"Who's the gay rapper?" It's been a parlor game in hip hop for years. A short and incomplete list of some of the most common names tossed around: Kanye West, Puffy, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Common, and, of course, lisping, yoga-master rap mogul Russell Simmons. While there are plenty of rumors for each one, most of those guys are suspected, honestly, because of their fashion sense (except Lil Wayne, who kissed a guy). Or because somebody's homeboy's cousin knows this cat who Puffy tried to do a three-way with. Innuendo is king. But now a formerly closeted gay MTV music executive named Terrance Dean is about to release a book—which has been anticipated for more than a year—that he says will out the gay rappers once and for all. Don't be mad, y'all! This could be the chance of a lifetime for one lucky closeted homosexual.

• Natalie Portman was with her hippie boyfriend in a park when she got peed on by a dog. There's a picture and everything! Happy Tuesday! [Post]

· Kanye West brings his Glow In The Dark Tour to the Nokia Theater, You, Me & Iowa will be at the Echo (with Radars to the Sky!) and indie wuss Jonathan Rice will be performing at Spaceland.
· Animation pro and Academy Award winner John Lasseter (of Pixar fame) screens and discusses Dumbo with Curtis Hanson as part of the UCLA Archive’s “The Movie That Inspired Me” series at the Billy Wilder Theater. [via]
· Marya Hornbacher discusses and signs Madness: A Bipolar Life at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.

Going on a trip any time soon? Why not ask Kanye West? What? Why of course he has his own travel website! It's called KanyeTravel.com, and it just launched after a year of preparation. Why the fuck does Kanye West have a travel website, why would anybody use such a thing, and how in the world could it take a year to set it up? There are so many questions in this crazy world! [Ad Age]

Welcome to the Gawker Locker Room: where maturity goes to die! Here your host and toastmaster Furious George will present a topic of discussion for open commentary, vigorous debate, and potential masturbatory purposes. Our topics will be diverse, random, juvenile, and vitally important. The philosopher Kanye West once remarked: "Whether you broke or rich, you gotta get biz / Havin' money's the everything that havin' it is." Indeed, Kanye. Indeed. No matter how noble we imagine ourselves to be, there comes a point in our lives when we realize that money can, in fact, buy happiness. There may be those who disagree, but who are they kidding, right? If there really are two Americas, as the late Communist organizer Ivan "John" Edwards would have us believe, wouldn't you much rather live in the America who summers in Gstaad, cellars cases of 2000 Margaux Margaux, scoops passionfruit-cognac gelato from the gold-plated shells of endangered sea turtles, and dines on crème d'aigle chauve at by-invitation-only restaurants in Tokyo? Let's address this question, folks, once and for all: is money the root of all happiness?

Kanye West does not just rap, write books and honor his dead mother, he is also a very active fashion blogger, but for some reason the fashion world is just cruel in return. Partly it's because they maybe misinterpret his praise as criticism, like when he awarded the "illest shoe award" to some Balenciaga sandals and then couldn't get into their show. Other times designers turn down his fashion show ticket requests because, West speculated in the Times, his massive stardom would overwhelm their shows. Luckily Stella McCartney and Viktor & Rolf aren't haters like that, but it's still kind of sad and warped that a Grammy-awad-winning musician is scraping for a fraction of the respect afforded to, say, BrianBoy. It's not like West isn't enthusiastic about the trade. Here are some recent designs that, West wrote on his blog, are to die for:

That 15-million-view video where someone wrote the words to Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger" on their fingers and performed an elaborately choreographed hand-dance to the song? AMATEUR HOUR. The comedians Barats and Bereta perform Kanye West's "Stronger" with two hands — that's "Harder Better Faster Stronger" plus Kanye's "bape shit." (That, followed by four more "Daft Hands" videos, below.)

Though Herbie Hancock delivered a huge upset by capturing the Album of the Year Grammy that clearly belonged to criminally underappreciated superstar Kanye West and Amy Winehouse selfishly distracted from his four-win night by hoarding five statuettes that would have looked much better upon the humble rapper's mantle (not to mention Winehouse's attention-whore hijacking of the ceremony's precious screentime via satellite), West would, in the end, have his Big Moment, even if he had to fight for it like he's had to battle for every scrap of recognition the System tries to withhold from him.

Kanye West is a man who has nobly borne cruel indignities with quiet grace. Like when he stormed the stage of the MTV Europe awards and threw a tantrum because his video that had him "jumping across canyons" wasn't recognized as a masterpiece. That show, of course, lost "credibility" by stiffing him. The Grammys weren't about to take that risk. They gave Kanye an appropriately respectful number of awards, but made the mistake of trying to cut one of his acceptance speeches short with background music. Don't the producers know that his mother just died? That means he will talk as long as he wants, damn the world. Is it just us or... tacky much? The "MAMA" haircut and Mama tribute song probably would have sufficed. Watch his humble appeal to good taste and decide for yourself.

Rapper Kanye West has posted to his website three pages from his forthcoming book, "Thank You And You're Welcome," which apparently will be a collection of "Kanye-isms" — big text, lots of whitespace, few words. But what West's advice lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. In fact, it's probably safe to say this is one of the best $10 books by a rapper ever published. After the jump, Kanye drops science on paper.

West is a hip-hop superstar thanks to his radio-friendly hits and unconventional image and is notorious for flipping out when he doesn't get the respect he thinks he deserves.

• Amy Fisher, who can't make up her mind if she's happy or sad about her new sex tape, is DJ'ing at Retox Friday night. According to the press release, "The controversial sex video which Amy Fisher is featured will be displayed their.[sic]"
  

You just never know what's going to set someone off, and for us—oh boy, here come the waterworks!—a smile on the face of Kanye West after finally kicking Beyoncé's booty in a marathon Connect Four competition was all it took. In a blog post entitled "THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT," his first statement since his mom's sudden death following cosmetic surgery in November, the commander-in-chief caller-outer describes the godsend of vertical checkers therapy:

Our complete and utter disinterest in the Grammys has become something of a Defamer tradition, with the mainstream music industry's most celebratory night of public self-diddling requiring of us zero emotional investment, thus greatly reducing the risks being forced to launch a mug of Kahlua at our TV sets after a particularly unjust upset. The Dixie Chicks are the best band on the planet? Sure, why not. That said, the 2008 nominees have been announced:

TMZ has clearly gone insane with their ongoing efforts to destroy Donda West's suspiciously under-credentialed plastic surgeon, Dr. Jan Adams, having now turned their witchhunt towards daytime deity Oprah Winfrey.

We can't say we were surprised that Dr. Jan Adams, the tele-friendly plastic surgeon who performed twin procedures on Donda West the night before she died, would grant his first interview to bony-shouldered broadcast legend Larry King. Wriggling free from the CNN interviewer's trademark softballs and tenuous grasp of the facts on any subject plopped before him, after all, is a damage-control rite of passage for celebrities who suddenly find them tumbling down shit-filled rapids without a life-vest or paddle.

• Jonathan Rhys Meyers gets a little bit less hot every time he's arrested for being drunk in an airport, doesn't he. [TMZ]
  

A judge has issued a $30,000 civil warrant against Oprah Approved™ Dr. Jan Adams—Kanye's mom's surgeon—for having failed to show up to a hearing today, as he has yet to pay the $100,000 settlement against a patient in whom he accidentally left a sponge. While the autopsy reports have yet to be filed for Donda West, we think Dr. Adams' can kiss any shot at making it into Los Angeles magazine's Best L.A. Doctors issue goodbye. [TMZ]

Dr. Jan Adams, currently standing in the crosshairs of a TMZ firing squad (there's been five more posts since our morning round-up, including accusations of impregnating one patient and leaving a sponge in another), delivered this statement to Entertainment Tonight: "I want to first express my deepest condolences to the West family at a very difficult time. As a medical doctor practicing in this field, I hold sacred the bond of confidentiality that exists between the patient and doctor. Out of respect of the West family, and the absence of verifiable information, any comment without having first discussing that information with the family would be unprofessional." An Oprah spokesperson, meanwhile, told Extra that the talk show host who once featured Adams as a guest "DID NOT RECOMMEND DR. ADAMS TO DONDA WEST." [etonline.com, extratv.com]

We now have a name and a face to attach to the surgeon who performed the tummy tuck and breast reduction that would lead to Donda West's death: It was Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon Dr. Jan Adams, whose website says, "My work has never simply been about giving someone a new look. It's about providing an individual with a new path to self-discovery and self-esteem." Apparently it's also about getting as much TV coverage as possible, as he's made "countless appearances" on "Oprah and Entertainment Tonight, CNN, E!, NBC, ABC and the Discovery Networks," in addition to being one of the four panelists on The Other Half, aka Dick Clark's The View with Prostates. TMZ has been all over this guy today, turning up a long list of DUIs, malpractice suits, claims of botched boob jobs and that he lied about his credentials, and license suspension proceedings. They also report that Donda's surgery lasted 8 hours, or twice as long as usual for her procedure.