A Little of the Old In and Out

In: The Lonely Ballad of the "Fruit Monkey." Our favorite NYRB-reading gossipmonger Ben Widdicombe hips us to the latest in the ongoing saga of the Who-called-whom-a-fruitmonkey contretemps. Our man in the field, Gatecrasher says:

"(Pat O'Brien's) flack put me on the phone Friday with an 'Insider' employee. This employee, who insisted on not being named, said the person who called a gay African-American producer 'Fruit Monkey' was not O'Brien but another 'Access Hollywood' producer. The employee, who moved with O'Brien when he made the jump between shows ...



"... wouldn't say who the offender was." ("Fruitmonkey"(TM) via popcormfestival)

Takes one to know one, eh "Access Hollywood"? (Averted Gaze)



Out: RosieO'DonnellZenHaiku. Assume the complex Zazen posture (above), true believers. Take calm, deep cleansing breaths. Allow Rosie's words to caress your effervescent inner Chi-force like mountainwind against the archer's missive) In this week's installment of an entirely irrelevant but infinitely fascinating celebrity blog, delivered with all the gravity of lovesick teenage poetry, Zen Buddhist Master Rosie O'Donnell sallies forth with exquisite hot winds. A portion of which reads:

"ro - kel whispers again/ the ticket woman says it/ 'doesn't he have a binky'/and off we go /talking about not knowing/ if we should/ but wanting to /so "

Oh. And here we go, Again/ Insulting Ro, when, Even tho/ We find these little incoherent scribblings, so ... / Addictive.

(The Corsair sips insolently from a chilled glass of a mature Grappa)

In: Denise Richards. The Corsair sometimes fucks the whole shit up, as, when -- without any inkling of insidery knowledge of either party -- we posted a bit of snark insinuating that Denise Richards had hatched some erstwhile Machiavellian plot (3rd post), seeing as she had successfully sired the next generation of Sheen Babies, thus allowing her to part Charlie from his earnings. Ugh!

From what bag of glue were we sniffing on that baleful day? The fumes were surely acrid and bitter, and we do most heartily apologize (The Corsair lowers his tricorn pirate hat with flourish as he bows). Evidently, Charlie Sheen is presently playing a particularly nasty game of hardball (link via Defamer) with the very pregnant Denise Richards. And how could that not have been expected, alas? Is there a vice known to man -- or 4-legged beast on cloven hoof that chews its own cud -- in which Charlie Sheen has not gleefully elected to participate? (And, like, we mean that in a bad way this time, guys)

Engaging in litigation with such a species of "unclean meat" (Averted Gaze) as Charlie Sheen will not be fun, especially not when pregnant with said person's child. It's going to be incredibly nasty, and well-publicized, even by Hollywood standards. We wish Denise Richards luck, and offer up some deep, heartfelt apologies.

Out: The Jeb Bush-Tom Delay Gambit, Broken. Although Dean and Hillary took a sustained beating from their Progressive base last week over their relative silence over the Schiavo politicking, as the repulsive Tom Delay (Exterminator, exterminate thyself) and "Jebby" Bush played the overemotional Christian Conservatives like so many Stradivarii (the tune was from the repertoire of the nutritionally-empty but popular virtuoso, Paginini), the Democratic strategy appears to have been sound. Napoleon's fatal campaign against Russia, sound.

Extract, for a second, the innocent Terry Sciavo from the equation (As she ought to have been ab initio, in Congress' debate), so we can appraise this situation with cold, jewler's eyes. The Democrats affected a strategic retreat, falling back, yet continually harassing the Republicans with the Barney Frank as their eloquent and tenacious lieutenant.

Now, as the damage toll mounts, and Jebby and Delay -- whose own strategic "delay" all but threw the focus off his own defective ethical compass -- realize that giving the Christian Coalition the whole hog would irrevocably damage the nation, the Dems attack even as the Coalition turns on Jebby and Delay.

Delay, via the Ethics Committee, and Jebby, by way of 2012 Pro-Lifer backlash, may both end up in political ruins for playing on the razor's edge. And they have only themselves to blame for demogoguing a clear separation-of-powers issue, not leaving things to the courts.

In: Angela Robinson. Talented D.E.B.S director Angela Robinson stumbled on to Hollywood's best kept secret en route to making the buzzworthy film, namely -- studio heads like lesbians. Indiewire dutifully reports:

"iW: What sort of pressures if any did you face in adapting the film into a feature, given the lesbian storyline... or maybe that element was something that drew Screen Gems to your film?

"AR: Screen Gems and Samuel Goldwyn (the film's distributor) were into the lesbian storyline. They liked the way it was handled and thought it was a fun twist. I think it drew them to the film."

Uhm, yeah, we'll cosign on that greenlight.

Out: Kofi Annan, Tony Blair. Tony Blair's squeaky clean image as a family friendly Labor PM is about to take a beating from a sex scandal, and this at a time when his popularity is teetering on the brink, and elections are on the horizon.

UN Secretary General and all-around impotent fuzzy wuzzy teddy bear Kofi Annan ("I ... am appalled ..."), if the chattering is right, will take nearly as much of a beating in the soon-to-be-released (When?!?) Volker Report. Rumors swirling around Turtle Bay mention that if the report is as bad as all say it is ... and we think it is ... Kofi may resign, leaving Asia -- China?! -- to claim their turn as Secretary General of the UN.