DEFAMER: How did you hear that TRL was going off the air?
DAVE: I think I saw it on, like, Huffington Post or something. There wasn't a 3am phone call or anything like that.

DEFAMER: How did you feel when you heard the news?
DAVE: I hadn't watched [TRL] in a long time, but it was kind of a bummer, you know? It was a funny show where a lot of people who I still work with got their start. It'll be missed.

DEFAMER: Had you heard any rumors about its demise? Did you see this coming?
DAVE: I'm a little bit out of their demographic right now, so I hadn't heard anything. I check in every now and then, but I don't recognize a soul who's on it anymore. Damien [Fahey] does an awesome job, but I have no idea who the artists are at all. Like, I don't get Tokio Hotel. I don't understand why they're trying so hard to get them into them in the running. But yeah, I kind of thought that it might be coming. In 1999, 2000, there were a few huge stars. Now, there are a ton of semi-big stars. There's nobody that every thirteen-year-old girl can agree that they love, that they'd skip school and hop on the train and stand in Times Square to look at through a window.

DEFAMER: But what about a show like 106 & Park, which I think is still BET's highest-rated show? How can a music video show like that succeed while TRL is cancelled?
DAVE: Yeah, I don't understand how it doesn't make sense to at least keep it on. I mean, it's MTV's last music show, it's like their little clubhouse. It seems like the kind of thing they would want to keep going on forever, but then, what do I know? I mean, I just saw my first episode of The Hills last night, so what the fuck do I know?

DEFAMER: How had you managed to avoid it all this time?
DAVE: You know, it was just total, willful avoidance. I never saw Laguna Beach, either. It's almost more entertaining to watch people try to explain The Hills to you than to watch The Hills, because they don't know why they watch it. They talk about the people like they know them. It really is more fun to watch a grown man or woman defend their position as a Hills watcher.

DEFAMER: Is that indicative of how MTV has changed? We did a feature a few weeks ago called "7 MTV-Defining Stars Who Wouldn't Be Allowed on MTV Anymore"...
DAVE: ...Yeah, I read that!

DEFAMER: So do you agree with our premise that there's no niche there anymore for the sorts of people who put the network on the map?
DAVE: Yeah, I definitely agree. This is, like, a whole big conspiracy thing, but the way the Nielsen system works doesn't reward things like MTV used to put on. You know what I mean? Like, any music video show, you'd tune in for five minutes and if something came on that you didn't like, you'd change the channel. So ratings would be really low for some of the interesting programming that MTV used to put on. Now they do these things that aren't really challenging, but you're almost beat into submission in the first five minutes, like, "I guess I should see how this ends." You don't remember it when it's over, but you've watched it and that's all that matters. And it's a business! Unfortunately, they have to sell advertising.

DEFAMER: Was MTV always that ruthless about programming, though?
DAVE: You know, even the lowest-rated shows when I was there, people would talk about. Years later, they would remember it. So anecdotally, you know that people are actually watching, but the ratings never really bore that out.

DEFAMER: Is there anything on MTV you still watch?
DAVE: Listen, I will watch The Real World/Road Rules Challenge until the day I die. Big, hot dudes with their shirts off yelling at each other and getting drunk? For some reason, that never gets old. Like, I will watch CT take his shirt off and yell at somebody all fucking day. If there was a channel that was just that, I would watch it. But yeah, I don't love The Hills. Every single Dance Crew looks exactly the same to me. A lot of people I love still work there and the ratings are really good and people are still talking about it, but I'm 37 years old.

DEFAMER: But MTV used to be at least a little countercultural, didn't it? Even when they were programming shows like Singled Out, there'd be something like Tabitha Soren...
DAVE: And even things like Singled Out had Chris Hardwick, who's hilarious, and Jenny McCarthy, who's hilarious. They were sort of in on the joke a little bit, and right now, there's a lot of stuff that maybe takes itself too seriously. Like, Lauren Conrad probably has demands of what she will and won't do, and that's ridiculous... I wish that MTV2 would sort of take on that mantle of, "Here's our programming and here's people who love music," but it just seems like it's reruns of The Hills.

DEFAMER: When we posted about the TRL cancellation, some of our commenters started posting some old YouTube videos of their favorite moments...
DAVE: Oh, no way!

DEFAMER: ...so what would your favorite moment have been, if you could post it?
DAVE: You know, the really funny shit happened behind the scenes. My favorite thing I saw in probably the whole time I worked for MTV was there was this whole hour devoted to Prince, which of course he showed up fifty minutes late for. He flew in with this huge phalanx of guards, hot chicks with their tits out, and one of the biggest of the big dudes who was around him had this big jar with a posted note on it that said "Swear Jar." If you swore around Prince, since he was a Jehovah's Witness, you had to put in a dollar. That didn't make it to the air, but I just thought, "Man, that's funny stuff!"

In today's installment: Janice Dickinson, Quentin Tarantino, Ellen Page, Sarah Silverman, Jason Schwartzman, Scott Speedman, Gene Simmons, Kristen Bell, Rachel Zoe, Adam Levine, Mila Kunis, Seth Green, Stacy Keibler, Reggie Bush, Dave Holmes, Holland Taylor, Busta Rhymes, and Lil Wayne.

Tuesday, April 1
· Beverly Hills Post Office, Main Branch: Stacy Keibler in line ahead of me, and Holland Taylor in line just behind me. Both women were gorgeous in everyday makeup and neither seemed at all "above" standing in the ridiculously long line with the regular folks at the post office. I did notice that Ms. Taylor was sending a package to Martin Sheen; how adorable.

Friday, April 4
· 8000 Sunset, @ 9:30pm: Quentin Tarantino sits not inside the arthouse cinema but instead on the newly installed tacky "patio furniture" of the renovated plaza. Talks with a Lisa Loeb look-alike, but she has long black hair, and is not an actress type. They sit next to each other, but facing, on a park bench. Tarantino wears no hat, a black leather jacket, jeans, & black Asics soccer style low tops with white socks that I can see because of his awkward bench positioning. All I hear him say is a rat-a-tat-tat "Yeah, yeah, ..uh huh, of course" while jutting his chin out as Loeb-alike talks. Both hold paper coffee cups. The HQ for TMZ is in the same complex - I was hoping they would look out their window.

Saturday, April 5
· West Hollywood 7-11 on La Cienega and Holloway @ 5:50am: I ran into Busta Rhymes. He was riding shotgun in a red Cadillac CTX. (the 2 seater) His buddy bought a newspaper and he looked at a people magazine and contemplated buying batteries. I was buying Gatorade and coffee. I walked up to him and said "Bus a bus?" He did not respond for a second, I thought he might be talking to someone via Bluetooth. It was only him and I and the cashier. So I said "Busta of flipmode squad" He then turned toward me and laughed, said yes and gave me a bro's handshake then walked out.

Sunday, April 6
· Brewery Art Walk: Scott Speedman wandering about alone, looked confused, cute but much stockier in person than I would have expected. Still maintain Felicity should have ended up with Noel.

· Tampa International Airport @ 6pm: I had been to the NCAA Women's Final Four, aka Lesbian Super Bowl. I stopped to get a meal at TGI Fridays to help my hang over and lo and behold at the bar I see sex god (?) Gene Simmons! He was conspicuously leaning on the bar, facing out, scanning the restaurant. I couldn't get over his ridiculous hair.

Monday, April 7
· Hollywood And Highland: Treating some out-of-town relatives to the sight of other people's out-of-town relatives staring at the sidewalk, I took refuge at the Sephora. As weekend celeb sightings are rare, particularly at touristy places, I was a bit stunned to see Sarah Silverman browsing the skin care section. She looked just like she does on television, which is... or is not... a compliment.

· Beverly Center Chipotle @8pm: Reggie Bush. Short and stacked. Pretty sure the black on black Bentley in the fifteen minute parking was his. Unfortunately it can't compete with my '92 Subaru.

· Red Lion: Dave "I Wanna Be A VJ But for Some Reason Jesse Camp Won that Show but now he's working at a pet store or so I heard" Holmes was at Trivia Night (and even on the winning team). I don't know if they showed up especially for trivia or just happened to be there. He was with a group of about 12 completely average seeming people, including one guy that must have been his brother because they had the same vaguely smug but disarming look about them.

Tuesday, April 8
· Mani's on Fairfax @ 8pm: Saw Jason Schwartzman grabbing something to go from the bakery. Cute, short, almost as exciting as the delicious piece of cherry pie I was devouring mid-sighting.

· Graumann's Chinese Theater: I'm at Graumann's Chinese theater and I'm about 93% sure I am sitting behind Janice Dickinson. I have not seen her face, but she keeps yelling at the ads before the movie. Now I'm 100% sure. She keeps commenting loudly after every trailer. This was so worth the 11.50 per ticket. When she walked out of the theater she said "yawn" loud enough for pretty much everyone to hear. Awesome. Whore...she's also totally skeletal and ate two buckets of popcorn then left for a while. Bulimic coke whore...."

· WeHo Trader Joes, afternoon: i was in weho trader joes yesterday afternoon and i heard this woman on the phone talking loud and it bugged me so i looked and it was Rachel Zoe in the cereal section moving to the trail mix section stuffing her basket and talking but that wasn't the disturbing part, maybe she was feeding the homeless, not herself. but she was wearing this huge fur vest (i am not a activist but that vest could make me one) that looked like a bear was hugging her and these ridiculous shoes that she was trying to balance on and and her face was so well just so bloated looking.......people trust her to dress them?

· Hotel Cafe: Dancing With the Stars pros Mark Ballas and Derek Hough played with their band "Almost Amy." In attendance: The Cheetah Girls, Cristian de la Fuente, Cheryl Burke, Julianne Hough, Priscilla Presley, Kristi Yamaguchi, Shannon Elizabeth, Fabian Sanchez, Pasha (from SYTYCD). Derek and Shannon were looking particularly cozy after the show.

· Beverly Center Chipotle: None other than Weezy F Baby (Lil Wayne) in front of me after yet another Chipotle visit. He was in a Dodge Nitrosomething with 29s or 30s on it. I wanted to get out of my car and tell him what a huge fan I am but I was afraid of getting clapped.

Thursday, April 10
· Adam Levine, in a giant green cowl neck sweater, shorts, high socks and driving shoes; buying many spirits at Mayfair. He is slender and handsome enough to obviously not be drinking all that alone later.

· Was at the Forgetting Sarah Marshall premiere party last night, complete clusterfuck. Mila Kunis looked pretty and skinny. Kristen Bell looked pretty, skinny and really happy. Amber Heard.. skinny and wooden. Seth Green was short and friendly. The skinny guy from Superbad, the comedian with a gap in his teeth from Human Giants [Ed. Note - That'd be Paul Scheer]. Busy Phillips sort of channeling Anna Nicole. Paul Rudd - as dreamy as expected. Swoon.

Friday, April 11
· Hollywood Farmers Market: I saw Ellen Page at the Hollywood Farmers Market. She looked very Juno in a hoodie with the hood up. She was buying brussel sprouts or something similarly healthy. Good eating habits Ellen!

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]