This past weekend, a hip hop blog called Nah Right posted a YouTube interview with ?uestlove, a member of hip hop live band supergroup The Roots. And he said that The Roots were retiring from touring in order to become the house band for Jimmy Fallon when he takes over Conan O'Brien's late night show next year. But that video was quickly pulled, so everyone has been scrambling to find out whether this apocalyptic... thing is actually true. NBC has no official comment, but we hear that it probably is. Essaywhuman?!!!??! This is one of those things that proves you're getting old. I've never had a group that I actually like go the late night house band route. Springsteen fans saw Max Weinberg take his act to Conan's show; and I'm sure there were some jazz heads who were flabbergasted to see their main man Kevin Eubanks signing up with Jay Leno. But The Roots? The Illadelph generals opening up for that stuttering mop-headed ball of suck, Jimmy Fallon? It's kind of tragic. On one hand, we'll get to see The Roots on TV every night; on the other hand, Black Thought opening for Jimmy Fallon every night is the cultural equivalent of Miles Davis playing his horn on the subway platform to back up a semi-trained dancing spider monkey. To the extend that The Roots are a hip hop group, it's pretty fucking shocking. To the extent that The Roots are a hipster group, that's the end of that. They still give one of the best live shows anywhere, and the thought that the only way to see them live any more will be in the middle of the afternoon in a Midtown studio between periods of Jimmy Fallon snickering at his own cue cards is just an atrocious thing. But they're old and so are we, so everyone is tired. Now I will go and cut myself repeatedly.

Where do you mine for easy laughs when you no longer have the most satirizable election in history at your disposal? In SNL's case, that would be the Gays, a topic this week's Paul Rudd-hosted episode visited and revisited so often, we lost count. And where does the show stand on the subject, in this, arguably the most important week for gay civil rights in history? Enjoy the highlight reel above, accompanied by this handy synopsis: · The fun starts with a sketch about an overly affectionate family that builds to Samberg making out with Fred Armisen for no apparent reason. · Then there was a legitimately funny Digital Short in which Rudd and Samberg paint each other naked, that ends in what has to be the most violent scene in the show's history. (If the episode had a secondary theme, it would be guns blowing people's heads off.)· Moving along, we have a carload of seemingly straight guys admitting shocking things in song, that—surprise!—starts with Jason Sudeikis admitting he had sex with a male cab driver. · Here's where things get really interesting. Seth Meyers introduces the topic of Prop 8 on Weekend Update. The crowd boos, which annoys the anchor, who admonishes them by saying, "OK. Vote's over." What follows is an over-the-top flaming Bobby Moynihan as Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss, who decries Prop 8, but denies he himself is gay. He finally admits it, and says he has a "partner"—the Great Gazoo. · A parody of Beyonce's "Put A Ring On It" video featuring backup dancers Justin Timberlake, Moynihan, and Samberg in high heels and leotards. They could have played this straight, and it would have been funnier, but instead they lisp and mince the way gay people do (that's supposed to be sarcasm for those of you currently wearing your fierce, Tom Ford irony-ray-blocking sunglasses), and it gets old kind of quick. · Another direct reaction to Prop 8 features yet two more characters in the closet—tough guy parking attendants played by Rudd and Bill Hader. The humor derives from the fact that they are so in denial about their homosexuality, they act as if their random sex acts in bathrooms, and with each other, is all a joke. It ends with them proposing to each other and talking about how excited they are to have a wedding. Before you leap into the comments to either defend the material as hilarious and that's all that matters, or decry it as ugly stereotyping that couldn't come at a more insensitive moment, we'd just like to remind you all of one thing, OK? Vote's over.

Slate has been planning their new ladyblog—sorry, "online magazine"—as a sort-of-but-not-really competitor to our sister site Jezebel. Gals all over town want to get in on the action—some the few media jobs left! Now we know the ladies who will lead it, according to Fishbowl NY. It will be a "triumvirate" of editors (that means three): Emily Bazelon, Meghan O'Rourke, and Hanna Rosin. Three eds? Bad idea. Their cycles are gonna sync up after spending that much time together, which means fighting and crying might derail the publishing process once a month. But seriously, a little more on the new editors' credentials:Hanna Rosin is a journalist who started out at the New Republic and has written for heavies such as the Atlantic and the Washington Post—and is coincidentally married to Slate's managing editor. She published a book last year called God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America—about students at a new evangelical college—and often writes about the intersection of religion and politics. Emily Bazelon is a senior Slate editor. She has a law background (Yale, actually) and often covers jurisprudence. Fun fact: she's The Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedan's cousin. She's also written for The New Republic and Washington Post, as well as the New York Times. Meghan O'Rourke is also a Slate editor (culture), but a poet as well—she published a poetry book that garnered a full page New York Times Book Review and edits the poetry section of the Paris Review. She's married to New Yorker staffer James Surowiecki. O'Rourke is also a former New Yorker staffer, a job she got at 24, which is what partly led to our 2007 "Field Guide" called Why People Hate Meghan O'Rourke.

Is everybody ready for some sweet prostitute interviewing? A tipster tells us "100% reliably" that Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the famous Eliot Spitzer hooker, sat down for her first-ever prime time interview yesterday. Our source says that Diane Sawyer filmed the interview for ABC at a midtown studio, in secret, and that the network is planning to air it next Friday. The network hasn't announced it yet, so you heard it here first, assuming it happens. The other, less solid part of this rumor involves how Ashley got paid for her time: Our tipster is somewhat less sure of this part, but has also heard:

Sex sells fruit. Sex sells condoms. Sex sells magazines. Sex sells charity. Sex sells cheap clothes and pseudocool clothes. Even child sex sells cosmetics. So people are pretty cool with sex, and its selling implications. But does dog sex sell? We can only hope. Click through for the big version. [via Copyranter at Coilhouse]

For those wondering what you can expect in the lame duck months before Fox News Channel has an Obama presidency to complain about, wonder no longer. While some are dealing with the loss by going rogue, in this sterling clip from last night's The O'Reilly Factor, Dennis Miller and his friend 'Billy' have a good laugh over liberal women still jealous of Sarah Palin's "non-neurotic" Alaskan sex life. It harkens us back to the glory days of conservative talk radio, when Rush Limbaugh spent most of every day saying incredibly offensive things about Hillary. Click for the video.

The View is the strangest show ever. This morning old Barbara Walters joined Elisabeth, Sherri, and Whoopi for a chat about Thomas Beatie, that sorta fame-hungry female-to-male transsexual who gave birth to a child five months ago. And she gushingly revealed that the fellow is pregnant again! Watch as Sherri Shepherd's mind is blown to the four corners of this flat Earth of ours. Squirm as Elisabeth Hasselbeck tries to act as with-it and progressive as possible while all she clearly wants to do is throw up and weepily call her bestie Sarah Palin on the phone to tell her what freaks weirdos can be. And then feel bad for everyone because the whole stunned affair just reeks of circus side show and, as jarring (yes, I admit it) as the whole story is, the man and his family deserve far better. Clip is above.

Ha: a new study (why?) has found that the Huffington Post only gave 23% of its front-page slots to female bloggers—but more than half of those were by Arianna Huffington herself. She knows broads will only screw things up. [FAIR via Mixed Media]

Earlier today we told you how oft-sued American Apparel chief Dov Charney is being sued again—this time by Roberto Hernandez, an ex-AA employee who says he was fired from his IT job in 2006 after he refused Dov Charney's request to cook the books to make the company look more financially attractive. His complaint also includes descriptions of AA as a pervy workplace where Charney held staff meetings in the nude. But there's a new development: a source at AA has just sent us a statement that they say Hernandez himself wrote in August, 2006 defending Dov Charney from an earlier lawsuit, contradicting some of same allegations that Hernandez himself is now making: According to our source, Hernandez wrote this statement in 2006—just three months before he was fired—to counter the allegations of Mary Nelson, who sued Dov claiming sexual harassment. Hernandez defends the work environment at AA:

Though MADtv was canceled today, elder sketch comedy statesman Saturday Night Live is still flying high — so high, in fact, that they've finally gotten around to addressing that whole "lack of women" thing! Season breakout Tina Fey wasn't actually a cast member this year (and won't be stopping by anymore), while utility player Amy Poehler is on Archibald-assisted leave, bound for Office-related parts unknown. So what two Los Angelenos has Lorne Michaels brought on to take some of the weight off Kristen Wiig and Casey Wilson?First, we have 21-year-old Abby Elliott (above left), daughter of Chris Elliott (let's hope her tenure goes over better than her dad's brief, mid-90's SNL stint). Abby may be familiar to fans of UCB's Midnight Show, but we discovered her at Defamer back in 2006! Here's Abby playing a quavery-voiced Kirsten Dunst in the impression that won our hearts:

Singer Katy Perry is at best a pretty pop princess in retro riot grrl makeup and at worst an enemy of the gay civil rights movement. Her song "I Kissed a Girl" is a paean to girls getting drunk and sucking mug with other girls while their boyfriends watch. I don't want to sound uppity, but it's kind of a shitty song with a shitty message—that cutesy fake homosexuality is silly fun and good for attracting boys. So it pisses me off a bit that she's on the cover of Out magazine's "Out 100" issue this month. Why is this tittering dykesploitationist worthy of gay hero status? Sure, OK, Out isn't exactly the arbiter of gay culture it sometimes seems to fancy itself, but still! The bulk of the little bit on Perry is pretty praising (though they do at least mention the fact that some gay activists aren't happy with the song or Ms. Perry—who also has a song called "Ur So Gay" about a po-mo/homo ex-boyfriend who like, drinks wine and drives a hybrid) and that, I think, is pretty embarrassing for the magazine. Harmless fun is only fun when it's, well, harmless. This kind of co-opting of a hard-fought cause does, I suspect, do some damage. Both of her geigh-themed ditties are kind of "jokes" in that way where they actually aren't jokes at all but the problem is that people who are smart enough to "get" "it" (common idiots, out of work chimps) are also smart enough to, you know, not like her music. It's her impressionable teeny bop fan girls who I worry about. I worry, frankly, that when they are of age... they will go wild.

Your National Enquirer newspaper has published photos purporting to show Cindy McCain, fragile, lonely beer heiress wife to Senator John McCain, kissing some guy who isn't Senator John McCain! "Multiple witnesses" caught Cindy and this mystery man "lip locking on several other occasions." The guy is "a long-haired man who resembles 'a washed-up '80s rock musician,'" apparently. Just read the "stunned reaction of an eyewitness":

Oh Dov Charney, when will you stop being sued for various sexual and financial shenanigans? The pervy, pacing American Apparel boss has been sued yet again. Just last month he was dealing with a sexual harassment case from an old employee; now, another former employee says that Dov tried to get him to inflate the company's books in order to draw in outside investors. Just your average financial fraud allegation, until Dov trotted out his accuser's old "lover":

John McCain wants to be liked again. His unenviable job as the Republican presidential nominee was to derail the campaign of the first black president and to defend an unpopular party, and he only made things worse for himself by getting blatantly underhanded toward the end of everything. His performance last night on the Tonight Show — the jokes, the occasional concession to a mildly pointed question from Jay Leno, the self deprecation — seemed designed, if only subconsciously, to invoke the McCain of the 2000 campaign bus, beloved by the press, or of the October Al Smith dinner, who was seriously funny, or the candidate who made a conciliatory concession speech to an angry crowd.

You know, it would be a totally awesome Veteran's Day segment, says the bleary news producer, if we recreated that famous photo of the nurse kissing the sailor in Times Square. We think our ideas sound great when we're drunk, too. But soon, the painful truth sets in. This morning Fox & Friends decided to trot the actual nurse from the photo, Edith Shain, 90, in front of the cameras to kiss one of their interns wearing a paper sailor's cap. Witness the awkward Fox & Friends-intern-on-nanogenarian embrace after the jump.Shain's been through this before, however. Here she is with some actor-sailors from Broadway's South Pacific, recreating the kiss just a bit less awkwardly:

We've already expressed to you how American Idol runner-up David Archuleta could literally save the world. How big an Archie fan are we? Let's put it this way: You see that video above us? We're the one in the orange shirt and glasses. Well, we've just downloaded his debut CD on iTunes, made available today, and have jotted down our thoughts on every track. Our occasionally tear-smudged first impressions follow:1. "Crush"

Ashley Todd, a crazy woman who carved a backwards 'B' on her face for some reason that almost made some sort of sense a few weeks ago, is apparently bumming around Pittsburgh hanging out at the Barnes & Noble. She's presumably stuck in Pittsburgh—perhaps the wrong side of Pittsburgh!—because she's still undergoing that mental health treatment the judge sentenced her to. [Wonkette]

Oh boy, hot news from Random House: once-popular entertainer Ann Coulter has a new book coming out! It's on sale, uh, five days after Christmas, and it's called.. well, apparently the title is embargoed. "This book is so hot we can't tell you what it's about," Random House claims. "Ann Coulter never disappoints." Man. They sure sound excited to be promoting this one, right? We can guess the book will be full of the usual Ann Coulter material, slightly updated for a new age of Democratic ascendence, but what is the over-arching theme? How will she top SLANDER: Liberal Lies About the American Right, TREASON: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, and GODLESS: The Church of Liberalism? Maybe this one is called "SOCIALISM." Or "GAYNESS." Or "BESTIALITY." Or "BAD THING: Liberals Being Not Good From Pontius Pilate to Kim Jong-il." Or "NEGRO: That Is The Color Of the Liberal Heart In Illegal Immigrant Spanish, Not a Racist Reference to Barack Obama (Wink Wink)." Or "ALIEN LIZARD PERSON: What I Am." Whatever it's called, we're sure it'll be a big hit, because Ann Coulter is still very popular and relevant.

Hello dear friends! I was away last week and so did not watch, and thus did not get to recap, the Gossip Girl episode in which young Jenny became a fashionz guerrilla and ran away from home. Dammit Dave Pirner, why are you always right about everything! But I'm back this week, and I curled up on my couch last night to watch the ridiculous drama unfold. It was indeed ridiculous. Such intrigue this week, with fires and double crosses and blammo! news scoops and, che?, Wallace Shawn. So read on with me after the jump and we'll pick apart this episode, which was appropriately titled "Bonfire of the Vanity." OK! Where to begin! With boring old Serena, I guess, who is dating the mysteriously stupid Aaron Rose, a scruffy little naif who, though hailing from the Upper East Side, is really a downtown artiste in the vein of Basquiat or the Olsen twins. They had sexy text messages and then he "showed her to the city" or some such drecky bullshit (it involved that favorite hotspot of hip downtown creative types, Times Square) and then slunk off for a photo session at Aaron's breezy loft in which the impossibly blonde and springy Blake Lively tried to act uncomfortable about having her picture taken. It was entirely unconvincing, each pout and little eyelash flutter more assured and kissy-kissy than the one before it. Whatever, they are artist and muse in love! He likes to stay up all night making installation art projects of her out of old bedsheets and some cardboard boxes! Except, sigh. He wants an open relationship. He wants to ferret his mousy little features into other, um, mouse holes and excuuuuuse me if Serena didn't know that. Meanwhile, Dan Humphrey, a one man Woodward and Bernstein, was being commissioned by New York Magazine to do a seeeecret story on Bart Bass, the glowering father of our saddest clown, Chuckles. Dan took to the task with a reluctant ease, if that makes any sense. He was conflicted, but this could really further his career. You know, because there are only so many make-it-or-break-it career opportunities available to seventeen year olds. I remember when I was 17, I had the opportunity to do props for a school play but then I got in a fight with the stage manager and the assistant director and so I wasn't doing props anymore and my career was over, but then it worked out because I ended up doing props! See!! I'm just like Dan. So he went nosing around Bass Manor while poor, dejected Chuckles—rejected by his pops when he offered him father-son hockey tickets—simmered in a corner, watching... Things We Lost In The Fire, Gossip Girl Edition: Bart Bass killed a dude in a fire 20 years ago (which is weird! because the fellow who died, 20 years ago last night, was wearing just the same hat that Aaron Rose was the night he diiiiied... and then the next day Serena found the hat on a grave that said Aaron Rose 1968-1988 and she shrieked and shrieked and shrieked!!!!). Also, Jenny the Hobo's crazy friend Agnes of God torched all of Jenny's fashion design choices! Like the dress with the frilly thing, and the frilly thing with the dress! Also, she was sabotaging their super important business meetings with her bitchiness and her drunkenness. It's like one time when I was 15 and... No, I don't have a comparable story, because 15 year olds don't have fancy fashion meetings. And they (hopefully) don't look like sad tired Heroin Lemurs either. Taylor Momsen must have srsly pissed off the show's stylists. So yes! Dan was conflicted about whether to out Bart Bass as a filthy arsonist, while Jennifer mewped back to Chez Humph with her tale (intentional!) between her legs. But Rufus made a thundering edict and said he would not "No!" support Jenny's venomous lying and conniving, and so she fled again with all of her attaches rattling behind her. She stopped to sit on poor people trash and wept. Oh man did she weep. Her face looked like it was pooping. It sort of hurt my jaw muscles to watch. All in all, Jenny came across super crazy in this episode. Send her to Bellevue! We don't know where little Jenny's headed, but for this week at least it was not to Nate Archibald's flowery loins. Which is fine. He's busy making time capsules of him 'n Dan stuff and writing songs on his recorder and watching fuzzy tape recordings of One Tree Hill. (I guess! He wasn't in this episode.) Will Jenny divorce her parents? Does anyone care? Dan decided he would "kill" the story (such insidery lingo he uses!) and then he sent his sad little "Lonely Chuckles, The Orphan" short story to Bart. Bart felt bad and apologized to his fishy son and they reconciled and made plans to be frienz. Too bad he's going to dieeee!! ("My son was wearing those cuff links when he died, thirty years ago today..." Oooohhhhhh!!!! Halloweeeeen!) Oh, also. When Bart said that it was hard for him to look at Chuck because he saw his mother in him and they panned to the photograph, I desperately, desperately wanted the photo to be Ed Westwick in a wig. Same pose, same dress, everything. But Ed Westwick in a wig. Pleeeeeease Josh and Stephanie? Pleeeeze just once? And then, what else? Oh, right! Serena reminded us (what?) that she'd always wanted to live in the 1960's, so when Aaron came squeaking over (can't wait for his movie!) she decided to throw caution and principle to the wind and go traipsing off with him in just her slip, slippers, and a coat. We were all so proud of her for this completely unearned and out-of-left-field character development. Maybe next week we'll find out that she's a racist who can fly. That would be fun! ("I'm right above you Isabel, you filthy ni—") Last but not least was Blair, who was contending with her mother's huggy, hobbity little love interest, played by esteemed playwright Wallace Shawn. It was funny/sad to see old Wallace playing yet another literate yet urgly fella (remember the window-fall-outty episode of Sex and the City?) I wish Twink Caplan had been in the episode too, 'cause then they could have just done Clueless riffs for the rest of the episode and it would have been way better than this annoyingly twisty, turny, but get nowherey installment. Things We Should Lose In The Fire, Gossip Girl Edition: Jenny's rumble-face cry. It looks like an atom bomb is exploding in her mouth. Dan's whole quest for a job as a writer. There is nothing more boring on God's green Earth than watching writers talk about writing. Like, srsly. Please no more. It pains me so. Also we should lose sad Rufus in The Fire. Not Rufus all together, but Rufus who is lonely and has no children around! What a sad little plot point that is. Maybe they're setting the groundwork for the inevitable Vanessa schtupping. That would be great. Just great. "My daughter was wearing those same enormous day-glo hoop earrings when she died, ten years ago tonight....." BOO!

When disco people did that weird basketball referee "traveling" motion dance and licked their cocaine-stained gums while a sparkly disco ball twirled overhead, they probably felt like the party would never stop. But stop it did, in grinding and ugly fashion, when the hedonistic days of Studio 54 ran headfirst into a very un-far-out recession in the early 1980's. Some twenty-five years later, we find ourselves in a similar situation. The early aughts saw the rise of the Tara Reid and Lindsay Lohan mentality, one that celebrated and encouraged hard, rusty-jointed partying (and simulatneously loved to condemn it). Sure there was a war on and the world seemed to be ending, but when one thing ends another begins, and these folks wanted to hurl themselves, underpantsless crotches first, into the big new whatever. And now... well, now we're staring down the barrel of a serious recession, Crazy Britney is dead, and Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, a Rooney and Garland for the iGeneration, are puttin' on a show to the glittery tune of trillions of dollars. Like the dirty bliss era of disco before it, is this new party era being killed by a recession? We think so!