Revolution is inevitably followed by a period of chaos. Maybe that's why a highbrow New York Observer story about the evolution of Hollywood news media devolved into a glorious, shit-throwing media shitstorm.

And so it ends: The long local nightmare that was the Anthony Pellicano trial has ended with essentially the same whimpering inertia that marked its duration. Those early reports of Pellicano's convictions have fleshed out in the hours since: guilty as charged on 76 of 77 counts of racketeering, conspiracy, wiretapping, wire fraud and identity theft, yet acquitted of "a single count of unauthorized computer access," according to The New York Times. (His four co-defendants were convicted of racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.) Pellicano will be sentenced Sept. 24.

All kinds of drama unfolded Wednesday in one of the more turbulent days of the Anthony Pellicano trial, with ex-journalist Anita Busch following fork-tongued Michael Ovitz to a slow death on the witness stand. As if you had to ask, the cross-examination showdown between Busch and Pellicano — whom the writer all but accused in court of infamously harrassing her out of writing articles about Ovitz after joining the LA Times — did not go smoothly:

A round-up of several delicious developments in the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century:
· The biggest news by far is that the Scary Hollywood Lawyer at the center of this sordid affair, Bert Fields, has invoked the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination. Unfortunately for Fields, no amount of scarily worded cease-and-desists printed on firm letterhead and delivered by Krav Maga-trained assassin-couriers will serve to lessen the culpability implied by such a bold legal action. [HuffPo]
UPDATE: Bert Fields will not be taking the Fifth, and "has nothing to hide," a rep tells us.

Speaking as someone who once had his own life threatened by a fairly powerful, decidedly unhappy source, I particularly empathize today with Anita Busch, the former star trade reporter whose receipt of a dead fish, a rose and a note screaming "STOP" foisted the Anthony Pellicano investigation horror on an unwitting Hollywood nearly six years ago. Rapidly approaching her testimony date in the Pellicano trial, Busch granted a rare interview in a NY Times profile that is about the biggest bummer we've read since, well, maybe ever: