· Diddy craves Tony; marathon man reportedly staring in the new Broadway revival of "Raisin in the Sun." Besides acting like a hip hop star in his music videos, he was executed in Monster's Ball and is currently shooting "Love in Vain," a bio-flick about blues legend Robert Johnson. To Mr. Combs' credit, he actually auditioned. [Broadway.com] and [NY Post]
· PR magnet Lizzie Grubman in talks with MTV about a new show. That girl just won't let failure after failure keep her down. That's gumption! [NY Daily News]
· Tina Brown contemplates 2003 and 2004, the years in review and preview. "Today's journalism seems to be a day late and a dollar short half the time," the author of the weekly Washington Post column says. "I still think there are so many stories that are not being done out of short attention span or fear of corporate pressures on editors." [NY Post]
· Vogue's Anna Wintour reportedly grabs a place in Grenada. What? [NY Post]
· Barbara Walters on why the Queer Eye Fab Five are collectively one of the 10 Most Fascinating People: "There are people who are perhaps a bit homophobic, but who enjoy these guys and this show and who see them as warm and funny and nice men." The ABC special airs tonight and - we hope - Paris Hilton has a chance at 2003's Most Fascinating Ever! [NY Daily News]
· No, you stole my boyfriend! Senior year is filled with social land mines for young actresses Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lowan. Aaron Carter is mine! Mom! Get her out of here... Oww, witch, stop pulling my hair! [Ny Post]
· Tom Cruise talks to Details regarding his legal wishes when the press turns sour: "Just sue. Just do it. Sue, sue, sue. Do it. Go, go, go, go." Such a nice guy. [Wash Post]

· Directors Lars von Trier and PT Anderson chat it up. [via Low Culture]
· I Love Karl Rove.com.
· 10 Best Books I Didn't Read This Year.
· Abercrombie & Fitch: the smut is back?

· At yesterday's New York Magazine Awards, Vogue's Anna Wintour presented P.Diddy with the Music/Business award. Still ranting about wanting to make a remake of Marathon Man, Diddy announced "I lost another toenail last night. I already lost one, and if I lose another one I'm gonna have permanent damage to my feet. I did it for the kids, and I'm glad I did it, but my feet are hurtin.'"... Nearby, Publisher Jason Binn lunching with Fox News executive Roger Ailes in the Four Seasons Grill Room. CNN's Paula Zahn turned away to avoid cat fight with Ailes, who previously compared her to "a dead raccoon." Liberal head Al Franken shook Ailes' hand and walked away with an award, presented by Ann Coulter-bashing Tina Fey of SNL. Senator Clinton, Barbara Walters, Marisa Tomei, Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg, among those in attendance. [NY Post] and [NY Daily News] and [NYT]
· Wenner Communications throws its holiday party on closing night of Us Weekly for the second year in a row; hey, Us staffers want to get drunk and make out with interns too! [NY Post]
· Hip hop/fashion mogul Russell Simmons' wife, Kimora Lee Simmons, of Baby Phat clothing, may be responsible for a 49,000-sq. ft. mansion with 20 bathrooms, five maids, four assistants, two drivers, and a 25-carat diamond ring, but "extravagance is in the eye of the beholder," she says. While their two toddlers take yoga, swimming, ballet, piano, gymnastics, and Italian classes, "I am teaching them to respect the oneness of humanity and to never look down on someone who is less privileged or fortunate." [NY Daily News]
· Singer Alicia Keys, speaking from the wrong side of celebrity reality, says, "I see some of my peers and how they are always in the news, out at parties, and I go to myself, 'Please, just go somewhere and sit down. Let us miss you.' I'm not wearing booty shorts, or low-cut blouses or see-through dresses for anybody, no matter who asks me. The music is all I'm selling." [NY Post]
· Nicole Kidman on J.Lo: "I would love to have boobs and a butt like Jennifer Lopez. I honestly would! But I can't get them and I'm not going to have surgery, so there it is guys." [The Scoop]
· Crobar: a return to the 80s, violence and all. Clubgirl gets 185 stitches after opening night. Yow. [NY Post]

Sightings are provided by readers. Send yours to tips@gawker.com

· White Stripe and Von Bondie enjoy fistfight in Detroit. [via Whatevs]
· 2003: gays evidently retain less water in 'watershed year' for homosexuals.
· For depressed artsy folks only: TMN's Top 10 Albums of 2003.
· The NYT's reportedly dirty sexy annoying internet ads... don't actually exist, according to a Times spokesperson.

BREAKING: we hear Miramax Book's Jonathan Burnham has signed Saddam Hussein for a biography for a hefty 7 figures; Saddam also in Hollywood talks to hold court as Hollywood Square's center square — ex-dictator threatens to behead funny-mo' Bruce Vilanch.

· This may be one of the best gossip items of all time: Naomi Campbell "pals around" with hot Chechen oligarch. Is romance in the air? Or assassination? Only time will tell! [NY Post] and [NYDN]
· Learning Channel shoots "reality show" called "Faking It" about a Midwestern girl who moves to New York, goes to parties, and tries to social climb. Err, how is this different than the way the rest of us moved here? [NYDN]
· The Hiltons are heading to Hawaii for Christmas and the Hamptons for New Year's. "We'll just rent videos," said mother Kathy. [NY Post]
· Kidman, Stewart, Lopez and Affleck, Schwarzenegger, Fab Five, and Hillary Clinton are on deck for Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People of the Year special. Dare she include Paris "I am 2003" Hilton? [NY Post]
NYT Joyce "I hate the gossip industry" Wadler gets the long-rumored month off from her Boldface Names column. [Newsday]

· Group Hug: anonymous confessions.
· Slice, a weblog about New York-style pizza. (Who says the internet is useless?) [via NYC Eats]
· Tyco exec takes stand, explains the $10 million in art purchases.

· Paris Hilton is the favored pick for I Want Media's Media Person of the Year, according to the votes already cast. Celebrity magazine mogul Bonnie Fuller is a close second. Perhaps Paris can pull another stunt before year's end to solidify her win. [NY Post]
· Uma goes for the room service; now dating hotelier Andre Balazs. [NYDN]
· Madonna is not a pop star, she is a teacher. "If I taught people earlier in my career, it was by default. I wasn't consciously thinking of sharing in any way. I was just showing off . . . I felt full of myself." Was kissing Britney showing off? "We were playing with lots of post-modern iconography." Oh, that's what they call it now. (Last item). [NY Post]
· Michael Jackson's Neverland may be sold, according to Cindy Adams. As one comedian says, it should have been renamed Never Again ten years ago. [NY Post]

· Our favorite crackpot, director David Lynch, is trying to funnel $1 billion to promote mass meditation and establish a University of World Peace. "On the surface there's the giggle," he said. "I would just encourage people to look more deeply into this, and the giggles go away, unless it's just a giggle of pure happiness at the beauty of this — because this plan has been tested... Every time it's been tested it's reduced crime and violence." Here's for meditating on better uses of $1 billion. [Reuters]
· Hobbit posse: "No, we're not having a threeway." [E!]
· Gwyneth Paltrow played out the paparazzi by arranging for her brother's girlfriend, photographer Taryn Simon, to snap photos of Chris Martin kissing her womb. The photos sold for $150,000 and the couple jetted to their Hawaiian honeymoon after managing the chaos. V. v. Miramax of them. [NY Daily News]
· Paris Hilton has been approved to play former supermodel Janice Dickinson in a film version of Dickinson's memoirs. "I also have a porn tape floating around out there somewhere," says Dickinson. "You know I was a socialite in another life." Yes, another life when supermodels, not socialites, ran the fashion world. [Liz Smith]
· Heiress Nicky Hilton is negotiating for a talk show about "pop culture, music, sports, fashion, a little bit of everything," she says. On why she avoided Altus, Arkansas: "I'm in college and I like my private life, also." She added she will relish the opportunity to inquire about other people's private lives on her talk show... [NY Post]

· Danceteria flyers, 1982 - 1986.
· "One of the first things I learned while working at Barnes & Noble was that you should never, ever pay for a book." The Barnes & Noble Experience.
· The media tries yet again to make a story out of hell-bound teenagers using color-coded jelly bracelets as pick-up mechanism; "sex bracelets" story refuses to stick.
[all three items via TMN]

· In keeping with today's Jew theme: for the first night of the festival of lights, give her "JustJew, the perfume by Hugo Boss."
· The Low Culture guide to holiday giving.
· Jack Nicholson powders his nose at the Ziegfield.

· Michael's, the restaurant of choice for the media-addled, now includes the Star in its pile of readables at the front. (last item) [NYO]
· Liza Minnelli will guest star as a widowed socialite on six episodes of Fox's Arrested Development. "I'm having such fun doing it because I'm finally allowed to use my comic ability," she says. 'Finally?' But we thought the whole David Gest marriage schtick was hillaaaarious. [BBC News]
· Jerry Seinfeld is making "Bee Movie," a animated film about bees for Dreamworks. "I have always been fascinated by bee society, the world's most harmoniously run organization, and now I finally am going to be in it," the comedian says. Mr. Seinfeld also said, "Dreamworks; ka-ching!" [Washington Post]
· No, you drive me crazy. Britney on his mind, Justin Timberlake recently gave some shot-outs to teenage girls' self esteem: "Girls, if you ever look in the mirror and wonder, 'Why did he leave me?' you know why. 'Cause you're crazy.'" [The Scoop]
· Queer Eye Carson Kressly on Cher: "She's sort of like Jesus," though "she's very down to earth." (As opposed to high on a hill, hanging off the cross, evidently.) Moreover, he says, she "is a diva in a good sense of the word, meaning that she's supremely talented and superstylin'." [NY Daily News]
· J. Lo won't be seen in any more gender-neutral Louis Vuitton adverts. Her contract was not renewed for 2004 because "she took tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise with her - and even sent her assistant back to collect a particularly nifty pair of socks she forgot," according to Page Six. [NY Post]

· Time Warner Cable to offer undoubtedly shitty telephone service as well as internet and TV. [via Bunny Mech]
· Average Joe's Adam in Fortune, back in the internet stock bubble. Related: Melana in high school.
· Follow-up: Chloe Sevigny did indeed topple in her Balenciaga boots, really did lose four front teeth. [via No Good]

· Michael Jackson allegations were already investigated and called "unfounded," according to a memo obtained by The Smoking Gun. Interviews with the boy's family showed there was not an inappropriate relationship with "The Entertainer." [The Smoking Gun]
· The Post gives confirmation that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin were formally married last Friday. Well, that was anticlimactic. In related news, my cousin Shirley got secretly married when she got knocked up too. [NY Post]
· Former cheerleader Melana, the "glycerine-eyed" star of the reality dating show "Average Joe," chose to take pretty boy Jason to the prom instead of nerdy Adam. The Times says it is an affirmation that looks matter, but there is a moral: "Melana did not choose money over looks. She just chose looks. Or as she put it, 'He's not only gorgeous, he's very sincere.'" [NY Times[
· Paris Hilton could snag $3 million for a new reality show, likely on Fox. Pal Nicole Richie could not be reached in her shooting gallery for comment. Fox, meanwhile, has compiled a "bonus" episode of bloopers for Dec. 17. Praise God. [NY Post]
· The Hilton clan is proud of Paris' performance on Saturday Night Live. US Weekly editor Janice Min, who hopes to do lunch with Paris today, chimes in, "The last thing she needed was for people to think she was ashamed and she had something to hide." Yes, that's the last thing Paris needed. [NY Daily News]
· President George and Laura Bush grant Diane Sawyer an exclusive interview following her impressive interview of Britney Spears. Laura breaks down over her past with Justin Timberlake. [The Scoop]
· Mayor Bloomberg auditions for a cameo on "Will & Grace" by making jokes at a gay gala. (Hello, I mean: gayla.) [NY Daily News]

· Tom Wolfe's white hat is all abobble about the fate of 2 Columbus Circle.
· Local news anchor roundup: who's hot, and who must be banned from the airwaves. (Buh bye, Sue Simmons and Chuck Scarborough.)
· Amy Sohn explains why all those thousands of nice, normal heterosexual men in Manhattan date completely crazy wacko women. (Yes, in fact, I did type that with sarcasm.)

Okay, I have stayed far too long in Miami, so I'm hopping a plane back to Man-fucking-hattan today. I need to see a man without pec implants or a woman without two shades of lipliner and fast. So you'll pardon my absence for part of this afternoon — for some completely inexplicable reason, I am forced to fly commercial, so there won't be any satellite internet on the airplane.

· Rosie O'Donnell donates $25,000 for a "Fab Five Room" in the Harvey Milk High School. Heralded as the gayest act of philanthropy, a few hundred dirty straights will be paid to lie around and be aesthetically improved into what we like to call "tardosexuals": people so insecure that they need a gang of homos to tell them how to act and dress. [NY Post]
· Paris Hilton would leave her post-sex tape cocoon for Leonardo DiCaprio. Or wait: make that SNL's Jimmy Fallon. ("Do they allow double occupancy at the Paris Hilton?" asks Jimmy.) [NY Post] [FallonFey.com]
· Eminem is already being investigated by the Secret Service because of his (unreleased) song that mentions a dead president. Related: Child Protective Services is looking at Britney Spears's "Hit Me Baby One More Time." (Oh, c'mon, that's an old joke but it's funny. Get it? Because they're just songs, and... ack, never mind.) [Drudge]

Paris Hilton does Bergdorf's:

· "[T]he late Chairman Mao was on to something when he forced certain urbanites to rural 'reeducation camps' to learn from the peasants." [Flak Magazine, The Simple Life]
· "I don t want to be told Shoshanna Lonstein is famous because she dated Jerry Seinfeld. I want the standards back. Otherwise, I m liable to set the offices of Us ablaze. And then I ll be a somebody." [Banterist, 'Making It' Made Easy]
· "At the end of my audition they said, 'Give us a hip tip,' and I said, 'Sample sales and Fischerspooner.' I thought they were going to vomit." [Michael Musto on his Queer Eye audition in Paper, Queer Eye for Queer Guy]