• Candy Spelling wrote an open letter to Paris Hilton about how to turn her life around. Later, Patty Hearst seconded her sentiments. [TMZ]
  

As Neverland Ranch sits abandoned and in disrepair, the ghostly sounds of splashing and boys' laughter from a spirited round of Johnny Quest Underwater Hottub Adventure still echoing through its halls, its former, debt-afflicted occupant is reportedly becoming increasingly desperate in his search for a buyer. From Page Six:

Michael Jackson, currently touched down in Vegas and developing his plans for a 50-foot-tall, laser-shooting robot equipped with luxury, crotch-level suites for high rollers, has found himself distracted with the possibility of yet more legal entanglements, as he mulls taking action against the owners of a warehouse full of repossessed Jackson family memorabilia who plan on putting up the contents for auction:

· A single Huckabees parody video per day is never enough, so here's another one.
· Out of all the late-series, Cousin Oliver-type characters from the 80's sitcoms, we always thought Chrissy from Growing Pains was going to turn out to be the bad seed. Guess we were wrong.
· Michael Jackson shocker! Erstwhile King of Pop a possible attention-whoring malingerer!
· Jenna Jameson suffering from that not-so-fresh, just-had-my-labia-blasted-off-with-lasers feeling.
· Hey, totally adorable, hand-holding otters!

· The entire Sopranos story, in just seven minutes! Who's got that kind of time? With some judicious cutting, we bet someone could get it down to a more YouTube-friendly 90 seconds.
· Diddy is brazenly stealing all his freak-you-wild material from Smoove B: "As soon as we landed, we went straight to the Eiffel Tower, drank champagne at the top and just kissed and kissed. Then we went up to my suite and had tantric sex for at least 30 hours, ordering up whipped cream and strawberries while we were at it. As meticulous as I am with my work, I'm more meticulous with lovemaking. I like to do it for a long time."
· Realizing that he hadn't been involved in a petty war of words in nearly 12 hours and desperate for the rush only pointless public confrontation can provide, feud-junkie Donald Trump picks a fight with a golfing magazine.
· No blood for mohel.
· After reading this story, our first thought was: Michael Jackson can't even afford health insurance anymore. How's he going to pay for the upkeep on the 50-foot robot?

Having been forced to abandon his grand plans for LeprechaunWorld and Wet N' Wild: Bahrain because of a tragic lack of imagination on the part of his host nations, Michael Jackson is seeking to set up shop in the only place where no vision is deemed too ambitious to be realized: Las Vegas. Jackson is reportedly mulling both a Vegas show and the only kind of monument that can adequately celebrate his current levels of crazy: a 50-foot robot. With lasers! Reports Rush & Molloy:

Over in Tokyo, one of the last places in the civilized world where leading juvenile cancer patient collector Michael Jackson can make occasional public appearances without having a firehose turned on him by child protection groups, the erstwhile King of Pop followed up a $3500-per-pump handshake party with a more affordable, $130 event for his less affluent devotees. Unfortunately, Jackson, worn down from a new round of experimental cosmetic procedures that have inflicted him with gigantism and rendered him even more distressingly waxen and ghoulish than usual, quickly tired of the high-pitched adulation offered up by the mesmerized throng and decided to cut short the appearance. Greedily snatching up the three local youngsters he'd been promised as tribute, he stormed off towards a Neverland-themed suite reserved for him at a nearby love hotel, a retreat that was hardly impeded by the brave young man who tried to restrain him until he fulfilled his entire personal appearance obligation.

Last year brought us the death-masks formerly known as Kenny Rogers and Barry Manilow, but this year, rumors have been swirling about a ratcheting up of has-been guest star power on American Idol. According to Reality TV Magazine, the freakiest face of all just may be dropping by Idol's CBS Television City studios: Michael Jackson has reportedly been having clandestine meetings with the show's producers, and in a recent promotional conference call with the media, Idol EP Nigel Lythgoe, dropped this unsubtle hint into the proceedings:

Michael Jackson has racked up a considerable bill at Beverly Hills' famous Mickey Fine pharmacy over the years—over $100,000, and that doesn't even include high-end embalming fluid costs. Tired of having Jackson respond to their repeated requests to pay his tab with a faint, high-pitched, "Oh, I'm sorry. My checkbook's in the car. Ill be right back!" moments before the ticka-ticka sound of high heels carried him out the door and away in a speeding limo, the pharmacy is now suing Jackson for monies owed:

When not admiring the improvisational bravado of husband Christopher Guest, Jamie Lee Curtis is inventing diapers. Other New York-affiliated celebs are thin on the ground in Google's beta patent search, probably because they're mostly searching for better ways to discreetly inhale vast quantities of blow. But if you can find something better than Michael Jackson's anti-gravity device, then by all means let us know.

· Because we know you'd never speak to us again if we let a paparazzi photo of Lindsay Lohan's not-so-elusive naughty bits go by without a link, here you go (NSFW). We hope you feel just as dirty as we do.
Soggy illusionist/modelizer David Blaine plans on staging his next feat of incredible endurance with the help of Michael Jackson, with Blaine locking himself inside a 10-foot-by-10-foot Lucite box with Jackson, five Make-a-Wish kids, and a case of cheap wine for a week. Blaine is not expected to survive the stunt.
OJ Simpson's lawyer cordially invites the Goldmans to try and get their share of his client's Big Book Of How I Would Have Stabbed My Ex-Wife And Her Lover To Death money, but denies that the Juice has a secret place where's he's going to hide his cut.
Being a nerd desperate for one of the first PS3 systems is more dangerous than you'd think.
UCLA students: "Don't taser us!" Sure, now they say it.

While browsing for a picture to accompany a post about Michael Jackson's recent comeback attempt at the World Music Awards (he had stagefright, his voice cracked during the chorus of "We Are The World," and other snoozeworthy events) we stumbled upon this photograph of the singer entering the arena, promptly causing our inner child to thoroughly soil its Captain Eo Underoos. Of course, our first instinct, after having ensured that the image had not literally reached down into our throats and stolen the wind out of our lungs, was to blow it up and share it with all of you. Sleep tight, little ones, trying your best not to think of the alabaster-skinned, nubbin-nosed bogeyman, who may or may not close in to seal your doom as you slumber.

Pictured is Jakob Lodwick, of College Humor, lurking in the future new office of his InterActiveCorp overlord Barry Diller. Still undecided: where the obsidian sacrificial altar should go. Really needs to be next to a load-bearing wall. On a more sunny though still mystical note, the New York Times peeks into the IAC crystal ball by way of a profile on Michael Jackson, Diller's point man on most things Webward. Nothing shocking, though it's almost comical to consider the vast intellectual resources bent toward the creation and curation of Very Short List — IAC's recently debuted once-daily email of recommended stuff. In addition to Jacskon and, one presumes, Diller, you also have pillar o' the community Kurt Andersen, plus design input (at least initially) Bonnie Siegler and Emily Oberman. We all need smarter people to tell us what to buy these days. Besides the new digs, what's next on the IAC conquest plan?

We should have known Russia was behind the times when we unearthed a largely cyrillic Olsen Twins Jailbait Countdown page whose clock still showed 12 years to go. But, today, there's further proof that the rubble from the fall of Communism choked off Mother Russia's pop-culture outlets: Photos posted by JJB reveal that the country's Bouton Fashion House recently debuted a collection inspired by and dedicated to Michael Jackson — but not the baby-dangling, scarf-swaddled bandit of our nation's innocence we know today; no, their ideal of the King of Pop is firmly rooted back (waaay back) when he was merely "Bad" but not yet baptising children with the velvet caress of some Jesus Juice.

On his blog, Access Hollywood's Billy Bush is proudly touting his "get" of the "the first interview with Michael Jackson since he left the United States in June 2005." But as we're sure you already suspect, Jackson wasn't really interested in chatting about his more sensational, recent pursuits involving leprechauns or recreational cross-dressing. Instead, Bush would have to be satisfied with discussing his current musical pursuits, hoping to squeeze in some juicier questions while pretending that samples of "Bad" injected into the thousandth remix of "My Humps" was just the thing to resurrect Jackson's long-dead career:

It's a relief to everyone involved that Debbie Rowe, the mother of the two of Michael Jackson's children not named after bed linens, has finally settled the protracted legal dispute that threatened to remove the youngsters from his custody. Who knows how many heartwarming moments may have never come to pass, such as these recent photos of father and daughter vacationing in the South of France, and dressed in matching floppy hats and sweater sets? No high heels or handbags for little Paris however—until the young lady is a little bit older, those accessories are just for daddies.

Michael Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, has long held a giant chip on her shoulder against the singer, perhaps stemming from the time he snatched his placenta-covered daughter from between her legs and spider-scuttled along the hospital walls and out the window with the newborn. Rowe has been trying to reclaim legal custody of little Paris and her brother Prince in the years since she relinquished all visitation rights to Jackson in 2001, and Jackson in return filed suit against Rowe in 1994, claiming she "violated a confidentiality agreement." (Read: Blabbed about the seven-story, Donkey Kong-themed bunkbed room at Neverland Ranch.) Today, the two ex-lovebirds finally put their quarrels behind them:

Even with Neverland Ranch now a shuttered wasteland in tragic disrepair, patrolled by starving llamas hoping to find sustenance by desperately gnawing on the Elephant Man's abandoned bones, Michael Jackson still hasn't given up on his dreams of manifesting the arrested fantasies of an abbreviated childhood in theme park form. After a brief dalliance with the deliciously slippery possibilities Bahraini waterslides, the erstwhile King of Pop may have decided to mine the mythology of his current country of residence, Ireland, for his next theme park project:

As Michael Jackson continues to traverse the European countryside in his ongoing quest to find a chateau that can accomodate the amenities his growing family requires—Coca Cola-filled moats, child-safe play dungeons, what have you—his spokesperson in the U.S. has released a statement claiming the singer has discovered that a consort of his former attorneys conspired to put their client in the poor house:

A jury has come to a verdict today in the case of the Gay-Porn-Producing Ex-Business Associate vs. Michael Jackson: The man Jackson once allegedly entrusted to capture frightened Brazilian children with an oversized butterfly net has been awarded $900,000: