Martin Bashir, the current Nightline broadcaster, just announced that he has a "potentially life-threatening" brain tumor. Bashir, who made his name with big, probing, salacious TV interviews of Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, said that he plans to "get on with his life" and continue working. In that, he is hardly unique; among many cancer victims, the urge to continue with one's career is a powerful one. And that goes double for those in entertainment and the media, where many personalities are so intimately tied to a very public line of work.

New York writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel was at Book Expo America, that publishing industry clusterfuck, and snapped two pics of upcoming celeb tomes: Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's Influence and "laptop samurai/Queen of All Media" Perez Hilton's Red Carpet Suicides. Click to enlarge the covers.

Guess who's on the cover of the new issue of Steppin' Out, the odd little celebrity magazine produced by Jersey gossip gadfly and Page Six enemy Chaunce Hayden? It's recently arrested former child star Tatum O'Neal! The interview obviously happened before her arrest, making this by far the most fortuitous coincidence of Chaunce Hayden's career. There are several questions about drug use in the interview, because that's what people always talk about with Tatum O'Neal. But she told Chaunce at the time that she felt "good, comfortable, and clear":

The question that has kept an anxious nation on tenterhooks for the last two days—"Did stoner movie star Seth Rogen light up a real spliff on stage at the MTV Movie Awards last weekend?"—has finally been resolved. According to the AP, the stunt was a big fake; but they also say that Rogen and Pineapple Express costar James Franco weren't supposed to do it at all! Is anyone here telling the truth? Such a web of deception!

Tom Ford is using nudity in his advertising! Hard to believe, I know. Mr. Ford may be one of the world's most influential designers, but his latest ads have largely completed the evolution from provocative to simply boring. Which is a difficult stunt to pull off, considering the subject matter. But these three spots, starring Brazilian Alex Schultz, are so in-your-face that they lose the sense of allure which should, ideally, accompany any fashion ad—penis-showing or otherwise. Also hard to pull off when using naked people: making your target audience think about clothes. See the disconnect there? We're ready for the cultural needle to swing back towards fully clothed models, thank you. After the jump, the three ads—which are all, predictably, NSFW.

If you're famous, and you want to do cocaine (or smoke crack), our best advice is: don't do it, because you're a role model. Ha ha. But seriously, hopeless crackhead celebrities; if you're going to do it at least don't be an idiot. Coke is hardly even frowned upon in Hollywood, but getting busted while acting like a maniac can seriously impair your image and earning ability in middle America. So learn from your more unfortunate peers' mistakes; after the jump, five cases of cocaine-fuelled idiocy, and how not to reproduce them.

Tatum O'Neal, the child actress who won an Oscar at age 10 and then got heavily into drugs, booze, and self-destruction, was arrested last night for trying to buy coke not far from her Lower East Side apartment. Her situation is sad—she's struggled with serious addiction for a long time, but has reportedly been clean for two years. The second thing to be said, though, is: A veteran wealthy druggie was "spotted handing money to a street dealer," seriously? That method is far too gauche for the sophisticated cokehead.

Sharon Stone has finally apologized for her "inappropriate" comment that the recent massive Chinese earthquake was a product of "bad karma" for the country for its treatment on Tibet. She's sorry, okay! Nevertheless, fashion house Christian Dior announced that it's pulling all of its ads featuring the actress from all department stores, and the entire country of China. Though the comment itself was stupid, Stone's hasty retreat from her brash Tibet-championing—and Dior's even harsher public rebuke of her—are a great illustration of what is becoming the New China Rule: "Do Not Talk About The New China Rule." It's been de rigeur for top stars to prove their class by endorsing luxury brands, and to prove their morality by pontificating about Tibet. But guess what: pretty soon you're going to have to pick one or the other, Hollywood. And it's not looking good for the Dalai Lama.

Socialite, Johnson & Johnson heir, and single mom of an adopted Kazakh baby Casey Johnson is moving back to New York from L.A.! Which reminded us of the myriad problems for her there: she turned down the opportunity to play the Nicole Richie role on Paris Hilton's The Simple Life. Her Beverly Hills mansion burned down last year. And she had that big fight with her thirty-years-older-than-her aunt, Libet Johnson, who she said stole her boyfriend while she was off scouring the globe for said baby. After the jump, re-hashing the gory details in an old Vanity Fair about what to do when Page Six calls after your rich aunt steals your man:

Because some stories are nothing but blatant cries for condemnation, we're going to allow our disgust to swing around 180 degrees so that we support this idea: A Park Avenue plastic surgeon is offering a $500,000 package deal that includes a summer house rental in the Hamptons, and all the plastic surgery you want! "Within reason," of course. He's also throwing in a chauffeur, personal chef, and a nurse to tend to the surgically wounded. And tickets to the hottest parties, to show off your healing scars! This development is... a good thing.

An Ecuadorian business called Xiomara Coronado Beauty Center is running this ad campaign, with a tagline that (according to Copyranter) translates to "Nobody will look younger than you." I guess the message here is, if you don't want to look like a sun-scarred celebutante, Xiomara Coronado Beauty Center is a place that you should consider patronizing. Or maybe they just like to show off their photo retouching skills. Either way: funny, yucky. Ecuador must have some very loose laws about fair use of celebrity images. After the jump, an equally horrible transmogrified version of Angelina Jolie:

Donny Deutsch: chairman of the huge ad agency Deutsch Inc., host of the rarely-viewed show The Big Idea on CNBC, permanently hyper talker. The press has always had a love/ hate relationship with the man. He's a dynamic, quotable guy, which is why he gets an inordinate amount of coverage in the first place. But then again, he's a confirmed insufferable egomaniac. Some people love his style; but we've found that people driven by a burning need to hear others talking about them are almost invariably well qualified for the Douchebag Award. As is Deutsch. Five good reasons why:

The Brits are rather less enthusiastic about the whole "free speech" concept than the US is. A 15-year-old kid was holding a sign that said "Cult" at one of the Anonymous protests against Scientology in London. The precocious young scalawag had even memorized a 1984 UK court ruling in which a judge called the science fiction-based religion a "cult." But the police gave him a summons and confiscated his dangerous slogan-bearing poster, and now he has to go to court to defend himself.

Here's the key section from the legal complaint against wacko famous girl Lindsay Lohan for stealing a college student's mink coat from a club in New York. She didn't just pick it up accidentally, the complaint says; her actions were "intentional, oppressive, and malicious," and the coat-deprived girl was "injured." Ouch, my mink is gone! Click to enlarge. [via The Insider]

Taco Bell's Value Menu slogan is "Why Pay More?" But if a rapper were to say it, they would say, "Why Pay Mo'?" Because black people can't talk right, ha! Cannily tapping into urban culture, the fast food chain is running a "Why Pay Mo'?"online promotion, complete with a Rap Name Generator (mine is Super Fly H. Nach!). Taco Bell's beef tastes like dog food, and their ad agency is making them look like a bunch of tone-deaf racists. But I can almost forgive them for all that, because their site's "Why Pay Mo' Rhyme Generator" allowed me to create a hip hop supergroup featuring evil columnist Andrea Peyser, Spitzer hooker Ashley Alexandra Dupre, drunk Post editor Col Allan, and author of the year Keith Gessen, all kicking rhymes about the fat value menu. Action photos below!:

N+1 founder and sad young literary man Keith Gessen sat down for a Big Think interview last week. He touched on everything from "Dating as a Historical Phenomenon" to "Is political writing political activism?" But the only bit I was curious enough to watch was his response to the question, "Why does Gawker hate you?" According to Gessen, it's because Gawker types once read a lot of books, then we gave up on the value system of books, but we're wrong and we will lose! I don't know, man; I just think it's annoying how much you talk about Harvard. The full clip of this latest volley in New York's most frivolous cultural clash, below:

A.S. Hamrah, film critic for blah-blah-ing lit journal N+1, is stuck at the glamorous Cannes Film Festival but it's not as glamorous as it was when it was new, and that makes him sad. "It's not just that celebrities are dull. More and more, there's also something about them that fills us with revulsion. It used to be that a celebrity sighting was cause for celebration. You'd phone the wife and kids: 'Hey, I just saw Robert Stack walking into the Automat!' Now it's more an occasion for jeering. Or, more accurately, a chance to feel a deep queasiness about what's happened to our culture. The celebrity is quickly becoming a harbinger of nausea, a delivery system for Weltschmerz, there to remind us that things, actually, are what they seem: pathetic."

Freaky deaky swinger singer R. Kelly is about to go on trial in his hometown of Chicago for the crime of child pornography. But first, they have to find a jury. And that seems to be more difficult that you would think, because, judging strictly by media coverage, Chicago is full of weasels, crazy people, and child porn supporters. After the jump, the five best reasons [from a longer list at the Chicago Tribune] that people have given to get out of serving on the jury in this case of the century:

The James Frey Super Badass Killer book tour hit the Blender Theater this week, and the sleepy burg called New York is still reeling from the overpowering awesomeness. This tour, you'll recall, is not just some punk ass reading at Borders; no, it's a heavy metal-blasting punch of literary skill right in the face. Fiction writer Frey "walked through his adoring fans flanked by two huge body-builders," then read while hardcore Terry Richardson photos of guns flashed on a screen behind him. Someone asked Frey about writer's block. "Writer's block is for chumps," he replied. Step back, abstract psychological concept! At least Frey is bringing some energy to his book tour, as terrible as they usually are. But where was all that overpowering machismo when he was taping this Barnes & Noble promo earlier this week?:

The Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" photo retouching controversy was left as an unresolved disagreement between truth-in-advertising purists and photo professionals who say retouching is a necessity. Television and movies may be moving in the opposite direction; a lighter touch with makeup is needed in the face of exacting HD cameras. But for print ads of all kinds, the wonders of Photoshop manipulation will prevail. James Danziger, the photo gallerist who represents celebrity image producer Annie Leibovitz, weighs in with a cogent postscript to the Dove controversy and its legacy: "We are living in both the digital age and the age of hypocrisy.":