Late yesterday, we linked to Endeavor superagent Ari Emanuel's "Confusion of the Day" on the Huffington Post, never daring to dream that this seemingly tossed-off flirtation with blogging might become a recurring feature. Much to our delight, Emanuel (who at least partially inspired Jeremy Piven's character "Ari Gold" on Entourage) has deftly evolved this daily gripe into something new and exciting, "Ari's Frustration of the Day" (which, we hope, he'll rename "What's Eating Ari Emanuel?", a much catchier title):

· "They've given me complete freedom," said lead-handed Crash director/screenwriter Paul Haggis, in reference to a pilot he's doing for NBC. Have more frightening words ever been spoken?
· This Dr. Phil clip made us taste bile, not chuckle, so officially we're still waiting The Showbiz Show to deliver its first laugh. There, we said it.
· Somewhere on the Fox lot, a series of high fives are being exchanged, as the network dominated the Parents Television Council's list of worst shows for primetime family viewing with The War at Home, Family Guy, American Dad, The OC, That 70s Show, and Arrested Development all meriting inclusion. Celebratory Fox News Cafe theme menu to follow—the I'm Terrified My Daughter Is Dating A Black Guy War at Home meatloaf is going to be delicious.
· We really hate to see Ari Emanuel confused. Maybe he shouldn't think so hard about politics and just take a little cat nap whenever he gets the urge to blog.
· Also, will someone help Michael Eisner find a job? It breaks our heart to think he's sitting around feeling unfulfilled, but we can't say we didn't see this coming.

Today's LAT looks at CAA's recent bloodthirsty rampage through their competition's staff and client lists; it seems that in a relentless push for "100% market share," the agency doesn't just want talent—it wants all the talent, a ten-percent lust not seen since Michael Ovitz's tanks regularly rolled down Wilshire Blvd. Even high-powered studio execs seem cowed by CAA's surging clout:

Over the past hour or so, our inbox has been peppered with a new, unsourced rumor about half of ICM being snapped up by two bankers. A cut-and-pasted snippet has been flying around on e-mail and on the tracking boards, but here's the whole item, which originated in today's Page Six:

· Preparing for the day that a lucky photographer captures him changing into a bathing suit and sells the resulting photographic evidence of his shrunken testes to the Enquirer, Governor Schwarzenegger signs a bill that triples the amount of damages a celebrity can sue a photographer for and holds their employers responsible as well. [Variety]
· ABC and Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions are developing a sitcom for American Idol also-ran Constantine Maroulis, representing ABC's best chance to ruin the momentum it's gained over the past season. Credit Maroulis' canny agent with turning down ABC's first offer of a short guest stint as Eva Longoria's hairdresser. [THR]
· Var confirms CAA's poaching of UTA partner Dan Aloni and many of his top-shelf director clients, but UTA saves a shred of dignity by retaining Judd Apatow. [Variety]
· The WB forces its comedy and alternative departments to mate, hoping the that evil, inbred offspring will produce funnier reality shows and non-traditional sitcoms. [THR]
· UPN stops production of Sex, Love and Secrets after just one aired episode, but it seems unclear on how many of the seven shows they've already shot will air. Our completely wild guess is one more, just to observe the early-cancellation benchmark set by Fox's Head Cases. [Variety]
· HBO continues to enable Bob Saget's comeback. After a whore-banging turn on Entourage last season, they're giving him his own show to co-write, direct, and star in, an R-rated remake of The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The best part: Sags will play a gynecologist. [Variety]

A Defamer spy grabbed her Trapper Keeper and infiltrated CAA's "Back to School" party last night, mingling among the drunk ten-percenters, drinking up their free booze, and gawking at their clientele:

This week's NY Observer takes an in-depth look at how today's agents choose to outwardly represent the bloodlust tucked away in their hearts through fashion, from the suit-centric, sartorial anal retention of ICM's Casual Friday-eschewing Ed Limato, to William Morris's flannel-and-shitkicker-rocking president Dave Wirtschafter. Those working at the more uptight shops, however, must be missing out on the fun of pissing all over a co-worker's fashion sense on the days that the Armani stays in the closet:

· We take back that spurious "talentless" remark we made earlier about Moonves's beloved Julie Chen. TV Gasm clearly demonstrates that she's really, really good at saying at least two words. Also, don't miss their Golden Gasms (at least three times more exciting than the Emmys!), in which we were invited to offer our useless opinions. Mischa wuz robbed, yo.
· We love it when actresses play humble: "When her name was announced, Huffman said she was so nervous, it felt like 'an out of body experience' and that the Emmy voters 'were going to come in and go "oh, I'm sorry. We didn't mean Felicity Huffman. We meant Shmalicity Guffman."'" Well, they definitely weren't going to call up Schmeva Gongloria or Schmicollete Geridan, were they?
· Hey, unicorns! (We love us some Boing Boing, yes we do.)
· An Agent Dance Blind Item, courtesy of Page Six. Talk amongst yourselves: "WHICH high-powered but hated agent tried to leave Endeavor for rival CAA? The offer was rescinded when two high-level CAA agents said they would quit if he came on board."
· Kate Moss is quickly becoming our Favorite Celebrity Ever.

You know what we need to cleanse our palate of all of this Britney Spears baby nonsense? A tall, cold glass of political opinion poured from the pitcher of one of Hollywood's top agents. That's right, folks, Endeavor partner and Official Agent Dance Mascot Ari Emanuel, the man on whom Jeremy Piven's soon-to-be Emmy-winning character from Entourage is at least partly based, has once again dropped by Arianna Huffington's online cocktail party. Here's the beginning and the end of his post; feel free to extrapolate interpolate the middle:

Here's the short, possibly oversimplified version: After Paramount Classics agreed to a "handshake deal" to buy Thank You for Smoking at the Toronto film festival, the movie's producer, a dot-com billionaire allegedly ignorant of The Way Things Are Done in Hollywood, then turned around and made an "actual deal" to sell it to Fox Searchlight. Paramount Classics, it should be noted, is less than pleased with this outcome, and wackiness ensues. Sayeth the LAT:

Since yesterday, Official Agent Dance mascot Ari Emanuel has blogged his little heart out for the HuffPo, been accused of pro-SUV behavior by the NY Daily News, and been reflexively name-checked in a NY Times story about Entourage. We're forced to adopt the round-up format to do adequately track The Smiling Face of Ten Percent's recent media ubiquity:

The NY Times looks at the obstacles that "envelope-pushing" sitcom script "The Cell," about the wacky world of a hapless terror cell, has faced while trying to find a network willing to suicide-bomb itself by putting it on the air. Development execs, it seems, are raving about it behind the scenes, secretly wishing they were edgy enough to let someone apply Still Standing-quality jokecraft (a highlight: "'You're bright, you're funny, you're talented,' Musab says, urging his comrade on. 'Who made the best nail bomb in training camp? You did!'") to the still-taboo subject of terrorism. But why won't anyone take a chance on these lovable death-merchants? The agent of one of "The Cell"'s writers lends some crucial, bottom-line perspective:

[Click the picture to see a readable version.] The press release merely referred to Official Agent Dance Mascot Ari* Emanuel as the agent "on whom the HBO show ‘Entourage’ is based," but we're kind of excited that today's Variety has bumped him up to "muse" level. He's earned it.

It seems like just yesterday that a source within ICM called the rumor that client Jeremy Piven had, ahem, shitcanned ICM in favor of CAA, the poach-happiest agency in town, "completely untrue and patently false." Cut to almost exactly 24 hours later:

We've heard a rumor (of the unconfirmed, but nonetheless fun, variety, so take it for what it's worth) that Jeremy Piven, Entourage''s lovable Ari Gold, a character we are contractually obligated to mention is at least partly based on Official Agent Dance Mascot Ari Emanuel, has shitcanned agent Jim Osborne at ICM for a shark-to-be-named-later at CAA. Excuse us, that sounds harsh. How about crapcanned?

· With all of the negative coverage of Tom Cruise in the media lately, it seems that we never get to hear the good things, such as the heartwarming story of how he inspired the book My Love for You, Tom Cruise—A Desperate Chinese Girl's Confession. Equally heartwarming restraining orders to follow.
· Still more information about Tom Sizemore's penis that we really didn't need to know: Heidi Fleiss poo-poos the permaboner talk, saying, "He needed Viagra when I was with him."
· BoingBoing sings the praises of local funnypeople The Lonely Island, who posted their rejected Fox pilot, Awesometown, online and just landed a gig writing/performing on SNL.
· The LAT looks at Hollywood's unsung heroes, the script readers. They read so agents don't have to learn how to.
· American Idol runner-up Bo Bice underwent emergency surgery to remove a blockage in his intestines on Friday; the surgery was successful, and the doctors returned the bong to Bice relatively intact, no awkward questions asked.

We'd completely forgotten that Endeavor agent Patrick Whitesell and pneumatic local television spokesbot Lauren Sanchez were set to tie the knot this past weekend, but some spies just reminded us that the hot nuptial action took place in Santa Barbara on Saturday at the ultra-fancified Bacara resort. (Other details, such as how many times client/anchor Ben Affleck draped his genitals on unsuspecting guests, are hopefully forthcoming.) In the meantime, we can all celebrate the happy occasion by perusing the couple's online gift registries, but please remember that if you weren't invited, you're not obligated to buy that $1,200 vacuum cleaner from Williams-Sonoma.

This press release announcing that Endeavor partner (and official Defamer Agent Dance Mascot) Ari "Hey, It's Been Five Minutes Since Someone Mentioned That The 'Entourage' Agent Is Based On Me, So, Hey You, Fuckface, Mention How I Inspired Jeremy Piven Before I Punt Your Ass Back Down To The Mailroom" Emanuel bought a $10 million house in Brentwood is whipping around the industry's inboxes, so we thought we'd share it with you. We think that Emanuel will be secretly pleased that everyone knows he's got ten mil to drop on real estate.

· The New Paramount's summer has been spent wandering around the box office, finding piles of War of the Worlds and The Longest Yard cash left laying around by the old, Sherry Lansing regime. Third place never felt so easy. [Variety]
· Hollywood's unions are lobbying NY's Governor Pataki, urging him to veto a bill that would allow managers to procure work for their clients while operating outside of the rules that apply to licensed agents (like the one that usually limits them to 10 percent commissions), plunging the world of talent agencies into chaos. [THR]
· Steve Carrell is the new poker: New Line nabs The 40 Year Old Virgin for High T, in which he's injected with testosterone until acceptable levels of hilarity ensue, and ensuring that the actor is well on his way to Stilleresque/Ferrellian levels of overexposure. [Variety]
· People are actually watching Big Brother 6, proving that the late summer schedule is even more of a wasteland than previously suspected. [THR]
· What we meant to say is that AJ Jacobs is the new poker: After very recently selling a book proposal to Paramount, Universal options the Esquire writer's article "My Outsourced Life" for Jay Roach's (newly Universal-based) Everyman Films. Steve Carrell to star. (Just kidding—for now, at least). [Variety]

· The NY Times provides as good an illustration as you'll see of why agents are the ones wearing the nice suits and shouting into phones all day, not the ones writing the words: "'Did you hear what Ari said?" is now a regular feature of our Monday staff meetings,' said Jeremy Zimmer, a founding partner at United Talent Agency. He was referring to Ari Gold, the show's insufferable talent agent, played by Jeremy Piven in an expensive Caesar haircut. Meanwhile, at International Creative Management, the agent Brian Sher said he got huge laughs by announcing at a staff meeting that the priority project at Warner Brothers this fall would be 'Aquaman.'"
· Talent agent, defined. Is this a themed round-up?
· Now that Paris Hilton has traded in aging Chihuahua Tinkerbell for a younger, bitsy-er (bitsier?) version, Zulkey looks to Hilton's future of continuing pet-miniaturization.
· You couldn't pay us to watch Big Brother Whatever Number They're Up To Now (well, maybe we'd let Les Moonves pay us to watch it), but this clip of one of the contestants calling another contestant a "cokehead" who "fucks old men" is pretty amusing.
· P. Diddy abstains from sex before the VMAs, we abstain from giving a shit. (Yet we link to the story! Funny how that works!)