Confident that L. Ron Hubbard's Media Outreach Technicians would have a hard time disappearing its entire Spring Street headquarters into a white van (if they lose a couple of reporters, well, they're making staff reductions anyway), the LAT takes its readers inside the Church of Scientology's Gilman Hot Springs resort/hive, where the Public Face of Scientology, one Tom Cruise, reportedly alternated long stints of religious training with being worshipped like a king (or a studio boss):

· There is perhaps no better way to mourn Tookie Williams' execution than by starting your own gang. Slate shows you how!
· The LAT lets us know what it would've been like to be awake at 4 a.m. and present for the Golden Globes nominations announcement. Sounds scary, so we're glad we were still safely asleep.
· "So what I'm, like, really trying to say is, is that Rachel is like, you know, so out there with her sexualness and stuff. Whereas I am classy-sexy and understated. You think she's gonna totally pull out my hair when she reads this?" [last item]
· And as long as we're on the subject of voluptuousness and overt sexuality, Pam Anderson's pole dancing scared NBC censors shitless.
· No, it's not actually called Jew Jersey. Why do you ask? [via Gawker]

Not satisfied to fall back on the utterly clichéd, "Are you exactly like your character/nothing like your character" publicity junket question, Reuters boldly inches forward into the somewhat less stale interrogatory frontier, asking The Family Stone star Sarah Jessica Parker if her new character is exactly like/nothing like (get ready for it) her Sex and the City character, Carrie Bradshaw. And the answer will Blow. Your. Mind:

Imagine our surprise when the Hard, Cutting blog pointed out that a just-insane-enough-to-be-true joke we wrote about Mel Gibson's instantly controversial Holocaust project (and we self-quote: "While the baldfaced grab for controversy might seem utterly crass to us, ABC was powerless against the visionary Gibson’s breathtaking pitch for the miniseries’ climactic scene, a Braveheart-style battle with thousands of Jewish and Nazi combatants rushing at each other across an open field.") suddenly became, well, just insane enough to be reported as fact (and verbatim, no less) in a story by the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Australian:

News that The Hollywood Reporter editor-in-chief and publisher Robert Dowling was "ankling" or "retiring" (depending on whether you read the Variety or THR report) hit late yesterday afternoon, but we were too mesmerized by the exciting possibilities of Mel Gibson's Holocaust miniseries to pay attention. According to Var, though, Dowling's stepping-down was a "shock" to his underlings, and when questioned about the timing of the move, he embarked upon a Yodaesque meditation on temporality:

· Because even the tiniest fart in the hurricane of gossip-sheet flatulence represented by the Cruise-Holmes relationship cannot be ignored, we give you: Katie Buys Blue Blanket! We think!
· We have frequently referred to the sound we think we'll hear before we die, but Goldenfiddle might actually have an mp3 version of it.
· This is perhaps the best argument for a totalitarian dictatorship anyone has ever made.
· The NY Times' David Carr steps into the Oscar-blogging ring with nary a mention of the Fat Clooney Factor. Rookie mistake.
· Have some extra Rose Bowl tickets? Craigslist always provides exciting new ways to tackle the exchange of goods and services.
· And in what represents the dissolution of the most important marital relationship of our youth, Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen are calling it quits. Love has truly died on this day.

Because mornings are for tears and existential loathing, we present you with MediaPost's 2005 Mag Rack, published last January, which mentions the publications they were looking forward to in the coming year. As 2005 draws to a close, we found the following old list of anticipated publications to be most appropriate for your seasonal depressive nostalgia. What they once were hoping for:

At a glance, the 12-month stock chart for the New York Times Company:

It's not that any one article in this week's New York proves the death of old media (or at least any more so than any other article ever does). It's more of a penumbra thing: The combined take-away from all the media coverage in the new issue of the mag is downright depressing.

Mediaweek reports that celebrity magazines may have reached their tipping point, indicated by last week's collapse of Inside TV:

The sadistic bastards over at Variety certainly have a sick sense of humor, don't they? Army Archerd gives them 137 years of service, and they repay his loyalty with a blog? The just-retired Archerd bravely accepts his fate, and perhaps to flip the bird to his inhumane corporate tormentors, announces that he's going to deprive himself of the lifeblood that nourishes the interwebosphere:

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke offers "props" (her word, not ours) to newly anointed Schwarzenegger arch-nemesis Warren Beatty, but not without splashing the "geriatric" and "jowly"actor with a cupful or two of her signature haterade, just for good measure:

· EMI is trolling Craigslist for a variety of "types" to fill out Courtney Love's back-up band. (Once she graduates rehab, of course.) No hard drugs required, but those with reliable connections for the inevitable, explosive Love relapse will be given preference.
· The LAT launched The Envelope today, its full-service awards site. And by "full-service." we mean that it has about 147 blogs, roughly one for each envelope (see how that ties in?) opened during awards season.
· We defy you to find a headline touting less consequential information, anywhere, on any subject whatsoever: Dennis Rodman Settles Speeding Ticket.
· Midlevel Gawker Media functionary Lockhart Steele (not his real name) has a mini blog empire of his own, launching an L.A. version of real estate site Curbed mere hours ago. Disclosure: Lockhart processes our payroll later today. Hi, Lock! New blog looks awesome!
· Harvey Weinstein might be embracing a new policy of fiscal sanity, but he'll still happily splurge on some ring-kissers when he knows the press will be around.

Because recently-deposed Condé Andrew Krucoff is not just Gawker's mascot, but the mascot of underdogs everywhere, we've commissioned famed impersonator of Condé Nast photo editor Barbara Kruger to create a limited-edition Krucoff tribute poster. Click to enlarge, print it out, and get your silkscreen on.

Finally complying with an FCC regulation mandating that an Adam Carolla show be available at any given moment of the day across a variety of broadcast media, Infinity Broadcasting announced that the Loveline/Too Late With Adam Carolla/The Adam Carolla Project/10 Minute Budget Gourmet Recipes With Rachel Ray (Featuring Adam Carolla) host will fill Howard Stern's morning talk show slot here in Los Angeles. Sadly, however, something has to give, and we're told that Hollywood's Hardest Working Man (in number of jobs, not effort, if you've ever seen the Comedy Central show) will announce that he's leaving Loveline on tonight's show. Tune in this evening to hear Carolla break the hearts of Dr. Drew and a nation of giggling 12 year-olds pretending to have chlamydia long enough to give a shout-out to the rest of their friends at the rainbow party. It's sure to be a poignant goodbye.

The LAT notes a dust-up between red carpet scourge Joan Rivers and a writer on a BBC radio show yesterday, in which Rivers became so angry over her perception that she'd been labeled a racist that the force of her ensuing rage threatened to undo thousands of dollars in delicate plastic surgery:

Some people have a face made for radio, as the saying goes, but everyone in NYC media also knows that many a print journalist has a face made for a byline. Nevertheless, Seattle Weekly crackhead Brian Miller writes, "These are good times to be a journalist. Never has our profession been more handsome." Aside from the typical tv news examples, Miller cites Maureen Dowd, Kevin Sites, our Puerto Rican sister, and Micah Garen and Marie-H l ne Carleton (above) as examples of the new breed of "hot" journos.

This email arrived the other day:

The suffocating demands of fame, it seems, have taken a terrible toll on Fox News' favorite son, Bill O'Reilly. In fact, he's so psychically drained by the constant scrutiny that comes with being among the world's most recognizable "big personalities" (coughassholecoughcough) that he's even starting to identify with—-no, it's too horrible to say! Just read it yourself:

· The Laugh Factory is auctioning off ten minutes of stage time and donating the entire winning bid to the American Red Cross. And this isn't any old stage time, either, it's an opening slot for Jon Lovitz. Yes, you may bomb, but you might also wind up sleeping with the Pathological Liar—for charity!
· British Esquire pretends to care what Jessica Alba thinks about film as an excuse to get her to tart around in some skimpy movie-inspired outfits. Nicely played.
· Don't be mislead by the spine, title page, or cover of the erotic novel Vamp—porn star Savannah Samson did not actually write it. But don't worry, that doesn't mean she won't eventually write her own novel and address all of the loose ends of Vamp.
· Coming soon from Apple: the iPod Stapler, iPod Insulin Injector, and the iPod Nuclear Coolant Flow Regulator. It's just like Steve Jobs to release a bunch of new toys right after you dropped $400 bucks on the one that plays Desperate Housewives.