The NY Times recently had the opportunity to trail legendary Hollywood creature of the night, Jeremy Piven (whom they claim we "rag" on, though we like to think of it as exaltation). Piven was in town for the premiere of his new movie at the Tribeca Film Festival, a cinematic exploration of Bar Mitzvah one-upmanship called Keeping Up With the Steins. Like a man who has spent perhaps one too many hours at home rehearsing speed-talking monologues into a full-length mirror, Piven worked/confused the crowd of reporters like an ADD-afflicted pro:

TMZ.com's paparazzi video of Jeremy Piven carrying an incapacitated woman on the sidewalk outside of new club Shag might look like the actor merely dropped by for some take-out, but such misunderstandings are why publicists have jobs:

Page Six understandably may not be quite on their game lately, but something in today's item about another one of those Entourage episodes shot at a real! live! Lakers game has made us wonder if their editors' sanity has begun to crack under the payola-spotlight pressure:

Still smelling of rose water and cardamom from his Journey of a Lifetime, Jeremy Piven has perhaps gotten a little spoiled by India's "all the girls you can bag in an hour for 5000 Rupees" policy. A quick meeting with the Entourage producers and one Craigslist posting later, and suddenly a "female models"-only mass casting opportunity is born:

Call it a radical image recalibration for one of Hollywood's most ubiquitous club monkeys, call it a seeker's spiritual journey through the subcontinent, or call it an opportunity to scam on some totally slammin' Indian chicks (voiceover for a Piven-grinding-on-the-dancefloor montage: "With 500 million female targets, you gotta love the odds."), whatever. All we know is that on concept alone, Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime has a chance to touch Taradise-level greatness, even if he never gets around to going drunk-parasailing with Cusack and some local talent.

So all-consuming was yesterday's obsession with Lindsay Lohan's peek-a-boo nipple shot from the General Motors Ten celebrity fashion show that Jeremy Piven's incredible breakdancing performance was almost lost to history. Seeing a still of The Piv getting down (when is that guy finally going to shake his crippling shyness in the spotlight?) over at Open All Night made us curious about what the rest of his routine looked like, leading us to the wire for this incredible sequence of photographs capturing the kinetic poetry of his worm in its appropriate glory. We imagine that the apparent unavailability of a dirty sheet of cardboard (and perhaps one too few preparatory vodka tonics) prevented Piven from capping his dance with his legendary headspins, but considering the potential follicular setbacks such a move might inflict, perhaps that's for the best.

Could that be the crown prince of Hollywood's swingin' singles scene, Entourage's Jeremy Piven, styled to within an inch of his existence (blazer collar flipped up, if you please) on the cover of Los Angeles magazine's nightlife issue? Why, yes, it is! The interview isn't on their website yet, but should you get your hands on a copy, on page 123 you'll find a treasure of personal philosophies on one of Piven's favorite subjects nightprowling in LA. A sampling:

A Defamer operative sends in this report of what starts out as your standard issue Hollywood brat party jaded hipsters, the cast of The O.C., honorary "cool" party dad Jeremy Piven but thanks to some shoddy workmanship, quickly takes a disastrous turn for the soggy:

The incredible flood of "No roaming charges, bitch!" and "Unlimited in-network calling, bitch!" jokes made us black out for a few minutes, but after we came to (the interns are pretty quick with the smelling salts), we realized that doing regional endorsements is perhaps not as distressingly small-time as we first believed. After all, Jeremy Piven's on board with the best network in Cincinnati, and when he, Vince, and the Entourage boys are cruising the Midwest for tail, he needs a service provider that isn't gonna drop his calls right as he's about to close a deal with an Explorer full of starstruck honies.

· Jeremy Piven is in final talks to star in an untitled New Line "man vs. nature" comedy. Get ready for it: "Piven will play a smug Portland, Ore., real estate developer who accepts a challenge from his real estate mogul boss to develop a pristine forest in the hopes of being promoted to partner. He gets more than he bargained for when the area's animal residents start taking their revenge on him and wreak havoc on his every attempt to develop the land." Piven finally gets the lead, and he has to do an angry-raccoons-attacking-uptight-suit" flick? He should fire his agent. Again. [THR]
· SATC creator Darren Star leaves behind the world of shoe-shopping and funky spunk to develop an hour-long BBC soap about Formula One racing, "an enormous sport overseas that barely exists here." Next up: Star's sassy look at the world of cricket players' wives. [Variety]
· Annals of stunt casting: Tom Selleck will guest star on Boston Legal as Candace Bergen's ex-husband. [THR]
· Shitergy alert: USA and Bravo will pay sister company NBC Universal $1.4 million an episode for cable rights to House reruns, a hefty sum that should nip in the bud any notions that the cable nets got some sort of sweetheart deal from their corporate sibling. [Variety]
· In fairness, NBC doesn't get trounced in the ratings every single night. Last night's Biggest Loser finale did big numbers, giving them their highest (non-Olympic) rating in that timeslot in four long years, prompting president Kevin Reilly to immediately demand that his Loser finalist regain their weight for a live, two-hour special "pound-off" during February sweeps. [THR]

Further blurring Entourage's hazy fiction/reality lines (Ari Gold-the-character sitting in Ari Emanuel-the-inspiration's Lakers' seats; Bono giving Johnny Drama a shout-out, in the middle of an actual U2 concert), the NY Post reports today that Aquaman, the fictional project that drove most of Entourage's second season plot, is now Aquaman, the very real Smallville spinoff, coming soon to a WB affiliate and Whopper wrapper near you:

A high-level Defamer operative filed this brief report on a Halloween party for Top 40 mediocrities Maroon 5 at music producer Rick Rubin's place, where Jeremy Piven proved that stale pick-up lines don't necessarily play any better on a night when half of your quarry is dressed as highly sexualized versions of nurses, various varieties of felines, and schoolgirls:

Not too long ago, Entourage's Jeremy Piven (it's going to take a couple of movies before that "Entourage's" identifier goes away) complained to Liz Smith, "I don't think that anybody has ever seen my body!" Be careful what you wish for, Piv. From Page Six:

Entourage's Jeremy Piven and Eva Longoria of Desperate Housewives share a tender moment as they arrive at the Emmys: "Listen, baby, I'm a lock for this Emmy. If you know what's good for you, you'll meet me in the men's bathroom in two minutes for a celebration and we'll do some things you'll need to tell your priest about tomorrow. Sound good? No? See these bunny ears? When Marc Cherry gets bored of you banging the gardener and kills off your character, you're going to be wearing a set when you serve me a maitai in the Grotto."

· 'I DON'T think anybody has ever seen my body!" Jeremy Piven complains to Liz Smith about how he yearns to doff Ari Gold's Armani straightjacket and unleash the pecs n' pythons on the public. Next season on Entourage: Lloyd slathers Ari in sunblock at the Standard's pool as the agent once again tries to talk Vince out of quitting Aquaman. [via Jossip]
· The Prettiest Pony blog recorded the minutes from last night's The OC premiere. And while we're on the subject, did anyone else notice that sometime during the time it took for Coop to shoot Trey and for the gang to bring him to the hospital, everyone had a chance to get new haircuts?
· Sometimes we think that Britney Spears got knocked up just so she could get fat without the stigma.
· Reality TV's infamous Fat Naked Gay Guy in a Tree, Richard Hatch of Survivor, has been hit with ten counts of tax evasion and other wonderful tax-related no-nos.
· Come to think of it, yeah, that Nic Cage really is kind of a Mopey Marvin!

It seems like just yesterday that a source within ICM called the rumor that client Jeremy Piven had, ahem, shitcanned ICM in favor of CAA, the poach-happiest agency in town, "completely untrue and patently false." Cut to almost exactly 24 hours later:

We've heard a rumor (of the unconfirmed, but nonetheless fun, variety, so take it for what it's worth) that Jeremy Piven, Entourage''s lovable Ari Gold, a character we are contractually obligated to mention is at least partly based on Official Agent Dance Mascot Ari Emanuel, has shitcanned agent Jim Osborne at ICM for a shark-to-be-named-later at CAA. Excuse us, that sounds harsh. How about crapcanned?

From today's Page Six, the heartwarming tale of how Defamer's Official Agent Dance Mascot, Endeavor's Smilin' Ari Emanuel, may not exactly hate it when people pay attention to him:

The following event (a reader spotted the press release over at the Franklin Avenue blog), featuring Entourage's Jeremy Piven and Hustle & Flow's Anthony Anderson reading their favorite erotica to an intimate gathering at Forty Deuce, is jointly sponsored by Svedka Vodka and Bad Idea Jeans:

Please accept this picture of Jeremy Piven out carousing during the Entourage gang's recent trip to Vegas as a token of our contrition for mounting the proverbial pooch on the Leo DiCaprio picture. And we're far too ignorant to know how Viagra works its turgid magic, but if you divide the 16 minute refractory period between two eager fans, does that technically cut the "turnaround time" down to eight minutes? Just wondering.