We find ourselves absentmindedly doodling pictures of littlest karaoke soldier David Archuleta in the margins of our publishing software, wiling away these final days until his totally-going-to-blow-Cook-out-of-the-water debut LP drops. But listen, Archie—our little shaved koala, our 300-lb. gospel powerhouse in the body of a 17-year-old Mormon twink—the times, they are a-changin', but not a-quite fast enough. You've already begun to do your part, releasing a catchy single called "Crush" whose video remains titillatingly unspecific about which of the several boys splashing around in a lake you secretly want to take Christmas Tree shopping. But things are escalating.Your fanbase is bum rushing your houses of worship, hoisting placards demanding back their pillaged civil rights with the very hands that feverishly dialed in your 1-866-IDOLS number during your own moment of need. Only one child can bring these two sides together. The One. The Archie. Just leave your father at home, and remember what we always told you: song choice, song choice, song choice. Now what are you waiting for—a sign in some cornfield? Go save the world, kiddo! We're counting on you!

Chicago police investigating the murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother and the disappearance of her 7-year-old nephew discovered a child's body this morning on the city's West Side. Julian King had been missing since Friday, when Hudson's mother Darnell Donerson, 57, and brother Jason Hudson, 29, were found shot to death in Oscar-winner's childhood home. The estranged husband of her sister Julia was arrested but has yet to be charged in connection to the deaths, and amid calls of support by everyone from Barack Obama to her fellow American Idol almuni, Hudson this weekend offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the boy's safe return. More after the jump.The Sun-Times reported in the last hour that police were summoned to S. Kolin Ave., where the body of a black male child was spotted in a white Suburban SUV. The cops aren't yet commenting, and an Amber Alert remains in effect for Julian, whose mother discussed the shootings and suspected kidnapping at a press conference Saturday in Chicago. Her plea for his return came as FBI investigators joined Chicago police in the hunt — a clue that authorities suspected the boy may have been taken across state lines, though local detectives said Sunday that the search would concentrate on "the immediate vicinity" of the home.

Simply reinforcing our long-held theory that anyone who works in Hollywood—regardless of age, gender, or genitalia size—has at least one gay porn credit buried somewhere in their resumes, it's been brought to our attention that a boldface name in yesterday's Trade Roundup also got his start in this town's storied sausage factory circuit. Find out who after the jump:

Remember when John Edwards got a couple of $400 haircuts and everyone made fun of him and called him a spendthrift pretty boy? Rush Limbaugh said he might be the "first woman president"! Har har! (And, remember, when Edwards slept with that lady and maybe had a love child and how the hair didn't seem like such a big deal after all?) Well, Edwards, in truth, isn't the only of the recent candidates to undergo special, fancy, or expensive cosmetic treatment. Sarah Palin maybe has lip tattoos! John McCain has the same makeup artist as Clay Aiken! Joe Biden maybe gets Botox! And Barack Obama... um... covers up his gray hair? Indeed. If you're curious to know more, we've put together a little compendium of these bits of cosmetic detritus for you, after the jump.

Thou Shalt Not Worship False Idols: And now, from the Deseret News, comes this story of a Utah man who cut 12 acres of his cornfield into a maze in the shape of American Idol runner-up David Archuleta. "We really thought of Obama and McCain at first, but everyone we talked to was sick of the candidates," creator Brett Herbst said. "Then we said, 'Let's do Archuleta.'" Words fail us, so we'll defer to Deseret News commenter "asiangirl": "WOW!!!! THE EXTENT OF LOVE FOR THE MOST LOVED!! I LOVE IT!!!!..." A refugee from the Clayboard, perhaps? [Deseret News]

Get Used To It: Just when we thought we were done with today's People-led insurrection of the Claymates, this post from "NClayolina" pulls us back in: "I will never be able to listen to [Clay Aiken] sing, 'O Holy Night,' knowing he desires unholy nights." [The Clayboard]

While not everyone is surprised by Clay Aiken's decision to come out of the closet (speaking to Extra, Simon Cowell said dryly, "It's like being told Santa Claus isn't real"), there is one sort of person who's had to take the workday off to burn Anthropologie candles and listen to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on repeat, and she is the "Claymate." Aiken's most ardent fans are predictably in a lather about the revelation, with reactions running the gamut of the Kübler-Ross cycle of grief (albeit with more emoticons).

Now that America has had time to process yesterday's shocking bombshell that Clay Aiken is gay (and now that Debbie from accounting has gotten her breathing under control), People magazine has released excerpts from their exclusive cover interview. In it, Aiken discusses coming out to his mother four years ago, a rocky experience that may have prepared him for the real hurdle: weathering reaction from millions of hysterical Claymates.

Now that mogulsexual Ryan Seacrest finally has an American Idol season to start taping, he's shelved his budding bromance with NBC head Ben Silverman to get back to what he does worst: trading barbs with Simon Cowell. To kick off this latest round of homoerotic oversharing, Seacrest landed himself on Ellen DeGeneres's couch, where he proceeded to mock Cowell's self-obsession and accuse the withering judge of a Botox addiction. Yes, Ryan Seacrest called someone else out for metrosexual grooming. Removing your blond highlights can really embolden a man. [The Ellen DeGeneres Show]

· It's really not the end of summer until Paula Abdul salivates over a Tupperware container filled with Rachael Ray's delicious Klonopin-chip brownies. Side note: We believe that video breaks the world record for on-camera time in which Ryan Seacrest remains completely silent. [RR] · HBO's online arm HBOlab is launching a new web series starring YouTube microcelebs. At least one passionate YouTube critic is aghast at the results. [YouTube Reviewed] · Requisite Annoying The Dark Knight Sequel Casting Rumor of the Day has Michael Caine confirming Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman will play The Riddler and The Penguin, respectively. We stand by our assertion, however, that Hoffman was born to play The Kangaroo. [MTV] · We know we dumped Defamer Job Listings, but that doesn't mean we can't still pass along an opportunity here or there: "Verso Entertainment is looking for an office/personal assistant for company President Cash Warren (yes, J. Alba’s producer hubby). Work with Cash personally and with his new website ibeatyou.com which launched Spring 2008. Agency experience preferred." [Mail To] · Remember how much fun we had with the Scatalogical Madonna Song Title Game? Well, just wait for Anus Blanket Bingo! [big. crush.]

While we enjoyed sharing with you the alternately entertaining, excruciating, and utterly discombobulating experience of attending the 2008 VMAs in person, there were moments completely lost on us from our extremely un-VIP vantage point. Take, for example, this off-prompter ad-lib from Jordin Sparks, in which the uncomfortable tension building steadily in Soundstage 16—Brandian anti-Republicanism and hypersexuality reacting against Jonas Brothers's calculated chastity—burst like on overfilled water balloon. What we hadn't noticed at the time was her co-presenter John Legend's overt attempts at distancing himself from Sparks's pro-abstinence sentiments, displaying his naked fingers to indicate the absence of any such sex-warding amulets from Zales. He's good to go, groupies!

Best Friendsies! Ignore everything you've heard about Paula Abdul hating that miserable, no-talent bitch Kara DioGuardi—aka the hotter, younger, more talented Paula recently added to the American Idol judging tribunal. It turns out, they love each other, just like the press release from Mike Darnell originally said they would! "Abdul told Page Six: 'The 'American Idol' cast was such a boys club, now I have a true sister to share the fun with. It's been amazing.'" Now does that seem remotely coerced? Of course not. [NY Post]

Newsflash! The producers of Karaoke Borg American Idol have done the unthinkable: They have decided to tinker with the magical Idol judging formula America has come to rely on. In addition to the Really Bitchy One, the Inarticulate Gang-Sign-Delivering One, and the Alternately Effusive, Incoherent, and Flat-Out-Unconscious One, we can now look forward to the Non-Jaded Songwriter Who Doesn't Spend Most of the Auditions Fantasizing About Traceless Ways To Snuff Ryan Seacrest Out of Existence One. Let's let the Fox press release explain!

As a fitting companion-piece to our passionate defense of all things Seacrest, we offer you now, as if a precious time-capsule sent to us from the near future, a glimpse at the approximately 11 million American Idol hopefuls who swarmed the East Rutherford Government Cheese Distribution Center and Unemployment Gardens for a shot at greatness. Yes, any two of these adorable, undiscovered talents might face off in the show's grand finale: Will it be the girl in the plush Mickey Mouse-top hat? The triple-prophesied blue-eyeshadow lady? Only time, and countless Paula Abdul concussion-inducing blackouts, will tell. In the meanwhile, have a little fun by filling in your own Simon Cowell dream-dismantling one-liners: "You sound like your state smells." Go ahead—try it. It's fun! [Yahoo Video]

If you're one of those people who still resist the tractor-beam allure of Ryan Seacrest, we strongly encourage you to just relax and submit. We'll admit—there was a time when we didn't really get it, either. Who was this peroxided munchkin, and why was he being beamed into our subconscious eleven times a week by the shadowy forces of the karoake-industrial complex? But once we let his stardust coat us like a really expensive hair-product, life became so much easier, happier, Seacrestier. His effortlessly upbeat and lightly compassionate air, his ability to identify ladies' shoes not just by designer but by season and model number, the comforting thought that even David Archuleta could take him in a best-out-of-five arm wrestling competition: It all just worked, dare we say to the betterment of society as a whole.You scoff, but think about it. Where were we before he was hatched in a Merv Griffin-underwritten research laboratory somewhere on the NM/AZ border? No, not wealthier in every sense of the word and filled with boundless hope for the future! We were utterly Seacrestless—set adrift on an open red carpet landscape, without a clue as to how to best conduct a Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna interview at the Daytime Emmys without seeming as though we were just biding time until Joy Behar made her way down the press line. So begrudge Ryan not when you read that his ever-expanding empire is expanding some more. Seacrest is more than just a sublime inevitability. He's the mold for a new breed entirely: The mogulsexual, that flawlessly manicured Captain of New Industry, whose blind commitment to embodying all other annoying urban-male neologisms resulted in the steady accumulation of mind-boggling levels of wealth, power, and fame. You don't hate Ryan Seacrest. You want to be Ryan Seacrest. Defamer, out.

Suck It, Seacrest. Here's a pathetic little statistic for you: 300 people attended American Idol's first-ever audition in Puerto Rico. How's Simon Cowell supposed to work with that? It's not nearly as fun tearing apart some deluded young gay's dreams when there aren't 47,000 more deluded young gays waiting nervously outside the door for their own shot at humiliation. You guys barely even gave Paula a chance to get drunk! (PS: Puerto Rico, you are the coolest place in the greater U.S. and its territories right now. Own that. No one can take it away from you.) [UPI]

·First they try to Poochie-up Ebert & Other Guy, now this: In a bid to appeal to a younger audience, Beauty and the Geek host Mike Richards has been hired to take over showrunning duties on The Price is Right. Which strikes us as just plain wrong: white trash grandmas and TPIR go together like mayonnaise and cold hot dogs. (But if that's really the plan, they might want to start with canning Drew Carey, who we literally noticed nodding off during a not-particularly-gripping round of Mountain Climber recently.) [Variety]
·The TCA—whom we've suggested might best be taken off life-support and sent to that all-expense-paid junket in the sky—will come three weeks later next year, in the hopes of giving the critics attending some idea of what it is they are covering. [Variety]
· E! has paid New Line $7 million for rights to broadcast the Sex and the City movie, The Women, and He's Just Not That Into You, with an eye towards launching a new weekly program entitled Ryan Seacrest Presents: My Favorite Movies of All Time. [Variety]
· Disney purchased the rights to Monster Attack Network, a graphic novel set on a tropical island inhabited by giant monsters which they assure us will be adapted into a kick-ass monster island movie, not "the artsy farty Spike Jonze thing over at Warner Bros." [THR]
· Fox has picked up another season of So You Think You Can Dance, and EP/judge/longwinded-speechifier Nigel Lythgoe has reportedly left American Idol after seven seasons to concentrate solely on it. [THR]

This... is your list of American Idol audition cities and dates. Good luck.

This just in: a Hollywood PrivacyWatch Special Edition, featuring an extremely well-observed power breakfast with your American Idol, David Cook. "I saw the American Idol winner David Cook at breakfast at Belmont on Wednesday. He was having breakfast with some record execs but he was dressed in total faux-hipster. Vest over t-shirt. Check. Pork pie hat cocked jauntily. Check. Lots of necklaces outside of his tee. Check. Three (!!) of those fight breast cancer/fight something plastic bracelets on one wrist. Check. Cowboy boots. Check. He totally looked like he was dressed by someone who hates him." [Defamer AI Coverage]

· In today's installment of Rambling Anecdote Theater, Captain Kirk answers a call to Playmate-snapping duty. [Tonight Show]
· Elizabeth Berkley has launched a website where teenage girls can write in for advice. Finally, a place that collects such nuggets of wisdom as this: "Just as Nomi, my character in Showgirls, gets turned on by things that challenge her or obstacles or other hurdles to overcome, those are things that I welcome and I love that." [ask-elizabeth.com]
· Hey, MTV Films: Could we interest you in our spec, The Two Davids: America's Idols? We already have some casting ideas. [Popwatch]
· Come on, Chandler Tempe, AZ voters: If you want change, choose Schmuck! This message approved by Team Schmuck. (Thanks, Dave.) [Defamer]
· Here's the good news: The Larchmont Crumbs opens Friday. Here's the better news: 1000 FREE CUPCAKES. Oh. Ma. Ga. [Eater LA]
· Run for your lives! The British Bachelor Giant will devour us all! [JustJared]