With the mall-clogging horror of Black Friday behind us, we think it's finally safe for us to make a new appeal to your culturally ingrained imperative to completely drain your savings during the holiday season: Why let your hard-earned money languish in a corporate usurer's vault when you can easily convert your liquidity into a far more practical, t-shirt form? Time to get a-clickin' and a-spendin' at the Gawker Shop, where a staggering variety of cottony, slogan-bearing delights await you, like the pictured "George Clooney Stalked Me" model, a garment so universally coveted that it's now only available in a men's medium size. Those headed home from Los Angeles this holiday might want to treat themselves to our classic, Defamer-themed "An Agent Ate My Baby" and "Hollywood Kicked My Ass" styles, shirts which make awkward explanations about the recent work-related misfortunes that have left you suddenly childless and/or jobless completely unnecessary. Feel free to browse the online store (which is refreshingly free of images of porny nineteen-year-olds lounging around in our products) while you decide on the dozen or so shirts you will eventually purchase. Consume: it's what we do between Thanksgiving and Christmas to make the pain go away.

All that talk earlier about NBC Universal cable chief and Bravo Queerifier Jeff Gaspin's possible ascendancy to the top of the NBC TV food chain—where his first order of business will be changing the Nightly News theme to "All Things (Just Keep Getting Better)" whilst ensuring Brian Williams' blazer sleeves are always properly zhuzhed—has turned our minds to one of the trusty officers in Gaspin's Army of Gay, Bravo executive Andy Cohen. A visit to Cohen's BravoTV.com blog sees Cohen hurling some grave accusations at anyone who dares criticize the sexy wardrobe choices of Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi:

Production has already begun on CBS's latest foray into the "marginal celebrities performing activities for which they're hilariously ill-suited" genre of reality TV, Armed and Famous, in which Erik "Hey, I Once Played A Motorcycle Cop!" Estrada, LaToya Jackson, Jack Osborne, and Wee Man will train to become gun-toting members of the Muncie, Indiana police force. We expect that reports of Muncie's first parking ticket-related fatal shooting will soon surface. [Variety]
House pulls in its best ratings since its season premiere, crushing the debut of ABC's new comedy, Big Day, which stars that guy from all those short-lived sitcoms whose name we can never remember. [THR]
Universal casts Martin Lawrence in the Malcolm Lee comedy The Better Man, a project that strips him of the acting crutch represented by the latex fat suits he's recently relied on to portray the titular character in Big Momma's House 2 and John Travolta in Wild Hogs. [Variety]
According to a USC study, parents think their kids are online too much, robbing them of the vital life experiences provided by the rainbow parties their internet usage is causing them to miss out on. [THR]
The Real World's ratings are off 53 percent from last season, indicating that basic cable audiences might finally be tired of watching drunk assholes scream at each other while living rent-free in lavishly decorated apartments. Even if these discouraging results makes MTV give up on the series, we hope they continue on with Real World/Road Rules Challenge, as drunk assholes screaming at each other while bungie jumping off hot air balloons floating over active volcanos still has some entertainment value. [Variety]

A seemingly still-intoxicated Danny DeVito showed up at The View today admitting he had yet to sleep after an all-night bender with Sexiest Drinking Buddy Alive George Clooney (actually, the slurring made it sound something more like "Cheorlge"), before promptly launching into a heavily bleeped "Bush as the fourth Stooge" routine, and a fond recollection of the erotic adventures he and wife Rhea Pearlman once shared in the Lincoln Bedroom. As unexpectedly gonzo as his inebriated appearance may have been, however, it came nowhere near the extreme heights reached by Monday's show, when DeVito's Deck The Halls co-star Matthew Broderick insisted on removing his shoe and sock and injecting heroin between his toes during Elisabeth Hasselbeck's fawning monologue about how much the character of Carrie Bradshaw means to her.

Normally, we expect stories involving an A-lister's unexpected signing by a rival agency to follow a predictable script: a CAA client-acquisition specialist strikes the targeted talent on the back of the head with a blunt instrument as they wait at the valet stand of their soon-to-be former agency, roughly deposits them in the back seat of a black Escalade, then circles Beverly Hills until the still-groggy victim can be convinced that if their current representation truly loved them, they never would have been left unattended while they tried to retrieve their car. After a brief vomiting spell induced by the blunt force trauma finally subsides, a new member of the CAA family is invariably born.

Rapper Snoop Dogg's ongoing research-gathering mission into the inner workings of the LA criminal justice system returns to the scene of the crime (the Oct. 26 crime, to be exact, when he was arrested for possession of guns and weed at the Burbank airport, not to be confused with his Sept. 27 arrest at the Santa Ana airport for carrying a "deadly weapon"), when officers descended on the rapper as he left the NBC studios parking lot after an appearance on The Tonight Show:

This week's issue of Us asks an important, but as yet neglected, question arising from Britney Spears' recent, troubling partnership with starlet-devouring partytard Paris Hilton, whose fleeting affections have driven previously discarded sidekick Nicole Richie into the bony embrace of a mysterious eating disorder and set Lindsay Lohan's auburn-tinged ladyparts aflame for all time: But what about the children? While it's understandable to assume that Spears' questionable child-rearing abilities (Sean Preston will involuntarily shake in the presence of a high chair well into adulthood) will hardly be improved by spending her nights installed in a booth at Hyde, her kids will be fine. Ever since Spears tried to teach her first child how to drive her getaway car, Child Protective Services has quietly assigned a full-time tail to ensure her offspring's safety, and Britney plans to spend more quality time with new arrival Jayden James by integrating him into her lifestyle, at least to a point: The infant will be allowed to ride along to the clubs with Mommy in Auntie Paris' Maybach, but once they arrive at their hotspot of choice, a specially designated valet will babysit for the duration of the evening by nestling the baby in the glovebox, an improvised crib comfortably lined with the panties Spears and Hilton ritualistically discard before leaving the vehicle.

Lately, when we see the words "restructuring," "reorganization," and "NBC Universal Television Group president Jeff Zucker" in close proximity in the same story, we brace ourselves for a lowball estimate of how many employees are going to be run head-first through a giant Staples MailMate shredder in the name of corporate streamlining. But instead of raising the spectre of layoffs, today's LAT article on possible changes at NBC 2.0's Burbank division discusses a scenario in which Zucker would "catapult" trusty cable TV lieutenant Jeff Gaspin, a man credited with the profitable queerification of Bravo, over current Aaron Sorkin-enabling entertainment president Kevin Reilly. Such a move would seem to raise the possibility that NBC might use that same trebuchet to launch Reilly over the Hollywood Hills, as adding a layer of supervision above an embattled executive is never exactly a vote of confidence. Reports the LAT:

· The Brokeback to the Future guys have returned, and they've added lasers to Singin' in the Rain, proving that there's no dance scene that can't be improved with futuristic gunplay.
· And thus begins the GQ Newlyweds of the Year Curse. Unfortunately, Tom and Katie almost certainly won't qualify for next year's installment.
The LA outpost of Eater officially launched today, the newest member of the burgeoning Curbed blogging empire. Stop by and welcome them to the neighborhood.
Britney and Paris: the one act play and the lost diary entry.
· And today's palate cleanser: Sleepy Kitten.

Former matinee idol turned gracefully aging crackpot Val Kilmer has patterned a plan for a small organic food business after Paul Newman's hugely successful line of Newman's Own specialty foods. But unlike the "over $200 million" from sales of salad dressings and marinara sauce donated by the blue-eyed screen legend to various causes over the years, Kilmer would have a reporter believe that he plans on funneling every cent of his own profits to his pet charity: himself.

Remember that time that Michael Richards' newly hired crisis manager tried to diffuse his client's less-publicized, anti-Semitic comedy club tirade by claiming that the actor is Jewish, so all that talk about the fucking Jews causing Jesus' death was just a little bit of role-playing fun at the expense of his own people? Apparently, when he told his publicist that he was a member of the faith, he didn't realize that the official conversion process might be more rigorous than squeezing his eyes shut, imagining his participation in a bris, and declaring himself a a certified son of Abraham. Beleaguered flack Howard Rubenstein explains Richards' complicated Jewish-ishness to the AP:

· Music round-up: The Hidden Cameras at the Echo; The Lovemakers & Gram Rabbit at the Troubadour; American Music Club at Silverlake Lounge; and Handsome Family at El Cid.
· The Egyptian screens the HBO Comedy Festival's "Best of the Fest" short films, followed by a discussion with some of the filmmakers.
· Doug Benson, the Comedy Death Ray crew, Paul F. "Satan's Open Mic Night Host" Tompkins, and Brody Stevens form various performance configurations to try and get you to spend an entire night inside the UCB Theatre for five bucks.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and contribute to what could possibly turn into a perfect Terms of Endearment star-spotting trifecta:

Today, the erstwhile Daily Intel points us to a marked-for-deletion Wikipedia entry for one 'Jamie Isaac Conde,' whose great-grandfather Conde Nast started that whole magazine empire we seem to recall hearing about somewhere. Apparently, though, Jamie — like his namesake company — hasn't had an entirely scandal-free existence. Though he's trying (maybe — Wikipedia, people) to launch a career as a screenwriter, like most other inhabitants of his Californian zip code, he also has had a brush with violence, as evidenced by his interview in Gunstories, a book about teens and their experiences with guns! (What?)

Periodically, it's necessary to take a moment to explain our seemingly complicated and maddeningly semi-exclusive commenting features to new readers unfamiliar with their arcane workings, and to help remind our longtime companions about how things work around here, recognizing that the part of their brains responsible for retaining such knowledge was probably smoothed during last night's Grey-Goose-and-strawberry-blow binge. So how does one become a Defamer commenter, you didn't ask, but we're pretending you did anyway?

Nicole Richie has yet to really settle on what her predominating talent actually is, having already achieved limited success as Paris Hilton's slightly less blank-brained reality show foil, and as a pop singer bemoaning the weed-like qualities of a two-timing ex-lover. But it's her facility with the written word, both as the gifted mind behind the genre-defining skank lit classic The Truth About Diamonds, and as the opinionated voice of her own MySpace blog, where she shines the most. Take, for example, her recent riff on the popular "blind item" format frequently employed by the very gossip columns in which her name regularly appears, wherein Richie expertly teases the reader with details which can only be referring to her recent acrimonious split from professional celebrity clothing-chooser, Rachel Zoe:

Anonymous e-mailer "123FUCKYOURSELF" writes in to set the record straight about yesterday's post about a photo of Kevin Federline posing with an unidentified woman while allegedly attending two-time Federline baby momma Shar Jackson's Thanksgiving feast:

Nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards, the annual celebration of films largely released by the somewhat less corporate-seeming arms of huge multimedia conglomerates, have been announced, with Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson both receiving five nods. [Variety]
Anna Faris will take a break from being bopped in the head in Scary Movie sequels by starring in the "farcical sci-fi comedy" Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel. [THR]
Heroes and Deal or No Deal win the 18-49 demographic for NBC Monday night, while Studio 60's uplifting episode about how tragic murder-suicides can interfere with the production of a live sketch comedy show (which anonymous internet poster Dilbert27 called "a heavy-handed treatment of already ill-chosen subject matter") fails to draw the expected droves of new viewers to the series. [Variety]
The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers lead negotiator is "shocked and dismayed" that the WGA refuses to surrender their strike leverage by entering negotiations on the studios' timetable. [THR]
The Hollywood Foreign Press puts Apocalypto and Letters From Iwo Jima on the Golden Globes shortlist for Best Foreign Language film, even though neither is eligible for an Oscar in that category. Oh, conflicting awards show rules, why must you be so confusing? [Variety]

Tracy Morgan, who every week on 30 Rock is required to reach deep into his actor's bag of tricks to play a loose approximation of himself, Tracy "proud as a peacork, baby" Jordan, has been picked up on another DUI charge following a night of some overly enthused celebrating of his ascendancy to Must See TV status. Reports TMZ:

The Kaiju Shakedown blog points us to this ad for a Fuzhou hospital that has seemingly engaged the unauthorized endorsement services of Prison Break star Wentworth Miller to advertise their ability to quickly cure the prostate problems of the local populace. The Fox marketing team's various promotional efforts on behalf of the show should make us all suspicious that the strange ad is part of a viral campaign preparing the Chinese people for the show's arrival in their country, and that once translated, its fine print warns viewers that if they don't tune in to The Glorious Escape of the Innocent Bald-Head, an ex-convict will arrive at their home to massage their prostates until their television-watching habits are properly adjusted.