After the poor, doltish man-child Joey Tribbiani moved to Los Angeles and faded into oblivion, we were pretty content with leaving Matt LeBlanc's acting career as a distant, warm memory — like a long-lost cousin whose talent for burping the national anthem was cute when he was 12, but reeks of stale desperation now that he's 40 and still does keg stands. But now, LeBlanc's former manager has incited painful acid flashbacks of the Joey era by slapping him with a lawsuit:

Chewbacca, Boba Fett, and many of the other characters you treasured until George Lucas decided to embark on his misguided prequel odyssey were at NASA today, to present the space shuttle people with Luke Skywalker's original Jedi lightsaber, scheduled to take a six million mile trip in October on Discovery. [starwarsblog]

We feel we do our best to nurture a lesbian-supportive environment here at Defamer, as well as to promote our city's lively and burgeoning underground music scene. But when staff videographer Molly McAleer stumbled upon Box Rock—the titillatingly titled new Sapphic rocker night at Safari Sam's that merges both of these worlds—well, all bets were off. The footage very nearly made us want to climb the Y on the Hollywood sign, and, perched atop the massive, yonic symbol, shout as loud as our lungs could muster, "WE LOVE PUNK DYKES!" to the twinkling city lights below.

· A giant wrecking ball "made to look like it's smashing the facade of the fascist-era Palazzo del Cinema" made for a unique and creative conversation piece to kick off the Venice Film Festival, but placing a flattened and spread-eagled adhesive image of Lindsay Lohan on it bordered on bad taste. [Variety]
· What happens when you get overpaid to underperform? You get sent to a war zone, that's what! [Variety]
· New CBS game show Power of 10 scored its highest ratings yet with a crossover episode in which Big Brother houseguests faced off for big money prizes. Contestant Amber came away with $1000, for correctly predicting the percentage of Americans who think all Jews are money-grubbing, cloven-hoofed heathens who can never be trusted. (A whopping 38%!)
· Jeremy Davies has been cast in a "heavily recurring" role on the next season of Lost, playing a "mysterious new character whose bellybutton needs to be poked every 108 minutes." [THR]
· Ben Affleck is just the latest in a veritable constellation of stars who have signed on to He's Just Not That Into You, the movie based on the book based on the Sex and the City phrase that, quite frankly, we dearly wish had never been uttered. [THR]

When the producers of critically acclaimed but struggling™ NBC drama Friday Night Lights needed to find a suitable replacement for Mexico for an upcoming episode set in our friendly, NAFTA-compliant neighbors to the south, they chose that of Brownsville, TX—a 91% Latino community bordering the Rio Grande. As reported by the Brownsville Herald, however, a casting call seeking Mexican-American extras turned up scant few hopefuls. It's a disappointment producers are blaming on the rain:

Understandably unsatisfied with only one legally shaky foreign adoption that's bound and gagged with red tape, Madonna has apparently decided that African moppets work better in pairs. Starter-orphan David Banda's home nation is allegedly allowing Madge to add a girl to her collection, according to This Is London:

Yesterday, we received a breathless report, subject heading: "What is going on?!!?," from an operative who described, quite vividly, a "fat white guy dressed in blue spandex, a fake black beard, blue double beer helmet, and [holding] a sign" standing outside of Paradigm's offices. Sadly, no photo was provided, and so we were left to our wild and colorful imaginations to fill in the blanks—and fill in we did, picturing an end-of-his-rope George Wendt doing whatever he deemed necessary to finally get his agent to return his calls.

For all TMZ's gloating about thoroughly chapping ABC's hide by printing a leaked list of Dancing With The Stars contestants, it seems the network merely made the site its pawn in its cunning game of lies: That roster was fake, and the actual cast was revealed today. Notably absent is the one person — Lou Ferrigno, bodybuilder, cranky green giant, and heroic L.A. Country reserve deputy sheriff — whose rumored participation might have enticed us to watch for, oh, at least ten minutes. And anyone hoping for a showdown between 90210 vixens will be likewise crushed:

The inevitable Miss Teen South Carolina T-Shirts: Not the obvious choices, such as "Team Miss Teen S.C.," or "Free U.S. Americans," but a handsome effort nonetheless. [dreamdogsart]

News outlets are buzzing that Leona "Queen of Mean" Helmsley left her scabby lapdog Trouble $12 million, but cut two of her four grandchildren out completely. Approached for a quote, the white Maltese gnawed on the end of the microphone before relieving itself on a Louis XVI chesterfield. [Reuters]

You didn't actually think you'd be able to start your day without one of those depressing Owen Wilson: After the Attempt round-ups, did you? No—we didn't think so.
· This is "Kate's Nightmare," declares Us magazine's cover in 450-point type, all but dwarfing the pink box above it reminding readers of Wilson's tangential involvement. They report that "inner circle members" insist Hudson was forced to abandon Wilson because he was abusing both cocaine and heroin, a potentially lethal combination more commonly known on the streets as "dynamite." (At least as recently as 1977.) [Us]
· How could the shaggy, suspiciously mellow Daily Show guest have gotten mixed up in the hard stuff? By hanging out with the wrong kind of people, of course, such as Courtney Love's ex—British actor/comedian Steve Coogan. Says Love: "I went through it with Steve, "I was just out of rehab, and he was right there with the drugs. I tried to warn Owen. I tried to warn his friends. I hope from the bottom of my heart that Owen stays the hell away from that guy." [NY Post An Us Exclusive!]

· Corey Haim's off again, on again appearance in the direct-to-video sequel to The Lost Boys is looking to be off again. Prepare for waterworks.
· You: "Asian Girl over 18 bleached Blond." Him: "FAMOUS." It's a match made in heaven!
· "I have come to Syria and Iraq to help draw attention to the humanitarian crisis and to urge governments to increase their support for UNHCR and its partners." That's fine and dandy, Angelina, but when are you going to tape a YouTube message with helpful tips for pronouncing Nouri al-Maliki?
· A cornucopia of those animated TV logos from the '70s and '80s.
· Ang Lee's latest film is listed by the Venice International Film Festival as coming from "Taiwan, China," and thus a political controversy is born. Brokeback Mountain was a gay cakewalk compared to this mess.

As any self-respecting layabout-turned- failed-rapper- turned- custody-seeker would do, Kevin Federline has been working overtime to burnish the jaunty halo of responsibility he's placed atop his own head. His latest accomplice: One Tree Hill executive producer Mark Schwahn, who both compliments K-Fed on his two-episode guest stint and then tries to convince Us Weekly that he wasn't even aware of all the headlines — he just wanted that marvelous, talented bastard to grace his set:

Released from the burden of having to count paycheck zeros, Carrey now has time to concentrate on matters more weighty, like campaigning on behalf of Burmese political prisoners:

From the Defamer mailbag: "There's some fat white guy dressed in blue spandex, a fake black beard, blue double beer helmet, and a sign that has the title of his new script outside the Paradigm Building. I just found out that this is apparently day two. Wondering if any other agencies are suffering from a Super Mario Bros.-wannabe infestation." We welcome any photos, no matter how blurry.

· Music round-up: Crowded House and Pete Yorn are at The Greek, the Watson Twins perform at Spaceland, and Babyface performs on the porch of the House of Blues.
· Newsweek's style and culture reporter Dana Thomas discusses and signs Deluxe, a book about how many of the luxury goods our homegrown heiresses and starter wives spend their hard-earned inheritances and alimony checks on are now being produced in Chinese sweatshops. At Vroman's Pasadena location.
· Jules Engel, "pioneering abstractionist" and the animation genius behind such classics of the genres as the Chinese Mushroom Dance in Fantasia and Mr. Magoo, is having a retrospective exhibition at the Tobey C. Moss Gallery.

We're still feeling a little guilty for posting that photo of fake naked leopard man earlier today, which we readily admit was equal parts nauseating and underwhelming, and utterly devoid of any of the charms that made the authentic Naked Leopard Man such a timeless classic. To make it up to you, we have what we consider to be a very special treat: Lucky and Flo, the two highly trained dogs who can not only sniff out pirated DVDs, but then engage their handlers in a vigorous match of Frisbee Fetch with said contraband, paid a visit to The Today Show this morning.

Now that wife Demi Moore has pried the trucker hat from betwixt his twitching fingers and buried it in the backyard, Ashton Kutcher evidently feels uniquely qualified to help us bid adieu to the concept of the preening, pomade-encrusted metrosexual — so 2004 — and usher in a new era in the storied history of male grooming. In an essay the actor penned for Harper's Bazaar, Kutcher helpfully suggests that women should treat their dates like the pretty, empty husks of man-candy that they are:

At around 3 a.m. during the lunar eclipse, the Burning Man sculpture was set ablaze prematurely by a prank arsonist who showed a callous disregard for burner culture. He has since been hanged by an angry mob of body-modification pygmies, and his remains will be used to feed their herd of goats dyed fluorescent pink. [burningman.com]

There's two ways you can deal with your current predicament, that being your supervisor's tendency to punctuate his directives with the launching of scalding, coffee-based liquids directly at your face: 1) Put up with it, hoping the amassing scar-tissue will dull your pain receptors, readying you for more caustic substances to come as you advance in your entertainment industry career, or 2) Find a new job. We suggest the latter, and can think of no better place to start than right here, at the Defamer Job Board.