· Now that we've been softened up to 9/11-based Hollywood projects by United 93 and World Trade Center, it's time to gird ourselves for the onslaught of TV specials tied to the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Especially promising (read: dread-inducing) is ABC's upcoming Path to 9/11 miniseries, which will run with "limited commercial" interruption, a choice network head Steve McPherson explains thusly: "Some things you do for commerce and some things because they are the right thing to do." Apparently, it's OK to make a little money from a tragedy, but not too much. [Variety]
· Pirates 2 pulls down another $44 million at the international box office, and jumps nine places on the all-time worldwide list with its $855 million cumulative gross. Yup, still a shitload of money. [THR]
News Corp prepares to roll out the next phase of its evil plan to coopt the internet as a distribution channel for its entertainment products, announcing plans to sell downloads of Fox TV shows and films via MySpace and Direct2Drive. [Variety]
Agent Dance Mini Edition: Veteran TV agent Steve Glick lasts just a year at ICM, as he ditches/is ditched by the agency following its purchase of BWCS and its shinier television department. [THR]
CBS Paramount TV signs up Laguna Beach producers Gary and Julie Auerbach to create more "unscripted" shows that forego even token attempts at representing reality. [Variety]

This Sunday's NY Times, finding a jumping-off point in Gwyneth Paltrow's instantly derided "I Am African" ad and Madonna's recent, ten-minutes-behind-the-trend push into Malawi, turns its attention to the rapidly cooling continent whose myriad problems are the current fascination of celebrities looking to combine a vague intention to, like, do something socially responsible n' junk with some excellent opportunities for favorable publicity. Says the Times:

For weeks now, a search has been on to find the perfect three Gays to join Joan Rivers on her upcoming Bravo talk show, Can We Dish?. (For the pitch-arithmetic inclined, the show is basically The View - 3 loud women + 3 loud women with dicks.) The enormous field of sassy-mouthed opinion-havers was eventually whittled down to ten, and according to Page Six, a surprise favorite has emerged: Former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, best known for his "I am a gay American" resignation speech. But with the other two spots still open, a Defamer operative tells us that none other than Jessica Simpson-loathing Bravo executive Andy Cohen managed to pull some strings and score an audition for himself:

People reports that Tom Cruise, having recently earned a certificate as a Level 5 Roadside Assistance Tech after weeks of intensive night school classes at the Celebrity Centre, put his newfound skillset to use this weekend by pulling over to check on the victims of a fender bender on the 101:

The weekend was a bittersweet blur of cheap Tijuana tequila, twenty-five cent lapdances from a pregnant stripper, and the gentle braying of the featured performer at finest donkey show you could find while half-blind from margarita poisoning. Prevent those memories from ever completely surfacing by meditating on the box office numbers.

· Mel, Week Two: The science of acting like a drunken asshole. Christians turn the other cheek. The Lieutenant Governor rethinks his endorsement. Tales of "The Cruncher." Dodger Stadium gets cold feet. Give a couple blonde chicks a celebrity meltdown, they'll eat for a lifetime. "I Am Israeli." "And fucked."
· Vanity Fair scores the first photos of Suri, though this creepy shot of mother and child safely behind electrified window bars may have beaten them to the punch.
· Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn's engagement debunked by poopy-sport publicist Stephen Huvane.
· SoaP Digest: Sam Jackson's method. Someone gets to the inevitable Liquids on a Plane before you can.
· Paris Hilton's ass-goiter makes its triumphant return and gives up sex. Her kinkajou bites the hand that feeds him.
· Joe Francis' counsel pleads the "giant, untameable member" defense.
· More bitchy infighting from the Spelling Girls.
· The Week in Lindsay: Spotted blowing rails of chocolate chip cookie crumbs at Hyde. Nightmare dispatches from the Herbie: Fully Loaded set.
· Robin Williams wins a Hairiest Newbie award at Hazelden Springbrook.
· Ex-agent Jamie Gold, reluctant poker hero.

· Miracles often manifest themselves in highly ironic fashion, so don't be immediately suspicious about the authenticity of the bagel with Mel Gibson's face on it up for sale on eBay.
If you're one of the privileged half-dozen or so subscribers to Defamer Text Messages and wonder why your recent news alerts no longer feature the words "rubyredbag," "whiteswallow," or "manloaf," see Valleywag's post about the 83 Words You Can't Say On Verizon Wireless.
The Blind Item Guessing Game, Mini Edition: DJ AM and Nicole Richie, according to some self-starting readers.
· This headline was so good we had no ability nor desire to read the actual story: "Patrick Swayze sweeps in sprinkling armfuls of magic dust."
· Ever wonder what makes that distinctive balls-slapping-against-ass sound so common in porno movies? Besides actual balls slapping against an ass?

There's something inspiring about looking at pictures of celebrities in the time before they made their rare evolutionary leap into the incredibly famous, physically flawless superbeings smiling back at us from the dozens of glossy magazines clogging the supermarket checkout racks. Back then, they were more or less human, not the demigods to whom we gladly sacrifice the family pet upon receiving an encoded message contained within an InTouch caption about Mariska Hargitay's shopping habits. Take, for example, these images of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt from this standard People "Before They Were Stars" feature; can even the most average among us not be heartened to discover that Jolie supported herself for years playing in a Don Dokken cover band while saving for a series of expensive and painful surgeries to make her massive bear paws more cosmetically acceptable, a noble perseverance that eventually was paid off by becoming one of the most beautiful and admired women in the world? Is there any way not to be overwhelmed by hope after looking at this photograph of Pitt's early catalogue work for Modern Fashions for Mildly Autistic Children from Beach Communities, then think about how the handsome actor has managed to overcome his own developmental problems and find incredible success? If these pictures are too much for you to handle, we urge you not to gaze upon this George Clooney yearbook photo, which will so fill you with the joy of the possible that you'll feel immediately compelled to knit his awkward, teenage likeness onto a blanket for your most cherished love one.

Our friends at TVGasm pointed out an amusing accident from last night's episode of Who Wants To Be A Superhero, in which the random results of a text message poll provided a tidy, three-letter commentary on a series which features muscular, grown men with Lycra fetishes cohabitating under the roof of Stan Lee's School for Utterly Ungifted Reality Show Crackpots. Don't feel bad, Tyveculus—it's not as if you aren't in good company.

Friday
· At the UCB Theatre tonight, The Dave Hill Explosion modestly claims to be "the most incredible thing that has ever happened in North America," while the B Squad promise to make fun of your highly stigmatized STD.
· Music round-up: Harvey Danger at Largo; Ben Harper at the Greek Theatre; Justin Timberlake causes spontaneous teenage panty combustion at the House of Blues.
Saturday
· We know that you are sick to death of film festivals by now, so why not head downtown to celebrate your favorite blocky, white, semiflavorless food at the Tofu Festival?
· ...but just in case you need the communal film experience this weekend, there's the third annual Topanga Film Festival, featuring shorts projected onto a giant, outdoor screen on a ball field overlooking Topanga Canyon.
· Make Magazine is throwing a launch party for its latest issue, but get ready for your blogasm: Make editor and BoingBoinger Mark Frauenfelder will be there. [via Cheapskatin' LA]
Sunday
· We're not really into the reggae, but we know that nearly all of our readers would probably like nothing better than to torch up a spliff and drift away at the Hollywood Bowl's Reggae Festival. Of course, there will also be plenty of spliff-torching at the Death Cab for Cutie show at the Greek.
· You hardly need to be sold on an Elvis double feature, so we'll just point you in the direction of the one at the Egyptian showing Follow That Dream and Kid Galahad.
· And lastly but certainly not least, there's charity no limit hold 'em poker tournament at the North Hollywood Masonic Lodge, where your ill-advised all-in with middle pair benefits AIDS Project LA.

Like an abusive boyfriend who apologizes for a blackened eye on a too-mouthy girlfriend with an expensive steak dinner (hey, he never meant to hurt you, baby), fashionable fauxteur Michael Bay keeps his cast and crew from leaving him by making sure that when he loses his temper, there is plenty of delicious food nearby to comfort the freshly tyrannized. Some disgruntled, yet well-fed, background actors on Bay's Transformers set are engaged in a "basic human dignity vs. 'Hey, is that an In N Out truck? Sweet!'" debate over Bay on the Background Beat message board:

Many of you probably awoke this morning with the same, nagging question hanging over your heads: How are things going lately with Lou Diamond Phillips and his live-in girlfriend? We're sad to report, not so great:

Because it's Friday, we're too hung over to work very hard, and it sounds like it might be fun to create an endless blog-feedback loop of hastily thrown together Photoshop parodies of Gwyneth Paltrow's infinitely mockable "I Am African" ads, we're sharing two of the submissions readers made to the informal contest east-coasted sister site Gawker kicked off based on our Mel Gibson-themed "I Am Israeli" offering from late yesterday. But in the interest of adding something new to the conversation, we point out today's Smoking Gun story that may help explain Patrick Swayze's motives (besides the usual, boring, self-promotional ones) for defending Gibson recently, in which Swayze crashes a Cessna, asks witnesses to ignore the Old Milwaukee fumes rising from his body while helping him ditch his onboard stash of booze, and which offers the dubious "pressurization problem" excuse as a novel aeronautical alternative to the more common "dehydration" gambit we've all come to know and love. Poor Swayze. It really does look like he's hasn't eaten since they packed up the craft services table on Black Dog.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so start sending them more often! Even if it's the fifth time you've spotted Jeremy Piven working the ladies' room line at Guy's, there will always be subtle variations on the theme. Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Bobby Brown hurl epithets in public at a woman who wasn't Whitney Houston.

Hosanna in the highest to this week's sponsors, whose beneficent conferring of monetary grace hath washed away the stain of original sin. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and have a loyal cult of Hollywood worshipers happily tithe half their earnings to your company, see this page.

· Any time distressing world events might possibly interfere with the entertainment industry's ability to make a buck, we must all pause, take a deep breath, and cry to the heavens, But what about the box office children?! Let the hand-wringing begin as Paramount worries about whether or not the recent scare over explosive-liquid-wielding terrorists blowing up airplanes will affect the opening weekend gross of their movie dramatically recreating that time terrorists actually blew up some airplanes. [Variety]
In an story that only a studio's publicity department could possibly care about, Paramount announces that M:i:III will be the first! movie! ever! in! history! to be simultaneously released in classic DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray flavors. We put aside our sarcastic enthusiasm to note with genuine interest the fact that the Blu-Ray version of the DVD will contain a groundbreaking feature allowing the viewer to replace Tom Cruise with any one of five less creepy actors at the touch of a button. [THR]
NBC ensures that it can meet all of syndicated TV's demand for pantsuits and Navratilova haircuts for the near future, renewing Ellen Degeneres' talk show for another three years. [Variety]
· Shitergy alert! ABC rebrands its sports coverage as ESPN on ABC, but stresses that the change will in no way make Chris Berman any less annoying. [THR]
Hollywood Out of Ideas, Fucking Amazing Iron Maiden Songs Edition: Universal closes in on a deal for Christopher Nolan to direct a big-screen version of the TV series The Prisoner. [Variety]

Paris Hilton fancies herself a modern Dr. Dolittle of sorts, having amassed an impressive menagerie of exotic pets, probably convinced she's fluent in their native tongue. ("Do you love my new album, Baby Luv?" "Eee-eee!" "That's hot.") And while she no doubt surrounds herself with the creatures for their judgment-free, unconditional love, even a tree-dwelling mammal can get snippy after its 2000th subjection to "Stars Are Blind."

Please note the newswire's careful repetition of the "former TV show host" identifier, a compassionate touch obviously included to prevent a series of tearful condolence phone calls to Catherine Zeta-Jones—whose much older husband, quite frankly, is probably one more sexagenarian facelift away from some tragic, fatal complications.

Former agent Jamie Gold lost his valiant battle with fame early this morning, winning the World Series of Poker (on a bluff, naturally), its $12 million purse, and the lifelong curse of being upsold to a multisong, private room lapdance by every stripper in Vegas who recognizes him as "that rich poker guy." Keenly aware of their newest ambassador's ambivalence for his forced role as the Face of Poker, World Series organizers made Gold as comfortable as possible by supplementing their monetary spoils with a treat harkening back to his Hollywood life as an agent, hiding a fleshy, newborn baby inside the pile of his prize money, then inviting him to burrow inside right there at the table and partake of his victory snack.

This morning, as nearly all mornings have over the past two weeks, begins with a Mel Gibson item. But this is not yet another retelling of the story of the temporary, tequila-and-hate-drenched fall of one of Hollywood's biggest stars; rather, this is the tale of the Gibson Affair's redefining of the American Dream itself. Whereas once this Dream was comprised of a vague desire to work hard and live better than the generation of suckers who came before, it now looks something like this: