The tragic death Saturday night of Dr. Donda West from what appears to have been complications following plastic surgery has done nothing for our already dour moods around Defamer HQ. Moms, after all, are supposed to make grilled cheeses on rainy days and be our dates for our first Best Screenplay nominations—not die senselessly from elective cosmetic procedures. A round-up of what we know so far:

· Music round-up: Feist and Spoon at the Gibson Amphitheatre; Sondre Lerche at the Troubadour; Spiritualized goes acoustic at the Vista Theater.
· At the Steve Allen Theater, an all-star lineup of Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk, Dana Gould, Andy Kindler, Frank Conniff, Maria Bamford, Marc Maron, Paul F. Tompkins, Hard n' Phirm and Jimmy Pardo comes together for a benefit for Tom Sharpe, a local comic who's fighting Lyme disease.
· And at the House of Blues, there's a concert (with Warner Drive, Circus Diablo, OUTLETT, and others) to benefit victims of the wildfires; bringing a blanket gets you in for half the $20 cover.

Another fun time-killer for the hours in between picket line shifts: pitching writer-free projects to a soon-to-be idling star's production company, like Drew Barrymore's Flower Films. With all the people who come up with "stories" and "dialogue" otherwise occupied, what bored actress could turn down the opportunity to exercise her improv skills? [Marzipan Taco]

Handicapping the field of Republican presidential nominee hopefuls, 24 showrunner/televised-torture innovator Joel Surnow says that Hollywood's half-empty-handful of conservatives are leaning Giuliani-ward, an expression of support that can't bode well for Law & Order star Fred Thompson's already-doomed candidacy. Also, he's not exactly bullish on Hillary Clinton's electability: "'I'm not even sure that Hillary is a fait accompli [to win the Democratic Party nomination] as this point,' Mr. Surnow told a group of reporters and bloggers in a wide-ranging interview during the Young America's Foundation's (YAF) West Coast Leadership Conference. 'Are we nuts thinking Hillary Clinton could be president of this country? Honest to God, just stand back and think about it.'" And for those without the imagination to "just stand back and think about it," the upcoming season of his show (if it ever airs) should play out in thrilling detail the apocalyptic worst-case scenario that could face the nation if it follows 24-America in putting a Hillaryesque president in the White House. [Washington Times]

Somehow finding the one red-costumed individual in this city patrolling a sidewalk in front of a Hollywood landmark with no interest in discussing the WGA strike, Defamer videographer Molly McAleer enjoyed a brief chat with the Chinese Theatre's Reasonably Passable, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, inviting the Polaroid-proferring hero to share his origin story.

Strikers, beware! A tipster reports that Universal has a secret weapon for dealing with picketers who become too consumed with their disruptive activities to pay attention to flashing crosswalk signs: the long, in-house arm of the ticket-writing law: "I was on the picket line at Gate 1 at Universal this morning. At one point a sheriff emerged from WITHIN Universal to sit and watch the picket line. As soon as he saw two picketers enter the crosswalk when the red hand was flashing, he called them over and ticketed them for jaywalking. Now, granted, he was within his rights to do so, but he then failed to ticket any drivers taking unprotected lefts into the crosswalk while there were pedestrians occupying it. According to traffic laws, the drivers were in violation as they have to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks (violation 21950 a. Zing!). We helpfully pointed out at least six vehicles that didn't yield, but no drivers were tickidation, and the unequal application of the laws just seemed, well, illegal." As a bonus, click the photo to reveal the identity of a picketing actor falling prey to this seemingly selective enforcement of traffic laws!

This weekend prior a team of seasoned workers ascended a wooden ladder into the stuffy, cramped Attic at The Grove™, deftly maneuvered around a few dozen leftover boxes from Forever XXI (How did those get up here?), navigated the gloom to a particularly dusty, cobweb-laden corner and eventually returned - multiple times - with some hundred-dozen of boxes of Christmas decorations in their arms. Yon decorations are an essential part of what has become the single greatest commercialized Baby Jesus experience afforded Los Angeles shoppers in the last decade, if not century: CHRISTMAS AT THE GROVE! After the jump, read General Manager Jackie Levy's friendly missive on the preparation of the Vegas-sized spectacle, then sing along to a photo gallery of the stunning Yuletide transformation that will eventually result in the mall fountain's dancing waters being replaced by streams of liquid gold, frankincense, and myrrh ejaculated skyward in perfect time to "O Little Town Of Bethlehem":

Walgreens' most wanted Shia LaBeouf was back prowling Windy City watering holes this weekend, looking as scruffily tanked/adorable as in his recent mugshot, which in turn elicited a great many confused pants-stirrings according to one particular internet thread. A sampling: "i didn't like him much before. but he's growing on me." "he looks so hot in these wtf" "he's hotter when he's wasted" "shia you won me over. <3" "Damn Shia. you be lookin even sexier in these pics. Dont EVER gel your hair back again. I could easily see this look on a magazine cover. all smoldering and sexy like." [ONTD/]Photo: Splash]

· Even though the WGA strike might wipe out a significant portion of this so-far underwhelming Fall season, there's still some good news for TV: most shows have produced enough episodes that the Academy may not have to cancel the Emmys, an awards show that rivals the average picket line in thrills-per-minute even in years when it's not hampered by labor strife. [Variety]
· E! further fortifies its lineup of strike-proof programming by picking up a second season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a show they can easily spin off into separate series following each member of the Hollywood's bustiest, semifamous family should the need for even more mindless schedule-filler arise. [THR]

Watchers of The View were treated to a phone call from Elisabeth Hasselbeck, whose ever-fertile, neocon-replicating loins produced a healthy baby boy over the weekend: Taylor Thomas Hasselbeck—mom was a huge Home Improvement fan—is surely meant for great things, possessing both his father's athletic grace and his mother's superhuman ability to withstand fire-breathing co-hosts while still managing to squeeze in some point about how Iraqi women raped by international soldiers have no right to abortions.

Today in Britney's Urine: According to celebrity drug-test verification concern Thirty Mile Zone Urinanalyis Solutions Ltd., the narcolepsy medication Provigil did not trigger a reported positive result by the embattled pop-star, though it may have contributed to Spears unexpectedly taking a five-hour nap in the middle of a sales pitch for a new Mercedes she recently attempted to purchase at a Beverly Hills showroom. [TMZ]

Thanks to comedian/longtime Oscar gag-writer Bruce Vilanch's new online effort* in support of the WGA, we now know exactly what we stand to lose if the strike drags on long enough to disrupt the Academy Awards: the kind of timelessly uproarious Monica Lewinsky jokes that have tens of millions of movie-loving TV viewers falling off their couches decade after decade. *UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Vilanch's publicist informs us that the comic has nothing to do with the brucestrikes site, which has apparently been set up by a cruel "punker." We imagine that the hunt for the culprit will begin with AMPTP president Nick Counter, who might be masterminding a wave of prank sites to undermine the resolve of his WGA enemies by attacking their slogan-writing abilities. [brucestrikes.com]

A generation of panty-eschewing shock-starlets owe a giant debt of gratitude to Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone, whose early advances in the vagina-flashing sciences are the stuff of legend. Still, someone who's been in the game as long as Stone has knows that as effective a statement can be made using nothing more than a little modesty and timeless elegance. Case in point: the actress's choice of ensemble for the 13th Annual Make-A-Wish Ball in Miami over the weekend, which kept her fabulous-at-50 body almost completely covered, save perhaps for an alluring glimpse of bare shoulder. And for at least one 13-year-old boy with leukemia who fantasized about experiencing "a faceful of Sharon Stone cameltoe just once," it was a night in which dreams really did come true.

If clips like the one above documenting the single-producer picket line in front of WGA headquarters this weekend continue to proliferate at this staggering pace, the studios may have to seriously consider sending idling development staffers out into the street with camcorders, generating their own counter-sketches depicting greedy "writers" declaring that they won't return to work until they receive a million-dollar residual per iTunes download.

Though the WGA's weekend hiatus from picketing inevitably slowed the Guild's impressive rate of generating photo-ops with sympathetic celebrities willing to march, chant, and consume agency-provided, high-calorie snacks with their writing brethren, there's still plenty of strike-related news to round up on this surprisingly warm and sunny Day 8:

As your Hollywood employer has probably decided that this Veterans Day doesn't warrant the show of respect of a day off (strike-related layoffs notwithstanding), celebrate the sacrifices of those who've served our country in the most meaningful way available to you: by observing a moment of silence as you review the weekend's box office numbers:

· The Strike: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5. Or if you're the glutton-type, here is all our coverage in one, easy-to-carry link.
· Ellen DeGeneres crosses picket lines, angering one former employee armed with a deadly blog.
· NBC's Ben Silverman can't say those things, can he?
· Shia LaBeouf's spotless track record sullied with one drunken Walgreen sit-in and an adorable mugshot.
· Fabio gets another bird in the face, only this time it's George Clooney's.
· We think we have an idea who might have been inside the Masturbating Bear suit all along.
· Loose lips sink Rosie O'Donnell's MSNBC talk show.
· This animated yelling thing is a lot like that animated yelling thing.
· Ladies of The View: Struggling with the strike, gasping in horror, and speaking jive.
· Michael Jackson looks back on 25 years of vampiredom.
· Forest Whitaker follows up The Last King of Scotland with The Last Time the Public Will Be Asked to Suggest a Mountain Dew Flavor.
· Mickey Rourke's soused Vespa joyride.
· Dog missed the n-word memo.

· Is this the best For Your Consideration ad we've ever seen? Could be. Though we're still partial to one from 1993 in which Jack Nicholson was depicted defecating into Tom Cruise's Navy officer's hat to support his Best Supporting Actor candidacy in A Few Good Men.
· If the strike drags on, we wonder if call-to-action videos like this one will start featuring the home phone numbers for Les Moonves and Jeff Zucker instead of their office lines.
· Here's what you missed, signage-wise, if you didn't make it down to the Fox rally.
· Guys named O.J. Simpson should probably start avoiding Vegas.
· The strike's hidden victims: coffee shops.
· Avoid these drinking establishments unless you're looking for representation.

Exactly what had been missing from the picket lines had been eating at us all week, but now we know what that elusive element was: "ring girls" counting off the days of the strike! Sure, she looks perky now and probably provided a nice morale boost at today's Fox rally, but once those numbers creep higher and higher as the walkout drags on, her appearance in front of a studio gate toting a DAY 163 sign might make her more of a harbinger of doom and futility than a symbol of resolve and hope. (Unless, of course, she brings along delicious churros, which never fail to raise flagging spirits.)

At the risk of entering Ellen overkill territory (oh, who are we kidding—we set up camp there somewhere around 14 Iggy posts ago), something about this beyond surreal Entertainment Tonight promo compelled us to return to the tale of the dog responsible for Phase One of the comedian's recent image-tarnishing campaign.