Mmm, tasty:

• Jessica Simpson gets dumped by her publicist, who's tired of lying to the world about miserable state of Simpson's marriage. Could the PR industry be having its Jerry Maguire moment? Nah.
• Wenner honcho Kent Brownridge is (possibly) forced into an early retirement, courtesy of big Jann himself. Sadly, his possible successor is fresh from rehab — that's no fun.
• Sexual assault suspect and fake fireman Peter Braunstein continues to flit about New York, and yet no one can seem to catch the mofo. Especially not the hipsters or Greg Lindsay.
• Kimberly Stewart, eager to be more Paris Hilton than we can stomach, gets engaged to barely-legal Laguna Beach star Talan Torriero.
• Anderson Cooper and Ryan Seacrest could adopt the most beautiful gay babies.
• Time mag begins its debate on the person of the year, and you predictably voted for Mother Nature.
• Gawker Media makes a distribution deal with Yahoo!, which sanitizes us without completely selling out.
• Inside TV folds, and TV Guide lays off editors who need to take a personal leave.
• And Mort Zuckerman reminds his staffers that in the Jew's house, Christmas doesn't mean shit.

People's Sexiest Man Alive issue is out today, and, while we already knew Matthew McConaughey is the winner, we're for the first time discovering that Anderson Cooper is a ranked runner-up. [Click on the photo at right to enlarge.] We're not surprised by his inclusion — both because he is, objectively, sexy, and also because his fucking publicity blitz is everywhere — but we are, as always, surprised by some of his quotations, all of which are at least moderately gay. Then there's this one:

Ryan Seacrest, subbing for Larry King last night, checked in with Anderson Cooper for a teaser of what was coming up on 360°.

In case you forget, our fair city has an anthem. We never much liked it, though — it was cute in a nostalgic, old-school-Big-Apple sort of way, but it didn't really speak to the New York as we know it. You know what does, however? The new Madonna album, that's what. It's so dancey, so gay, so throbbing that it practically oozes NYC vibe with every trancey thud. And? It even comes with a brand new New York theme song, handily titled I Love New York:

• Star Jones continues her reign of freebie terror! A rep for the View co-host allegedly called the Cornelia Day Spa, attempting to secure free services for Star and husband Al Reynolds in exchange for a fluffy mention in OK! magazine. Cornelia declined, seeing as an OK! feature really won't help much of anyone. [Lowdown]
• Tired of mistreating and misplacing just her Chihuahua, Paris Hilton has obtained a monkey named Baby Luv, which was seen scratching and clawing at Hilton's face during a shopping trip. Obviously, we luv Baby Luv. [Page Six]
• How to explain Tara Reid's mature behavior at her own birthday celebration? Her mother kept watch. [Scoop]
• Donald Trump, Jr. writes his own vows for his wedding to Vanessa Haydon, assuring her "all my earthly goods I shall forever share with you." Dude, Dad's gonna be pissed. [Page Six]
• Former Jersey governer Jim McGreevey hits Out magazine's 100 party, confirming that he's not just gay, but Gay. [R&M]

The oddest emails keep getting forwarded to us today. Especially this one:

• Stavros Niarchos plows Paris Hilton's Bentley into a truck. Lindsay Lohan laughs at the half-assed imitation. [Defamer]
• Perhaps someday Paris will be reduced to little more than a bunch of shitty old pictures on eBay, just like her mother. [eBay]
• A warm congratulations to Philadelphia-booster Jessica Pressler, whose "sixth borough" Times piece has burrowed itself deep into the cultural lexicon of...Gilmore Girls. Next up, an OC mention. [Verbose Coma]
• Demi Moore takes nip-slipping to a whole new level, much to the chagrin of anyone with minimal visual capabilities. [Cityrag]
• Hetracil is the most widely prescribed anti-effeminate medication in the world. Pop a pill and fix that gay today! [Hetracil]

Knowing what we do about Matt Drudge, none of us should be surprised that this Anderson Cooper item is receiving top placement on the Drudge Report. In Matty's world, elections and Euroriots don't hold a candle to a handsome gay icon talking about his special sauce.

From Craigslist, a dollop of fabulousity:

• Chelsea's tony London Terrace towers bans "making out" in the residence's pool or health club facilities. Apparently, this also means no sex with homeless men in the locker room. Absurd: It's as if management doesn't even know what neighborhood they're in! [NYDN]6;
• If the devil isn't wearing Prada, she opts for Bill Blass. [WWD]
• Dangerous street gangs shoplift diabetes test strips! [NYT]
• Is the NYC Marathon just one big excuse to piss in public? [Daily Slope]
• Voice gossipette Michael Musto lays down the law: "I swear on my obsolete Uggs that dumb blonds are, like, officially over. It's just not cute anymore to watch people who, thanks to raging insecurity issues, insist on being both stick-thin (because they want to look "good") and camera-hoggingly self-humiliating." But that's not really fair, we think. To be humiliated requires a degree of self-awareness — which is simply not the case with these girls. [VV]
• Mapping Billy Bob Thorton's NYC hookup route. [HotelChatter]
• It's the Webby Awards list of the Top 10 most influential internerd moments; having nailed the number two spot, rest assured Drudge will spend most of his night engaging in celebratory masturbation. [AFP/Yahoo]

This falls into that famous we're-not-endorsing-we're- just-passing-along category. But we'll note that we received more than one seemingly identical missives on this topic today. Here's one of the more felicitously phrased:

A killer tornado hits the American heartland! Deadliest to hit Indiana in three decades! Destruction! Horrible loss, with horrible pictures! What could possibly top that as the lead Drudge story of the day?

He may not have won the marathon that day, but Mr. Testicles learned an important lesson: Slow and steady wins the Gays.

You have to love that the Drudge Report, that bellwether of breaking, right-leaning news and weather phenomena, has an exclusive report about last night's MTV Europe Music Awards. How, you might ask, does a report on a ho-hum Madonna performance for her masters at MTV fit into Matt Drudge's beat? Very easily:

• Once-It boy Fabian Basabe has no problem with the suggestion that he's a complete flame-thrower. But suggest that he doesn't come from money, and he'll sue you for defamation of social class. [Page Six]
• Jay-Z continues to encourage speculation over whether or not Beyonce is carrying his baby. If so, we need to get on a baby name, stat. Roc-a-fetus is just too predictable. [Gatecrasher (2nd item)]
• LA nightlife beast Amanda Demme heads east, spreading her decadence to Las Vegas. If she continues in that direction, it won't be long before she's scheduling a cage-match with our own Amy Sacco. [Page Six]
• Nicole Kidman found out about ex-husband Tom Cruise's crazy baby with Katie Holmes just like the rest of us, via television. And NOT EVEN SHOPPING CURED HER PAIN. [Scoop]
• Lizzie Jennings, daughter of late anchor Peter, will run this weekend's marathon to raise money for cancer research. At this point, we're more interested in who's running the marathon without a pet cause. Someone's got to be running for their own selfish reasons. [Lowdown]

CNN pops on its homepage today a fresh Anderson Cooper Details column from the archives, this one from December 2004, about New Year's Eve. (Because, hey, who's not ready to read about New Year's on the first day of November?) The Coopster first reveals his profound distaste for the holiday — "If you go to a party and drink on New Year's Eve, it's inevitable: You will at some point find yourself alone and despondent," he writes, and we can't imagine why he'd feel alone — but confesses that ultimately, when he started covering New Year's for CNN, he grew to like it. Oh, the wacky times he had doing the broadcast:

Slutty sis Wonkette calls our attention this morning to a little political race going on here in the Big Apple. (Seems there's someone running against Bloomberg for mayor. We had no idea.) We'll let Wonk take it from here:

• Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and supermodel Giselle Bundchen have reportedly ended their relationship — for real this time, and perhaps because of a third party. If this is the case, let's hope Leo cleans himself up a bit before heading back into the singles scene. [Page Six]
• Oh, the horror: Laguna Beach bad girl Kristin Cavalleri is dating poptard Aaron Carter. [Gatecrasher (3rd item)]
• Ted Koppel prays for Good Morning America co-host Charlie Gibson to replace the late Peter Jennings at the ABC evening newsdesk; GMA first lady Diane Sawyer commissions Haitian housemaid to create Koppel voodoo dolls. [Lowdown]
• Notorious fagodrome the Roxy, accused of admitting underage patrons, meets the long arm of the law just in time to wreck their gay ol' Halloween party. And so the war on fun continues. [Page Six]
• PETA narrows its gaze on Prince Charles, who it intends to harass on his forthcoming visit to the states. Apparently the royal guards use real bearskin on their helmets, which has the animal-rights group's knickers in a bunch. [Scoop]

Yesterday, a well-meaning (but ultimately idiotic) fellow sent out a mass email plugging his friends' trunk show for Finn Jewelry. "I'm not gay or anything," he wrote, "but the work is really beautiful and worth checking out..." Perhaps these were not the wisest promotional words for the fellow to pull out of his ass, especially since the email went to several social butterflies and benefit stalkers.