At the end of Rush & Molloy's column today, a nugget of enlightenment on the manners of Jay McInerney:

Post gossip dowager Cinday Adams today breaks the news that "just before his fight with Sonny Liston, [Floyd Patterson] told me: "If I lose the championship tonight, I hope you'll give him the same honors and respect you've always given me."

It's Friday and it's been a long week, so why not pass along an out-of-the-blue and entirely implausible rumor that just showed up in the inbox? A tipster passes along some speculation about our old friend Nick Sylvester:

Scandale, peut-etre? A Nasty writes in with a potential conspiracy at 4 Times Square:

Today's juicy magland rumor? Allegedly Steve Garbarino, the gossipeuse associated at various times with such glossy journals as Vanity Fair and Page Six: The Magazine, is telling folks he has been offered the editorship of BlackBook, which is vacant due to Aaron Hicklin's move to Out. We're reasonably sure it's true he's telling people this; we have no idea if he's telling people the truth. Anyone know?

A reliable pal passes along this bit of cable-news programming gossip:

Some completely unsubstantiated, certainly-not-true rumor mongering about Josh Lucas, courtesy of the rascally Velvet Rope Whore:

Oh, glorious days of days! The sun fittingly shines upon our fair city in honor of movie god and new "father" Tom Cruise, who comes to Manhattan today to promote Mission: Impossible 3. A devoted Scientologist and/or reader scored a picture of Tom on his way in to Good Morning America, which kicks off a day of gallavanting about the island, via every possible mode of transportation, for three separate screenings of his film.

Today's Page Six has some interesting blind items, but we're going to focus on just one:

In wake of Tuesday's speculation from WWD's Jeff "Big Man" Bercovici that Lowdown Lloyd Grove could be headed crosstown, to the archrival Post, once his Daily News contract expires in September, it seems worth calling some attention to the above photo, of Lloyd and theoretical nemesis Richard Johnson looking rather pally at Vanity Fair's Tribeca Film Festival party, held the night after the Women's Wear item appeared.

Wenner Media has put so much into their 1,000th issue party on May 4th — at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, plenty of planning, and they even managed to haggle the Strokes into a performance. Thousands of guests, we hear, and even some lucky subscribers will attend. Yet, for all this effort, we've been told that most employees' invites got, ahem, lost in the mail.

The Daily News has a pretty run-of-the-mill feature story today on the perils of interoffice romance. (It's pegged to that burning issue keeping American up at night: How will Josh and Donna reveal their new romance to the rest of The West Wing?) But we admit the story's lede piqued our interest:

This morning, we asked you to solve two potentially easy-peasy blind items regarding a cheating morning show man and a ballistic Hollywood director. No blue balls for you, the answers are in.

It's been far too long since we've played a solid round of speculative finger-pointing. We're won't bother with Page Six's first blind item for this one, about an actress who took fertility drugs, because who the fuck cares? The other two, however, are worth our time:

Sometimes we get sightings too precious to be filed away with the regular stalkers:

We were forwarded an odd email this morning from Morgan Friedman, publisher and co-owner of the incredibly successful Overheard in New York:

Here's an interesting Payola Six detail we haven't adequately examined, published last Wednesday in the Times:

• Page Six traffics in buzz, apparently. [NYT]
• Uncle Bob Schieffer might stick around to do end-of-show commentaries on Couric-led CBS Evening News. And also to show off his legs, of course. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• Breaking: Daily News distributes sponsored copies! [NYT]
• It's hard to be a teen magazine. [Mediaweek]
• Real Simple loses two top editors; Details's Dan Peres tucks in. [WWD]

Today, as promised, is the final installment of the Times' Boldface column. Some say it's dying because the Metro editors were tired of it; some say it's dying because Mrs. Keller, the gin heiress, doesn't like it; some say it's dying because Campbell Robertson, the column's author, has starry-eyed dreams of the Great White Way. (He'll go out there a youngster, but we have no doubt he'll come back a star.) In his farewell column, however, young Campbell provides his own explanation:

• Random and completely unconfirmed, but we hear Ron Burkle is hosting a "celebratory" dinner for Bill and Hillary Clinton on April 21. Richard Johnson will be flown out to the event for free, we're sure.
• Apropos the current Page Six scandal, Nerve seeks sex advice from gossip columnists. What we learn: If Jared Paul Stern asks for hush sex instead of hush money, you shouldn't do it. [Nerve]
• At mediabistro's bootcamp for Men's Magazine Writing, freelancers will find themselves well-equipped to pitch and write for a soon-to-fold publication. [mb]
• Barney's high and mighty window man Simon Doonan defiles the art world by ripping off Jack Pierson for the past 20 years — before he even knew he Pierson was, in fact. He's that evil. [NYO]
• Not only does the Post have an honest to god formula for measuring the hotness of one's own ass, but they even got Sir Mix-a-Lot to comment. [NYP]
• Dare we say it? Frank Bruni, we can see you gushing. [Diner's Journal]
• Great news, everyone: "Actor" Frankie Muniz has given up his life as a thespian in order to pursue his dream of being a full-time race car driver. A Pesach miracle! [Defamer]