Thanks to yesterday's record-setting tech woes, we never had the chance to tell you how we really feel:

• The Village Voice gets its very own hipster-Blair, in the form of young Nick Sylvester, who fabricated parts of his cover story. Upon being caught, he fainted outside of editor Doug Simmons' office, only to find himself suspended upon regaining consciousness. Meanwhile, freelancers bitch about the possibilty of the story being a stolen pitch and Sylvester loses his indie cred by being asked to resign from his haute music-reviewing gig at Pitchfork.
EXHALE! And in other news:

When life gives you a literary hoax, make hoaxster-ade: Weinstein Co. plans to bring a "biopic" about fictitious author J.T. Leroy, based on the articles by the NY Times reporter who outed the fakery. We fear that a tale of James Frey's tragic post-Oprah existence will be announced shortly. [Variety]
Zach Braff will reunite with his Garden State producer to adapt, direct, produce and co-star in remake of 2002 Danish romantic drama Open Hearts for Paramount. And just in case you were wondering on embattled Paramount president Gail Berman's role in this, she was "instrumental in bringing the project to the studio." There, now you know what she's been up to. [THR]
HBO just wants "to be in the Dane Cook business," signing the comedian to develop a series, headline a stand-up special, star in a tour documentary, produce and star in original content for non-traditional platforms, and if he so chooses, open up Dane's Joint, a stand-up comedy theme restaurant. [Variety]
Pilot news clearinghouse: Jesse Bradford is cast in in ABC drama Twenty Questions, Eddie McClintock in NBC's untitled Chris Sheridan comedy, Gerald "Major Dad" McRaney in CBS drama Jericho, and Mo Collins joins Patricia Heaton's untitled comedy at ABC. [THR]
· Crash's original song nominee, "In the Deep," will not be disqualified from Oscar contention. Also, an appeal to the Academy to disqualify the film from the Best Picture category under the arcane "You've got to be fucking kidding me" provision failed, and any votes cast for the movie will stand. [Variety]

• Rapper Lil' Kim, who's been serving time since September for perjury, is finding prison to be more tough than she expected: Her gargantuan breast implants are leaking. That's some definite street cred right there. [R&M]
• Times reporter Warren St. John sells the movie rights to his articles uncovering the J.T. Leroy hoax for Harvey Weinstein. Expect New York mag, which explored the hoax before St. John made the ultimate declaration, to spontaneously combust with anger. [Page Six]
• Bonnie Fuller has invited Courtney Cox to shadow the AMI beast around the office for a day; Cox is preparing for her upcoming sitcom roll as a tabloid queen who magically aborts celebrities' babies. [Lowdown (last item)]
• Divorce is hard enough; divorce when you have a thing for trannies is even worse. [Page Six]
• If cracky singer Whitney Houston is indeed pregnant, Child Protective Services should probably start preparing now. [Scoop]

When we first received word about last night's premiere of The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, based on the book by Fake Writer J.T. Leroy, we were a little bit blown away. After New York magazine and the Times exposed Leroy as a complete fraud, a nonexistent individual fabricated by a woman named Laura Albert in order to gain literary success, how could these people possibly have the motivation to host an honest-to-God premiere and after-party? Were they actually sending us a freaking tip sheet for a film spawned from a lie, complete with the names of expected A-list attendees like Mandy Moore and Maggie Gyllenhaal? And were the Misshapes kids really DJing the fucking after-party, where Leroy himself was expected to appear? Certainly such a wheelbarrow of bullshit couldn t be for real but it was. When the balls behind an event are that overgrown, we have to attend.

• Winona Ryder was in on the JT Leroy hoax and even concocted a detailed story about how she met Leroy for Vanity Fair's profile of him in 2003. Bitch! You are now officially a Fake Actress, Winona, and we don't care how pixie-cute you are. [Page Six]
• The battle of words and egos between Donald Trump and Martha Stewart continues; now Martha's daughter Alexis is getting involved. The two talked ill of the Donald's derriere and its relation to his silver spoon. [R&M]
• Morrissey the terrorist? Think about it. He's got the perfect cover, but those eyes are dark. Too dark. [Contact Music]
• Some cracknut named Larry Garrison claims to "own" the Natalee Holloway story, but he also claims to be "a journalist, actor, producer, motivational speaker and White House media consultant." So, you know. [Lowdown]

From the masthead of the new BlackBook:

A theater in San Francisco has displayed posters for the forthcoming The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, the movie based on the fake life of fake and altogether nonexistent writer JT Leroy. Wisely, Palm Pictures has chosen to incorporate the hoax into their marketing tactics — one poster even includes far-too-long excerpts from the Times and New York articles about the scandal.

• London papers cater to their demos. [BigShinyThing]
• If you're so lucky as to have a lover this Valentine's Day, remember: He spent last night cheating on you. [WSJ]
• Stoners fight for the right to, uh, be stoned: Free the Cartoon Network, dude. [SetCartoonFree]
• Big dick wants to shoot you in the face, give you a heart attack, and hit you up for some more contributions before you die. [Craigslist]
• Crisis: the Fashion Killers show has been cancelled! Could Laura Albert not find someone to play celebrity DJ and Fake Writer JT Leroy in time? Not exactly — we hear Knoop was at the show last night, though not in her Leroy costume. [Fashion Killers]
• Downtown softcore parties Rated X and Hot Fuckin' Pink might be a bit too pervy for the owners of Scenic. Poor Gawker paparazzo Nikola Tamindzic may have to shoot pornography elsewhere. [VV]

Tonight and tomorrow at the Four Points Sheraton, the Fashion Killers (whatever that means) will be showing avant-garde wares from San Francisco designers. You care, of course, because the invite boldly proclaims that JT Leroy will be on the turntable at some point. We've no idea if this means Laura Albert (the woman who concocted Leroy) is playing off of her iPod or if Savannah Knoop will be toting a collection of DFA 7-inches — but, seriously, what the fuck? JT Leroy is getting more press and work than the rest of the literary community combined, and the dude doesn't even exist.

• Meet Tony Danza's daughter, 18-year-old Katie. Katie's a Delta Gamma at the University of Miami. She loves Lindsay Lohan, shoes, the color pink, and building massive gravity bongs. On the bright side, this is the sort of exposure Tony Danza just can't buy. [Ignore Mag]
• You know things are looking down for Fake Writer JT Leroy when he/she/it asks Courtney Love for help finding a literary agent. [Gatecrasher]
• Jamie Foxx cuts Mary J. Blige's solo from his debut album; we're still trying to understand why, exactly, Jamie Foxx even has an album. [Lowdown]
• The newly, uh, pudgy Janet Jackson has been ordered by her record label to lose weight. Virgin refuses to release her latest album unless she drops at least 20 pouds, and they've hired her a personal trainer. Apparently, it's hard to market a corpulent pop star. [Page Six]
• Someday, Ron Perelman and Ellen Barkin will settle their divorce, and then we can judge how much she got by whatever piece of property she buys next. [R&M (2nd item)]
• One last gasp from Fashion Week: IMG security men remove veteran Times photog Bill Cunningham from Betsey Johnson's show. Johnson's pissed, but not as pissed, we're guessing, as Guy Trebay and the Styles posse. [Page Six]
• In a Valentine's Day special from hell, Dr. Phil helps Paula Abdul find love — though she allegedly already has a boyfriend. Wonder how he feels about that. [Scoop]

Another bit on the JT Leroy mess: In addition to today's Times article, in which Geoffrey Knoop comes forward and claims that his partner Laura Alpert is the real JT Leroy (to reiterate: duh), New York makes mention of Geoffrey Knoop possibly shopping around a tell-all of his side of the story. This would coincide nicely with any sort of romantic issues Knoop and Alpert are rumored to be going through, though none of the legal-types involved with the Leroy/Albert/Knoop trifecta of bullshit claim to know anything about a book or a breakup.

And finally, on the front page of today's Arts section, Warren St. John finally brings us the JT Leroy denouement:

After the author known as JT Leroy was more or less revealed to be the concoction of Laura Alpert and played, in public, by her stepdaughter Samantha Knoop, we find it beyond comprehension that Knoop (we assume) would have the audacity to go to Sundance and flit about in that fucking wig and glasses. But that's exactly what happened, courtesy of the video above, sent to us by a reader. The footage is a bit messy and it ends with an entertainingly unpleasant confrontation (keep that volume on, kids), but you can still catch JT Knoop or whomever skanking about, oozing that truck-stop hooker vibe.

• Jesus, whether you believe in him or not, loves you, and that's why he's given you the documents from Paris Hilton's deposition. You knew the bitch was dumb, but you never could have predicted this level of retardation. It's medical, really.
• The transcript for Colin Farrell's sex tape makes our hearts surge with hope. Just like we felt the first time we saw Bridget Jones' Diary.
• We expect NYC restaurants to be filthy, but Soho House? Oh, the $1300/year horror of it all!
• We've seen promo posters for The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, based on the book by Fake Writer JT Leroy — and the marketing department behind them clearly has no clue what the fuck is going on.
• Opinionistas writer Melissa Lafsky is revealed. Now that you know her name, you can also know she's the estranged step-sister of Jordan Catalano!
• William Shatner returns to his true calling as an awards show host, which naturally ups the worth of his kidney stone to $25K.
• Packs of cigarettes seem to be falling from the sky, for reasons we can't quite figure out. Either some sneaky guerrilla marketing is afoot, or God has taken pity on your habit.
• Your job sucks. Get a new one with Gawker Jobs.
• Stop reading James Frey, and defintely stop reading him in public.
• Tina Brown takes a "break" from the Washington Post. Will we ever see her again? Or has she lost her will to buzz?!

Perhaps not the best tag for a film based on the work of JT Leroy.

We were flipping through the press clippings included with It's Not Me, It's You, the hardcover debut from former Observer and Post writer Anna Jane Grossman and Los Angeleno Flint Wainess, and we noticed a blurb mentioning that none other than Fake Writer JT Leroy had contributed "his" worst breakup story to the book. Considering JT Leroy doesn't, you know, really exist, we found his essay to be delightful. A sampling:

Click to enlarge.

We've spent an unhealthy amount of time alone lately, quietly mulling over the implications of the synchronized scandals of James Frey, who falsified key details in his Oprah-sanctioned rehab memoir A Million Little Pieces, and JT LeRoy, who falsified a tragic past and a case of AIDS when, in fact, he doesn't really exist. We've pored over our old texts of literary theory and given much thought to existential issues of criticism, but we're still not sure how to feel about this whole stupid mess. Help us, won't you?

• Only because we have to: Colin Farrell's sex tape. Enjoy, if that's your thing. And it probably is, considering it's someone worth seeing naked. The site has only been working intermittently, so you can use your imagination with this artfully cropped screen shot. [DirtyColin]
• While New York begs us all to remember that they were on the scent of JT Leroy's scam long before Warren St. John and the Times, let's all remember that the Village Voice was on this one, oh, four years ago. [VV]
• Let the mockery begin: "What I Plan to Embellish for Obvious Dramatic Reasons in My Own Forthcoming Memoir." [Minor Tweaks]
• You never forget your first Goatse. [Flickr via EdRants]
• Anderson Cooper undergoes an emotional investigation into the emotional work of Anderson Cooper. [Slate]
• Thanks to the expanding laws of the universe, mass quantities of douchenuggets are now able to enjoy simultaneously looking like a Gotti. [Sherdog]
• Breaking: Avril Lavigne is a LADY! [PITNB]