eMediaOne

Actor Eric Dane has filled suit against Nick Denton’s Gawker Media over Gawker’s publication of the now infamous
“McSteamy” sex tape.

According to TMZ, “Dane and and [partner Rebecca] Gayheart filed the lawsuit today in L.A. County Superior Court, claiming Gawker.com had not only unlawfully posted almost 4 minutes of the private video that was shot behind closed doors, but “maliciously” distributed the video and included nude shots of the fabulous threesome — the third wheel was former beauty queen Kari Ann Peniche.”

The pair are asking for “more than $1 million in damages” and for the video to be removed from Gawker.

Nick Denton’s only response has been on Twitter, saying that “To quote the great Marty Singer — Eric Dane’s lawyer — if you don’t want a sex tape on the internet, ‘don’t make one!’”

Out with the whore, in with the new, for Ashlee Dupree, most known for hookering it up with Eliot Spitzer, apparently hit the runway this week at Bahar Shahpar’s show yesterday. You go, call girl!

We now know the secret of Roger Federer’s success: Anna Wintour! The Vogue editrix has been entirely devoted during the entire U.S. Open, but left during his final set against Juan Martin del Potro yesterday. And then he lost. She-devil!

Good golly, does climate change and its evil, earth-shattering impact know no bounds? Apparently not, because researchers have now chalked up a new victim. And that victim is beer.

Yes, we know this is hard and we’re very, very sorry to be saying this, but climate change has, according to some smarty-pants scientist, taken its toll our something we hold sacred: hops.

Czech climatologist Martin Mozny claims that a rise in air temperature has diminished the flavor-giving acidity of Saaz hops, a key, sanity-giving ingredient in pilsner lager. And things will only get worse.

It’s not just Czech hops that are at stake here, says Francesco Tubiello, a crop specialist at the European Commission and a lead author of the agriculture chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. “The famous hop-growing regions of eastern Germany and central Slovakia are facing the same situation,” he says.

You see?! All the entire land of Europe has been endangered by the increased temperatures. And, more importantly, the world’s drunks, who will now be forced to inebriate themselves with inferior alcoholic beverages, like rubbing alcohol, have no choice but to fight for survival.

This, friends, is an international tragedy. The only thing that could make us forget that we humans have destroyed our world is booze. And now that’s gone. Someone, please, bring us a gun, for this life has become too ugly. Our symbolic amber waves of grain — or, more specifically, hops — have now been decimated. It’s every man for himself, so arm yourselves. And bring a flask. You’ll need it.

Image via defecto’s flickr.

As of today, it’s been a year since David Foster Wallace died. Wallace was an important author and teacher; incidentally, the first movie adapted from his work is about to come out. n+1—yes, that n+1–has a nice remembrance.

It’s a small, great story about the writer, Michael Casper, who discovers, by going through his record collection, that David Foster Wallace named some of the characters in Infinite Jest after the real-life characters associated with an uber-obscure record label at the University of Arizona, where Wallace earned his MFA. This was my favorite part; someone who knew Wallace, a US military vet turned fellow MFA candidate, talking about his interactions with the author:

Wallace, who was fresh out of his undergraduate years, was attracted to stories of experience because he thought his life was bare of detail. “Dave liked to hear me tell stories,” he said. “He didn’t know what to write about. He thought he had used up all he knew in Broom of the System.

“Dave used to say that his life story would be, ‘David sat in the smoking room of the library’-they still had smoking rooms in those days-‘trying to think of the next line to write.’”

Wallace is still gaining popularity: a website devoted to helping readers get through Infinite Jest, called Infinite Summer, popped up earlier this year. Regardless of the movie on its way, and maybe more of his writing to be unearthed—who knows? The guy was prolific.—David Foster Wallace put to paper the kind of work that’ll ensure his legacy and influence over contemporary literature living on for a long, long time to come.

Los Angeles police have been trying to hunt down the cops who gave TMZ that awful picture of a battered Rihanna — and they may have just caught them.

The LAPD placed two officers, Rebecca Reyes and Blanca Lopez, on leave in connection with their investigation into the leak, the AP reports; supposedly the officers in question met Levin at a gay/lesbian networking event, at least according to a report floated in TheMediaBuffet.com, which last winter was first to report that TMZ paid $62,500 for the police snapshot.

Lopez’s attorney has issued a blanket denial that she had anything to do with the leak; Reyes’ lawyer has, according to AP, said she “did nothing criminal or anything for financial gain” — a much more specific denial that leaves open that possibility that TMZ’s money may have gone to a friend or relative, as anti-paparazzi advocates claim is common practice.

The question of Reyes and Lopez’s guilt is beside the point as far as the effect on TMZ is concerned: It’s going to be harder to get the cooperation of law enforcement sources if they think it is at all likely a witchhunt will put their steady government job and comfy, government-funded retirement at risk, leaving them in the cold during a recession. Maybe Levin should put these two on the TMZ payroll, as a counter-example to others. He could certainly afford it.

(Pic: Levin at a Laker’s game in April. Getty.)

The Coast Guard just fired shots at a boat on the Potomac in D.C.—initial reports said it was a “suspicious” vessel, but now it looks like the Coast Guard says it was a training exercise.

Hey that’s a great idea—a live-fire training exercise in public in our nation’s capital on the eighth anniversary of 9/11. Maybe they could fly some planes really low over the city, too, just to train on how to do it?

We’ll update as more comes out.

Celebrities and pets: The last two subjects that Americans care to read about.

Here we have America’s newest magazine Cesar’s Way, combining a popular television personality, dogs, and celebrities talking about their dogs. Every other magazine in America is worried about folding, but this invincible trifecta of American interests makes Cesar’s Way the surest media bet until Jill Abramson’s god damn ‘Puppy Diaries’ book comes along.

“Can your dog fix your marriage? Just ask Jada Pinkett Smith.” That seems like a bizarre conversation.

Dogs and famous people, together at last!

There is nothing Hollywood likes better than a theme party and last night TV’s big wigs assembled the themeiest of launches, going back to the land of their primal fears, high school for the Glee premiere.

The bash was held at a mid-sized Culver City school, which for the night became the show’s William McKinley High, rife with “Join Glee Club” and “Cheerios Rule” signs, re-creating the show’s cheerleader vs. accapella singers rivalry. The staging of that division however, hit the roadblock of there being no obvious costume to signify accapella singing. Thus, hostile as it might have seemed to the show’s characters , the premiere staff was clad entirely in cheer and football costumes, starting with a recreation of that most precious of scholastic traditions, the Cheerleader Car Wash, featuring mini-skirted Cheerios sponging down a Chevy Equinox SUV – the show’s major sponsor.

Valiantly keeping with the theme, the show’s first post-pilot episode was aired in the school gymnasium, causing the assembled Hollywood Power Elite, sitting on folding chairs and bleachers, to fight back the urge to let their neighbors know how much better this would have looked in their private screening rooms. Silently they chanted to themselves, “It’s only a theme. It’s only a theme.”

Many power players struggled valiantly however to assert their sense of selves and turn the gym into an impromptu agency board room, working their Blackberries overtime to create a power mystique.

Crushing the hopes of all the struggling writers who had come spec scripts in hand, just before the episode rolled it was announced that Executive Producer Ryan Murphy was not with us; sadly he was in Rome shooting a film with Julia Roberts. Murphy’s co-Executive Producer Dante Di Loreto took the mic to introduce the cast, thank the assembled executivery, and present a giant fake check to the charity Young Arts Association.

For those who loved the pilot, the episode which airs tonight shall not disappoint, with the comic musical crescendo set to Salt ‘n Peppa’s Push It particularly delighting. Hollywood premiere crowds are not the types to rise to their feet and shake that booty in their Hugo Boss, but the booty shakin’ was much implied in the room nonetheless.

The premiere buffet presents the most significant hurdle any TV show or film must cross. The dilemma of how much to keep with the theme with the food has brought low many a mighty tentpole. On the one hand, you stick to close to the theme and you risk culinary disaster for the sake of effect. I’ve been to the premiere of a film set on an airplane where they kept so close to theme that they forced Hollywood’s elite to dine on boxes of ham and cheese sandwiches and Pepperidge Farm crackers. Admirable as their consistency was, the decision likely doomed the film at the box office. On the other hand, walk away from the theme and your sense of showmanship is called into question.

Handed the high school theme, Glee if anything choose to err on the side of showmanship, but not without some compromises to culinary standards. As the buffet was set up in an actual high school cafeteria, they were handed first base in the setting, which they played through nicely by dressing the servers in hair nets and aprons, the food served from sneeze-guarded racks.

The food itself attempted some haute variations such as “mac and cheese with toasted breadcrumbs.” However, when it came to the short rib dilemma, one could sense the caterers throwing up their hands at artistic consistency. The problem being that the entertainment establishment passed a law a few years back that you can not throw an industry event without serving short ribs. But how do you make short ribs seem like the short ribs you were served back in high school? It’s an impossible dilemma. You don’t. You can not. So in this case Glee brazenly marched away from the theme and offered braised short ribs with panca sauce. The result, it must be said, was a triumph; much artistic liberty can be forgiven for such a success. As it could with grilled asparagus spears with white balsamic glaze.

The dessert selection however, likely erred too far on the side of artistic consistency — creating a mock bake sale table with mock homemade cookies. Admirable choice, but really was there no way to work in a chocolate fountain?

In any event, overall the buffet speaks very well to Glee’s prospects in the martketplace.

The cafeteria style dining no doubt caused many of the Hollywood elite present to flash back to the days when no one would let them sit at the table at lunchtime, and there were some nervously flashing eyes as people carried their trays through the crowd looking for a place to sit. The “which is the cool table” question was made no easier by Fox TV President Peter Rice’s decision to remain on his feet throughout the night, setting himself up as Switzerland between the warring cliques rather than the BMOC. Producer Dante Di Loreto and the show’s star Lea Michelle (shown above) followed suit, remaining on their feet.

Dinner consumed and this being a musical show, the non-power suit section of the crowd took to the dance floor, breaking into an admirably syncopated line dance to the beloved classic Baby’s Got Back and making onlookers feel that perhaps life really could be like a musical.

Speaking on the sidelines, I chatted with Iqbal Theba the veteran character actor who landed the role of McKinley High’s conniving principal after playing a role in Ryan Murphy’s Nip/Tuck. Clearly thrilled by Glee’s buzz, he told me his character was drawn from an uncle who “used to think he was a CEO. Even though he was not a CEO, in his confidence he had this way of manipulating everyone to do what he wanted.”

Principal or no, eventually even Theba, the school’s authority figure, could not resist the lure of the dance floor.

As the night wound down, it was indeed time to put a ring on it. Literally, sorta. As the Beyonce hit came on the PA, the show’s Chris Coffler, and two of the show’s Cheerios grabbed the spotlight on the dance floor, breaking into a complexly coreographed routine to the song. Many on the floor may have thought it was cheating to pull out a piece from the show, but the crowd cheered wildly and as we drifted out to the valet, much of the Hollywood Power Elite pondered what might have been if their own high school days had featured a lot more singing and dancing and a lot less of them getting beaten up by the cool kids.

Matt Drudge is playing up Andrew Breitbart’s latest Obama conspiracy theory—that he is enlisting the aid of the all-powerful visual arts cartel in support of healthcare reform. How long before artist thugs are dragging conservatives from their homes?

The diabolical alliance between Obama and his art-gangsters was struck in two shadowy conference calls last month, one allegedly hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the other by the NEA-funded Americans for Arts. Both calls invited artists to discuss ways to “make change happen” and featured representatives from the White House’s Office of Public Engagement.

Drudge calls them “propaganda” calls, and hints darkly that someone lied or something about who sponsored them. It’s unclear whether these were simply random conference calls hosted by artist-activists and nonprofits at which representatives of the White House and NEA appeared, or whether they were actual White House-directed efforts to get a bunch of artists on the phone. Patrick Courrielche, a blogger at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, thinks it’s the latter: “What appears to be emerging is a concerted and deliberate effort by the White House and the NEA to encourage the art community to create issue specific art.”

Oh dear. If Obama’s way to ram healthcare legislation through is to convince artists—the group of Americans who collectively wield the smallest conceivable quantum of influence over anything, at all—to, um, do art stuff in favor of it, we are all screwed. If his idea of propaganda is a mixed-media show about the insurance industry at a community center in Deerfield, Illinois, then he’s the least competent fascist in the history of fascism.

We should say that we are somewhat sympathetic to Courrielche’s position. If this is indeed a White House-led effort—and there’s no clear evidence that it is—it is wrongheaded. Even the suggestion that NEA money could be doled out to artists based on political criteria should be avoided, and any artist worth the name ought to feel uncomfortable about joining any conference call at all, let alone one that features Kal Penn in his duties as White House liaison to the arts community. Courrielche’s initial post on the subject at Big Hollywood is actually thoughtful, well-considered, and largely devoid of hyperbole. His second post claims to uncover a thicket of lies and rants about propaganda. Hey! That’s also the one Drudge linked to. What do you know?

Anyway, plenty of artists obviously support Obama’s agenda, but because they are just artists and nobody pays any attention to them, they are powerless to do anything about it. Now let’s hope they go back to taking pictures of urine-soaked crucifixes and men with whip-handles up their assholes, so crazy wingnuts will have more interesting things to be outraged about.