Thank the lord, some new scandals. Now we can all ignore the tired Jew-hating Gregg Easterbrook and go back to doing what we love best: being jealous of and spiteful towards celebrities.

According to a gay website, Danny Pintauro — the mop-top TV child babysat by Tony Danza on "Who's The Boss" — has a very insouciant Friendster profile. They write:

Richard Hatch, millionaire winner of Survivor, is, like many of the rest of us, searching for love online. He's looking well — these revealing photos show that the desert-island nudist has definitely kept the weight off after his starvation via reality show diet. He'd like to "intimately share life with a bold, intelligent, integrous man." Best of luck on your love search, Rich!
User Profile: Rich, R.I. [Big Muscle Bears]
Richard Hatch Photo Gallery [Survivor Hunks]

The North American premiere of audience-torturer Vinnie Gallo's film Brown Bunny took place at the Toronto Film Festival this week... and the audience applauded. Enthusiastically. More people lingered post-screening for the Toronto Q&A with the director/star/author/on-screen blowjob-receiver than actually remained in the theater for the film at its Cannes debut, noted Mr. Gallo. We can't even suss out how many levels of irony there are in this blow-by-blow description of the screening. "Fuck Cannes," hollered an audience member. How completely un-Canadian.
So Bad It's Good? [National Post]

Madonna finally launches her new careeer as children's author, undoubtedly to foment revolution among America's children by use of mystic Kabbalah hoo-doo. She also launches her career as a wife: "About the Author: Madonna Ritchie was born in Bay City, Michigan. She has recorded 16 albums and has appeared in 18 movies. She lives with her husband, movie director Guy Ritchie, and her two children, Lola and Rocco, in London and Los Angeles. This is her first children's book."

The English Roses

From Aidin Vaziri's interview with Taryn Manning, who appeared with Britney Spears in Crossroads:

Some of you are total Nosey Parkers, and would like to know more about what's going on with the lovely editors here at Gawker. (We're glad you care!) Here's the answer: Choire is a writer for Gawker Media, and has worked this summer as the editor of Gawker Media's forthcoming online pornography review, Fleshbot. He is now permanently attached to Gawker because five hours of porn a day was hurting his tender, innocent eyes (he grew up Amish). Furthermore, he was bitterly jealous of all the attention Elizabeth has gotten at Gawker from publishers, editors, agents, and underwear models.

In the freshest incarnation of viral marketing, young foxy women are paid to party hearty all night. These women are the new secret agents at the forefront of a brand launch. Fake flirting, they distribute free cocktails in nightclubs, hopefully addicting consumers to a new product — just like your friendly schoolyard weed dealer. The partying employees are pragmatic, of course. Says one: "Guys try to bullshit girls all the time — not that they're promoting liquor, but they use liquor to promote themselves." Word.

Sean "Puffy" Combs — AKA fashion designer Sean John — was spotted (and filmed) at the MTV Video Music Awards really showing his class. Guess we know what the new "it drink" is... or is not.

Excite's Patrick Holland makes good on an earlier promise: if Ashton Kutcher's upcoming film My Boss' Daughter grosses $40 million or more in a month, he'll eat nothing but baked beans for a month. The rules are in place:

Allegedly — by which we mean "according to publicists" — the new celebrity sex symbol is Sex and The City's Harry Goldenblatt, new husband of character Charlotte and a walking stereotype of the New York Jewish lawyer so extreme that it's a surprise the Anti-Defamation League folks haven't crapped themselves. (We think the show pleasurably trades in parodic identities, so we don't get worked up about it.)

The Dalai Lama must have gotten a whiff of the stench of his own unpopularity — or of the Free Tibet movement's poverty and current lack of world attention. He's coming to town with a massive PR campaign (and a series of spiritual teachings, if you like that sort of thing): "The Dalai Lama comes back strong in September, with the hype of a concert tour. Earlier this month a brand-new 30-by-40-foot billboard was erected across from the Condé Nast building on Times Square, announcing the Tibetan leader's arrival for the largest coordinated series of Buddhist-related events ever to occur in the U.S."

Magician David Blaine, says the Times, "has become disillusioned, as it were, with the money, the models and the movie-star treatment."

One may fairly wonder if Paris Hilton and teen porn star and John Waters favorite Traci Lords were separated at birth. Both scantily-clad blondes are currently recording pop albums, and both allegedly star in porn films which no one is allowed to see. Yes, the horror: Paris Hilton, pop singer. "The hotel heiress has been working on recording a dance pop album, which her producer Romeo Antonio describes as a cross between Jessica Simpson and Beyonc ," cautions MTV News.
For The Record (Paris Hilton) [MTV News]
The Paris Hilton Sex Tape [NY Mag]

Razor Magazine has declared party-hearty girl Tara Reid a drunk, slutty, troublemaker, making much out of Ms. Reid getting trashed at an MTV Bash. "It was embarrassing and it stung, and was shown all over creation on MTV in July. Poor Tara Reid, the 27-year-old second-tier actress who fellated, fucked and then dumped Thomas Ian Nicholas in American Pie and went on to beat the shit out of those drums in Josie and the Pussycats), was officially sanctified and saluted as a falling-down celebrity drunk."

Tonight and tomorrow:
1. Gloomy pretty Icelandic techno outfit Mum will convince you to drink away your well-considered pain at the Bowery Ballroom.
2. Two-woman satire tears away the veil of secrecy from those troubled Hollywood "stars" and best gal pals Matt and Ben at PS 122.
3. The Fringe Festival presents Meaningless Sex, a multi- and metro-sexual love story... musical.

1. Catch Liz Phair at Roseland.
2. Hear Ty Wenzel read from her memoir, Behind Bars: The Straight-Up Tales of a Big-City Bartender at Barnes & Noble.
3. Hear string quartet Ethel at the Lincoln Center's North Plaza.

1. Hear Bob Dylan at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
2. Try the herb-crusted lambchops at Cavo.
3. See the Ellsworth Kelly exhibit at the Whitney.

1. Fringe Festival 2003
2. Meet American Splendor author Harvey Pekar.
3. Hear Huey Lewis & the News (still touring, apparently) at the Bowery Ballroom.

Gossiplist, the website which digests internet gossip, is tangling with Ben Affleck. "There's no newsletter this week due to legal wrangling with Ben Affleck's lawyers (they are trying to shut me down)." Gossiplist previously touted a video of someone resembling the actor, pleasuring himself. The teaser is down from the site, but remains within the Google cache. To which the only response can be: the clip must be more entertaining viewing than the sex scene in his latest cinematic bomb. Forget about the internet clip; Affleck would do better to suppress Gigli.
Gossiplist.com
Ben Affleck jerking off [Gossiplist via Google]
Ben Affleck interview [Playboy]