THR reports that ICM is finally throwing around some of the cash in its "$100 million war chest," swallowing up the smaller Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann shark-tank after five months of super-secret negotiations. The deal isn't exactly as sexy as the ICM-Endeavor or Endeavor-UTA rumors that were kicking around seemingly forever, but it should given the industry a small measure of relief from the blue balls it's been experiencing from months of chatter about talent agency mergers. Think of it as the clumsy handjob you settle for after no amount of whining gets you the oral you'd much prefer. Hey, dirty business like this demands dirty metaphors.

When cutting-edge Hollywood golf fashion hits the links of New England alongside the honkey-fabulous world of pressed plaid chinos, sensibilities will be offended, catty giggles exchanged, and gossip columns notified about the sartorial crimes committed by Semitic semi-famous interlopers from the Wrong Coast. In today's column, NY Daily News JV gossip Lloyd Grove airs the grievances of the golfing population of the "understated little beach community of Watch Hill, R.I.," where Endeavor superagent Ari Emanuel enrages the local fashion police while summering with his in-laws:

· Thanks to Beverly Hills-fleeing agencies CAA and ICM and reemerging studio MGM, Hollywood has returned to Century City. But there goes the neighborhood already: Entertainment lawyers have descended to suck the life from he newly vital area. Anon, to Burbank, where the suits won't dare follow! [Variety]
· DreamWorks Animation takes advantage of the obscure federal subsidy for the bulk-casting of current and former SNL players in a movie, signing up Amy Poehler, Cheri Oteri, and Maya Rudolph for Shrek the Third. With the savings realized from the package deal, they've also secured the services of the hilarious Amy Sedaris. [THR]
· Media bigshots like Rupert Murdoch, Bob Iger, Sumner Redstone, Tom Freston, and Les Moonves gather at the annual Sun Valley Mogulpalooza, where they will spend their brief vacation whitewater rafting, competing in savage pool-based chickenfights (the Moonves-Redstone pairing is utterly unstoppable), and partaking of the always popular session of bow-hunting human prey. (Again, no one can touch Moonves' compound bow skills.) [Variety]
· Each time the European Union stymies the merger of the music divisions of international conglomerates, the baby Jesus cries. [THR]
· After two months of negotiations, House's Hugh Laurie boosts his per episode fee over $275,000, a modest recompense for his valiant efforts at selling the exact same "no one believes the diagnosis of the prickly, brilliant doctor, then he is proven correct" story week after week. [Variety]

Us Weekly reports that Endeavor superagent Patrick Whitesell and local anchorbimbo Lauren Sanchez gave birth to their first child today in Santa Monica. "Both mother and child are doing well," reports Us, but makes no mention of the regrettable scene that transpired when the new dad was momentarily overcome by his agent instincts and tried to devour the tantalizingly fresh infant. Once the proud father awakens from his stun-gunning, he'll be allowed to view his son only via a closed circuit television in his holding cell until he can be trusted to be in the same room with the baby.

Today's Variety looks at ICM's failure to "energize" itself by turning the recent $100 million investment it received from investors back in October into some kind of concrete display of a new direction, like the acquisition of another agency or the purchase of solid-gold robot assistants for its partners, and notes that the massive cash-pile hasn't stemmed the loss of bigshot agents like Chris Andrews, who defected to CAA recently. As if the Agency Death Star needed an excuse to turn a rival's employee over to the Darker Side, an ex-ICMer explains why this poach could hurt a little:

This morning's talk about Ari Gold made us nostalgic for the beaming countenance of his partial real-life inspiration, official Agent Dance mascot Ari Emanuel of Endeavor, so we were delighted to hear a rumor (since confirmed by People Who Should Know These Things) that would allow us to raise him from his slumber once again: ICM agent Chris Andrews is defecting to universally loathed/feared chop-shop CAA. We haven't heard which clients (here are six names selected randomly from his roster, according to Studio System: Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom, Josh Lucas, James "Did You See My 20-Year-Old Girlfriend's Breasts On Entourage Last Night?" Woods, and, just for kicks, the irrepressible Stephen Dorff) might join him in surrendering their careers to the CAA hegemon, or when ICM might make a symbolic announcement about the loss by writing Andrews' name on a dove, releasing it from an open window, and then gunning it down before it has a fair chance to fly away.

Last night, hundreds of thousands of local Entourage fans gathered at viewing parties all over L.A. celebrating the show's third season premiere (what, you didn't go to one?), where they patiently waited for Johnny Drama and Turtle's pussy-chasing misadventures to carry them offscreen long enough for Jeremy Piven to engage in the hugging-out-of-bitches and deliver a tongue-twisting monologue sending up the industry's self-interested heartlessness. In yesterday's piece about Hollywood's continuing delight at seeing itself teased on premium cable, the LAT managed to find an agent willing to pretend to be appalled by Entourage's depiction of the baby-eating caste:

In today's NY Times, Sharon Waxman examines what the planned moves of rapidly expanding talent agencies CAA and ICM from Beverly Hills to Century City might mean for the Wilshire Boulevard Ten Percent Corridor they're leaving behind. While the subtraction of two major players from the neighborhood undoubtedly will make it more difficult for a struggling actor in the midst of a psychotic break to swerve onto a single sidewalk and collect representatives from all of the Big Five talent shops in the grill of his soon-to-be repossessed Hummer, the mini-exodus is also expected to have a profound impact on the local power-dining industry:

[Ed.note—Update after the jump.] Some intial attempts at answering our earlier question about why Sen. Barack Obama might have been at CAA yesterday:

Every so often, we at Defamer offer our help in solving the mysteries that occasionally intersect with our readers' lives in the entertainment industry. Asks a curious operative:

· We're Not Dead Yet, Probably! Dept.: It's a big day for William Morris, as WMA is signed to represent Big Coffee's interests in Hollywood (hopefully avoiding another Akeelah and the Bee debacle), as well as signing up to become the latest agency that will fail to make the public give a shit about Jennifer Lopez's movie or music careers again.
· Britney buys baby clothes, but doesn't really seem that excited about it. Yeah, that's pretty much the whole story.
· Sit out Coachella this year, or were you just too messed up to remember much about the weekend? Buzznet's got a huge gallery of pics to either make you feel like you weren't too lazy to skip it or to jog your drug-addled memory.
· Whomever designed this spooge-flinging child's toy should probably be arrested immediately.
· Anna Nicole Smith's Supreme Court victory makes the world safe for skeleton-fucking golddiggers everywhere.

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke reports that CAA has confirmed that Angelina Jolie is no longer their client, an abrupt shitcanning that ends the actress's yearlong fling with the agency. We'd ascribe the move to late-pregnancy hormonal mood-swings, but we suspect that with the birth of her first biological child imminent, the agency's trademark baby-devouring displays of loyalty suddenly became distasteful to the expectant mom. But don't think that CAA is going to give up without a fight; a loss-prevention team has already been dispatched to Jolie's bungalow in Namibia, where they will seek to win back their A-list client by feeding the paparazzi photographer of her choice to a lion.

Because there's something inherently hilarious to us about agents fighting, especially when lawsuits are involved, we point out today's LAT story on the suit filed yesterday by former William Morris agents Steve Glick and Gregory Lipstone, who allege that the agency cheated them out of their fair share of WMA's blood money after a power struggle drove them into the consoling arms of ICM. Says the LAT:

Strange things are afoot at The 'Digm. On Friday, Paradigm empowered a few of its employees to explore the exciting talent management and unemployment fields, making us wonder if an agency merger or acquisition was in the offing, and now an operative slips us this internal e-mail from Fearless Leader Sam Gores, which somewhat cryptically (apocalyptically?) touts an unspecified "next chapter" in the agency's development. Fans of agency interoffice correspondence, enjoy:

Reports are trickling in about a bloodbath/exodus at Paradigm on Friday afternoon, which saw the firing/personal empowerment of some agents and support personnel. An operative tells us that the initial word on the layoffs is being replaced with a kinder, gentler message stressing the possibility of career advancement through sudden job loss:

David Vigliano on Jayson Blair, in "Hey, Victim, Want a Book Deal? Jill Carroll's Post-Trauma Choice," by Sheelah Kolhatkar, NYO, today:

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke devotes this week's column to analyzing CAA's sudden move into the athlete-repping business, a strategy kick-started by this week's reported snatching of pretty-boy USC quarterback Matt Leinart from superagent Leigh Steinberg. It seems that CAA is already applying its trademark poach-first-and-ask-questions-later approach to their new endeavor:

· Because merely propping up a Kate Couric RealDoll in a chair next to Matt Lauer would be too creepy for the morning show demo, NBC steals The View's Meredith Vieira to replace Couric on Today. And nope, still can't make ourselves care. [Variety]
· Great news for Lost fans: Touchstone TV throws piles of money down the hatch to keep showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse with the show for at least another season. [THR]
· Var beat us to the Extreme Makeover joke, but ABC's comedy development team is on the way out. We suppose that someone had to pay the price for the Jake in Progess/Emily's Reasons Why Not no-see TV block. [Variety]
· Seemingly Bizarre Studio Choice That May Only Make Sense Two Years From Now Of The Day: Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice director Gurinder Chadha will take over the big screen remake of Dallas for Fox. [THR]
· CAA will branch out to eat babies on behalf of sports stars, poaching IMG agents Tom Condon and Ken Kremer (who between them have clients like Peyton and Eli Manning) from IMG. [Variety]

Yesterday's LAT story on the entertainment industry's "headset protocol" or "culture of listening" sought to give a taste of the widespread practice of using every sensitive phonecall as a training ground for the next generation of agents and executives to those readers who've never had the pleasure of a hot latte tossed into their face as punishment for a dropped call. In the article, one brave agency call-roller risked certain receiver-bludgeoning by an angry boss for talking to the press and offered a glimpse into the world of sanctioned eavesdropping:

The agency world has inflicted a pretty severe case of blueballs on an entertainment industry ready for the release that only a major shark-shop merger can provide. Today's Page Six reports that the recently rumored Endeavor-UTA deal might be closing, finally releasing some of Hollywood's tension: