We already found two donations from David Geffen amounting to $200,000, and, confirming reports, another $100k each from a "self-employed" Brad Pitt and Ellen DeGeneres. And what of donations in support of the measure? We managed to ferret out an "unemployed" Mel Gibson living in Cameron Park who gave $250 to the Yes side. Alas, this was probably not the star but a gay-hater of lesser means bearing the same name, as Cameron Park is a community about 25 miles outside Sacramento. Then again, you never know where the Malibu land baron might have a little pied-a-terre. We'll just assume it is the Apocalypto director until we hear otherwise.

• Follow the money: Track contributors [LAT]

Having soured on the Clintons after raising huge sums of money for Bill and sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom—twice—Geffen found himself enamored of Obama from the first time he saw him on TV, giving a speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. "I thought he was a remarkable guy," Geffen told me today. "After I heard him give that speech, I called him up and said, 'You're going to run for president and I'm going to support you.' " Geffen says Obama laughed and said he was very flattered, but that he wasn't running.

Cut to two years later. "He called me one day and said with a laugh, ' David, I guess you're right. I am running for president and I'd like your support.' And of course, I said, 'You have it.' "

Geffen then leaned back in his Carbon Beach chaise lounge, asking his second assistant's second assistant to bring over the master to-do list. "Cross out 'Make Obama run for president,'" he instructed, as the assistant's felt-tip marker hovered past "Flowers for Seann," "Bollywood!" and "Smear toothpaste on all the doorknobs at Paramount."

• Geffen on Obama: 'He'll be an inspiring president' [LAT]

Such modesty! To a point, anyway: If and/or when his Reliance Big Entertainment honeymoon ever tapers off, Spielberg and DreamWorks president Stacey Snider really won't have the Geffen touch to help woo another international conglomerate into bed. But by then Spielberg, 62, will probably be ready to scale back anyway, and survival will be less about braintrust than brand (and the library it manages to develop with its new distribution partners at Universal). He shouldn't even be there now, if one of his more illuminating disclosures today is to be believed:

In describing Mr. Geffen’s role at DreamWorks, Mr. Spielberg likened it to a family relationship. “Jeffrey and I were like the kids,” he said, while Mr. Geffen built the house and saw that the bills were paid. [...]

By his own recollection, Mr. Spielberg was initially reluctant to join in creating the original DreamWorks studio, which was conceived by Mr. Katzenberg shortly after he was fired as chairman of the Walt Disney Company’s studio operation in 1994. But Mr. Katzenberg begged for a meeting, and asked to bring a friend. The friend was Mr. Geffen, who not only did all the talking, but insisted to Mr. Spielberg: “I am representing your best interests.”

That assurance was to become the theme of Mr. Geffen’s dealings with Mr. Spielberg, who describes Mr. Geffen’s efforts for him over the years as a kind of “altruism.”

Aww! That shouldn't imply Spielberg was in a hurry to race out the door at Paramount, though, where Geffen reportedly had a short stay in mind even before he clashed with Brad Grey in 2006 over credit for Dreamgirls; "I do not like change," the director told the NY Times. And even if we have Tom Freston's firing and other, seemingly circumstantial evidence to vouch for that philosophy, everyone knows the bottom line: The sex just isn't the same off the Paramount lot. Wait and see — he'll be back.

• David Geffen Makes a Sudden Exit [NYT]

The timekeeper cites three news sources in as many weeks that have noted that the $500 million Reliance/DreamWorks deal is "a week" away from closing. The Wall Street Journal was a little more vague when breaking the story last June, reporting only that the parties were "close" to a deal. A fun theory floated at the time suggested outgoing 'Works partner David Geffen fed the story to the Journal to entice a bid from Rupert Murdoch himself, whose 20th Century Fox is on the short (if unlikely) list of potential DreamWorks distributors:

"This is what [Geffen] does really well," a studio veteran said after details of DreamWorks' new deal fanned across the film industry like a Malibu fire. On close inspection, the source explained, those details are not only weeks away from being worked into a contract, but out there in a way to stir up interest from interlopers. Even the scoop by which the deal-in-progress became public — page one, above the fold, in The Wall Street Journal — appeared orchestrated.

Our own DreamWorks digging unearthed little new news, and our Magic 8-Ball isn't much help either, with the inquiry, "Will Steven Spielberg be a free man?" first turning up the response, "Ask again later," followed by, "Outlook good." Whatever — if it's good enough for the Journal, then it's good enough for us.

• Why Is This DreamWorks-Reliance Deal Taking So Long? [The Business Sheet]

Think of how easy it might have been to understand Arianna Huffington's bloggy animus toward Tim Russert if there were a book out chronicling all the sordid details of their decade-and-a-half-long secret feud. (There is.) Every gossip-mongering gadabout should know the full backstory on every spat, falling out, and long-running mutual antagonism in media. Below are the volumes no shelf should be without.

1. The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood, by Tom King

The Gist: A gay Polish-Ukrainian Jew from Borough Park moves to Hollywood and enters the mail room at the William Morris Agency. After forging a letter suggesting he had a college degree when in fact he did not, Geffen rises through the ranks to become an agent, then leaves WMA and founds Asylum Records and produces albums by Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Asylum is sold to Warner Communications, and Geffen becomes Vice Chairman of Warner film studios. He then retires and un-retires after a minor but erroneous health scare, founds Geffen Records, courts John Lennon and Yoko Ono (see below), produces Cats, Risky Business (see below), co-founds Dreamworks SKG, produces Saving Private Ryan, backs Bill Clinton, gives lots of money to AIDS research, falls out with Bill Clinton over one of the sleazeballs he didn't pardon, and now backs Barack Obama. Along the way Geffen throws many temper tantrums and raises his voice to the point where even Steven Spielberg asks him politely to lower it. He also shows a remarkable ability for betraying the confidences of good friends and business associates in order to charm potential clients he’s just met. The night Lennon was shot, Geffen was in bed with a male prostitute and loves to boast about it.

The Pull-Quote: “’What about my music?’ [Yoko Ono] asked. ‘Well, I’ve never heard any of your records.’ ‘Really,’ Ono said. ‘That doesn’t sound like a very good reason for me to make a deal with you.’ ‘I’m a big fan of John’s, and I have a great deal of respect for the two of you, and we do a very good job. We’re a good record company.’ ‘What do you mean you’re a good record company?’ Ono fired back. ‘You haven’t put out a record yet!’”

The Takeaway: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Be enlightened and progressive on your own time, but cunning and ruthless on corporate time. Respect for others’ privacy won't make you rich and powerful. Endear yourself to those you want to impress by gossiping about people you know behind their backs. It'll smack of such poor judgment that would-be clients will assume you're either crazy or brilliant, and guess what? You are.

2. Tina and Harry Come to America: Tina Brown, Harry Evans, and the Uses of Power, by Judy Bachrach

The Gist: Gifted writer Tina Brown makes her fellow students feel small at Oxford, dates a host of famous men (including Auberon Waugh, who washes frantically after sex, Martin Amis, whom she adores, and Dudley Moore, whom she does not), deflects charges of arrivisme, and becomes editor of UK tabloid Tatler at age 25. She meets Harold Evans, then married and famously editing the The Times of London and The Sunday Times, which names her Most Promising Female Journalist. Brown and Evans marry in 1981, then move to New York three years later, whereupon Brown revives the moribund Vanity Fair by turning it into the must-read glossy on celebrity doings and the leisure class. She hires true crime reporter Dominick Dunne, photographer Helmut Newton and inaugurates a new wave of magazine journalism, operating under the assumption that "intellectuals should be read and not seen." Meanwhile, Tina and Harry are now East Coast socialites whose fiercely guarded life together aspires to shape headlines, not become them. (Their best friend is British libel law.) Brown takes over The New Yorker in 1992 and remakes that antiquated smart sheet, too, acquiring Malcolm Gladwell, Anthony Lane and David Remnick, who later replaces her as editor-in-chief. On a manuscript submitted by Yiddish Nobel laureate, Brown writes, "Beef it up, Singer," which more or less encapsulates her style of feared-but-respected-or-hated tenure. She founds Talk magazine in 1999, which folds after just two years, an over-sensationalized failure from which this unauthorized biography derives all of its rise-and-fall schadenfraude. (Bachrach is a contributing editor at the new VF, edited by Brown’s archnemesis Graydon Carter.)

The Pull-Quote: "We live in a time when infamy sells.... There is no honor, no reticence, no loyalty." Spoken by Maureen Dowd on Brown's New Yorker reign, and quoted by author to make a clichéd point.

The Takeaway: Develop a nose for future A-listers. Sleep with as many as you can all the while adopting an “amused” air about them. Overpaying the talent means you can bully them into submission, so don't be cowed by easily tossed around phrases like "national institution" or "greatest living writer." Fuck 'em if they can't take a kill-fee. Oh, and marry old men.

3. How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, by Toby Young

The Gist: Son of highbrow sociologist Michael Young, who coined the term "meritocracy," Toby Young devotes his life to testing how much strain that already weakened concept can take. He writes for the British Times, gets fired from the British Times. He founds celebrated Modern Review, which traffics in "low culture for highbrows," then shuts it down, much to the dismay of everyone else involved. Young moves to New York in the early 90's, gets hired by Graydon Carter as a contributing editor (read: sinecurist) at Vanity Fair, then proceeds overlong tenure as a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of Graydon Carter’s shoe (this is G.C.’s description of him, not ours). Young cracks dud jokes to celebrities, refers to doormen who won't let him into parties he'd end up hating anyway as "clipboard Nazis," does blow while on assignment, asks Nathan Lane if he's gay, gets fired from Vanity Fair. Now back in London (this isn't in the book), Young edits The Spectator, a conservative weekly, and boasts of his "negative charisma," probably as a way to boost paperback sales. HTLFAAP, much like Young himself, has been up and down the wicket of sadomasochistic success. A film adaptation is said to be in post-production, starring Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst.

The Pull-Quote: “Cool Britannia was a cry of independence, a howl of protest against the all-enveloping cultural hegemony of the United States, yet, paradoxically, it didn’t really mean anything—it hadn’t really happened—until it was noticed by the American media. That explained the schizophrenic attitude of people like Damien Hirst, Keith Allen and Alex James: they wanted to assert their indifference to the attentions of glossy, New York magazines, and yet they wanted to be photographed striking this insouciant pose in Vanity Fair. Like rebellious schoolchildren, their protest wouldn’t have counted unless it was registered by the authorities. Unfortunately, in this scenario I was cast as the toothless substitute teacher.”

The Takeaway: The memoir is a good object lesson in what not to do if you want to hang onto a job or a masthead listing, or cast the impression that deep down you really had high expectations for the world of glamour-besotted New York media. Also, it pays to be obnoxious in a way that only you find ironic.

4. Spy: The Funny Years, by Kurt Andersen, Graydon Carter, George Kalogerakis

The Gist: In 1986, Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen found the future of piss-taking journalism in the form of Spy magazine. Épater le bourgeoisie never had it so good, or so the editors – now all dressed up and fixtures of the very culture they once lampooned – are the first ones to remind you. Spy pioneers satire as a clever agglomeration of facts, and specializes in the infographic, the listicle (just like this one!) and the blurb cloud. It attempts to decipher just who, exactly, is on the New Yorker’s indecipherable masthead. It follows Anthony Haden-Guest into the dank reaches of his own nightlife. It refines hatred of Donald Trump into an art form. Features include the Liz Smith Tote Board, Separated at Birth, and Logrolling in Our Time, without which everything from The Onion to Conan O’Brien’s pre-interview fooling would be unimaginable. The self-conscious prose style is a cocktail of H.L. Mencken, A.J. Liebling and Wolcott Gibbs, and its been swigged by every glossy editor in search of a readership ever since. Once G.C. leaves, it all goes to shit. Like Studio 54, the new owners can’t make it work, ergo the justified hubris of the book’s title.

The Pull-Quote: “How easy is it to steal the sour cream?” – in a chart surveying the various Manhattan cafeteria chains.

The Gist: You need only ask yourself if you read Radar to determine whether there’s any pedagogic value to be mined from Spy.

5. Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney

The Gist: Nameless 24 year-old fact-checker for elite New York glossy (a thinly veiled New Yorker) moonlights as an aspiring novelist, or wants us to believe he moonlights as that while he’s busy Hoovering coke by the suitcaseful and partying through the vertiginous 80’s club scene with a yuppie twat called Tad Allagash. Tad calls the narrator, who writes annoyingly in the second person, “Coach.” His mother has recently passed away, so we’re shin-kicked into wondering if a life of artifice and glitz is simply an emollient for real pain. Behind the hatred there lies a plundering desire for love. Or something.

The Pull-Quote: “Just now you want to stay at the surface of things, and Tad is a figure skater who never considers the sharks under the ice. You have friends who actually care about you and speak the language of the inner self. You have avoided them of late. Your soul is as disheveled as your apartment, and until you clean up a little you don't want to invite anyone inside.”

The Takeaway: Once Tina Brown takes over Coach’s magazine, he’s fired. Sort your soul out before you move to the metropolis of infinite distractions, otherwise you, too, will wind up a shiftless anonymity with withdrawal symptoms. (Your apartment can still be a mess, however.)

6. The Devil Wears Prada, by Lauren Weisberger

The Gist: Recent Brown graduate Andrea Sacks wants to write for the New Yorker (sigh) and blankets the media world with her resume hoping to get a dues-paying job somewhere that will eventually allow her to become Larissa MacFarquhar. Whoops. She gets hired by fashion bible Runway’s bitch supreme Miranda Priestly (Anna Wintour, not even thinly veiled) as her junior personal assistant. Next thing Andrea knows, she’s chasing down lattes at Starbucks and sirloins at Smith and Wollensky instead of learning about ledes and nut grafs. Not what she had in mind but she loves the clothes and even develops a knack for being a second-string slave to a subhuman narcissist. Unlike in the film, Andrea doesn’t quit – she gets fired for saying “Fuck you, Miranda. Fuck you.” Ballsy, sure, but she does get to keep some of the Dolce and even snags an interview for a real writing position at another magazine in the same building. (N.B. Author Weisberger was Wintour’s personal assistant, so this novel is a bildungsroman, which is a word Andrea learned at Brown but seldom got to use after graduation.)

The Pull-Quote: “Fuck you, Miranda. Fuck you.”

The Takeaway: How many bright young girls have come to New York hoping to fill these Cinderella slippers, only to discover that not only is Wintour not hiring, but she’s honed her filter for confessional opportunists more interested in publishing advances than making sure her Apple Fritter is extra flaky. If you want to be a bona fide reporter, save yourself the aggro and dashed hopes and apply for an internship at the New York Sun your junior year. Also, while it’s true that some ball-breaking editors respond well to self-assertiveness, telling your boss “Fuck you” isn’t the wisest career decision.

7. Monster: Living Off the Big Screen, by John Gregory Dunne

The Gist: The story of Dunne and wife Joan Didion's attempt to transform the life of anchorwoman Jessica Savitch, who died in a car wreck after more or less proving on air in 1983, during a broadcast of NBC News Digest, that she was a drug addict. Instead of a sadder version of Network, the screenplay transforms into the Disneyfied Up Close and Personal, which makes absolutely no mention of Savitch and which even Robert Redford doesn't remember filming.

The Pull-Quote: “The purpose of such a meet-and-greet is to allow the executive to size up the supplicant. [Disney studio chairman Jeffrey] Katzenberg had not read Golden Girl, but he was aware of the less savory details of Jessica Savitch’s life. He liked the ugly-duckling idea; it was the kind of narrative he wanted, and he was also responsive to the television background against which it would be played. He did have reservations, and here I quote Joan’s notes of that first meeting: ‘Wants to know what is going to happen in this picture that will make the audience walk out feeling uplifted, good about something and good about themselves.’”

The Takeaway: Dunne is witty and disarming, especially when he quotes Jack Warner's definition of screenwriters: "schmucks with Underwoods." Interestingly, the "monster" in question is not the industry or any particular studio executive, but rather the money that governs all, including Dunne.

8. You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, by Julia Phillips

The Gist: Scandal-sponge Jewish producer reveals the vast corruption, drugs and sexual indiscretions that motor the movie industry. Phillips gets fired by Steven Spielberg on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, accuses Goldie Hawn of body odor, and, on the night she becomes the first woman to win a "Best Picture" Oscar for The Sting, downs three valiums, one upper, one and a half drinks, two joints and a dash of cocaine. The book is a sprayfire indictment of practically everyone Phillips ever met in Hollywood, and it got her banned from Morton's.

The Pull-Quote: "They were really a rogues' gallery of nerds. Marty [Scorsese] was tiny and asthmatic, Steven [Spielberg] had the soft, flabby look of a typical Twinkies kid, and Brian [De Palma] never took his safari jacket off."

The Takeaway: Sour grapes ferment the best, although it's not as if anyone still believes in some West Coast Arcadia where dazzling moving pictures are made. Still, you'll hardly do better for the brutally honest story of a show biz prodigy that had to burn everything before she flamed out.

9. Autumn of the Moguls: My Misadventures With the Titans, Poseurs, and Money Guys Who Mastered and Messed Up Big Media, by Michael Wolff

The Gist: Following up on Burn-Rate (1998), which was about Wolff’s bust foray into the world of online startups, this is the nasty-minded sequel by the former New York media writer who wants badly to be the next Murdoch but can’t and decides to just insult everybody he ever envied instead—especially Fox News President Roger Ailes. Most of the stuff in here consists of Wolff's recycled columns, but it's all in one place and no true mogul ever wasted his time searching through web archives. Harvey Weinstein is obese and grotesque. The media business is "collapsing” like communism. Some of Wolff's axioms should be true even if they aren’t: “The larger and higher-profile the company, the bigger the nutcase who runs it.”

The Pull-Quote: “This was the meta thing. Meta gave both irony and gravitas to what we did. The delicious incongruity between our superficiality and our importance. The joie de vivre of self-referentialism. The stupendous, intoxicating power of being able to create the world we lived in."

Bonus Pull-Quote: “So, as I arrived for my speech, I was thinking of my relationship to the absent but always present [Fox News head Roger] Ailes. He was the greatest, but the Antichrist too.”

The Takeaway: Still fun. Like Young’s book, AOTM is a serviceable monument to failure dressed up as critical thinking. Though most of the wisdom you could just as easily cull by lunching at Michael's. Wolff went on to try and match-make the sale of his old haunt New York (he's now at Vanity Fair) to Mort Zuckerman, who in the event lost out to hedge fund wizard Bruce Wasserstein. That means more meanness is forthcoming in what promises to be the Dance to the Music of Time of inferiority complexes.

The rest of the picture is still taking shape, but after the jump we have a few educated guesses as to where things might land — and it looks curiously like Bollywood.

Led by Anil Ambani, by Variety's count the world's sixth richest man (and the husband of a Bollywood actress), Reliance is apparently taking over Hollywood one A-list player at a time. Its film funding arm, Reliance Big Entertainment, made headlines at Cannes last month when it announced development deals with the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks and others, splitting with studios the costs of new productions costing up to $1 billion. Reliance's latest venture is decidedly more ambitious, expanding its vast media footprint to claim what will be roughly half of the new DreamWorks: Six or so films a year through a studio to be determined (probably Spielberg's old stomping grounds at Universal, where he still keeps an office).

The deal also continues Asia's incursion into Hollywood, perhaps epitomized by Sony's $4.8 billion takeover (with Comcast) of MGM in 2005. But India has been even more active in the last year, with TV producer UTV Software buying into Fox's The Happening and Lionsgate entering a development deal with Mumbai-based shingle Eros International. The Reliance/DreamWorks pact is the biggest by far, but as noted by WSJ, the Snider connection gives Reliance stable executive footing for its grand Hollywood experiment.

The paper also adds, however, that DreamWorks would be dealing with an Indian conglom with its own internal drama: Anil Ambani is embroiled in a feud with his older brother Mukesh over a multi-billion dollar acquisition in South Africa. The trouble would only touch DreamWorks if the communications arm were ever sold; the brothers have reportedly been fighting over controlling interest in that case.

Spielberg will obviously cross that bridge when he comes to it, as will he face inevitable concerns about investor influence over his and Snider's slate. To wit, are the Clooney/Hanks/Pitt et. al. projects earmarked for the 'Works? How will Reliance play ball with Universal, Fox or another studio enlisted to distribute DreamWorks' films? Will press inquiries forevermore be rerouted to a call center in Bangalore? So many questions!

• Spielberg, India Firm Near Deal to Ally With DreamWorks [WSJ]

It depends on what Steven Spielberg and David Geffen want. Most important is autonomy, which they won't get without once again going the independent route: self-funding their own projects and paying out a distribution fee to a studio with the infrastructure to put their product in theaters. If Marvel can do it, God knows DreamWorks can, but Spielberg wants more — like full-blown "studio" more. That's why we kind of like the Universal prospect floated today by Goldstein:

Pros: No studio has the same emotional tug as Spielberg's ancestral home. Studio boss Ron Meyer would love to have DreamWorks back in the fold, while Spielberg and Snider (a former chairman at the studio) have an easy familiarity with Uni's marketing and distribution machinery.

Cons: After the dysfunction of Paramount, would DreamWorks want to be anywhere near the tightly controlled GE corporate culture that drove away Snider in the first place? GE remains the antithesis of DreamWorks' bureaucracy-free model.

Nevertheless, with everybody else overextended (Warner Bros., Sony) or content with their classier, "independent" outlets (Fox with Fox Searchlight; Disney with Miramax), Universal is the only studio that has would have the 'Works on its own terms. What Universal needs is development, and DreamWorks has that in spades. The bureaucracy would pare down pretty fast if (or rather when) DreamWorks is producing six films a year including one from Spielberg — while Snider is clearing the brush on his behalf. Goldstein even suggests that Spielberg might buy Universal, which, at a valuation of up to $25 billion, is ludicrous (even without NBC involved). But if this deal doesn't happen, it won't be for its principals' lack of trying. And hey, if not, then sure: Hellooooo, MGM!

• DreamWorks is ready to bolt from Paramount [LAT]

We take particular inspiration from skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone's position at #41 on the list, as his $7.6 billion net worth represents the culmination of over seven centuries of tireless work in the entertainment sector, a career that began when Redstone ran a gang of picketpocket minstrels who secretly fleeced the European peasants they tried to amuse with song before the Black Death claimed their wrectched lives. (Consider how far the mogul has come: Redstone is now so rich that he can fire Tom Cruise just because he annoys his wife. Amazing!) Some other Hollywood notables charting: Dream Works pals David Geffen (#52) and Steven Spielberg (#117), George Lucas (#86), and Power Rangers magnate Haim Saban (#102). Enjoy!

• The Forbes 400 [Forbes.com]

THE lesbians of Hollywood seem to be multiplying as they come out of the closet. "Call them the Rubyfruit Mafia," W magazine says in its latest issue. Movie producer Nina Jacobson said she didn't know of one other openly lesbian executive in Los Angeles in the early '90s when she told a colleague at Universal Studios, "I actually am not straight."

Jacobson, who now has three children with her lesbian partner, said, "It was certainly an acceptable choice to be closeted then. Now, in Hollywood, it would be a little pathetic. You would only look afraid." W reporter Kevin West also names HBO's head of programming Carolyn Strauss, Fox 2000 executive v.p. of production Carla Hacken, Sundance Institute's Cynthia Wornham, and "The L Word" creator Ilene Chaiken. Chaiken succeeded in pitching the series to Showtime's development executive Mark Zakarin after describing the characters, their relationships and some of the "arcane sociology of lesbian life, like the hotly debated question of whether you have to buy a new dildo when you get a new girlfriend."

While the piece will surely raise the Rubyfruit Mafia's profile in mainstream Hollywood, the Sapphic gang should further consolidate its power with a more dramatic demonstration of its potency. Perhaps it's time that Nina Jacobson, defying a direct order from gay-mob boss David Geffen, to finally put out that long-delayed hit on Disney chairman Dick Cook, serving an ice-cold dish of revenge for his delivery-room firing of Jacobson while her partner was giving birth. Such a chilling revenge-slaying would certainly deliver the message that fucking with any made member of the Rubyfruit Family carries severe consequences.

• H'WOOD LESBIANS OUT AND PROUD [Page Six]

You may at some point in your local travels have stumbled upon the art of prvtdncr: Working primarily in spraypaint on somebody-else's-building, the sloganeering graffiti artist throws up provocative phrases that are meant to hold a magnifying makeup mirror up to certain, unseemly facts about the true nature of Hollywood. As our friends at The WOW Report point out, BUTT magazine's current L.A.-themed issue devotes eight pages to some of his creations, including a less-than-generous sentiment regarding the Most Powerful Gay in the Universe.

In fairness to David Geffen, however, we think it's only right to point out that because of poor spacial planning, the original tag, which was to end, "human seagulls of Carbon Beach and Hillary Clinton!" was truncated to the far more inclusive message of intolerance pictured above.

• We Heart Art [WOW Report]
• [BUTT]

Geffen himself, calling from his yacht, insisted Friday that "Steven and I are very happy with the performance of Paramount's marketing and distribution teams in handling our films." He cited Rob Moore and Jim Tharp, among others, as contributing to the success of such DreamWorks-Paramount releases as "Transformers" and "Disturbia."

And on the Grey-Spielberg front, DHD's Nikki Finke reports that the embattled Paramount emperor, dejected about the BusinessWeek story, reached out to the director on his Indiana Jones 4 location shoot to be cheered up:

A few weeks ago, when Brad Grey visited Steven Spielberg in Connecticut where Indiana Jones 4 was shooting on location, the DreamWorks partner put the Paramount boss's mind at ease. "Steven said to Brad that he intended to be in business with him a long time," a source tells me. As a result, Grey was flabbergasted when he saw the headline "Paramount & DreamWorks: Splitsville?" from the new issue of Business Week which was reporting how it's "entirely possible" that Spielberg could want to leave Paramount as soon as late next year. The timing couldn't have been worse for Grey. Thanks to yet another DreamWorks pic Transformers performing spectacularly at the summer box office, not only had Paramount climbed to No. 1 in studio market share this year but boasted a new movie franchise to exploit. Grey had been celebrating. Now, because of the article, Brad was "bummed out", a source close to him told me. Also Grey knew that every other Hollywood mogul like him attending Jack Valenti's memorial service last Thursday had heard about the bombshell. So the Paramount chief needed to know if this was real or not. He spoke to Spielberg right away. This time, the director was on location in Hawaii. "And Steven continued to tell Brad he is 'very happy'," an insider tells me.

Hopefully, Grey has had his bruised feelings adequately soothed by Spielberg's assertions of happiness and promises of a long, fulfilling relationship (well, at least one that survives into 2009), allowing him to finally halt the hourly deliveries of FTD's popular "Please Tell Me I'm Pretty Again" flower arrangements to the Indiana Jones set, the alarming frequency of which was starting to seem "a little needy" to the busy director.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Geffen, Spielberg may walk [Variety]
• Spielberg Tells Grey He's "Very Happy" [DHD]
• Paramount and DreamWorks: Splitsville? [BusinessWeek]

"AMERICAN Pie" star Sean William Scott [sic] is very comfortable with his sexuality - so much so that when another paper claimed Scott had shown up with David Geffen at "Heat," a nonexistent L.A. gay bar, he didn't even bother to correct them. Maybe it's because he was too busy laughing.

Scott showed up at Upper East Side eatery Phillipe the other night with his longtime girlfriend, Victoria's Secret model Deanna Miller, and enjoyed a two-hour dinner while engaging in some major public displays of affection. Onlookers say they looked "very much in love and were all over each other." A friend of Scott said the two have quietly been dating for more than two years.

We always had our suspicions about the sighting (though the Defamer Correspondent on Chickenhawk-Related Activities tells us the bar in question was probably "Tigerheat," the gay dance club frequented by Britney Spears whenever she needs some cheering up by way of watching her security detail taser overly enthusiastic fans), but with this report of a dinner featuring fine champagne sipped from intertwined arms, lots of lingerie-model face-sucking, and Scott spinning around repeatedly to shout to neighboring tables, "Can you believe how not gay I am? It's like, ridiculous, right?" we are now 100% convinced of its fraudulence.

• GOOD FOR YUKS [NY Post]

• Out [Out.com]
• 'Out' Ranks the Top 50 Gays [NY Mag]

"The word gentrification is used when wealthy people move into a new neighborhood and fix it up," said Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor whose mansion on Carbon Beach is steps away from the weekend homes of Terry Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a movie executive and a friend of Mr. Geffen's. "But when it is billionaires taking over from multimillionaires, I'm not sure what you call that."

.

Friends of Mr. Geffen and Mr. Ellison said that each man wanted to create a resort they might frequent themselves, in a seaside colony that was the birthplace of California surf culture and more recently has been a weekend retreat for Hollywood power brokers. Twenty-five miles from Beverly Hills, moguls stroll the white sand along Carbon Beach and sometimes gather at "Dealmakers' Rock," an outcropping where movie deals are said to have been made.

The horrors of a supergentrified Malibu are almost too unspeakable to contemplate: stretched to their financial limits of skyrocketing housing costs, poorer millionaires will be forced to pick up side work swabbing the deck on Geffen and Ellison's shared yacht, bussing the billionaires' tables at their new resorts, or quietly assassinating interlopers strolling along the semipublic stretch of Carbon Beach Geffen pretended to concede to the Coastal Commission back in February. Faced with such myriad indignities, industry social climbers may decide to abandon Malibu entirely, ceding total control of the area to the merciless robber barons who seek to use their addiction to the uncut white sands to enslave them.

• Billionaire Beachcombers [NYT via Glass Shallot, who's really pissed off about the whole deal]

· Keith Urban takes a long, deep whiff of wife Nicole Kidman, whose juniper berry shampoo is the next best thing to an actual gin and tonic. [People]
· Velvet mafioso Don David Geffen and Mr. Diane von Furstenberg Barry Diller do their part to make Jack Nicholson feel comfortable with his new look, though Geffen has trouble hiding the crushing disappointment of having his 25-year passion project lose to a heroin-snorting grandpa and a lesbian folk song. [VF]

It's doubtful that the entire affair will last much beyond a day —- or that it will play much of a factor in either side raising money in Hollywood. Clinton is scheduled to visit Los Angeles today for a series of receptions with high-dollar donors including events hosted by Haim Saban, Sim Farar, Ron Burkle and John Emerson and another gathering at CAA.

That Clinton would seek the help of the evil agenting monolith in securing Hollywood's souls should indicate how desperate the candidate is not to lose the industry to Obamamania; she's obviously willing to look the other way as the agency's political consultants greedily gnaw on plump infant legs while spitballing ideas about how to change the current course of the campaign, deciding whether it's a better strategy to have the troublemaking Geffen's limousine blown up on the way to the Oscars or just turn their roof-mounted cannon towards Malibu and incinerate his entire compound as he sleeps.

• Geffen ignites Clinton-Obama feud [Variety]
• Previously: Obamamania: David Geffen Declares War On Hillary [Defamer]

Not content to demonstrate his Democratic kingmaking power by throwing a beachside cocktail party/Hillary Clinton effigy burning for Hollywood Chosen One Barack Obama on the pristine sand behind his Malibu compound last night, DreamWorks activist David Geffen granted the NY Times's Maureen Dowd an exclusive fireside chat, during which the power-mad billionaire stroked an overfluffed white cat while cackling his way through his plans to destroy his presidential-hopeful nemesis. The column is behind a subscriber wall, but here are some of the thoughts Geffen shared with Dowd about Hillary, Bill, the political hot water in which Steven Spielberg finds himself submerged for going along with the Obama fund-raiser, and his luxurious sleeping quarters:

"Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together.

"Obama is inspirational, and he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I'm tired of hearing James Carville on television." [...]

"I don't think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person," Mr. Geffen says, adding that if Republicans are digging up dirt, they'll wait until Hillary's the nominee to use it. "I think they believe she's the easiest to defeat."

She is overproduced and overscripted. "It's not a very big thing to say, 'I made a mistake' on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can't," Mr. Geffen says. "She's so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms." [...]

Did Mr. Spielberg get in trouble with the Clintons for helping Senator Obama? "Yes," Mr. Geffen replies, slyly. Can Obambi stand up to Clinton Inc.? "I hope so," he says, "because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective."

Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president "a reckless guy" who "gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country." [...]

I ask what he will say if he ever runs into Bill Clinton again. " 'Hi,' " he replies. And will he be upset if Hillary wins and he never gets to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom again?

"No," he says with a puckish smile. "It's not as nice as my bedroom."

Clinton's camp has already responded in outrage, hilariously demanding that Obama return Geffen's dirty money, but the war for Hollywood's political-starfucking soul is officially on. We fear that the acrimony will continue until some sort of Solomonic compromise is reached on the Spielberg Question, perhaps with the influential director offering to tie himself to the backs of their OBAMA '08 and HILLARY 4 PREZ campaign buses and then having them driven in opposite directions, with each candidate allowed to keep whatever grisly part of his torn-asunder body is still lashed to their vehicle.

• Obama's Big Screen Test [NY Times, sub. req'd.]
• Clinton, Obama Trade Barbs Over Donor [AP]

Just in case your assistant has forgotten to pencil it into your calendar, tonight is the $2,300 per person fundraiser/pre-coronation ceremony for Barack Obama that begins at the Beverly Hilton and ends at David Geffen's Malibu compound (the parade from the hotel to the beach, during which kingmaking DreamWorks billionaires Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Steven Spielberg will take turns carrying the senator on their shoulders, is expected to be spectacular), where Hollywood's hottest presidential hopeful will officially receive his much-anticipated reacharound from industry players who were able to scare up 20 well-monied Friends of Barry for the event. In an effort to keep out undesirables, only those who've ponied up their tribute will be allowed to join in the festivities. Reports the NY Times:

The ticket price of $2,300 reflects the maximum individual donation to a federal campaign, and, unlike those behind so many other Hollywood galas, organizers of this one vowed to bar the door to freeloaders, no matter how famous.

"We've turned down people who asked to bring a guest," said Andy Spahn, a political adviser to Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Katzenberg, among other industry people. "There will be no comps. Celebs are writing checks. Everybody's writing." [...]

What is known is that there will be no red carpet or V.I.P. room, no sit-down dinner and scant opportunity for one-on-one conversation with Mr. Obama, except for those who make it to Mr. Geffen's home. "It's going to be very democratic, with a small D," Mr. Spahn said.

The conspicuous absence of a red carpet and the strict door policy have obviously been put in place to keep out the kind of scenewhores who might steal Obama face time away from the evening's more legitimate political-starfuckers; the last thing the campaign wants is for a studio head like Universal's Ron Meyer to stand impatiently by as their candidate is engrossed in a conversation about Britney Spears' bald head with Paris Hilton.

[Photo: Getty Images composite]

• The Hot Ticket in Hollywood: An Evening With Obama [NY Times]
• Previously: Obamamania: Hollywood Will Take Its Sweet Time Before Crowning Its Democratic King, Thank You Very Much [Defamer]

It's been a day full of big wins for the billionaires of DreamWorks SKG. Earlier, we pointed out that the California Coastal Commission granted David Geffen a much-needed ten-foot buffer between his Malibu Gay Mafia stronghold and the sun-worshipping Untouchables who dare to splay their unsightly forms upon his beloved, but distressingly public, stretch of Carbon Beach. Now word comes that bite-sized mogul and two-time intramural DreamWorks Animation wet t-shirt champion Jeffrey Katzenberg has tasted $2.17 million worth of bittersweet victory in a lawsuit against the rubber-pushing villains of Goodyear, whose faulty, leaking heating hoses did grievous damage to his Park City-adjacent vacation home:

"I have this treasure of mine, and I realize now it's flawed - significantly flawed. It breaks my heart that I have to rip this house apart," Katzenberg said of his 13,000-square-foot home in Deer Valley during testimony in U.S. District Court last week. "In my opinion it will never be the same." [...]

Katzenberg testified that replacing the hoses in his home will be costly because the floors and walls are finished with rare and expensive materials that will be destroyed. He estimated the market value of his house at more than $28 million.

It's not hard to see why a jury would sympathize with Katzenberg's (pictured here partaking in the kind of frivolity he'll never again enjoy) moving evocation of the despair he'll now feel each time he's forced to spend time in his quaint—but now tragically tainted—$28 million chalet. He'll forever be robbed of the comfort it once granted him when he was badly in need of a quiet place to recover from the bustle of Sundance, knowing that as he meditatively wiggles his toes upon the handmade area rugs woven from the hair of tow-headed Mormon children, they're not the original ones he commissioned during his mountain sanctum's construction.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Rubber doesn't meet the code [Denver Post via Wiretap]

• Coastal panel OKs deal with Geffen to settle beach dispute [LAT via LAO]

It's a question threatening to tear Hollywood's most prominent, liberal-kingmaking billionaires apart at the gilded seams: Do they throw a fabulous fund-raiser aimed at continuing the spread Obamamania, the sensation sweeping the industry, or do they fall back into the calming, emasculating embrace of longtime Democratic stalwart Hillary Clinton, a tragically unsexy, but arguably safer, choice? The answer, of course, is, "Why can't we do both? We have so much fucking money that no one can tell us to make up our minds until we're good and ready," but Slate notes that a recent Robert Novak column seemed to imply that the officially unbetrothed Steven Spielberg's hosting of a Clinton event means that he's already decided to abandon DreamWorks partners David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg's desire to call forth from the heavens a deluge of showbiz cash that will carry their beloved Obama to an easy nomination:

The Novak column is too silly to merit discussion—except, perhaps, about how it illuminates the real state of affairs in deep-pocketed Hollywood.

If Spielberg had abandoned the upcoming Obama event, that would be news. But he hasn't. Many expect him to commit to Hillary in the future. But one veteran Hollywood Democratic operative said skeptically, "There is no one on earth that would know that from Steven who would talk to Bob Novak."

The suspicion among some in the Obama faction is that this story came from the Clinton camp, eager to put a stop to the "Hillary Hemorrhages Hollywood Support" stories. In a recent visit to town, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe conveyed the notion that folks should pick sides now. Most aren't. In fact, McAuliffe's admonishment prompted Norman Lear, who, like many, is contributing to multiple candidates, to ask a Los Angeles Times reporter, "What's Hillary going to do? Jail me?"

It's somehow reassuring that not even the manipulative tactics of a presidential hopeful's operatives can hurry Hollywood's thorough decision-making process, which requires months of deliberate political starfucking over two-thousand-per-plate dinners before an industry consensus can be reached.

• Democrats in Hollywood [Slate]
• Previously: Invitations To DreamWorks Obamamania Fundraiser Sent; Hillary Still Unwilling To Concede Hollywood [Defamer]

Just in case you haven't yet had your fill of stories about the backbiting between Paramount emperor Brad Grey and the sneaky studio usurpers crouching not-so-quietly inside the DreamWorks Trojan Horse he bought a year ago, the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke reports that skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone may have signed Grey's death certificate by letting slip at a cozy power-player dinner party a rather impolitic comment about why Dreamgirls found itself without a Best Picture nomination. Clasping your hand to your mouth while trying to suppress an outraged "Oh. No. He. Did. Int!" is completely optional as you read on:

Sumner told the gathering that Brad told him that the reason Dreamgirls wasn't nominated for an Oscar was because "everyone hates David." As in Geffen, the producer of Dreamgirls. "Does Brad have a death wish?" an insider asked rhetorically this morning. Indeed, few have taken on David Geffen and lived to tell the tale. (Just ask Robert Towne, John Branca and Mike Ovitz.) That the Viacom boss would be so indiscreet in such a public setting defies belief. To be fair, Grey made his comment in a private setting.

While the indiscretion of letting such a comment slip does seem careless on the surface, the immortal Redstone didn't scratch his way to the top of the industry over a four-hundred year career by not being a shrewdly calculating operator; a more plausible explanation is that Redstone has had a change of heart since impulsively giving Grey a lifetime appointment to his Paramount job, and rather than go back on his word, took the more passive approach of airing his underling's potentially fatal anti-Geffen grievances, hoping to wake up to a grisly front page story in Variety about how his studio chief mysteriously choked to death on a Dreamgirls Academy screener the night before the Oscars.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Their Dinner About Brad... (Corrected) [DHD]

While presidential hopeful Barack Obama seems to have all but locked up the endorsement of DreamWorks' Hollywood kingmaking troika with the announcement of an upcoming fundraiser aimed at perpetuating the spread of Obamamania through the entertainment industry community, Hillary "The Experienced Alternative" Clinton is far from conceding the town to her adversary, setting up her own local opportunity to circle a luxury hotel ballroom, tossing show business blood money in a burlap sack as wealthy diners consume their dinner. Reports Var on the rapidly approaching orgies of political starfuckery:

The DreamWorks trio of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen sent out hundreds of invitations Wednesday for a Feb. 20 fund-raising reception for Obama's exploratory committee. The $2,300-per-person event, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, will be followed by a private dinner at Geffen's home for Obama's fund- raising co-chairs. The latter are those who commit to raising $46,000 each for the evening.

Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign is planning a big gala on March 24, at a venue such as a hotel in the Beverly Hills area. That will be preceded by a visit on Feb. 11, when Clinton is planning to hold meet-and-greets at the homes of investment banker Sim Farar and of entertainment industry mogul Haim Saban. The meet-and-greets are for fund-raiser/donors who each commit to raising at least $25,000. Clinton also plans another visit to meet with donors in late Feb. [...]

As such, the process of organizing the events is said to be a balancing act of egos and logistics — what one fund-raiser called "organized chaos." Holding the Clinton event in a hotel, for instance, saves the campaign from having to soothe the inevitable animosities that would develop if one donor's home is picked for a fete over another.

The selection of Geffen's home as the post-party destination for the DreamWorks fundraiser probably involved little hand-wringing over potentially bruised booster egos, as his Malibu Gay Mafia compound was the only suitable venue for the symbolic display of loyalty the DreamWorks trinity have planned for their anointed one: the burning of a dozen abducted Orange County Republicans on a massive pyre erected on the mogul's slice of Carbon Beach, whose anguished screams will be muffled by the rubber Hillary masks they've been forced to wear to complete the sacrificial endorsement ritual.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Clinton, Obama go Hollywood [Variety]

Perhaps souring on Hillary Clinton's further political ambitions because she seems "not president-y enough" among Hollywood types trying to imagine casting her in the role of the nation's highest office, the industry is surging behind Entertainment Weekly's 2006 Must Guy To Have Sitting Next To You On A Panel About Something Important, Like That Darfur Deal, Illinois senator Barack Obama. Yesterday's NY Daily News reported that Endeavor's Ari "My Brother Rahm Totally Parties With Barack!" Emanuel will be throwing an event for Obama in February, while the LAT's Cause Celebre column today notes that he may have already sown up the industry-kingmaking Gay Mafia vote of Velvet Potentate David Geffen:

Geffen's name surfaced immediately as one of Hollywood's early major supporters of the young senator, a significant snub to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-N.Y.) possible presidential bid. Although Geffen — once a powerful Clinton ally — has not yet spoken publicly on the matter, his longtime friend Arianna Huffington believes the message is clear: "David Geffen has already declared for Obama, and many other Hollywood power brokers, who are not ready to go public yet, are making it known in private that they are in the ABH (Anyone But Hillary) camp," Huffington wrote recently in a Los Angeles Times column. [...]

Geffen was once considered one of Bill Clinton's strongest Hollywood allies during his presidency, and then the friendship started to fracture. "They grew apart," said one Hollywood insider who declined to elaborate. "I won't even speculate on all the issues that go into any complex relationship."

Of course, both politics and Hollywood are dirty, dirty businesses, and Obama surely won't delude himself into thinking that a Geffen endorsement won't come without strings attached. When the senator arrives in L.A. in the thick of February's Oscar frenzy to solidify his showbiz base, he'll be expected to dedicate a few moments of any media appearance to discussing how Geffen's Dreamgirls is the "most important movie of the century," and offer over-reaching, crowd-pleasing promises that if it takes home the Best Picture trophy, he'll personally guarantee an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

• Politics: Personal but not private [LAT]

Several private equity firms, newspaper giant Gannett Co. and an alliance of Los Angeles billionaires, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, have expressed preliminary interest in owning Tribune.

But none of those parties have come forward with a formal offer, forcing Tribune to extend an auction that was to end this month into the new year. [...]

Geffen has told many friends and associates for more than a year that he would like to own the Los Angeles newspaper and improve the paper as a service to Los Angeles.

The 63-year-old tycoon has also said that he has enough liquid assets to buy the paper alone and pay cash.

His net worth is estimated at $4.6 billion.

Should the Tribune Co. eventually find a better-funded suitor, Geffen will grudgingly return his $2 billion in cash to the velvet treasure chest he keeps buried under the sand behind his Malibu compound, slowly letting go of his plans to cover the front page of the Times in For Your Consideration ads for Dreamgirls and filling its op-ed section with diatribes against the antiquated laws that allow the unwashed masses to spoil his glorious view of the Pacific by exercising their right to splay their pasty bodies across his precious stretch of Carbon Beach.

• Geffen's offer for The Times: $2 billion [LAT]

There was an interesting difference of opinion over David Geffen. The LAT men agreed that Geffen might be the best buyer for the Times, with Goldstein offering that "this is a man who has always been associated with quality work." Waxman pushed back, arguing that Geffen is a man Hollywood fears: "He holds a grudge. He gets even." Goldstein stuck to his guns, even though he acknowledged that Geffen once went five years without talking to him and "can put a lot of negative energy into people." Waxman concluded that the LAT staff is so battered by years of Tribune Company mishandling that they are looking for a knight: "They'll take a flawed knight."

We're sure that should Geffen ultimately make a successful bid for the Times, he'd never interfere with the editorial operation of the paper; while attendance at his breakfast meetings with the entertainment staff would be mandatory, the daily recitation of the list of people who'd wronged him in 1999 and whose bones he'd like to see "ground into a fine powder and scattered over the Pacific" would serve merely as helpful suggestions for that day's coverage, not as some kind of score-settling mandate.

• Two pair of journos dish [LA Observed]

Under pressure from Southern California regulators, investigators over the next few months will begin testing sea water. If DNA shows the waste is human and not from, say, raccoons or coyote, they will follow the trail up creeks that traverse neighborhoods in Malibu, where clean-water advocates such as Pierce Brosnan and Ted Danson live.

Where the tests show a concentration of human waste, inspectors will sleuth out the source. Though they will not request DNA samples from residents to match waste with its human source, they may ask a judge for authority to inspect tanks of property owners who bar them from taking samples.

While Malibu residents will be spared the humiliation of DNA testing to finger guilty polluters, the investigative process obviously won't be without its uncomfortable moments. Things are sure to be palpably tense the first time inspectors in bright orange hazmat suits march up from the surf and towards Carbon Beach robber-baron David Geffen's back door while brandishing a biohazard bag full of diamond-encrusted feces, then rather humorlessly demand to inspect the mogul's septic system based on "overwhelming circumstantial evidence."

• DNA may implicate Malibu stars' toilets [AP]

Sean William Scott turned heads when he showed up at Los Angeles gay bar Heat on the arm of David Geffen ...

We imagine the rather fishy smelling item—there is no LA gay bar called Heat, to our knowledge—was most probably planted by someone looking to stir up trouble, and reported without checking the facts. (Just like we do with our sightings!) Then again, perhaps we've just become far too skeptical, and Geffen has indeed managed to woo the actor with expensive gifts and promises to finance Scott's very own DreamWorks shingle.

• Surveillance [NY Daily News]

• #140 David Geffen [Forbes]
• #245 Steven Spielberg [Forbes]

In a packed elevator, Jeffrey Katzenberg is pressed against the back corner. A woman in front shouts, "Jeffrey, I really want you to meet Isaac."

Jeffrey reaches over several heads to shake hands with designer Isaac Mizrahi. "Whacha doing, whacha doing, whacha doing?" Katzenberg asks.

"Oh not much. I've got some projects."

"I'll bet you do."

"What're you doing?" Mizrahi retorts.

"Oh, you know. Riding the Geffen Express. Trying to keep up with it."

"That's a wild ride."

"Just make sure you don't get in front of it," Katzenberg quips.

"Where's the big party tonight?" Mizrahi wants to know.

"In my bed," nods Jeffrey, before stepping off and calling it a night.

As a guest at the ceremony, Katzenberg was almost certainly unaware of Mizrahi's earlier antics, and probably had no idea how dangerously close he'd come to an impromptu, elevator-based session of "Tune In Tokyo," or more chillingly, one of "Hey, Let's Feel How Many Marbles Are In Your Bag." But even those unsavory games seem far preferable to "riding the Geffen Express," especially after hearing Katzenberg's admission that being the caboose is a better option than getting in front of its chugging locomotive.

• Aglow at the Globes [LAT's The Envelope]
• Complete Golden Globes Coverage [Defamer]

Spotted David Geffen having brunch with Joel Silver on the deck of Geffen's INCREDIBLE Carbon Beach house on Sunday. We took advantage of the public access beach in front of his incredible display of wealth and watched longingly from the sand as Geffen's man servant catered to their every whim while we picked sand out of our bag of grapes.

Unfortunately, the plans for world domination being hatched over some eggs florentine shall remain unknown; next time, maybe the Carbon Beach visitors will realize that a telephoto lens and directional microphones are even more fun to play with than a shovel and bucket.

• Previously: Taking Back Carbon Beach [Defamer]
• The Billionaires’ Beach [Defamer]
• David Geffen Gives Back The Beach [Defamer]

I didn't bring my camera onto Carbon Beach itself (salt water + sand + electronics = bad), but I can assure you that it's gorgeous, and well worth the litigation. It's a natural small bay so the waves aren't to crazy if you want to swim, the water is crystal clear and not nearly as cold as Zuma (the other white beach), and there's a conspicuous absence of the floating trash that's become a part of the Santa Monica Bay experience. As I was being given the bum's rush at closing time, dolphins cavorted just beyond the breakers, backlit by LA's amazing golden late-afternoon sunlight.

Heaven. Pure heaven. I highly recommend the lot of us descend upon our court mandated community accessible beach. It's open from 9 am until 6 pm SEVEN days a week.

If you're not familiar with the area, may I suggest Mapquest.

Once again, that's 22132 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California. It's north (by quite a ways) of Topanga Canyon Blvd and south of Pepperdine University.

Enjoy the liberated Carbon Beach while it lasts. If too many people descend upon Geffen's little slice of paradise, he might take drastic measures to restore his beach hegemony, like torpedoing an oil tanker just off the shore and covering the sand with the crude-slicked carcasses of those adorable dolphins.

• Hangin' with "Biggie D" [Totally Unauthorized]
• The Billionaires’ Beach [Defamer]
• David Geffen Gives Back The Beach [Defamer]

He tells the mag [Elle] that if he had to sleep with a man, it'd be "David Geffen - you might has well hump your way to the top."

We don't want to get into a detailed discussion of top/bottom dynamics among industry moguls, but we think that technically speaking, Knoxville would be getting humped to the top once his career cools off.

• The briefing (third item) [NY Daily News]

• Geffen richest Malibu resident [Malibu Times]


• Previously: David Geffen Gives Back The Beach [Defamer]

[Access for All co-founder Steve] Hoye said he picked up the keys Wednesday from a Geffen aide after producing an insurance policy as proof of the group's liability coverage. He briefly opened the gate on Thursday and discovered that Geffen had paved the once-sand walkway, enclosed it between walls and installed a second set of gates about 25 feet seaward of the white wooden gates along Pacific Coast Highway.

Unreported in the LAT story are details of the murals Geffen commissioned for the walls that helpfully guide beach-goers to the frothy, exclusive surf, which feature ten-foot portraits of the Malibu feudal lord frowning with disapproval and bear neighborly slogans like, "I don't swim in the coffee can in your shack, so please don't pee in my ocean."

• Mogul Yields Beach Access to Public [LAT via LA Observed]