Online gossip Mario Lavandeira was on Howard Stern this morning, yapping about whatever celebrity's drink he held last night — but when Stern asked him whether or not he worked for the celebrity weeklies, Lavandeira got more clammy than a diarrhetic's hands. He responded that he simply couldn't answer that question, explaining (to paraphrase), "I signed all these agreements, I can't even say I worked there." Lavandeira then added that every single one of the gossip rags printed lies, save for Us Weekly and People. Of course, this comes from a man who regularly contributed to In Touch — so he would know. Bauer, meanwhile, must be thrilled.

• The Water Taxi comes to Williamsburg, bringing with it a level of comfort for Wall Streeters and a newfound terror for the hipsters who've fought so hard to delay the inevitable. [NYS]
• Pam Anderson and Kid Rock are getting married. Honeymoon videotape of their threesome with the dude from Creed obviously TK. [Us Weekly]
• Gene Simmons drools on a celebrity weekly reporter, publicist fails to apologize, world keeps on turning (barely). [M2tv]
• Your guide to the great Author Portraits of our time. Joan Didion, you will always rule. [Jane]
• More Fabian Basabe than anyone should ever be forced to endure. [JuliaAllison]
• That whole mess with Israel and Hezbollah? Ain't nothing but a gizmo. [Jew School]
• Vote for the hottest gay journalist: what wouldn't we give to see the Coop and Daily Newser Chris Rovzar mud-wrestle for the tiara. [Left Behinds]
• Cranky Media Guy Simon Dumenco can go on and on about what's wrong with America's Got Talent — but if that's how he wants to deal with his disturbingly hot David Hasselhoff fantasies, then so be it. [AdAge]
• How sad is D.C.? So sad that residents will try to raise $20K just to get K-Fed to come by and liven things up a bit. [Circomlocuter]
• The life cycle of the Party Girl, as told by Kristen Cavalleri, Lindsay Lohan, Tara Reid, Pam Anderson, Janice Dickinson, and Keith Richards. [BWE]

• Beer king Pete Coors gets a DUI; in an era of corporate corruption, it sure is nice to see an executive who really loves his product. [Denver Post]
• If you're going to have a complex, might as well develop it in your infancy: pictures of Suri Cruise aren't worth half as much as those of Shiloh. [TMZ]
• At 7 PM tonight, a pompous clusterfuck will descend upon Soho House. Worse than usual, we mean. Here's your guide to understanding why the fuck Toby Young's book party is so random. [Eat the Press]
• Leonardo DiCaprio films at old mob haunt in Brooklyn; borough's celebrities-are-here arrogance grows 37%. [NewYorkology]
• A handy guide to the MySpace profiles of all your favorite D-list reality stars. [Jane]
• Speaking of D-List, agent Roger Paul revels in the joys of managing Screech. What's not to when the guy's packing 8-inches of hot geek meat? [NYP]
• The rules of office restroom etiquette: "Dancing in front of the auto-flush to the tune of 'Material Girl' playing in your head wastes water and will summon your boss to the bathroom like a beacon. Don't." [The World According to Tom]
• How not to gracefully accept that you didn't get the job. [PR Differently]
• The Post knows there's only one way to cover the "bartha bartha" explosion on East 62nd Street: by focusing on the hot girl who was tragically injured. A video of her almost getting killed? Even hotter. [NYP]

When you're packing together a double issue and taking the next week off, how do you leave your readers? At the Observer, it's with an incredibly long profile of Us Weekly editor Janice Min. The piece seems to appear apropos nothing new other than that, well, she's back from maternity leave and, dammit, Us Weekly is good. It's the summer — that's a good enough peg, right?

There's an interesting piece in today's Los Angeles Times revealing that the FBI is investigating an L.A. paparazzi agency at the behest of Us Weekly. Seems the agency was founded last year by a former Us staffer, Jill Ishkanian, and the mag had become suspicious that Ishkanian was gaining access to its reporting scoops for her own gain. The FBI executed search warrants at Ishkanian's home and office, and the working theory was that she was somehow tapping into the Us Weekly computer system to conduct this industrial espionage. What does Ishkanian's lawyer have to say to all this? Oh yeah, he says, she was in the email system. Yikes! And how did she crack the intense security measures? By using a password she'd been given, which no one ever bothered to change.

Happy Monday to Bonnie Fuller: With just five days left on her contract, AMI has recycled the editorial harridan's paperwork for another three years. Fuller will keep her base salary of $1.5 million per year, and the only change to this round of paperwork is the potential for more bonus pay: she had previously earned an average bonus of $275,000 per year, but that has been upped to a guaranteed minimum of $500,000, provided that Star doesn't deteriorate into bag-lady toilet paper. At the end of the day, it's the same luscious paycheck, the same angry staffers pissing in her soup.

So long as Reese Witherspoon is suing AMI for Star magazine's story claiming that she's pregnant with her third child, she might as well have her educated pit bulls serve something similarly sweet for the rest of celebrity weekly gang. At left, Life&Style claims that loose top = fertile womb; at right, OK! points out Witherspoon's gut and politely calls it a pregnancy.

At left, the purported engagement ring of Cameron Diaz. At right, Jennifer Aniston's.

WWD reports today that AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller's juicy contract expires at the end of the month and has not yet been renewed. With AMI pinching pennies to the tune of sacking 5 Star staffers last week, some believe that there's no way in hell AMI chairman David Pecker will renew Fuller's contract for the $1.5 million she currently receives. In fact, Star's lackluster circulation has Pecker wanting to reduce her salary by much too much too much, dropping her Bonnie back down to the six-figure barracks:

• Anna Wintour and Patrick McCarthy don't like each other. Also, Rick Stengel doesn't plan big changes at Time and "greenies" die at post-Siegal Times. [NYO]
• Star gets sex wrong on Brangelina and Gwen Stefani babies, plans no corrections, because, as we read it, at least they got other stuff right. [WWD (second item)]
• Storm Field has only the nation's second-best weatherman name, and Sam Champion merely comes in fifth. [TMN]
• Katie Couric will have to spend $30K on new clothes for her CBS gig, experts say. Proportionally, that's like someone making $100K spending $200 on work clothes. [NYSun]
• Not at all uncharacteristically, a top exec is axed from NYDN. [NYP]
• Chicks dig TV news. [NYO]
• Former Rolling Stone publisher goes to Maxim, replacing dude who took his job at RS. [Ad Age]

• Ohmahgah, the NEW APPLE STORE WILL OPEN TOMORROW THANK YOU LORD STEVE! Curbed has a sneak peek inside the new 5th Avenue cube, and reportedly the cult leader himself will be present when the store opens. Now wipe that drool off your face and work on losing your virginity. [Apple Insider]
• The Daily Mirror reports that Brangelina have already cut a deal for their forthcoming baby, reportedly to the tune of $4.9 million, all to go to UNICEF. Assuming, for once, that the UK press isn't on crack, we're thinking People won this one. [LSE]
• Lindsay is Biggie, Paris is Tupac, Nicole is Diddy, Mary-Kate is Snoop Dogg...this could go on forever. [BWE]
• State Senator Ada Smith pretends she's Tony Soprano. [The Daily Politics]
• Off the blow (we think), Jay McInerney now has his appetite back. Watch him blog about it, then recoil in horror at his use of "Babbolicious." [H&G]
• ThursGay Styles does it again. [NYT]
• Yesterday we'd thought about making a Heather Mills/missing limb joke, but bit our tongues. It's reassuring to see that the Post, on the other hand, did not. [NYP]
• 10 Things I Hate About Commandments. [You Tube]
• Naomi Campbell takes her abusive parade to Dubai (hey, Vanity Fair said it was hot) for her birthday. She's supposedly rented 18 floors of the Burj al Arab hotel, and she'll be throwing shit on every single one of them. [Made in Brazil]

From deep within the jungles of New Jersey, a bit of totally unconfirmed chatter: We hear that Life & Style executive editor Joe Bargman may not last much longer. EIC Debra Birnbaum has reportedly assigned Chris Kensler, formerly of OK! and Celebrity Living, to "work with" Bargman. Interestingly, Kensler may also have the same title of executive editor.

AdAge reports on the celebrity weekly wars (didja hear about that one?) and, in turn, reveals that Us Weekly plans to give their website a makeover. Wenner has brought in former Maxim EIC Keith Blanchard as launch editor for the site's "major revamp," which seems to have been conducted late yesterday:

Star magazine has a sassy little lede on its paragraph-story about Britney Spears: "Once again, Star told you breaking celebrity news first — only to have another publication follow suit!" Oh, smack. We're sure Us Weekly is positively stinging.

Frank Swertlow, an L.A. reporter for we-don't-stoop-to- invading-celebrities-lives People magazine, photographed the other day outside the Cruise compound. Sent in by a West Coast snitch who successfully persuaded us of its authenticity.

• Before she suffered abuse at the hands of Star Jones, Meredith Vieira had an abusive boyfriend to deal with. As she heads to the Today show, these serious revelations unfortunately do not help us forget that she hosts Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. [R&M]
• Meanwhile, would Soledad O'Brien be crazy enough to leave CNN to replace Vieira on The View? [Gatecrasher]
• More penny-pinching around AMI? After Celebrity Living crumbled last week, rumors swirl that Star and National Enquirer may be up for sale, and editorial director Bonnie Fuller's contract may not be renewed. If so, pity: We doubt her book sales will support Fuller's leather-clad lifestyle. [Page Six]
• Finally, a role up to par with Jessica Simpson's intellectual capabilities: she'll play CJ Parker — the character originally played by Pamela Anderson — in the Baywatch movie. [IMDb]
• If there's anything we don't want to imagine, it's Macauley Culkin musing on the literary life. [Lowdown]
• Naomi Campbell drops out of Diddy's "Celebrity Cooking Showdown" after being told she wouldn't be able to beat opponents with frying pans. [Page Six]

The image at right is not, of course, of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie bringing home the world's sexiest baby. Instead, the disturbing image is from New York's cover story about the paparazzi scramble to score a photo of the forthcoming baby "that Jen wouldn't give Brad" (yes, a celebrity weekly editor actually said that).

• Celebrity Living notwithstanding, of course. [WWD]
• Times crossword calls a scoundrel a "scumbag," and readers are incensed. Naturally. [Slate]
• Katie decided to move to CBS because her daughters said she should. [NYT]
• But the Couric girls' advice causes biz challenges for both nets. [WSJ]
• Which is just as well for Jim Romenesko, who's sort of obsessed with her. [Media Mob/NYO]

There've been rumors for the last few weeks, but now it's true: AMI is shuttering Celebrity Living, sources within the company tell us. And we hear more bad AMI news might be on its way. Updates as we know more.

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