• Sean Avery may be spending a lot more time in New York in the near future: Hockey's preeminent bad boy has been cut loose by the Dallas Stars just 23 games into a four-year contract. [NYP]
• Jennifer Aniston was supposedly so desperate to have a boyfriend during the promotional tour for Marley & Me that her camp started "shopping for potential dates." [P6]
• David Paterson was not at all pleased with the impression of him on SNL this weekend. [NYP]
• Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber had a second son on Saturday. [People, E!]

There's a story in today's Page Six Magazine about sadsack clown Bill Murray's supposed midlife crisis. It's brought him to random Brooklyn house parties and other odd, wistful New York places. The most melancholy and peculiar detail comes from a story, an urban legend of sorts, about Murray playing a little game of hand-over-the-eyes Guess Who with a stranger in Union Square:

Now that talk on a possible, long-gestating Ghostbusters sequel is heating up, MTV spoke to Sigourney Weaver about her potential involvement (when will someone call Peter MacNicol? We're dying over here!). Weaver admitted that she's supposed to call Bill Murray next week about the project, adding, “I would hope that my little [movie son] Oscar would be one of the Ghostbusters even if I’m not in it!” Careful, Sigourney — you're giving producers some Seth Rogen casting suggestions. Weaver also revealed that she's been talking to Ridley Scott about a potentially radical overhaul of the Alien franchise:

♦ Madonna's neighbors in her Central Park West building aren't happy that she has turned her seventh-floor apartment into a music studio. (It was originally supposed to be an office for Guy Ritchie.) Now she stays up all night blaring music and practicing for her shows. [NYDN]
♦ Alex Rodriguez is thinking of following Madonna on tour next month when she plans to make stops in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. [R&M]
♦ Is Jennifer Aniston secretly leaking pregnancy and marriage rumors about herself to the tabloids as a way to steal attention away from Brangelina? [MSNBC]
♦ Friends of Padma Lakshmi want everyone to know she is not a gold digger. She's a "hard-working, self-made woman" who just happens to only date extremely wealthy, older men. [P6]
♦ Peaches Geldof and Max Drummey's 97-day-old marriage may already be on the rocks. [The Sun]

After weeks of massive ratings and huge buzz derived from its Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin guest appearances, Saturday Night Live extended its political satire into special Thursday episodes beginning last night. So how did the Not Ready for Primetime Players weather the transition to the only NBC timeslot not currently bought up by Barack Obama?Answer: Awkwardly! Without Tina Fey on board or even the much-rumored Sarah Palin-as-Fey meta explosion, SNL's attempt at a presidential debate skit underwhelmed almost as much as the actual debate. Even guest appearances by Bill Murray and Chris Parnell couldn't quite mask the fact that after weeks of mining rich, varied material, SNL returned to its "beat one single joke into the ground over nine minutes" roots. In this case, it was the premise that Tom Brokaw didn't allow the debaters enough time to make interesting points. Laughing yet? Then the entire sketch awaits you below!

Click to viewBoomp3.com Comedic legend Bill Murray came up for a quick breath of fresh air and a dash of natural light at the premiere of City of Ember in Manhattan on Tuesday. Murray had taken a cartography course in between films and decided to apply the newly acquired knowledge to the sprawling urban jungle to craft a map of his favorite pizza places and easiest passageways to near subways and cab stands. Murray said, “I’ve been living in the city for quite some time, but never hurts to have the upper hand when running away from somebody you said you’d call back and never did.” [Photo Credit: Getty Images] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

It will probably be a fun weekend for Lydia Hearst: the heiress turns 24 today. Others blowing out candles today: Jimmy Fallon is 34. Soledad O'Brien of CNN is 42. Richie Akiva is 32, although the invite to his birthday party said it was his 30th. James Lipton is 82. Former HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman is 63. Defense attorney Barry Scheck is turning 59. And model Victoria Silvstedt is 34. On Saturday: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein (pictured here with Lydia, a first we imagine) will be 54. Financier Joseph Perella will be 67. Sophia Loren will turn 74. Ad exec Scott Goodson will celebrate his 45th. Interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield will be 62. And Jossip's David Hauslaib will turn 25. On Sunday: Jane Rosenthal will be 52. Stephen King will be 61. Bill Murray will celebrate his 58th. Jerry Bruckheimer will be 63. Book publisher Geoff Kloske will turn 39. Natural History museum president Ellen Futter will be 59. Nicole Richie will be 27. Cheryl Hines will turn 43. Luke Wilson will be 37. And filmmaker Ethan Coen will be celebrating his 51st.

Though we may go back and forth on whether we want our MTV, one thing we can all agree on is that we want a Dirt Sandwich. Like your favorite music channel in its heyday, it's packed with pop stars (Britney! Sanjaya!), celebrity antics (Bill Murray skydiving) and even the occasional bit of sobering news (Christina Applegate's mastectomy). And that whole "quick-cut MTV editing" thing? We got that, too. Sit back, put down your remote control, and let Molly McAleer take you on a psychedelic trip through the world of celebrity infotainment that would make even a Radiohead video seem banal. And if you don't watch? Katherine Heigl is gonna point and laugh at you.

As you may have read, yesterday master of comedy Bill Murray jumped out of an airplane over Chicago to kick off the city's 50th annual Air and Water Show. And now there's video of the fearless funnyman's free fall. It's Bill Murray-versus gravity! Must see!

In these uncertain times for the newspaper industry, it pays to think "outside of the newspaper box" when it comes to coverage of breaking news events. So the Chicago Tribune is trying its hand at live-blogging! And they picked the perfect unfolding story: Droopy-eyed comedian Bill Murray's parachute jump at the Chicago Air and Water Show! Which we would make fun of, except that that is, sadly, the most important piece of news occurring in America at the moment (we've looked). Let's check in on the up-to-the-minute coverage of Capt. Zissou's perilous skydive:

• In the spirit of racial harmony, Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton ignored each other at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party. They used to be very close, apparently. Until, presumably, Oprah went and supported a certain black man for president. Either that or he just didn't want to be near her in that outfit (pictured). [P6]

• Raffaello Follieri will miss the monster 30th birthday bash he planned for himself in Capri this weekend, which he'd hoped would reunite him with Anne Hathaway. Instead, he'll probably spend the big day in jail unless, that is, he magically comes up with $21 million in bail money in the next 24 hours. [NYDN]

• Having lost his criminal case, famed spin-class grunter Stuart Sugarman sued Christopher Carter, who manhandled his stationary bike, in civil court. He also sued his gym, Equinox. [Daily News]

• Bill Murray's wife wants a divorce and claims the actor is a pot-smoking globe-trotting sex addict who is physically abusive. The Daily News recalls: "At a bash at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Grill in the '90s, we watched as Murray punch-shoved photographer Diane Cohen in the chest."

There really is no pleasant way to spin a story in which one the great American comedy icons is accused in a court filing of chronic infidelity and physical abuse (save your comments—Charlie Sheen is far from an American comedy icon), so we'll leave it to The Smoking Gun to fill you in on the ugly details of the Bill and Jennifer Murray divorce:

Once upon a time, a wacky new talk show called Late Night With David Letterman premiered on NBC. And on that very first episode in 1982 was an up-and-coming comic actor by the name of Bill Murray.

We’ve had a thing for Bill Murray since the first time we saw clips of his pity-me-but-look-at-me skits on SNL right up until his sad lonely guy role in Lost In Translation, when his gray hair and inability to smile deflated our crush ever so slightly. But unlike actress Greta Scacchi, who blabbed to a London paper about the night he innocently asked for her number and was harshly rejected by her and the too-cool group of Eurotrashy friends she rolls with, we’d never resort to the level of cattiness the Italian quasi-star did today:

Congratulations go out this morning to Paste Magazine, winners of the race to reclaim Scarlett Johansson as the precocious nubile muse we knew and loved prior to this week's grim news of her engagement to marry... never mind. What's important here are her "Five Dads" pervily cited in the magazine's new cover story — Woody Allen, Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and, ahem, Barack Obama. After the jump, if you have the stomach for it, see if you can match the pop culture father figure to Scarlett's eyelash-batting, daughterrific praise. (Bonus points if you can accurately guess which one will give her away! It's even harder than Mamma Mia!)

US Bowler Magazine's list of the top celebrity bowlers is out! And it's just a gem. The bulk of the list [via Ad Age] is taken up by athletes, which leads to much hilarious insider humor, like this line from sportswriter Norman Chad: "What is it with baseball pitchers and bowling? Heck, you don't see Mika Koivuniemi moonlighting as a middle reliever for the Detroit Tigers." Ha, fuckin-A right! But a few non-athletes do make the prestigious list, as the "Best of the Rest":

Back in the good old days of the web—say, circa April of 2007—when one's CAA-backed, Will Ferrell-supported comedy video-sharing site had an amusing clip starring an attention-grabbing A-list talent one wished would go "viral," one simply posted it and let the internets work their magic, confident that endlessly forwarded links would efficiently deliver their work to the eyeballs of bored employees across the globe. Now, however, we live in far more complicated times, when newly retained PR firms dare not leave anything to chance, as evidenced by this e-mail invitation enlisting the help of the "internet press" to turn Bill Murray into Funny or Die's next drunken, swearing baby: