· Music round-up: Ladytron and CSS at Ford Amphitheatre; Method Man at the House of Blues on Sunset; Joseph Arthur at the El Rey; and Matmos at the Rec Center Studio.
· The Writers Bloc presents An Evening of Poltitcal Satire at the Fine Arts Theatre, bringing together Onion editor Scott Dikkers and satirist Peter Hilleren to discuss their book, Destined For Destiny: The Unauthorized Autobiography of George W. Bush, with Weeds' lovably perma-stoned mayor Kevin Nealon
· The Fake Gallery on Melrose hosts a sketch comedy showcase, where groups Sideways House, Prank the Dean, and Diani & Devine will battle to the death for a lone spot in the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival. Actually, we have no idea if there's just a single spot at stake, we just like to think of comedy as an ultra-competitive, life-or-grisly-annihilation matter.

Far be it from Madonna to accept delivery of her new child in tight-lipped quietude. On her way to getting David Banda fitted for his very own red-string bracelet, the singer paused long enough to deliver a stiffly worded written statement, bursting with cautious legal flavor, in which she claims the adoption was many months in the making and insisting that she followed all the appropriate procedures in expanding her brood.

We'd hoped to get our latest, long-awaited, and much-clamored-for installment of Defamer PartyWatch up for your browsing pleasure on Friday, but technical difficulties (trust us, you don't want the details of how many outsourced programmers were killed) prevented us from posting our new set of party photos while the regrets of the subjects were still fresh. On Thursday night, we sent our photographer to document the vaguely porn-flavored goings-on at the Cabana Club event for Hooking Up: You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again Again, a tell-all tome about where some of your favorite celebrities (like Brad Pitt and Matt LeBlanc, to name two) liked to be touched when they're paying a high-end call girl the touching, lovingly co-authored by erstwhile porn publicist Carly Milne and former Heidi Fleiss BFF Jennifer Young. You can browse our new-fangled photo gallery here. (Just click an image in the gallery to get started.)

If you're struggling with the epic decision of what Hallowe'en costume to wear this year — slutty schoolgirl, slutty pirate wench, Paris Hilton... too many options! — then let the kind folks at Celebrity Baby Blog make your life easier. They've sifted through the annals of Hollywood parentage and come up with a short list of which stars and their progeny might make timely costumes, either to deploy with the aid of an actual child, or for you to force upon your most gullible, easily influenced friends.

As part of our continuing mission to provide up-to-the-minute coverage of potential Apocalyptic disasters unfolding at the studios where your industry peers thanklessly toil, we pass along this photo and distress message just transmitted from a cameraphone over at Nickelodeon:

The professional alcoholics at SorryIGotDrunk.com scanned this ad from today's Variety, in which South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone say thank you to long-suffering (but apparently good-humored) attorney Kevin Morris on his firm's 10th anniversary by posing in front of the creative aids that have enabled a decade of staggering billable hours. Cute ads in the trades are nice, but in the end, there's really no better way to reward friendship and loyalty than by making someone a shitload of money.

When we want our daily dose of unabashed sentimentalism, we would usually turn to something logical, like, say, Saved By The Bell reruns (we could watch Jessie Spano get so excited, so excited, so scared from those caffeine pills all day), rather than to the chirpy talk-show stylings of Ellen DeGeneres. But even she has succumbed to Very Special Syndrome: On Monday's hour — which, we kid you not, began with a pandering voice-over, "Today, an Ellen like you've NEVER SEEN BEFORE" — Ellen trotted out hypnotist Paul McKenna, both to disavow our theories that all such people are hissing Vaudevillian caricatures, and to help her quit smoking. You'd think that watching America's favorite bobblehead of good cheer ratchet down the happy by tearily confronting her inner pain would be...well, a downer. But mercifully, the sappy editing, heartstring-abusing music, dramatic stings, and the image of McKenna advancing on a helpless, sniffling Ellen and threatening to shove an imaginary brick of gobbed-on, meaty licorice into her mouth are all top-notch unintentional humor. She later revealed she hasn't smoked in three days; in related news, she also can't close her eyes. Or eat.

Last Friday, when meeting with NBC News anchor Brian Williams to help launch his latest messianic charity endeavor, U2 frontling Bono was waiting for an elevator with Williams next to a lightboard ad of the anchorman's face. Bono asked the crowd of handlers for a Sharpie, and one was instantly produced from the rectum of an NBC page (each page contains a complete desk set at all times). Bono then scribbled on the face of the Williams ad, fashioning a bandit mask or a pair of his signature bubble shades, or something. As a last straw, he "signed" the lightboard with his initial, thereby turning it from a piece of crap corporate furniture into a $50,000 collectible piece of crap corporate furniture. Williams was politely amused for the crowd, but this can only increase his well-known distaste for the Irish.

The Weinstein Co.'s Genius Products makes a deal with the WWE to distribute home videos, collaborate on straight-to-video movies, and potentially use the wrestling league's stars to intimidate any filmmakers who stubbornly resist Harvey Weinstein's gentle suggestions about helpful edits. [Variety]
At an address to the Media Institute, outraged Viacom executive Sumner Redstone shook a fist at the FCC over its crackdown on indecent speech, claiming that the commission's heavy fines based on a small number of petitions have created "a world where entertainment and news executives, musicians and artists are living in a great deal of fear," a reign of terror that rivals even the one in which his underlings currently toil. [THR]
House creator David Shore and writer Peter Blake are writing a "light procedural drama" script for NBC, about a brilliant female cop who concocts unlikely crime-scene scenarios that are initially dismissed as crazy by her reflexively skeptical co-workers, but which are ultimately proven correct at the end of each episode. [Variety]
The Fox News Channel reaches a new carriage agreement with Cablevision, ensuring that the officially approved messages of the Bush Administration will reach the cable provider's subscribers without interruption. [THR]
Studio 60 NielsenWatch: Showing extended, behind-the-scenes footage of a bafflingly unfunny Nancy Grace sketch drops NBC's onetime presumed savior to its lowest numbers yet, off 15% from last week's ratings. [Variety]

The Smoking Gun reports that Wesley Snipes has been indicted for his involvement in a "bizarre tax avoidance scheme," in which he and two other men have been charged with trying to defraud the government of its fair share of the actor's mid-90s riches by claiming the obscure, oddly specific—and largely invalidated— "Section 57" tax code provision, which grants a massive refund to anyone who has ever mouthed the words, "Always bet on black!" without irony in a major Hollywood production. The Smoking Gun has the the details of the indictment, including the shocking revelation that Snipes somehow earned $19.2 million in 1997, a year in which his cinematic output was Murder at 1600 and One Night Stand (a fact that seems like an obvious red flag for possible fraud), as well as the document's dismissive description of Snipes as a defendant who "was a movie actor," an obviously intentional, unprofessional slight directed at his recent career.

We should have known Russia was behind the times when we unearthed a largely cyrillic Olsen Twins Jailbait Countdown page whose clock still showed 12 years to go. But, today, there's further proof that the rubble from the fall of Communism choked off Mother Russia's pop-culture outlets: Photos posted by JJB reveal that the country's Bouton Fashion House recently debuted a collection inspired by and dedicated to Michael Jackson — but not the baby-dangling, scarf-swaddled bandit of our nation's innocence we know today; no, their ideal of the King of Pop is firmly rooted back (waaay back) when he was merely "Bad" but not yet baptising children with the velvet caress of some Jesus Juice.

Today's LAT profiles Bobby producer Edward "But My Parole Officer Called Me Michael" Bass, whose shady past in mail fraud, Oscar gala guest-list deception, and poetry contest judging irregularities may be coming back to haunt him now that there's awards buzz around the movie, especially since Bass's clashes with director Emilio Estevez (writing that never feels quite comfortable, as much as we revere Men at Work) resulted in him being tossed off the movie. The Times kicks around some of the bones in his closet as Bass laments an inability to leave the past behind:

The one-year old boy Madonna has been trying to adopt from Malawi — despite laws that prohibit the nation's young from being clutched to the ample bosoms of foreign women with proven conic-bra proclivities — officially arrived today in England, where he will soon take up his role sitting quietly in a playpen while Madonna spends eight hours hotboxed in a yoga class. The pop star's newest youngling, David Banda (whose full name semi-aptly anagrams to "Diva, and bad"), apparently survived his baptism by paparazzi, which came after the eager photogs failed to be fooled by his lack of conspicuously oversized sunglasses.

Color us surprised to discover that we're in the midst of L.A.'s Fashion Week, the paste-eating cousin of possibly incestuous parentage to the significantly more glamorous events staged in places like New York, Paris, and Cleveland. But in the interest of helping our friends in the fashion world protect their precious runwayside seats from brash interlopers with vague genetic ties to some of our city's most powerful residents, we pass along today's Page Six story about the efforts of an alleged distant cousin of Steven Spielberg to secure the VIP treatment that is her possibly nonexistent birthright:

The following brief report on Friday night's American Cinematheque roast-esque event honoring George Clooney landed in our inbox last night (a little tardy, perhaps, but always appreciated), submitted by an operative surprised to hear an actress (especially one of a certain age) take the stage and declare her carnal knowledge of the night's honoree:

As if we needed any more signs that New York has become pretty irrelevant on the hip hop map, Brooklyn rapper Fabolous attempted to generate publicity for his upcoming album, but fell short of full martyrdom and was arrested for his troubles, according to WCBS. He remains in less than fab, but stabulous condition.

· Vince Vaughn's lawyers would like the world to know that he and Jennifer Aniston are still as together as ever, and that they're ready to sue into oblivion the nasty gossips who claimed he made out with some cheap blonde in London. Unrelated: The Break-Up, available on DVD tomorrow!
Is Lindsay Lohan going to take a break from acting? Probably not, but that shouldn't stop anyone from quietly wishing she might disappear for a year.
Despite this apparent "job application", former NY Daily News JV gossip columnist Lloyd Grove swears he's not headed to the LAT.
If you've ever thought that Mr. T's decades-old mohawk-and-fifty-pounds-of-gold-chains look could use an update, here's your chance to make it happen.
We bet that if Tom Waits were to handpick one actress to do an entire album of his music, he would've picked Scarlett Johansson, too.
More K-Fed wish fulfillment: Househusband to be bodyslammed tonight on WWE Raw. Set your DVRs!

Back in August, news emerged that Rachel Dratch was being, er, shifted ("demoted" is a bummer word, as you'll soon see) from her lead role on 30 Rock into one where she'd play a "wide variety" of parts after producers decided to "scrap her character." A couple of days after the initial announcement, we learned that her original character wasn't so much "scrapped" as "given to Jane Krakowski." Dratch spoke to NY Mag's Intelligencer column about how the unfortunate demoting/recasting thing went down:

On his blog, Access Hollywood's Billy Bush is proudly touting his "get" of the "the first interview with Michael Jackson since he left the United States in June 2005." But as we're sure you already suspect, Jackson wasn't really interested in chatting about his more sensational, recent pursuits involving leprechauns or recreational cross-dressing. Instead, Bush would have to be satisfied with discussing his current musical pursuits, hoping to squeeze in some juicier questions while pretending that samples of "Bad" injected into the thousandth remix of "My Humps" was just the thing to resurrect Jackson's long-dead career:

· Music round-up: The Hold Steady at the Troubadour; Antigone Rising at the El Rey; the Chapin Sisters at the Echo.
· Louis CK, the man who did for the word "cunt" what David Milch did for "cocksucker" on HBO's airwaves, is at Largo—a show that will be hosted by a real magician, for reasons not entirely clear to us.
· Director Alejandro Gonz lez I rritu (Amores Perros, but you knew that) presents a preview screening of Babel (starring Brad Pitt, ditto) at LACMA, and will do the requisite Q&A afterwards, during which you should feel free to intersperse intelligent questions with the intermittent squealing of Pitt's name.