From today's Page Six, the heartwarming tale of how Defamer's Official Agent Dance Mascot, Endeavor's Smilin' Ari Emanuel, may not exactly hate it when people pay attention to him:

"'A raper and a pillager?' Rifkin whispers. 'When I started out in 1974, nobody showed me how to be an agent. I had no mentor. No writers knocked on my door and gave me scripts. No actors begged me to represent them. I support a wife and two children. If I'm a raper and pillager, whom have I hurt? I think I made a lot of people a lot of money.'" Writer Ross Johnson raises a 10-year-old unpublished story from the dead (also available at Movie City News), in which he tried to finally put an end to the ubiquitous agent blowjob piece. The "colorful" quotes from the tenpercenters of a different era make it feel like you're at a cocktail party full of deeply unpleasant people, but without having to move away from your computer.
· Best News Ever: The original Paradise Hotel, perhaps the greatest reality show ever to grace a television network, is revived tonight on Fox Reality Channel. We're not sure all of the wounds caused by Charla's treachery have fully healed.
· This little anecdote involving Jennifer Lopez's flatulence and bad tipping is almost certainly not true, but you know what? It's hilarious, even as anti-fan fiction.
· Movies with transporation-related titles make the lives of lazy headline writers so much easier.
· Congratulations to the masterful publicity department at ThinkFilm (they also have The Aristocrats), who've managed to place a gossip item involving a three-way with Kevin Bacon and the chick from 7th Heaven to sneakily promote their movie Where the Truth Lies. Very, very nicely played.

Lately, it's seemed like The Firm's been shedding high-level managers and talent like skin at a leper colony backscratching contest (big names recently out the door include Natalie Portman, Orlando Bloom, Laura Linney, Brittany Murphy*, SMGFPJ, and others), but "allies" of the management company play the departures as more of a goldbricker-purge by CEO Jeff Kwatinetz than rats instinctually abandoning a sinking ship. The NY Times runs The Firm through the inevitable spin/countspin cycle that comes with a Hollywood player losing its heat:

A spy with an ear to the ground tips us off to a touching Friday event at The Digm, in which suits will be shed and meats grilled for an "Assistant Appreciation Day," a nice departure from the "What the Fuck is Wrong with You, Can't You Even Roll a Call Properly, You Little Bitch Phone Monkey? Days" that clog the rest of the calendar.

· As expected, Will Ferrell follows agent Jason Heyman to CAA, while UTA tears at its Armani suit and laments the loss of its golden goose and seven-figure commission checks. [Variety]
· Tom Welling's Smallville stuntman is badly hurt during a stunt while filming in Vancouver. Sorry, this one's not funny. [THR]
· Even though most moviegoers would rather poke out both eyes with the straw from their $5 Cokes rather than sit through pre-show commercials, studios continue to provide the ads to exhibitors. Once movie theaters finally fade into extinction, we're going to smugly point to the fifteen minutes of Chevy ads as the reason for their demise. [Variety]
· This year, Oscar voters will get an extra week to consider their cruel snubbing of Paul Giamatti. [THR]
· TV Guide's publisher is embiggening the magazine to People-style dimensions, and deemphasizing its listings in favor of more editorial content. The changes are aimed at making the magazine slightly more difficult to ignore while browsing through the tabloids in the checkout aisle. [Variety]

We at Defamer know that agents have feelings, too, and we're committed to helping heartsick tenpercenters do whatever is necessary to get on with their lives. And if that healing involves a Craigslist ad trolling for someone with whom to trade cheap rent for intimate companionship, who are we to judge? The heart wants what it wants:

Despite having received a very public, strongly worded letter from Scary Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields not too long ago, Page Six is stirring up some pretty entertaining shit with William Morris again. Who loves a feud? That's right: everyone.

· Universal Studios president/COO Ron Meyer signs a new, five-year contract to remain at the studio unless something better comes along. If no better opportunities present themselves in that timeframe, Meyer should be around to preside over the future smash Meet the Focking Great-Grandkids. [Variety]
· ESPN is "close" to acquiring the rights to a second season of the failed NBC boxing show The Contender, which may or may not involve first season host Sylvester Stallone. Hey, Disney, If you're going to pick up Jeff Zucker's sloppy seconds, at least make sure Sly is part of the deal. [THR]
· To celebrate its plans to move into a fancy new Wilshire Blvd. headquarters in 2007, the Gersh Agency promotes every last employee to partner level. [Variety]
· In the wasteland of summertime Monday night Nielsens, Fox's Hell's Kitchen is the largely irrelevant king. [THR]
· Paramount and Nickelodeon Movies team up and try not to smurf up a CGI feature version of everyone's favorite Saturday morning cartoon/extended Communism allegory. [Variety]

Where else would we turn to for a story about Hollywood's colonizing barbarians at Venice's gates but the NY Obserrver? A piece in today's Observer details tensions of artsy locals (and colorful crack smokers) as they helplessly watch their beach paradise be overrun by fleets of Mercedes carrying industry suits looking to snap up overpriced real estate and separate themselves from the differently-flavored yuppies of Brentwood:

Yesterday afternoon's chatter about manager Aleen "I'm leaving and I'm taking Orlando and Natalie with me, and probably Freddie Prinze Jr. because he cried and begged not to be abandoned" Keshishian's defection from The Firm to Brillstein Grey is substantiated in the trades this morning, but Page Six says that CAA, crazed with bloodlust after poaching away two of UTA's agents, was also in the mix:

We'd hate to be accused of further spreading the rumor du jour...but then we remembered, yeah, that's what we do sometimes. Today's chatter is that manager Aleen Keshishian is leaving The Firm to become a partner at Brillstein Grey. And as with every defection rumor from the talent-managing ranks, there must be additional whispering about which members of her star-stable will be making the alleged journey with her, but we're not all that excited about any of the roster past Orlando "I'll fire the next person who recommends I carry a sword" Bloom and Natalie Portman. Most important in all of this, of course, is the chance for the smile of Agent Dance official mascot Ari Emanuel to brighten yet another Hollywood afternoon, regardless of the accuracy of above rumor; in fact, one rumor-mongerer practically demanded to see him beam from the computer screen.

· The Agent Dance, Trades Edition: Late Friday, we heard some rumblings about UTA agents Jason Heyman and Martin Lesak bolting for CAA, apparently because CAA was already calling the trades to brag about their poach. Now the question remains: Will Will Ferrell defect along with Heyman, loosening UTA's stranglehold on the New Gay Mafia and ushering in an era of comedies not packaged by The Ooota? Dave Chappelle is also believed to be "in play," should he ever return to commission-earning activities. [Variety]
· "Dissident former board members" Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold drop their lawsuit against Disney and give a vote of confidence to new Head Mouse in Charge Robert Iger. The trio then held hands and skipped down to grab a Fast Pass for a celebratory ride on the Matterhorn. [THR]
· The UK entertainment industry refuses to let the terrorists win, return to work creating hit shows that will one day fail on NBC. [Variety]
· Overseas audiences continue to display their enthusiasm for watching America get decimated by aliens, as War of the Worlds has taken in $201 million thus far. [Variety]
· More international box office: Fantastic Four runs roughshod over the overseas box office, once again proving that we are not alone in our bad taste. [THR]

NY Times television critic Virginia Heffernan has fallen madly, irrationally, lock-the-door-and-tell-your-assistant- to-hold-your-calls- while-you-take-me-right-here- on-the-glasstop-desk in love with Entourage's agent-at-arms, Ari Gold (or Jeremy Piven, but aren't the lines of entertainment and reality always so tantalizing blurred on that show?), spilling out 1,100 words of white-hot ardor in today's paper:

With terrorists attacking London and scaring most of the Western world shitless (there really was no way to avoid mentioning this), we instinctually cling to the bosom of Ari Emanuel and The Agent Dance, seeking solace underneath the warming wattage of that inimitable smile. Radar Online seems to confirm what we heard at the close of last week, reporting that ICM is ready to spread its legs for the suitor with the fattest wallet:

We know that the last thing that anyone wants to do is think about agents as the work day drags to a close, but there's chatter that Endeavor's John Lesher might be thisclose to ditching the agency to take over Paramount Classics. In fact, some of the rumors make it sound like it might happen any minute now. While we're always in favor of a member of the Brotherhood of Ten Percent moving on up and out of the WIlshire Boulevard ghetto, we must ask: What about the children? Potential ex-clients like Martin Scorsese, David O. Russell, P.T. "Paul Thomas" Anderson, Matthew "Have You Seen Layer Cake Yet?" Vaughn, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu could be ripped limb-from-limb in the ensuing fight to be their new best friend. Russell's not going down until someone can disengage his patented headlock, but Scorsese's not a spring chicken anymore. Developing...

The wedding website celebrating the Hollywood-flavored nuptials of Endeavor superagent Patrick Whitesell and Fox super...something Lauren Sanchez is a mere shell of its former incarnation, but the buzz around the reportedly $2 million event has the unfashionably uninvited (like us and everyone we know) questioning where their sad lives went tragically wrong. From Radar:

Please accept this picture of Jeremy Piven out carousing during the Entourage gang's recent trip to Vegas as a token of our contrition for mounting the proverbial pooch on the Leo DiCaprio picture. And we're far too ignorant to know how Viagra works its turgid magic, but if you divide the 16 minute refractory period between two eager fans, does that technically cut the "turnaround time" down to eight minutes? Just wondering.

Congratulations to Elise Hartley, Steven Selikoff, Darren Shewchuk, Ashley Daneshgar, and Jerome Duboz, whom have apparently survived both the William Morris Agency's desk-monkey gauntlet and its arcane promotion ritual (think Crisco, spiked fraternity paddles, and three days of copying non-disclosure agreements with their own blood) to become Full Fledged Agents. Huzzah! Send us the dry-cleaning bill for the first cup of coffee you toss on your new assistants. And thank you, Variety, for publishing this announcement and letting their parents know what they're up to—they were undoubtedly worried that their starry-eyed kids were doing something marginally less respectable since moving to L.A., like selling homeless people's plasma to the blood bank as their own and stiffing the donors on their cut of the profits.

You know the drill: Every time an agent throws off his ten-percent shackles (the cuffs always seem shinier on the other side of Wilshire), Endeavor's Ari Emanuel twinkles that winning smile. Rumors are circulating that agents Alan Gasmer, Mike Sheresky, Ramses Ishak, David Lubliner and a player to be named later have served their notice at William Morris and are headed to parts unknown. If they're still hanging around the office, the WMA gang better pat them down when they check out for lunch—staplers, Post-It notes, and client files hastily stuffed down pants aren't acceptable parting gifts. Developing...

At the risk of becoming a pawn in the effort to induce a feeding frenzy for Microsoft's Halo project, we present this picture (it's hit our inbox more times than we care to count in the last 10 minutes) of the minions dispatched by the evil lifeforms at CAA to deliver the scripts to the studios. From the assistant tracking wires: