—Porn stars hold forth on the Bill O'Reilly fiasco, but somehow manage not to involve falafel in the discussion. Maybe that's what he saw in the back room of the Thai sex show.
—Kabbalah update: Demi Moore to throw a book party in London; Madonna readies the launch of her next thinly-veiled Kabbalah propaganda children's story, about a boy named Ted String who raises money through overpriced self-help classes to save the world from a giant, bloodshot, evil eyeball.
—"A limo arrived and Sam waved his dirty cowboy hat from the sunroof. Part of me wished I could leave Mali-Cali myself, but I have promises to keep, as Robert Frost wisely wrote." We really don't know if Nick Nolte's Diary is legit or not, but with sentences like these, we find ourselves not really caring.
—Even the AP wants to put a thumb in the eye of the post-Friends Jeff Zucker and his formerly Must See TV lineup. OK, they don't mention him by name, but we know oblique shots at tarnishing golden boys when we seem them.

Mary-Kate Olsen (a.k.a. The Dematriculating Twin) was spotted at yet another coffee shop (this time a Starbucks) since she supposedly dropped out of NYU. What's up with the constant caffeine intake? She's certainly not trying to stay awake to catch up on her studies. By our crude calculations, she'd probably have to drink nine quad espressos in a two-hour period to approximate another kind of buzz (accounting, of course, for her meager body mass), but the local cafes are cutting her off, forcing her to shuttle from one java dealer to the next to get her full fix.

1. Shhh,you didn't hear it from us, but Elvis Costello is playing a supposedly secret, not-so-surprise in-store show at Amoeba Records at 6 p.m. Better start lining up now to avoid listening from the back of the DVD section on the second floor.
2. Running with Scissors and Dry author Augusten Burroughs is reading from his new book, Magical Thinking: True Stories at Skylight Books. Go and feel better about your own childhood, since it's probably not as messed up as Burroughs' was.
3. Troublemaker/novelist/punk icon Neal Pollack makes another local appearance for Never Mind the Pollacks, this time at The Grove's Barnes and Noble at 7:30 p.m. We have it on pretty good authority that he might try and cause a ruckus. One can only hope that shirtlessness is involved.
4. Showing that adult beverages and rock magazines can peacefully come together, Absolut and Spin co-sponsor a party at Star Shoes. Los Angeles locals Earlimart perform. Hipsters, shoe aficionados, and cross-promotional marketing fans alike can rejoice.

Somewhere in the distance, we can hear the faint sounds of a CNN copy editor being lashed with a cat-o-nine tails and a publicist for ABC hanging herself.

David Broome, producer of The Biggest Loser, in which NBC dangles a quarter of a million bucks in front of overweight contestants like a Twinkie on a stick to induce them to lose more weight than their competitors, bristles at a Tufts University TV columnist's comparison of the show to Fox's recent The Littlest Groom. He defends his show against charges of exploitation on the Tufts Daily website:

From Variety's VPage coverage of Thursday night's Surviving Christmas premiere at the Chinese Theater: Ben Affleck, always a man of the people, demonstrates that even stars making millions of dollars per picture sometimes have to surrender their dignity for their jobs.
[Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

The NYT rehashes the details (i.e., Joey as serial rapist, etc etc) of the ongoing sexual harassment lawsuit by former Friends writers' assistant Amani Lyle against three of the show's writers, which everyone in town vaguely fears will curtail the fun of the sitcom writers' room. Among the quotes (from seemingly every current or former comedy staff writer) attempting to protect the sanctity of The Room for future generations of un-airable, pump-priming assfucking-and-dead-baby jokes, writer Rob Long offers this explanation of comments like The One About Breaking Courtney Cox In Half During Intercourse:

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are sent in by our readers, who never point and go "oooh oooh" when they see Cameron Diaz buying a cup of coffee in Beverly Hills. Send your sightings to tips@defamer.com and let the high-paid residents of Los Angeles know that you are always watching.

· Sony Pictures and Original Films buy the rights to as-yet unreleased spy novel The Executioner's Game for a Jamie Foxx vehicle. Looks like Foxx is done taking a shot at an Oscar for a while. [THR]
· Last night's endless Yankees-Red Sox game does huge ratings numbers for Fox, crushing Monday Night Football. Fox programming executives are feverishly working to schedule 6 hour baseball games three times a week throughout the year. [THR]
· Aisha Tyler signs a talent deal with CBS, who now must figure out what to do with her. Otherwise, she'll just wind up in a cryogenic tomb in Les Moonves' office with the rest of his "collected talent." [THR]
· Disney hires publicists and lobbyists to protect embattled CEO Michael Eisner from further eroding his image by "saying things," "doing things," or "making decisions," and to combat the Weinsteins as they fight over Miramax's future. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Revolutions Studios makes a pre-emptive bid for the screenplay All You Need Is Love, a love story set to Beatles songs. The filmmakers are already entering (probably futile, definitely expensive) negotiations to get re-recording rights to the songs. [THR]

Last night's Book Soup signing with unregenerate Gonzo godfather Hunter S. Thompson seems to have lived up to the hype, as 300 people lined up to get HST's scrawled inscription on their copies of his new book. An attendee sends us this report of the proceedings, which featured Benicio del Toro holding Thompson's hair back (he has hair?) as he vomited behind the store, and a "semi-coherent" Thompson signing books on the floor. Hopefully, this chronicle of Thompson's vintage Fear and Loathing antics isn't just an attempt at Gonzo-flavored reportage by our operative. The report follows after the jump.

Blogging.la's Sean Bonner catches a movie at the ArcLight and discovers that either Variety or the anti-piracy-powers-that-be are now paranoid that camera phones are going to steal their souls and/or copyrights:

When a spy told us she spotted Mary-Kate Olsen hanging out at Urth Cafe a couple of days ago, it struck us as a bit odd. A single Olsen sighting? Whither Ashley? And shouldn't MK be hitting the books back at NYU? Unfortunately, it seems as if higher education has failed Mary-Kate, or, perhaps, Mary-Kate has found the academic life to be disagreeable. Her rep says she's missing "very few classes" while taking care of "personal business" in L.A., but sources close to the Rehab Twin say she might never go back. If Mary-Kate is simply too homesick to hang out at NYU, we're sure the school has a variety of outpatient independent study options that would allow her to stick with her studies. Despite what she might have heard at Cirque Lodge, no one likes a quitter.

—Miramax morale report, quickie version: ex-Maxer calls the health department about human chimney Harvey Weinstein's indoor-smoking habit, but Harv passes the inspection.
—LAist interviews LA.comfidential's Laurie Pike, who's Cincinatti born but finds earthquakes "psychically cleansing." She belongs to L.A. now.
—Open All Night points out some mystery bruises on Pamela Anderson's arm. Is she into the rough stuff? She might be able to swap stories with Angelina Jolie. UPDATE: A reliable source informs us that Pan's "bruises" are birthmarks that are normally airbrushed/pancaked out of existence.
—Shameless cross-promotion department: Sister site Fleshbot goes from porn-enhtusiast to full-blown porn purveyor, as Fleshbot Films will release some truly weird Ed Wood erotic flicks.

1. Legendarily cantankerous grandaddy of all things Gonzo Hunter S. Thompson reads from and signs Hey Rube! Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness, a collection of his ESPN.com columns, at Book Soup on Sunset. Chances are you're out of luck if you haven't already gotten in line, but Thompson would probably appreciate some resourceful party-crashing. We can't guarantee the Book Soup people will appreciate it, though.
2. Is this sufficiently surreal-sounding? Sally Field playing Laura Bush reading "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor" to dead Iraqi children in a Tony Kushner play (Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy)? At the Ricardo Montalban Theater? On mushrooms? OK, there will most likely not be any mushrooms handed out, but we had a conceit to sell you.
3. Stay away from panic-stricken L.A. drivers until they adjust to the wet streets. You should be (relatively) safe again by Wednesday.

The NYT takes a look at the Disney shareholder lawsuit that blames the board of directors for (excuse us if our French is rusty) royally fucking up by hiring erstwhile superagent Michael Ovitz—and then paying him the GNP of Ecuador to leave the company. But before Ovitz got his golden parachute, he had some fun on the company dime:

We're usually so excited to get our hands on our copy of Entertainment Weekly—there's something comforting in its large, colorful, My First Magazine headline fonts, and the smiling face of the cover-earning newsmaker makes us think everything's going to be OK. But when we delved deeper into this week's offering, the annual Power Issue, we were shocked by an unexpected development.

The Defamer correspondent on physical fitness files this dispatch from the Equinox gym in West Hollywood, where a troubled, talented actor nearly plunges over the B-list precipice by working out in the proximity of those further down the celebrity food-chain.

Defamer is committed to connecting our readers with job opportunities utilizing skill sets unique to the Hollywood experience. Promises Malibu, the upscale rehabilitation center for actors seeking the street cred that only a hard-fought battle with the demons of substance abuse in a luxury beach resort can afford, is seeking a Director of Marketing in this Craigslist ad:

Sometime after we wrongheadedly and selfishly put our laptop away on Friday afternoon to attend to some piddling personal matters, Britney Spears posted her long-awaited "Letter of Truth" on her official website. And: She made us wait for this? It's been weeks since the Letter was announced, and we'd spent the idle time utilizing the evidence at hand to develop this hypothesis of the Truth: Kevin Federline is actually a white-trash vampire, and his bites transformed the once-attractive Spears into an atrophying creature of the night dependent on a cursed diet of Red Bull, convenience store junk food, and paper hand towels from public restrooms. The flashbulbs of paparazzi weaken the vampire life force, and so the photographers must be repelled with cups of sugary, liquid, hand-launched ballistics. Unfortunately, the Letter of Truth doesn't seem to bear out our theory.

· HBO is in talks with Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett on a comedy project, continuing its plan to drain network TV of all of the stars of hit sitcoms. Within two years, the networks may be forced into a blighted primetime comedy landscape of According to Jim and King of Queens spinoffs. [THR]
· Paramount is gunning for its own, "classy," 8 Mile-style hip-hop movie, signing Jim Sheridan to direct the 50 Cent vehicle Locked and Loaded from a script by Terence Winter of The Sopranos. Next up: The ghost of Stanley Kubrick directs Fat Joe in a hip-hopera treatment of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. [THR]
· The WGA East is unhappy with the WGA's buggering over DVD residuals in its tentative deal with the networks and studios. This, of course, leaves the door open for a fresh buggering should the two sides be forced to renegotiate. No worries, it always hurts less the second time. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· NBC Flop Report: LAX gets quarantined on Wednesday night for sweeps, Hawaii is disappeared into a hiatus that will likely never end. [THR]