Gunfire broke out at West Chelsea stripey den Opus 22 last night, resulting in one dead and three wounded. The culprit? The bouncer, of course. You know, the dude that's there for safety and crowd control [insert obligatory Darryl Littlejohn shout-out]. The victims were at a private open-mic party at the club and were asked to leave to make way for another event. They were allowed to reenter the club but had to pay a $20 entrance fee; the intoxicated patrons refused:

• After serving five days in jail rather than do community service for drunk driving in Honolulu, Michelle Rodriguez has been sentenced to 60 days for violating parole on a previous drunk driving incident in LA. She's also been ordered to rehab and must serve 30 days of community service. Clearly, the law is no fan of the way things have been going on Lost. [TMZ]
• Bad news for Brooklyn: Michelle Williams' father, Larry Williams, is in jail on tax evasion charges and stands accused of hiding $1.5 million from Uncle Sam. Which is exactly how he became a financial guru. [Page Six]
• Paris Hilton plays an angry voicemail from Lindsay Lohan for a group of friends, then calls her a cunt." We believe the correct term is firecrotch. [R&M (last item)]
• The ballad of Axl and Tommy continues: while the official line is that Hilfiger punched Axl Rose after Rose moved his drink (presumably so that Rose could take his table), Hilfiger's rage may be heightened by the fact that Rose is dating Diane O'Connor, the ex-wife of Hilfiger's adopted brother, Michael H. [Page Six]
• Namibians want to declare a national holiday on the day that Angelina Jolie gives birth. [MSNBC]
• Socialite Tory Burch's clothing line isn't selling, despite an Oprah endorsement in 2004. Will O save face by frying Burch on an upcoming episode? [Lowdown]

• The cameras of TMZ.com never rest: last week they caught Brandon Davis waxing philosophical on the nature of Lindsay Lohan's crotch, this week they document the LA nightlife backlash as a woman screams at him to take a shower and derides him for getting his money "from daddy." As if that's an insult? [TMZ]
• Former New Jersey governor and proud 'mo Jim McGreevy reads excerpts from his new book, an erotic tale of his anonymous rest stop hookups. [Star-Ledger]
• Quote of the day, courtesy of Ghostface Killa: "New York be bullshitting. Right now, I say fuck New York. Yeah, I'm from New York, but fuck New York. Because niggas is pussy." [Prefix]
• In live theater, distracting the actors just might get you backstage, where you can confuse David Schwimmer and piss off Zeljko Ivanek. [BroadwayWorld]
• Life imitates art, at least if you're a Sopranos fan: the body of a man who'd been beaten to death was found behind the Cafe Bada Bing. [NYT]
• As Memorial Day weekend draws near, the four horsemen of the Hamptons apocalypse prepare to open their doors to thousands of devoted Wet Seal fans. [NYM]
• A bird flu awareness night in Newark is marked by a chicken wing eating contest. In Jersey, the jokes just write themselves. [Newark Bears]

A nice alternative to the Maxim party.
The Falls is still twitching: at 11 PM last night, the doors and windows were open, music was playing, and unless we missed the AA meeting in the back, it looked as if alcohol was being served.

You may recall the story of Joseph Medawar, the "producer" arrested by the feds in September who swindled millions from churchgoing widow-types, promising them a piece of the Hollywood dream—in this case, a TV series about the Department of Homeland Security called DHS. Even as he managed to convince prominent politicians to give it their seal of approval—mostly through the help of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach, who accepted $23,000 to "write the script"—the show never existed, nor would it ever exist. Medawar instead redirected the money towards maintaining his very Prada-clad, meet-you-at-Morton's lifestyle. The LAT now reports Rohrabacher announced he will be returning his screenwriting fee, moments before Medawar delivered a guilty plea:

Bad news for the Falls, the bar where Imette St. Guillen was last seen before her murder and where her suspected killer, Darryl Littlejohn, was employed:

• Though we spent all morning weeping for the beacon of bad parenting that is Britney Spears, we might now be able to dry our eyes. Turns out, she was doing nothing wrong — other than going out in curlers. [Jalopnik]
• Original Survivor Richard Hatch gets 51 months in jail for failing to pay taxes on his earnings. Lucky for him, the naked shtick will earn him all sorts of friends in prison. [TaxProf]
• David Patrick Columbia has an interesting blind item about a jet-setting socialite; even more than her identity, we'd love to know the name of the magazine editor who bends to her will. [NYSD]
• Happy birthday, Tucker Carlson! That makes 38 long years of douchebaggery, and many more to come. [Jossip]
• Meet the Popper Monster, the worst gay man to ever hit the dance floor. Also, he's probably your stockbroker. [Manhattan Offender]
• Only in New York would 39 gays assume we already have a gay newscaster on air. [NYM]
• Tragically, hipsters face discrimination from non-hipsters who happen to just look like hipsters. [YouTube]
• We didn't know it was even possible, but Pete Doherty continues to test the laws of the universe, growing more fucked up by the day. [Witz]

It's been a while since we've checked in with Julia Diaco, the "pot princess" who skated on 25 years in prison for selling marijuana from her NYU dorm room by pleading out and getting probation. As it turns out, she's not just an entrepreneur: She also sings. Much like her fellow Rumson residents Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, Julia (or, as she's now known, J-Dia) wants to make her mark on the music industry. We've gone to her MySpace page to sample her wares and will just say this: Someone needs to make her pee in a cup but quick. She may not be selling pot anymore, but if these tracks are any indication, she is clearly on the pipe.

An ad on CNN.com:

• How can you not love Nicole Richie? The saintly thing can't help but share every last sprinkle of blow she's got. [Defamer]
• The reservation line for Mr. Chow's Tribeca outpost is up and running; even if you're nobody, you can snag a table for Saturday's opening. [Eater]
• After reading an interview in which Barbara Corcoran talks about overcoming dyslexia to become the wicked queen of the housing bubble, we have to wonder: Is the Corcobeast the Tom Cruise of real estate? [Bankrate]
• At this point, what hasn't Kaavya Viswanathan plagiarized? [Crimson]
• Providence, R.I., actually manages to outdo Williamsburg in the retarded irony department. [You Tube]
• Scientology digs its claws into Janeane Garofolo. Is no one safe? [Scoop]
• Memoirist Augusten Burroughs likens the James Frey boondoggle to Milli Vanilli. Wrong! Milli Vanilli is far superior, simply by virtue of their hair. [Book Standard]
• The Smoking Gun pulls through with documents from Sopranos actor John Ventimiglia's arrest, complete with an impressive six counts of being totally fucked up. [TSG]

There's really something magical about being cast on the Sopranos. Not only can it make your acting career (don't kid yourself into thinking you otherwise have chops, Sigler), but it can kickstart your real-life criminal calling. Lillo Brancato Jr., who played Matt Bevilaqua, was charged with murder; Robert Iler, who plays A.J. Soprano, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor larceny; Vincent Pastore, better known as Big Pussy, was arrested for beating his girlfriend; and Tony Sirico, who plays Paulie Walnuts, has 28 arrests to his name (all from before his thespian pursuits).

What better way to start your week than with a reunion of Long Island's most precious gems? Tonight for the first time ever, Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco will appear face-to-face on camera to address their past, courtesy of the relationship therapists at Entertainment Tonight. They've both aged well, but be warned: the confrontation is painful, but the dramatic greasemonkey accents will bring you to tears.

It's not in the papers yet — damn those lead times — but a media frenzy is frothing around the fresh meat of the Spam King's arrest. (The backstory: Alan Ralsky, pictured, is in the DOJ's hands, and they're grilling him for info on other hackers and spammers in a plea-bargain session.) Ralsky's quickly becoming a useless pressure point for the DOJ as reporters blow up the story, alerting everyone in the spam and hacking world and sending them scuttling out of sight. Major media contact for the hacker community, MemeHacker, sends this chat log from a conversation with another hacker:

Local hacker "Memehacker" IMed in with a scoop on Alan Ralsky, the famed "Spam King" covered by the Observer and the Detroit News. Here's the breaking story:

At Delancey and Essex streets, yesterday.

Gee, wouldn't it be hilarious if that Gizmondo story got even weirder? GUESS WHAT.

• Us Weekly announces that Britney Spears is pregnant again. You sleep with K-Fed once, fine. We all make mistakes. But to let that thing into your pants twice? That's cause for a public stoning. Meanwhile: sculptors, please get started on your new pieces. [Us Weekly]
• Nick Lachey feels the sting of Jann Wenner's cruel editorship: after sitting down for an interview thinking it would be for the cover of Rolling Stone, he was surprised to find himself on the cover of Us instead. That's what he gets for not talking more shit about his creepy former father-in-law. [Page Six]
• Desperate Housewife Teri Hatcher continues to solicit pity in her new memoir. At any rate, we pity her for actually writing the thing. [R&M]
• West Winger wunderwriter Aaron Sorkin takes his crack-smoking past and turns it into art. Naturally, Matthew Perry has a co-starring role. [Page Six]
• Yesterday we declared Denise Richards to be one of the dumbest rocks to ever rest in the celebrity garden, but maybe we misjudged. By playing nice with the paparazzi, Richards maintains the upper hand in the celebrity weekly war. [Lowdown]
• Rather than put in 240 hours of community service for drunk driving, Lost star Michelle Rodriguez opts for 5 days in the slammer. Bitch is hardcore. [TMZ]

We know you've been wondering the same thing as us: What's former Women's Wear Daily staffer and suspected faux-firefighter sex perv Peter Braunstein been up to? Since stabbing himself in the neck upon being apprehended in Tennessee in December, we've heard surprisingly little about his case, other than that he's currently sulking around Bellevue. The Post, however, has an update — that is, if you believe their source, a former patient at Bellevue named William Allman who spent 18 days at the mental hospital with Braunstein. According to Allman, Braunstein hordes food, cries about being picked on, likes to harasses a semi-conscious old Chinese man, and conceals his masturbation with a newspaper.

Jared Paul Stern's Payola Six blackmail scandal isn't just a big-media New York issue, says tech journalist Paul Boutin — it holds a lesson for the bottom-feeders citizen journalists of the New Media.

"What Happened at Duke," by Susannah Meadows and Evan Thomas, Newsweek, today: