From today's Times profile of American Apparel founder Dov Charney:

It's a situation so sad, and one man's fate sits in such precarious circumstances, that we can hardly crack a smile: Stephen Cojocaru, the biggest flame to burn the red carpet fashion parade since Mephistopheles Rivers, has polycystic kidney disease. Cojocaru will have to undergo kidney transplant surgery and, what's worse, the doctors are not going to let him wear his bedazzled fur coat into the operating room! Oh God, will he make it? Yeah, actually, he'll probably be fine, especially as we suspect Today cohost and Cojo fan club president Matt Lauer has already stepped up as an organ donor.
Fashion Critic Cojo Needs Kidney Transplant [Netscape]

· Just can't wait to see the new Alexander the Great biopic, Alexander? Wanna have drinks with Oliver Stone? Kill both birds with one stone (or both birds with multiple stones from a variety of different locations) at the Walter Reade Theater tonight. Movie starts at 7, drinks at 6. [Film Society of Lincon Center]
· Jewish anxiety and woeful tails of a misspent New Jersey youth are on full display tonight at Fez, which hosts a tribute to Philip Roth. 7:30pm. [Greg NYC]
· Oh, literary shining lights. Look at you go! Zoetrope: All-Story, the fiction magazine brainchild of Francis Ford Coppola, hosts a reading tonight at Half-King in honor of its Fall issue. [All-Story]

When a reader first spotted the automotive abomination known as the CXT (picture a Mack truck raping a Hummer) at The Grove a couple of months ago, we knew it was only a matter of time before some high-profile jackass started tooling around town in one. So color us utterly unsurprised that Ashton Kutcher, ever on the vanguard of useless Hollywood fads, is among the ridiculous behemoth's early adopters. If he really wants everyone in town to know what's going on underneath his man-skirt, it probably would've been cheaper to drive around Beverly Hills in a tiny, shriveled version of the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

Ha ha, just kidding. We would never condone that, even if U2 is giving a free concert in DUMBO at 2:30 or 3pm. Instead, just behold the fuzzy glory of their flatbed truck, carrying the Irish rockers (and we use "rockers" really fucking loosely) to their show. Tickets might be available here (listed under the MTV taping), and if you must go, let us beg you to behave like total jackasses on Gawker's behalf.
[UPDATE, 4pm: A gawky operative reports that after waiting in line for an hour, U2 has just arrived but that "nothing is going on...saw Fred Armisen." DEVELOPING!!!]

There's something gleefully ironic in seeing a bajillionaire—one who professes to be the ultimate businessman and even has an ego-tripping reality show revolving around that very notion—file for bankruptcy. Not that we're happy Donald Trump's casinos filed those nasty Chapter 11 papers (again) yesterday for his failed Atlantic City ventures. After all, losing money in that arena just means we'll be inevitably subjected to a profit-inducing increase of his televised, bombastic spittle. Nobody wins, people.
Trump's Casino's File For Bankruptcy [Reuters]

Last Thursday, something very strange went down at the Museum of Natural History: Wired magazine hosted a party for its December issue (who said the era of magazine bashes was dead?) about space and sea exploration, guest-edited by Oscar-winning director James Cameron. Right, we don't get it either. But there were free drinks! As expected, the party was filled with tech luminaries acting as cool as possible, and Gawker special photographer Nikola Tamindzic was there to document the glossy geekery.

· Paris Hilton fucktoy update: this week, she's doing actor Ryan Gosling. [ELK]
· Or is Gosling hooking up with Famke Janssen? [Gatecrasher]
· Meanwhile, steamy pictures of our newly-lesbian Paris chowing box will be published in Hustler. [R&M]
· Victoria Gotti is pressing charges regarding her sons' asswhipping at a Long Island mall after the boys pinched some underage girl's bottom. Does this seem backwards to anyone else? [Page Six]
· Naomi Campbell doesn't just beat her assistants, she doles out head butts. [NYDN]
· Former porn magnate-cum-homeless man Al Goldstein is still alive and collecting free pickles. [Page Six]

At first, we didn't quite believe it: we heard that the Bush twins showed up for a table at tasty Lower East Side hotspot Freeman's and were promptly told by the hostess that there wouldn't be seating available for the next four years (so best). We totally confirmed the report, but then Freeman's owners wrote us a stern denial once word spread (as it is wont to do on this superhighway of ours). So, in order to settle the issue, we put on our trenchcoats and fedoras and went to Freeman's for dinner. On the way out, we moved in for the kill with someone who seemed to be in charge:

Last week, Sopranos actress and recovering anorexic Jamie-Lynn DiScalia backed out of a deal to promote online gambling company Casino Fortune while raising money for her eating disorders awareness foundation, merely because Casino Fortune exec Dennis Rose called her, "fat, then scrawny." Now Rose is blaming DiScalia for being oversensitive and told the Daily News, "We hoped that she would have a sense of humor and would see the big picture - helping people... Can't a gangster's daughter take a joke?" God, how we long for the days when that sort of "scrawny" comment would've made Jamie Lynn's day. Recovery ruins everything.
A Not Entirely Fond Farewell [Lowdown (2nd item)]

Friday:
· Video games, flat-screen TVs, and Japanese Anime: stoned slackers unite at the eNerGy Anime and Game Festival, held at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Retarded capitalization is theirs, not ours.
· Pour some of your 40 out for the irascible Ol Dirty Bastard and check out "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" tonight at the BAM Rose Cinema tonight, which is scored by fellow Clan-er the RZA. [BAM]
· Rothko re-opens. The hipsters rejoice by offering up free Red Stripe from 1am-4am and free well drinks from 3am-4am. [What's Up NYC]
Saturday:
· MoMA is back! Better make use of today's free admission, cause you sure as hell aren't gonna go when you have to fork over 20 bucks to get inside. [MoMA]
· For a politically powerless and socially marginalized bunch, the homeless sure do have a lot of star power on their side! Tonight at the New School, Peter Jennings interviews artist Ed Ruscha and "corporate sponsor" Donald Marron on the matter. [CFTH]
Sunday:
· Break away from Desperate Housewives and thrash about to Swedish garage rockers The Hives at Webster Hall. [Upcoming]
· Obsessed with your dog, Mister Fluffers? Talk to your cats more than you talk to your friends? Isolate yourself amongst likeminded freaks at the Pet Mixer. [Amity Zone]

· Never read a book, okay? Never. Instead, help yourself to the I Am Charlotte Simmons cheatsheet. [GalleyCat]

· Daily Show producer and former Onion editor Ben Karlin reflects on his career path: "As a white male from a middle class suburb, my career options were very limited. What else could I do besides anything I wanted?" [Zulkey]

· C'mon, you KNOW you want to bid on a Gucci giftcard, if only to see the saleswench sneer at you when you whip it out to pay for your new loafers. [eBay]

· Presidential showdown, Arkansas library-style! [Wonkette]

· Random thought on incompetency: why does the new Rolling Stone Album Guide mention Everclear but not Metallica?

· Ask A Black Girl what she thinks of the brouhaha at the Vibe Awards and she'll tell you, "yall be the ones ruinin shit by callin the police and tellin like a beeitch." [WOW Report]

The promotional website for the Kabbalah Centre's creepy how-to manual, The 72 Names of God, has a form for discovering your personal "72 Name," the "secret weapon for facing major life issues and difficult situations connected to our destiny." Unfortunately, the form doesn't seem to use a computer program to determine one's magical Name. We plugged in our info and e-mail address over an hour ago and have yet to receive an answer—it probably takes time for the request to reach the basement of the Kabbalah Centre, where a Name-determining sweatshop staffed by indentured mactress servants open The Big Book Of Kabbalah Names, insert a cramped, overworked finger, and then e-mail back the result. We really hope our 72 Name is Steve. We always wanted to be a Steve.

Sightings are sent in by readers; send yours to tips@gawker.com.

· Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn DiScalia backs out of a deal to raise awareness for eating disorders after an offshore casino exec involved with the project called her "fat, then scrawny." Well, that's awareness. [Lowdown]
· Hollywood powerhouse publicist Leslee Dart (who, until now, repped Nicole Kidman and Tom Hanks) is given the boot by her CEO, Pat Kingsley. Dart's email access was disabled before she was even done being canned. [Page Six]
· Just when things couldn't get much worse for domestic convict Martha Stewart, she's been told by officials at her penitentiary that she will not be allowed in the prison kitchen this Thanksgiving. [R&M (4th item)]
· Retiring NBC anchor Tom Brokaw gets in a tizzy over Sunday's Times profile of him in which it's stated that he likes to go skinny dipping with his wife. [Page Six]

· McSweenyite William Vollmann reads and discusses the "abridged" version of his newest treatise, Rising up and Rising Down, a 750-page manifesto on the justifications of violence. Don't you go complaing about the length, or we'll make you read the original 3,000 page version. [flavorpill]
· The Magnetic Fields bring their formerly lo-fi-but-now-hi-fi sound to Carnegie Hall tonight. 35 bucks gets you a shitload of art students, 8:30 pm. [Carnegie Hall]
· Both Barneys and Bloomingdales have "private" sales going on specficially for their "friends and family." Whatever that means, just go crash anyway. [What's Up NYC]

· Oh, Britney. Big Macs are so not good for your skin. [Goldenfiddle]
· For just $12.5k, preppy Christmas bliss in the form of a Brooks Brothers tie tree can be yours. [Brooks Brothers via Screenhead]
· US Weekly editor Janice Min, homecoming queen. [via ]
· Just in time for the shopping season, it's the Donny Deutsch commemorative plate! [Brand New]
· Gosh, Kimora Lee Simmons looks like she's going to be TOTALLY AWESOME in the new movie Beautyshop. [Black Film]
· What you've been waiting for: The NYC Temp Beauch Index. [Temp City]
· "You know what I never get tired of? I never get tired of discussing the impact that 'web logs' (sometimes known as 'blogs') had on the election." Poor slutty stepsister. [Wonkette]
· Perhaps the most fascinating (read: sick) Drudge/Grove fantasy we've ever read. And we've read a lot. [SSTP]
· The Times mentions the Postal Service for the third time in the past week and a half. [NYT]

One last daily dose of our favorite wannabe, Jonathan Cheban, who's absolutely nobody but publicly claims to be friends with famous people (and is thus worthy of our obsession), via a reader report:

Rounding out its final, desperate bid for the 2012 Olympic Games (Ladbroke odds of NYC gaining the spot are a scant 14/1), the Bloomberg administration has unveiled what looks to be the final plans for the West Side Stadium (or the New York Sports And Convention Center, as it's fancifully called). We still don't understand why anyone would want to invite the world to destroy our island (although sweaty Olympians could be hot), but even more horrifying is the prospect of this atrocious stadium design. It's a big messy-mess; all lines, no form. Kind of like an electric cattle fence to protect us from Jersey.
The Stadium [MUG]

· Lindsay Lohan's porcelain facade continues to crack, as rumors swirl of a meltdown at a Jane magazine shoot. The cause for Lindsay's tears? Ex-boyfriend Wilmer couldn't give her a ride home.[Page Six]
· Newly-dead rapper O.D.B.'s baby mama is fighting his actual mama for control of the deceased's estate. [Lowdown]
· Robert De Niro will renew his vows to wife Grace Hightower. We're sure the ceremony will be lavish and ultimately pointless. [R&M]
· Elton John is back to screaming and whining, this time at Bush and Blair. [Scoop]
· In her earth-shattering "book," socialite Paris Hilton claimed caviar "is for wannabes," causing some fish egg companies to refuse to place her orders for the wannabe treat. [IOL]