The Senate is voting on a constitutional amendment today that would reverse the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision and place restrictions on corporation's campaign finance spending, and the very idea would have a chilling effect on free speech, high-functioning maniac Ted Cruz says. Also: It could send Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels to jail!
"When you become famous, you've got like a year or two where you act like a real asshole," Bill Murray told Tom Shales and James Miller when they interviewed him for Live from New York, their oral history of Saturday Night Live. "You can't help yourself. It happens to everybody. You've got like two years to pull it together — or it's permanent." He was talking, of course, about Chevy Chase, his opponent in a famous backstage fistfight. The two are friendly now, and it seems as though Murray wanted to imply that Chase had "pulled himself together" following his sudden rise to fame.
Lindsay Lohan is hosting Saturday Night Live this week and stopped by Jimmy Fallon's show to make sure everyone knows about it. Before reminiscing about the classic Debbie Downer sketch that they all giggled through during her first hosting appearance, Lohan talked about how she ended up doing the show this time around. Turns out, she hounded Lorne Michaels until he said yes.
A comedy blogger has unearthed Louis CK's rundown of making TV pilots, posted to Usenet (!) in 2006. Between this fantastic, lengthy document and Lorne Michaels' new interview with Alec Baldwin lie some excellent tips for hacking the Hollywood system, which we've distilled and posted below.
If you ever need to convince someone that show business is a chauvinist boys club, just play them this clip explaining how, sometime in the 1990s, Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels wanted to install a woman as Weekend Update anchor for the first time in a decade, but abandoned the idea after his hero Steve Martin said "some broad" had "fucked everything up" when co-hosting an awards show with him.
Who: The creator of Saturday Night Live, Michaels has been producing the show for more than three decades.
He thought he could call her "heavy" if he said "top," first. Ke$ha makes fun of Britney. Kendra Wilkinson's baby weight gave her postpartum depression. "Jessica Simpson weighs in on fat jokes." Thursday's gossip roundup was teased as a child.
It seemed SNL was all about politics tonight, from the opening Fox News parody to a second Don't Ask, Don't Tell discussion in a View sketch. But it was Andy Samberg's obscenity-laden impersonation of Rahm Emanuel that stole the show.
Two men turning 65 today whose glory days have long since passed: Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who has announced he'll step down as the firm's chief at the end of the year; and Saturday Night Live co-creator Lorne Michaels, who hasn't produced a season of SNL worth watching in years, but has yet to retire, unfortunately. Others celebrating another year today: Martin Scorsese is turning 67. Lauren Hutton turns 66. Howard Dean is 61. Danny DeVito is turning 65. RuPaul turns 49. Daisy Fuentes is 43. Diane Neal of Law & Order: SVU turns 34. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is 65. House Minority Leader John Boehner is turning 60. And Isaac Hanson (of the Hanson brothers, yes) turns 29.
Ouch. That hurts. New cast member Jenny Slate's first night on SNL. Season premiere. She's co-starring in a skit about a biker chicks' talk show. The word "freaking" was used a lot. And guess what: she freaking said the F-Word.
Chace Crawford eating on a bench in the West Village ... Anne Hathaway walking with boyfriend Adam Shulman downtown ... Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell sitting with Jack Nicholson and Lorne Michaels at a Yankees game ... Beyoncé leaving Bar Pitti with Jay-Z ... Matt Lauer walking solo ... Tina Fey shooting scenes for 30 Rock in Rockefeller Plaza ... Blake Lively walking around on the set of Gossip Girl ... Jerry Springer arriving at his hotel ... Rihanna visiting a doctor's office on Long Island ... Britney Spears carrying her son around in Midtown ... and Whitney Port leaving Sant Ambroeus in the West Village after having lunch.
• If you're out shopping and you find yourself facing off against Kelly Killoren Bensimon for the last dress in your size, let her have it: The former model and Real Housewives star was arrested and charged with third-degree assault last week after punching her 30-year-old boyfriend in the face, leaving him with a "black eye and opening a blood-gushing gash on his left cheek." [NYP, NYDN]
• Poor Olivia Palermo says she's been misrepresented by MTV producers, since she's actually "a much nicer person in real life." Also? She's currently "vacationing in London with her model boyfriend," if you're interested. [People]
• How's this for a comeback: Rihanna and Chris Brown have reportedly been holed up in a studio working on a new track together for the past few days. [E!]
Karole Armitage's Armitage Gone! dance company held its annual benefit last night at Capitale. The honorees at the Think Punk! event, Jeff Koons and Earle Mack, celebrated with their wives, Justine and Carole, as well as with attendees like Rufus Wainwright (left), Andre Balazs, Calvin Klein, Fabiola Beracasa, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Nicole Miller, Lauren duPont, Allison Sarofim, Peter Marino, Mary Boone, David Salle, Michael Musto, Dominique Levy, Sandy Brant, Tom Sachs, Todd Eberle, Francesco Clemente, Michele Zalopany, and Jamie Niven. [PMc, VF, WWD]
• Doubledown Media, the publisher of magazines like Trader, Cigar Report, and Dealmaker, and other titles aimed at the Wall Street set has shut down. [Folio]
• Those Pepsi ads that resembled a "MacGruber" skit from SNL? It was part of a deal between the soft drink company and Lorne Michaels, naturally. [NYT]
• The final Nielsen numbers are in: 95.4 million tuned in on Sunday. [MW]
• Bob Costas is leaving HBO to join the MLB Network. [THR]
• There's a boycott of CNBC today for some reason. [Jossip]
• HBO has acquired the rights to Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean's forthcoming book about "the meltdown and the reason it happened." [Variety]
.• CBS has ordered up a new show from the producers of Top Chef "that puts lovelorn singles into arranged marriages." We love it already. [THR]
Starbucks jobs are now reserved for Yale grads; the rest of us have to try and obtain menial but absurd positions with Kanye West.
A statement sent to Defamer purports to offer an apology from Lorne Michaels, who regrets equating NY governor David Paterson's blindness to garden-variety retardation last week on SNL. But wait, says NBC: He's not sorry!
