as the most absurdly omnipresent magazine out there with four Today show appearances and a sponsored helicopter service.
• Sumner Redstone cans former prez and CEO Tom Freston, but not without the employees giving a cuddly send-off first.

Breaking: We're hearing that Kevlar spokesman and hip-hop role model 50 Cent, innocently driving his silver Lamborghini just like any of us would, has been arrested on the corner of 35th and 8th, possibly for cocaine. Per usual, this is completely uncomfirmed, based on rumor and hearsay — and yet totally believable.

An insider over at Complex Magazine informs us that the people in charge over there, have deemed it necessary to send a company-wide e-mail requesting that emplyees stop accosting 50 Cent whenever he enters the building. We particularly like this line, "This office should be a second home for 50, not a place where he feels compelled to put on a show each time he walks through our doors." We can understand why the staff reacts so much, because while we prefer to stalk from afar, when we're in close with celebs, we demand only Grade A top-shelf shucking-and-jiving. No matter if we're in his house or ours.

• Best-selling crime writer Mary Higgins Clarke may have lifted her schlock from an Israeli writer's much-distributed screenplay. So, to review: James Frey is fake, JT Leroy is fake, and now your mom's favorite writer is fake. [Lowdown]
• Tom Cruise considers suing Life & Style for reporting that he had split with fiancée Katie Holmes. Uh, considers? The Tom Cruise we know would've served them with papers 2 days before the damn thing hit the stands. What's become of you, Tom? You're a shell of your former self. [IMDb]
• Teri Hatcher doesn't have a publicist, which means she sends nasty emails to Jeanette Walls. [Scoop]
• Brit actor Daniel Craig is reportedly well-endowed, which is probably the only qualification one needs to play James Bond. [Page Six]
• Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff bites the hand that entertains his boss. [Page Six]
• Spike Lee wags a righteous finger at 50 Cent for dressing his kid in a bulletproof vest. We don't see what the problem is — shouldn't Baby Cent know the warmth of Kevlar? [R&M]

• French Vogue and its editor Carine Roitfeld are, of course, the hotness, which is why they didn't back down from letting Kate Moss guest-edit their December issue. You can't keep a hot bitch down. [The Daily]
• You can, however, keep her on-and-off boyfriend, Pete Moss, under arrest for posession of Class A drugs, a category which includes all the good stuff. [AP]• Because 50 Cent is into having sex ain't into making love, he plans on creating big, blue dildos in his own likeness. How thoughtful. [FemaleFirst]
• How to deal with the loud late-night Disneyhell that is the LES? Says one Curbed reader: "I'd suggest that instead of an earlier last call, they simply stop PATH train and Staten Island ferry service, and increase the bridge/tunnel tolls to $100 at 2 AM." [Curbed]
• As it turns out, Elaine Van Hoorne — the much-photographed hipster carnie and partner of One-Half NelSon — is just another damn Cornell grad. Figures. [Cornell]
• Who's really stealing Christmas? The politically correct, godless freak-monkeys, that's who. Praise Christ and his Mas! [Zulkey]
• Do we believe that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes would really have their wedding registry at Neiman Marcus? And that the most expensive item is only $430? [Just Jared]
• The breakup of Nick and Jessica leaves no man unscathed. [The Post Show]
• CBS is wooing Katie Couric with promises of that which makes a morning show host truly great: body oil and Manolos. [LAT]

We read the reports too: the $10 million New York bat mitvah that occupied two floors of the Rainbow Room, with daddy's deep pockets somehow convincing some of the biggest icons of rock to whore themselves out, "Hava Nagila"-style. We're talkin' Steve Tyler and Joe Perry, Don Henley and Joe Walsh with Stevie Nicks on vocal (!), and 50 Cent, reportedly drunk and threatening a JAP massacre if anyone snapped his picture. Blogger Tabloid Baby found one brave, enterprising guest who did:

• So who's the well-hung former wrestler turned successful gay writer trolling for bottoms on Craigslist? Guesses include Augusten Burroughs, Alex Halberstadt, Aaron Krach, Brad Gooch, and, um, Gore Vidal. One of you is going to have to go undercover and figure this shit out, for real. [Gawker]
• We can't get enough of "hardcore" rapper 50 Cent's photos for GQ's People of the Year feature. So delightfully emasculating! [Style.com]
• Columbia students are "gonna f— this bondage we call clothing and party like the savages we really are." Yes! Ivy-league, UWS, trust-funded savages! [NY Sun]
• Start preparing now for your Thursday Thanksgiving binge: eat a shitload today, and shit a lot tomorrow. [Thrillist]
• Are the Scientologists coordinating a Craigslist invasion? [Craigslist x 3]

We spent a healthy chunk of our weekend ruminating on 50 Cent, as we often do, and his new publishing imprint — but that can only occupy us for so long. 50 is interesting, but let's talk about the man behind the man: what about his agent, Marc Gerald?

• More on rapper 50 Cent's forthcoming imprint: the books won't top 150 pages, making them G-Unit friendly. We also learn that 50's quite the bookworm, leaving his gangsta cred in peril. [Page Six]
• A pillow fight leads to table-throwing at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas, causing tens of thousands of dollars of damage to Paris Hilton and Stavros Niarchos's room. Good thing her family owns the place — but how long until her parents call for her public execution? [Scoop]
• Kabbalah-giddy Madonna feels a kinship with Scientologist Tom Cruise, as they're both "persecuted" for the bizarre faiths. That's not true: we've no problem with their religious beliefs. We persecute solely in response to retarded behavior. [R&M]
• Actress Sharon Stone stands up uber-wealthy Denise Rich at a fundraiser; Rich pens an angry song in response. [Page Six]
• Apprentice contender Bethenny Frankel refuses to remove her feet from a VIP bench so another guest can sit down. In her defense, the other guest wasn't even attractive. [Lowdown (2nd item)]

• We apologize for today's lapse in coverage on suspected rapist Peter Braunstein. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with anything other than the fact there's nothing new to report. Kate Moss has been warned to look out for homeboy, and NYPD is tracking him through his Metrocard use. Alas, the whole system operates on a two hour delay. Brilliant. Honestly, Richard Belzer would've had this shit taken care of last week.
• 50 Cent expands his faux-ghetto empire to the extremely hard-ass realm of publishing. G-Unit books will be a collaboration with MTV/Pocket Books and deal with a range of topics, from cash and hoes to candy stores. [Contact Music]
• Authorities seize 136 pounds of heroin from a Staten Island storage facility, thus prompting the gutter pirates of Tompkins Square Park to riot. [Newsday]
• Starbucks holiday campaign invents a new alternative to "it's" and "its:" ITs. [Fawny]
• Been stalking various members of U2 since 1986? Then now's your big break: you can bid on the chance to be an extra in Bono's upcoming film. [eBay]

• 50 Cent shows up to the premiere of his movie with a 30-member posse, the members of which he politely attempts to introduce, individually, to red carpet reporters. See? We told you he was nothing but a thug poseur. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• Because marrying Jordan Catalano is every young woman's dream, Lindsay Lohan is eager to wed beau Jared Leto, who taught her how to eat again. [Scoop]
• Matthew McConaughey is rumored to have landed the role of People magazine's Sexiest Man With Hairplugs Alive. [Page Six]
• Actress Halle Berry is sleeping with her boyfriend, so she must be pregnant. [R&M]
• Most disturbing sighting ever: "Joe (father of Michael) Jackson at Bruno Jamais' supper club with Jocelyn Wildenstein promoting his reality TV show, 'Hip-Hop Boot Camp.'" [Page Six]

The Today show just had a strange interview with controversial rapper 50 Cent, filmed at his 52-room mansion in Farmington, Connecticut (ghetto dreams only come true in WASPy enclaves). After Katie Couric awkwardly introduced the footage from his "crib," a correspondent did her damnedest to illustrate how 50 had cultivated an empire based on "his gangsta image." The entire segment was rather uneventful, save for this final interaction:

• Eventually, something — a flu, a hurricane, our own government — will wipe out most of humanity. And, much to our surprise, that includes New York. [NYM]
• 50 Cent is man enough to cry. And to kill you for laughing at him about it. [Reuters]
• The dying New York Press attempts to revive itself via the modern media adrenaline shot known as a "blog." [Fifth Estate]
• Do we date too often? Too little? More importantly, do we think about this shit too much to ever get laid? [n+1]
• You know what suffix should be used more often? "-iggers." Not that we'd ever be caught saying "chiggers" aloud. [Fawny]
• A nice, Jewish lawyer needs someone to pretend to be his wife for a company function. And so a heart-warming romantic comedy begins. [Craigslist]
• The male nipple might be silly, but it sure does move copy! [Marketwatch]