The Emmy telecast was the dependable, stultifying display of second-tier Hollywood autoeroticism that we've come to know and tolerate for three or so hours each Fall. We're going to take a pass on commenting on Elaine Strich's is-she-or-isn't-she-in-the-early-stages-of-Alzheimers acceptance speech because Chris Rock said it best in the night's one big laugh—"Who the hell is Elaine Stitch?" Furthermore, we'll let you tease out the complex, self-loathing motivations behind that evil move The West Wing's Allison Janney pulled, where (after robbing The Sopranos' Edie Falco yet again) she demanded that fellow Best Actress in a Drama Series nominee Mariska Hargitay join her on stage, which seemed to scream, "Look, bitch, not only did I win, but I'm going to humiliate you for wearing the same shade of green dress by pretending I'm sharing this award, which I'm not. If you show up at my place to visit your fake half-award, my Rottweilers will devour you while I pretend to call an ambulance."

Hey, did you hear that Britney Spears got married? We're going to assume that people were so busy discussing the shocking! nuptials! that they completely forgot to go to the movies.

There is but one thing that could rouse us from the weekend-long absinthe binge that prepares us for the ordeal of the Primetime Emmy Awards and sit us down in front of the computer: the surprise wedding of Britney Spears to layabout facial hair innovator/underemployed Baryshnikov Kevin Federline. We're relieved, really, because we anticipate not having to report any Spears-related secret wedding rumors for at least the next seven months. And that lovely thought has us feeling magnanimous enough (though we are forced to consider the possibility that the pleasant, lightly-burning sensation around our heart is due to the absinthe) to wish Mr. and Mrs. Federline a long and happy union. May the child that will soon follow grow fat and happy on a diet of mashed Cheetos and Red Bull, and may angels merrily dance in the background of its dreams.

We thought we were going to make it through to the weekend without finding out that any once-adorable, former child actors were arrested for drug possession in Oklahoma, but no such luck. Someone sent us this link showing that Macaulay Culkin apparently got popped for possession of marijuana and unauthorized prescription drugs. At least he was busted for something fun, unlike Edward Furlong, who was handcuffed for trying to liberate lobsters. Maybe Mac will try that stunt when he posts bail and gets some more pills.

Friday
1. Visit the art galleries of Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Echo Park at the Silver Lake Art Crawl. We exceeded our quota of lame trucker hat/ironic t-shirt quips sometime around Sunset Junction, so please go and sincerely enjoy the art and the Eastside. (Runs all weekend)
Saturday
2. Did we mention that we love free stuff? (Our appreciation of the gratis is rooted more in economic necessity than the weird sense of privilege that makes people in the industry tear each other limb from limb when they start handing out goodie bags at an event, but we digress.) Anyway, KCRW’s Next Up Showcase of Independent Local Artists (featuring performances by AM, Jesca Hoop, Quincy and Blue-Eyed Son) on the Santa Monica Pier is all sorts of free.
3. Another thing we love: pictures of naked people. Especially the classy, "erotica" kind. Check out the LA Erotica exhibition at the Clair Obscur Gallery. [Link NSFW]
4. Hear proof that rock has murdered nu-metal, as the KROQ Inland Invasion features Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Death Cab for Cutie, and Muse. We're ever so sad to see Korn and Staind going the way of the dinosaur.
Sunday
5. Note the moment when every single winner at the Emmys Awards stares off into the distance, ever so briefly contemplating how they can parlay their little gold statue into a film career. Garry Shandling has been broken out of cold storage to host.

We've got an update on the dust-up we posted about earlier between Jack & Bobby and Jodie Foster's Flightplan. According to our source, the mini-rumble wasn't between the two productions—it was between an outside party and two brothers who each work on those productions. Apparently, the Outsider came to stir up trouble with Brother Number One, and Brother Number Two stepped in to assist. The cops who rushed to the scene (they really come running when a Hollywood studio lot calls) took away the Outsider. No intramural gang war involved, just a little bit of fun family business. We're keeping our fingers crossed for some news about a hot-oil wrestling match between the craft service guy on Everybody Love Raymond and a grip on Joey over at Warner Brothers.

Finally, we can declare the industry's late-summer garbage time officially over. Three movies open wide today, complete with some much-needed star wattage. Most importantly, Without a Paddle's evil squatting in the top five should finally end.

[Ed.note—We've jumped this item back to the top because of an important update. See below.]

Remember supposedly A-list actor/pseudonymous blogger Rance? It used to be something of a blogger parlor game to try and divine his real-life identity, with guesses regularly attempting to out him as authentic (Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Jim Carrey, or George Clooney) or expose him as a "fake." No matter, he weathered the speculation (much of it coming from Defamer) and kept on blogging—until recently, when he began a search for a replacement Rance and largely turned over the site to guest-bloggers from his audience. This forced bloodthirsty blogger/actor hunters (again, us) to find new pursuits (more drinking, a fruitless hunt for Tara Reid's secret blog) and Rance to retire his title of Hollywood Fixation of the Month.

· Resident Evil's number one finish helps Milla Jovovich graduate from zombie killing to a (presumably) skinnier indie film paycheck, as she joins on for "domestic abuse with comic elements" film .45. What's a girl got to kill to get a raise and a romantic comedy? [THR]
· Thought dodgeball was the only semi-sport that deserved the over-the-top comedy treatment? Think again, as New Line picks up the ping-pong themed script Balls of Fury from erstwhile The State members Tom Lennon and Ben Garant. We are strangley enthused. [THR]
· Steve Martin and producing partner Joan Stein team up with the creators of the great-in-concept-only-ok-in-reality off-Broadway show Matt and Ben to develop a half hour comedy for the WB. The M and B girls are going to milk Good Will Hunting just as hard as Affleck and Damon did, God bless their hearts. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, the brilliant minds behind Punk'd, get a six episode order from the WB for a "top-secret makeover/dating" series. Hopefully it will involve the torture of celebrities, because otherwise we're not even a little bit interested. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Viacom co-president Tom Freston tries to put a non-Moonves stamp on Paramount, signing up Interscope bigwig Jimmy Iovine and Eminem's manager to first-look feature deal. We hope that Big Les is down with hip-hop, or things could get ugly. [Variety, sub. req'd.]

Through our underground network of eagle-eyed, gawking PrivacyWatch spies, we are slowly piecing together Justin Timberlake's entire Wednesday schedule. Yesterday, we received a hungover report about Timberlake partying, sans Cameron Diaz (for the love of God, where are the publicist denials about their break-up?), and now we know where he was before he went clubbing at Concorde with semi-pro lushes Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.

TVGasm reports a mysterious altercation from The Lot in Hollywood yesterday, where a Shark from the WB show Jack & Bobby threw down with a Jet from Jodie Foster's feature Flightplan. Details are sketchy, but TVGasm does say that "at least" five cop cars swooped in to squash the violence. Hopefully the fuzz arrived before any bike chains were rattled or stuntmen could be summoned to carefully choreograph a fist-fight in accordance with union guidelines. Developing...

Velvet Revolver singer and always-recovering superjunkie Scott Weiland savvily suggested that Coke sign him up for an endorsement deal at the World Music Awards in Vegas. Not a bad idea. Coke would get some cred at rehab centers, and Weiland would have someone to pick up the bills the next time he O.D.'s. But Coke's obviously a gateway endorsement, and within a month, Weiland would be signing up with the Kentucky Derby to score a deal to be the face of horse.

Another guest at last night's Sass & Bide party provides additional, chilling detail about Bijou Phillips and her incredible dancing ability. Disappointingly, our reader offers no speculation as to what kind of fuel keeps the Bijou Phillips Party Machine in constant motion, other than possible brain damage.

1. Randall Wallace, best-selling author of Pearl Harbor and Braveheart, reads from his latest novel, Love and Honor, at the Borders in Westwood. Please don't go if you're only going to blame him for Mel Gibson's Jesus complex or what Michael Bay did to WWII. He's just a writer. No one in Hollywood pays attention to writers.
2. Green Day performs their "punk opera" tonight at the Henry Fonda. Expect a heartfelt tribue to fallen Johnny Ramone, as Green Day owes their incredible piles of cash to the influence of the Ramones. Let's hope they take a stab at covering "I Wanna Be Sedated" rather than dedicating "Time of Your Life" to Johnny.
3. Hang around the Los Angeles Korean Festival and try to find out how to get into those K-town clubs that let you smoke indoors and serve alcohol long after L.A.'s ridiculous 2 a.m. curfew.

We'll let a reader handle the introductory duties for the "guesses" part of the Blind Item Guessing Game: "I can honestly say that this blind vice lost me somewhere after the word, 'Let's' ... but with the help of a handy dandy 'illiterate gossip hound to English' dictionary, I was able to deduce he's talking about old people who are married...But what confuses me is the fact that old people aren't having sex is gossip worthy. Isn't Britney walking barefoot into a porta potty in Riverside?" Yes, she probably is, and you're ignoring the fact that the raison (annoying French inflection ours) for many blind items is the gay sex angle. Mind the gossip stepchildren before you unfairly criticize Ted!

We've been so preoccupied with wondering which of Matt LeBlanc's former co-stars would be the first to show up to do a ratings-whoring cameo on Joey that we've spent every night since the show's premiere drunk on vodka and hairspray cocktails, pouring over TiVo'd Friends reruns for clues. Then we saw this report about Jennifer Aniston being spotted on the Joey set (in full make-up!), and we momentarily went back to eating solid food. Unfortunately, our unimpeachable sources assure us that it's time to go back to the bottle, as Aniston was merely dropping by to say hi to LeBlanc, not to once again don The Rachel. She was all made up because she's shooting a movie nearby.

There's a very good reason that TV staffers use the term "gang bang" to describe a bunch of writers "collaborating" on a script. Sopranos writer Matt Weiner's description of how to survive the endless, soul-negating rewrites in a television writers' room sounds suspiciously like advice on how to ride out a prison rape:

Apparently ruling the Hollywood sex-trade with an iron fist, being woodenly portrayed by Meadow Soprano, or staying in a long-term relationship with a domestically pugilistic, B-list addict weren't hard-core enough activities for Heidi Fleiss. Fleiss is slapping her name on some hard-core adult videos called Secrets of the Hollywood Madam that take porn fans "on a cinematic journey into realistic and graphic sexual depictions that showcase the 'dirty work' performed by her former working girls." Think Charlie Sheen's excited to finally have some kind of documentary record of his off-camera life in the '80s? We hope they at least found someone with good abs who once had a SAG card to play him, you know, so he'll have something nice to show his new kid.

LA.comfidential's Laurie Pike commits a blogger no-no and actually ventures outside the house to attend a party for a Sass & Bide fashion event in Hancock Park. Luckily, it seems she returned home relatively unscathed and with a bunch of pictures. While Pike says "Bijou Phillips danced the entire evening like wind-up toy that never wound down," it was Jewel who was self-conscious about seeming like she had a snoutful of booger sugar, telling her, "A lot of times people don't think I'm me. They say, 'You look like Jewel, but prettier. I heard she's coked out.'"