· Music round=up: The Airborne Toxic Event at Spaceland; The Chapin Sisters at the Pershing Square Ice Rink; Pastilla at Safari Sam's.
· The Laugh Factory's Thursday night show features Harland Williams and Finesse "Formerly of Saturday Night Live" Mitchell. Should that show not fulfill your comedy needs, Greg Proops and Marc Maron host the sensibly named Maron/Proops Experiment at the UCB Theatre.
· The LA Press Club hosts an An Evening With Bill Boyarsky at the Steve Allen Theater, where the former LAT and AP writer will discuss his long career in journalism and his new book, Big Daddy.

According to the AP, The Weinstein Company says it's about to reach the same kind of interim deal with the WGA that United Artists signed back on Monday, with the papers necessary to get back to work with union writers possibly signed by the end of the day. (Let the Official Side Deal PressReleaseWatch begin! Exciting, we know.) Once the contract is finalized, Weinstein can expect a scriptalanche like one that is reportedly burying Tom Cruise; TWC employees will undoubtedly be rejoicing that their boss will have a fresh supply of three-hole-punched projectiles to launch at their heads at the slightest provocation, as they're probably a little tired of dodging the same stale batch of screenplays he's had to use since the start of the strike.

An operative who's currently over at The Tonight Show's Burbank studios to witness the first leg of Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel's couch-swapping stunt has helpfully informed us that staffers are still trying to fill about 50 seats for the taping, which is apparently not as hot a ticket as they'd hoped. We thought we'd pass along this information in case any readers in the area wanted to drop by and experience this landmark moment in late-night history in person; if nothing else, it might be interesting to see how much air-time the writerless hosts can fill by commisserating about how hard it is to book guests who are willing to cross a picket line.

In the kind of statement everyone's been expecting from the A-listers who have mostly been reluctant to anger the people who sign their eight-figure paychecks, Tom Hanks says it's time for the "big guys" to stop the grab-assing and spa trips and get back to negotiating. Well, maybe not in such forceful words, but at least he seems to have an opinion on the situation: "'There are caterers and carpenters ... and electricians and gaffers,' the 51-year-old said. 'There are a lot of people out there associated with the industry, for whom the sooner this work stoppage is over the better. I just hope that the big guys who make big decisions up high in their corporate boardrooms and what not get down to honest bargaining and everyone can get back to work.'" [Reuters]

Last Celeb DUI of 2007 winner Mischa Barton phoned into omnipresent showbiz presence Ryan Seacrest's radio show On Air this morning, her first public statement on the matter since being picked up by cops in WeHo two days after Christmas for driving under the influence of alcohol and non-medical marijuana.

Roseanne Barr blogs her take on Oprah and Barack Obama: "barak [sic] obama is an empty suit selling 'hope' in lieu of Truth. He has no ideas, no plan and nothing to add other than the cynical pacification of the masses with bedtime stories about hope, while calling Unions 'special interest groups' that need to be done away with...Oprah, you play the race card and the gender card too. You are a closeted republican and chose Barak Obama because you do not like other women who actually stand for something to working American Women besides glamour, angels, hollywood and dieting! It is historical that Oprah Winfrey, beloved of women, chooses a flashy man with small credentials over a seasoned woman politician with 35 years of experience...and sells that to the female demographic who look to her for inspiration!" [roseanneworld.com]

There is no Hot Topic more sizzlingly appealing to the ladies of The View than the ongoing turmoil within the Spears family, who generously provide the show's debate-loving co-hosts with a fresh, pregnancy- or insanity-related misadventure crying out for their disapprobation on an almost daily basis.

As one commenter pointed out, the unabridged transcript of Vinnie Chase's alleged attempt at picking up an anonymous brunette at a New York watering hole is available at Radar Online, where you can follow their lively political debate (she's a Bushy, yet that didn't scare him away), and find out for certain what those two words bleeped by the NY Post really were. Before you do, however, the impromptu fill-in-the-blanks match that broke out in our comments section has inspired us to escalate the proceedings to a full-fledged round of Adrian Grenier Mad Libs.

Intern Memo advises this year's crop of interns to weigh their housing options carefully: "You don't want to be in a situation where you're getting gauged (sic) on some horrible apartment." Especially the so-called "dangerous and scary" areas near Los Angeles' University of Southern California, where blacks sometimes live. [Intern Memo]

· With plenty of time on their hands these days to evaluate their relationships, studios have start dropping (and/or not renewing) first-look deals with partners with whom they've fallen out of love. Not even America's Sweetheart Reese Witherspoon (and her Type A shingle) has been immune from this recent caprice, though New Line was more than happy to climb into bed with her after a recent dumping. [Variety]
· A belt-tightening ICM is suspending several agents, who still will receive strike pay and benefits until the end of the labor war, and temporarily cutting some salaries. The silver lining: they're not laying off any assistants. (Yet.) [THR]

Moving quickly to fill what must have been a staggering demand for appropriate attire for the recently announced Benjamin Silverman High Winter Prom, Strike Swag has just unveiled the official B.S. High Fighting Cocks t-shirt, an item that's sure to be the first choice of any nerdy WGA attendee who doesn't have a pumpkin tuxedo in the closet that he can break out for the dance. (Those who plan on showing their Fighting Cocks pride will be happy to know their purchase benefits the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund.)

TMZ's reporting Michelle Rodriguez has been released from Lynwood today, 163 days short of the 180 she was sentenced to. Last we checked, Kief is still in the Glendale City Jail on Day 37 of his 48-day stint. Like the table of Ye Rustic regulars loudly bemoaning his absence over Jager shots last night, we've got to ask: Where is the justice? [TMZ]

One studio in Hollywood, at least, may not think that this strike situation is really all that bad. A Defamer operative tells us there's a rumor floating around that since it struck its side-deal with the Writers Guild earlier this week, Tom Cruise's United Artists has been deluged with "2,500" scripts as idling agents frantically abandoned their Scrabulous games and retaliatory werewolf attacks to get their clients' projects in front of pretty much the only people who can get anything done at the moment. Is that figure merely the fantasy of some tracking board poster who decided to arbitrarily assign a numerical value to "a shitload"? Probably!

In case you missed it, yesterday was Katie Holmes's Big Night—an evening to celebrate the Katie of long ago, famous not for suspicious pregnancies and dead-eyed Cruisian servitude, but for the skillful way she was once able to memorize words in scripts, and then perform those words in front of cameras. In other words, it was the premiere of Holmes's new movie, Mad Money. Arriving with her extremely proud, extremely touchy, extremely ever-present husband, Extra was on hand to document every moment of the full-time mom's triumphant return to the silver screen:

According to the LAT's Gold Derby blog, some scandalized members within shadowy, buffet-decimating, kudos-proffering concern the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are livid that network broadcast partner NBC, hoping to salvage something from the strike-ravaged wreckage of the Golden Globes, intend to turn Sunday's one-hour press conference announcing this year's winners into an Access Hollywood-branded farce presided over by two of dinnertime TV's most recognizable faces:

Entourage star Adrian Grenier is being accused of the high crime of using cheesy and crass pickup lines on unsuspecting Vinnie-bait, having reportedly told a girl at a bar that he makes "documentary films" (what—Shot in the Dark wasn't a documentary?). To which she replied, "I'm in fashion," meaning she works in fashion, we presume, not that she was acquiescing to being the Flavor of the Night. Wait! Don't leave—it gets better! Then he said, "That's cool. So how about we go home and I [bleep] the [bleep] out of you." We know! But she declined. And his rep refused to comment. OK, that's it. You can go now. [Page Six]

If there's any question as to why we've been eagerly anticipating Celebrity Rehab, the latest offering from VH1's Reality Department/ Non-Skank-Romance Division, since first being teased by footage of Jeff Conaway blowing a rail of fauxcaine, one need only take a look at this ABC News headline, which practically bullet-points every stage of Dr. Drew Pinsky's clinically-proven-to-induce-ratings 4-step program. (Mop-wielding orderlies are typically on high alert prior to Step 3.) Distancing himself from University of the Web-accredited quacks like Dr. Phil and other exploitative reality fare covering the same ground, Actual Medical Doctor Pinsky explains how his show is far more than just Celebrity Apprentice with piles of blow and a stocked bar (which, now that we mention it, would make Trump's show a lot more interesting):

As you might expect following the passing of any beloved head of state, there is no shortage of obituaries celebrating Grant's legacy, but we've found no post-mortem tribute more touching than this video elegy an obviously grief-stricken mourner offered up to the internets today. Once the Star Wars-inspired crawl fades and the music-accompanied montage of some of those memorable Walk of Fame moments kicks in, you will be moved.

Each day you face important issues requiring informed opinons. At work! At cocktail parties! In bed with strangers! In these situations and so many more you are expected to talk about the things everybody's talking about. Let Gawker Videographer Alex Goldberg and Defamer Videographer Molly McAleer do the thinking for you, with Point/Counterpoint. Today's topic: the writers strike.